Southern lights and shadows

Southern
Lights and Shadows

EDITED BY
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLft

AND
HENRY MILLS ALDEN

Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London

Copyright, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1904, ,906,
1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

All rights rtservtd.

GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE

THE CAPTURE OF ANDY PROUD-
FOOT.

ABBY MEGUIRE ROACH

THE LEVEL OF FORTUNE

ALICE MACGOWAN

PAP OVERHOLT

MRS. B. F. MAYHEW

7.V THE PINY WOODS

WILLIAM L. SHEPPARD

MY FIFTH IN MAMMY

SARAH BARNWELL ELLIOTT

AN INCIDENT

M. E. M. DAVIS

A SNIPE HUNT

J. J. EAKINS

THE COURTSHIP OF COLONEL BILL

MAURICE THOMPSON

THE BALANCE OF POWER

27430G

Introduction

THE most noticeable characteristic of
the extraordinary literary development of
the South since the Civil War is that it
is almost entirely in the direction of real
ism. A people who, up to that time,
had been so romantic that they wished
to naturalize among themselves the ideals
and usages of the Walter Scott ages of
chivalry, suddenly dropped all that, and
in their search for literary material could
apparently find nothing so good as the
facts of their native life. The more
"commonplace" these facts the better
they seemed to like them. Evidently they
believed that there was a poetry under
the rude outside of their mountaineers,
their slattern country wives, their shy
rustic men and maids, their grotesque
humorists, their wild religionists, even
their black freedmen, which was worth
more than the poetastery of the romantic
fiction of their fathers. In this strong
faith, which need not have been a con
scious creed, the writers of the New
South have given the world sketches and

vi Introduction

studies and portraits of the persons and
conditions of their peculiar civilization
which the Russians themselves have not
excelled in honesty, and hardly in sim
plicity. To be sure, this development was
on the lines of those early humorists who
antedated the romantic fictionists, and
who were often in their humor so rank,
so wild, so savage, so cruel, but the mod
ern realism has refined both upon their
matter and their manner. Some of the
most artistic work in the American short-
story, that is to say the best short-story
in the world, has been done in the South,
so that one may be reasonably sure of an
artistic pleasure in taking up a Southern
story. One finds in the Southern stories
careful and conscientious character, rich
local color, and effective grouping, and
at the same time one finds genuine pa
thos, true humor, noble feeling, generous
sympathy. The range of this work is so
great as to include even pictures of the
more conventional life, but mainly the
writers keep to the life which is not con
ventional, the life of the fields, the woods,
the cabin, the village, the little country
town. It would be easier to undervalue
than to overvalue them, as we believe
the reader of the admirable pieces here
collected will agree. W. D. H.

The Capture of Andy Proudfoot

BY GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE

A DRY branch snapped under Kerry's
foot with the report of a toy pistol.
He swore perfunctorily, and gazed
greedily at the cave-opening just ahead.
He was a bungling woodsman at best;
and now, stalking that greatest of all big
game, man, the blood drummed in his
ears and his heart seemed to slip a cog
or two with every beat. He stood tense,
yet trembling, for the space in which
a man might count ten; surely if there
were any one inside the cave — if the one
whose presence he suspected were there —
such a noise would have brought him
forth. But a great banner of trumpet-
creeper, which hid the opening till one
was almost upon it, waved its torches
unstirred except by the wind ; the sand
in the doorway was unpressed by any foot.
Kerry began to go forward by inches.
He was weary as only a town-bred man,
used to the leisurely patrolling of pave-

i S.L.

2 Harper's Novelettes

ments, could be after struggling oblique
ly up and across the pathless flank of Big
Turkey Track Mountain, and then climb
ing to this eyrie upon Old Yellow Bald —
Old Yellow, the peak that reared its
" Bald " of golden grass far above the
ranges of The Big and Little Tur
key Tracks.

" Lord, how hungry I am !" he breathed.
" I bet the feller's got grub in there."
He had been out two days. He was light
headed from lack of food; at the thought
of it nervous caution gave way to mere
brute instinct, and he plunged recklessly
into the cave. Inside, the sudden dark
ness blinded him for a moment. Then
there began to be visible in one corner
a bed of bracken and sweet-fern; in an
other an orderly arrangement of tin cans
upon a shelf, and the ashes of a fire, where
sat a Dutch oven. The sight of this last
whetted Kerry's hunger; he almost ran
to the shelf, and groaned as he found the
first can filled with gunpowder, the next
with shot, and the third containing some
odds and ends of string and nails.

He had knelt to inspect a rude box,
when a little sound caused him to turn.
In the doorway was a figure which raised
the hair upon his head, with a chilly
sensation at its roots — a tall man, with

Capture of Andy Proudfoot 3

a great mane of black locks blowing un
checked about his shoulders. He stood
turned away from Kerry, having halted
in the doorway as though to take a last
advantage of the outer daylight upon
some object of interest to him before
entering. He was examining one of his
own hands, and a little shivering moan
escaped him. A rifle rested in the hollow
of his arm; Kerry could see the outline
of a big navy-pistol in his belt; and as
the man shifted, another came to view;
while the Irishman's practised eye did
not miss the handle of a long knife in
its sheath. It went swiftly through his
mind that those who sent him on this
errand should have warned him of the
size of the quarry. Suddenly, almost
without his own volition, he found him
self saying : " I ask your pardon. I was
dead beat an' fair famished, an' I
crawled in here to —

The tall figure in the doorway turned
like a thing on a pivot; he did not start,
nor spin round, as a slighter or more
nervous person might have done; and a
strange chill fell upon Kerry's heat
when the man, whom he recognized as
that one he had come to seek, faced him.
The big, dark eyes looked the intruder
up and down; what their owner thought

4 Harper's Novelettes

of him, what he decided concerning him,
could no more be guessed than the events
of next year. In a full, grave voice,
but one exceedingly gentle, the owner of
the cave repaired the lack of greeting.

" Howdy, stranger?" he said. " I never
seen you as I come up, 'count o' havin'
snagged my hand on this here gun."

He came toward Kerry with the bleed
ing member outstretched. Now was the
Irishman's time — by all his former reso
lutions, by the need he had for that
money reward — to deftly handcuff the
outlaw. What he did was to draw the
other toward the daylight, examine the
hand, which was torn and lacerated on
the gun-hammer, and with sundry ex
clamations of sympathy proceed to bind
it up with strips torn from his own
handkerchief.

" Snagged !" he echoed, as he noted
how the great muscle of the thumb was
torn across. " I don't see how you ever
done that on a gun-hammer. I've nursed
a good bit — I was in Cuby last year,
an' I was detailed for juty in the hos
pital more'n half my time," he went on,
eagerly. " This here hand, it's bad,
'cause it's torn. Ef you had a cut o' that
size, now, you wouldn't be payin' no

Capture of Andy Prottdfoot 5

minds me o? the tear one o' them there
Mauser bullets makes — Gawd! but they
rip the men up shockin'!" He rambled
on with uneasy volubility as he attended
to the wound. " You let me clean it,
now. It '11 hurt some, but it '11 save ye
trouble after while. You set down on
the bed. Where kin I git some water?"

" Thar's a spring round the turn in
the cave thar — they's a go'd in it."

But Kerry took one of the tin cans,
emptied and rubbed it nervously, talking
all the while — talking as though to pre
vent the other from speaking, and with
something more than the ordinary gar
rulity of the nurse. " I got lost to-day,"
he volunteered, as he cleansed the wound
skilfully and drew its ragged lips together.
" Gosh ! but you tore that thumb up !
You won't hardly be able to do nothin'
with that hand fer a spell. Yessir! I
got lost — that's what I did. One tree
looks pretty much like another to me;
and one old rock it's jest the same as
the next one. I reckon I've walked
twenty mile sence sunup."

He paused in sudden panic; but the
other did not ask him whence he had
walked nor whither he was walking. In
stead, he ventured, in his serious tones,
as the silence grew oppressive :

6 Harper's Novelettes

"You're mighty handy 'bout this sort
o' thing. I reckon I'll have a tough time
here alone till that hand heals."

" Oh, I'll stay with you a while," Kerry
put in, hastily. " I ain't a-goin' on,
a-leavin' a man in sech a fix, when I
ain't got nothin' in particular to do
an' nowheres in particular to go," he con
cluded, rather lamely.

His host's eyes dwelt on him. " Well,
now, that 'd be mighty kind in you,
stranger," he began, gently; and added,
with the mountaineer's deathless hospi
tality, "You're shorely welcome."

In Kerry's pocket a pair of steel hand
cuffs clicked against each other. Any
moment of the time that he was dressing
the outlaw's hand, identifying at short
range a dozen marks enumerated in the
description furnished him, he could have
snapped them upon those great wrists
and made his host his prisoner. Yet,
an hour later, when the big man had told
him of a string of fish tied down in the
branch, of a little cellarlike contrivance
by the spring which contained honey
comb and some cold corn-pone, the two
men sat at supper like brothers.

" Ye don't smoke ?" inquired Kerry,
commiseratingly, as his host twisted off
a great portion of home-cured tobacco.

Capture of Andy Proudfoot 7

" Lord ! ye'll never know what the weed
is till ye burn it. A chaw '11 do when
you're in the trenches an' afraid to show
the other fellers where to shoot, so that
ye dare not smoke. Ah-h-h! I've had it
taste like nectar to me then; but to
bacco's never tobacco till it's burnt," and
the Irishman smiled fondly upon his
stumpy black pipe.

They sat and talked over the fire (for
a fire is good company in the mountains,
even of a midsummer evening) with that
freedom and abandon which the isolation,
the hour, and the circumstances begot.
Kerry had told his name, his birthplace,
the habits and temperament of his par
ents, his present hopes and aspirations —
barring one; he had even sketched an
outline of Katy — Katy, who was waiting
for him to save enough to buy that little
farm in the West ; and his host, listening
in the unbroken silence of deep sym
pathy, had not yet offered even so much
as his name.

Then the bed was divided, a bundle
of fern and pine boughs being disposed
in the opposite corner of the cave for
the newcomer's accommodation. Later,
after good-nights had been exchanged
and Kerry fancied that his host was
asleep, he himself stirred, sat up, and

8 Harper's Novelettes

being in uneasy need of information
as to whether the cave door should not
be stopped in some manner, opened with
a hesitating, " Say!"

"You might jest call me Andy," the
deep voice answered, before the mountain-
man negatived the proposition of adding
a front door to the habitation.

Kerry slept again. Mountain air and
weariness are drugs potent against a bad
conscience, and it was broad daylight out
side the cave when he wakened. He was
a little surprised to find his host still
sleeping, yet his experience told him
tfeat the wound was of a nature to induce
fever, followed by considerable exhaus
tion. As the Irishman lifted his coat
from where he had had it folded into a
bundle beneath his head, the handcuffs in.
the pocket clicked, and he frowned. He
stole across to look at the man who had
called himself Andy, lying now at ease
upon his bed of leaves, one great arm
underneath his head, the injured hand
nursed upon his broad breast. Those big
eyes which had so appalled Kerry upon a
first view yesterday were closed. The on
looker noted with a sort of wonder how
sumptuous were the fringes of their cur
tains, long and purple - black, like the
thick, arched brows above. To speak

Capture of Andy Proudfoot 9

truly, Kerry, although he was a respect
able member of the police force, had the
artistic temperament. The harmony of
outline, the justness of proportion in both
the face and figure of the man before him,
filled the Irishman with delight; and the
splendid virile bulk of the mountain-man
appealed irresistibly to the other's mas
culinity. The little threads of silver in
the tempestuous black curls seemed to
Kerry but to set off their beauty.

"Gosh! but you're a good-looker!" he
muttered. And putting his estimate of
the man's charm into such form as was
possible to him, he added, under his
breath, " I'd hate to have sech a feller as
you tryin' to court my Katy."

This was the first of many strange
days; golden September days they were,
cool and full of the ripened beauty of
the departing summer. Kerry's host
taught him to snare woodcock and pheas
ants — shoot them the Irishman could not,
since the excitement of the thing made
him fire wild.

"Now ain't that the very divil!"
he would cry, after he had let his third
bird get away unharmed. "Ef I was
shootin' at a man, I'd be as stiddy
as a clock. Gad! I'd be cool as an
ice-wagon. But when that little old

io Harper's Novelettes

brown chicken scoots a-scutterin' up out
o' the grass like a hummin'-top, it rat
tles me." His teacher apparently took
no note of the significance contained in
this statement; yet Kerry's very ears
were red as it slipped out, and he felt
uneasily for the handcuffs, which no long
er clinked in his pocket, but now lay
carefully hidden under his fern bed.

There had been a noon-mark in the
doorway of the cave, thrown by the
shadow of a boulder beside it, even be
fore the Irishman's big nickel watch
came with its bustling, authoritative tick
to bring the question of time into the
mountains. But the two men kept un
certain hours: sometimes they talked
more than half the night, the close-
cropped, sandy poll and the unshorn crest
of Jove-like curls nodding at each other
across the fire, then slept far into the
succeeding day; sometimes they were up
before dawn and off after squirrels — with
which poor Kerry had no better luck than
with the birds. Every day the Irishman
dressed his host's hand; and every day
he tasted more fully the charm of this
big, strong, gentle, peaceful nature clad
in its majestic garment of flesh.

"If he'd 'a' been an ugly, common-
looking brute, I'd 'a' nabbed him in a

Capture of Andy Proudfoot n

minute," he told himself, weakly. 'And
every day the handcuffs under the dried
fern-leaves lay heavier upon his soul.

On the 20th of September, which
Kerry had set for his last day in the
cave, he was moved to begin again at the
beginning and tell the big mountaineer
all his affairs.

"Ye see, it's like this," he wound
up : " Katy — the best gurrl an7 the
purtiest I ever set me two eyes on —
she's got a father that '11 strike her
when the drink's with him. He works
her like a dog, hires her out and takes
every cent she earns. Her mother — God
rest her soul! — has been dead these two
years. And now the old man is a-marryin'
an' takin' home a woman not fit fer my
Katy to be with. I says when I heard
of it, says I: 'Katy, I'll take ye out o'
that hole. I'll do the trick, an' I'll git
the reward, an' it's married we'll be in
side of a month, an' we'll go West.'
That's what brought me up here into the
mountains — me that was born, as ye
might say, on the stair-steps of a tene
ment-house, an' fetched up the same."

Absorbed in the interest of his own
affairs, the Irishman did not notice what
revelations he had made. Whether or
not this knowledge was new to his host

12 Harper's Novelettes

the uncertain light of the dying fire
upon that grave, impassive face did not
disclose.

" An' now," Kerry went on, " I've been
thinkin' about Katy a heap in the last
few days. I'm goin' home to her to-
morry — home to Philadelphy — goin' with
empty hands. An' I'm a-goin' to say to
her, i Katy, would ye rather take me jest
as I am, out of a job ' — fer that's what
I'll be when I go back, — ' would ye
rather take me so an' wait fer the little
farm?' I guess she'll do it; I guess
she'll take me. I've got that love fer
her that makes me think she'll take me.
Did ye ever love a woman like that?" —
turning suddenly to the silent figure on
the other side of the fire. " Did ye ever
love one so that ye felt like ye could jest
trust her, same as you could trust your
self? It's a — it — well, it's a mighty
comfortable thing."

The mountaineer stretched out his in
jured hand, and examined it for so long
a time without speaking that it seemed
as though he would not answer at all.
The wound was healing admirably now;
he had made shift to shoot, with Kerry's
shoulder for a rest, and their larder was
stocked with game once more. When
he at last raised his head and looked

Capture of Andy Proudfoot 13

across the fire, his black eyes were such
wells of misery as made the other catch
his breath.

Upon the silence fell his big, serious
voice, as solemn and sonorous as a church-
bell: "You ast me did I ever love an'
trust a woman like that. I did — an' she
failed me. I ain't gwine to call you fool
fer sich; you're a town feller, Dan, with
smart town ways; mebby your gal would
stick to you, even ef you was in trouble;
but me—"

Kerry made an inarticulate murmur
of sympathy.

The voice went on. "You say you're
goin' home to her with jest your two
bare hands ?" it inquired. " But why fer ?
You've found your man. What makes
you go back that-a-way ?"

Kerry's mouth was open, his jaw fallen ;
he stared through the smoke at his host
as though he saw him now for the first
time. Kerry belongs to a people who love
or hate obviously and openly; that the
outlaw should have known him from the
first for a police officer, a creature of
prey upon his track, and should have
treated him as a friend, as a brother, ap
palled and repelled him.

" See here, Dan," the big man went
on, leaning forward; "I knowed what

14 Harper's Novelettes

your arrant was the fust minute I
clapped eyes on you. You didn't know
whether I could shoot with my left hand
as well as my right — I didn't choose you
should know. I watched fer ye to be
tryin' to put handcuffs on me any min
ute — after you found my right hand
was he'pless."

" Lord A'mighty ! You could lay me
on my back with your left hand, Andy,"
Kerry breathed.

The big man nodded. " They was
plenty of times when I was asleep — or you
thort I was. Why didn't ye do it? Where
is they? Fetch ?em out."

Unwilling, red with shame, penetrated
with a grief and ache he scarce compre
hended, Kerry dragged the handcuffs
from their hiding-place. The other took
them, and thereafter swung them thought
fully in his strong brown fingers as
he talked.

" You was goin' away without makin*
use o' these ?" he asked, gently.

Kerry, crimson of face and moist of
eye, gulped, frowned, and nodded.

" Well, now," the mountain-man pur
sued, " I been thinkin' this thing over
sence you was a-speakin'. That there gal
o' yourn she's in a tight box. You're
the whitest man I ever run up ag'inst.

Capture of Andy Proudfoot 15

YouVe done me better than my own
brothers. My own brothers," he repeated,
a look of pain and bitterness knitting
those wonderfully pencilled brows above
the big eyes. " Fer my part, I'm sick o'
livin' this-a-way. When you're gone, an'
I'm here agin by my lonesome, I'm as
apt as not to put the muzzle o' my gun
in my mouth an' blow the top o' my head
off — that's how I feel most o' the time.
I tell you what you do, Dan: you jest
put these here on me an' take me down
to Garyville — er plumb on to Asheville —
an' draw your money. That '11 square up
things fer you an' that pore little gal.
What say ye?"

Into Kerry's sanguine face there
surged a yet deeper red; his shoulders
heaved; the tears sprang to his eyes; and
before his host could guess the root of
his emotion the Irishman was sobbing,
furiously, noisily, turned away, his head
upon his arm. The humiliation of it
ate into his soul; and the tooth was
sharpened by his own misdeeds. How
many times had he looked at the great,
kindly creature across the fire there and
calculated the chances of getting him
to Garyville?

Andy's face twisted as though he had
bitten a green persimmon. " Aw ! Don't

1 6 Harpers Novelettes

cry!" "he remonstrated, with the moun
taineer's quick contempt for expressed
emotion. " My Lord ! Dan, don't—

"I'll cry if I damn please!" Kerry
snorted. "You old fool! Me a-drag-
gin' you down to Garyville! Me, that's
loved you like a brother! An' never had
no thought — an' never had no thought —
Oh, hell !" he broke off, at the bitter irony
of the lie; then the sobs broke forth
afresh. To deny that he had come to
arrest the outlaw was so pitifully futile.

" So ye won't git the money that-a-
way?" Andy's big voice ruminated, and
a strange note of relief sounded in it;
a curious gleam leaped into the sombre
eyes. But he added, softly : " Sleep on
it, bud; I'll let ye change your mind in
the mornin'."

" You shut your head !" screeched Ker
ry, fiercely, with a hiccough of wrenching
misery. " You talk to me any more like
that, an' I'll lambaste ye — er try to —
big as ye are ! Oh, damnation !"

The last night in the cave was one of
gusty, moving breezes and brilliant moon
light, yet both its tenants slept pro
foundly, after their strange outburst of
emotion. The first gray of dawn found
them stirring, and Kerry making ready
for his return journey. Together, as

Capture of Andy Proudfoot 17

heretofore, they prepared their meal, then
sat down in silence to eat it. Suddenly
the mountain - man raised his eyes, to
whose grave beauty the Irishman's tem
perament responded like that of a woman,
and said, quietly,

"I'm a-goin' to tell ye something an'
then I'm a-goin' to show ye somethin'."

Kerry's throat ached. In these two
weeks he had conceived a love for his big,
silent, gentle companion which rivalled
even his devotion to Katy. The thought
of leaving him helpless and alone, a com
mon prey of reward-hunters, the remem
brance of what Andy had said concerning
his own despair beneath the terrible
pressure of the mountain solitude, were
almost more than Kerry could bear.

"Fust and foremost, Dan," the other
began, when the meal was finished, " I'm
goin' to tell ye how come I done what I
done. Likely you've hearn tales, an' like
ly they was mostly lies. You see, it was
this-a-way: Me an' my wife owned land
j'inin'. The Turkey Track Minin' Com
pany they found coal on it, an' was wish
ful to buy. Her an' me wasn't wed then,
but we was about to be, an' we j'ined in
fer to sell the land an' go West." His
brooding eyes were on the fire; his voice
— which had halted before the words

1 8 Harper's Novelettes

" my wife," then taken them with a quick
gulp — broke a little every time he said
"she" or "her." Kerry's heart jumped
when he heard the mention of that little
Western farm — why, it might have been
in the very locality he and Katy looked
longingly toward.

" That feller they sent down here fer
to buy the ground — Dickert was his
name; you've hearn it, I reckon?"

Kerry recognized the murdered man's
name. He nodded, without a word, his
little blue eyes helplessly fastened on
Andy's eyes.

"Yes, Dickert 'twas. He was took
with Euola from the time he put eyes on
her — which ain't sayin' more of him than
of any man 'at see her. But a town fel
ler's hangin' round a mounting-gal hain't
no credit to her. Euola she was prom
ised to me. But ef she hadn't 'a' been,
she wouldn't V took no passin' o' bows
an' complyments from that Dickert. I
thort the nighest way out on't was to tell
the gentleman that her an' me was to be
wed, an' that we'd make the deeds as man
an' wife, an' I done so."

Kerry looked at his host and wondered
that any man should hope to tamper with
the affections of her who loved him.

" Wed we was," the mountain - man

Capture of Andy Proudfoot 19

went on; and an imperceptible pause fol
lowed the words. " We rid down to
Garyville to be wed, an' we went from
the jestice's office to the office of this
here Dickert. He had a cuss with him
that was no better 'n him; an' when it
come to the time in the signin' that our
names was put down, an' my wife was to
be ' examined privately and apart ' — ez
is right an' lawful — ez to whether I'd
made her sign or not, this other cuss
steps with her into the hall, an' Dickert
turns an' says to me, ' You git a thou
sand dollars each fer your land — you an'
that woman,' he says.

" I never liked the way he spoke — be
sides what he said; an' I says to him,
' The bargain was made fer five thousand
dollars apiece,' says I, ' an' why do we
git less?'

" ' Beca'se,' says he, a-swellin' up an'
lookin' at me red an' devilish, — ' beca'se
you take my leavin's — you fool ! I bought
the land of you fer a thousand dollars
each — an' there's my deed to it, that you
jest signed — I reckon you can read it.
Ef I sell the land to the company — it's
none o' your business what I git fer it.'

" Well, I can't read — not greatly. I
don't know how I knowed — but I did
know; — that he was gittin' from the com-

20 Harper's Novelettes

pany the five thousand dollars apiece
that we was to have had. I seen his eye
cut round to the hall door, an' I th9rt
he had that money on him (beca'se he
was their agent an' they'd trusted him
so far) fer to pay me and Euola in cash.
With that he grabbed up the deed an'
stuffed it into his pocket. Lord! Lord!
I could 'a' shook it out o' him — an' the
money too — hit's what I would 'a' done
if the fool had 'a' kep' his mouth shut.
But I reckon hit was God's punishment
on him 'at he had to go on sayin', ' Yes,
you tuck my leavin's in the money, an'
you've tuck my leavin's agin to-day.'
Euola was jest comin' into the room when
he said that, an' he looked at her.
I hit him." He gazed down the length'
of his arm thoughtfully. "I ort to be
careful when I hit out, bein' stronger
than most. But I was mad, an' I hit
harder than I thort. I reached over an*
grabbed open the table drawer jest fer
luck — an' thar was the money. I tuck
it. The other cuss he was down on the
floor, sorter whimperin' an' workin' over
this feller Dickcrt; an' he begun to yell
that I'd killed 'im. With that Euola
she gives me one look — white ez paper she
was — an' she says, ' Run, Andy honey.
I'll git to ye when I kin.' "

Capture of Andy Proudfoot 21

The mountain-man was silent so long
that Kerry thought he was done. But
he suddenly said:

" She ketched my sleeve, jest ez I made
to start, an' said: t I'll come, Andy.
Mind, Andy, I'll come to ye, ef I live.' "
Then there was the silence of sympathy
between the two men.

So that was the history of the crime —
a very different history from the one
Kerry had heard.

"Hit's right tetchy business — er has
been— a-tryin' to take Andy Proudfoot,"
the outlaw continued; "but, Dan, I'd got
mighty tired, time you come. An'
Euola— "

Kerry rose abruptly, the memory hot
within him of Proudfoot's offer of the
night before. The mountaineer got slow
ly to his feet.

"They's somethin' I wanted to show
ye, too, ye remember," he said. They
walked together down the bluff, to where
another little cavern, low and shallow, hid
itself behind huckleberry-bushes. " I kep'
the money here," Proudfoot said, kneel
ing in the cramped entrance and delving
among the rocks. He drew out a roll
of bills and fingered them thoughtfully.

" The reward, now, hit was fifteen hun
dred dollars— with what the State an'

22 Harper's Novelettes

company both give, warn't it? Dan, I
was mighty proud ye wouldn't have it — I
wanted to give it to ye this-a-way. I
don't know as I've got any rights on
Euola's money. T reckon I mought ax
you fer to take it to her, ef so be you
could find her. My half — you kin have
it, an' welcome."

Fear was in Kerry's heart. "An*
what '11 you be doin'?" he inquired,
huskily.

" Me ?" asked Andy, listlessly. " Euola
she's done gone plumb back on me," he
explained. "I hain't heard one word
from her sence the trouble, an' I've got
that far I hain't a-keerin' what becomes
of me. I like you, Dan; I'd ruther you
had the money — "

" Oh, my Gawd ! Don't, Andy," choked
the Irishman. "Let me think, man," as
the other's surprised gaze dwelt on him.
Up to this time all Kerry's faculties had
been engrossed in what was told him, or
that which went on before his eyes.
Now memory suddenly roused in him.
The woman he had seen back at Ashe-
ville, the woman who called herself
Mandy Greefe, but whom the police there
suspected of being Andy Proudfoot's
wife, whom they had twice endeavored,
unsuccessfully, to follow in long, secret

Capture of Andy Proudfoot 23

excursions into the mountains. What
was the story? What had they said?
That she was seeking Proudfoot, or was
in communication with him ; that was it !
They had warned Kerry that the woman
was mild-looking (he had seen her pa
tient, wistful face the last thing as he
left Asheville), but that she might do
him a mischief if she suspected he was on
the trail of her husband. "My Lord!
Oh, my Lord ! W'y, old man,— w'y, Andy
boy!" he cried, joyously, patting the
shoulder of the big man, who still knelt
with the roll of money in his hands, —
"Andy, she's waitin' fer you — she's true
as steel! She's ready to go with you.
Yes, an' Dan Kerry's the boy to git ye out
o' this under the very noses o' that police
an' detective gang at Asheville. 'Tis you
an' me that '11 go together, Andy."

Proudfoot still knelt. His nostrils
flickered; his eyes glowed. " Have a care
what you're a-sayin'," he began, in a low,
shaking voice. " Euola ! Euola ! You've
saw me pretty mild; but don't you be
mistook by that, like that feller Dickert
was mistook. Don't you lie to me an'
try to fool me 'bout her. One o' them
fellers I shot had me half-way to Gary-
ville, tellin' me she was thar — sick — an'
sont him fer me."

24 Harper's Novelettes

Kerry laughed aloud. "Me foolin*
you !" he jeered. " 'Tis a child I've been
in your hands, ye black, big, still, solemn
rascal! Here's money a-plenty, an' you
that knows these mountains — the fur side
— an' me that knows the ropes. You'll
lend me a stake f'r the West. We'll go
together — all four of us. Oh Lord!" and
again tears were on the sanguine cheeks.

The Level of Fortune

BY ABBY MEGUIRE ROACH

SHE was the ambition of the younger
girls and the envy of the less
fortunate. Bessie Hall had every
thing, they said.

Her prettiness, indeed, was chiefly in
slender plumpness and bloom. But it
served her purpose as no classic mould
would have done. She did not over
estimate it. But she was probably better
satisfied with it than with most of those
conditions of her life that people were
always telling her were ideal. They spoke
of her as the only child in a way that
implied congratulations on the undivided
inheritance — and that reminded her how
she had always wanted a sister. They
talked of her idyllic life on a blue-grass
stock-farm — when she was wheedling
from her father a winter in Washington.
They envied her often when they had
the very thing she wanted — or, at least,
she didn't have it. They enlarged on her

26 Harper's Novelettes

popularity, and she answered, " Oh yes,
nice boys, most of them, but —

She had always said, " When I marry,"
not "if" and had said it much as she
said, "When I grow up." And, yes,
she believed in fate: that everybody who
belonged to you would find you out; but
— it was only hospitable to meet them
half-way! So her admirers found her
in the beginning hopefully interested,
and in the end rather mournfully un
convinced. Her regret seemed so gen
uinely on her own account as well as
theirs that they usually carried off a
very kind feeling for her. She was equal
ly open to enlistment in any other pro
posed diversion. For Bessie lived in a
constant state of great expectation that
something really nice would really hap
pen to-morrow. There was always some
thing wrong to-day.

" It's not fair !" she complained to
Guy Osbourne, when he came to tell her
good-by, all in the gray. " I'm positively
discriminated against. If I have an en
gagement, it's sure to rain! And now
just when I'm beginning to be a grown
young lady, with a prospect at last of
a thoroughly good time, a war has to
break out!"

Her petulance was pretty. Guy laugh-

The Level of Fortune 27

ed. " How disobliging !" he sympathized.
" And how modest !" he added — which the
reader may disentangle; Bessie did not.
"At last!" he mocked her.

For Bessie Hall, whose community
already moved in an orbit around her,
and whose parents had, according to a
familiar phrase, an even more circum
scribed course around her little finger —
for Bessie Hall to rail at fate was de-
liciously absurd, delightfully feminine!

When Bessie was most unreasonable
one only wanted to kiss her. Guy's
privileges in that line had passed with
the days when he used to pick up bodily
his lithe little playfellow to cross a creek
or rain-puddled road. But to-day seemed
pleasantly momentous; it called for the
unusual. "I say, Bibi, when a knight
went off to fight, you know, his lady used
to give him a stirrup-cup at good-by.
Don't you think it would be really sweet
of you — "

She held off, only to be provoking. She
would have thought no more of kissing
Guy than a brother — or she thought she
wouldn't. To be sure, she hadn't for
years; there was no occasion; and then,
of course, one didn't. She laughed and
shook her head, and retreated laughing.
And he promptly captured her. . . . She

28 Harper's Novelettes

freed herself, suddenly serious. 'And
Guy stood sobered — sobered not at going
to the war, but at leaving her.

" There now, run along."

"Well, good-by." But he lingered.
There was nothing more to say, but he
lingered. " Well, good-by. Be good,
Bibi."

" It looks as if that was all I'd have a
chance to be." The drawl of the light
voice with its rising inflection was so
engaging, no one called it nasaL "And
it's so much more difficult and important
to be charming!"

He was sobered at leaving her, but he
never thought of not going with the rest.
He went, and all the rest. And Bessie
found herself, just when nature had
crowned her with womanhood, a princess
without a kingdom. To be sure, living
on the border gave her double oppor
tunities, and for contrasting romances.
There were episodes that comforted her
with the reflection that she was not get
ting wholly out of practice in the arts.
And there was real adventure in flying
and secret visits from Guy and the rest —
Guy, who was never again just the same
with her; but, for that matter, neither
was she just the same with him. But,
on the whole, as she pouted to him after-

The Level of Fortune 29

ward, she wouldn't call that four years'
war exactly entertaining !

The Halls personally did not suffer so
deeply as their neighbors except from
property loss. All they could afford, and
more, they gave to the South, and the
Northern invader took what was left.
When there was nothing left, he hacked
the rosewood furniture and made targets
of the family portraits, in the mere wan
tonness of loot that, as a recriminative
compliment, cannot be laid to the charge
of any one period or section. Most of
the farm negroes crossed the river. Funds
ran low.

There had been ease and luxury in the
family always, and just when Bessie
reached the time to profit by them she
remarked that they failed.

Even if the Halls were not in mourn
ing, no one lives through such a time
without feeling the common humanity.
But Bessie, though she lingered on the
brink of love as of all the other deeps
of life — curious, adventurous, at once
willing and reluctant — was still, in the
end, quite steady.

When the war was over, the Halls were
poor, on a competence of land run to
waste, with no labor to work it, and no
market to sell it. And Mr. Hall, like

30 Harper's Novelettes

so many of his generation, was too ham
pered by habit and crushed by remi
niscence to meet the new day.

It was the contrast in Guy's spirit that
won Bessie. His was indeed the imme
morial spirit of youth— whether it be of
the young world, or the young male, or
the young South — to accept the issue
of trial by combat and give loyalty
to one proved equally worthy of sword
or hand.

"We're whipped," he told her, "and
that settles it. Now there's other work
for us than brooding over it. All the
same, the South has a future, Bibi, and
that means a future for you and me."

"Not in the manufacture of poetry,
I'm afraid," she laughed. " You dropped
a stitch."

She did not seem to take his prow
ess, either past or to come, very seri
ously; and her eyebrows and her inflec
tion went up at the assumption of the
" we " in his plans. But — she listened.

His definiteness was itself effective.
She herself did not know what she want
ed. Something was wrong; or rather,
everything was. She was finding life
a great bore. But what would be right,
she couldn't say, except that it must
be different.

The Level of Fortune 31

Guy looked sure and seasoned as he
poured out his plans; and together with
the maturing tan and breadth from his
rough life, there was an unconquerable
boyishness in the lift of his head and
the light of his eyes.

"This enthusiasm is truly beautiful!"
she teased.

It was, in truth, infectious.
Why! it was love she had wanted.
The four years had been so empty-
without Guy.

She went into it alert, receptive,
optimistic. But it nettled her that every
body should be so congratulatory, and
nobody surprised. It wasn't what she
would call ideal for two impoverished
young aristocrats to start life on noth
ing but affection and self-confidence.

It did seem as if the choicest fruit
always came to her specked.

" Never mind," Guy encouraged her.
"Just give me ten years. It will be a
little hard on you at first, Bibi dear, I
know, but it would be harder at your
father's now. And it won't be long !"

There was only one comment of whose
intention Bessie was uncertain : " So Guy
is to continue carrying you over the bad
places, Bessie?"

Hm! She had been thinking it rather

32 Harper's Novelettes

a fine thing for her to do. And that
appealed to her.

" And think what an amusing anec
dote it will make after a while, Guy, —
how, with all your worldly goods tied
up in a red bandanna, and your wife on
your arm instead of her father's door
step, you set out to make your fortune,
and to live meanwhile in the City of Un-
Brotherly Love !"

But Bessie had the standards of an
open-handed people to whom economy
was not a virtue. There had always been
on her mother's table for every meal
"salt-risin' light bread" and corn pone
or griddle-cakes, half a dozen kinds of
preserves, the staples in proportion. Her
mother would have been humiliated had
there been any noticeable diminution in
the supply when the meal was over; and
she and the cook would have had a
council of war had a guest failed to eat
and praise any single dish.

Bessie had not realized how inglorious
their meagreness would be, until Mrs.
Grey, at the daughter's table, grew unc
tuously reminiscent about the mother's.

"Dear me!" Guy tried afterward to
comfort the red eyelids and tremulous
lips, " do you want a table so full it
takes your appetite at sight 2"

The Level of Fortune 33

"I'm afraid I can't joke about dis
grace!" Bessie quivered.

"But, Bibi dear, Mrs. Grey is simply

behind the times. The rationale of those

» enormous meals was not munificence, but

that a horde of house-servants had to be

fed at a second table."

Certainly Guy and his good spirits
were excellent company. And Bessie
came of a race of women used to gay
girlhoods and to settling down thereafter,
as a matter of course, into the best of
house-mothers.

But there was a difference between
the domestic arts she had been taught
as necessary to the future lady of a large
household and the domestic industries
she had to practise. Supervising and
doing were not the same. For her moth
er, sewing and cooking had been accom
plishments ; for her they were work. She
had to do things a lady didn't do.

However, she was as fastidious about
what she did for herself as about what
was done for her. She was quick and
efficient. People said Bessie Osbourne
had the dearest home in town, was the
best housekeeper, the most nicely dressed
on nothing. You might know Bessie Hall
would have the best of everything !

And when Bessie began to wonder if

3 S.L.

34 Harper's Novelettes

that was true, she had entered the last
circle of disappointment.

The fact was that, after the first novelty,
things seemed pretty much the same as be
fore. Bessie Osbourne was not so different
from Bessie Hall. She might have appre
ciated that as significant; but doubtless she
had never heard the edifying jingle of the
unfortunate youth who "wandered over
all the earth " without ever finding " the
land where he would like to stay," and
all because he was injudicious enough to
take "his disposition with him every
where he went." It was as if she had
been going in a circle from right to left,
and, after a blare of drums and trumpets
and a stirring "About— face!" she had
found herself going in the same circle
from left to right. It all came to the
same thing, and that was nothing. Guy
was apparently working hard; but, after
all, in real life it seemed one did not
plant the adepts' magic seed that sprout
ed, grew, bloomed, while you looked on
for a^moment. For herself, baking and
stitching took all her time, without tak
ing nearly all her interest, or seeming
to matter much when all was said and
done. If she neglected things, they went
undone, or some one else did them; in
any case Guy never complained. If she

The Level of Fortune 35

did what came up, each day was filled
with meeting each day's demands. All
their lives went into the means and
preparation for living. Other people —
Or was it really any different with them ?
Nine-tenths of the people nine-tenths of
the time seemed to accomplish only a
chance to exist. She had heard women
complain that such was the woman's lot
in order that men might progress. But
it struck her very few men worked be
yond the provision of present necessities,
either. Was it all a myth, then — happi
ness, experience, romance? Was this all
there was to life and love? What was
the sense, the end? Her dissatisfaction
reproached the Cosmos, grew to that
Weltschmerz which is merely low spirits
and reduced vitality, not " an infirmity
of growth."

