[Illustration]
Carlisle Street runs westward from the centre of Johnstown, across a
great black bridge, down a hill and up again, by little shops and
meat-markets, past single-storied homes, until suddenly it stops
against a wide green lawn. It is a broad, restful place, with two large
buildings outlined against the west. When at evening the winds come
swelling from the east, and the great pall of the city’s smoke hangs
wearily above the valley, then the red west glows like a dreamland down
Carlisle Street, and, at the tolling of the supper-bell, throws the
passing forms of students in dark silhouette against the sky. Tall and
black, they move slowly by, and seem in the sinister light to flit
before the city like dim warning ghosts. Perhaps they are; for this is
Wells Institute, and these black students have few dealings with the
white city below.
And if you will notice, night after night, there is one dark form that
ever hurries last and late toward the twinkling lights of Swain
Hall,—for Jones is never on time. A long, straggling fellow he is,
brown and hard-haired, who seems to be growing straight out of his
clothes, and walks with a half-apologetic roll. He used perpetually to
set the quiet dining-room into waves of merriment, as he stole to his
place after the bell had tapped for prayers; he seemed so perfectly
awkward. And yet one glance at his face made one forgive him much,—that
broad, good-natured smile in which lay no bit of art or artifice, but
seemed just bubbling good-nature and genuine satisfaction with the
world.
He came to us from Altamaha, away down there beneath the gnarled oaks
of Southeastern Georgia, where the sea croons to the sands and the
sands listen till they sink half drowned beneath the waters, rising
only here and there in long, low islands. The white folk of Altamaha
voted John a good boy,—fine plough-hand, good in the rice-fields, handy
everywhere, and always good-natured and respectful. But they shook
their heads when his mother wanted to send him off to school. “It’ll
spoil him,—ruin him,” they said; and they talked as though they knew.
But full half the black folk followed him proudly to the station, and
carried his queer little trunk and many bundles. And there they shook
and shook hands, and the girls kissed him shyly and the boys clapped
him on the back. So the train came, and he pinched his little sister
lovingly, and put his great arms about his mother’s neck, and then was
away with a puff and a roar into the great yellow world that flamed and
flared about the doubtful pilgrim. Up the coast they hurried, past the
squares and palmettos of Savannah, through the cotton-fields and
through the weary night, to Millville, and came with the morning to the
noise and bustle of Johnstown.
And they that stood behind, that morning in Altamaha, and watched the
train as it noisily bore playmate and brother and son away to the
world, had thereafter one ever-recurring word,—“When John comes.” Then
what parties were to be, and what speakings in the churches; what new
furniture in the front room,—perhaps even a new front room; and there
would be a new schoolhouse, with John as teacher; and then perhaps a
big wedding; all this and more—when John comes. But the white people
shook their heads.
At first he was coming at Christmas-time,—but the vacation proved too
short; and then, the next summer,—but times were hard and schooling
costly, and so, instead, he worked in Johnstown. And so it drifted to
the next summer, and the next,—till playmates scattered, and mother
grew gray, and sister went up to the Judge’s kitchen to work. And still
the legend lingered,—“When John comes.”
Up at the Judge’s they rather liked this refrain; for they too had a
John—a fair-haired, smooth-faced boy, who had played many a long
summer’s day to its close with his darker namesake. “Yes, sir! John is
at Princeton, sir,” said the broad-shouldered gray-haired Judge every
morning as he marched down to the post-office. “Showing the Yankees
what a Southern gentleman can do,” he added; and strode home again with
his letters and papers. Up at the great pillared house they lingered
long over the Princeton letter,—the Judge and his frail wife, his
sister and growing daughters. “It’ll make a man of him,” said the
Judge, “college is the place.” And then he asked the shy little
waitress, “Well, Jennie, how’s your John?” and added reflectively, “Too
bad, too bad your mother sent him off—it will spoil him.” And the
waitress wondered.
Thus in the far-away Southern village the world lay waiting, half
consciously, the coming of two young men, and dreamed in an
inarticulate way of new things that would be done and new thoughts that
all would think. And yet it was singular that few thought of two
Johns,—for the black folk thought of one John, and he was black; and
the white folk thought of another John, and he was white. And neither
world thought the other world’s thought, save with a vague unrest.
