STRANGE WILD THINGS
"Phoebe," said David Kildare as he seated himself on the corner of the
table just across from where Phoebe sat in Major Buchanan's chair writing
up her one o'clock notes, "what is there about me that makes people think
they must make me judge of the criminal court of this county? Do I look
job-hungry so as to notice it?"
"No," answered Phoebe as she folded her last sheet and laid down her
pencil, "that is one thing no one can accuse you of, David. But your work
down there has brought its results. They need you and are calling to you
rather decisively I think. Any more delegations to-day?"
"Several. Susie Carrie Snow came with more Civic Improvements, rather
short as to skirts and skimpy as to hats. They have fully decided that I
am going to feed Mayor Potts out of my hand as Taylor does, and they want
my influence to put up two more drinking fountains and three brass plates
to mark the homes of the founders of the city, in return for their
precious support. I promised; and they fell on my neck. That is, if _you_
don't mind?" David edged a tentative inch or two nearer Phoebe who had
rested her elbows on the table and her head on her hands as she looked up
at him.
"I don't," she answered with a cruel smile. Then she asked, with an
unconcerned glance over the top of his head, "Did you hear from the
United Charities?"
"Well, yes, some," returned David with an open countenance, no suspicion
of a trap in even the flicker of an eyelash. "They sent Mrs. Cherry.
Blooming more every day isn't she, don't you think? She didn't fall on my
neck worth a cent though I had braced myself for the shock. She managed
to convey the fact that the whole organization is for me just the same.
It's some pumpkins to be a candidate. I'm for all there is in it--if at
all."
"You aren't hesitating, David?" asked Phoebe as she rose and stood
straight and tall beside him, her eyes on a level with his as he sat on
the table. "Ah, David, you can if you will--will you? I know what
it means to you," and Phoebe laid one hand on his shoulder as she looked
him straight in the eyes, "for it will be work, _work_ and fight like mad
to put out the fire. You will have to fight honest--and they won't.
But, David"--a little catch in her voice betrayed her as she entreated.
"Yes, dear," answered David as he laid his hand over the one on his
shoulder and pressed it closer, "I sent in the announcement of my
candidacy to the afternoon papers just as I came around here to see
the major--and you. The fight is on and it is going to be harder than you
realize, for there is so little time. Are you for me, girl?"
"If _I_ fall on your neck it will make seven this morning. Aren't you
satisfied?" And Phoebe drew her hand away from his, allowing, however, a
regretful squeeze as he let it go.
"No, six if you would do it," answered David disconsolately, "I told you
that Mrs. Cherry failed me."
"Yes," answered Phoebe as she lowered her eyes, "I know you told me."
David Kildare was keen of wit but it takes a most extraordinary wisdom to
fathom such a woman as Phoebe chose to be--out of business hours.
"Isn't it time for you to go to dress for the parade?" she asked quickly
with apparent anxiety.
"No," answered David as he filled his tooled leather case from the
major's jar of choice Seven Oaks heart-leaf--he had seen Phoebe's white
fingers roll it to the proper fineness just the night before, "I'm
all ready! Did you think I was going to wear a lace collar and a sash?
Everything is in order and I only have to be there at two to start them
off. Everybody is placed on the platform and everybody is satisfied. The
unveiling will be at three-thirty. You are going out with Mrs. Matilda
early, aren't you? I want you to see me come prancing up at the
head of the mounted police. Won't you be proud of me?"
"Sometimes, really, I think you are the missing twin to little Billy
Bob," answered Phoebe with a laugh, but in an instant her face became
grave again. "I'm worried about Caroline Darrah," she said softly. "I
found her crying last night after I had finished work. I was staying here
with Mrs. Matilda for the night and I went into her room for a moment on
the chance that she would be awake. She said she had wakened from an ugly
dream--but I know she dreads this presentation, and I don't blame her. It
was lovely of her to want to give the statue and plucky of her to come
and do it--but it's in every way trying for her."