She constantly expected perfection, and
all that fell below it was its opposite /
extreme, and worthless. She began to
suspect herself of being an exceptional
and lofty nature deprived of her dues.

Guy was a little disappointed at her
prudent objection to children until their
success was established. Prudence was
mere waste of time to his courage and
assurance. And he believed, though with
out going into the psychology of the

36 Harper's Novelettes

situation, that Bessie would be happier
with a child or two.

" Oh, how can we do any more ?" she
answered, in her pretty, spoiled way.
" We're trying to cut a two-yard garment
out of a one-yard piece now." At least,
she was; and so Guy was.

Well, it wasn't a great matter yet. It
is not in the early years of marriage that
that lack is most felt. And Bessie was
not very strong; she never seemed really
well any more. She developed a succes
sion of small ailments, lassitudes, nerves.
She dragged on the hand of life, and
complained. The local physician drugged
her with a commendable spirit of opti
mism and scientific experiment. But the
drawl of the light voice with its rising
inflection became distinctly a whine.

She got a way of surprising Guy and
upsetting his calculations with unan
nounced extravagances. " What's the
good of all this drudgery ? We're making
no headway, getting nowhere; we mightJ
as well have what good we can as we
go along."

There was a negro woman in the
kitchen now, and in the sitting-room one
of the new sewing-machines. And Guy,
who, so far, had been only excavating
for the cellar of his future business

The Level of Fortune 37

house, was beginning to feel that good
foundation walls were about to start.

But, even when peevish, Bessie had a
way of turning up her eyes at him that
reduced hiih to helplessness and adora
tion. And she was delicate ! " I know,"
he sympathized with her loyally, " it's
like trying to work and be jolly with
a jumping tooth ; or rather, in your case,
with a constant buzzing in your head."

The jumping tooth was his own simile.
The headaches that had begun while he
was soldiering were increasing. He had
intermittent periods of numbness in the
lower half of his body. It was annoying
to a busy man. He could offer no ex
planation, nor could the doctors. " Over
work," they suggested, and advised the
cure that is of no school — " rest." That
was " impossible." Besides, it was all
nonsense. He put it aside, went on, kept
it from Bessie.

The end came, as it always does, even
after the longest expectation, with a rush.
He was suffering with one of his acute
headaches one night, when Bessie fell
asleep beside him. She woke sudden
ly, with no judgment of time, with a
start of terror, a sense of oppression,
or — death ?

" Guy !" she screamed.

3& Harper's Novelettes

The strangeness of his answering voice
only repeated the stab of fear. She was
on her feet, had made a light. . . .

He was not suffering any more. Ho
was perfectly conscious and rational.
But from the waist down he could not
move nor feel.

The doctors came and talked a great
deal and said little; they reminded them
that not much was known of this sort of
thing; they would be glad to do what
they could. . . .

"You don't mean to say this is per
manent? Paralyzed? I? Oh, absurd!"
Awful things happened to other peo
ple, of course — scandal, death — but to
one's self— "Oh, it doesn't sound true!
It can't be true. Paralyzed? 7?"

And Bessie wondered why this had been
sent on her.

The explanation was hit on long aft
erward, when in one of his campaign
stories Guy mentioned a fall from his
horse, with his spine against a rock, that
had laid him unconscious for twenty-
two hours.

And so the war, which had been respon
sible for their starting together with
only a past and a future, was responsible
for their having shortly only a past.
Guy was not allowed his ten years.

The Level oi Fortune 39

Though he had now less actual pain,
the shock seemed to jar the foundations
of his life, and the sharp change in the
habits of an active and vigorous body
seemed to wreck his whole system. For
.months and months and months he
seemed only a bundle of exposed nerves —
that is, where he had any movement or
sensation at all.

Now a past, however escutcheoned and
fame-enrolled, is even more starvation
diet than a future of affection and self-
confidence. No help was to be had from
either of their homes; it was the day of
self-help for all.

Bessie wondered why this had been
sent on her, but she took a couple of
boarders at once, she sold sponge-cake
and beaten biscuit, she got up classes
in bread-making. And Guy stopped her
busy passing to draw her hand to his lips,
or watched her with dumb eyes.

Several of her friends, after trying her
sewing-machine, then still something of
a novelty, ordered duplicates. Guy sug
gested as a joke that she charge the
makers a commission.

" The idea of trading on friendship !"
Bessie laughed.

"Oh, I don't know," Guy reflected,
more seriously. " How about these

4° Harper's Novelettes

boarders, then? That's trading on hos
pitality."

It was one of those minute flashes of
illumination that, multiplied and col
lected, become the glow of a new light,
the signal of a revolution. The country
was full of them in those days. The old
codes were melting in the heat of change.
Standards were fluid. Personally, it
ended in Bessie's selling machines, first
in her town, then in neighboring ones.

In the restlessness that youth thinks
is aspiration for the ideal, particularly
for the ideal love, is a large element of
craving for place and interest. After
her marriage, at least, Bessie might have
had enough of both; but the obvious pur
pose was too limited to appeal to her.
Now two appetites and the four seasons
supplied motive enough for industry.
There was nothing magnificent in this1
manifest destiny, but it had the advan
tage of being imperative and constant.
It was no small tax on her acquired
delicacy, but it gave less time for hunt
ing symptoms. It did not answer the
Whence, Whither, and Why; it pointedly
changed the subject. Her work began to
carry her out of herself.

"Bibi dear, what a sorry end to all
my promises!"

The Level of Fortune 4*

She had been thinking just that her
self, with a sense of injury and imposi
tion; and she was used all her life to
having people see everything as she saw
it, from her side only. But Guy had just
turned over to his few creditors the hole
in the ground into which so far most of
his work had gone. " Bibi dear, what
a sorry end to all my plans!" was what
she expected him to say. And what
he did say and what he didn't, met
surprised in her mind and surveyed
each other.

"Oh, Guy!" she deprecated, suddenly
ashamed. For the first time it occurred
to her to wonder why this had been sent
on him. With a rush of remorseful sym
pathy and appreciation, she slipped down
beside his chair. " My poor old boy !"

He clung to her like a drowning man
— Guy, who, after the first single cry at
the blow, had been so self-contained (or
self-repressed?) through it all!

She remembered that she had omitted
a good many things lately.

" You're tired to-day," he said.

"Yes, I am." She caught at it hur
riedly with apologetic self-defence. " I'm
pretty constantly tired lately. And this
morning Mrs. Grey was so trying. She
doesn't understand her machine, and she

42 Harper's Novelettes

doesn't understand business, and she was
too silly and stupid. I don't wonder you
men laugh at us and don't want us in
your affairs !"

"It's all hard on you, Bibi." There
was a lump in his voice. It was the
first time he had been able to speak of it.

" Yes ;" her own throat was so strained
that for a moment she could not go on.
" But," it struck her again, " I don't sup
pose an unbiased observer would think it
exactly festive for you."

And, to be sure, when one came to
think of it, how, pray, was he to blame ?

From that day there began to be more
than necessity to her work, and more than
work to carry her out of herself.

In the present of commercial feminin
ity we have two types — one, the business
man; the other, an individual without
gender, impersonal, capable. She never
does anything ill-bred, certainly, but one
no more thinks of specifying that she
is a lady than that her hair is black; it
isn't the point.

Mrs. Osbourne, however, was always
first of all a lady. With her, men kept
their hats off and their coats on, and had
an inclination to soften business with
bows, and bargains with figures of speech.
She was at once so patrician and so

The Level of Fortune 43

gracious that women felt it a kind of
social function to deal with her. The
drawl of the light voice with its rising
inflection was only gently plaintive. The
pretty way was winning, and rather pa
thetic in her position; it drifted about
her an aroma of story, and that had its
own appeal. The unvarying black of
dress and bonnet, with touches of white
at neck and wrist, was refined, and
made her rosy plumpness look sweeter.
It was all an uninventoried part of
her stock in trade. And she came
to take the same satisfaction in re
turns in success and cash that she had
taken as a girl in results in valentines
and cotillion favors.

Mrs. Osbourne had all the traditions
of her class and generation. She let her
distaste of the situation be known. If
it had been possible, she would have con
cealed it like a scandal. As it was, with
very proud apology, she made the ne
cessity of her case understood: her ob
ject was bread and butter, not any of
these new Woman's Eights — unwoman
ly, bourgeoise!

Nevertheless, it was not only true that
it suited her to be doing something with
some point and result, but that the life
of action and influence among people

44 Harper's Novelettes

suited her. The work came to interest
her for itself as well as for its object;
that interest was a factor in her success;
and the success again both stimulated
and further equipped her.

As she got into training and over the
first sore muscles of mind and body, work
began to strengthen her. The nerves and
small ailments grew secondary, were over
looked, actually lessened. There need be
nothing esoteric in saying that a vital
interest in life is as essential to health
as to happiness. One need consider only
the practical and physical effects of in
terest and self - forgetfulness, serenity
and self-resource.

Sometimes her increasing trade took
her away for two or three days, as far
as Louisville or Cincinnati. The thought
of Guy followed her, a sweet pain. She
found herself hurrying back to her bright
prisoner, and because of both conditions
the marvel of that brightness grew on
her, together with certain embarrassed
comparisons. More than anything else,
she admired his strength where she had
been weak.

His brightness seemed to her the most
pathetic thing about him; it was so sor
ry. It was indeed the epitome of his
tragedy. To be as unobtrusive as pos-

The Level of Fortune 45

sible, and, when necessarily in evidence,
as pleasant as possible, was the role he
had assigned himself. It was the one
thing he could do, the only thing he
could do for her.

Doubtless the very controlling of the
nervousness helped it. Moreover, his re
volting organization was gradually adapt
ing itself somewhat to the new conditions.
Sensitive and uncertain tendrils of vital
ity began to creep out from the roots of
a blighted vigor.

Bessie, increasingly perceptive, began
to suspect that what she saw was the
brightness after the storm. She wonder
ed what his long solitary hours were like
when she was away. What must they be,
with him helpless, disappointed, lonely,
liable to maddening attacks of nerves?
But he assured her that he was perfectly
comfortable; Mammy Dinah was faithful
and competent ; and he was really making
headway with the German and French
that he had taken up because he could
put them down as need was, and because
— they might come in, in some way, some
time. " In heaven ?" Bessie wondered
secretly, but, enlightened by her own ex
perience, saw the advantage of his be
ing entertained.

"You're too much alone," she said,

46 Harper's Novelettes

i

feeling for the trouble. " And so am I,"
she added, thoughtfully. She should
have noticed his eyes at that last. He had
developed a sort of controlled voracity
for endearment, but he never asked for
it. In the old days he had taken his
own masterfully, with no doubts. Now
he waited. He did not starve. She
cajoled him and coaxed his appetite and
patted the pillows, and made pretty,
laughing eyes at him and fate quite in
her habitual manner. Her touch and
tone of affection had never been so free.
But in that very fact he found an
other sting.

" The better I do on the road, the more
they keep me out," she was saying. " We
can't go on this way. I've been thinking
lately — Could you bear to go North,
Guy, and to live in a city, among stran
gers? Perhaps at headquarters there
might be an opening for me that would
let me settle down."

"What! Cincinnati! Is there any
such chance ?"

"You'd like it? Why on earth-
Are you so bored here ?"

" Oh, Bibi, have you never thought of
it? In a city there'd be some chance
of something I could do!"

"You? Oh, Guy!" After she had

The Level of Fortune 47

accepted the care of him, and that so
pleasantly, he wasn't satisfied ! " Is there
anything you lack here ?" She was hurt.
, It was replaying the old parts reversed.
Once he had grieved that he could not
give her enough to content her.

" A — h — He turned his head away
and flung an arm up over his eyes.

She understood only that he was suf
fering. "But, Guy, there's nothing you
could do, possibly. It's not to be ex
pected. Have I complained?" She fell
back on the kindly imbecility of the
nurse. " Now you're not to worry about
that, at least until you're better — "

"Better?" He forgot the lines in
which he had schooled himself. The man
overrode the amateur actor. " That's not
the thing to hope for. Why couldn't it
have killed me— that first fall?" ("My
dear, my dear !" she stammered.) " There
would have been some satisfaction in get
ting out of the way, and that in decent
fashion ; like a charge of powder, not like
a rubbish-heap. I can't accept it of you,
Bibi. I'm enraged for you. I can't be
grateful. I'm ashamed."

She understood now.

What could she say? A dozen things,
and she did; things about as satisfying
as theology at the grave. He did not an-

48 Harper's Novelettes

swer nor respond. When he relaxed at
last it was simply to her arms around
him, his head on her bosom, her wordless
notes of tenderness and consolation.

He was suffering, and chiefly for her,
and what a fighter he was! Who but
he would ever have thought of his do
ing anything ?

So there might be cases in which it was
really more helpful and generous not to
do things for people, but to let them do
for themselves. She couldn't fancy his
doing enough to amount to anything. He
oughtn't to! But if it would make him
any happier he should have his make-
believe — yes, and without knowing it was
make-believe. Doing things that were of
no value to any one was so disheartening.
She knew. Like perfunctory exercise for
your health.

Her own business in Cincinnati proved
so brief as to take her breath. His was
more difficult. The plough was still
mightier than either sword or pen. Few
markets were open to an inactive man
whose hours must be short and irregular,
and whose chief qualifications seemed to
be a valiant spirit and a store of remi
niscences, in a time when reminiscences
were as easy to get as advice.

She was delayed in her return, growing

The Level of Forttme 49

more and more anxious at the thought
of his anxiety. When she boarded the
south -bound train, she went down
the aisle, looking- for a seat, with her
short steps hurried as if it would get her
home sooner.

Mrs. Grey leaned over and motioned
her, and as she sat down, looked crit
ically at the bright eyes and pink
cheeks. "You certainly do look well
nowadays, Bessie."

Doubtless Bessie's color was partly
excitement and rush.

" Oh, I'm well," absently.
"Funny kind of dyspepsia, wasn't it,
to be cured by eating around, the way
you have to do."

" Oh, dyspepsia !" The nettles brought
back her attention. People needn't be
little her troubles! "I still have that
dyspepsia. But if you had to be as busy
as I, Mrs. Grey, you'd know that there
are times when nothing but sudden death
can interfere." Even Mrs. Grey's prick
ings, however, were washed over to-day
by Balm of Gilead. " Still, it has come
to something. The company has given
me Cincinnati for my territory."

" Keally ?" Not that Mrs. Grey doubt
ed her veracity. "Well, you always did
succeed at anything you put your hand

4

50 Harper's Novelettes

to. It has been the most surprising
thing! You know, I tell everybody,
Bessie, that you deserve all the credit
in the world for the way you have taken
hold." Bessie stiffened ; neither need they
sympathize too much ! " A girl brought
up as you were, who always had the
best of everything." The ~best of every
thing! The familiar phrase was like a
bell, sending wave after wave of memory
singing through Bessie's mind. " And
still 1 never saw any one to whom the
wind has been so tempered as to you:
when you were sick you could afford it,
and now that it's inconvenient — Things
always did seem to work smoother with
you, and come out better, than with any
of the rest of us."

Bessie sat looking at her, and, in the
speech, saw her own petulance of a mo
ment before — any number of her own
speeches, in fact, inverted, as things are
in a glass. Indeed, Mrs. Grey had held
up a reflector. Bessie had met herself.
And she saw herself, as in a mirror-maze,
from all angles, down diminishing per
spectives, from the woman she was to the
girl she had been.

She had been quite unconscious of the
slow transformation in her habits of
thought. It is so in life. One toils

The Level cf Fortune 51

up the thickly wooded hillside, intent only
on the footing, and comes suddenly on
a high clearing, overlooking valley and
path, defining a new horizon.

" I never had the best of everything,
Mrs. Grey," she said. " Nobody has.
Every life and every situation in life
has its bad conditions — and its good ones.
I haven't had any more happiness — nor
trouble than most people. It strikes me
things are pretty equally divided. We
only think they aren't when we don't
know all about it. We see the surface
of other people's lives, not their private
drawbacks or compensations. There are
always both. But other people's troubles
are so much easier to bear than our own,
their good luck so much less deserved
and qualified ! With all I had as a girl
T didn't have contentment. And now,
with all I lack, I don't know any one
with whom I'd change places."

What was the use with Mrs. Grey?

But alone, the thought kept widening
ring after ring: How little choice there
was of conditions in life; how fortune
tends to seek its level; how one man has
the meat and another the appetite; and
another, without either, can find in the
fact the flavor of a joke or chew the cud
of reflection over it. Of the three, Bessie

52 Harper's Novelettes

thought she would rather be the one with
the disposition. But that could he cul
tivated. Look at hers! Circumstances
had started it in a sort of aside, but she
would take the hint.

The cure for dissatisfaction was to
recognize one's balance of good.

Guy was watching for her at the win
dow. She was half conscious that he
looked unusually haggard, but there were
so many other thoughts at sight of him
that they washed over the first.

She swung her reticule. "It's all
right!" and she ran up the walk, a most
feminine swirl of progress. She got to
him breathless. " I've found a house that
will give you its German correspondence
to translate and write, and it won't be
so much but that you can do it as you're
able, within reason. Now, sir !"

For a minute it seemed as if Guy's
whole body was alive. The weak and
shaken invalid still had something of un
conquerable boyishness in the lift of his
head and the light of his eyes. " Good !
That will do for a start." The old spirit,
to which hers always answered. If she
didn't believe he would actually do some
thing worth while in the end! Then
promptly, of old habit, he thought of her.
" Bibi ! You took your time for that."

The Level of Fortune 53

"Not all of it, in good sooth, fair
lord." She spread out her skirts, lady-
come-to-see fashion, and strutted across
the room. "Mrs. Osbourne has a new
' job ' and a ' raise.' " (Incidentally Mrs.
Osbourne had never before been so ad
vanced in her language.)

"Bully for you!" he shouted, so gen
uinely that she ran back to him and
shook and hugged his shoulders. How
she liked him !

" What a thorough girl you are, Bibi I"

" Oh, and to-day I've been laughing
at myself; as silly as I used to be, count
ing so much on a mere change of cir
cumstances. Of course something un
pleasant will develop there too. But at
least the harness will rub in a different
place. On the whole, it will be better.
Guy, do you know, I have just gotten rid
of envy and discontent, and that without
endangering ambition. I'll give you the
charm; it's a sort of cabalistic spell —
the four P's — Occupation, Responsibil
ity, Purpose, and Philosophy."

" Yes," he said, " the most worth-while
thing in life is to feel you are accom
plishing something — doing your work
well and getting proportionate returns."

The tone touched her. "Poor old
Guy!" so generously congratulatory of

54 Harper's Novelettes

her flaunted advantages. How stupid
she was! Poor Guy! her pretty creed
scattered at a breath like a dead dande
lion-ball. Envy she had disposed of, but
what about pity? What had he to make
up ? " The idea of my talking of happi
ness, with you caged here!"

" Perhaps that was the point of it all,"
he said, " to give you your chance."

"That would be a beautifully humble
thing for me to think, now wouldn't it?"
Yet she had once complained that the
point of it all was to interfere with
her. "And so sweetly generous. Your
chance being — ?"

" To serve as a means of grace to you ?"
He smiled. "I am glad to be of some
use — and honored to be of that one!"
he hurried to add, elaborately humorous.

But what she was noticing was the
flagging effort of his vivacity. Her half-
submerged first impression of him was
coming to the surface: he did look un
usually haggard. "You haven't been
good while I was away. Now don't tell
stories. Don't I know you? No more
storms, Guy !" she warned.

His eye evaded hers. "I am seriously
questioning whether you ought to make
this change. All your friends are here."

"Oh, as to that! There might be

The Level of Fortune 55

advantages in working among strangers.
Mrs. Grey fairly puts herself out to let
me understand that she is a friend in
need !" She reined herself up, recollecting,
but too late. " Oh, Guy, don't mind so
for me. Why, the South is full of wom
en doing what I am, only so many of
them are doing it — without — the Guys
who never came back!"

" Lucky dogs !" subterraneously. Then,
seeing her apprehensive of a second flare-
up of that volcanic fire : " So gentlemanly
of them, too, Bibi. How can those few
years of love be worth a life of this
to you?"

" Those few years ? why, Guy ! of love ?
Is that how you feel?" Her eyes filled;
her whole face quivered. " Oh, Guy —
be willing for my sake. I never knew
what love could mean until lately."

His grasp hurt her knuckles. " Yes,
dear, I have seen. It's very sweet. It's
the mother in you, Bibi, and my helpless
ness. Of course! What could a woman
love in a dependent, half-corpse of a
no-man ?"

For a moment she was too surprised
to speak. She stared at him. " What a
notion! and it isn't true! You never
were any more a man than you've been
through these two dreadful years." She

56 Harper's Novelettes

sounded fairly indignant. "And for my
part, I never appreciated what you were
half as much."

" Love doesn't begin with a P," he re
marked to the opposite wall.

"But what do you suppose the pur
pose was?"

"Love?"

"More. You."

"You never told me." That strange
voice and averted face !

" How should I fancy you wouldn't
know? I had never thought it out my
self until just now. It has simply been
going on from day to day, as natural
and quiet as growing — A bewildering
illumination was spreading in her mind.
" Look here, young man " — she forced
his face around to see it, — " what goblins
have you been hatching in the night-
watches ?" The raillery broke. " Dear,
is that what has been troubling you? Is
there anything else?"

He looked at her now. " Anything else
trouble me, if I really have you, and a
chance to do a little something for you ?"

It was their apotheosis. They had
never known a moment equal to it be
fore; could never know just another such
again. In a very deep way it was the
first kiss of love for them both.

The Level of Fortune 57

Bessie came back to herself with that
sense of arriving, of having been in
finitely away, with which one drops
from abstraction.

Where had they been in that state of
absent mind ?

It was as if they had met out of time,
space, matter. . . . And as she thought
of his words, in the light of his eyes, pity
too was qualified, and that without en
dangering helpfulness. He, too, had his
balance of good. Yes, things squared
in the end.

Her creed was quick. The scattered
dandelion seed sprouted all around her.

Pap Overholt

BY ALICE MACGOWAN

UP and down the long corn rows
Pap Overholt guided the old mule
and the small, rickety, inefficient
plough, whose low handles bowed his tall,
broad shoulders beneath the mild heat of
a mountain June sun. As he went — ever
with a furtive eye upon the cabin — he
muttered to himself, shaking his head :

" Say I sha'n' do hit. Say he don't
want me a-ploughin' his co'n. My law!
Whut you gwine do? Thar's them chil-
len— thar's Huldy. They got to be fed—
they 'bleeged to have meat and bread.
Ef I don't—

Again he lifted his apprehensive glance
toward the cabin; and this time it en
countered a figure stepping from the low
doorway — a young fellow with an olive
face, delicately cut features, black curling
hair, the sleep still lingering in his dark
eyes. He approached the fence — the
sorry, broken fence, — put his hands upon
it, and called sharply, "Pap!"

Pap Overholt 59

The old man released the plough-han
dles and came toward the youth, shrink
ing like a truant schoolboy called up
for discipline.

"Pap, this is the way you do me all
the time — come an' plough in my co'n
when I don't know nothin' about hit —
when I don't want hit done, — tryin' to
make everybody think I'm lazy and no
'count. Huldy tellin' me I ought to be
ashamed of myse'f, in bed while my po'
old pappy — 'at hain't ploughed a row of
his own for years — is a-gittin' my co'n
outen the weeds."

The father stood, a chidden culprit.
The boy had worked himself up to the
desired point.

"You jest do hit to put a shame on
me. Now, Pap, you take that mule—"

"W'y, Sammy, — w'y, Sammy honey,
you know Pappy don't do it fer nair
sech a reason. Hit don't look no sech a
thing — like you was shif'less an' lazy.
Hit jes look like Pappy got nothin' to do,
an' love to come and give you a turn with
yo' co'n; an', Sammy honey," — the good
farmer for the moment getting the better
of the timid, soft-hearted parent, — "hit
is might'ly in the weeds, boy. Don't you
reckon I better jes — "

The other began, " I tell you — "

60 Harper's Novelettes

" There, there ! Ne'mine, Sammy. Ef
you don't want Pappy to plough no mo',
Pappy Jes gwine to take the plough
right outen the furrow and put old Beck
up. Pappy gwine —

The boy turned away, his point made,
and strolled back to the cabin. The old
man, murmuring a mixture of apologies,
assurances, and expostulations, went pa
thetically about the putting up of the
mule, the setting away of the plough.

Nobody knew when Pap Overholt began
to be so called, nor when his wife had
received the affectionate title of Aunt
Cornelia. It was a naming that grew
of itself. Forty years ago the pair had
been married — Jcfhn, a sturdy, sunny-
tempered young fellow of twenty-one, six
feet in his stockings, broad of shoulder,
deep of chest, and with a name and a
nature clean of all tarnish; Cornelia
Blackshears, a typical mountain girl of
the best sort.

When, at the end of the first year,
old Dr. Pastergood, who had ushered
Cornelia herself into this world, turned
to them with her first child in his arms,
the young father stood by, controlling his
great rush of primal joy, his boyish desire
to do something noisy and violent; the
mother looked first at her husband, then

Pap Overholt 6 1

into the old doctor's face, with eyes of
passionate delight and appeal. He was
speechless a moment, for pity. Then he
said, gently:

" Hit's gone, befo' hit ever come to us,
Comely. Hit never breathed a breath
of this werrisome world."

A man who had practised medicine in
the Turkey Tracks for twenty-five years
— a doctor among these mountain people,
where poverty is the rule, hardship a con
dition of life, and tragedy a fairly fa
miliar element, would have had his fibre
well stiffened. The brave old cam
paigner, who had sat beside so many
death-beds and so many birth-beds, and
had seen so many come and so many
go, at the exits and entrances of life, met
the matter stoutly and without flinching.
His stoic air, his words of passive accept
ance, laid a calm upon the first outburst
of bitter grief from the two young
creatures. Later, when John had gone
to do the chores, the old doctor still sat
by Cornelia's bed. He took the girl's
hand in his — an unusual demonstration
of feeling for a mountaineer — and said
to her, gently,

" Cornely, there won't never be no
mo' — there'll be nair another baby to
you, honey."

62 Harper's Novelettes

The stricken girl fastened her eyes
upon his in dumb pain and protest. She
said nothing, the wound was too deep ;
only her lips quivered pitifully and the
tears ran down upon the pillow.

" Now, now, honey, don't ye go to fret
that-a-way. W'y, Comely, ye was made
for a mother; the Lord made ye for such
— an' do ye 'low 'at He don't know what
He's a-gwine to do with the work of His
hands ? ' For mo' air the children of the
desolate ' — don't ye know Scripter says ?
— than of them that has many. Lord love
ye, honey, girl, you'll be mother to a minny
and a minny. They air a-comin'; the
Lord's a-sendin' 'em. W'y, honey, — you
and John will have children gathered
around you — "

The one cry broke forth from Cornelia
which she ever uttered through all her
long grief of childlessness : " Oh, but, Dr.
Pastergood, I wanted mine — my own —
and John's ! Oh, I reckon it was idolatry
the way I felt in my heart; I thought, to
have a little trick — bone o' my bone, flesh
o' my flesh — look up at me with John's
eyes — ' A sob choked her utterance, and
never again was it resumed.

In the years that followed, the pair —
already come to be called Pap Overholt
and Aunt Comely — well fulfilled the old

Pap Overholt 63

doctor's prophecy. The very next year
after their baby was laid away, John's
older brother, Jeff, lost his wife, and the
three little children Mandy left were
brought at once to them, remaining in
peace and welfare for something- over a
year (Jeff was a circumspect widower),
making the place blithe with their laugh
ter and their play. Then their father
married, and they were taken to the new
home. He was an Overholt too, and
shared that powerful paternal instinct
with John. Three times this thing hap
pened. Three times Jeff buried a wife,
and the little Jeff Overholts, with re
cruited ranks, were brought to Aunt
Cornelia and Pap John. When Jeff mar
ried his fourth wife — Zulena Spivey, a
powerful, vital, affluent creature, of an
unusual type for the mountains, — and the
children (there were nine of them by
this time) went to live with their step
mother, whose physique and disposition
promised a longer tenure than any of
her predecessors, Pap and Aunt Cornelia
sat upon the lonely hearth and assured
each other with tears that never again
would they take into their home and
their lives, as their very own, any chil
dren upon whom they could have no
sure claim.

64 Harper's Novelettes

"Tell ye, Comely, this thing o' wind-
in' yer heart-strings around and around
a passel o' chaps for a year or so and
then havin' 'em tore out — well, hit takes
a mighty considerable chunk o' yer heart
along with 'em." And the wife, looking
at him with wet eyes, nodded an assent.

It was next May that Pap Overholt,
who had been doing some hauling over
as far as Big Turkey Track, returned
one evening with a little figure perched
beside him on the high wagon seat.
" The Lord sent him, honey," he said,
and handed the child down to his wife.
" He ain't got a livin' soul on this earth
to lay claim to him. He is ourn as much
as ef he was flesh and bone of us. I
even tuck out the papers."

That evening, the two sitting watching
the little dark face in its sleep, Pap told
his story. Driving across the flank of
Yellow Old Bald, beyond Lost Cabin, he
had passed a woman with five children
sitting beside the road in Big Buck Gap.

" Comely, she looked like a picture out
of a book," whispered Pap. " This chap's
the livin' image of her. Portugee blood—
a touch o' that melungeon tribe from
over in the Fur Cove. She had a little
smooth face shaped like a aig; that curly
hair hangin' clean to her waist, dark

Pap Overholt 65

like this baby's, but with the sun all
through it; these eyebrows o' his'n that's
lifted in the middle o' his forred, like he
cain't see why some onkindness was did
him; and little slim hands and feet; all
mighty furrin to the mountains. I give
'er a lift — she was goin' to Hepzibah,
huntin' fer some kind o' charity she'd
heard could be got there; and this little
trick he tuck to me right then."

The woman bent over and looked long
at the small olive face, so delicately cut,
the damp rings of hair on his forehead,
the tragic lift of the brows above the nose
bridge, the thin-lipped scarlet mouth.
"My baby," she murmured; then lifted
her glance with the question: " An' how
come ye to have him? Did she— did
that womern — "

"No, no. ;Twas this-a-way," Pap in
terrupted her. " When I came back from
Big Turkey Track, I went down through
Hepzibah— I couldn't git this chap's eyes
— ner his little hands — out o' my head ; I
found myse'f a-studyin' on 'em the hull
enjurin' time. She was dead when I got
thar. She'd died to Squire Cannon's, and
they was a - passellin' out the chillen
'mongst the neighbors. No sooner I put
foot on the po'ch 'n this little soul come
a-runnin' to me, an' says: * W'y, here's

5 S. L.

66 Harper's Novelettes

my pappy, now. I tole you-all I did have
a pappy. Now look — see — here he is/
Then he peeked up at me, and he put up
his little arms, an' he says, jest as petted,
and yit a little skeered, he says, ' Take
me, pappy.' When I tuck him up, he
grabbed me round the neck and dug his
little face into mine. Then he looked
around at all the folks, and sort o' shiv
ered, and put his face back in my neck
— still ez a little possum when you've
killed the old ones an' split up the tree
an' drug out the nest."

Both faces were wet with tears now.
Pap went on : "I had the papers made
right out — I knowed you'd say yes, Cor-
nely. He's Samuel Ephraim Overholt.
A-comin' home, the little weenty chap
looks up at me suddent an' axes, ' Is
they a mammy to we-all's house whar we
goin' now ?' Lord ! Lord !" Pap shook his
head gently, as signifying the utter in
adequacy of mere words.

Little Sammy grew and thrived in the
Overholt home. The tiny rootlets of his
avid, unconscious baby life he thrust out
in all directions through that kind soil,
sucking, sucking, grasping, laying hold,
drawing to him and his great little
needs sustenance material and spiritual.
More keen and capable to penetrate were

Pap Overholt 67

those thready little fibres than the ir
resistible water-seeking tap-root of the
cottonwood or the mesquite of the plains ;
more powerful to clasp and to hold than
the cablelike roots of the rock-embracing
cedar. The little new member was so
much living sunshine, gay, witching,
brilliant, erratic in disposition as he was
singular and beautiful in his form and
coloring, but always irresistibly endear
ing, dangerously winning. When he had
been Sammy Overholt only two weeks, he
sat at table with his parents one day and
scornfully rejected the little plate that
was put before him.

"No!" he cried, sharply. "No, no!
I won't have it — ole nassy plate !"

"W'y, baby! W'y, Sammy," depre
cated Cornelia, "that's yo' own little
plate that mammy washed for you. You
mustn't call it naisty."

"Hit air nassy," insisted young
Samuel. " Hit got 'pecks — see !" and the
small finger pointed to some minute flaw
in the ware which showed as little dots
on the white surface.

Cornelia, who, though mild and serene,
was possessed of firmness and a sense of
justice, would have had the matter fairly
settled. " He ort not to cut up this-a-
way, John," she urged. " He ort to take

68 Harper's Novelettes

his little plate and behave hisse'f ; 'r else
he ort to be spanked, — he really ort, John,
in jestice to the child."

But John was of another mould.
"Law, Comely! Hit's jest baby-doin's.
The idee o' him a-settin' up 'at yo' dishes
ain't clean! That shore do beat all!"
And he had executed an exchange of
plates under Cornelia's deprecating eyes.
And so the matter went.

Again, upon a June day, Sammy was
at play with the scion of the only ne
gro family which had ever been known
in all the Turkey Track regions. The
Southern mountaineers have little affinity,
socially or politically, with the people of
the settlements. There were never any
slaveholders among them, and the few
isolated negroes were treated with almost
perfect equality by the simple-minded
mountain dwellers.

" Sammy honey, you an' Jimmy mus*
cl'ar up yo' litter here. Don't leave it
on mammy's nice flo'. Hit's mighty nigh
supper-time. Cl'ar up now, 'fo' Pap
py comes."

Sammy stiffened his little figure to a
startling rigidity. "I ain't a-goin' to
work!" he flung out. "Let him do it;
he's a nigger!" And this was the last
word of the argument,

Pap Overholt 69

This was Sammy — handsome, graceful,
exceedingly winning, sudden and pas
sionate, disdaining like a young zebra the
yoke of labor, and, when crossed, absolute
ly beyond all reason or bounds ; the life of
every gathering of young people as he
grew up; much made of, deferred to,
sought after, yet everywhere blamed as
undutiful and ungrateful.

" Oh, I do p'intedly wish the neighbors
would leave us alone," sighed Pap Over-
holt, when these reports came to him.
" As ef I didn't know what I wanted —
as ef I couldn't raise my own chile ;" and
as he said this he ever avoided Aunt
Cornelia's honest eye.

It was when Sammy was eighteen, the
best dressed, the best horsed — and the
idlest — to be found from Little Turkey
Track to the Fur Cove, from Tatum's to
Big Buck Gap — that he went one day,
riding his sorrel filly, down to Hepzibah,
ostensibly to do some errands for Aunt
Cornelia, but in fact simply in search of
a good time. The next day Blev. Straly,
a rifle over his shoulder and a couple of
hounds at heel, stopped a moment at the
chopping-block where Pap was splitting
some kindling.

"I was a-passin'," he explained — "I
was jest a-passin', an' I 'lowed I'd drap in

;o Harper's Novelettes

an' tell ye 'bout Sammy. Hit better be me
than somebody 'at likes to carry mean tales
and wants to watch folks suffer." Aunt
Cornelia was beside her husband now.

" No, no," Blev. answered the look
on the two faces ; " nothin' ain't the mat
ter of Sammy. He's jest married — that
little Huldy Frew 'at's been waitin' on
table at Aunt Randy Card's ho-tel. You
know, Aunt Comely, she is a mighty
pretty little trick — and there ain't nothin'
bad about the gal. I jest knowed you and
Pap 'ud feel mighty hurt over Sammy
doin' you-all like you was cruel to him
— like he had to run away to git mar
ried; and I 'lowed I better come and tell
you fust."

The "little Huldy gal" was, as Blev.
Straly had described her, a mighty pretty
little trick, and nothing bad about her.
The orphan child of poor mountaineers,
bound out since the death of her parents
when she was ten years old, she had been
two years now working for Aunt Randy
Card, who kept the primitive hotel at
Hepzibah. Even in this remote region
Huldy showed that wonderful — that irre
pressible — upward impulse of young fem
inine America, that instinctive affinity
for the finer things of life, that marvel
lous understanding of graces and refine-

Pap Overholt 71

ments, and that pathetic and persistent
groping after them which is the marked
characteristic of America's daughters.
The child was not yet sixteen, a fair lit
tle thing with soft ashen hair and honest
gray eyes, the pink upon her cheek like
that of a New England girl.

At first this marriage — which had been
so unkindly conducted by Sammy, used
by him apparently as a weapon of affront
— seemed to bring with it only good,
only happiness. The boy was more con
tented at home, less wayward, and the
feeling of apprehension that had dwelt
continually in the hearts of Pap and
Aunt Cornelia ever since his adolescence
now slept. The little Huldy — her own
small cup apparently full of happiness —
was all affectionate gratitude and do
cility. She healed the bruises Sammy
made, poured balm in the wounds he in
flicted; she was sunny, obedient, grateful
enough for two.