Up in Johnstown, at the Institute, we were long puzzled at the case of
John Jones. For a long time the clay seemed unfit for any sort of
moulding. He was loud and boisterous, always laughing and singing, and
never able to work consecutively at anything. He did not know how to
study; he had no idea of thoroughness; and with his tardiness,
carelessness, and appalling good-humor, we were sore perplexed. One
night we sat in faculty-meeting, worried and serious; for Jones was in
trouble again. This last escapade was too much, and so we solemnly
voted “that Jones, on account of repeated disorder and inattention to
work, be suspended for the rest of the term.”
It seemed to us that the first time life ever struck Jones as a really
serious thing was when the Dean told him he must leave school. He
stared at the gray-haired man blankly, with great eyes. “Why,—why,” he
faltered, “but—I haven’t graduated!” Then the Dean slowly and clearly
explained, reminding him of the tardiness and the carelessness, of the
poor lessons and neglected work, of the noise and disorder, until the
fellow hung his head in confusion. Then he said quickly, “But you won’t
tell mammy and sister,—you won’t write mammy, now will you? For if you
won’t I’ll go out into the city and work, and come back next term and
show you something.” So the Dean promised faithfully, and John
shouldered his little trunk, giving neither word nor look to the
giggling boys, and walked down Carlisle Street to the great city, with
sober eyes and a set and serious face.
Perhaps we imagined it, but someway it seemed to us that the serious
look that crept over his boyish face that afternoon never left it
again. When he came back to us he went to work with all his rugged
strength. It was a hard struggle, for things did not come easily to
him,—few crowding memories of early life and teaching came to help him
on his new way; but all the world toward which he strove was of his own
building, and he builded slow and hard. As the light dawned lingeringly
on his new creations, he sat rapt and silent before the vision, or
wandered alone over the green campus peering through and beyond the
world of men into a world of thought. And the thoughts at times puzzled
him sorely; he could not see just why the circle was not square, and
carried it out fifty-six decimal places one midnight,—would have gone
further, indeed, had not the matron rapped for lights out. He caught
terrible colds lying on his back in the meadows of nights, trying to
think out the solar system; he had grave doubts as to the ethics of the
Fall of Rome, and strongly suspected the Germans of being thieves and
rascals, despite his textbooks; he pondered long over every new Greek
word, and wondered why this meant that and why it couldn’t mean
something else, and how it must have felt to think all things in Greek.
So he thought and puzzled along for himself,—pausing perplexed where
others skipped merrily, and walking steadily through the difficulties
where the rest stopped and surrendered.
Thus he grew in body and soul, and with him his clothes seemed to grow
and arrange themselves; coat sleeves got longer, cuffs appeared, and
collars got less soiled. Now and then his boots shone, and a new
dignity crept into his walk. And we who saw daily a new thoughtfulness
growing in his eyes began to expect something of this plodding boy.
Thus he passed out of the preparatory school into college, and we who
watched him felt four more years of change, which almost transformed
the tall, grave man who bowed to us commencement morning. He had left
his queer thought-world and come back to a world of motion and of men.
He looked now for the first time sharply about him, and wondered he had
seen so little before. He grew slowly to feel almost for the first time
the Veil that lay between him and the white world; he first noticed now
the oppression that had not seemed oppression before, differences that
erstwhile seemed natural, restraints and slights that in his boyhood
days had gone unnoticed or been greeted with a laugh. He felt angry now
when men did not call him “Mister,” he clenched his hands at the “Jim
Crow” cars, and chafed at the color-line that hemmed in him and his. A
tinge of sarcasm crept into his speech, and a vague bitterness into his
life; and he sat long hours wondering and planning a way around these
crooked things. Daily he found himself shrinking from the choked and
narrow life of his native town. And yet he always planned to go back to
Altamaha,—always planned to work there. Still, more and more as the day
approached he hesitated with a nameless dread; and even the day after
graduation he seized with eagerness the offer of the Dean to send him
North with the quartette during the summer vacation, to sing for the
Institute. A breath of air before the plunge, he said to himself in
half apology.
It was a bright September afternoon, and the streets of New York were
brilliant with moving men. They reminded John of the sea, as he sat in
the square and watched them, so changelessly changing, so bright and
dark, so grave and gay. He scanned their rich and faultless clothes,
the way they carried their hands, the shape of their hats; he peered
into the hurrying carriages. Then, leaning back with a sigh, he said,
“This is the World.” The notion suddenly seized him to see where the
world was going; since many of the richer and brighter seemed hurrying
all one way. So when a tall, light-haired young man and a little
talkative lady came by, he rose half hesitatingly and followed them. Up
the street they went, past stores and gay shops, across a broad square,
until with a hundred others they entered the high portal of a great
building.