"And isn't she the darling child?" answered David Kildare, a tender smile
coming into his eyes. "Plucky! Well I should say so! To come dragging old
Peters Brown's money-bags down here just as soon as he croaked, with the
express intention of opening up and passing us all our wads back. Could
anything as--as pathetic ever have happened before?"
"No," answered Phoebe. Then she said slowly, tentatively, as she looked
into David's eyes that were warm with friendliness for the inherited
friend who had preempted a place in both their hearts: "And the one awful
thing for which she can offer no reparation she knows nothing of. I pray
she never knows!"
"Yes, but it is about to do him to the death. I sometimes wake and find
him sitting over his papers at daybreak with burned-out eyes and as pale
as a white horse in a fog."
"But why does it _have_ to be that way? Andrew isn't bitter and it isn't
her fault--she wasn't even born then. She doesn't even know."
"I think it's mostly the money," said David slowly. "If she were poor it
would be all right to forgive her and take her, but a man couldn't very
well marry his father's blood money. And he's suffering God knows. Here
I've been counting for years on his getting love-tied at home, and to
think it should be like this! Sometimes I wish she _did_ know--she offers
herself to him like a little child; and thinks she is only doing
reverence to the poet. It's driving him mad, but he won't cut and run."
"And yet," said Phoebe, "it would kill her to know. She is so sensitive
and she has just begun to be herself with us. She has had so few friends
and she isn't like we are. Why, Polly Farrell could manage such a
situation better than Caroline Darrah. She is so elemental that she is
positively--primitive. I am frightened about it sometimes--I can only
trust Andrew." As Phoebe spoke her eyes grew sad and her lips quivered.
"Dear heart," said David as he took both her hands in his, "it's just one
of those fatal things that no man can see through; he can just be
thankful that there's a God to handle 'em." There were times when David
Kildare's voice held more of tenderness than Phoebe was calculated to
withstand without heroic effort. It behooved her to exert the utmost at
this moment in order that she might hold her own.
"It's making me thin," she ventured as she shook a little shower of tears
off her black lashes and again smilingly regained control of her own
hands, but displaying a slender blue-veined wrist for his sympathetic
inspection.
"Help!" exclaimed David, taking possession of the wrist and circling it
with his thumb and forefinger. "Let me send for a crate of eggs and a
case of the malt-milk! You poor starved peach-bud you, _why won't_ you
marry me and let me feed you? I'm going--"
"But you and the major both recommended 'lovers' troubles' to me, David,"
Phoebe hazarded.
"I only recommended _my_ own special brand, remember," retorted David. "I
won't have you ill! I'm going to see that you do as I say about your--"
"David Kildare," remarked the major from the door into the hall, "if you
use that tone to the grand jury they will shut up every saloon in Hell's
Half Acre. Hail the judge! My boy, my boy, I knew you'd line up when the
time came--and the line!"
"Can I count on the full artillery of the _Gray Picket_ brigade, Major?"
demanded David with delight in his eyes as he returned the major's
vigorous hand-shake.
"Hot shot, grape, canister and shrapnel, sir! Horses in lather, guns on
the wheel and bayonets set. We'll bivouac in the camp of the enemy on the
night of the election! We'll--"
"I don't believe you will want to lie down in the lair of the blind tiger
as soon as that, Major," laugher Phoebe.
"Phoebe," answered the major, "politics makes strange bed-fellows. Mike
O'Rourke, the boss of the democratic Irish, was around this morning
hunting for David Kildare with the entire green grocer's vote in his
pocket. He spoke of the boy as his own son."
"Good for old Mike!" laughed David. "It's not every boy who can boast an
intimate friendship with his corner grocer from childhood up. It means a
certain kind of---self-denial in the matter of apples and other
temptations. I used to go to the point of an occasional errand for him.
Those were the days, Phoebe, when you sat on the front steps and played
hollyhock dolls. Wish I'd kidnapped you then--when I could!"