But a new trait was developed in
Sammy's nature — perversity. Life was
made smooth to his feet; the things he
needed — even the things which he mere
ly desired — were procured and brought to
him. Love brooded above and around
him — timid, chidden, but absolute, ador
ing. Nothing was left him — no occupa-

72 Harper's Novelettes

tion was offered for his energies — but to
resent these things, to quarrel with his
benefits. And now the quarrel began.

Its outcome was this: Toward the end
of the first year of the marriage, upon
a bleak, forbidding March day — a day
of bitter wind and icy sleet,— there rode
one to the Overholt door who called upon
Pap and Aunt Cornelia to hitch up and
come with all possible haste to old Eph'm
Blackshears, Cornelia's father — a man
who had lived to fourscore, and who now
lay at his last, asking for his daughter,
his baby chile, Comely.

For days Sammy had been in a very ill-
promising mood; but he brightened as the
foster-parents drove away in the bleak,
gray, hostile forenoon, Huldy helping
Aunt Cornelia to dress and make ready,
tucking her lovingly into the wagon and
beneath the thick old quilt.

The elder woman yearned over the girl
with a mother's compassionate tender
ness. Both Aunt Cornelia and Pap
John looked with a passionate, delighted
anticipation to when they would have
their own child's baby upon their hearth.
It was the more notable marks of this
tenderness, of this joyous anticipation,
which Sammy had begun to resent — the
gifts and the labors showered upon the

Pap Overholt 73

young wife in relation to her coming
importance, which he had barely come
short of refusing and repelling. " Whose
wife is she, I'd like to know ? Looks like
I cain't do nothin' for my own woman
— a-givin' an' a-givin' to Huldy, like she
was some po' white trash, some beggar!"
But he had only " sulled," as his mother
called it, never quite able to reach the
point he desired of actually flinging the
care, the gifts, and the loving labors back
in the foster-parents' faces.

Pappy Blackshears passed away quietly
in the evening; and when he had been
made ready for his grave by Cornelia's
hands, her anxiety for the little daughter
at home would not let her remain longer.

" I'm jest 'bleeged to go to Huldy,'' she
explained to the relatives and neighbors
gathered at the old Blackshears place.
" I p'intedly dassent to leave her over one
night — and not a soul with her but Sam
my, and he nothin' but a chile — and not
a neighbor within a mild of our place —
and sech a night ! Pap and me we'll hitch
up an' mak' 'as'e back to Huldy. We'll
be here to the funeral a Sunday — but I
dassent to stay away from Huldy nair
another hour now." And so, at ten
o'clock that bitter night, Pap and Aunt
Cornelia came hurrying home.

74 Harper's Novelettes

As the wagon drove up the mountain
trail to the house, the hounds came bell
ing joyously to meet them; but no light
gleamed cheerfully from the windows ; no
door was flung gayly open; no little
Huldy cried out her glad greeting.
Filled with formless apprehensions, Pap
climbed over the wheel, lifted Cornelia
down, and dreading they knew not what,
the two went, — holding by each other's
hand, — opened the door, and entered,
shrinking and reluctant. They blew the
smouldering coals to a little flame, piled
on light-wood till the broad blaze rolled
up the chimney, then looked about. No
living soul was in any room. Finally
Cornelia caught sight of a bit of paper
stuck upon the high mantel. She tore
it down, and the two read slowly and
laboriously together the few lines written
in Sammy's hand:

" I ain't going to allow my wife to live
off any man's charity. I ain't going to
be made to look like nothing in the eyes
of people any longer. I've taken my wife
to my own place, where I can support
her myself. I had to borrow your ox
cart and steers to move with, and Huldy
made me bring some things she said
mother had give her, but I'll pay all this

Pap Overholt 75

back, and more, for I intend to be inde
pendent and not live on any man's bounty.
Kespectfully, your son,

SAMUEL."

The two old faces, pallid and grief-
struck, confronted each other in the
shaken radiance of the pine fire.

" Oh, my po' chile, my po' little Huldy !
Whar? His own place! My law! —
whar ? Whar has he drug that little soul ?"

An intuition flashed into Pap Over-
holt's mind. He grasped his wife's arm.
"Wy, Comely," he cried, "hit's that
cabin on The Bench! Don't ye know,
honey? I give him that land when he
was sixteen year old, — time he brung the
prize home from the school down in
the settlemint."

" The Bench! Oh, Lord— The Bench!
Wy, hit '11 be the death of her. John,
we cain't git to her too quick." And she
ran from cupboard to press, from press
to chest, from chest to bureau drawer,
piling into John's arms the flask of
brandy, the homely medicines, the warm
garments, such bits of food as she could
catch up that were palatable and portable.
Pap, with more vulnerable emotions and
less resolute nature, was incapable of
speech; he could only suffer dumbly.

76 Harper's Novelettes

Arrived at the abandoned cabin on The
Bench, the picture that greeted them
crushed Pap's soft heart to powder, but
roused in Aunt Cornelia a rage that
would have resulted in a sharp settlement
with Sammy, had it not been that, now
as always, to reach the offender a blow
must go through that same pitiful heart
of John's. The young people had not long
been at the cabin when the parents ar
rived. The little Huldy, moaning pite-
ously, with a stricken, terrified look in
her big, childish eyes, was crouched
upon the floor beside a rickety chair.
Sammy, sullen and defiant, was at the
desolate hearth, fumbling with unskilled
hands at the sodden chunks of wood he
had there gathered.

The situation was past words. Pap,
after one look at Huldy, went about the
fire-building, the slow tears rolling down
his cheeks. While Aunt Cornelia brought
the bedding, the warm blankets and wrap
pings, and made the little suffering crea
ture a comfortable couch, Pap wrought
at the forlorn, gaping fireplace like a
suffering giant. When the leaping flames
danced and shouted up the chimney till
the whole cabin was filled with the phys
ical joy of their light and warmth, when
steaming coffee and the hastily fetched

Pap Overholt 77

food had been served to the others, and
the little wife lay quietly for the moment,
the two elders talked together outside
where a corner of the cabin cut off the
driving sleet. Then Sammy was in
cluded, and another council was held,
this time of three.

No. He would not budge. That was
his wife. A fellow that was man enough
to have a wife ought to be man enough
to take keer of her. He wasn't going
to have his child born in the house of
charity. There was no thoroughfare.
Sammy was allowed to withdraw, and
the council of two was resumed. As a
result of its deliberations, Pap John
drove away through the darkness and the
sleet. By midnight two trips had been
made between the big double log house
at the Overholt place and the wretched
cabin on The Bench, and all that Sammy
would suffer to be brought to them or
done for them had been brought and done.
The cabin was, in a very humble way,
inhabitable. There was food and a small
provision for the immediate present.
And here, upon that wild March night
of screaming wind and sleet, and with
only Aunt Cornelia as doctor and nurse,
Huldy's child was born.

And now a new order of things began.

78 Harper's Novelettes

Sammy's energies appeared to bo devoted
to the thwarting of Pap Overholt's care
and benefits. There should be no cow
brought to the cabin; and so Pap John,
who was getting on in years now, and
had long since given up hard, active work,
hastened from his bed at four o'clock in
the morning, milked a cow, and carried
the pail of fresh milk to Huldy and the
baby, furtively, apologetically. The food,
the raiment, everything had to be smug
gled into the house little by little, ex
plained, apologized for. The land on The
Bench was rich alluvial soil. Sammy, in
his first burst of independence, ploughed
it (borrowing mule and plough from a
neighbor — the one neighbor ever known
to be on ill terms with Pap Overholt),
and planted it to corn. He put in a little
garden, too; while Pap had achieved the
establishment of a small colony of hens
(every one of whom, it appeared, laid two
or three eggs each day — at least that was
the way the count came out).

The baby thrived, unconscious of all
the grief, the perverse cruelty, the baffled,
defeated tenderness about her, and was
the light of Pap Overholt's doting eyes,
the delight of Aunt Cornelia's heart.
When she was eighteen months old, and
could toddle about and run to meet them,

Pap Overholt 79

and chattered that wonderful language
which these two hearts of love had all
their lives yearned to hear — the dialect
of babyhood, — the twin boys came to the
cabin on The Bench. And Pap Over-
holt's lines were harder than ever. Cor
nelia had sterner stuff in her. She would
have called a halt.

"Oh, John!" she expostulated finally,
when she saw her husband come home
crestfallen one day, with a ham which
Sammy had detected him smuggling into
the cabin and ordered back, — " John
honey, ef you was to stop toting things
to the cabin and let it all alone — not
pester with it another —

" Comely, Comely !" cried Pap John,
" you know Sammy cain't no mo' keep a
wife and chill en than a peckerwood kin.
W'y, they'd starve ! Huldy and the chaps
would jest p'intedly starve."

" No, they won't, John. Ef you could
master yo' own soft heart — ef you could
stay away (like he's tole ye a minny a
time to do, knowin' 'at you was safe not
to mind him) — Sammy would stop this
here foolishness. He'd come to his senses
and be thankful for what the Lord sent,
like other people. W'y, John — "

" Comely honey — don't. Don't ye say
another word. I tell ye, this last year

So Harper's Novelettes

there's a feelin' in my throat and in my
breast — hyer," — he laid his hand pathet
ically over his heart, — " a cur'us, gone,
flutterin' feelin'. And when Sammy
r'ars up arid threatens he'll take Iluldy
and the chaps — you know," — he finished
with a gesture of the hand and a glance
of unspeakable pain, — " when he does that
'ar way, or something comes at me sudden
like that — that we may lose 'em, hit
seems like — right hyer," — and his hand
went again to his heart, — " that I can't
bear it— that hit '11 take my life."

This was the last time Cornelia ever
remonstrated with Pap John. She had
a little talk with the new doctor from
Hepzibah who had succeeded old Dr.
Pastergood ; and after that John was add
ed to the list of her anxieties. He might
carry the milk to the cabin on The
Bench ; he might slip in, when he deemed
Sammy away — or asleep — and plough the
corn; she saw the tragic folly of it, but
must be silent. And so on that par
ticular June morning, when Pap had put
up the mule, clambered down the short
cut footway from The Bench to the old
house, stopping several times to shake his
head again and murmur to himself —
" Whut you gwine do ? There's them
chaps ; there's Huldy. Mustn't plough his

Pap Overholt 81

co'n; mustn't take over air cow. Whut
you gwine do?" — Aunt Cornelia's seeing
eye noted his perturbation the moment
he came in at the door. With tender
guile she built up a considerable argu
ment in the matter of a quarterly meeting
which was approaching — the grove quar
terly, in which Pap John was unfailingly
interested, and during which there were
always from two to half a dozen preach
ers, old and young, staying with them.
So she led him away — ever so little away
— from his ever-present grief.

It was the next day that he said to
her, " Comely, I p'intedly ain't gwine to
suffer this hyer filchin' o' co'n them
Fusons is a-keepin' up on me."

"Is the Fusons a-stealin' yo' co'n,
John ?" she responded, in surprise. " W'y,
they got a-plenty, ain't they ?"

" Well, no, not adzactly, — that is to say,
Buck Fuson ain't got a-plenty. He too
lazy and shif'less to make co'n of his
own; and he like too well to filch co'n
from them he puts his spite on. Buck
Fuson he tuck a spite at me, last time
the raiders was up atter that Fuson hide
out; jes set up an' swore 'at I'd gin
the word to 'em. You see, honey, he
makes him up a spite that-a-way — jes
out o' nothin' — 'cause hit's sech a handy

82 Harper's Novelettes

thing to have around when he comes to
want co'n. Thar's some one already
, purvided to steal from — some one 'at's
done him a injury."

"Pappy! W'y, Johnny honey, sakes
alive! What air ye ever a-gwine to do
'long o' that there thing?" For the old
man had laboriously fetched out a rusty
wolf-trap, and was now earnestly inspect
ing and overhauling it.

" Whut am I a-gwine to do 'long o'
this hyer, Comely ? W'y, I am jes p'int-
edly a-gwine to set it in my grain-room.
Buck Fuson air a bad man, honey.
There's two men's blood to his count.
They cain't nothin' be done to him for
nair a one of 'em — you know, same's I
do — 'ca'se hit cain't be proved in a co't
o' law. But I kin ketch him in this
meanness with this hyer little jigger,
and I'm a-gwine to do hit, jest ez sure
ez my name's John Overholt!"

"Oh, Pappy! A leetle bit o' co'n fer
a man's chillen —

" Now, Comely honey, that's a womern !
Buck Fuson is the wrong kind o' man to
have round. He's ben a-stealin' my co'n
now fer two weeks and mo'. Ef I kin
ketch him right out, and give him a fa'r
shamin', he'll quit the Turkey Tracks
fer good. So fer as Elmiry and the chaps

Pap Overholt 83

is consarned, they'll be better off without
Buck 'n what they is with him."

At this moment Aunt Cornelia cried
out joyously, " Oh, thar's my chile !" and
ran to meet her daughter-in-law. The
little girl — Cornelia the second — could
navigate bravely by herself now, and
Huldy was carrying the lusty twin boys.
In the flutter of delight over this stolen
visit, the ugly wolf-trap threat was for
gotten. It had been a month and more
since Sammy had set foot in his parents'
house. It had gone all over both Turkey
Tracks that Sam Overholt declared he
would never darken Pap Overholt's door
again — Pap Overholt, who had tried to
make a pauper of him, loading him with
gifts and benefits, like he was shif'less, no-
'count white trash ! The little Huldy re
ported him gone to Far Canaan, over
beyond Big Turkey Track, in the matter
of some employment, which he had not
deigned to make clearer to his wife. He
would not be back until the day after
to-morrow; and meantime she might stay
with the old folks two whole days and
nights ! In the severe school to which
life had put her, the little Huldy had
developed an astonishing amount of char
acter, of shrewdness, and perception, and
a very fair philosophy of her own. To

84 Harper's Novelettes

the elder woman's sad observation that it
was mighty strange what made Sammy
so "onthankful" and so " ha'sh " to his
pappy, who had done so much for him,
Huldy responded,

"No, Aunt Comely, hit ain't strange,
not a bit."

"Ain't strange? Huldy child, what
do you mean ?"

"W'y, don't you know, Aunt Comely,
ef he do Pappy that-a-way, when Pappy
do so much fer him, then he don't have
to be thankful. When everybody's a-tell-
in' him, < Yo' pap's so kind, yo' pap does
everything for you; look like you cain't
be good enough to him,' he 'bleeged to
find some way to shake off all that thank
fulness 'at's sech a burden to him. And
so when Pappy come a-totin' milk, an'
a-totin' pork, an' a-ploughin' his co'n
outen the weeds, w'y, Sammy jest draw
down his face an' look black at Pappy,
and make like he mad at him — like he
don't want none o' them things — like
Pappy jest pesterin' round him fer nothin'
but meanness. Now mind, Aunt Cor-
nely, I ain't say Sammy knows this his
own se'f. But I studied Sammy mighty
well, an' 7 know. Sammy gittin' tell he
do me the same way. I wait on him
hand and foot ; I cook his bacon jest like

Pap Overholt 85

he tol' me you did it fer him. I fix every
thing the best I kin (and mebby all three
of the chillen a-cryin' after me) ; and
when he come in and see it all ready, and
see how hard I got it, and seem like
there's a call fer him to be thankful, then
Sammy jest turns on hit all. He draw
down his face at me and he say, black
like : ' I don't want no bacon — what did
you fix that shirt for that-a-way? Take
away that turnip sallet — I cain't git
nothin' like I want it.' Then, you
know," with a little smile up into the
other's face, half pitiful, half saucy, —
" then, you know, Sammy don't have to
be thankful. Hit was all done wrong."

It was the next evening — Saturday
evening. The entire household (which
included Elder Justice and two young
preachers from Big Turkey Track, with
Brother Tarbush, one of the new exhort-
ers) had returned from the afternoon's
meeting in the grove. Supper had been
eaten and cleared away. The babies had
been put to sleep; the two women and
the five men — all strong and striking
types of the Southern mountaineer — were
gathered for the evening reading and
prayer. Elder Justice, now nearly
eighty years old, a beautiful and ven
erable person, had opened the big Bible,

86 Harper's Novelettes

and after turning the leaves a moment,
raised his grave, rugged face and read:
" ' Therefore will I divide him a portion
with the great, and he shall divide the
spoil with the strong; because he hath
poured out his soul unto death.' "

He paused, and on the intense still
ness which followed the ceasing of his
voice — the silence of evening in the deep
mountains — there broke a long, shrill,
agonized scream.

As every one of the little circle leaped
to his feet, Aunt Cornelia's eyes sought
her husband's face, and his hers. After
that grinding, terrible cry, the stillness
of the night was unstirred. Pap Over-
holt sprang to the hearth — where even in
the midsummer months a log smoulders
throughout the day, to be brightened into
a cheery blaze mornings and evenings, —
seized a brand, one or two of the others
following his example, and ran through
the doorway, across the little chip-yard,
making for the low-browed log barn and
the grain-room beside it.

None who witnessed that scene ever
forgot it. Each one told it afterward in
his own way, declaring that not while
he lived could the remembrance of it
pass from his mind. Pap Overholt's tall
figure leaped crouching through the low

Pap Ovcrholt 87

rloorway, and next instant lifted the blaz
ing brand high above his head ; the others
followed, doing the same. There by the
grain-bin, with ashy countenance and
shaking limbs, the sweat of anguish upon
his forehead, his eyes roving dumbly
around the circle of faces revealed by the
flickering light of the brands — there with
the dreadful wolf-trap (locked by its
chain to a stanchion) hanging to his
right arm, its fangs bitten through and
through the flesh, stood Sammy.

Pap Overholt's mind refused at first
to understand. He had known (with that
sort of moral assurance which makes a
thing as real to us as the evidence of the
senses themselves) that it was Buck Fu-
son who had been stealing his grain. He
had set his trap to catch Buck Fuson;
not instantly could the mere sight of his
eyes convince him that the trapped thief
was the petted, adored, perverse son,
who had refused his father's bounty
when it had seemed the little wife and
babies must starve. When he did realize,
the cry that burst from his heart brought
tears to all the eyes looking upon him.
Down went the tall, broad figure, down
into the dust of the grain-room floor.
And there Pap Overholt grovelled on his
knees, his white head almost at the thief's

88 Harperfs Novelettes

feet, crying, crying that old cry of
David's : " Oh, Sammy, my son ! My
son, Sammy ! An' I wouldn't V touched
a hair o' his nead. My God ! have mercy
on my soul, that would 'a' fed him my
heart's blood — an' he wouldn't take bite
nor sup from my hand. Oh, Sammy!
what did you want to do this to yo' po'
old pappy fer?"

Elder Justice, quick and efficient at
eighty years, had sprung to the lad's
right arm, two of the younger men close
after. Aunt Cornelia held her piece of
blazing light-wood for them while they
cut away the sleeve and made ready to
bear apart the powerful jaws of the trap.
The little Huldy had said never a word.
Her small, white face was strained; but
it did not bear the marks of shock
and of horror that were written on
every other countenance there. When
they had grasped jaws and lever, and
Elder Justice's kind voice murmured,
" Mind now, Sammy. Hold firm, son ;
we air a-gwine to pull 'em back. Brace
yo'se'f," the boy's haggard eyes sought
his mother's face.

" Le' me take it, Aunt Comely," whis
pered Huldy, loosing the light-wood from
the elder woman's hand and leaving her
free. And the next moment Sammy's

Pap Ovcrholt 89

left hand was clasped tight in his moth
er's; he turned his face round to her
broad breast and hid it there; and there
he sobbed and shook as the savage jaws
came slowly back.

That strange hour worked a complete
revolution in the lives of the little fam
ily in the cabin on The Bench and those
in the big, hospitable Pap Overholt
home. Sammy had " met up with " pun
ishment at last; he had encountered dis
cipline; and the change it wrought upon
him was almost beyond belief. The spell
which this winning, wayward, perverse
creature had laid upon Pap Overholt's
too affectionate, too- indulgent nature was
dissolved in that terrible hour. He was
no more to the father now than a trouble
some boy who had been most trying and
not very satisfactory. The ability to
wring the hearts of those who wished to
benefit him had passed from Sammy; but
it is only fair to say that the wish to do
so seemed to be no longer his. While
his arm was still in a sling, before he
had yet raised his shamed eyes to
meet the eyes of those about him,
Pap Overholt cheerfully put old Ned
and Jerry to the big ox - wagon and
bodily removed the little household

QO Harper's Novelettes

from The Bench to the home which had
been so long yearning for them.

Now, at last, he was Pap Overholt in
deed. The little Huldy, whose burden
of gratitude for two had seemed to Aunt
Cornelia so grievous a one, was a daugh
ter after any man's heart, and her brood
of smiling children were a wagon-load
which Pap John hauled with joy and
pride to and from the settlement, to the
circus — ay, every circus that ever showed
its head within a day's drive of Little
Turkey Track, — to meetin', to grove quar
terlies, in response to every call of neigh-
borliness, or of mere amusement.

In the Piny Woods

BY MRS. B. F. MAYHEW

A SPARSELY settled bit of country
AA in the piny woods of North Caro
lina. A house rather larger than
its neighbors, though only a " story and
a jump " of four rooms, two upper and
two lower, and quite a commodius shed
on the back containing two rooms and a
small entry; and when Jeems Henry Ty
ler increased his rooms as his family
grew, his neighbors " allowed " that
" arter er while he'd make er hotel out'n
it." Several out-houses stood at con
venient distances from the house. A
rough board paling enclosed the yard.
A clearing of twenty-five or more acres
lay around three sides of the house, and
well-to-do Industry and Thrift plainly
went hand in hand about the place.

A Saturday in early autumn was draw
ing near its close, and the family had
finished supper, though it was not yet
dark. Like all country folk of their sta-

92 Harper's Novelettes

tion in life, they ate in the kitchen, a
building separate from the house. There
were " Grandmother Tyler," a sweet-
faced old woman, with silvery hair
smoothed away under a red silk kerchief
folded cornerwise and tied under her
chin ; and her son, " Father Tyler," with
his fifty-odd years showing themselves in
his grizzled hair and beard ; and " Mother
Tyler," a brisk stout woman, with great
strength of character in her strong feat
ures, black eyes, and straight black hair.
Her neighbors declared that she was the
" main stake " in the " Tyler fence."

The children were " Mandy Calline,"
the eldest, and her mother's special pride,
built on the same model with her mother;
Joseph Zachariah, a long-legged youth;
Ann Elisabeth, a lanky girl ; Susan Jane,
and Jeems Henry, or " Little Jim," to
distinguish him from his father; and
last, but by no means least in the house
hold, came the baby. When she was
born Mrs. Tyler declared that as all the
rest were named for different members of
both families, she should give this wee
blossom a fancy name, and she had the
desire of her heart, and the baby rejoiced
in the name of Elthania Mydora, docked
off into " Thaney " for short.

They had risen from the table, and

In the Piny Woods 93

Father Tyler had hastened to his moth
er's side as the old lady moved slow
ly away, and taking her arm, guided her
carefully to the house, for the eyes in
the placid old face, looking apparently
straight before her, were stone-blind.

" Come, now, gals," said Mother Ty
ler, briskly, with the baby in her arms,
" make er hurry 'n' do up th' dishes.
Come, Ann Elisabeth, go ter scrapin' up,
V, Mandy Calline, pour up th' dish
water."

"Ya'as, yer'd better make er hurry,"
squeaked "Little Jim," from his perch
in the window, " fer Mandy Calline's
spectin' her beau ter-night."

" Ye'd best shet up yer clatter, Jim,
lest ye know what yer talkin' erbout,"
retorted Mandy Calline, with a pout,
making a dash at him with the dish
cloth.

" Yer right, Jim," drawled Joseph
Zachariah, lounging in the doorway. " I
heerd Zeke White tell 'er he was er-
comin' ter-night."

" Mar — " began Mandy Calline, look
ing at her mother appealingly.

" Shet up, you boys," came in answer.
" Zachariah, ha' ye parted th' cows V
calves?"

" No, m."

94 Harper's Novelettes

" Then be erbout it straight erway.
Jim — you Jeems Henry!"

" Ya'as, 'm," from outside the window.
" Go 'n' shet up the hen-'ouse, 'n' see
ef th' black hen 'n' chickens ha' gone
ter roost in there. She'll keep stayin'
out o' nights till th' fox '11 grab 'er.
Now, chillen, make 'er hurry 'n' git thoe
in here. Come, Thaney gal, we'll go in
th' house V find pappy 'n' gra'mammy.
Susan Jane, come fetch th' baby's ole
quilt 'n' spread it down on th' floor fer
'er"; and Mother Tyler repaired to the
house with the baby in her arms.

"Why, mother, ye in here by yer-
self? I tho't Jeems Henry was with
yer."

"Ya'as, Malviny, he was tell er minit
ergo, V he stepped out to th' lot," re
plied the old lady, in tones so like the
expression of her face, mildly calm, that
it was a pleasure to hear her speak.
" Ha' ye got thet baby wi' ye ?"
"Ya'as, 'm."

" I wish ye'd put her on my lap. Gra'
mammy 'ain't had 'er none ter-day."

"Ya'as, 'm, in er minit. Run, Susan
Jane, 'n' fetch er cloth ter wipe 'er face
V ban's; they're that stuck up wi' mer-
lasses, ter say nothin' o' dirt. Therey,
therey, now! Mammy's gal don't want

In the Piny Woods 95

ter hev 'er face washed? Hu! tu! tu !
Thaney mustn't cry so. Where's Jeff?
Here, Jeff — here, Jeff! O'le bugger-man,
come down the chimbly V ketch this
bad gal. You'd better hush. I tell yer
he's er-comin'. Here, Susan Jane, take
th' cloth. There, gra'mammy; there's
jest es sweet er little gal es ye'd find in
er dog's age." And the old lady at once
cuddled the little one in her arms, swing
ing back and forth in her home-made
rocker, and crooning an old-time baby
song.

" Here, Susan Jane, ban' me my knit-
tin' from th' table, 'n' go 'n' tell Jim ter
pitch in some pine knots 'n' make er
light in here, '11' be quick erbout it";
and Mother Tyler settled herself in an
other home-made rocker and began to
knit rapidly.

This was the night-work of the female
portion of the family, and numerous
stockings of various colors and in vari
ous stages of progress were stuck about
the walls of the room, which boasted
neither ceiling nor lath and plaster, mak
ing convenient receptacles between the
posts and weather-boarding for knitting-
work, turkey-tail fans, bunches of herbs
for drying, etc.

A pine-knot fire was soon kindled on

96 Harper's Novelettes

the hearth, and threw its flickering shad
ows on the room and its occupants as the
dusk gathered in.

Mandy Calline and Elisabeth, running
a race from the kitchen, burst into "he
back door, halting in a good - natured
tussle in the entry.

" Stop that racket, you gals," called
out the mother; and as they came in
with suppressed bustle, panting with
smothered laughter, she asked, briskly,
"Have ye shet up everything V locked
th' kitchen door?"

"Ya'as, 'm," replied Mandy Calline;
"V here's th' key on th' mantel-shelf."
She then disappeared up the stairs which
came down into the sitting-room behind
the back door.

" Come, Ann Elisabeth, git yer knit-
tin'. Git your'n too, Susan Jane."

"Yer'll ha' ter set th' heel fer me,
mar," said Susan Jane, hoping privately
that she would be too busy to do so.

"Fetch it here," from the mother,
dashed the hope incontinently.

" I think we're goin' ter ha' some f all-
in' weather in er day er two; sky looks
ruther hazy, 'n' I heerd er rain-crow ter-
day, 'n' ther's er circle roun' th' moon,"
observed Father Tyler as he entered, and
hanging his hat on a convenient nail in

In the Piny Woods 97

a post, seated himself in the corner op
posite his mother.

" Ha' ye got th' fodder all in ?" queried
his wife, with much interest.

"Ya'as; finished ter-day; that's all
safe; but er rain 'ould interfere mightily
wi' pickin' out cotton up in th' swamp,
;n' it's openin, mighty fast; shouldn't
be s'prised ef some er that swamp don't
fetch er bale ter th' acre, 'n' we'll have er
right purty lot o' cotton, even atter th'
rent's paid out " ; and Father Tyler, with
much complacency, lighted his pipe with
a coal from the hearth.

" Th' gals '11 soon ha' this erround th'
house all picked out ; they got purty nigh
over it ter-day, 'n' ther'll likely be one
more scatterin' pickin'," said Mother
Tyler.

Here a starched rustling on the stairs
betokened the descent of Mandy Calline.
Pushing back the door, she stepped down
with all the dignity which she deemed
suitable to don with her present attire.

A new calico dress of a blue ground,
with a bright yellow vine rambling up
its lengths, adorned her round, plump
figure; her glossy black hair was plaited,
and surmounted with a huge red bow,
the ends of which fluttered out bravely
as she stepped slowly into the room, busy-

98 Harper's Novelettes

ing herself pulling a basting out of her
sleeve.

" Well, Mandy Calline," began her
mother, " ef I do say it myself, yer frock
fits jest as nice as can be. Looks like ye
had been melted V run into it. Nice
langth, too," eying her critically from
head to foot.

"Ya'as, 'm; V it's comf'ble, too; ain't
too tight ner nothin'," giving her shoul
ders a little twitch, and moving her arms
a bit.

" I guess th' boys '11 ha' ter look sharp
ef that gal sets 'er cap at any on 'em,"
put in Father Tyler, gazing proudly at
his first-born, whereupon a toss of her
head set the ribbon ends fluttering as she
moved with great dignity across the
room to the fireplace.

"Come, let me feel, dearie," said the
old lady, softly, turning her sightless
eyes toward the girl, hearing her move
ments in her direction.

"Ya'as, gra'mammy," and stepping
nearer, she knelt at her grandmother's
feet, and leaning forward, rested her
hands lightly on her shoulders.

The old wrinkled hands groped their
way to the girl's face, thence downward,
over her arms, her waist, to the skirt of
her dress.

In the Piny Woods 99

"It feels nice, dearie, 'n' I know it
looks nice."

" I'm glad ye like it, gra'mammy," said
the girl, gently.

"Air ye spectin' comp'ny, dearie, that
ye're all dressed up so nice? 'Pears like
ye wouldn't put on yer new frock lest ye
wer'."

Noting the girl's hesitation, the old
lady said, softly, "Whisper V tell gra'
mammy who's er-comin' " ; and Mandy
Calline, with an additional shade to the
red in her cheeks, leaned forward and
shyly whispered a name in her grand
mother's ear.

A satisfactory smile broke like sun
shine over the kind old face, and she
murmured : " He's come o' good f ambly,
dearie. I knowed 'em all years ago.
Smart, stiddy, hard-workin', kind, well-
ter-do people. I've been thinkin' he's
been er-comin' here purty stiddy, 'n' I
knowed in my min' he warn't er-comin'
ter see Zachariah."

Bestowing a kiss on one aged cheek
and a gentle pat on the other, Mandy
Calline arose to her feet, and lighting a
splinter at the fire, opened the door in
the partition separating the two rooms
and entered the "parlor."

This room was the pride of the family,

ioo Harper's Novelettes

as none of the neighbors could afford one
set apart specially for company.

It was the only room in the house
lathed and plastered. Mother Tyler, who
was truly an ambitious woman, had, how
ever, declared in the pride of her heart
that this one at least should be properly
finished.

Mandy Calline, with her blazing splin
ter, lighted the lamp, quite a gay affair,
with a gaudily painted shade, and bits of
red flannel with scalloped edges floating
about in the bowl.

The floor was covered with a neatly
woven rag carpet of divers gay colors.
Before the hearth, which displayed a coat
of red ochre, lay a home-made rug of
startling pattern. The fireplace was fill
ed with cedar boughs and sweet-smelling
myrtle. Two " boughten " rocking-chairs
of painted wood confronted each other
primly from opposite ends of the rug.
Half a dozen straight-back chairs, also
'•'boughten," were disposed stiffly against
the walls. A large folding-leaf dining-
table of real mahogany, an heirloom in
the family, occupied the space between
two windows, and held a few scattered
books.

The windows were covered with paper
curtains of a pale blue tint. In the

In the Piny "Woods 101

centre of each a festive couple, a youth
and damsel, of apparently Bohemian
type, with clasped hands held high, dis
ported themselves in a frantic dance.
These pictures were considered by the
entire neighborhood as resting trium
phantly on the top round of the ladder of
art.

Both parlor and sitting-room opened
on a narrow piazza on the front of the
house, Father Tyler not caring to waste
space in a hall or passage.

Mandy Calline had flicked a bit of im
aginary dust from the polished surface
of the table, had set a bit straighter, if
that were possible, one or two of the
chairs, and turned up the lamp a trifle
higher, when "Little Jim" opened the
door leading out on the piazza, and in
tones of suppressed excitement half whis
pered, "He's er-comin', Mandy Calline;
Zeke's er-comin?; he's nigh 'bout ter th'
gate."

"Go 'long, Jim, V shet up; ye allers
knows more'n the law allows," said his
sister; but she glanced quickly and shyly
out of the door.

Mr. Ezekiel White was just entering
the gate. He was undoubtedly gotten up
at vast expense for the occasion. A suit
of store clothes of a startling plaid adorn-

102 Harper's Novelettes

ed his lanky figure, and a pair of new
shoes cramped his feet in the most ap
proved style. A new felt hat rested light
ly on his well-oiled hair. But the crown
ing glory was a flaming red necktie
which flowed in blazing magnificence
over his shirt front.

Jeff, the yard dog, barked in neighbor
ly fashion, as though yelping a greeting
to a frequent visitor whom he recognized
as a favored one.

"Susan Jane," said the father, "step
ter th' door V see who Jeff's er-barkin'
at."

Eagerly the girl dropped her knitting
and hastened to reconnoitre, curious her
self.

" It's Zeke White," she replied, return
ing to her work.

"I knowed Mandy Calline was spect-
in' him," muttered Ann Elisabeth, under
her breath.

Father Tyler arose and sauntered to
the door, calling out: "You Jeff, ef ye
don't stop that barkin'— Come here this
minit, sir! Good-evenin', Zekle; come

" Good-evenin', Mr. Tyler. Is Zacha-
riah ter home?"

"I dunW. Malviny, is Zachariah
erroun' anywher's 'at ye know of ?"

In the Piny "Woods 103

"I dun'no'; I hain't seed 'im sence
supper."

"I know," piped up "Little Jim."
" He said es he was er-goin' ter Bill
Jackson's. But, Zeke," he added, in a
hurried aside, catching hold of the visit
or's coat in his eagerness, " Mandy Cal-
line's ter home, ?n' she's fixed up ter
kill!".

At this juncture Mandy Calline her
self appeared in the doorway, striving to
look calmly indifferent at everything in
general and nothing in particular; but
the expression in her bright black eyes
was shifty, and the color in her cheeks
vied with that of the bow on her hair;
and by this time Zekle's entire anatomy
exposed to view shared the tint of his
brilliant necktie.

" Good-evenin', Zekle," said the girl,
bravely assuming a calm superiority to
all embarrassment and confusion. " Will
ye come in th' parlor, er had ye ruther
set out on th' piazza?"

Zekle was wise; he knew that "Little
Jim " dare not intrude on the sacred pre
cincts of the parlor, and he answered,
"I'd jest es live set in th' parlor, ef it's
all th' same ter you."

"Ya'as, I'd jest es live," she replied,
and led the way into the room; he fol-

104 Harper's Novelettes

lowed, and sat down in rather constrain
ed fashion on the chair nearest the door,
deposited his hat on the floor beside him,
took from his pocket and unfolded with
a flirt an immense bandanna handker
chief, highly redolent of cheap cologne,
and proceeded to mop his face with it.

" It's ruther warm," he observed.

"Ya'as," she replied, from a rocking-
chair in the corner facing him. Here
there was a long pause, and presently
she added, "Pappy said es how he tho't
it mought rain in er day er two."

The family in the sitting-room had
settled down, the door being closed be
tween that room and the parlor.

"There, mother, gi' Thaney ter me,"
said Mother Tyler. "I know ye're tired
holdin' of her, fer she ain't no light
weight," and she lifted the little one
away.

"Heigho, Thaney, air ye erwake yit?"
questioned the father.

"Erwake! Ya'as, V likely ter be,"
said the mother. "Thaney's one o' th'
setters-up, she is."

" Give 'er ter me, Malviny. Don't pap-
py's gal want er ride on pappy's foot?
See 'ere, now! Whoopee!" and placing
the plump little body astride his foot, the
leg of which crossed the other, and clasp-

In the Piny Woods 105

ing the baby hands in his, he tossed her
up and down till she crowed and laughed
in a perfect abandon of baby glee. A
smiling audience looked on in joyous
sympathy with the baby's pleasure, the
old gra'mammy murmuring softly, " It's
like feelin' the sunshine ter hear her
laugh!"

" There, pappy," said Mother Tyler,
anxiously, " that '11 do ; ye're goin' ter
git 'er so wide-erwake there'll be no doin'
er thing with 'er. Come, now, Thaney,
let mammy put ye down here on yer
quilt. Gome, come, I know ye've forgot
that ole bugger-man that stays up th'
chimbly 'n' ketches bad gals! There,
now, that's mammy's nice gal. Git 'er
playthings fer 'er, Susan Jane. Jim,
don't ye go ter sleep there in that door.
Ha' ye washed yer feet ?"

" No, 'm," came drowsily from the
doorway.

"Why upon th' yeth do ye wait every
blessed night ter be told ter wash yer
feet? Go straight 'n' wash 'em, 'n' then
go ter bed. Come, gals, knit ter th' mid
dle 'n' put up yer knittin'; it's time for
all little folks ter go ter sleep 'n' look
for ter-morrer. 'Pears like Thaney's
goin' ter look fer it with eyes wide open."

"Malviny, ye'll have ter toe up my

io6 Harper's Novelettes

knittin' fer me, Monday; I've got it down
ter th' narrerin', V I can't do no more,"
came softly from gra'mammy's corner.