He was pushed toward the ticket-office with the others, and felt in his
pocket for the new five-dollar bill he had hoarded. There seemed really
no time for hesitation, so he drew it bravely out, passed it to the
busy clerk, and received simply a ticket but no change. When at last he
realized that he had paid five dollars to enter he knew not what, he
stood stockstill amazed. “Be careful,” said a low voice behind him;
“you must not lynch the colored gentleman simply because he’s in your
way,” and a girl looked up roguishly into the eyes of her fair-haired
escort. A shade of annoyance passed over the escort’s face. “You _will_
not understand us at the South,” he said half impatiently, as if
continuing an argument. “With all your professions, one never sees in
the North so cordial and intimate relations between white and black as
are everyday occurrences with us. Why, I remember my closest playfellow
in boyhood was a little Negro named after me, and surely no
two,—_well_!” The man stopped short and flushed to the roots of his
hair, for there directly beside his reserved orchestra chairs sat the
Negro he had stumbled over in the hallway. He hesitated and grew pale
with anger, called the usher and gave him his card, with a few
peremptory words, and slowly sat down. The lady deftly changed the
subject.
All this John did not see, for he sat in a half-daze minding the scene
about him; the delicate beauty of the hall, the faint perfume, the
moving myriad of men, the rich clothing and low hum of talking seemed
all a part of a world so different from his, so strangely more
beautiful than anything he had known, that he sat in dreamland, and
started when, after a hush, rose high and clear the music of
Lohengrin’s swan. The infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept
through every muscle of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed his
eyes and grasped the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the
lady’s arm. And the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled in all his
heart to rise with that clear music out of the dirt and dust of that
low life that held him prisoned and befouled. If he could only live up
in the free air where birds sang and setting suns had no touch of
blood! Who had called him to be the slave and butt of all? And if he
had called, what right had he to call when a world like this lay open
before men?
Then the movement changed, and fuller, mightier harmony swelled away.
He looked thoughtfully across the hall, and wondered why the beautiful
gray-haired woman looked so listless, and what the little man could be
whispering about. He would not like to be listless and idle, he
thought, for he felt with the music the movement of power within him.
If he but had some master-work, some life-service, hard,—aye, bitter
hard, but without the cringing and sickening servility, without the
cruel hurt that hardened his heart and soul. When at last a soft sorrow
crept across the violins, there came to him the vision of a far-off
home, the great eyes of his sister, and the dark drawn face of his
mother. And his heart sank below the waters, even as the sea-sand sinks
by the shores of Altamaha, only to be lifted aloft again with that last
ethereal wail of the swan that quivered and faded away into the sky.
It left John sitting so silent and rapt that he did not for some time
notice the usher tapping him lightly on the shoulder and saying
politely, “Will you step this way, please, sir?” A little surprised, he
arose quickly at the last tap, and, turning to leave his seat, looked
full into the face of the fair-haired young man. For the first time the
young man recognized his dark boyhood playmate, and John knew that it
was the Judge’s son. The White John started, lifted his hand, and then
froze into his chair; the black John smiled lightly, then grimly, and
followed the usher down the aisle. The manager was sorry, very, very
sorry,—but he explained that some mistake had been made in selling the
gentleman a seat already disposed of; he would refund the money, of
course,—and indeed felt the matter keenly, and so forth, and—before he
had finished John was gone, walking hurriedly across the square and
down the broad streets, and as he passed the park he buttoned his coat
and said, “John Jones, you’re a natural-born fool.” Then he went to his
lodgings and wrote a letter, and tore it up; he wrote another, and
threw it in the fire. Then he seized a scrap of paper and wrote: “Dear
Mother and Sister—I am coming—John.”
“Perhaps,” said John, as he settled himself on the train, “perhaps I am
to blame myself in struggling against my manifest destiny simply
because it looks hard and unpleasant. Here is my duty to Altamaha plain
before me; perhaps they’ll let me help settle the Negro problems
there,—perhaps they won’t. ‘I will go in to the King, which is not
according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.’” And then he mused
and dreamed, and planned a life-work; and the train flew south.