"It would have saved us both lots of time--and trouble," answered Phoebe
daringly from the protection of the major's presence.
"David, sir," said the major who had been busy settling himself in his
chair and lighting his pipe during this exchange of pleasantries between
David and Phoebe, to the like of which he was thoroughly accustomed,
"this is going to be a fight to the ditches. I believe the whisky
ring that controls this city to be the worst machine south of Mason and
Dixon's. State-wide prohibition voted six months ago and every saloon in
the town going full tilt night and day! They own the city council, the
board of public works and the mayor, but none of that compares in
seriousness to the debauching of our criminal courts. The grand jury is
helpless if the judge dismisses every true bill they return--and Taylor
does it every time if it is a whisky law indictment or pertaining
thereto, and most of the bills are at least distantly pertaining. So
there you have us bound and helpless--a disgrace to the nation, sir, and
a reproach to good government!"
"Yes, Major, they've got us tied up some--but they forgot to gag us,"
answered David with a smile. "Your editorial in the _Gray Picket_,
calling on me to run for criminal court judge, has been copied in every
paper in the state and some of the large northern sheets. I am willing to
make the try, Major. I've practised down there more than you'd think and
it's rotten from the cellar steps to the lightning-rod. Big black buck is
sent up for rioting down at Hein's Bucket of Blood dive--stand aside and
forget about it--while some poor old kink is sent out to the pen for
running into a flock of sleepy hens in the dark, 'unbenkownst' entirely.
I defended six poor pick-ups last week myself, and I guess Taylor saw
my blood was on the boil at the way he's running things. I'm ready to
take a hand with him, but it will take some pretty busy doing around to
beat the booze gang. Am I the man--do you feel sure?"
As David questioned the major his jaw squared itself determinedly. There
was a rather forceful sort of man appearing under the nonchalant David
whom his friends had known for years. A wild pride stirred in Phoebe to
such an extent that she caught her breath while she waited for the
major's reply.
"Yes, David," answered the major as he looked up at him with his keen old
eagle eyes, "I think you are. You've had everything this nation can give
you in the way of fighting blood from Cowpens to Bull Run, and when you
speak in a body legislative your voice can be but an echo of the men who
sired you, statesmen, most of them; so it is to you and your class we
must look for clean government. It is your arraignment of the mayor and
the judge on the hay-market question that has made every decent
organization in the city look to you to begin the fight for a clean-up
reorganization. They have all rallied to your support. Show your colors,
boy, and, God willing, we will smash this machine to the last cog and get
on a basis of honest government."
"Then here goes the hottest fight Davie knows how to put to them! And
it's going to be an honest one. I'll go before the people of this city
and promise them to enforce law and order, but I'll not _buy_ a vote of a
man of them. That I mean, and I hereby hand it out to you two
representatives of the press. From now on 'not a dollar spent' is the
word and I'm back of it to make it go." As he spoke, Kildare turned to
Phoebe and looked at her as man to man with nothing in his voice but the
cool note of determination. It was a cold dash for Phoebe but the
reaction brought hot pride to her eyes.
"Yes, David," she answered, "you can and you will."
The determination in her voice matched that in his, and her eyes met his
with a glance in which lay a new expression--not the old tolerant
affection nor the guarded defense, but one with a quality of comradeship
that steadied every nerve in his body. Some men get the like from some
women--but not often.
"They will empty their pockets to fight you," the major continued
thoughtfully. "But there is a deal of latent honesty in human nature,
after all, that will answer the right appeal by the right man. A man
calls a man; and ask a crook to come in on the straight proposition, two
to one he'll step over the line before he stops himself. This is an
independent candidacy--let's ask them all in, without reference to age,
color or 'previous condition of servitude'--in the broadest sense."
"Yes, and with the other construction, too, perhaps. We'll ask in the
darks--but they won't come. They'll vote with the jug crowd every time.