"Ya'as, mother, I will; I could ha'
toed it up this evenin' es well es not, tho'
ef I had, ye'd ha' started ernuther, V
ye'd need ter rest; ye're allers knittin'."

" Ya'as, but, darter, it's all I kin do ; V
I'm so thankful I kin feel ter knit, fer
th' hardest work is ter set wi' folded
han's doin' nothin'."

"Well, mother, it's but sildom that I
ever knowed yer ter set with folded
han's," remarked her son, with proud
tenderness.

"Maybe, Jeems Henry; but I never
tuck no consait ter myself fer workin',
because I jest nachally loved it. Yer
PaPPy use ter say I was er born worker,
'n' how he did use ter praise me fer
bein' smart! V that was sich er help!
Somehow I've minded me of 'im all day
ter-day — of th' time when he logged
Whitcombe's mill down on Fallin' Crick.
'Twas — lemme see! Jeems Henry, ye're
how ole?"

"Fifty-two my las' birthday."

"Well, that was fifty-one year ergo.
You was all th' one I had then, ?n' yer
pappy was erway from home all th' week,
'cept from Sat'day evenin' tell 'fore day

In the Piny Woods 107

Monday mornin'. Melindy White staid
wi' me; she was Zekle's great-aunt, 'n'
er ole maid, 'n' people did say she was
monst'ous cross V crabbed, but she
warn't never cross ter me. I mind me
of er Sat'day, V I'd be spectin' of yer
pappy home. I'd git up at th' fust cock
crow, 'n' go wake Melindy, 'n' she'd
grumble 'n' laff all in er breath, 'n' say:
' Ann Elisabeth Tyler, ye're th' most on-
reasonablest creeter that I ever seed!
What in natur' do ye want ter git up
'fore day fer? Jest ter make th' time
that much longer 'fore Jim Tyler comes ?
I know ef I was married ter th' President
I wouldn't be es big er fool es ye air.'
But, la! she'd git up jest ter pleasure
me, V then sich cleanin' up, V sich
cookin' o' pies 'n' cakes '11' chickens, 'n'
gittin' ready fer yer pappy ter come!"
And the placid old face fairly glowed
with the remembrance. " 'ISP I mind
me," she crooned on, " of th? time when
ye fust begun ter talk; I was er whole
week er-teachin' yer ter say two words;
I didn't do much else. Melindy allowed
that I'd gone clean daft; 'n? when Sat'
day come, 'long erbout milkin'-time, I
put on er pink caliker frock. I 'member
it jest es well! it had little white specks
on the pink; he bought it at Miggs's

io8 Harper's Novelettes

Crossroads, 'n' said I allers looked like
er rose in it. I tuck ye in my arms 'n'
went down ter th' bars, where I allers
stood ter watch fer 'im ; he come in er
boat ter th' little landin' 'n' walked home,
erbout er mile; 'n" when I seed 'im corn-
in', 'n' he'd got nigh ernuff, I whispered
ter ye, '11' ye clapped yer little han's, 'n'
fairly shouted out, ' Pappy's tumin' ! pap
py's tumin'!' Dearie me, dearie me; I
kin see 'im now so plain! He broke
inter er run, 'n' I stepped over th' bars
ter meet 'im, 'n' he gethered us both in
his arms, like es ef he'd never turn loose ;
then he car'ied ye up to th' house on one
arm, the other one roun' my wais', 'n'
he made ye say it over 'n' over — ' Pappy's
tumin', pappy's tumin';' 'n' Melindy
'lowed we wer' ' th' biggest pair o' geese ' ;
but we was mighty happy geese jest th'
same."

There was a pause. They were all lis
tening. Then she went on. " Somehow
ter-day I felt like I use ter of er Sat'-
day then, kinder spectin' 'n; light-heart
ed. I dun'no' why; I ain't never felt so
befo' in all these years sence he died —
forty-one on 'em; 'n' fifteen sence th'
Lord shet down th' dark over my eyes,
day ?n' night erlike. Well, well; I've
had er heap ter be thankful fer ; th' Lord

In the Piny "Woods 109

has been good ter me; fer no mother
ever had er better son than ye've allers
ben, Jeems Henry; 'n' ef Malviny had er
ben my own darter, she couldn't er ben
more like one; IVe allers ben tuck keer
on, 'n' waited on, 'n' 'ain't never ben sat
erside fer no one. Ya'as, th' Lord's ben
good ter me." She began to fumble for
her handkerchief.

"But, mother, ye don't say nothin' o'
what er blessin' ye've ben to us," said her
son. "Ye've teached us many er lesson
by yer patience in yer blindness."

"Ya'as, but, Jeems Henry, I had no
call ter be nothin' else but patient ; I had
no call ter be onreasonable V fret 'n'
worry 'n' say that th' Lord had forsak-
ened me when He hadn't. I knowed I'd
only ter bide my time, 'n' I'm now near
seventy-two year old. Dear, dear, how
th' time goes ! Seems like only th' other
day when I was married ! Was that nine
the clock struck?"

"Ya'as, 'm."

"Well, I b'lieve I'll git ter bed."

"Wait, mother, let me help yer," said
her daughter, hastily throwing aside her
knitting.

" We'll both help ye, mother," said her
son, putting one arm gently around her
as she arose from her chair.

no Harper's Novelettes

"Well, well," she laughed, with soft
content. " I sh'll be well waited on with
two children ?stid er one; but none too
many — none too many."

Zekle White had made brave progress
from the chair by the door to the other
rocker, drawn closely beside that of Man-
dy Calline; and he was saying, in tones
that suggested an effort : " I've seed other
young ladies which may be better-lookin'
in other folkses' eyes, V they may be
more suiterbler ter marry, but not fer
me. Thar ain't but one gurl in this
roun' worl' that I'd ask ter be my wife,
V, Mandy Calline, I've ben keepin*
comp'ny wi' you long ernuff fer ye ter
know that ye air th' one." He swallowed,
and went on: "I've got my house nigh
erbout done. Ter be sho', 'tain't es fine
es this un, nor es big; but I kin add ter
it, V jest es soon es it is done I want ter
put my wife in it. Now, Mandy Calline,
what yer say — will yer be my wife?"

Mandy Calline looked shy — much like
a young colt when it is going to break
out of harness. She rocked back and
forth with short spasmodic jerks, and
twisted her handkerchief into all con
ceivable shapes.

" Yer don't know how sot on it I am,"
he went on; "V all day long I'm er-

In the Piny Woods ur

thinkin' how nice it '11 be when I'm er-
workin', ploughin' maybe, up one row 'n'
down ernuther, 'n' watchin' th' sun go
down, 'n' lookin' forerd ter goin' ter th'
house 'n' hev er nice little wife ter meet
ine, wi' everything- tidied up 'n' cheerful
'n' comf'ble." Mandy Calline simply
drooped her head lower, and twisted her
handkerchief tighter. "Mandy Calline,
don't yer say ' no/ " he said. " I love yer
too well ter give yer up easy; 'n' I swear
ef ye don't say ' yes/ I'll set fire V burn
up th' new house, fer no other 'oman
sha'n't never live there. I'm er-waitin',
Mandy Calline, V don't, don't tell me
no."

"Well, Zekle," she began, with much
hesitation, "bein* es how I don't see no
use in burnin' up er right new house, 'n'
it not even finished, I guess es how —
maybe — in erbout two or three years — "

"Two or three thunderations !" he
cried out, ecstatically, seizing both her
hands in his. "Yer mean two or three
weeks! Mandy Calline, do ye mean
ya'as, ye'll marry me? I want ter hear
ye say it."

"Ya'as, Zekle," she said, shyly.
^ "Whoopee! I feel like I'd like ter
jump up 'n' knock my heels tergether
Vyell!"

112 Harper's Novelettes

"Yer'd better try it er spell," she said,
smiling at him shyly, " 'n' jest see how
soon ye'd ha' th' hull fambly er-rushin'
in ter see what was the matter."

Hereupon came the ominous sound of
Father Tyler winding the clock in the
sitting-room; Zekle knew 'twas a signal
for him to depart.

"Well," slowly rising, "I guess I got
ter go, but I do mortally hate ter. Come
ter th' door wi' me, Mandy Calline";
and taking her hand, he drew her up be
side him, but she stood off a bit skittish
ly, and he knew that it would be useless
to ask the question which was trembling
on his lips, so, quick as a flash, he
dropped one arm around her waist, tipped
up her chin with the other hand, and
kissed her square on the mouth before
she fairly knew what he was about.

"You Zekle White!" she cried out,
snatching herself from his arm and be
stowing a rousing slap on his face.

"I knowed ye wouldn't give me one,
so I tuck it jest so. Good-night tell ter-
morrer, Mandy Calline; I'm goin' home
'n' dream erbout ye."

The next morning dawned bright and
soft. A perfect September morning.
Father Tyler and the boys were at the
lot feeding and milking. Mandy Calline

In the Pmy Woods 113

was cleaning up the house, her comely
face aglow with her new-found happi
ness. Susan Jane attended to the baby,
while Ann Elisabeth helped her mother
"get breakfast."

"Gra'mammy was sleepin' so nice
when I got up," said the girl, "that I
crep' out V didn't wake 'er. Had I
better go see ef she's erwake now, mar?
Breakfus is nigh erbout done."

^"Not yet. Go tell Mandy Calline ter
git th' milk-pitcher V go to the cow-pen
V fetch some milk fer breakfus. No
tellin' when they'll git thoo out there.
Then you hurry back V finish fryin' that
pan o' pertaters. No need ter 'sturb
gra'mammy till breakfus is ready ter put
on th' table; V yer pappy V th' boys '11
ha' ter wash when they come from th'
lot." And Mother Tyler opened the
stove door and put in a generous pan of
biscuits to bake.

Mandy Calline, with the milk-pitcher
in her hand, hurried out to the cow-pen,
which adjoined the stable lot. Her father
was milking, Jim holding the calves.
Zachariah was in the lot feeding the
horse and pigs. She had just stepped
over the bars into the pen, when who
should appear, sauntering up, but Zeke
White! He assumed a brave front, and

8 s. L.

ii4 Harper's Novelettes

with hands thrust in his pantaloons
pockets, came up, whistling- softly.

" Good-mornin', Zekle," greeted Father
Tyler, rising- from his stooping- position.

" Good - morning Mr. Tyler. Fine
mornin'."

"Ya'as; hut I'm erfeared we're goin'
ter hev rain in er day er two. I feel
ruther rheumaticky this mornin', er
mighty shore sign that rain ain't fur
off. Want milk fer breakfus, Mandy
Calline? Well, fetch here yer pitcher."

A shy " good-mornin' " had passed be
tween Mandy Calline and Zekle, and he
sauntered up beside her, taking the
pitcher, and as they stepped over the
bars Father Tyler, hospitably inclined,
said: "Take breakfus with us, Zekle?
I lay Malviny '11 hev ernuff cooked ter
give yer er bite."

With assumed hesitation Zekle ac
cepted the invitation, and he and Mandy
Calline passed on to the house, he care
fully carrying the pitcher of milk.

He cleared his throat a time or two,
and remarked again on the beauty of the
morning, to which she rather nervously
assented; then suddenly, the words seem
ingly shot out of him : " Mandy Calline,
I'm goin' ter ask th' ole folks ter-day.
What yer

In the Piny Woods 115

Mandy Calline was red as a turkey-
cock, to which was now added a nervous
confusion which bade fair to overwhelm
her.

" It's too soon, Zekle. Why n't yer wait
er while?" she replied, tremblingly.

" No, 'tain't too soon," he answered,
promptly. " I want it all done 'n' over
with, then I sh'll feel mo' like ye b'long
ter me. I'm goin' ter ask 'em ter-day;
yer needn't say not. I know you're er-
feared o' th' teasin'. But ye needn't min'
that; ye won't hev ter put up wi' it long;
fer th' way I mean ter work on that
house ter git it done — well, 'twon't be
long befo' it '11 be ready ter put my wife
in it."

"Well, Zekle," said the girl, hesita
tingly, "ef ye'd ruther ask 'em ter-day,
why — I guess es how — ye mought es well
do it. But let's go 'n' tell gra'mammy
now; somehow I'd ruther she knowed it
fust."

" We will," replied Zekle, promptly.

Mother Tyler was putting breakfast on
the table. She suddenly paused and lis
tened. Something was the matter. There
were cries that betokened trouble. She
hastened to the house, followed her hus
band and the boys on to gra'mammy's

n6 Harper's Novelettes

room, and there on the bed, in peaceful
contrast to all this wailing and sorrow,
lay dear old gra'mammy, dead. The hap
piest smile glorified the kind old withered
face, and the wrinkled hands lay crossed
and still on her breast. She had truly
met the husband of her youth, and God
had opened in death the eyes so darkened
in life.

My Fifth in Mammy

BY WILLIAM LUDWELL SHEPPARD

{NEVER knew a time in which I did
not know Mammy. She was simply
a part of my consciousness; it seems
to me now a more vivid one in my earli
est years than that of the existence of
my parents. We five, though instructed
by an elder sister in the rudiments of
learning1, spent many more of our waking-
hours with Mammy; and whilst we drew
knowledge from one source, we derived
the greater part of our pleasure from the
other — that is, outside of our playmates.
The moments just preceding bedtime,
in which we were undergoing the process
of disrobing at the hands of Mammy,
were periods of dreadful pleasure to us.
As I look back upon them, I wonder that
we got any sleep at all after some of her
recitals. They were not always san
guinary or ghostly, and of course when I
scan them in the light of later years, it is
apparent that Mammy, like the majority

n8 Harper's Novelettes

of people, "-without regard to color or
previous condition of servitude," suffered
her walk and conversation to be influ
enced by her state of health, mental and
bodily. Her walk — I am afraid I must
admit, as all biographers seem privileged
to deal with the frailties of their victims
as freely as with their virtues — her walk,
viewed through the medium already al
luded to, did not owe its occasional un
certainty to "very coarse veins," though
that malady, with a slight phonetic dif
ference, Mammy undoubtedly suffered
from, in common with the facts. She was
a great believer in " dram " as a reme
dial agent, and homoeopathic practice
was unknown with us at that period.

Mammy's code of laws for our moral
government was one of threats of being
" repoated to ole mahster," tempered by
tea of her own making dulcified by brown
sugar of fascinating sweetness, anecdote,
and autobiography.

The anecdotal part consisted almost
exclusively of the fascinating repertoire
of Uncle Remus. Indeed, to know the
charm of that chronicle is reserved to the
man or woman whose childhood dates
from the ante helium period, and who
had a Mammy.

In the autobiographical part Mammy

My Fifth in Mammy 119

spread us a chilling feast of horrors,
varied by the supernatural. Long years
after this period I read a protest in some
Southern paper against this practice in
the nursery, with its manifest conse
quences on the minds of children. It
set me to wondering how it was that the
consequences in my day seemed inappre
ciable. I do not understand it now.
Some of Mammy's stories would have
been bonanzas to a police reporter of to
day; others would have bred emulation
in Edgar Poe. And yet I do not recall
any subsequent terrors.

An account of the execution of some
pirates, which she had witnessed when a
"gal," was popular. She had a rhyme
which condensed the details. The con
demned were Spaniards:

Pepe hung, Qulo fell,

Felix died and went to

Mammy always gave the rhyme with
awful emphasis.

She had had an experience before com
ing into our family, by purchase, which
gave her easy precedence over all the
mammies of all our friends. To be sure,
it was an experience which the other
mammies, as "good membahs of de
chutch," regarded as unholy; one which

120 Harper's Novelettes

they congratulated themselves would
never lie on their consciences, and of
which poor Mammy was to die unshriven
in their minds; for she never became a
" sister," so far as I ever learned.

But to us this experience was fruitful
of many happy hours. Mammy had been
tire-woman to Mrs. Gilfert, the reigning
star of that date, at the old Marshall
Theatre — the successor to one burnt in
1811.

The habit of the stock companies in
those days was to remain the whole sea
son, sometimes two or more, so Mammy
had the opportunity to " assist " at the
entire repertoire. It is one of the regrets
of my life that I am not able to recall
verbatim Mammy's arguments of the
play, her descriptions of some of the
actors, and her comments.

For some reason, when later on I
wished to refresh my memory of these,
Mammy had either forgotten them or
suspected the intention of my asking.
She ranked her experiences at the theatre
along with her account of the adventures
of the immortal " Mollie Cottontail " (for
we did not know him as " Brer Rabbit "),
and the rest of her lore, I suppose, and
so could not realize that my maturer
mind would care for any of them.

My Fifth in Mammy 121

When I had subsequently made some
acquaintance with plays, or read them, I
recognized most of those described by
Mammy. Some remain unidentified.
Hamlet she preserved in name. Whilst
she had no quotations of the words, she
had a vivid recollection of the ghost
scenes, and "pisenin' de king's ear."
She also gave us scenes in which "one
uv them kings was hollerin' for his
korse »_plainly Richard. Julius Csesar
she easily kept in mind, as some ac
quaintance of her color bearing that
name was long extant. I can still con
jure up her tones and manner when she
declaimed:

" ( Dat you, Brutus ?' An' he done stick
him like de rest uv um; and him raised
in de Caesar f am'ly like he wuz a son !"

The ingratitude of the thing struck
through our night-gowns even then.

The period when Mammy's sway weak
ened was indeterminate. We boys after
a while swapped places with Mammy,
and made her the recipient of our small
pedantries. I do not recollect, however,
that we were ever cruel enough to throw
her ignorance up to her.

At last the grown-up sisters absorbed
all of Mammy's spare time. Sympathy
was kept up between them after her bond

122 Harper's Novelettes

with us was loosened, and they even took
hints from her in matters of the toilet
that were souvenirs of her stage days.

In the course of time reverses and be
reavements came to the family. The
girls had grown to womanhood and mat
rimony, and had begun their new lives
in other places. Then came the inevita
ble to the elders, and it became necessary
to convert all property into cash.

We were happy in being able to retain
a good many of our household gods, and
they are the Lares and Penates of our
several homes to this day. We had long
since ceased to think of Mammy Becky
— she was never Rebecca — as property.
In fact, we younger ones never thought
of her as such. By law we were each
entitled to a fifth in Mammy.

This came upon us in the nature of a
shock at a family consultation on ways
and means, and there was a disposition
on the part of every party to the owner
ship to shift that responsibility to an
other.

I must do ourselves the justice to say
that such a thing as converting Mammy
into cash, and thus making her divisible,
never for a moment entered our minds.
It seemed, however, that the difficulty had
occurred to her.

My Fifth in Mammy 123

We all felt so guilty, when Mammy
served tea that last evening, that we were
sure she read our thoughts in our coun
tenances. It would he nearer the truth
to say that it was rather our fears that
she should ever come to the knowledge
that the word "sale" had been coupled
with her name.

The next day we were to scatter, and
it was imperative that some disposition
should be made of Mammy. The old
lady — for old we deemed her, though she
could scarcely have been fifty — went
calmly about the house looking to the
packing of the thousand and one things,
and not only looking, but using her
tongue in language expressing utter con
tempt for all "lazy niggers" of these
degenerate days — referring to the tem
porary "help." The eldest sister was
deputed to approach and sound Mammy
on the momentous question.

The deputy went on her mission in
fear and trembling. The interview was
easily contrived in the adjoining room.

We were exceedingly embarrassed when
we discovered that Mammy's part of the
dialogue was perfectly audible. As for
the sister's, her voice could be barely
heard. So that the effect to the unwill
ing eavesdropper was that which we are

124 Harper's Novelettes

familiar with in these days of hearing a
conversation at the telephone.

"Don't you bother yo'self 'bout me,
Miss Frances."

Interval.

"No, marm. I'd ruther stay right
here in dis town whar ev'body knows me.
Doan yawl study 'bout me."

Several bars' rest, apparently.

"Yes'm, I know hit's yo' duty to look
after me, an' I belongs to all of you ; but
Ise concluded to let yawl off. You can't
divide me into five parts, an' they ain'
nah one uv you 'titled to any partickler
part if you could; most uv me ain't
much 'count nohow, what with very
coarse veins an' so fothe. Oh, yes'm!
I done study 'bout it plenty, an' I done
concluded that I'll let yawl off an' do
fur myself. You know I'm a prime cake-
maker, bread-maker, an' kin do a whole
pahcel uv other things besides; an' dress
young ladies for parties, whar I learnt at
the ole the-etter, which they built it after
the fust one burnt up and all dem people
whar dey got the Monnymental Chutch
over um now ; an' any kind of hair-dress-
in', curlin' wid irons or quince juice, an'
so fothe. No, don't you bother 'bout me."

So Mammy was installed in a small
house in a portion of the city occupied by

My Fifth in Mammy 125

a good many free people, and, as we sub
sequently ascertained, not bearing a very
savory reputation.

We had heard it rumored that there
were some suitors for Mammy's hand.
She had always avowed that she had
been a "likely gal," but we had to take
her word for this, as she had very slen
der claims to "likelihood" — if the word
suits hers — in our remembrance. She
was nearly a mulatto — very "light gin
gerbread," or " saddle-colored " — and a
widow of some years' standing. Still,
there was no accounting for tastes
amongst the colored folks, any more than
there was amongst the whites in this
matter. We surmised that some of the
aspirants suspected Mammy of having a
doi, the accumulation of many perqui
sites for her assistance on wedding oc
casions. It may be remarked that she
had no legal right to demand anything
for such services.

One of the sisters approached Mammy
timidly on this subject, and was assured
positively by her that " they ain't no nig
ger in the whole university whar I would
marry. ISTo, ma'm. I done got ?nough
of um."

We knew that Mammy's married life
had been a stormy one. Her husband,

126 Harper's Novelettes

Jerry, had been a skilful coach-painter,
and got good wages for his master, who
was liberal in the 'lowance that was made
by all generous owners to slaves of this
class. Jerry was a fervent " professor,"
who came home drunk nearly every
night, and never failed to throw up to
Mammy her dangerous spiritual condi
tion. Jerry was so vulnerable a subject
that Mammy was prepared to score some
strong points against him. He invaria
bly met these retorts with roars of laugh
ter and loud assertions of his being " in
grace once for all."

Left the sole representative of my
family in the city, I had to start a new
establishment, just as Mammy did.

I made a visit to hers a few days after
our separation, and came away with my
heart in my mouth at the sight of some
of the familiar objects of Mammy's room,
and such of our own as she had fallen
heir to, in strange places and appositions.
I also felt that Mammy's room had a
more homelike aspect than my own.

There was no doubt that Mammy en
joyed her new conditions and surround
ings. She had been provided with a pa
per signed by some of us, stating that
it was with our permission that she lived

My Fifth in Mammy 127

to herself. This secured her free move
ment at all times — the privilege of very
few of her race not legally manumitted.

Her visits to me were quite frequent,
and she never failed to find something
that needed putting to rights, and put
ting it so immediately, with fierce com
ments on the worthlessness of all " high
lands," which was negroce for hirelings
— a class held in contempt by the ser
vants owned in families.

I think that Mammy must have dis
covered the fact that my estate was some
what deteriorated.

I was painfully conscious of this my
self, and saw no prospect of its ameliora
tion. The little cash that had come to
me was quite dissipated, and my mea
gre salary was insufficient to satisfy my
artificial wants — the only ones that a
young man cannot dispense with and be
happy.

In spite of the opinion prevailing in
those days, that when a young man em
braced the career of an artist it was a
farewell to all hope of a sober and pros
perous career, my father had been will
ing for me to follow my manifest bent,
and I was to sacrifice a university career
as the alternative. But the last enemy
stepped between me and my hopes, and

128 Harper's Novelettes

there was nothing for it but to go to
work.

I had an ardent admirer in Mammy,
who, in her innocence of a proper stand
ard, frequently compared my productions
to a " music back " or a tobacco label.
That was before the days of chromos.

Mammy turned up Sunday mornings
to look after my buttons. Those were
days of fond reminiscence and poignant
regret on my part.

" Seems to me hit's time for you to be
getting some new shirts, Mahs William/'
she said, one Sunday morning. Mammy
touched me sorely there. A crisis was
certainly impending in my lingerie.

" Oh, I reckon not. You must have
got hold of a bad one, Mammy."

" I got hole uv all uv um what is out
uv wash; and them gwine. The buttons
is shackledy on all uv um, too. I wish I
wuz a washer; then you wouldn't have
to give yo' clothes out to these triflin'
huzzies whar rams a iron over yo' things
like they wuz made uv iron too."

" I suppose that you are getting along
pretty well, Mammy," I remarked, irrele
vantly.

" Oh, I kain' complain. I made two
dollars an' five an' threppence out'n the
Scott party last week; an' I hear tell uv

My Fifth in Mammy 129

some new folks on Eranklin Street gwine
give a big party, an' I'm spectin' some-
thin' out uv dat. Lawdy, Lawdy, Mahs
William," she added, after a pause given
to reflection, " hit certainly does 'muse
me to see how some 'r dese people done
come up. But they kain' fool me. I
knows what's quality in town an' what
ain't. I can reckermember perfick when
some uv these vay folks, when dey come
to your pa's front do', never expected to
be asked in, but jess wait thar 'bout their
business ontwell yo' pa got ready to talk
to um at the do'. Yes, sah. I bin see
some uv dese vay people's daddies " —
Mammy used this word advisedly —
"kayin' their vittles in a tin bucket to
their work; that what I bin see."

I was shaving during this monologue
of Mammy's, with my back to her. A
sudden exclamation of the name of the
Lord made me start around and endan
ger my nose. I was not startled at the
irreverence of the expression, however,
as sacred names were familiar interjec
tions of Mammy's, as of all her race.

" Ev'y button ofFn these draw's," Mam
my answered to my alarmed question —
alarmed because I anticipated some dis
aster to my wardrobe. " Hit's a mortal
shame. I'll take 'em home, an' Monday

o S.L.

130 Harper's Novelettes

I'll get some buttons on Broad Street an'
sew um on."

This was embarrassing. I had twelve
and a half cents in Spanish silver coin
which I had reserved for the plate at
church that day. I was going under cir
cumstances that rendered a contribution
unavoidable. I hated to expose my nar
row means to Mammy, and said, care
lessly, as I returned to my lather : " Oh,
never mind. Another time will do,
Mammy."

" Another time ! You reckermember
my old sayin', don't you, ' a stitch in time
saves nine'? An' mo'n dat, bein' as this
is the only clean pah you got, you 'bleest
to have um next week fer de others to
go to wash."

• Confession was inevitable. " The fact
is, Mammy, I don't happen to have any
change to-day that I can hand you for
the buttons." I was thankful that my
occupation permitted me to keep my face
from Mammy.

"Oh, ez fer that, Mahs William, yo'
needn't bother. I got 'nough change
'round 'most all de time."

Mammy's tone was patronizing, and
brought home to me such a realization of
my changed and waning fortunes as no
other circumstance could have done. Pos-

My Fifth in Mammy 131

sibly I may have imagined it in my hy-
persensitiveness, but Mammy's voice in
that sentence seemed transformed, and it
was another mammy who spoke.

I apparently reserved my protest until
some intricate passage in my shaving
was passed. At least I thought that
Mammy would think so. I was really
trying to put my reply in shape.

I was anticipated.

" You know you is really 'titled to yo'
fif's by law, Mahs William," resumed
Mammy, in her natural manner, "be
cause still bein' bond, you could call on
me, an' I don't begrudge you; in fact,
Ise beholden to you."

"Not at all, Mammy. Don't talk any
more about my fifth. You are as good
as free, you know."

"I knows that, Mahs William; but
right is right, and I gwine to pay for
them buttons."

" Well, you may do that this time,
Mammy, but I shall certainly return you
the money."

" Jess as you choose, Mahs William,
but you's 'titled to yo' fif all the same."

I must note here a characteristic of
Mammy's which had strengthened as her
powers failed, namely, "nearness." The
euphemism applied at first, though Mam-

132 Harper's Novelettes

my yielded to temptations in the way of
outfit as long as she deemed herself
"likely." After that period a stronger
expression was required. She was al
ways in possession of money, and was
frequently our banker for a day, when,
in emergencies, our parents were not on
hand.

Monday I found my garment with its
full complement of buttons, but of such
diversity of pattern that I planned a pro
test for Mammy's next visit.

But when she explained that the bill
was only fo'pence — six and a quarter
cents, Spanish — and that it was the
fashion now, so she was told, " to have
they buttons diffunt, so they could den-
trify they clothes," I settled without re
mark. Mammy's financial skill and re
source in imagination condoned every
thing.

It is painful to record that Mammy,
encouraged by immunity from inquiry
and investigation, no doubt, was tempt
ed, as thousands of her betters have been
and will be, and yielded under subse
quent and similar circumstances.

My affairs took an unexpected turn
now, and circumstances which have no
place here made it possible for me to go
to New York, with the intention of study-

My Fifth in Mammy 133

ing for my long-cherished purpose of
making art my calling.

I heard from Mammy from time to
time — occasionally got a letter dictated
by her. They opened with the same for
mula, beginning with the fiction that she
" took her pen in her hand," and contin
uing, "these few lines leaves me toller-
bul, and hoping to find you the same."
My friend, the amanuensis, took great
pleasure in reporting Mammy verbatim
and phonetically. The times were always
hard for Mammy in these letters, but
she "was scufflin' 'long, thank Gawd, an'
ain't don' forgot my duty to the 'state
'bout them fif's."

On my periodical visits home I always
called upon her, and had a royal recep
tion. I had casually said in a message
to her in one of my letters that I never
would forget her black tea and brown
sugar. The old dame remembered this,
and on my first visit home and to her,
and on all* succeeding visits, treated me
to a brew of my favorite.

" Jess the same, Mahs William. Come
from Mr. Blar's jess the same."

But we become sophisticated in time.
I found that Mammy's tea lingered in
my memory, it is true; and the prospect
of a recurrence very nearly operated

134 Harper's Novelettes

against future visits. But virtue assert
ed herself, and I always went.

War now supervened. To it the
brushes and the palette yielded. I re
turned home, and to arms. While all
this made a complete revolution in my
affairs, those of Mammy seemed to hold
the even tenor of their way.

I saw Mammy every time I had a fur
lough, and she repaired for me damages
of long standing. In sentiment she was
immovably on my side. She objected
decidedly to any more of " them no-
'count men bein' sot free," and was very
doubtful whether any more of her own
sex should be so favored, except " settled
women."

I do not know whether Mammy had a
lurking suspicion that general manumis
sion meant competition or not. So far
as I could make out, she fared as she had
long elected to do. Bacon and greens
and her perennial tea were good enough
for her. And here may be noted the
average negro's indifference to caste. In
my experience I never knew them to give
up "strong food" for delicate fare ex
cept on prescription.

The next phase of my intercourse with
Mammy was after the evacuation of the
city and the event of Appomattox. The

My Fifth in Mammy 135

first incident was, with the negroes' usual
talent that way, so transmogrified in pro
nunciation that it could mean nothing
to them. It stood to them for a tremen
dous change, one which could not be con
densed into a word, even though it ex
ceeded their powers to pronounce it.

I had come back, as had thousands of
others, with nothing in my hands, and
only a few days' rations accorded by the
enemy in my haversack; had come back
to a mass of smoking debris and a wide
area of ruin which opened unrecognized
vistas that puzzled, dazed, and pained
the home-seeker.

By instinct, I suppose, I drifted
towards my ante helium quarters. My
former landlord gave me a speechless
welcome. To my inquiry as to the pos
sibility of my reinhabiting my old
quarters, he simply nodded and handed
me the key. The tears that I had seen
standing on his lids rolled down as he
did so.

The room was cumbered with the chat
tels of the last tenant. There was no bed
amongst them, but a roll of tattered car
pet served me perfectly. I fell asleep
over a slab of hardtack. That evening,
on waking, I bethought me of Mammy.

My kind host allowed me to make a

136 Harper's Novelettes

toilet in his back room behind the store.
It consisted of a superficial ablution and
the loan of a handkerchief. Mammy was
not in. A neighbor of her sex and color
offered me a chair in her house, but I sat
in Mammy's tiny porch.

This part of the city was unchanged,
but I missed a familiar steeple which
had always been visible from Mammy's
door.

It was late afternoon when Mammy
came. She did not recognize me, but
paused at the gate.

"Ef you's a sick soldier you must go
to the hospital; you kain' stay here," I
heard her say before I roused myself
sufficiently to speak.

" Mammy."

An ejaculation of the name of th
Lord that brought the neighbor to her
door went up, and Mammy caught my
hands and wept.

"Come in, my Gawd! Mahs William!
you ain' hurted, is you?"

She pushed a chair to me and took one
herself. For a few moments she con
fined herself to ejaculations of "Well!
well! well!" and the name of the Deity.
Then, " The town is bu'nt up ; the army
done 'rendered, an' Mahs William come
back ragged ez a buzzard!"

My Fifth in Mammy 137

I did not interrupt her. I could think
of nothing to say, and began to be afraid
that something was the matter with my
brains. Meanwhile Mammy was bustling
about, and before I knew it she had start
ed the little fire into a blaze and the tea
was boiling.

The flickering light glinted over the
walls. At first I did not heed what it
revealed; then I saw it glow and fade
over some early efforts of my own, frame-
less crudities, to which Mammy had fall
en heir. They had become old masters!
What centuries ranged themselves be
tween the birth of those pictures and
now!

This time tea was nectar, and after I
had eaten a little cold middling bacon
and hoe-cake, that she had put before
me on a fractured member of our old
Canton set, I took a more cheerful view
of life. I believe that I would have shed
tears over these poor relics from happier
days, except that I was not quite con
scious that anything was real that day.
I told Mammy where I was. She seemed
to think it perfectly in the nature of
things that I should be there. Indeed,
she appeared singularly calm in this
cataclysm.

I encountered friends on my return to

138 Harper's Novelettes

my quarters, and had invitations innu
merable to meals and shelter. My cos
tume was no drawback. Nobody knew
how anybody was dressed.

The city was in a fever of excitement
over the probable fate of those who had
not yet returned, and in making- provi
sion for the homeless. Mammy turned
up next morning- with some of my civil
ian clothes that had been confided to her.

Mammy's simple " What you gwine
do now, Mahs William?" thrown in
whilst she assisted by her presence at
my complete change of toilet — lapse of
time was nothing- to her — woke me to
the momentous problem. There was no
commissary sergeant to distribute even
the meagre rations that so long left us
ravenous after every meal. I could not
camp in the Capitol Square, even if I
had wished so to do.

Mammy left me with the injunction
to call on her " ef I didn't have nowhar
else to go."

I went with unbroken fast to see what
was left of the city. I met many ac
quaintances on the same errand. Nono
of us seemed to realize that day what
was to be done. For four years our
campaigns had been planned for us.

I learned from one acquaintance, how-

My Fifth in Mammy 139

ever, that I could have rations for the
asking, and not long after found myself
in line at the United States Commissary
Department, along with hundreds of
others, and departed thence hearing a
goodly portion of hardtack and codfish.
These I took to Mammy, who cooked the
fish for me under loud protests against
the smell.

Not long thereafter a number of us
paroled soldiers made a mess, and cooked
for ourselves at the room of one of them.

On one of these indeterminate days — •
dates had become nothing to me — I saw
a dapper young man sketching about the
ruins. I spoke to him, and mentioned
that his had been my profession. This
acquaintance was the beginning of hope.

I showed the young man places of in
terest, gave him points about a good
many things, and at last fell to making
sketches to help him out. They were
perfectly satisfactory and liberally paid
for. With this capital I set myself up in
another place, whicfr had a north light —
by-the-way, I had been dispossessed of
the asylum where I first found shelter,
as the previous tenant returned. I was
able to purchase material and apparel.
But what was I to paint, and where to
sell the product? My hand was out, I

14° Harper's Novelettes

discovered, so I set to studying still life,
and painting those of my friends who
had the patience to sit.

I would have gone back to my old
haunts in New York but for the material
reason that my funds were too low, and
the sentimental one that I not only was
not in the humor for appealing to citi
zens of that section for patronage, but
was not sure that it would not be with
held, from an analogous state of mind
towards me.

Summer ran into fall. Mammy's visits
increased in frequency, and her conver
sation drifted towards the difficulties of
living.

I had long ago discharged all of her
claims for material and repairs, but I
noticed a tendency on her part to prepare
my mind for a regular subsidy. I ig
nored these hints because it was impos
sible for me to carry out Mammy's plan,
and painful for me to say so.

She approached the matter in a differ
ent way finally, and said, one day :

" Mahs William, you been cayin' on
yo' fif for some time now. Doan you
think it's time for some of the yothers
to look after them?"

I suggested that the whole family was
about on a parity financially; that one

My Fifth in Mammy 141

brother was drifting in the trans-Missis
sippi, another living more precariously
than I was. Suddenly a thought struck
me, and I proposed that Mammy should
apply to my married sister in the coun
try, who could at least give her a home.

Mammy was very nearly indignant in
her rejection of the proposition.

" Me live in de country ! Why, Mahs
William, I'm town-bred to de backbone.
What I gwine do thar? Whar's anybody
whar'll want my sponge-cake, jelly, and
blue-monge, whar I can git ez much ez I
wants to do in town ? Who gwine want
my clar-starchin' an' pickle-makin' an'
ketchups? Dem tacky people doan want
none of my makin's."

I ventured to remind Mammy that all
dwellers in the country were not tackies.

" I know dat, sah ; but whole parcel of
um is. Besides, heap uv de quality folks
is poor an' in trouble sence the revacker-
ation. I'd rather give up my other fif's
fust."

Of course Mammy's propositions were
contradictory, but I had long known that
she was not gifted with a logical mind,
so I made no attempt to convict her of
inconsistency.