No nig votes for Dave without the dollar and the small bottle. How many
do they poll, anyway, do you suppose?"
"Less than a thousand I think. Not overwhelming! But in an independent
race it might hold the balance of power. We'll devise means to appeal to
them; we must keep up all the fences, you see. A man who doesn't see to
his fences is a mighty poor proposition as a farmer and--"
"Hicks was here this morning, Major dear, to talk about that very thing,"
said Mrs. Matilda as she came in just in time to catch the last of the
major's remark. "He says that ten hogs got through into the north pasture
and rooted up acres of grass and if you don't get the new posts to repair
the fence he can't answer for the damage done. He told you about it more
than a month ago and--"
"David Kildare," said the major with an enigmatical smile, "what you need
to see you through life is a wife. When a man mounts a high-horse
aeroplane and goes sailing off, dimity is the best possible ballast.
Consider the matter I beg of you--don't be obdurate."
"Why, of course David is going to marry some day," answered Mrs. Matilda
as she beamed upon them. "A woman gets along nicely unmarried but it is
cruel to a man. Major, Jeff is waiting to help you into your uniform. Do
be careful, for it is mended to the last stitch now and I don't see how
it is going to hold together many more times."
"Gray uniforms have held together a long time, Matilda," answered the
major softly as he took his departure.
"And we must all hurry and have lunch," said Mrs. Buchanan. "Phoebe
and I want to be there in plenty of time to see the parade arrive. It
always gives me a thrill to see the major ride up at the head of his
company. I've never got over it all these years."
"How 'bout that, Phoebe?" asked David, once more his daring insistent
self. "Seems it wasn't so young in me after all to think you might thrill
a few glads to see me come prancing up. Now, will you be good?"
And it was only a little over two hours later that the parade moved on
its way from the public square to the park. A goodly show they made and
an interesting one, the grizzled old war-dogs in their faded uniforms
with faces aglow under their tattered caps. They trudged along under
their ragged banners in hearty good will, with now a limp and now a halt
and all of them entirely out of step with the enthusiastic young band in
its natty uniform. They called to one another, chaffed the mounted
officers, sang when the spirit moved them and acted in every way like
boys who were off on the great lark of their lives.
All along the line of march there were crowds to see them and cheer them,
with here and there a white-haired woman who waved her handkerchief and
smiled at them through a rain of tears.
The major rode at the head of a small and straggling division of cavalry
whose men ambled along and guyed one another about the management of
their green livery horses who were inclined to bunch and go wild with the
music.
A few pieces of heavy artillery lumbered by next, and just behind them
came three huge motor-cars packed and jammed with the old fellows who
were too feeble to keep up with the procession. They were most of them
from the Soldiers' Home and in spite of empty coat sleeves and crutches
they bobbed up and down and waved their caps with enthusiasm as cheer
after cheer rose whenever they came into sight.
Andrew Sevier stood at his study window and watched them go past,
marching to the conflicting tunes of _The Bonnie Blue Flag_, played by
the head band, and _Dixie_ by the following one. It was great to see them
again after five years; and in such spirits! He felt a cheer rise to his
lips and he wanted to open the window and give lusty vent to it--but a
keen pain caught it in his throat.
Always before he had ridden with David at the head of the division of the
Confederacy's Sons, but to-day he stood behind the window and watched
them go past him! There were men in those ranks who had slept in the
ditches with his father, and to whom he had felt that his presence would
be a reminder of an exceeding bitterness. The had quietly fought the
acceptance of the statue offered by the daughter of Peters Brown from the
beginning, but the granddaughter of General Darrah, who had led them at
Chickamauga, must needs command their acceptance of a memorial to him and
her mother.
And they would all do her honor after the unveiling. Andrew could almost
see old General Clopton stand with bared head and feel the thrill with
which the audience would listen to what would be a tender tribute to the
war women. A wave of passionate joy swelled up in his heart--he _wanted_
them to cheer her and love her and adopt her! It was her baptism into her
heritage! And he gloried in it.