From time to time I got small jobs of
drawings for architects, as people had be-

142 Harper's Novelettes

gun to bestir themselves and rebuild. I
had been assured that I would find no
prejudice against me in New York, but
would stand on my own merits. I was
not profoundly convinced that this was
a safe risk for me to take. But living
here was becoming impossible. Our own
people were out of the question as pur
chasers of pictures. My still-lifes, from
long exposure in the window of a friend
ly merchant in Broad Street, were be
coming the camping-ground of the flics,
and deteriorating rapidly. I was not
strong in landscape, and the only sub
jects which suggested themselves were
military, taken from my point of view
politically, and not likely to be converti
ble into cash by persons of other convic
tions.

I was leaning against my ceiling one
gray afternoon — at least I suppose it
should be called ceiling, for it ran from
the highest part of the chamber on an
angle to the floor, and was pierced by a
dormer — and contemplating a bunch of
withered flowers which I had studied
almost into dissolution, when Mammy
knocked.

I had laid my palette on the floor, and
was standing with my hands in my
pockets. They fumbled, on one side with

My Fifth in Mammy 143

my bunch of keys, on the other with a
small roll of small bills, the dreadful
fractional currency of that era, whilst,
in imagination, I projected my motive
on the bare canvas, a twenty by twenty-
four. I was sorry that Mammy had come,
because a subject was beginning to take
form in my mind. It was suggested by
the withered flowers.

I thought that it would be a good idea
to group them with a bundle of letters,
some showing age, the top one with a
recent postmark, and call the composi
tion "Dead Hopes." My thoughts were
divided between the selection of a post
mark for the top letter and the possibil
ity of getting a frame, whilst Mammy
was going through the process of finding
a chair and seating herself. The invita
tion to come in implied the other cour
tesies.

The old lady was marvellously attired,
and I wondered what could be the occa
sion of it. She had on a plaid shawl of
purple, green, and red checkers, crossed
on her bosom. Around her throat there
was a lace collar of some common sort,
held by a breastpin of enormous value
if calculated by the square inch. She
wore her usual turban of red and white,
but on the top of it to-day was a straw

144 Harper's Novelettes

bonnet of about the fashion of 1835,
with flowers inside, and from it depend
ed a green veil. Her frock was silk of
an indescribable tint, the result of years
of fading, and was flounced. The old
lady had freed herself of her black cot
ton gloves, and was rolling them into a
ball. I sighe-d inwardly, for this was the
outward sign of undeterminable sitting.

Suddenly the self - arranged color
scheme struck me as the cool light fell
over Mammy. I seated myself and
seized my palette.

" Sit still, Mammy, right where you
are. I'm going to paint you."

"Namer Gawd! paint me, Mahs Wil
liam? After all dem pretty things whar
you kin paint, paint yo' old Mammy?"
She slapped herself on the knees, called
the name of the Lord several times, and
burst into the heartiest laugh that I had
heard from her for some time.

"Yes, Mammy, just sit right still, and
don't talk much, and I won't make you
tired."

I worked frantically, getting in the
drawing as surely as I could, then at
tacked the face in color. The result was
a success that astonished me. Mammy's
evident fatigue stopped me. It was for
tunate. I might have painted more and

My Fifth in Mammy 145

spoiled my study. I thought that she
would go now, but her mission was not
fulfilled. She had come to consult me
on an important matter.

"You know this Freedman's Bureau,
Mahs William? Well, they tells me—
Lawd knows what they calls it bureau
for! — they tells me that ef a colored
pusson goes down thar and gives in what
he wuz worth — women either, mind you
— that the guv'mint would pay um."

Mammy paused for corroboration, but
I determined to hear what she might add
to this remarkable statement. "Well?"
"Well, sah, I didn't want to go down
thar without no price, so I called in to
arst you what you might consider yo' fif>
worth, an' five times ovah."

I did not laugh at Mammy. The eman
cipated negroes had such utterly wild
notions of what was going to be done
for them that Mammy's statement did
not surprise me very much. I let her
go with the assurance that I would in
quire into the matter. She left enjoin
ing me not to put that " fif ' too cheap/'
and I insisting that she should not go to
the Bureau, in deference to whose officials
her astonishing toilet had evidently been
made.
I was so much pleased with my own

10 S. L.

146 Harper's Novelettes

work that it was nearly twilight before
the knock of a familiar friend roused me.
He was a clever amateur, and took the
greatest interest in my work. His en
thusiasm over Mammy's effigy made me
glow. He agreed to pose for me in
Mammy's costume.

Next day I borrowed the outfit without
intimating that, it was to be worn by any
body. Mammy was over-nervous about
its being properly cared for. I think
that she still contemplated appearing in
it at the Bureau.

In a week the picture was complete.
My model and I went out and celebrated
appropriately but frugally.

A small label in the corner gave the
title to the picture — " My old Mammy."

My friend gave my work a place in hia
window, and my acquaintances generally
accorded unqualified praise. The older
ones recognized Mammy at once.

Pending a purchaser for this, I started
my deferred subject, and changed it into
a figure piece. A lovely friend was my
model. She contemplated the flowers
and letters. Above the old piece of fur
niture on which she leaned there hung
a photograph, a sword, and a sash — a
more striking suggestion of my first title,
"Dead Hopes." How little I dreamed,

My Fifth in Mammy 147

as I worked, that there was such happy
irony in the name, and that Mammy
could ever, in the remotest way, conduce
to such a result !

Nearly every morning I hovered about
my friend's establishment at a sufficient
distance'to elude suspicion of my anxiety,
but easily in visual range of my ex
hibit.

One morning it was not visible. I
rushed to the store with a throbbing
breast. Alas! the picture had only been
shifted to another light. Before the re
vulsion of feeling had time to overpower
me I was seized by my friend the mer
chant.

" It's a regular play," he exclaimed.

He forced me to a seat on a pile of
cheese-boxes, and facing me, began:

"Yesterday, the old lady," pointing to
the picture, " came in. She took no no
tice of her portrait, but said that she had
failed to find you; that she was anxious
to hear what you had done about the Bu
reau business." (I had forgotten it ut
terly.) " Well, I could tell her nothing,
and she started to go out just as a group
opened the door to come in. Mammy
made one of her courtly bows, and gave
place. The young lady who was one
of the three coming in, the others evi-

148 Harper's Novelettes

dently her parents, said, in a loud whis
per, 'Why, it's she!' Mammy, who
either did not hear or did not under
stand, was about to pass out, when the
young lady accosted her with, ' I beg
your pardon, but isn't that your por
trait?'

" ' I grant you grace, young mistiss, but
sence I looks, hit is. Hit wuz did by my
young mahster, which he can do all
kinds of pictures lovely.'

" l Your young master ?' the young lady
said — sweet voice, too; dev'lish handsome
girl — 'your young master?' Then she
said aside to the others, l Isn't it charm
ingly interesting?'

"'Yes, 'm, I call him so. But really
I'm only his'n a fif V

"fllis fif?' the young lady said, look
ing puzzled. I stepped up to them to ex
plain, just for politeness, though I was
sure that they weren't customers. ' She
means that he owned a fifth interest in
her previous to — the recent change in
affairs/

" ' That's hit/ said Mammy, nodding
to them. 'But I don't expect to hear
from the other fif 's. It don't make much
diffunce, howsomever, bein' ez how the
Bureau is gwine settle up.'

"The visitors evidently did not under-

My Fifth In Mammy 149

stand this. I explained what Mammy
was after — you had told me, you know.
They were very much amused, and asked
a heap of questions. After a little talk
between themselves, in which I could not
help seeing that the young lady was very
earnest, the gentleman asked :

"'Is the work for sale?' Was it for
sale!"

My friend nearly prostrated me with a
hearty punch hy way of expressing his
feelings, whilst I was choking for an an
swer.

" Well, sir, I gave him the figger. He
bought so quick that it made me sick I
hadn't asked more. Looker here I"

He displayed two new greenbacks
which covered the amount. We em
braced.

At last Mammy had become a source
of revenue. I must, in justice to myself,
record the fact that a resolve immediately
took form in my mind that she also
should be a beneficiary of my good for
tune.

My friend wanted me to take the pic
ture down myself. I told him that it was
not ethical to do so. The precious bur
den was confided to his porter. When
we returned to his store we found the
gentleman there who had made the

ISO Harper's Novelettes

purchase. I was duly presented by my
friend.

The gentleman said that he had not
noticed my name on the picture particu
larly, nor on the receipt given hy the mer
chant for the money, which gave the title
and painter of the work, until he had
gotten back to the hotel, when his wife
recognized it and remembered having
been in my studio — a fine name for a
small concern — in New York, and that
we had many friends in common there.

The upshot of the matter was that the
gentleman gave me an invitation to call
at the Spottswood. I went the next day.

They were immensely amused and in
terested with any particulars about her.
The father — the names are immaterial,
the young lady's was Elaine — asked me
jocularly at what sum I estimated my
fifth in Mammy. I had previously con
vinced him that we never had the re
motest idea of parting with the old lady.
Consequently we had never estimated her
value, but that I thought my fifth at the
time of the settling of the estate would
have been about one hundred dollars.
After I had made several visits, the three
came to see my other picture.

The day after their departure Mammy
called. She was in fine spirits over a

My Fifth in Mammy 151

visit that she had made to my new
friends, at their earnest request. All the
time that she was speaking she was work
ing at a knot in the corner of her hand
kerchief. I knew that she kept her small
valuables there, but was thunderstruck
when she extracted two fifty-dollar bills.

" Why, Mammy ! Where—"

"Dat's all right, honey. The Bureau
gent'man fix it all, jess like I tole you.
He said dat he done 'nquired, an' yo' fif
was wuth dat — two fifties, one hundred —
an' I let him off de res'."

" But what gentleman 1"

" Dat gent'man whar was at de Spotts-
wood Hotel. He tole me he wuz agent
for de Bureau. An' I tell you, Mahs
William, dey's quality, dem folks. You
kain' fool Becky."

Of course I did not enlighten Mammy.
What would have been the use ?

Not many days thereafter I got a re
quest to ship my "Dead Hopes," at my
price, to the address of a frame-maker
in New York. Elaine's father said that
he had a purchaser for it. I discovered
later that he was a master of pleasant fic
tion.

When I wondered, long after, to him
that he should have bought a Confederate
picture, he convinced me that my picture

152 Harper's Novelettes

had nothing Confederate in it; that he
had inferred that 1 had painted it in a
catholic spirit. The lady was in mourn
ing, the flowers faded, the letters too
small for postmark, the picture on the
wall a colorless photograph, and the
sword a regulation pattern common to
both armies. He thought it very skil
fully planned, and complimented me on
it. I was silent. All the Confederate
part and point had been in my mind.

About a year after this — I had been lo
cated in New York some months — Elaine
and I came on a visit to Richmond. I
might just as well say that it was our
bridal trip.

We looked up Mammy in her comfort
able quarters. She had been well pro
vided for. There was some little confu
sion in her mind at first as to who Elaine
was, but on being made to understand,
called down fervent blessings upon her
head.

" Now the old lady kin go happy. I
always said that I had nussed Mahs Wil
liam, an' ef I jess could live long 'nuff
to—

Elaine cut in rather abruptly, I thought.

" Why, Mammy, what a beautiful vine
you have on your stoop!"

" What's stoop, honey? Dat's a poach."

My Fifth in Mammy 153

Mammy lived some years longer, aging
comfortably, and unvexed by any ques
tion of fractions. She died a serene in
teger, with such comfortable assurance of
just valuation as is denied most of us,
and contented that it should be expressed
in terms that were, to her, the only sure
criterion applicable to her race.

An Incident

BY SARAH BARNWELL ELLIOTT

IT was an ordinary frame house stand
ing on brick legs, and situated on a
barren knoll, which, because of the
dead level of marsh and swamp and de
serted fields from which it rose, seemed
to achieve the loneliness of a real height.
The south and west sides of the house
looked out on marsh and swamp; the
north and east sides on a wide stretch of
old fields grown up in broom-grass. Be
yond the marsh rolled a river, now quite
beyond its banks with a freshet; beyond
the swamp, which was a cypress swamp,
rose a railway embankment leading to a
bridge that crossed the river. On the
other two sides the old fields ended in a
solid black wall of pine-barren. A road
way led from the house through the
broom-grass to the barren, and at the
beginning of this road stood an out
house, also on brick legs, which, save for
a small stable, was the sole out-building.

An Incident 155

One end of this house was a kitchen, the
other was divided into two rooms for
servants. There were some shattered rem
nants of oak-trees out in the field, and
some chimneys overgrown with vines,
showing- where in happier times the real
homestead had stood.

It was toward the end of February; a
clear afternoon drawing toward sunset;
and all the flat, sad country was covered
with a drifting red glow that turned the
field of broom-grass into a sea of gold;
that lighted up the black wall of pine-
barren, and shot, here and there, long
shafts of light into the sombre depths of
the cypress swamp. There was no sign
of life about the dwelling-house, though
the doors and windows stood open; but
every now and then a negro woman came
out of the kitchen and looked about, while
within a dog whined.

Shading her eyes with her hand, this
woman would gaze across the field tow
ard the ruin; then down the road; then,
descending the steps, she would walk a
little way toward the swamp and look
along the dam that, ending the yard on
this side, led out between the marsh and
the swamp to the river. The over-full
river had backed up into the yard, how
ever, and the line of the dam could now

156 Harper's Novelettes

only be guessed at by the wall of solemn
cypress-trees that edged the swamp. Still,
the woman looked in this direction many
times and also toward the railway em
bankment, from which a path led toward
the house, crossing the heap of the swamp
by a bridge made of two felled trees.

But look as she would, she evidently
did not find what she sought, and mut
tering "Lawd! Lawd!" she returned to
the kitchen, shook the tied dog into si
lence, and seating herself near the fire,
gazed sombrely into its depths. A cov
ered pot hung from the crane over the
blaze, making a thick bubbling noise, as
if what it contained had boiled itself al
most dry, and a coffee-pot on the hearth
gave forth a pleasant smell. The woman
from time to time turned the spit of a
tin kitchen wherein a fowl was roasting,
and moved about the coals on the top of
a Dutch oven at one side. She had made
preparation for a comfortable supper, and
evidently for others than herself.

She went again to the open door and
looked about, the dog springing up and
following to the end of his cord. The
sun was nearer the horizon now, and the
red glow was brighter. She looked tow
ard the ruin; looked along the road;
came down the steps and looked toward

An Incident 157

the swamp and the railway path. This
time she took a few steps in the direction
of the house; looked up at its open win
dows, at the front door standing ajar, at a
pair of gloves and a branch from the vine
at the ruin, that lay on the top step of
the piazza, as if in passing one had put
them there, intending to return in a mo
ment. While she looked the distant
whistle of a locomotive was heard echo
ing back and forth about the empty land,
and the rumble of an approaching train.
She turned a little to listen, then went
hurriedly back to the kitchen.

The rumbling sound increased, al
though the speed was lessened as the
river was neared. Very slowly the train
was moving, and the woman, peeping
from the window, watched a gentleman
get off and begin the descent of the path.

"Mass Johnnie!" she said. "Lawd!
Lawd!" and again seated herself by the
fire until the rapid, firm footstep having
passed, she went to the door, and stand
ing well in the shadow, watched.

Up the steps the gentleman ran, paus
ing to pick up the gloves and the bit of
vine. The negro groaned. Then in the
open door, "Nellie!" he called, "Nel
lie!"

The woman heard the call, and going

158 Harper's Novelettes

back quickly to her seat by the fire, threw
her apron over her head.

"Abram!" was the next call; then,
"Aggie!"

She sat quite still, and the master, run
ning up the kitchen steps and coming in
at the door, found her so.

"Aggie!"

" Yes, suh."

" Why didn't you answer me ?"

The veiled figure rocked a little from
side to side.

"What the mischief is the matter?"
walking up to the woman and pulling
the apron from over her face. "Where
is your Miss Nellie?"

"I dun'no', suh; but yo' supper is
ready, Mass Johnnie."

" Has your mistress driven anywhere ?"

" De horse is in de stable, suh." ^ The
woman now rose as if to meet a climax,
but her eyes were still on the fire.

"Did she go out walking?"

" Dis mawiiin', suh."

"This morning!" he repeated, slowly,
wonderingly, "and has not come back
yet?"

The woman began to tremble, and her
eyes, shining and terrified, glanced fur
tively at her master.

"Where is Abram?"

An Incident 159

"I dun'no', suh!" It was a gasping
whisper.

The master gripped her shoulder, and
with a maddened roar he cried her name
—"Aggie!"

The woman sank down. Perhaps his
grasp forced her down. " To' Gawd!"
she cried— "'fo' Gawd, Mass Johnnie, I
dun'no'!" holding up beseeching hands
between herself and the awful glare of
his eyes. " I'll tell you, suh, Mass John
nie, I'll tell you!" crouching away from
him. " Miss Nellie gimme out dinner en
supper, den she put on she hat en gone
to de ole chimbly en git some de brier
what grow dey. Den she come back en
tell Abram fuh git a bresh broom en
sweep de ya'd. Lemme go, Mass John
nie, please, suh, en I tell you better, suh.
En Abram teck de hatchet en gone
to'des de railroad fuh cut de bresh. To'
Gawd, Mass Johnnie, it's de trute, suh I
Den I tell Miss Nellie say de chicken is
all git out de coop, en she say I muss
ketch one fuh unner supper, suh; en I
teck de dawg en gone in de fie? fuh look
fuh de chicken. En I see Miss Nellie
put 'e glub en de brier on de step, en
walk to'des de swamp, like 'e was goin'
on de dam — 'kase de water ent rise ober
de dam den — en den I gone in de broom-

160 Harper's Novelettes

grass en I run de chicken, en I ent ketch
one tay I git clean ober to de woods.
En when I come back de glub is layiii'
on de step, en de brier, des like Miss
Nellie leff urn — " She stopped, and her
master straightened himself.

"Well," he said, and his voice was
strained and weak.

The servant once more flung her apron
over her head, and broke into violent
crying. "Dat's all, Mass Johnnie! dat's
all! I dun'no' wey Abram is gone; I
dun'no' what Abram is do! Nobody ent
been on de place dis day — dis day but
me — but me! Oh, Lawd! oh, Lawd en
Gawd!"

The master stood as if dazed. His face
was drawn and gray, and his breath came
in awful gasps. A moment he stood so,
then he strode out of the house. With a
howl the dog sprang forward, snapping
the cord, and rushed after his master.

The woman's cries ceased, and without
moving from her crouching position she
listened with straining ears to the sounds
that reached her from the stable. In a
moment the clatter of horses' hoofs going
at a furious pace swept by, then a dead
silence fell. The intense quiet seemed to
rouse her, and going to the door, she
looked out. The glow had faded, and the

An Incident 161

gray mist was gathering in distinct
strata above the marsh and the river.
She went out and looked ahout her as
she had done so many times during that
» long day. She gazed at the water that
was still rising; she peered cautiously
behind the stable and under the houses;
she approached the wood-pile as if under
protest, gathered some logs into her arms
and an axe that was lying there; then
turning toward the kitchen, she hastened
her steps, looking back over her shoulder
now and again, as if fearing pursuit.
Once in the kitchen she threw down the
wood and barred the door; she shut the
boarded window-shutter, fastening it with
an iron hook; then leaning the axe
against the chimney, she sat down by the
fire, muttering, " If dat nigger come
sneakin' back yer now, I'll split 'e haid
open, sho."

Recovering a little from her panic, she
was once more a cook, and swung the
crane from over the fire, brushed the
coals from the top of the Dutch oven,
and pushed the tin kitchen farther from
the blaze. "Mass Johnnie '11 want
sump'h'n to eat some time dis night," she
said; then, after a pause, "en I gwine
eat now." She got a plate and cup, and
helped herself to hominy out of the pot,

II S. L.

162 Harper's Novelettes

and to a roll out of the oven ; but though
she looked at the fowl she did not touch
it, helping herself instead to a goodly cup
of coffee. So she ate and drank with the
axe close beside her, now and then paus
ing to groan and mutter — " Po' Mass
Johnnie! — po' Mass Johnnie! — Lawd!
Lawd ! — if Miss Nellie had er sen' Abram
atter dat chicken — like I tell um —
Lawd !" shaking her head the while.

Through the gathering dusk John Mor
ris galloped at the top speed of his horse.
Reaching the little railway station, he
sprang off, throwing the reins over a
post, and strode in.

"Write this telegram for me, Green,"
he said ; " my hand trembles.

fr To Sam Pariin, Sheriff, Pineville :

" My wife missing since morning. Ne
gro, Abram Washington, disappeared.
Bring men and dogs. Get off night train
this side of bridge. Will be fire on the
path to mark the place.

MORRIS."

"Great God!" the operator said, in a
low voice. " I'll come too, Mr. Morris."

" Thank you," John Morris answered.
" I'm going to get the Wilson boys, and
Rountree and Mitchell," and for the first

An Incident 163

time the men's eyes met. Determined,
deadly, sombre, was. the look exchanged ;
then Morris went away.

None of the men whom Morris sum
moned said much, nor did they take long
to arm themselves, saddle, and mount, and
by nine o'clock Aggie heard them come
galloping across the field; then her mas
ter's voice calling her. There was little
time in which to make the signal-fire on
the railroad embankment, and to cut
light-wood into torches, even though there
were many hands to do the work. John
Morris's dog followed him a part of the
way to the wood-pile, then turned aside
to where the water had crept up from
the swamp into the yard. Aggie saw
the dog, and spoke to Mr. Morris.

"Dat's de way dat dawg do dis mawn-
in', Mass Johnnie, an' when I gone to
ketch de chicken, Miss Nellie was walkin'
to'des dat berry place."

An irresistible shudder went over John
Morris, and one of the gentlemen stand
ing near asked if he had a boat.

" The bateau was tied to that stake
this morning," Mr. Morris answered,
pointing to a stake some distance out in
the water; "but I have another boat in
the top of the stable." Every man turned
to go for it, showing the direction of their

1 64 Harper's Novelettes

fears, and launched it where the log
bridge crossed the head of the swamp, and
where now the water was quite deep.

The whistle was heard at the station,
and the rumble of the on-coming train.
The fire flared high, lighting up the group
of men standing about it, booted and
belted with ammunition-belts, quiet, and
white, and determined.

Many curious heads looked out as the
sheriff and his men — six men besides
Green from the station — got off ; then the
train rumbled away in the darkness tow
ard the surging, turbulent river, and the
crowd moved toward the house.

Mr. Morris told of his absence in town
on business. That Abram had been hired
first as a field-hand; and that later, after
his marriage, he had taken Abram from
the field to look after his horse and to do
the heavier work about the house and
yard.

"And the woman Aggie is trust
worthy?"

" I am sure of it ; she used to belong to
us."

" Abram is a strange negro ?"

"Yes."

Then Aggie was called in to tell her
story. Abram had taken the hatchet
and had gone toward the railroad for

An Incident 165

brush to make a broom. She had taken
the dog and gone into the broom-grass to
catch a fowl, and the last she had seen
of her mistress she was walking toward
the dam, which was then above the wa
ter.

"How long were you gone after the
chicken ?"

" I dun'no', suh ; but I run um clean to
de woods 'fo' I ketch um, en I walk back
slow 'kase I tired."

" Were you gone an hour ?"

" I spec so, suh, 'kase when I done
ketch de chicken I stop fuh pick up some
light-wood I see wey Abram been cuttin'
wood yistiddy."

" And your mistress was not here when
you came back — nor Abram?"

" No, suh, nobody ; en 'e wuz so lone
some I come en look in dis house fuh
Miss Nellie, but 'e ent deyyer; en I look
in de bush fuh Abram, but I ent see um
nudder. En de dawg run to de water
en howl en ba'k en ba'k tay I tie um
up in de kitchen."

"And was the boat tied to the stake
this morning?"

" Yes, suh ; en when I been home long
time en git scare, den I look en see de
boat gone."

" You don't think that your mistress

1 66 Harper's Novelettes

got in the boat and drifted away by ac
cident?"

"No, suh, nebber, suh; Miss Nellie
'fraid de water lessen Mass Johnnie is
wid urn."

" Is Abram a good boy ?"

"I dunW, suh; I dun'no' nuffin 'tall
'bout Abram, suh; Abram is strange nig
ger to we."

"Did he take his things out of his
room?"

" Abram t'ings ? Ki ! Abram ent hab
nuttin' ceppen what Miss Nellie en Mass
Johnnie gi' um. No, suh, dat nigger ent
hab nuttin' but de close on 'e back when
'e come to we."

The sheriff paused a moment. "I
think, Mr. Morris," he said at last, " that
we'd better separate. You, with Mr. Mit
chell and Mr. Rountree, had better take
your boat and hunt in the swamp and
marsh, and along the river-bank. Let
Mr. Wilson, his brothers, and Green take
your dog and search in the pine-barren.
I'll take my men and my dogs and cross
the railroad. The signal of any discovery
will be three shots fired in quick succes
sion. The gathering-place '11 be this
house, where a member of the discovering
party '11 meet the other parties and bring
'em to the discovery. And I beg that

An Incident 167

you'll refrain from violence, at least un
til we can reach each other. We've no
proof of anything — "

"Damn proof!"

"An7 our only clew," the sheriff went
on, " the missing boat, points to Mrs.
Morris's safety." A little consultation
ensued; then agreeing to the sheriff's
distribution of forces, they left the house.

The sheriff's dogs — the lean, small
hounds used on such occasions — were tied,
and he held the ropes. There was an
anxious look on his face, and he kept his
dogs near the house until the party for
the barren had mounted and ridden away,
and the party in the boat had pushed off
into the blackness of the swamp, a torch
fastened at the prow casting weird, un
certain shadows. Then ordering his six
men to mount and to lead his horse, he
went to the room of the negro Abram
and got an old shirt. The two lean lit
tle dogs were restless, but they made no
sound as he led them across the railway.
Once on the other side, he let them smell
the shirt, and loosed them, and was about
to mount, when, in the flash of a torch,
he saw something in the grass.

"A hatchet!" he said to his compan
ions, picking it up; "and clean, thank
God!"

168 Harper's Novelettes

The men looked at each other, then
one said, slowly, "He coulder drowned
her?"

The sheriff did not answer, but followed
the dogs that had trotted away with their
noses to the ground.

"I'm sure the nigger came this way,"
the sheriff said, after a while. "Those
others may find the poor young lady, but
I feel sure of the nigger."

One of the men stopped short. " That
nigger's got to die," he said.

" Of course," the sheriff answered, " but
not by Judge Lynch's court. This cir
cuit's got a judge that '11 hang him law
fully."

" I b'lieve Judge More will," the recal
citrant admitted, and rode on. "But,"
he added, "if I know Mr. John Morris,
that nigger's safe to die one way or an
other."

They rode more rapidly now, as the
dogs had quickened their pace. The
moon had risen, and the riding, for men
who hunted recklessly, was not bad.
Through woods and across fields, over
fences and streams, down by-paths and
old roads, they followed the little dogs.

"We're makin' straight for the next
county," the sheriff said.

"We're makin' straight for the old

An Incident 169

Powis settlement," was answered. " No-
thin' but niggers have lived there since
the war, an' that nigger's there, I'll
bet."

" That's so," the sheriff said. " About
how many niggers live there now ?"

" There ain't more than half a dozen
cabins left now. We can easy manage
that many."

It was a long rough ride, and in spite
of their rapid pace it was some time after
midnight before they saw the clearing
where clustered the few cabins left of the
plantation quarters of a well-known place,
which in its day had yielded wealth to its
owners. The moon was very bright, and,
save for the sound of the horses' feet, the
silence was intense.

"Look sharp," the sheriff said; "that
nigger ain't sleepin' much if he's here,
and he might try to slip off."

The dogs were going faster now, and
yelping a little.

"Keep up, boys!" and the sheriff
spurred his horse.

In a few minutes they thundered into
the little settlement, where the dogs were
already barking and leaping against a
close-shut door. Frightened black faces
began to peer out. Low exclamations and
guttural ejaculations were heard as the

170 Harper's Novelettes

armed men scattered, one to each cabin,
while the sheriff hammered at the door
where the dogs were jumping.

"It's the sheriff!" he called, "come to
get Abram Washington. Bring him out
and you kin go back to your beds. We're
all armed, and nobody need to try run-
ninV

The door opened cautiously, and an old
negro looked out. " Abram's my son,
Mr. Partin," he said, " an' >fo' Gawd he
ent yer."

" No lyin', old man ; the dogs brought
us straight here. Don't make me burn
the house down; open the door."

The door was closing, when the sheriff,
springing from his horse, forced it stead
ily back. A shot came from within, but it
ranged wild, and in an instant the sher
iff's pistol covered the open room, where a
smouldering fire gave light. Two of the
men followed him, and one, making for
the fire, pushed it into a blaze, which
revealed a group of negroes — an old
man, a young woman, some children, and
a young man crouching behind with a
gun in his hand. The sheriff walked
straight up to the young man, whose
teeth were chattering.

" I arrest you," he said ; " come on."

" That's the feller," confirmed one of

An Incident 171

the guard ; " I've seen him at Mr. Morris's
place."

" Tie him," the sheriff ordered, " while
I git that gun. Give it to me, old man,
or I'll take you to jail too." It was yield
ed up — an old-time rifle — and the sheriff
smashed it against the side of the chim
ney, throwing the remnants into the fire.
" Lead on," he said, and the young negro
was taken outside. Quickly he was lifted
on to a horse and tied there, while the
former rider mounted behind one of his
companions, and they rode out of the set
tlement into the woods.

"Git into the shadows," one said;
" they might be fools enough to shoot."

Once in the road, the sheriff called a
halt. " One of you must ride back to Mr.
Morris's place and collect the other
search-parties, while we make for Pine-
ville jail. Now, Abram, come on."

" I ent done nuttin', Mr. Parin, suh,"
the negro urged. " I ent hot Mis' Morris."

" Who said anything 'bout Mrs. Mor
ris?" was asked, sharply.

The negro groaned.

"You're hanging yourself, boy," the
sheriff said ; " but since you know, where
is Mrs. Morris ?"

" I dun'no', suh."

"Why did you run away?"

172 Harper's Novelettes

" 'Kase I 'f raid Mr. Morris."

"What were you 'fraid of?"

:f 'Kase Mis' Morris gone."

They were riding rapidly now, and the
talk was jolted out.

"Where?"

" I dun'iio', suh, but I ent tech um."

"You're a damned liar."

" No, suh, I ent tech um ; I des look at
um."

"I'd like to gouge your eyes out!"
cried one of the men, and struck him.

"None o' that!" ordered the sheriff.
" And you keep your mouth shut, Abram ;
you'll have time to talk on your trial."

" Blast a trial !" growled the crowd.

" The rope's round his neck now," sug
gested one, " and I see good trees at every
step."

" Please,' suh, gentlemen," pleaded the
shaking negro, " I ent done nuttin'."

" Shut your mouth !" ordered the sher
iff again, " and ride faster. Day '11 soon
break."

"You're 'fraid Mr. Morris '11 ketch us
'fore we reach the jail," laughed one of
the guard. And the sheriff did not
answer.

The eastern sky was gray when the
party rode into Pineville, a small, strag
gling country town, and clattered through

An Incident 173

its one street to the jail. To the negro,
at least, it was a welcome moment, for,
with his feet tied under the horse, his
hands tied behind his back, and a rope
with a slip-knot round his neck, he had
not found the ride a pleasant one. A
misstep of his horse would surely have
precipitated his hanging, and he knew
well that such an accident would have
given much satisfaction to his captors.
So he uttered a fervent " Teng Gawd!"
as he was hustled into the jail gate and
heard it close behind him.

Early as it was, most of the town was
up and excited. Betting had been high
as to whether the sheriff would get the
prisoner safe into the jail, and even the
winners seemed disappointed that he had
accomplished this feat, although they
praised his skilful management. But the
sheriff knew that if the lady's body was
found, that if Mr. Morris could find any
proof against the negro, that if Mr. Mor
ris even expressed a wish that the negro
should hang, the whole town would side
with him instantly ; and the sheriff knew,
further, that in such an emergency he
would be the negro's only defender, and
that the jail could easily be carried, by
the mob.

All these thoughts had been with him

J74 Harper's Novelettes

during the long night, and though he
himself was quite willing to hang the
negro, being fully persuaded of his guilt,
he was determined to do his official duty,
and to save the prisoner's life until sen
tence was lawfully passed on him. But
how? If he could quiet the town before
the day brightened, he had a plan, but to
accomplish this seemed wellnigh impos
sible'.

He handcuffed the prisoner and locked
him into a cell, then advised his escort to
go and get food, as before the day was
done — indeed, just as soon as Mr. Morris
should reach the town — he would proba
bly need them to help him defend the jail.

They nodded among themselves, and
winked, and laughed a little, and one said,
" Right good play-actin' " ; and watch
ing, the sheriff knew that he could de
pend on only one man, his own brother,
to help him. But he sent him off along
with the others, and was glad to see that
the crowd of townspeople went with his
guard, listening eagerly to the details of
the suspected tragedy and the subsequent
hunt. This was his only chance, and he
went at once to the negro's cell.

" Now, Abram," he said, " if you don't
want to be a dead man in an hour's time,
you'd better do exactly what I tell you."

An Incident 175

"Yes, suh, please Gawd."

"Put on this old hat," handing him
one, " and pull it down over your eyes,
and follow me. When we get outside,
you walk along with me like any ordinary
nigger going to his work; and remember,
if you stir hand or foot more than a walk,
you are a dead man. Come on."

There was a back way out of the jail,
and to this the sheriff went. Once out
side, he walked briskly, the negro keeping
step with him diligently. They did not
meet any one, and before very long they
reached the sheriff's house, which stood
on the outskirts of the town. Being a
widower, he knocked peremptorily on the
door, and when it was opened by his son,
he marched his prisoner in without ex
planation.

" Shut the door, Willie," he said, " and
load the Winchester."

" Please, suh — " interjected the negro.

For answer, the sheriff took a key from
the shelf, and led him out of the back
door to where, down a few steps, there
was another door leading into an under
ground cellar.

"Now, Abram," he said, "you're to
keep quiet in here till I can take you to
the city jail. There is no use your try
ing to escape, because my two boys '11 be

1 76 Harper's Novelettes

about here all day with their repeating
rifles, and they can shoot."

" Yes, suh."

" And whoever unlocks this door and
tells you to come out, you do it, and do it
quick."

" Yes, suh."

Locking the door, the sheriff turned to
his son. " You and Charlie must watch
that door all day, Willie," he said; "but
you musn't seem to watch it; and keep
your guns handy, and if that nigger tries
to get away, kill him; don't hesitate. I
must go back to the jail and make out
like he's there. And tell Charlie to feed
the horse and hitch him to the buggy, and
let him stand ready in the stable, for
when I'll want him I'll want him quick.
Above all things, don't let anybody know
that the nigger's here. But keep the cel
lar key in your pocket, and shoot if he
tries to run. If your uncle Jim comes,
do whatever he tells you, but nobody else,
lessen they bring a note from me. Now
remember. I'm trusting you, boy; and
don't you make any mistake about killing
the nigger if he tries to escape."

"All right," the boy answered, cheer
fully, and the father went away. He al
most ran to the jail, and entering once
more by the back door, found things un-

An Incident 177

disturbed. Presently his brother called to
him, and the gates and doors being open
ed, came in, bringing a waiter of hot food
and coffee.

" I told Jinnie you'd not like to leave
the jail," he said, " an' she fixed this up."

"Jinnie's mighty good," the sheriff
answered, " and sometimes a woman's
mighty handy to have about — sometimes;
but I'd not leave one out in the country
like Mr. Morris did; no, sir, not in these
days. We could do it before the war and
during the war, but not now. The old
niggers were taught some decency; but
these young ones! God help us, for I
don't see any safety for this country 'cept
Judge Lynch. And I'll tell you this is
my first an' last term as sheriff. The
work's too dirty."

" Buck Thomas was a boss sheriff," his
brother answered; "he found the niggers
all right, but the niggers never found the
jail, and the niggers were 'fraid to death
of him."

"Maybe Buck was right," the sheriff
said, "and 'twas heap the easiest way;
but here comes the town."

The two men went to the window and
saw a crowd of people advancing down
the road, led by Mr. Morris and his
friends on horseback.

178 Harper's Novelettes

"I b'lieve you're the only man in this
town that '11 stand by me, Jim," the sher
iff said. "I swore in six last night, and
I see 'em all in that crowd. Poor Mr.
Morris! iri his place I'd do just what he's
doin'. Blest if yonder ain't Doty Bux-
ton comiii' to help me! I'll let him in;
but see here, Jim, I'm goin' to send Doty
to telegraph to the city for Judge More,
and I want you to slip out the back way
right now, and run to my house, and tell
Willie to give you the buggy and the
nigger, and you drive that nigger into
the city. Of course you'll kill him if he
tries to escape."

" The nigger ain't here !"

" I'm no fool, Jim. And I'll hold this
jail, me and Doty, as long as possible, and
you drive like hell ! You see ?"

" I didn't know you really wanted to
save the nigger," his brother remon
strated; "nobody b'lieves that."

" I don't, as a nigger. But you go on
now, and I'll send Doty with the tele
gram, and make time by talkin' to Mr.
Morris. I don't think they've found any
thing; if they had, they'd have come
a-galloping, and the devil himself couldn't
have stopped 'em. Gosh, but it's awful !
Who knows what that nigger's done !
When I look at Mr. Morris, I wish you

An Incident 179

fellers had overpowered me last night,
and had fixed things."

He let his brother out at the back,
then went round to the front gate, where
he met the man whom he called Doty
Buxton.

" Go telegraph Judge More the facts of
the case," he said, " an' ask him to come.
I don't believe I'll need any men if he'll
come ; and besides, he and Mr. Morris are
friends."

As the man turned away, one of the
horsemen rode up to the sheriff.

" We demand that negro," he said.

" I supposed that was what you'd come
for, Mr. Mitchell," the sheriff answered;
" but you know, sir, that as much as I'd
like to oblige you, I'm bound to protect
the man. lie swears that he's never
touched Mrs. Morris."

" Great God, sheriff ! how can you men
tion the thing quietly? You know —

"Yes, I know; and I know that I'll
never do the dirty work of a sheriff a
day after my term's up. But we haven't
any proof against this nigger except that
he ran away — "

" Isn't that enough when the lady can't
be found, nor a trace of her ?"

" I found the hatchet,"

"And— !"

180 Harper's Novelettes

"It was clean, thank God!"

Mr. Mitchell jerked the reins so vio
lently that his horse, tired as he was,
reared and plunged.

"Mr. Morris declines to speak with
you," he went on, when the horse had
quieted down, " but he's determined that
the negro shall not escape, and the whole
county '11 back him."

"I know that," the sheriff answered,
patiently, "and in his place I'd do the
same thing; but in my place I must do
my official duty. I'll not let the nigger
escape, you may be sure of that, and I've
telegraphed for Judge More to come out
here. I've telegraphed the whole case.
Surely Mr. Morris '11 trust Judge More?"

Mitchell dragged at his mustache.
" Poor Morris is nearly dead," he said.

" Of course ; won't he go and eat and
rest till Judge More comes ? Every house
in the town '11 be open to him."

" No ; he'll not wait nor rest ; and we're
determined to hang that negro."

" It '11 be mighty hard to shed our blood
— friends and neighbors," remonstrated
the sheriff — " and all over a worthless
nigger."

"That's your lookout," Mr. Mitchell
answered. "A trial and a big funeral
is glory for a negro, and the penitentiary

An Incident 181

means nothing to them but free board
and clothes. I tell you, sheriff, lynching
is the only thing that affects them."

"You won't wait even until I get an
answer from Judge More?"

"Well, to please you, I'll ask." And
Mitchell rode back to his companions.

The conference between the leaders was
longer than the sheriff had hoped, and
before he was again approached Doty
Buxton had returned, saying that Judge
More's answer would be sent to the jail
just as soon as it came.

"You'll stand by me, Doty?" the sher
iff asked.

" 'Cause I like you, Mr. Partin," Doty
answered, slowly; "not 'cause I want to
save the nigger. I b'lieve in my soul he's
done drowned the po' lady's body."

" All right ; you go inside and be ready
to chain the gate if I am run in." Then
he waited for the return of the envoy.

John Morris sat on his horse quite
apart even from his own friends, and
after a few words with him, Mitchell had
gone to the group of horsemen about
whom the townsmen were gathered. The
sheriff did not know what this portended,
but he waited patiently, leaning against
the wall of the jail and whittling a stick.
He knew quite well that all these men

J82 Harper's Novelettes

were friendly to him; that they under
stood his position perfectly, and that they
expected him to pretend to do his duty
to a reasonable extent, and so far their
good-nature would last; but he knew
equally well that in their eyes the negro
had put himself beyond the pale of the
law; that they were determined to hang
him and would do it at any cost; and
that the only mercy which the culprit
could expect from this upper class to
which Mr. Morris belonged was that his
death would be quick and quiet. He
knew also that if they found out that he
was in earnest in defending the prisoner
he himself would be in danger not only
from Mr. Morris and his friends, but
from the townsmen as well. Of course
all this could be avoided by showing them
that the jail was empty; but to do this
would be at this stage to insure the fugi
tive's capture and death. To save the
negro he must hold the jail as long as
possible, and if he had to shoot, shoot
into the ground. All this was quite clear
to him; what was not clear was what
these men would do when they found that
he had saved the negro, and they had
stormed an empty jail.

He was an old soldier, and had been in
many battles ; he had fought hardest when

An Incident 183

he knew that things were. most hopeless;
he had risked his life recklessly, and
death had been as nothing to him when
he had thought that he would die for his
country. But now — now to risk his life
for a negro, for a worthless creature who
he thought deserved hanging — was this
his duty ? Why not say, " I have sent
the negro to the city"? How quickly
those fierce horsemen would dash away
down the road ! Well, why not ? He drew
himself up. He was not going to turn
coward at this late day. His duty lay
very plain before him, and he would not
flinch. And he fixed his eyes once more
on the little stick he was cutting, and
waited.

Presently he saw a movement in the
crowd, and the thought flashed across him
that they might capture him suddenly
while he stood there alone and unarmed.
He stepped quickly to the gate, where
Doty Buxton waited, and standing in the
opening, asked the crowd to stand back,
and to send Mr. Mitchell to tell him what
the decision was. There was a moment's
pause; then Mitchell rode forward.

" Mr. Morris says that Judge More can
not help matters. The negro must die,
and at once. We don't want to hurt you,
and we don't want to destroy public

184 Harper's Novelettes

property, but we are going to have that
wretch if we have to burn the jail down.
Will you stop all this by delivering the
prisoner to us?"

The sheriff shook his head. "I can't
do that, sir. But one thing I do ask, that
you'll give me warning before you set fire
to the jail."

" If that '11 make you give up, we'll set
fire now."

" I didn't say it 'd make me surrender,
but only that I'd like to throw a few
things out — like Doty Buxton, for in
stance," smiling a little.

"All right; when we stop trying to
break in, we'll be making ready to smoke
you out. The jail's empty but for this
negro, I hear."

"Yes, the jail's empty; but don't you
think you oughter give me a little time
to weigh matters ?"

" Is there any chance of your surren
dering?"

" To be perfectly honest," the sheriff
answered, " there isn't." Then, seeing the
crowd approaching, he slipped inside the
heavy gate, and Doty Buxton chained it.
" Now, Doty," he said, "we'll peep through
these auger-holes and watch 'em; and
when you see' em coming near, you must
shoot through these lower holes. Shoot

An Incident 185

into the ground just in front of 'em. It's
nasty to have the dirt jumpin' up right
where you've got to walk. I know how it
feels. I always wanted to hold up both
feet at once. I reckon they've gone to
get a log to batter down the gate. They
can do it, but I'll make 'em take as long
as I can. We musn't hurt anybody, Doty,
but we must protect the State property
as far as we're able. Here they come I
Keep the dirt dancin', Doty. See that?
They don't like it. I told you they'd
want to take up both feet at once. When
bullets are flying round your head, you
can't help yourself, but it's hard to put
your feet down right where the nasty lit
tle things are peckin' about. Here they
come again ! Keep it up, Doty. See that ?
They've stopped again. They ain't real
mad with me yet, the boys ain't; only
Mr. Morris and his friends are mad. The
boys think I'm just pretending to do my
duty for the looks of it; but I ain't.
Gosh! Now they've fixed it! With Mr.
Morris at the front end of that log, there's
no hope of scare. He'd walk over dyna
mite to get that nigger. Poor feller!
Here they come at a run! Don't hurt
anybody, Doty. Bang! Wait; I'll call
a halt by knocking on the gate ; it '11 gain
us a little more time."

1 86 Harper's Novelettes

" What do you want ?" came in answer
to the sheriff's taps.

" 1*11 arrest every man of you for de
stroying State property," the sheriff an
swered.

" All right ; come do it quick," was the
response. " We're waitin', but we won't
wait long."

" I reckon we'll have to go inside,
Doty," the sheriff said; then to the at
tacking party, " If you'll wait till Judge
More comes, I promise you the nigger '11
hang."

For answer there was another blow on
the gate.

" Remember, I've warned you !" the
sheriff called.

" Hush that rot," was the answer, fol
lowed by a third blow.

The sheriff and Doty retreated to the
jail, and the attack went on. It was a
two - story building of wood, but very
strongly built, and unless they tried fire
the sheriff hoped to keep the besiegers at
bay for a little while yet. He stationed
Doty at one window, and himself took
position at another, each with loaded pis
tols, which were only to be used as before
— to make " the dirt jump."

"To tell you the truth, Doty," the
sheriff said, " if you boys had had any

An Incident 187

sense, you'd have overpowered me last
night, and we'd not have had all this
(rouble."

" We wanted to," Doty answered, " but
you're new at the business, an' you talked
so big we didn't like to make you feel
little."

" Here they come !" the sheriff went on,
as the stout gate swayed inwards. " One
more good lick an' it's down. That's it.
Now keep the dirt dancin', Doty, but
don't hurt anybody."

Mr. Morris was in the lead, and ap
parently did not see the " dancin' dirt,"
for he approached the jail at a run.

" It's no use, Doty," the sheriff said ;
" all we can do is to wait till they get in,
for I'm not going to shoot anybody. It
may be wrong to lynch, but in a case like
this it's the rightest wrong that ever was."
So the sheriff sat there thinking, while
Doty watched the attack from the win
dow.

According to his calculations of time
and distance, the sheriff thought that the
prisoner was now so far on his way as to
be almost out of danger by pursuit, and
his mind was busy with the other ques
tion as to what would happen when the
jail was found to be empty. He had not
heard from Judge More, but the answer

1 88 Harper's Novelettes

could not have reached him after the at
tack began. He felt sure that the judge
would come, and come by the earliest
train, which was now nearly due.

" The old man '11 come if he can," he
said to himself, " and he'll help me if he
comes; and I wish the train would hurry."

He felt glad when he remembered that
he had given the keys of the cells to his
brother, for though he would try to save
further destruction of property by telling
the mob that the jail was empty, he felt
quite sure that they would not believe
him, and in default of keys, would break
open every door in the building; which
obstinacy would grant him more time in
which to hope for Judge More and arbi
tration. That it was possible for him to
slip out once the besiegers had broken in
never occurred to him; his only thought
was to stay where he was until the end
came, whatever that might be. They were
taking longer than he had expected, and
every moment was a gain.

Doty Buxton came in from the hall,
where he had gone to watch operations.
"The do' is givin'," he said; "what '11
you do?"

" Nothin'," the sheriff answered, slowly.

" Won't you give 'em the keys ?"

" I haven't got 'em."

An Incident 189

"Gosh!" and Doty's eyes got big as
saucers.

Very soon the outer door was down,
and the crowd came trooping in, all save
John Morris, who stopped in the hallway.
He seemed to be unable even to look at
the sheriff, and the sheriff felt the averted
face more than he would have felt a blow.

" We want the keys," Mitchell said.

The sheriff, who had risen, stood with
his hands in his pockets, and his eyes,
filled with sympathy, fastened on Mr.
Morris, standing looking blankly down
the empty hall.

" I haven't got the keys, Mr. Mitchell,"
he answered.

" Oh, come off!" cried one of the towns
men. " Rocky !" cried another. " Yo*
granny's hat!" came from a third; while
Doty Buxton said, gravely, " Give up,
Partin ; we've humored this duty business
long enough."

" Do I understand you to say that you
won't give up the keys?" Mitchell de
manded, scornfully.

" No," the sheriff retorted, a little hot
ly? "you don't understand anything of
the kind. I said that I didn't have the
keys; and further," he added, after a mo
ment's pause, " I say that this jail is
empty."

190 Harper's Novelettes

There was silence for a moment, while
the men looked at one another incredu
lously; then the jeering began again.

" There is nothing to do but to break
open the cells," Morris said, sharply, but
without turning his head. "We trusted
the sheriff last night, and he outwitted
us ; we must not trust him again."

The sheriff's eyes flashed, and the blood
sprang to his face. The crowd stood
eagerly silent; but after a second the
sheriff answered, quietly,

" You may say what you please to me,
Mr. Morris, and I'll not resent it under
these circumstances, but I'll swear the
jail's empty."

For answer Morris drove an axe furi
ously against the nearest cell door, and
the crowd followed suit. There were not
many cells, and as he looked from a win
dow the sheriff counted the doors as they
fell in, and listened for the whistle of the
train that he hoped would bring Judge
More. The doors were going down rap
idly, and as each yielded the sheriff could
hear cries and demonstrations. What
would they do when the last one fell ?

Presently Doty Buxton, who had been,
making observations, came in, pale and
excited. "You'd better git yo' pistols,"
he said, " an' I'll git mine, for they're

An Incident 191

gittin' madder an' madder every time he
ain't there."

" Well," the sheriff answered, " I want
you to witness that I ain't armed. My
pistols are over there on the table, unload
ed. Thank the good Lord!" he exclaimed,
suddenly; "there's the train, an' Judge
More! I hope he'll come right along."

"An' there goes the last do'!" said
Doty, as, after a crash and a momentary
silence, oaths and ejaculations filled the
air. He drew near the sheriff, but the
sheriff moved away.

"Stand back," he said; "you've got
little children."

In an instant the crowd rushed in,
headed by Morris, whose burning eyes
seemed to be starting from his drawn
white face. Like a flash Doty sprang
forward and wrenched an axe from the
infuriated man, crying out, " Partin
ain't armed !"

For answer a blow from Morris's fist
dropped the sheriff like a dead man. A
sudden silence fell, and Morris, standing
over his fallen foe, looked about him as
if dazed. For an instant he stood so,
then with a violent movement he pushed
back the crowding men, and lifting the
sheriff, dragged him toward the open
window.

192 Harper's Novelettes

" Give him air," he ordered, " and go
for the doctor, and for cold water!" He
laid Partin flat and dragged open his col
lar. " He's not dead — see there ; I struck
him on the temple; under the ear would
have killed him, but not this, not this!
Give me that water, and plenty of it,
and move back. He's not dead, no;
and I didn't mean to kill him; but he
has worked against me all night, and
I didn't think a white man would do
it."

" He's comin' round, Mr. Morris," said
Doty, who knelt on the other side of the
sheriff; "an' he didn't bear no malice
against you — don't fret; but it's a good
thing I jerked that axe outer yo' hand!
See, he's ketchin' his breath; it's all
right," as Partin opened his eyes slowly
and looked about him.

A sound like a sigh came from the
crowd, then a voice said, "Here comes
Judge More."

Morris was still holding his wet hand
kerchief on the sheriff's head when the
old judge came in.

"My dear boy!" ho said, laying his
hand on John Morris's shoulder. But
Morris shook his head.

"Let's talk business, Judge More," lie
said, "and let's get Partin into a chair

An Incident 193

where he can rest; I've just knocked him
over."

Then Morris left the room, and Mitch
ell with him, going to the far side of the
jail-yard, where they walked up and down
in silence. It was not long before Judge
More and the sheriff joined them.

" The evidence was too slight for lynch
ing," the judge said, looking straight into
John Morris's eyes.

" Great God !" Morris cried, and struck
his hands together.

" What more do you want ?" Mitchell
demanded, angrily. " His wife has dis
appeared, and the negro ran away."

" True, and I'll see to the case myself ;
but I'm glad that you did not hang the
negro."

A boy came up with a telegram.

" From Jim, I reckon," the sheriff
said, taking it. " No ; it's for you, Mr.
Morris."

It was torn open hastily; then Morris
looked from one to the other with a blank,
scared face, while the paper fluttered from
his hold.

Mitchell caught it, and read aloud
slowly, as if he did not believe his eyes :

"'Am safe. Will be out on the ten-
o'clock train. ELEANOR/ **

13 S.L.

194 Harper's Novelettes

Morris stood there, shaking, and sob
bing hard, dry sobs.

"It '11 kill him!" the sheriff said.
" Quick, some whiskey !"

A flask was forced between the blue,
trembling lips.

"Drink, old fellow," and Mitchell put
his arm about Morris's shoulders. "It's
all right now, thank God I"

Morris was leaning against his friend,
sobbing like a woman. The sneriff drew
his coat-sleeve across his eyes, and shook
his head.

"What made the nigger run away?"
/ie said, slowly — adding, as if to himself,
" God help us !"

A vehicle was borrowed, and the judge
and the sheriff drove with John Morris
over to the station to meet the ten-o'clock
train. The sheriff and the judge remain
ed in the little carriage, and the station
agent did his best to leave the whole plat
form to John Morris. As the moments
went by the look of anxious agony grew
deeper on the face of the waiting man.
The sheriff's ominous words, falling like
a pall over the first flash of his happiness,
had filled his mind with wordless terrors.
He could scarcely breathe or move, and
could not speak when his wife stepped off
and put her hands in his. She looked up,

An Incident 195

and without a query, without a word of
explanation, answered the anguished ques
tioning of his eyes, whispering,

" He did not touch me."

Morris staggered a little, then drawing
her hand through his arm, he led her to
the carriage. She shrank back when she
saw the judge and the sheriff on the front
seat ; but Morris saying, " They must hear
your story, dear," she stepped in.

" We are very thankful to see you, Mrs.
Morris," the judge said, without turn
ing his head, when the sheriff had touch
ed up the horse and they moved away;
" and if you feel able to tell us how it all
happened, it '11 save time and ease your
mind. This is Mr. Partin, the sheriff."

Mrs. Morris looked at the backs of the
men in front of her; at their heads that
were so studiously held in position that
they could not even have glanced at each
other; then up at her husband, appeal-
ingly.

" Tell it," he said, quietly, and laid his
hand on hers that were wrung together in
her lap. "You sent Aggie to catch the
chickens, and the dog went with her?"

" Yes," fixing her eyes on his ; " and I
sent " — she stopped with a shiver, and her
husband said, "Abram" — "to cut some
bushes to make a broom," she went on.

196 Harper's Novelettes

" I had been for a walk to the old house,
and as I came back I laid my gloves and
a bit of vine on the steps, intending to
return at once; but I wished to see if the
boat was safe, for the water was rising
so rapidly." She paused, as if to catch
her breath, then, with her eyes still fixed
on her husband, she went on, " I did not
think that it was safe, and I untied the
rope and picked up the paddle that was
lying on the dam, intending to drag the
boat farther up and tie it to a tree." She
stopped again. Her husband put his arm
about her.

"And then?" he said.

"And then — something, I don't know
what ; not a sound, but something — some
thing made me turn, and I saw him —
saw him coming — saw him stealing up
behind me — with the hatchet in his hand,
and a look — a look " — closing her eyes as
if in horror — " such an awful, awful look !
And everybody gone. Oh, John!" she
gasped, and clinging to her husband, she
broke into hysterical sobs, while the judge
gripped his walking-stick and cleared his
throat, and the sheriff swore fiercely un
der his breath.

" I was paralyzed," she went on, re
covering herself, " and when he saw me
looking he stopped, The next moment

An Incident 197

he threw the hatchet at me, and began to
run toward me. The hatchet struck my
foot, and the blow roused me, and I sprang
into the boat. There were no trees just
there, and jumping in, I pushed the boat
off into the deep water. He picked up the
hatchet and shook it at me, but the water
was too deep for him to reach me, and
he ran back along the dam and turned
toward the railroad embankment. I was
so terrified I could scarcely breathe; I
pushed frantically in and out between the
trees, farther and farther into the swamp.
I was afraid that he would go round to
the bridge and come down the bank to
where the outlet from the swamp is and
catch me there, but in a little while I saw
where the rising water had broken the
dam, and the current was rushing through
and out to the river. The current caught
the boat and swept it through the break.
Oh, I was so glad ! I'm so afraid of wa
ter, but not then. I used the paddle as a
rudder, and to push floating timber away.
My foot was hurting me, and I looked at
last and saw that it was cut."

A groan came from the judge, and the
sheriff's head drooped.

"•All day I drifted, and all night. I
was so thirsty, and I grew so weak. At
daylight this morning I found myself in

198 Harper's Novelettes

a wide sheet of water, with marshes all
round, and I saw a steamboat coming.
I tied my handkerchief to the paddle and
waved it, and they picked me up. And,
John, I did not tell them anything except
that the freshet had swept me away.
They were kind to me, and a friendly
woman bound up my foot. We got to
town this morning early, and the captain
lent me five dollars, John — Captain Mea-
kin — so I telegraphed you, and took a car
riage to the station and came out. Have
— have you caught him ? And, oh — but I
am afraid — afraid !" And again she broke
into hysterical sobs.

She asked no explanation. The negro's
guilt was so burned in on her mind, that
she was sure that all knew it as well as
she.

" You need have no further fears," her
husband comforted. And the judge shook
his head, and the sheriff swore again.

A white-haired woman in rusty black
stood talking to a negro convict. It was
in a stockade prison camp in the hill
country. She had been a slave-owner
once, long ago, and now for her mission-
work taught on Sundays in the stock
ade, trying to better the negroes penned
there.

An Incident 199

This was a new prisoner, and she was
asking him of himself.

" How long are you in for ?" she asked.

" Fuhrebber, ma'm ; fuh des es long es
I lib," the negro answered, looking down
to where he was making marks on the
ground with his toes.

"And how did you get such a dread
ful sentence ?"

"I ent do much, ma'm; I des scare a
white lady."

A wave of revulsion swept over the
teacher, and involuntarily she stepped
back. The negro looked up and grinned.

" De hatchet des cut 'e foot a little bit ;
but I trow de hatchet. I ent tech um ; no,
ma'm. Den atterwards 'e baby daid; den
dey say I muss stay yer fuhrebber. I ent
sorry, 'kase I know say I hab to wuck any-
wheys I is; if I stay yer, if I go 'way, I
hab to wuck. En I know say if I git outer
dis place Mr. Morris '11 kill me sho — des
sho. So I like fuh stay yer berry well."

And the teacher went away, wondering
if her work — if any work — would avail;
and what answer the future would have
for this awful problem.

A Snipe-Hunt

A Story of Jim-Ned Creek

BY M. E. M. DAVIS

" I AIN'T sayin' nothin' ag'inst the

women o' Jim - Ned Creek ez

women" said Mr. Pinson; " an'

what's more, I'll spit on my hands an' lay

out any man ez '11 dassen to sass 'em.

But ez wives the women o' Jim-Ned air

the outbeatenes' critters in creation!"

These remarks, uttered in an oracular
tone, were received with grave approba
tion by the half a dozen idlers gathered
about the mesquite fire in Bishop's store.
Old Bishop himself, sorting over some
trace-chains behind the counter, nodded
grimly, and then smiled, his wintry face
grown suddenly tender.

" You've shore struck it, Newt," assent
ed Joe Trimble. " You never kin tell how
ary one of 'em '11 ack under any succum-

stances,"

Jack Carter and Sid Northcutt, the

A Snipe-Hunt 201

only bachelors present, grinned and wink
ed slyly at each other.

" You boys neenter to be so brash,"
drawled Mr. Pinson's son-in-law, Sam
Leggett, from his perch on a barrel of
pecans; "jest you wait ontell Minty Cul-
lum an' Loo Slater gits a tight holt!
Them gals is ez meek ez lambs — now.
But so was Mis' Pinson an' Mis' Trimble
in their day an' time, I reckon. I know
Becky Leggett was."

" The studdies'-goin' woman on Jim-
Ned," continued Mr. Pinson, ignoring
these interruptions, " is Mis' Cullum. An'
yit, Tobe Cullum ain't no safeter than
anybody else — considerin' of Sissy Cul
lum ez a wife !"

Mr. Trimble opened his lips to speak,
but shut them again hastily, looking a
little scared, and an awkward silence fell
on the group.

For the shadow of Mrs. Cullum herself
had advanced through the wide door-way,
and lay athwart the puncheon floor; and
that lady, a large, comfortable - looking,
middle-aged person, with a motherly face
and a kindly smile, after a momentary
survey of the scene before her, walked
briskly in. She shook hands across the
counter with the storekeeper, and passed
the time of day all around.

202 Harper's Novelettes

But Hines, the new clerk, shuffled for
ward eagerly to wait on her. Bud was a
sallow-faced, thin-chested, gawky youth
from the States, who had wandered into
these parts in search of health and em
ployment. He was not yet used to the
somewhat drastic ways of Jim-Ned, and
there was a homesick look in his watery
blue eyes; he smiled bashfully at her
while he measured off calico and weighed
sugar, and he followed her out to the
horse-block when she had concluded her
lengthy spell of shopping.

"You better put on a thicker coat,
Bud," she said, pushing back her sun-
bonnet and looking down at him from
the saddle before she moved off. " You've
got a rackety cough. I reckon I'll have
to make you some mullein surrup."

" Oh, Mis' Cullum, don't trouble your
self about me," Mr. Hines cried, grate
fully, a lump rising in his throat as he
watched her ride away.

The loungers in the store had strolled
out on the porch. " Mis' Cullum cert'ii'y
is a sister in Zion," remarked Mr. Trim
ble, gazing admiringly at her retreating
figure.

"M-m-m — y-e-e-s," admitted Mr. Pin-
son. "But," he added, darkly, after a
meditative pause, " Sissy Cullum is a

A Snipe-Hunt 203

wife, an' the women o' Jim-Ned, ez wives,
air liable to conniptions."

Mrs. Cull urn jogged slowly along the
brown, wheel-rifted road which followed
the windings of the creek. It was late in
November. A brisk little norther was
blowing, and the nuts dropping from the
pecan - trees in the hollows filled the
dusky stillness with a continuous rattling
sound. There was a sprinkling of belated
cotton-bolls on the stubbly fields to the
right of the road ; a few ragged sunflowers
were still abloom in the fence corners,
where the pokeberries were red-ripe on
their tall stalks.

" I must lay in some poke-root for
Tobe's knee-j'ints," mused Mrs. Cullum,
as she turned into the lane which led to
her own door-yard. "Pore Tobe! them
j'ints o' his'n is mighty oncertain. Why,
Tobe!" she exclaimed, aloud, as her nag
stopped and neighed a friendly greeting
to the object of her own solicitude, "where
air you bound for?"

Mr. Cullum laid an arm across the
horse's neck. He was a big, loose-jointed
man, with iron-gray hair, square jaws, and
keen, steady, dark eyes. " Well, ma," he
said, with a touch of reluctance in his
dragging tones, "there's a lodge meetin'
at Ebenezer Church to-night, an' I got

204 Harper's Novelettes

Mintry to give me my supper early, so's
I could go. I —

"All right, Tobe," interrupted his
wife, cheerfully ; " a passel of men pran-
cin' around with a goat oncet a month
ain't much harm, I reckon. You go 'long,
honey; I'll set up for you."

" Sissy is that soft an' innercent an'
mild," muttered Mr. Cullum, striding
away in the gathering twilight, "that a
suckin' baby could wrop her aroun' its
finger — much lessen me!"

About ten o'clock the same night Gran
ny Carnes, peeping through a chink in
the wall beside her bed, saw a squad of
men hurrying afoot down the road from
the direction of Ebenezer Church. " Them
boys is up to some devilmint, Uncle
Dick," she remarked, placidly, to her
rheumatic old husband.

Uncle Dick laughed, a soft, toothless
laugh. " I ain't begrudgin' 'em the fun,"
he sighed, turning on his pillow, "but I
wisht to the Lord I was along!"

The " boys " crossed the creek below
Bishop's and entered the shinn-oak prai
rie on the farther side.

"Nance ast mighty particular about
the lodge meetin'," observed Newt Pin-
son to Mr. Cullum, who headed the noc
turnal expedition; "she know'd it wa'n't

A Snipe-Hunt 205

the regular night, an' she suspicioned
sompn, Nance did."

" Sissy didn't," laughed Tobe, compla
cently. " Sissy is that soft an' innercent
an' mild that a suckin' baby could wrop
her aroun' its finger — much lessen me!"

Bud Hines, in the rear with the others,
was in a quiver of excitement. lie stum
bled along, shifting Sid Northcutt's rifle
from one shoulder to the other, and lis
tening open-mouthed to Jack Carter's di
rections. " You know, Bud," said that
young gentleman, gravely, " it ain't ev
ery man that gets a chance to go on a
snipe-hunt. And if you've got any grit —

" I've got plenty of it," interrupted Mr.
Hines, vaingloriously. He was, indeed,
inwardly — and outwardly — bursting with
pride. " I thought they tuk me for a
plumb fool," he kept saying over and over
to himself. " They ain't never noticed
me before 'cepn to make fun of me; an'
all at oncet Mr. Tobe Cullum an' Mr. Newt
Pinson ups an' asts me to go on a snipe-
hunt, an' even p'oposes to give me the best
place in it. An' I've got Mr. Sid's rifle,
an' Mr. Jack is tellin' of me how ! Lord,
I wouldn't of believed it ef I wa'n't right
here! Won't ma be proud when I write
her about it !"

"You've got to whistle all the time,"

206 Harper's Novelettes

Jack continued, breaking in upon these
blissful reflections ; " if you don't, they
won't come."

" Oh, I'll whistle," declared Bud, jaunt
ily.

Sam Leggett's snigger was dexterously
turned into a cough by a punch in his
ribs from Mr. Trimble's elbow, and they
trudged on in silence until they reached
Buck Snort Gully, a deep ravine running
from the prairie into a stretch of heavy
timber beyond, known as The Rough.

Here they stopped, and Sid Northcutt
produced a coarse bag, whose mouth was
held open by a barrel hoop, and a tallow
candle, which he lighted and handed to
the elate hunter. " Now, Bud," Mr. Cul-
lum said, when the bag was set on the
edge of the gully, with its mouth towards
the prairie, "you jest scrooch down be
hind this here sack an' hold the candle.
You kin lay the rifle back of you, in case
a wild-cat or a cougar prowls up. An'
you whistle jest as hard an' as continual
as you can, whilse the balance of us beats
aroun' an' drives in the snipe. They'll
run fer the candle ever' time. An' the
minit that sack is full of snipe, all you've
got to do is to pull out the prop, an.'
they're yourn."

" All right, Mr. Tobe," responded Bud,

A Snipe-Hunt 207

squatting down and clutching the candle,
his face radiant with expectation.

The crowd scattered, and for a few
moments made a noisy pretence of beat
ing the shimi-oak thickets for imaginary
snipe.

"Keep a-whisslin', Bud!" Mr. Cullum
shouted, from the far edge of the prairie.

A prolonged whistle, with trills and
flourishes, was the response; and the con
spirators, bursting with restrained laugh
ter, plunged into the ford and separated,
making each for his own fireside.

Mrs. Cullum was nodding over the
hearth-stone when her husband came in.
The six girls, from Minty — Jack Carter's
buxom, sweetheart — to Little Sis, the
baby, were long abed. The hands of the
wooden clock on the high mantel-shelf
pointed to half -past twelve. " Well, pa,"
Sissy said, good-humoredly, reaching out
for the shovel and beginning to cover up
the fire, " you've cavorted pretty late this
time! What's the matter?" she added,
suspiciously; "you ack like you've been
drinkin' !"

For Tobe was rolling about the room
in an ecstasy of uproarious mirth.

" I 'ain't teched nary drop, Sissy," Mr.
Cullum returned, " but ever' time I think
about that fool Bud Ilines a-settin' out

208 Harper's Novelettes

yander at Buck Snort, holdin' of a can
dle, and whisslin' fer snipe to run into
that coffee-sack, I — oh Lord!"

He stopped to slap his thighs and roar
again. Finally, wiping the tears of en
joyment from his eyes, he related the
story of the night's adventure.

" Air you tellin' me, Tobe Cullum," his
wife said, when she had heard him to the
end — "air you p'intedly tellin' me that
you've took Bud Hines snipin? An*
that you've left that sickly, consumpted
young man a-settin' out there by hisse'f
to catch his death of cold; or maybe git
his blood sucked out by a catamount I"

"Shucks, Sissy!" replied Tobe; "noth-
in' ain't goin' to hurt him. He's sech a
derned fool that a catamount wouldn't
tech him with a ten-foot pole ! An' him
a-whisslin' fer them snipe — oh Lord!"

"Tobe Cullum," said Mrs. Cullum,
sternly, " you go saddle Buster this minit
and ride out to Buck Snort after Bud
Hines."

" Why, honey — " remonstrated Tobe.

"Don't you honey me," she interrupt
ed, wrathf ully. " You saddle that horse
this minit an' fetch that consumpted boy
home."

Tobe ceased to laugh. His big jaws
set themselves suddenly square. "I'll

A Snipe-Hunt 209

do no sech fool thing," he declared, dog
gedly, "an' have the len'th an' brea'th
o' Jim-Ned, makin' fun o' me."

" Very well," said his wife, with equal
determination, " ef you don't go, I will.
But I give you fair warnin', Tobe Cul-
lum, that ef you don't go, I'll never speak
to you again whilse my head is hot."

Tobe snorted incredulously; but he
sneaked out to the stable after her, and
when she had saddled and mounted
Buster, he followed her on foot, running
noiselessly some distance behind her,
keeping her well in sight, and dodging
into the deeper shadows when she chanced
to look around.

"I didn't know Sissy had so much
spunk," he muttered, panting in her wake
at last across the shinn-oak prairie.
"Lord, how blazin' mad she is! But
shucks ! she'll git over it by mornin'."

Mr. Hines was shivering with cold.
He still whistled mechanically, but the
hand that held the sputtering candle
shook to the trip-hammer thumping of
his heart. " The balance of 'em must of
got lost," he thought, listening to the
lonesome howl of the wind across the
prairie. "It's too c-cold for snipe, I
reckon. I wisht I'd staid at home. I
c-can't w-whistle any longer," he whim-

14 S. L.

210 Harper's Novelettes

pered aloud, dropping the candle-end, the
lask spark of courage oozing out of his
nerveless fingers. He stood up, straining
his eyes down the black gully and across
the dreary waste around him. "Mr.
T-o-o-be!" he called, feebly, and the
wavering echoes of his voice came back
to him mingled with an ominous sound.
" Oh, Lordy ! what is that ?" he stammer
ed. He sank to the ground, grabbing
wildly for his gun. "It's a cougar! I
hear him trompin' up from the creek!
It's a c-cougar! He's c-comin' closter!
Oh, Lordy!"

"Hello, Bud," called Mrs. Cullum,
cheerily. She slipped from the saddle as
she spoke and caught the half-fainting
snipe-hunter in her motherly arms.

"Ain't you 'shamed of yourse'f to let
a passel o' no-'count men fool you this-a-
way?" she demanded, sternly, when he
had somewhat recovered himself. " Get
up behind me. I'm goin' to take you to
Mis' Bishop's, where you belong. No,
don't you dassen to tech any o' that
trash!"

Mr. Hines, feeling very humble and
abashed, climbed up behind her, and they
rode away, leaving the snipe - hunting
gear, including Sid Northcutt's valuable
rifle, on the edge of the gully.

A Snipe-Hunt 211

She left him at Bishop's, charging him
to swallow before going to bed a " dost "
of the home-brewed chill medicine from
a squat bottle she handed him.

" He cert'n'y is weaker'n stump-wa
ter," she murmured, as she turned her
horse's head; "but he's sickly an' con-
fiumpted, an' he's jest about the age my
Bud would of been if he'd lived."

And thinking of her first-born and
only son, who died in babyhood, she rode
homeward in the dim chill starlight.
Tobe, spent and foot-sore, followed wari
ly, carrying the abandoned rifle.

II

Consternation reigned the "len'th an'
brea'th" of Jim-Ned. Mrs. Cullum—
placid and easy-going Mrs. Tobe — under
the same roof with him, actually had not
spoken to her lawful and wedded hus
band since the snipe-hunt ten days ago
come Monday!

"It's plumb scan'lous!" Mrs. Pinson
exclaimed, at her daughter's quilting.
" I never would of thought sech a thing
of Sissy — never!"

" As ef the boys of Jim-Ned couldn't
have a little innercent fun without Mis'

212 Harper's Novelettes

Cullum settin' in jeclgment on 'em!"
sniffed Mrs. Leggett.

" Shet up, Becky Leggett," said her
mother, severely. " By time you've put
up with a man's capers fer twenty-
five years, like Sissy Cullum have, you'll
have the right to talk, an' not be
fore."

" They say Tobe is wellnigh out'n his
mind," remarked Mrs. Trimble. " Ez fer
that soft-headed Bud Hines, he have fair
fattened on that snipe-hunt. He's gittin'
ez sassy an' mischeevous ez Jack Carter
hisse'f."

This last statement was literally true.
The victim of Tobe Cullum's disastrous
practical joke had become on a sudden
case-hardened, as it were. The consump
tive pallor had miraculously disappeared
from his cheeks and the homesick look
from his eyes. He bore the merciless
chaffing at Bishop's with devil-may-care
good-nature, and he besought Mrs. Cul
lum, almost with tears in his eyes, to
" let up on Mr. Tobe."

"I was sech a dern fool, Mis' Cul
lum," he candidly confessed, "that I
don't blame Mr. Tobe fer puttin' up a
job on me. Besides," he added, his eyes
twinkling shrewdly, " I'm goin' to git
even. I'm lay in' off to take Jim Belcher,

A Snipe-Hunt 213

that biggetty drummer from Waco,
a-snipin' out Buck Snort next Sat'day
night. He's a bigger idjit than I ever
was."

" You ten' to your own business, Bud,
an' I'll ten' to mine," Mrs. Cullum re
turned, not unkindly. Which business
on her part apparently was to make Mr.
Cullum miserable by taking no notice of
him whatever. The house under her su
pervision was, as it had always been, a
model of neatness; the meals were cook
ed by her own hands and served with
an especial eye to Tobe's comfort; his
clothes were washed and ironed, and his
white shirt laid out on Sunday morn
ings, with the accustomed care and regu
larity. But with these details Mrs.
Cullum's wifely attentions ended. She
remained absolutely deaf to any remark
addressed to her by her husband, looking
through and beyond him when he was
present with a steady, unseeing gaze,
which was, to say the least, exasperating.
All necessary communication with him
was carried on by means of the children.
" Minty," she would say at the break
fast-table, "ask your pa if he wants
another cup of coffee " ; or at night,
" Temp'unce, tell your pa that Buster
has shed a shoe " ; or, " Sue, does your

214 Harper's Novelettes

pa know where them well-grabs is?" et
csetera, et ceetera.

The demoralized household huddled, so
to speak, between the opposing camps,
frightened and unhappy, and things were
altogether in a bad way.

To make matters worse, Miss Minty
Cullum, following her mother's example,
took high and mighty ground with Jack
Carter, dismissing that gentleman with
a promptness and coolness which left
him wellnigh dumb with amazement.

"Lord, Minty!" he gasped. "Why,
I was taken snipe-hunting myself not
more'n five years ago. I — "

" I didn't know you were such a fool,
Jack Carter/' interrupted his sweetheart,
with a toss of her pretty head ; " that set
tles it !" and she slammed the door in his
face.