Then across his joy came a curious stifling depression--he found himself
listening as if some one had called him, called for help. The music was
dying away in the distance and the cheers became fainter and fainter
until their echo seemed almost a sob. Before he had time to realize what
he did he descended the stair, crossed the street and let himself into
the Buchanan house.
He stood just within the library door and listened again. A profound
stillness seemed to beat through the deserted rooms--then he saw her! She
sat with her arms outspread across the table and her head bent upon a
pile of papers. She was tensely still as if waiting for something to
sound around her.
"Caroline!" It was the first time he had called her by her name and
though the others had done it from the first, she had never seemed to
notice his more formal address. It was beyond him to keep the tenderness
that swept through every nerve out of his voice entirely.
"Yes," she answered as she raised her head and looked at him, her eyes
shining dark in her white face, "I know I'm a coward--did you come back
to make me go? I thought they might not miss me until it was too late to
come for me. I didn't think--I--could stand it--please--please!"
"You needn't go at all, dear," he said as he took the cold hands in his
and unclasped the wrung fingers. "Why didn't you tell them? They wouldn't
have insisted on your going."
"I--I couldn't! I just could not say what I felt to--to--_them_. I wanted
to come--the statue suggested itself--for her. I ought to have given it
and gone back--back to my own life. I don't belong--there is something
between them all and me. They love me and try to make me forget it and--"
"But, don't you see, child, that's just it? They love you so they hold
you against all the other life you have had before. We're a strong love
people down here--we claim our own!" A note in his voice brought Andrew
to his senses. He let her hands slip from his and went around the
table and sat down opposite to her. "And so you ran away and hid?" He
smiled at her reassuringly.
"Yes. I knew I ought not to--then I heard the music and I couldn't look
or listen. I--why, where did you come from? I thought you were in the
parade with David. I felt--if you knew you would understand. I wished
that I had asked you--had told you that I couldn't go. Did you come back
for me?"
"No," answered Andrew with a prayer in his heart for words to cover facts
from the clear eyes fixed on his--clear, comforted young eyes that looked
right down to the rock bed of his soul. "You see the old boys rather
upset me, too. I have been away so long--and so many of them are missing.
I'm just a coward, too--'birds of a feather'--take me under your wing,
will you?"
"I believe one of those 'strange wild things' has been flying around in
the atmosphere and has taken possession of us again," said Caroline
Darrah slowly, never taking her eyes from his. "I don't know why I know,
but I do, that you came to comfort me. I was thinking about you and
wishing I could tell you. Now in just this minute you've made me see that
I have a right to all of you. I'm never going to be unhappy about it any
more. After this I'm going to belong as hard as ever I can."
Something crashed in every vein in Andrew Sevier's body, lilted in his
heart, beat in his throat and sparkled in his eyes. He sprang to his feet
and held out his hand to her.
"Then come on and be adopted," he said. "I shall order the electric, and
you get into your hat and coat. We can skirt the park and come in at the
side of the Temple back of the platform so that you can slip into place
before one-half of the sky-rockets of oratory have been exploded. Will
you come?"
"Will you stay with me--right by me?" she asked, timidity and courage at
war in her voice.
"Yes," he answered slowly, "I'll stay by you as long as you want me--if I
can."
"And that," said Caroline Darrah Brown as she turned at the door and
looked straight at him with a heavenly blush mounting in her cheeks, the
tenderness of the ages curling her lips and the innocence of all of six
years in her eyes, "will be always!" With which she disappeared
instantly beyond the rose damask hangings.
And so when the ceremonies in the park were over and Caroline stood to
clasp hands with each of the clamorous gray squad, Andrew Sevier waited
just behind her and he met one after another of the sharp glances shot at
him from under grizzled brows with a dignity that quieted even the
grimmest old fire-eater.
And there are strange wild things that take hold on the lives of
men--vital forces against which one can but beat helpless wings of mortal
spirit.