Matters were at such a pass finally
that Mr. Skaggs, the circuit-rider, when
he came to preach, the third Sunday in
the month, at Ebenezer Church, deemed
it his duty to remonstrate and pray with
Sister Cullum at her own house. She
listened to his exhortations in grim si
lence, and knelt without a word when
he summoned her to wrestle before the
Throne of Grace. " Lord," he concluded,
after a long and powerful summing up

A Snipe-Hunt 215

of the erring sister's misdeeds, " Thou
knowest that she is travelling the broad
and flowery road to destruction. Show
her the evil of her ways, and warn her
to flee from the wrath to come."

He arose from his knees with a look
of satisfaction on his face, which
changed to one of chagrin when he saw
Sister Cullum's chair empty, and Sister
Cullum herself out in the backyard
tranquilly and silently feeding her hens.

" She shore did flee from the wrath
to come, Sissy did," chuckled Granny
Games, when this episode reached her
ears.

As for Tobe, he bore himself in the
early days of his affliction in a jaunty
debonair fashion, affecting a sprightliness
which did not deceive his cronies at
Bishop's. In time, however, finding all
his attempts at reconciliation with Sissy
vain, he became uneasy, and almost as
silent as herself, then morose and irrita
ble, and finally black and thunderous.

" He's that wore upon that nobody
dassent to go anigh him," said Mrs. Pin-
son, solemnly. " An' no wonder! Fer
of all the conniptions that ever struck
the women o' Jim-Ned, ez wives, Sissy
Cullum's conniptions air the outbeat-
enes'."

216 Harper's Novelettes

But human endurance has its limits.
Mr. Cullum's reached his at the supper-
table one night about three weeks after
the beginning of his discipline. He had
been ploughing all day, and brooding,
presumably, over his tribulations, and
there was a techy look in his dark eyes
as he seated himself at the foot of the
well-spread table, presided over by Mrs.
Cullum, impassive and dumb as usual.
The six girls were ranged on either side.

" Well, ma," began Tobe, with assumed
gayety, turning up his plate, "what for
a day have you had?"

Sissy looked through and beyond him
with fixed, unresponsive gaze, and said
never a word.

Then, as Mr. Cullum afterward said,
" Ole Satan swep' an' garnisheed him
an' tuk possession of him." He seized
the heavy teacup in front of him and
hurled it at his unsuspecting spouse; she
gasped, paling slightly, and dodged. The
missile, striking the brick chimney-jamb
behind her, crashed and fell shivering
into fragments on the hearth. The sau
cer followed. Then, Tobe's spirits rising,
plate after plate hurtled across the table;
the air fairly bristled with flying crock
ery. Mrs. Cullum, after the first shock
of surprise, continued calmly to eat her

A Snipe-Hunt 217

supper, moving her head from right to
left or ducking to avoid an unusually
well-aimed projectile.

Little Sis scrambled down from her
high chair at the first hint of hostilities,
and dived, screaming, under the table;
the others remained in their places, half
paralyzed with terror.

In less time than it takes to tell it,
Mr. Cullum, reaching out his long arms,
had cleared half the board of its stone
and glass ware. Finally he laid a savage
hand upon a small, old - fashioned blue
pitcher left standing alone in a wide
waste of table-cloth.

At this Sissy surrendered uncondition
ally. "Oh, Tobe, fer Gawd's sake!" she
cried, throwing out her hands and quiv
ering from head to foot. " I give in !
I give in! Don't break the little blue-
chiny pitcher! You fetched it to me
the day little Bud was born! An' he
drunk out'n it jest afore he died! Fer
Gawd's sake, Tobe, honey! I give in!"

Tobe set down the pitcher as gingerly
as if it had been a soap-bubble. Then,
with a whoop which fairly lifted the roof
from the cabin, he cleared the interven
ing space between them and caught his
wife in his arms.

Minty, with ready tact, dragged Little

218 Harper's Novelettes

Sis from under the table, and driving
the rest of the flock before her, fled the
room and shut the door behind her. On
the dark porch she ran plump upon Jack
Carter.

" Why, Jack !" she cried, with her tear-
wet face tucked before she knew it
against his breast, "what are you doing
here?"

"Oh, just hanging around," grinned
Mr. Carter.

"Gawd be praised!" roared Tobe, in
side the house.

"Amen!" responded Jack, outside.

"An' Tobe Cullum," announced Joe
Trimble at Bishop's the next day, " have
ordered up the fines' set o' chiny in Waco
fer Sissy."

"It beats me," said Newt Pinson;
"but I allers did say that the women o'
Jim-Ned, ez wives, air the outbeatenes'
critters in creation!"

The Courtship of Colonel Bill

BY J. J. EAKINS

IT was early morning- in the Blue-
grass. The triumphant sun was driv
ing the white mist before it from
wood and rolling meadow-land, rousing
the drowsy cattle from their tranquil
dreams and quickening into fuller life
all the inhabitants of that favored re
gion, from the warlike woodpecker with
his head of flame high up in the naked
tree - top to the timid ground - squirrel
flitting along the graystone fences. It
glorified with splendid impartiality the
apple blossoms in the orchards and the
vagabond blackberry bushes blooming by
the roadside ; and then, with many a mile
of smiling pastures in its victorious
wake, it burst over the low rampart of
stable roofs encircling the old Lexington
race-course, and, after a hasty glimpse
at the horses speeding around the track
and the black boys singing and slouching
from stall to stall with buckets of water

22O Harper's Novelettes

on their heads, it rushed impetuously
into an old-fashioned, deep-waistcd fami
ly barouche beside one of the stables,
and shone full upon a slender, girlish
figure within. It wasted no time upon a
purple-faced old gentleman beside her,
nor upon two young gentlemen on the
seat opposite, but rested with bold and
ardent admiration upon the young girl's
face, touching her cheeks with a color
as delicate as the apple blossoms in the
orchards, and weaving into her rich
brown hair the red gold of its own beams.
The picture was so dazzling and alto
gether so unprecedented that Colonel
Bill Jarvis, the young owner of the
stable, who had come swinging around
the corner, whistling a lively tune, his
hat thrown back on his head, and who
had almost run plump into the carriage,
stopped abruptly and stood staring. lie
was roused to a realizing sense of his
position by Major Cicero Johnson, editor
of the Lexington Chronicle and presi
dent of the association, who was stand
ing beside the barouche, saying, with
that courtliness of manner and ampli
tude of rhetoric which made him a fixture
in the legislative halls at Frankfort:
" Colonel Bill, I want to present you to
General Thomas Anderson Braxton, the

Courtship of Colonel Bill 221

hero of two wars, of whom as a Kcntuck-
ian you must be proud, and his sons
Matt and Jack, and his daughter, Miss
Sue, the Flower of the Blue-grass. La
dies and gentlemen," he continued, with
an oratorical wave of his hand towards
the Colonel, who had bowed gravely to
each person in turn to whom he was in
troduced, " this is my friend Colonel Bill
Jarvis, the finest horseman and the most
gallant young turfman between the Ohio
Eiver and the Gulf of Mexico."

While the Major was speaking, Colonel
Bill's eyes wandered from the two young
gentlemen on the front seat to the pur
ple-faced old General on the rear seat,
and then rested on Miss Braxton. Her
eyes met his, and she smiled. It was
such a pleasant, gracious, encouraging
smile, and there was so much kindliness
in the depths of the soft brown eyes,
that the Colonel was reassured at once.

" We have come to disturb you at this
unearthly hour," said Miss Braxton,
apologetically, "because I wanted to see
the horses at their work, and father and
my brothers were good enough to come
with me."

Colonel Bill explained that his horses
had finished their morning exercise, but
that it would afford him great pleasure

222 Harper's Novelettes

to show them in their stalls. Miss Brax-
ton was sure that they were putting him
to a great deal of trouble, and she was
also convinced that to see horses in their
stalls must be delightful; so presently
the party was marching along under the
shed, looking at the calm-eyed thorough
breds in their narrow little homes, the
Colonel and Miss Braxton leading the
way.

With the wisdom of her sex, Miss
Braxton concealed her lack of special
knowledge by a generous general enthu
siasm which captivated her simple-heart
ed host.

"And that is really Beau Brummel!"
she cried, with sparkling eyes, pointing
to a splendid deep-chested animal, who
was regarding them with mild curiosity.
"And that is Queen of Sheba next to
him ! What lovely heads they have, and
how very proud you must be to own
them!" One would have thought her
days and nights had been given to a
study of these two thoroughbreds. ^

" They are the best long - distance
horses in the country," said the Colonel,
flushing with pleasure. And then, in re
ply to her eager questioning, he gave
their pedigrees and performances, all
their battles and victories, in detail— a

Courtship of Colonel Bill 223

list as long- and as glorious as the tri
umphs of Napoleon, and perhaps as use
ful. At each stall she had fresh ques
tions to ask. Her brothers, with an eye
to the coming meeting, listened eagerly
to the Colonel's answers, while the Major
and the General, lagging behind, dis
cussed affairs of state. At last the horses
were all seen; everybody shook hands
with the Colonel and thanked him, the
General with great pompousness, and
Miss Braxton with a smile, and a hope
that she might see him during the meet
ing; and the old barouche went lumber
ing away down the road, until it present
ly buried itself, like a monstrous cuttle
fish, in a cloud of its own making.

Colonel Bill looked after it with a
pleased expression on his face, and pull
ing his tawny mustache reflectively,
muttered to himself with true masculine
acuteness, " She knew as much about my
horses as I did myself."

The great Lexington meeting was in
the full tide of its success. Peach-cheek
ed, bright-eyed Blue-grass girls, and their
big-boned, deep-chested admirers, riding
and driving in couples and parties, filled
all the white, dusty turnpikes leading to
the race-course, and made gay the quaint

224 Harper's Novelettes

old Lexington streets. The grand-stand
echoed with their merriment, and they
cheered home the horses with an enthu
siasm seen nowhere else in the world.

The centre of the liveliest of all these
merry groups, noticeable for her grace
and beauty even there, where so many
lovely girls were gathered, was Miss
Braxton. She was continuously sur
rounded by a devoted body-guard of
young men, many of whom had ridden
miles to catch a glimpse of her bewitch
ing face, and who felt more than recom
pensed for their efforts by a glance from
her bright eyes.

On the first day of the meeting Colonel
Bill, arrayed with unusual care, had
eagerly scanned the occupants of the
grand -stand. His eyes ran heedlessly
over scores of pretty faces, until finally
they rested upon the group around Miss
Braxton. Then, carefully buttoning up
his coat and straightening out his tall
figure, as a brave man might who was
about to lead a forlorn hope or receive
his opponent's fire, he bore down upon
them. Miss Braxton welcomed him cor
dially, and introduced him to the gentle
men about her. She straightway became
so gracious to him that he aroused an
amazing amount of suspicion and dislike

Courtship of Colonel Bill 225

in the little circle, to all of which, how
ever, he was happily oblivious. He was
a capital mimic, and under the inspira
tion of her applause he told innumerable
* negro stories with such lifelike fidelity
to nature that even the hostile circle was
convulsed, and Miss Braxton laughed
until the tears ran down her cheeks.

Time sped so swiftly that the last race
was run before the Colonel was aware
that the programme was half over, and
he found himself saying good-bye to Miss
Braxton, and wishing with all his heart
he were one of the half-dozen lucky
young men who were waiting on their
horses outside to escort her carriage back
to Lexington.

It was that same evening old Elias,
Colonel Bill's, body-servant and general
assistant, noticed a most surprising de
velopment in his young employer. One
of the Colonel's most prized possessions
was a fiddle. It had never been known,
in all the years he owned it, to utter aught
except the most joyful sounds. When
ever he picked it up, as he frequently did
on winter nights, when everybody gath
ered around the big wood fire in his
room, the stable-boys at once made ready
to beat time to "Money Musk," "Old
Dan Tucker," and other cheerful airs.

15 S. L.

226 Harper's Novelettes

On this particular night the Colonel
seized the fiddle and strode gloomily to
the end of the stable. Presently there
came forth upon the night air such mel
ancholy and dismal notes as made every
stable-boy, from little Pete to big Mose,
shiver. As the lugubrious sounds con
tinued, the boys fled to their loft, leaving
Elias, who had watched over the Colonel
from his infancy, to keep vigil, with a
troubled look on his withered face. Many
nights thereafter was this singular pro
ceeding repeated, to the ever-increasing
wonderment of Elias.

Every day during the meeting when
Miss Braxton was at the track Colonel
Bill sought her out. Sometimes he had
a chance for a long talk, but oftener he
was forced to content himself with short
er interviews. More than once he no
ticed General Braxton join his daughter
when he approached, and he found that
old warrior's manner growing more and
more cold.

"He's a loser," thought the Colonel,
to whom it never for a moment occurred
that his own presence might be disagree
able to any one. "A man oughtn't to
bet when he can't stand a-losing," he
concluded, philosophically, and then he
dismissed the matter from his mind.

Courtship of Colonel Bill 227

On the last day of the races, after
waiting for an hour or more to speak
alone to Miss Braxton, and finding her
constantly guarded by her father, who
looked fiercer than usual, Colonel Bill
was finally compelled to join her as she
and the General were leaving the grand
stand. She saw him coming, and
stopped, a pleased look on her face. The
General, with a frigid nod, moved on a
few paces and left them together.

" I have come to ask if I might call on
you this evening, Miss Braxton," said
the Colonel, timidly, " if you have no
other engagement."

" I shall be very glad indeed to have
you call," she replied, cordially, adding,
with a smile, "You know, Lexington is
not so wildly gay that we haven't ample
time to see our friends."

As he walked away the Colonel thought
he heard his name mentioned by General
Braxton, and although the words were
inaudible, the tone was sharp and com
manding. He turned and glanced back.
The girl's face was flushed, and she look
ed excited, something unusual to her
self - contained, reposeful manner. As
they moved out of hearing, the General
was still talking with great earnestness,
and a feeling of uneasiness began to op-

228 Harper's Novelettes

press him. This feeling had not alto
gether departed when he galloped into
Lexington that night, his long -tailed,
white linen duster buttoned up to his
chin, the brim of his soft black hat
pulled down over his eyes.

The Elms, a roomy old-fashioned house
encircled by wide verandas, the home of
the Braxtons for generations, was one of
the landmarks of Lexington. A long
stretch of lawn filled with shrubbery and
clumps of trees protected its inmates
from the city's dust and turmoil and
almost concealed the house itself from
view. The Colonel, to whom the Elms
was perfectly well known, never drew
rein till he was before it, and then, check
ing his horse so suddenly that a less in
telligent animal would have turned a
somersault, swung himself out of the
saddle with the ease of one who had
spent the greater part of his life there,
fastened the bridle to a ring in a great
oak-tree by the curbing, and opening the
big iron gate, strode up the gravelled
walk which wound through the shrub
bery.

Miss Braxton had been sitting at the
piano in the drawing-room playing soft
ly. The long windows looking out on
the veranda were opened to admit the

Courtship of Colonel Bill 229

balmy air, and before her visitor ar
rived she heard his approaching foot
steps.

" I am very glad you have come," she
said, walking out to meet him; "I was
afraid that in the excitement of the race
track you might have forgotten our en
gagement. I felt a little depressed this
evening, and that is another reason why
I am glad to see you." She led the way
back into the drawing-room as she talk
ed, and invited the Colonel to sit beside
her on one of the sofas. In the soft glow
of the dimly lighted lamps he thought
she had never appeared so beautiful; and
the rich fragrance of the dew-laden roses
and honeysuckle wafted in through the
open windows seemed to him to be an
atmosphere peculiar to her alone, like the
exceeding sweetness of her soft, low
voice and the easy grace of her move
ments.

In reply to her questions he told her
of his adventures on far Southern tracks,
and of the careless, reckless life he had
led. lie had seen many strange and stir
ring sights during his wanderings; and
to her, whose young life had hitherto
flown along as peacefully as a meadow-
brook, it seemed like a new and thrilling
romance, with a living being in place of

230 Harper's Novelettes

the printed page. Once he mentioned a
woman's name, and she started.

"In all that time," she inquired, soft
ly, her eyes lowered, "did no woman
ever come into your life?"

"No," he answered, simply; "I never
thought of a woman then."

She raised her eyes to his, and lowered
them instantly, her face flushing.

During a moment's lull in the conver
sation the hour was struck from a neigh
boring steeple. They both started, half-
guiltily. It was midnight. He at once
arose to go, apologizing for the lateness
of his visit.

"I would like to see you again, Miss
Braxton, before I go North," he said, as
he prepared to leave.

She had risen with him, and they were
both standing beside the mantel. Her
face paled. Then she turned her head
aside, and said, in a tone that was al
most inaudible, "Father objects."

He became rigid instantly, and his lips
grew white. "I suppose your father
don't know who I am," he said, proud
ly. " My family is as good as any in the
State. I loved horses and the life and
color of the race-track, and refused to
go to college when I could. Until I met
you I never thought of anything except

Courtship of Colonel Bill 231

horses. But the pedigree of my people
is straight. There isn't a cold cross on
either side. I know I amount to nothing
myself," he continued, bitterly, his eyes
resting gloomily on the floor ; " I'm
only a no-account old selling-plater, and
I'll just go back to the stable, where I
belong." Here an unusual sound inter
rupted him, and he looked up. The girl,
with her head on her arm, was leaning
against the mantel, sobbing quietly. In
a moment he forgot all about himself
and snatched up her disengaged hand.

" Do you really care ?" he cried, press
ing the fluttering little hand in both of
his.

She lifted up her face, the soft brown
eyes swimming in tears. " I wouldn't
mind," she replied, half laughing and
half sobbing — " I wouldn't mind at all
about the pedigree, and I know you're
not an old selling-plater; but if you
were, I am very sure that I would care
for you."

The Lexington meeting was over, and
the horsemen were scattered far and
wide, from Chicago to Sheepshead Bay.
Colonel Bill alone remained behind. As
the days passed and he made no prepara
tion to depart, old Elias's irritation grew

232 Harper's Novelettes

apace, and the lives of the stable-boys
under the increasing rigor of his rule
became almost unendurable. The Colo
nel, however, saw very little of Elias or
the stable-boys. Even his beloved horses
no longer interested him. He passed the
days walking the streets of Lexington,
hoping by some chance to meet Miss
Braxton, and it was not until late at
night that he returned to the race-track,
foot-sore and disappointed. He had been
too deeply wounded and was too proud
to make any further effort to visit the
Elms, and he thought it would be un
manly and ungenerous to ask Miss Brax
ton to meet him away from her father's
house.

In the mean time the old General's
wrath increased as the days passed. Ho
was unused to any kind of opposition,
and the Colonel's persistence irritated
him beyond measure. The dream of his
life was a brilliant marriage for his
daughter, and no amount of argument
could alter his opinion that Colonel Bill
was a rude, unlettered stable-man.

"Why, sir," he would exclaim, over a
mint-julep, to his friend Major Johnson,
who always defended the Colonel vigor
ously, " the idea of such attentions to
my daughter is preposterous — ludicrous!

Courtship of Colonel Bill 233

I will not permit it, sir — not for one mo
ment. If he persists in annoying my
family, sir," and the purple hue of the
General's face deepened, " I would no
more hesitate to shoot him — no more, by
gad ! — than I would a rattlesnake." After
the fourth or fifth julep he did not al
ways confine his conversation to his
friend, and so his threats often found
their way back to the object of his wrath,
losing nothing by the journey. Although
the Colonel's disposition was the sunni
est, the strain to which he was being
subjected was telling on his nerves, and
once or twice he replied sharply to the
tale-bearers. The little city was soon
excited over the quarrel, and every move
ment of the principals was eagerly noted.
" My money goes on Bill," said Jule
Chinn, the proprietor of the Blue-grass
Club, when the matter came up for dis
cussion there between deals. " I saw
him plug that Creole down in Orleans.
First he throws him down the steps of
the St. Charles for insultin' a lady.
When'Frenchy insists on a duel an' Bill
gets up in front of him, he says, in that
free-an'-easy way of his, ' We mark pup
pies up in my country by cutting their
ears, and that's what I'm going to do to
you, for you ain't fit to die/ an' blame

234 Harper's Novelettes

me if he don't just pop bullets through
that fellow's ears like you'd punch holes
in a piece of cheese!" After that the
Colonel ruled a strong favorite in the
betting.

When this condition of affairs had ex
isted for two weeks, the Colonel arose
one morning from a sleepless bed with a
fixed idea in his mind. He sat down to a
table in his room, pulled out some writ
ing-paper, and set to work. After many
sheets had been covered and destroyed,
he finally decided upon the following:

"DEAR Miss BRAXTON, — I am going
away from Lexington to-morrow, prob
ably never to return. Will you be at
your father's gate at three o'clock this
afternoon, as I would like to say good
bye to you before I go ?

" Your sincere friend,

"WILLIAM JARVIS."

After he had finished this epistle it
seemed to him entirely too cold; but the
others, which he had written in a more
sentimental vein, had appeared unduly
presumptuous. lie finally sealed it and
gave it to Pete, with terrific threats of
personal violence in case of anything
preventing its prompt delivery. While

Courtship of Colonel Bill 235

Pete was galloping off to Lexington at
breakneck speed, the Colonel was won
dering what the answer would be.

" I'll just say good-bye to her," he mut
tered, moodily, " and then I'll never see
her again. I suppose I belong with the
horses, anyhow, and that old bottle-nosed
General has me classed all right!"

When Pete returned he handed the
Colonel a dainty little three - cornerecl
note. It was addressed to "My dear
friend," and the writer was so sorry he
was going away so very soon, and had
hoped he would stay ever so much longer,
and then signed herself cordially his,
Susan Burleigh Braxton. At the bottom
was a postscript — "I will expect you at
three o'clock."

An hour before the appointed time the
Colonel was striding impatiently up and
down before the Elms, incessantly con
sulting his watch or wistfully gazing up
the gravelled walk. It still lacked sev
eral minutes of three, when his heart
gave a great jump as he saw Miss Brax-
ton's graceful figure flitting in and out
through the shrubbery. She stopped to
pluck some roses from a bush that hung
over the walk, bending down the richly
laden bough so that the flowers made a
complete circle about her bright young

236 Harper's Novelettes

face, and as she raised her eyes she
caught the Colonel gazing at her with
such a look of abject idolatry that she
laughed and blushed. " You see I am on
time," she cried, gayly, hastening down
to' the gate and handing him one of her
roses. " I am going to the post-office,
and you may walk with me if you care
to." If he cared to! Her mere presence
beside him, the feeling that he could
reach out his hand and touch her, the
music of her voice, filled him with a joy
of which he had never before dreamed.

After they had left the post-office, by
mutual direction their footsteps turned
from the more crowded thoroughfares,
and they walked down a quiet and de
serted street where the stones were cov
ered with moss, and where solemn
gnarled old trees lined the way on either
side and met above their heads, the fresh
green leaves murmuring softly together
like living things.

They reached the end of the old street,
and were almost in the country. A
wide-spreading chestnut-tree stood before
them, around whose giant bole a rustic
seat had been built. They walked towards
it in silence and sat down side by side.

They were entirely alone. A gay young
red-bird, his head knowingly cocked on

Courtship of Colonel Bill 237

one side, perched in the branches just
above them. A belated bumblebee, al
ready heavy laden, hung over a cluster
of wild flowers at their feet. A long-
legged garrulous grasshopper, undismay
ed by their presence, uttered his clarion
notes on the seat beside them.

The inquisitive young red-bird looking
down could only see a soft black hat and
a white straw hat with flowers about its
broad brim. He heard the black hat
wondering if any one ever thought of
him, to which the straw hat replied soft
ly that it was sure some one did think
of him very often. Then the black hat
wondered if some one, when it was away,
would continue to think of it, and the
flowered straw, still more softly, was very,
very sure some one would.

Then the red-bird saw such a remark
able thing happen that his bright eyes
almost popped out of his little head. He
saw a hand and a powerful arm suddenly
steal out from below the black hat and
move in the direction of the flowered
straw — not hurriedly, but stealthily and
surely. Having reached it, the hand and
the arm drew the unresisting flowered
straw in the direction of the black hat,
until presently the hats came together.
And then the red-bird, himself desperate-

238 Harper's Novelettes

ly in love, knew what it all meant, and
burst into jubilant song. Arid the hard
working bumblebee, who also had a
sweetheart, took a moment's rest in honor
of the event and buzzed his delight; and
even the long-legged grasshopper, an ad
mirer of the sex, but a confirmed bache
lor, shouted his approbation until he was
fairly hoarse.

It was some time before the adventu
rous hand could be put back where it
properly belonged, and the face beneath
the straw, when it came into view, was
a very flushed face, but the brown eyes
shone like stars. As they walked through
the old street, the setting sun filling the
air with a golden glory, they passed a
sweet-faced old lady cutting flowers in
her garden, and she smiled an indulgent
smile, and they nodded and smiled back
at her.

" I want you to promise me some
thing," Miss Braxton said, suddenly
stopping and looking up at him. " I
want you to promise me," she continued,
not waiting for his reply, " that you will
not quarrel with my father. He is the
best father in the world. My mother
died when I was a child, and since then
he has been father and mother and the
whole world to me. I could never for-

Courtship of Colonel Bill 239

give myself if you exchanged a harsh
word with him."

" If all the stories I hear are true,"
replied the Colonel, with a good-humor
ed laugh, "your father is the one for
you to see."

"My father says a great deal which
he frequently regrets the moment after
wards," she responded, earnestly. "He
is a warm-hearted and an impulsive man,
and the dearest and best father in the
world." The Colonel gave the desired
promise, and they walked on in silence.
When they reached the Elms, and her
hand was on the big iron gate, she turn
ed to him, an appealing look in her eyes.
" Must you really go to-morrow ?" she
asked.

" I am compelled to go," he replied,
sadly. "I have already remained here
too long. I must start to-morrow night."

" I cannot tell you how sorry I am
that you are going away," she said, soft
ly, extending her hand. He caught it up
passionately.

" I must see you again !" he cried. " I
can't go away until I do. It is hard
enough to leave even then. I won't ask
you to come away from your father's
house to meet me, but you could be here,
couldn't you?"

240 Harper's Novelettes

"When shall I come?" she asked, sim-

ply-

" The train leaves to-morrow night at
twelve. Could you be here at eleven?"

" I will be here at eleven," she said ;
and then, with a brave attempt to smile,
she turned away. Just at that moment
General Braxton rounded the neighbor
ing corner and came straight towards
them.

In the hotel across the way the loung
ers leaning back in their cane-bottomed
chairs straightened up with keenest in
terest and delight. Jule Chinn in the
Blue-grass Club up-stairs, happening to
glance out of the window, turned his box
over, and remarked that if any gentle
man cared to bet, he would lay any part
of $5000 on Bill. When the General was
directly opposite him Colonel Bill grave
ly and courteously lifted his hat. For
an instant the old man hesitated, and
then, with a glance at his daughter, he
lifted his own hat and passed through
the gate.

" Well, I'll be !" cried Jule, with a

whistle of infinite amazement. " Things
is changed in Kentucky!"

" That," said Major Cicero Johnson,
•who had exchanged several hundred sub
scriptions to his paper for an ever-de-

Courtship of Colonel Bill 241

creasing pile of Jule's blue chips — " that
is the tribute which valor pays to beauty.
Their pleasure has only been postponed.
Colonel Chinn, you have overlooked that
small wager on the ace. Thanks."

Ten minutes later Colonel Bill was
galloping out to the race-track, gayly
singing a popular love-song. Suddenly
something occurred to him and he
stopped, reached back into his hip-pocket,
and drew out a long pistol. He threw it
as far as he could into a neighboring
brier-patch, and once more giving rein
to his horse, began to sing with renewed
enthusiasm.

When he reached the track he called
old Elias into his room, and they re
mained together for a long time in whis
pered conference. That night any one
who happened to have been belated on
the Versailles 'pike might have passed
Elias jogging along on his horse, looking
very important, and an air of mystery
enveloping him like a garment.

It was far into the night when he re
turned. As he started to creep up the
ladder to the loft above his young mas
ter's room, his shoes in his hand so as
not to awaken him, the Colonel, who had
been tossing on a sleepless bed for hours,
called out. Elias, who evidently regard-

16 S. L.

242 Harper* s Novelettes

ed himself as a conspirator, waited until
he had reached the loft, and then whis
pered back, "Hit's all right, Marse Bill,"
and was instantly swallowed up in the
darkness.

It was one of those perfect June
nights so often seen in Kentucky. The
full moon hung in a cloudless sky, filling
the air with a soft white radiance. There
was not a movement in the still, warm
atmosphere, and to Colonel Bill, waiting
beneath the shadows of the big oak-tree
near the General's gate, it seemed that
all nature was waiting with him. The
leaves above his head, the gray old
church steeple beyond the house, the
long stretch of deserted streets— they all
wore a hushed, expectant look.

It was several minutes past the ap
pointed hour, and Miss Braxton had not
come. He had begun to fear that per
haps her father, suspecting something,
had detained her, when he saw her fig
ure, a white outline among the rose
bushes, far up the walk. As she drew
near he stepped out from the shadows,
and she gave a little cry of delight.

" I know I am late, but I was talking
with father," she said, apologetically, and
the brown eyes became troubled. "He

Courtship of Colonel Bill 243

was very restless and nervous to-night,
and when he is in that condition he says
I soothe him." They had slowly walked
towards the tree as she was speaking,
and when she had finished they were
completely hidden from any chance
passer. She glanced up, and even in the
gloom she noticed how white and tense
was his face.

" Do you know," he cried, abruptly,
" if I go away from Lexington to-night
it will only be to return in a day, or two
days? For weeks I have been able to
think of nothing, to dream of nothing,
except you. I haven't come here to
night to say good-bye to you," he contin
ued, passionately, " because I cannot say
good-bye to you, but to implore you to
come with me — to marry me — to-night
— now." She shrank back. " I have
made all my arrangements," he contin
ued, feverishly. " I have a cousin, a
minister, living in Versailles. Once a
month he preaches in a little church on
the 'pike near there. I sent word by
Elias last night for him to meet us there
to-night, and he said he would. Elias
has the horses under the trees yonder;
they will be here in a moment, and in an
hour we will be married. Come!" His
arms were around her, and while he

244 Harper's Novelettes

spoke she was carried away by the rush
of his passion, and yielded to it with
a feeling of languorous delight. Then
there came the thought of the lonely old
man who would be left behind. She
slipped gently from her lover's arms arid
looked back at the house which had been
her home for so many years. She saw
the light in her father's room, and re
called how she went there when she was
a little girl to say her prayers at his
knee and kiss him good-night. He had
always been so kind to her, so willing to
sacrifice himself for her pleasure, and he
was so old. What would he do when
she had gone out of his life? No; she
could not desert him. She covered her
face with her hands. " I cannot leave
father," she sobbed. " I cannot ; I must
not." They had moved out from the
shadow of the tree into the moonlight.
He had taken her hand, and had begun
to renew his appeals, when they were
both startled by the sound of footsteps
on the gravelled walk and the General's
voice crying, " Sue ! Sue, where are
you?" At the same moment Elias came
up, leading two horses. The Colonel and
Miss Braxton stood just as they were,
too surprised to move. They could not
escape in any event, for almost as soon

Courtship of Colonel Bill 245

as the words reached them the General
came into view. He saw them at once,
and it Required only a glance at the ap
proaching horses to tell him everything.
With an inarticulate cry of rage, his
gray hair streaming behind him, he
rushed wildly back to the house. The
Colonel looked after him, and then turn
ed to Miss Braxton.

"He has gone to arm himself," he
said, quietly. "He will be back with
your brothers."

The girl looked up in his face and
shivered. Then she glanced towards the
house, where lights were flashing from
room to room, and the doors were being
opened and shut, and she wrung her
hands. In the stillness every sound could
be heard — the rush of footsteps down the
stairs, the fierce commands, the creaking
of the great stable door in the rear of
the house.

'' They are getting out the horses," she
whispered.

"Yeu," he replied, calmly. "He
thought we were running away." There
was not a tremor in his voice. She was
reared in a society where physical bravery
is the first of virtues, and even in that
terrible moment she could not help feel
ing a thrill of pride as she looked at him.

246 Harper's Novelettes

She never thought of asking him to fly.
She could hear the horses as they were
led out of their stalls one by one, their
hoofs echoing sharply on the stone flag
ging. Her excited imagination supplied
all the details. Now they were putting
on the bridles; now they were fastening
the saddles ; they were mounted ; the gate
was being opened; in another moment
they would sweep down on them. Then
she looked at her lover standing there
so motionless, waiting — for what? The
thought of it was maddening.

"Quick! quick!" she cried, wildly,
catching his arm; "I will go with you."
Without a word he lifted her up in his
arms and seated her on one of the horses.
He carefully tested the saddle, although
the hoofs of their pursuers' horses were
already ringing on the street behind the
house. Then he swung himself easily
into the saddle, and was hardly there be
fore the General and his two sons swept
around the neighboring corner, not fifty
yards away.

" Good-bye, Elias," called the Colonel,
cheerfully, as they shot out into the
moonlit street; and Elias's "God bless
you bofe, Marse Bill!" came to them
above the rush of the horses.

As they went clattering through the

Courtship of Colonel Bill 247

quiet streets and past the rows of dark
ened houses, the horses, with their sinewy
necks straightened out speeding so swift
ly that the balmy air blew a soft wind
in their riders' faces, Colonel Bill, with
a slight shade of disappointment in his
voice, said:

" I guess you didn't get a good look at
the horses, or you would have recognized
them. That's old Beau Brummel you're
on, and this is Queen of Sheba. They're
both fit, although they haven't been par
ticularly trained for these free - for - all
scrambles, owners' handicap, ten miles
straightaway. But I don't believe
there's a horse in Kentucky can catch
us to-night," he concluded, proudly pat
ting the neck of his thoroughbred. He
glanced over his shoulder as he spoke,
and noted that the distance between
them and their pursuers was constantly
widening, until, turning a corner, they
could neither see nor hear them.

And now the Colonel's spirits fairly
bubbled over. He was a superb rider,
and swinging carelessly in his saddle, his
hands hardly touching the reins, he kept
up a running stream of jocular com
ment.

"It looks to me like the old gentle
man's going to be distanced," he cried,

248 Harper's Novelettes

with a chuckleo " He can't say a word,
though, for he made the conditions of
this race. The start was a trifle strag
gling, as Jack Galloway told me once
when he left seven horses at the post in
a field of ten, and perhaps the Beau and
the Queen didn't have the worst of it."

In every possible way he sought to di
vert his companion's mind. Once or
twice she delighted him by faintly smil
ing a response to his speeches. They had
passed the last of the straggling houses,
and the turnpike stretched before them,
a white ribbon winding through the
green meadow-land. They had to wait
while a sleepy toll-gate-keeper lifted his
wooden bar, and straining their ears,
they could just catch the faint, far-away
sound of galloping horses.

" In another hour," he cried, pressing
her hand, and once more they were off.
A mile farther on they stopped again.
Before them was a narrow lane debauch
ing from the turnpike.

" That lane," he said, reflective^,
"would save us a good two miles, for
the 'pike makes a big bend here. Elias
told me that he heard it was closed up,
and we might get in there and not be
able to get out. We can't afford to take
the chance," he concluded, thoughtfully,

Courtship of Colonel Eill 249

and they continued on. their journey.
For some time neither spoke. As they
were about to enter the wood through
which the road passed they stopped to
breathe their horses.

" I don't hear them," said the girl.
Then she added, joyfully, "Perhaps they
have turned back."

He listened attentively. " Perhaps they
have," he said, at last.

As they rode forward more than once
an anxious expression passed over his
face, although his conversation was as
cheerful as ever. Miss Braxton, from
whose mind a great weight had been lift
ed, laughed and chatted as she had not
done since the journey began.

They had passed through the wood and
were out in the open country again. As
they galloped on, only the distant bark
ing of a watch-dog guarding some lonely
farm-house, or the premature crowing of
a barn fowl, deceived by the brilliancy
of the moonlight into thinking that day
had come, broke the absolute silence.
They might have been the one woman
and the one man in a new world, so pro
found was their isolation.

" Do you see that group of trees on the
hill there just ahead of us," he asked,
carelessly, as the horses slowed to a can-

250 Harper's Novelettes

ter. "Well, just the other side of those
trees the lane we passed joins the 'piko
again. Now it is possible that instead of
your amiable relatives going home, they
may have taken to the lane. If it hasn't
been closed, they may be waiting there
to welcome us." For a moment the girl
was deceived by the lightness of his man
ner; and then, as she realized what such
a situation meant, she grew white to the
lips. " The chances are," he continued,
cheerfully, " that they won't be there,
but we had just as well be prepared. If
they are there we must approach them
just as if we were going to talk to them,
slowing up almost to a walk. They will
be on my side, and I will keep in the
middle of the 'pike. You remain as close
to the fence as you can. When we get
opposite them I'll yell, ' Now !' You can
give your horse his head, and before they
know what's happened we will be a hun
dred yards away. All my horses have
been trained to get away from the post,
and these two are the quickest breakers
on the Western Circuit. Now let's go
over the plan again." And the Colonel
carefully repeated what he had said, il
lustrating it as he went along. Yes, she
understood him. It was very simple.
How could she forget it? As she told

Courtship of Colonel Bill 251

him this her frightened eyes never left
his face, and she followed his movements
with such a look of pain that he swore
at her father, under his breath, with a
vigor which did full justice to the occa
sion.

A few minutes' ride brought them to
the top of the hill, and they both looked
eagerly before them. A furlong away,
standing perfectly still in the middle of
the lane, their horses' heads facing the
turnpike, were three mounted men. It
required no second glance to identify the
watchers. Colonel Bill's eyes blazed, and
his right hand went back instinctively
to his empty pistol-pocket. He regained
his composure in a moment. " Go very
slow," he whispered, " and don't make a
move till I shout. Keep as far over to
your side as you can." They approached
the three grim watchers, their horses' al
most eased to a walk. Not a word was
spoken on either side. When they had
reached a point almost directly opposite
their pursuers, Colonel Bill made a pre
tence of pulling up his horse, only to
catch the reins in a firmer grip, and then,
with a sudden dig of the spurs, he yelled,
" Now !" and his horse sprang forward
like a frightened deer. At the same in
stant Miss Braxton deliberately swung

252 Harper's Novelettes

her horse across the road and behind his.
Then there came the sharp report of a
pistol, followed by the rush of the pursu
ing horses. But high above all other
sounds rose General Braxton's agonized
voice: "My God, don't shoot! Don't
shoot!" Before the Colonel could turn
in his saddle Miss Braxton was beside
him.

"Why didn't you stay where you
were ?" he cried, sharply, the sense of her
peril setting his nerves on edge. As he
realized that it was for his sake she had
come between him and danger, his eyes
grew moist. "Suppose you had been
hurt ?" he added, reproachfully. She did
not reply, and they rode on at full speed.
They had once more left their pursuers
behind; but as the church was now only
a few miles away, and they needed every
spare moment there, they urged their
horses to renewed effort.

" There is the church now, and it's
lighted up," cried the Colonel, joyfully,
as they dashed around a bend in the
road, pointing to a little one-story build
ing tucked away amid trees and under
brush beside the turnpike. In the door
way the minister stood waiting for them
• — a tall young man whose ruddy face,
broad shoulders, and humorous blue eyes

Courtship of Colonel Bill 253

suggested the relationship the Colonel
had mentioned. As they pulled up, the
young minister came forward and was
introduced by the Colonel as "My cous
in, Jim Bradley." While they were
both assisting Miss Braxton to dismount
and fastening the horses, the Colonel, in
a few words, told of the pursuit and of
the necessity of haste. Mr. Bradley led
the way into the church, the lovers fol
lowing arm in arm. It was a plain
whitewashed little room, with wooden
benches for the worshippers, and a nar
row aisle leading up to the platform,
where stood the preacher's pulpit. Half
a dozen lamps with bright tin reflectors
behind them, like halos, were fastened
to brackets high up on the walls. Tha
young couple stopped when they reached
the platform, and at Mr. Bradley's re
quest joined their hands. He had open
ed the prayer-book at the marriage ser
vice, and was beginning to read it, when
he gave a start. Far away down the
turnpike, faint but unmistakable — now
dying away into a mere murmur, now
rising clear and bold — came the sound
of galloping horses. The Colonel felt the
girl's hand cold in his, and he whispered
a word of encouragement. Mr. Bradley
hurried on with the ceremony. The cen-

254 Harper's Novelettes

turies-old questions, so often asked be
neath splendid domes before fashionable
assemblages to the accompaniment of
triumphant music, were never answered
with more truth and fervor than in that
little roadside church, with no one to
hear them but the listening trees and
the heart of the night wind.

"Wilt thou have this woman to thy
wedded wife? Wilt thou love her, com
fort her, honor, and keep her in sickness
and in health, and forsaking all others,
keep thee only unto her, so long as ye
both shall live?"

How he pressed the trembling little
hand in his, and how devotedly he an
swered, " I will."

" Wilt thou have this man to thy wed
ded husband? Wilt thou obey him and
serve him, love, honor, and keep him in
sickness and in health, and forsaking all
others, keep thee only unto him, so long
as ye both shall live?"

The downcast eyes were covered with
the drooping lids, and the voice was faint
and low, but what a world of love was in
the simple, " I will."

As the young minister, very solemn
and dignified now, paused for each reply,
there came ever nearer and ever louder
the ringing of the hoof-beats. Once he

Courtship of Colonel Bill 255

stole a hurried glance through the win
dow which gave on the turnpike. Not
half a mile away, their figures black
against the sky - line, fiercely lashing
their tired horses to fresh effort, were
three desperate riders. The couple be
fore him did not raise their eyes.

And now the concluding words of the
service had been reached, and the minis
ter had begun, " Those whom God hath
joined together — " when the rest of the
sentence was lost in the old General's
angry shout, as he flung himself from
his horse, and, with his sons at his heels,
rushed into the church. At the thresh
old they stopped with blanched faces,
for, as they entered, the girl, uttering a
faint cry, her face whiter than her gown,
down which a little stream of blood was
trickling, reeled and tottered, and fell
senseless into her husband's arms.

A few days later Major Johnson's
Lexington Chronicle, under the heading
"Jarvis — Braxton," contained the fol
lowing :

" Colonel William Jarvis, the distin
guished and genial young turfman, and
Miss Susan Braxton, the beautiful and
accomplished daughter of General Thom
as Anderson Braxton, the hero of two

256 Harper's Novelettes

wars, whose name is a household word
wherever valor is honored and eloquence
is admired, were united in marriage
Monday night. With the romance of
youth, the young couple determined to
avoid the conventionalities of society,
and only the bride's father and two
brothers were present. Immediately pre
ceding the ceremony the lovely bride was
accidentally injured by the premature
explosion of a fire-arm, but her hosts of
friends will be delighted to learn that
the mishap was not of a serious charac
ter. The young couple are now the
guests of General Braxton at the historic
Elms. We are informed, however, that
Colonel Jarvis contemplates retiring from
the turf and purchasing a stock-farm
near Lexington. As a souvenir of his
marriage he has promised his distin
guished father-in-law the first three good
horses he raises."

The Balance of Power

BY MAURICE THOMPSON

" T DON'T hesitate to say to you that
I regard him as but a small re
move in nature from absolute
trash, Phyllis — absolute trash! His char
acter may be good — doubtless it is; but
he is not of good family, and he shows it.
What is he but a mountain cracker?
There is no middle ground; trash is
trash!"

Colonel Mobley Sommerton spoke in a
rich bass voice, slowly rolling his words.
The bagging of his trousers at the knees
made his straight legs appear bent, as if
for a jump at something, while his
daughter Phyllis looked at him search-
ingly, but not in the least impatiently,
her fine gray eyes wide open, and her
face, with its delicately blooming cheeks,
its peach-petal lips, and its saucy little
nose, all attention and half-indignant
surprise.

" Of course," the Colonel went on,
17 s. L.

258 Harper's Novelettes

with a conciliatory touch in his words,
when he had waited some time for his
daughter to speak and she spoke not —
" of course you do not care a straw for
him, Phyllis ; I know that. The daughter
of a Sommerton couldn't care for such
a—"

" I don't mind saying to you that I do
care for him, and that I love him, and
want to marry him," broke in Phyllis,
with tremulous vehemence, tears gushing
from her eyes at the same time; and a
depth of touching pathos seemed to open
behind her words, albeit they rang like
so many notes of rank boldness in the
old man's ears.

"Phyllis!" he exclaimed; then ho
stooped a little, his trousers bagging still
more, and he stood in an attitude almost
stagy, a flare of choleric surprise leap
ing into his face. "Phyllis Sommerton,
what do you mean? Are you crazy?
You say that to me?"

The girl — she was just eighteen — faced
her father with a look at once tearfully
saucy and lovingly firm. The sauciness,
however, was superficial and physical,
not in any degree a part of her mental
mood. She could not, had she tried, have
been the least bit wilful or impertinent
with her father, who had always been a

The Balance of Power 259

model of tenderness. Besides, a girl
never lived who loved a parent more un
reservedly than Phyllis loved Colonel
Sommerton.

" Go to your room, miss I go to your
room! Step lively at that, and let me
have no more of this nonsense* Go! I
command you!"

The stamp with which the Colonel's
rather substantial boot just then shook
the floor seemed to generate some cur
rent of force sufficient to whirl Phyllis
about and send her up-stairs in an old-
fashioned fit of hysteria. She was cry
ing and talking and running all at the
same time, her voice made liquid like a
bird's, and yet jangling with its mixed
emotions. Down fell her wavy, long,
brown hair almost to her feet, one
rich strand trailing over the rail as she
mounted the steps, while the rustling of
her muslin dress told off the springy mo
tion of her limbs till she disappeared in
the gilt-papered gloom aloft, where the
windowless hall turned at right angles
with the stairway.

Colonel Sommerton was smiling grim
ly by this time, and his iron-gray mus
tache quivered humorously.

" She's a little brick," he muttered; " a
chip off the old log — by zounds, she is!

260 Harper's Novelettes

She means business. Got the bit in her
teeth, and fairly splitting the air!" He
chuckled raucously. "Let her go; she'll
soon tire out."

Sommerton Place, a picturesque old
mansion, as mansions have always gone
in north Georgia, stood in a grove of
oaks on a hill-top overlooking a little
mountain town, beyond which uprose a
crescent of blue peaks against a dreamy
summer sky. Behind the house a broad
plantation rolled its billow-like ridges of
corn and cotton.

The Colonel went out on the veranda
and lit a cigar, after breaking two or
three matches that he nervously scratch
ed on a column.

This was the first quarrel that he had
ever had with Phyllis.

Mrs. Sommerton had died when Phyl
lis was twelve years old, leaving the little
girl to be brought up in a boarding-
school in Atlanta. The widowed man
did not marry again, and when his
daughter came home, six months before
the opening of our story, it was natural
that he should see nothing but loveliness
in the fair, bright, only child of his hap
py wedded life, now ended forever.

The reader must have taken for grant
ed that the person under discussion in

The Balance of Power 261

the conversation touched upon at the
outset of this writing was a young man;
but Tom Bannister stood for more than
the sum of the average young man's
values. He was what in our republic is
recognized as a promising fellow, bright,
magnetic, shifty, well forward in the
neologies of society, business, and poli
tics, a born leader in a small way, and as
ambitious as poverty and a brimming
self-esteem could make him. From his
humble law-office window he had seen
Phyllis pass along the street in the old
Sommertori carriage, and had fallen in
love as promptly as possible with her
plump, lissome form and pretty face.

He sought her acquaintance, avoided
with cleverness a number of annoying
barriers, assaulted her heart, and won it,
all of which stood as mere play when
compared with climbing over the pride
and prejudice of Colonel Sommerton.
For Bannister was nobody in a social
way, as viewed from the lofty top of the
hill at Sommerton Place; indeed, all of
his kinspeople were mountaineers, hon
est, it is true, but decidedly woodsy, who
tilled stony acres in a pocket beyond the
first blue ridge yonder. His education
seemed good, but it had been snatched
from the books by force, with the sav-

262 Harper's Novelettes

age certainty of grip which belongs to
genius.

Colonel Sommerton, having unbound
ed confidence in Phyllis's aristocratic
breeding, would not open his eyes to the
attitude of the young people until sud
denly it came into his head that possibly
the almost briefless plebeian lawyer had
ulterior designs while climbing the hill,
as he was doing noticeably often, from
town to Sommerton Place. But when
this thought arrived the Colonel was
prompt to act. He called up the subject
at once, and we have seen the close of
his interview with Phyllis.

Now he stood on the veranda and
puffed his cigar with quick, short
draughts, as a man does who falters be
tween two horns of a dilemma. ITe
turned his head to one side as if listen
ing to his own thoughts, his tall, pointed
collar meantime fitting snugly in a crease
of his furrowed jaw.

At this moment the shambling, yet in
a way facile, footsteps of Barnaby, tho
sporadic freedman of the household, were
soothing. Colonel Sommerton turned
his eyes on the comer inquiringly, almost
eagerly.

" Well, Barn, you're back," he said.

"Yah, sah; I'se had er confab wid

The Balance of Power 263

'em," remarked the negro, seating him
self on the top step of the veranda, and
mopping his coal-black face with a red
cotton handkerchief; "an' hit do beat
all. Niggahs is mos'ly eejits, spacially
w'en yo' wants 'em to hab some sense."

He was a huge, ill-shapen, muscular
fellow, old but still vigorous, and in his
small black eyes twinkled an unsounded
depth of shrewdness. He had been the
Colonel's slave from his young manhood
to the close of the war ; since then he had
hung around Ellijay what time he was
not sponging a livelihood from Sommer-
ton Place under color of doing various
light turns in the vegetable garden, and
of attending to his quondam master's
horses.

Barnaby was a great banjoist, a
charming song-singer, and a leader of
the negroes around about. Lately he
was gaining some reputation as a polit
ical boss.

There was but one political party in
the county (for the colored people were
so few that they could not be called a
party), and the only struggle for office
came in the pursuit of a nomination,
which was always equivalent to election.
Candidates were chosen at a convention
or mass-meeting of the whites and the

264 Harper's Novelettes

only figure that the blacks were able to
cut in the matter was by reason of a
pretended, rather than a real, prejudice
against them which was used by the can
didates (who are always white men) to
further their electioneering schemes, as
will presently appear.

" Hit do beat all," Barnaby repeated,
shaking his heavy head reflectively, and
making a grimace both comical and hid
eous. "Dat young man desput sma't
and cunnin', sho's yo' bo'n he is. He
done been foolin' wid dem niggahs
a'ready."

The reader may as well be told at once
that if a candidate could by any means
make the negroes support his opponent
for the nomination it was the best card
he could possibly play; or, if he could
not quite do this, but make it appear
that the other fellow was not unpopular
in colored circles, it served nearly the
same turn.

Phyllis, when she ran crying up-stairs
after the conversation with her father,
went to her room, and fell into a chair
by the window. So it chanced that she
overheard the conference between Colo
nel Sommerton and Barnaby, and long
after it was ended she still sat there
leaning on the window-sill. Her eyes

The Balance of Power 265

showed a trifle of irritation, but the tears
were all gone.

" Why didn't Tom tell me that he was
going to run against my father?" she
inquired of herself over and over. "I
think he might have trusted me, so I do.
It's mean of him. And if he should
beat papa! Papa could bear that."

She sprang to her feet and walked
across the room, stopping on the way to
rub her apple-bloom cheeks before a look
ing-glass. Vaguely enough, but insist
ently, the outline of a political plot glim
mered in her consciousness and troubled
her understanding. Plainly her father
and Tom Bannister were rival candi
dates, and just as plainly each was
scheming to make it appear that the
negroes were supporting his opponent;
but the girl's little head could not gather
up and comprehend all that such a con
dition of things meant. She supposed
that a sort of disgrace would attach to
defeat, and she clasped her hands and
poised her winsome body melodramatical
ly when she asked herself which she
would rather the defeat would fall upon,
her father or Tom. She leaned out of
the window and saw Colonel Sommerton
walking down the road towards town,
with his cigar elevated at an acute angle

266 Harper's Novelettes

with his nose, his hat pulled well down
in front, by which she knew that he was
still excited. Days went by, as days will
in any state of affairs, with just such
faultless weather as August engenders
amid the cool hills of the old Cherokee
country; and Phyllis noted, by an indi
rect attention to what she had never be
fore been interested in, that Colonel
Sommerton was growing strangely con
fidential and familiar with Barnaby.
She had a distinct but remote impres
sion that her father had hitherto never,
at least never openly, shown such irenic
solicitude in that direction, and she knew
that his sudden peace-making with the
old negro meant ill to her lover. She
pondered the matter with such discrimi
nation and logic as her clever little brain
could compass; and at last she one even
ing called Barnaby to come into the gar
den with his banjo.

The sun was down, and the half -grown
moon swung yellow and clear against
the violet arch of mid-heaven. Through
the sheen a softened outline of the town
wavered fantastically.

Phyllis sat on a great fragment of
limestone, which, embossed with curious
fossils, formed the immovable centre
piece of the garden.

The Balance of Power 267

Barnaby, at a respectful distance,
crumpled herself satyr - like on the
ground, with his banjo across his knee,
and gazed expectantly aslant at the girl's
sweet face.

" Now play me my father's favorite
song," she said.

They heard Mrs. Wren, the house
keeper, opening the windows in the up
per rooms of the mansion to let in the
night air, which was stirring over the
valley with a delicious mountain chill
on its wings. All around in the trees
and shrubbery the katydids were rasping
away in immelodious statement and de
nial of the ancient accusation.

Barnaby demurred. He did not im
agine, so at least he said, that Miss
Phyllis would be pleased with the bal
lad that recently had been the Colo
nel's chief musical delight; but he must
obey the young lady, and so, after some
throat - clearing and string - tuning, he
proceeded :

"I'd rudder be er niggah

Dan ter be er whi' man,
Dough the whi' man considdah

He se'f biggah ;
But ef yo' mus' be white, w'y be hones' ef

yo' can,
An ac' es much es poss'ble like er

268 Harper's Novelettes

"De colah ob yo' skin

Hit don't constertoot no sin,
An' yo' fambly ain't er-

Cuttin' any figgah;
Min' w'at yo's er-doin', an' do de bes' yo'

kin,
An' ac' es much es poss'ble like er niggah!"

The tune of this song was melody it
self, brimming with that unkempt, sar
castic humor which always strikes as if
obliquely, and with a flurry of tipsy fun,
into one's ears.

When the performance was ended, and
the final tinkle of the rollicking banjo
accompaniment died away down the slope
of Sommerton Hill, Phyllis put her
plump chin in her hands and, with her
elbows on her knees, looked steadily at
Barnaby for a while.

" Barn," she said, " is my father going
to get the colored people to indorse Mr.
Tom Bannister?"

"Yes, ma'm," replied the old negro;
and then he caught his breath and check
ed himself in confusion. " Da-da-dat is,
er-I spec' so-er-I dun'no', ma'm," he stam
mered. " Fo' de Lor' I's—

Phyllis interrupted him with an im
patient laugh, but said no more. In due
time Barnaby sang her some other dit
ties, and then she went into the house.

The Balance of Power 269

She gave the negro a large coin, and on
the veranda steps she called back to him,
"Good-night, Uncle Barn," in a voice
that made him shake his head and mut
ter:

"De bressed chile! De bressed chile!"
And yet he was aware that she had out
witted him and gained his secret. He
knew how matters stood between the
young lady and Tom Bannister, and
there arose in his mind a vivid sense of
the danger that might result to his own
and Colonel Sommerton's plans from a
disclosure of this one vital detail. Would
Phyllis tell her lover? Barnaby shook
his head in a dubious way.

"Gals is pow'ful onsartin so dey is,"
he muttered. "Dey tells der sweet
hearts mos'ly all what dey knows, spa-
cially secrets. Spec' de ole boss an' he
plan done gone up de chimbly er-kally-
hootin' fo' good."

Then the old scamp began to turn over
in his brain a scheme which seemed to
offer him a fair way of approaching Mr.
Tom Bannister's pocket and the porte-
monnaie of Phyllis as well. He chuckled
atrociously as a pretty comprehensive
view of "practical politics" opened it
self to him.

Tom Bannister had not been to see

270 Harper's Novelettes

Phyllis since her father had delivered
his opinion to her touching the intrinsic
merits of that young man, and she felt
uneasy.

Colonel Sommerton, though notably
eccentric, could be depended upon for
outright dealing in general; still Phyllis
had a pretty substantial belief that in
politics success lay largely on the side of
the trickster. For many years the Colo
nel had been in the Legislature. No
man had been able to beat him for the
nomination. She had often heard him
tell how he laid out his antagonists by
taking excellent and popular short turns
on them, and it was plain to her mind
now that he was weaving a snare for
Tom Bannister.

She thought of Tom's running for
office against her father as something
prodigiously strange. Certainly it was
a bold and daring piece of youthful au
dacity for him to be guilty of. He, a
young sprig of the law, with his brown
mustache not yet grown, setting him
self up to beat Colonel Mobley Sommer
ton! Phyllis blushed whenever she
thought of it; but the Colonel had never
once mentioned Tom's candidacy to her.

The convention was approaching, and
day by day signs of popular interest in it

The Balance of Power 271

increased as the time shortened. Colonel
Sommerton was preparing- a speech for
the occasion. The manuscript of it lay
on the desk in his library.

About this time — it was near Septem
ber 1st and the watermelons and can
taloupes were in their glory—the Colo
nel was called away to a distant town
for a few days. In his absence Tom
Bannister chanced to visit Sommerton
Place. Of course Phyllis was not expect
ing him; indeed, she told him that he1
ought not to have come ; but Tom thought
differently in a very persuasive way. The
melons were good, the library delightful
ly cool, and conversation caught the fra
grance of innocent albeit stolen pleas

ure.

Tom Bannister was unquestionably
a handsome young fellow, carrying a
hearty, whole - souled expression in his
open, almost rosy face. His large brown
eyes, curly brown hair, silken young
mustache, and firmly set mouth and
chin well matched his stalwart, symmet
rical form. He was not only handsome,
he was brilliant in a way, and his mem
ory was something prodigious. Unques
tionably he would rise rapidly.

"I am going to beat your father for
the nomination," he remarked, midmost

272 Harper's Novelettes

the discussion of their melons, speak
ing in a tone of the most absolute con
fidence.

" Tom," she exclaimed, " you mustn't
do it!"

"Why, I'd like to know?"

She looked at him as if she felt a sud
den fright. His eyes fell before her in
tense, searching gaze.

"It would be dreadful," she presently
managed to say. "Papa couldn't bear
it."

"It will ruin me forever if I let him
beat me. I shall have to go away from
here." It was now his turn to become
intense.

" I don't see what makes men think so
much of office," she complained, evasive
ly. " I've heard papa say that there was
absolutely no profit in going to the Legis
lature." Then, becoming insistent, she
exclaimed, "Withdraw, Tom; please do,
for my sake !"

She made a rudimentary movement as
if to throw her arms around him, but it
came to nothing. Her voice, however,
carried a mighty appeal to Tom's heart.
He looked at her, and thought how com
monplace other young women were when
compared with her.

"You will withdraw, won't you,

The Balance of Power 273

Tom?" she prayed. One of her hands
touched his arm. " Say yes, Tom."

For a moment his political ambition
and his standing with men appeared to
dissolve into a mere mist, a finely com
minuted sentiment of love; but he kept a
good hold upon himself.

" I cannot do it, Phyllis," he said, in a
firm voice, which disclosed by some in
describable inflection how much it pained
him to refuse. "My whole future de
pends upon success in this race. I am
sorry it is your father I must beat, but,
Phyllis, I must be nominated. I can't
afford to sit down in your father's shad
ow. As sure as you live, I am going to
beat him."

In her heart she was proud of him, and
proud of this resolution that not even she
could break. From that moment she was
between the millstones. She loved her
father, it seemed to her, more than ever,
and she could not bear the thought of his
defeat. Indeed, with that generosity char
acteristic of the sex which can be truly
humorous only when absolutely uncon
scious of it, she wanted both Tom and the
Colonel nominated, and both elected. She
was the partisan on Tom's side, the ad
herent on her father's.

Colonel Sommertoii returned on the

18 S.L.

274 Harper's Novelettes

day before the convention, and found his
friends enthusiastic, all his "fences" in
good condition, and his nomination evi
dently certain. It followed that he was
in high good-humor. He hugged Phyl
lis, and in a casual way brought up the
thought of how pleasantly they could
spend the winter in Atlanta when the
Legislature met.

" But Tom — I mean Mr. Bannister — is
going to beat you, and get the nomina
tion," she archly remarked.

" If he does, I'll deed you Sommerton
Place!" As he spoke he glared at her as
a lion might glare at thought of being
defeated by a cub.

" To him and me ?" she inquired, with
sudden eagerness of tone. " If he — "

" Phyllis!" he interrupted, savagely,
" no joking on that subject. I won't—

"No; I'm serious," she sweetly said.
"'If he can't beat you, I don't want
him."

"Zounds! Is that a bargain?" He
put his hand on her shoulder, and bent
down so that his eyes were on a level with
hers.

"Yes," she replied; "and I'll hold you
to it."

"You promise me?" he insisted.

"A man must go ahead of my papa,"

The Balance of Power 275

she said, putting her arms ahout the
old gentleman's neck, "or I'll stay by
papa."

He kissed her with atrocious violence.
Even the knee-sag of his trousers sug
gested more than ordinary vigor of feel
ing.

"Well, it's good-bye, Tom," he said,
pushing her away from him, and letting
go a profound bass laugh. "I'll settle
him to-morrow."

"You'll see," she rejoined. "He may
not be so easy to settle."

He gave her a savage but friendly cuff
as they parted.

That evening old Barnaby brought his
banjo around to the veranda. Colonel
Sommerton was down in town mixing
with the "boys," and doing up his final
political chores so that there might be no
slip on the morrow. It was near eleven
| o'clock when he came up the hill and
stopped at the gate to hear the song that
Barnaby was singing. He supposed that
the old negro was all alone. Certainly
the captivating voice, with its unkempt
melody, and its throbbing, skipping,
harum - scarum banjo accompaniment,
was all that broke the silence of the
place.

His song was :

276 Harper's Novelettes

"DE SASSAFRAS BLOOM

" Dey's sugah in de win' when de sassafras

bloom,

When de little co'n fluttah in de row,
When de robin in de tree, like er young

gal in de loom,
Sing sweet, sing sof, sing low.

" Oh, de sassafras blossom hab de keen

smell o' de root,

An' it hab sich er tender yaller green !
De co'n hit kinder twinkle when hit firs'

begin ter shoot,

While de bum'le-bee hit bum'le in be
tween.

" Oh, de sassafras tassel, an' de young

shoot o' de co'n,
An' de young gal er-singing in de

loom,
Dey's somefin' 'licious in 'em f'om de

day 'at dey is bo'n,

An' dis darky's sort o' took er likin'
to 'm.

Hit's kind o' sort o' glor'us when yo' feels

so quare an' cur'us,
An' yo don' know what it is yo' wants

ter do;
But I takes de chances on it 'at hit jes

can't be injur'us

When de whole endurin' natur tells
yo' to !

The Balance of Power 277

" Den wake up, niggah, see de sassafras in

bloom !

Lis'n how de sleepy wedder blow!
An' de robin in de haw - bush an' de

young gal in de loom
Is er-singin' so sof an' low."

" Thank you, Barn ; here's your dollar,"
said the voice of Tom Bannister when the
song was ended. " You may go now."

And while Colonel Sommerton stood
amazed, the young man came down the
veranda steps with Phyllis on his arm.
They stopped when they reached the
ground.

" Good - night, dear. I'll win you to
morrow or my name is not Tom Bannis
ter. I'll win you, and Sommerton Place
TOO." And when they parted he came
right down the walk between the trees, to
run almost against Colonel Sommerton.

" Why, good-evening, Colonel," he said,
with a cordial, liberal spirit in his voice.
" I have been waiting in hopes of seeing
you."

" You'll get enough of me to-morrow
to last you a lifetime, sah," promptly re
sponded the old man, marching straight
on into the house. Nothing could express
more concentrated and yet comprehensive
contempt than Colonel Sommerton's man
ner.

278 Harper's Novelettes

" The impudent young scamp," he
growled. " I'll show him !"

Phyllis sprang from ambush behind a
vine, and covered her father's face with
warm kisses, then broke away before he
could say a word, and ran up to her
room.

In the distant kitchen Barnaby was
singing :

"Kick so high I broke my neck,

An' fling my right foot off'm my leg
Went to work mos' awful quick,

An' mended 'em wid er wooden peg."

Next morning at nine o'clock sharp the
convention was called to order, General
John Duff Tolliver in the chair. Speeches
were expected, and it had been arranged
that Tom Bannister should first appear,
Colonel Sommcrton would follow, and
then the ballot would be taken.

This order of business showed the fine
tactics of the Colonel, who well under
stood how much advantage lay in the
vivid impression of a closing speech.

As the two candidates made their way
from opposite directions through the
throng to the platform, which was under
a tree in a beautiful suburban grove, both
were greeted with effusive warmth by ad
miring constituents. Many women were

The Balance of Power 279

present, and Tom Bannister felt the blood
surge mightily through his veins at sight
of Phyllis standing tall and beautiful be
fore him with her hand extended.

" If you lose, die game, Tom," she mur
mured, as he pressed her fingers and
passed on.

The young man's appearance on the
stand called forth a tremendous roar of
applause. Certainly he was popular.
Colonel Sommerton felt a queer shock of
surprise thrill along his nerves. Could
it be possible that he would lose ? No ; the
thought was intolerable. He sat a trifle
straighter on his bench, and began gath
ering the points of his well-conned speech.
He saw old Barnaby moving around the
rim of the crowd, apparently looking for
a seat.

Meantime, Tom was proceeding in a
clear, soft, far-reaching voice. The Colo
nel started and looked askance. What
did it mean ? At first his brain was con
fused, but presently he understood. Word
for word, sentence for sentence, para
graph for paragraph, Tom was delivering
the Colonel's own sonorous speech! Of
course the application was reversed here
and there, so that the wit, the humor, and
the personal thrusts all went home. It
was a wonderful piece of ad captandum

280 Harper's Novelettes

oratory. The crowd went wild from start
to finish.

Colonel Mobley Sommerton sat dazed
and stupefied, mopping his forehead and
trying to collect his faculties. He felt
beaten, annihilated, while Tom soared
superbly on the wings of Sommertonian
oratory so mysteriously at his command.

From a most eligible point of view
Phyllis was gazing at Tom and receiving
the full brilliant current of his speech,
and she appeared to catch a fine stimulus
from the flow of its opening sentences.
As it proceeded her face alternately
flushed and paled, and her heart pounded
heavily. All around rose the tumult of
unbridled applause. Men flung up their
hats and yelled themselves hoarse. A
speech of that sort from a young fellow
like Tom Bannister was something to
create irrepressible enthusiasm. It ended
in such a din that when General John
Duff Tolliver arose to introduce Colonel
Sommerton he had to wait some time to
be heard.

The situation was one that absolutely
appalled, though it did not quite paralyze,
the older candidate, who, even after he
had gained his feet and stalked to the
front of the rude rostrum, was as empty
of thought as he was full of despair. This

The Balance of Power 281

sudden and unexpected appropriation of
his great speech had sapped and stupefied
his intellect. He slowly swept the crowd
with his dazed eyes, and by some accident
the only countenance clearly visible to
him was that of old Barnaby, who now
sat far back on a stump, looking for all
the world like a mightily mystified ba
boon. The negro winked and grimaced,
and scratched his flat nose in sheer va
cant stupidity. Colonel Sommerton saw
this, and it added an enfeebling incre
ment to his mental torpor.

" Fellow-citizens," he presently roared,
in his melodious bass voice, " I am proud
of this honor." He was not sure of an
other word as he stood, with bagging
trousers and sweat - beaded face, but he
made a superhuman effort to call up his
comatose wits. " I should be ungrateful
were I not proud of this great demonstra
tion." Just then his gaze fell upon the
face of his daughter. Their eyes met
with a mutual flash of restrospection.
They were remembering the bargain.
The Colonel was not aware of it, but the
deliberateness and vocal volume of his
opening phrases made them very impres
sive. " I assure you," he went on, fum
bling for something to say, "that my
heart is brimming with gratitude so that

282 Harper's Novelettes

my lips find it hard to utter the words
that crowd into my mind." At this
point some kindly friend in the audience
gingerly set going a ripple of applause,
which, though evidently forced, was like
wine to the old man's intellect; it flung
a glow through his imagination.

" The speech you have heard the youth
ful lamb of law declaim is a very good
one, a very eloquent one indeed. If it
were his own, I should not hesitate to say
right here that I ought to stand aside and
let him be nominated ; but, fellow-citizens,
that speech belongs to another and far
more distinguished and eligible man than
Tom Bannister." Here he paused again,
and stood silent for a moment. Then,
lifting his voice to a clarion pitch, he
added:

" Fellow-citizens, I wrote that speech,
intending to deliver it here to-day. I was
called to Canton 011 business early in the
week, and during my absence Tom Ban
nister went to my house and got my man
uscript and learned it by heart. To prove
to you what I say is true, I will now
read."

At this point the Colonel, after delib
erately wiping his glasses, drew from his
capacious coat-pocket the manuscript of
his address, and proceeded to read it word

The Balance of Power 283

for word, just as Bannister had declaim
ed it. The audience listened in silence,
quite unable to comprehend the situation.
There was no applause. Evidently sen
timent was dormant, or it was still with
Tom. Colonel Sommerton, feeling the
desperation of the moment, reached forth
at random, and seeing- Barnaby's old
black face, it amused him, and he chanced
to grab a thought as if out of the expres
sion he saw there.

" Fellow-citizens," he added, " there is
one thing I desired to say upon this im
portant occasion. Whatever you do, be
sure not to nominate to-day a man who
would, if elected, ally himself with the
niggers. I don't pretend to hint that my
young opponent, Tom Bannister, would
favor nigger rule, but I do say — do you
hear me, fellow-citizens? — I do say that
every nigger in this county is a Bannister
man! How do I know? I will tell you.
Last Saturday night the niggers had a
meeting in an old stable on my premises.
Wishing to know what they were up to,
I stole slyly to where I could overhear
their proceedings. My old nigger, Barna-
by — yonder he sits, and he can't deny it
— was presiding, and the question before
the meeting was, ' Which of the two can
didates, Tom Bannister and Colonel Som-

284 Harper's Novelettes

merton, shall we niggers support?' On
this question there was some debate and
difference of opinion, until old Bob War-
raus arose and said, ( Mistah Prcs'dent,
dey's no use er talkin'; I likes Colonel
Sommerton mighty well; he's a berry
good man; dey's not a bit er niggah in
'im. On t' odder han', Mistah Pres'dent,
Mistah Tom Bannistah is er white man
too, jes de same; but I kin say fo' Mis
tah Bannistah 'at he's mo' like er nig
gah an' any white man 'at I ebber seed
afore!'"

Here the Colonel paused to wait for the
shouting and the hat-throwing to subside.
Meantime the face of old Barnaby was
drawn into one indescribable pucker of
amazement. He could not believe his
eyes or his ears. Surely that was not
Colonel Sommerton standing up there
telling such an enormous falsehood on
him! He shook his woolly head doleful
ly, and gnawed a little splinter that he
had plucked from the stump.

" Of course, fellow-citizens," the Colo
nel went on, " that settled the matter,
and the niggers endorsed Tom Bannister
unanimously by a rising vote!"

The yell that went up when the speaker,
bowing profoundly, took his seat, made it
seem certain that Bannister would be

The Balance of Power 285

beaten; but when the ballot was taken it
was found that he had been chosen by one
vote majority.

Colonel Mobley Sommerton's face turn
ed as white as his hair. The iron of de
feat went home to his proud heart with
terrible effect, and as ho tried to rise, the
features of the hundreds of countenances
below him swam and blended confusedly
in his vision. The sedentary bubbles on
the knees of his trousers fluttered with
sympathetic violence.

Tom Bannister was on his feet in a
moment — it was an appealing look from
Phyllis that inspired him — and once more
his genial voice rang out clear and strong.

" Fellow-citizens," he said, " I have a
motion to make. Hear me." He waved
his right hand to command silence, then
proceeded: "Mr. President, I withdraw
my name from this convention, and move
that the nomination of Colonel Mobley
Sommerton be made unanimous by ac
clamation. I have no right to this nomi
nation, and nothing, save a matter greater
than life or death to me, could have in
duced me to steal it as I this day have
done. Colonel Sommerton knows why I
did it. He gave his word of honor that
he would cease all objections to giving his
daughter to me in marriage, and that

286 Harper's Novelettes

furthermore he would deed Sommerton
Place to us as a wedding present, if I
beat him for the nomination. Mr. Presi
dent and fellow-citizens, do you blame me
for memorizing; his speech? That mag
nificent speech meant to me the most
beautiful wife in America, and the hand
somest estate in this noble county/

If Tom Bannister had been boisterously
applauded before this, it was as nothing
beside the noise which followed when
Colonel Mobley Sommerton was declared
the unanimous nominee of the conven
tion. Meantime, Phyllis had hurried to
the carriage and been driven home: she
dared not stay and let the crowd gaze at
her after that bold confession of Tom's.

The cheering for the nominee was yet
at its flood when Bannister leaped at Colo
nel Sommerton and grasped his hand.
The old gentleman was flushed and smil
ing, as became a politician so wonderful
ly favored. It was a moment never to be
forgotten by either of the men.

"I cordially congratulate you, Colonel
Sommerton, on your nomination," said
Tom, with great feeling, " and you may
count on my hearty support."

"If I don't have to support you, and
pay your office rent in the bargain, all
the rest of my life, I miss my guess, you

The Balance of Power 287

young scamp!" growled the Colonel, in a
major key. " Be off with you !"

Tom moved away to let the ColoneFs
friends crowd up and shake hands with
him; but the delighted youth could not
withold a Parthian shaft. As he retreated
he said, " Oh, Colonel, don't bother about
my support; Sommerton Plantation will
be ample for that !"

" Hit do beat all thunder how dese
white men syfoogles eroun' in politics,"
old Barnaby thought to himself. Then
he rattled the coins in his two pockets.
The contributions of Colonel Sommerton
chinked on the left, those of Tom Ban
nister and Phyllis rang on the right.
" Blame this here ole chile's eyes," he
went on, " but 'twar a close shabe ! Seem
lak I's kinder holdin' de balernce ob
power. I use my inflooence fer bofe ob
'em — yah, yah, yah-r-r! an' hit did look
lak I's gwine ter balernce fings up tell I
'lee' 'em bofe ter oncet right dar! Bofe
of 'em got de nomination — yah, yah, yah-
r-r ! But I say 'rah f o' little Miss Phyl
lis! She de one 'at know how to pull de
right string — yah, yah, yah-r-r!"

The wedding at Sommerton Place came
on the Wednesday following the fall elec
tion. Besides the great number of guests
and the striking beauty of the bride there

288 Harper's Novelettes

was nothing notable in it, unless the song
prepared by Barnaby for the occasion,
and sung by him thereupon to a capti
vating banjo accompaniment, may be so
distinguished. A stanza, the final one of
that masterpiece, has been preserved. It
may serve as an informal ending, a char
coal tail-piece, to our light but truthful
little story.

"Stan' by yo* frien's and nebber mek

trouble,

An' so, ef yo's got any sense,
Yo'll know hit's a good t'ing ter be sorter

double,
An* walk on bofe sides ob de fence!"

THE END

'

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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