Down in Altamaha, after seven long years, all the world knew John was
coming. The homes were scrubbed and scoured,—above all, one; the
gardens and yards had an unwonted trimness, and Jennie bought a new
gingham. With some finesse and negotiation, all the dark Methodists and
Presbyterians were induced to join in a monster welcome at the Baptist
Church; and as the day drew near, warm discussions arose on every
corner as to the exact extent and nature of John’s accomplishments. It
was noontide on a gray and cloudy day when he came. The black town
flocked to the depot, with a little of the white at the edges,—a happy
throng, with “Good-mawnings” and “Howdys” and laughing and joking and
jostling. Mother sat yonder in the window watching; but sister Jennie
stood on the platform, nervously fingering her dress, tall and lithe,
with soft brown skin and loving eyes peering from out a tangled
wilderness of hair. John rose gloomily as the train stopped, for he was
thinking of the “Jim Crow” car; he stepped to the platform, and paused:
a little dingy station, a black crowd gaudy and dirty, a half-mile of
dilapidated shanties along a straggling ditch of mud. An overwhelming
sense of the sordidness and narrowness of it all seized him; he looked
in vain for his mother, kissed coldly the tall, strange girl who called
him brother, spoke a short, dry word here and there; then, lingering
neither for handshaking nor gossip, started silently up the street,
raising his hat merely to the last eager old aunty, to her open-mouthed
astonishment. The people were distinctly bewildered. This silent, cold
man,—was this John? Where was his smile and hearty hand-grasp? “’Peared
kind o’ down in the mouf,” said the Methodist preacher thoughtfully.
“Seemed monstus stuck up,” complained a Baptist sister. But the white
postmaster from the edge of the crowd expressed the opinion of his
folks plainly. “That damn Nigger,” said he, as he shouldered the mail
and arranged his tobacco, “has gone North and got plum full o’ fool
notions; but they won’t work in Altamaha.” And the crowd melted away.
The meeting of welcome at the Baptist Church was a failure. Rain
spoiled the barbecue, and thunder turned the milk in the ice-cream.
When the speaking came at night, the house was crowded to overflowing.
The three preachers had especially prepared themselves, but somehow
John’s manner seemed to throw a blanket over everything,—he seemed so
cold and preoccupied, and had so strange an air of restraint that the
Methodist brother could not warm up to his theme and elicited not a
single “Amen”; the Presbyterian prayer was but feebly responded to, and
even the Baptist preacher, though he wakened faint enthusiasm, got so
mixed up in his favorite sentence that he had to close it by stopping
fully fifteen minutes sooner than he meant. The people moved uneasily
in their seats as John rose to reply. He spoke slowly and methodically.
The age, he said, demanded new ideas; we were far different from those
men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,—with broader ideas of
human brotherhood and destiny. Then he spoke of the rise of charity and
popular education, and particularly of the spread of wealth and work.
The question was, then, he added reflectively, looking at the low
discolored ceiling, what part the Negroes of this land would take in
the striving of the new century. He sketched in vague outline the new
Industrial School that might rise among these pines, he spoke in detail
of the charitable and philanthropic work that might be organized, of
money that might be saved for banks and business. Finally he urged
unity, and deprecated especially religious and denominational
bickering. “To-day,” he said, with a smile, “the world cares little
whether a man be Baptist or Methodist, or indeed a churchman at all, so
long as he is good and true. What difference does it make whether a man
be baptized in river or washbowl, or not at all? Let’s leave all that
littleness, and look higher.” Then, thinking of nothing else, he slowly
sat down. A painful hush seized that crowded mass. Little had they
understood of what he said, for he spoke an unknown tongue, save the
last word about baptism; that they knew, and they sat very still while
the clock ticked. Then at last a low suppressed snarl came from the
Amen corner, and an old bent man arose, walked over the seats, and
climbed straight up into the pulpit. He was wrinkled and black, with
scant gray and tufted hair; his voice and hands shook as with palsy;
but on his face lay the intense rapt look of the religious fanatic. He
seized the Bible with his rough, huge hands; twice he raised it
inarticulate, and then fairly burst into words, with rude and awful
eloquence. He quivered, swayed, and bent; then rose aloft in perfect
majesty, till the people moaned and wept, wailed and shouted, and a
wild shrieking arose from the corners where all the pent-up feeling of
the hour gathered itself and rushed into the air. John never knew
clearly what the old man said; he only felt himself held up to scorn
and scathing denunciation for trampling on the true Religion, and he
realized with amazement that all unknowingly he had put rough, rude
hands on something this little world held sacred. He arose silently,
and passed out into the night. Down toward the sea he went, in the
fitful starlight, half conscious of the girl who followed timidly after
him. When at last he stood upon the bluff, he turned to his little
sister and looked upon her sorrowfully, remembering with sudden pain
how little thought he had given her. He put his arm about her and let
her passion of tears spend itself on his shoulder.
Long they stood together, peering over the gray unresting water.
“John,” she said, “does it make every one—unhappy when they study and
learn lots of things?”
He paused and smiled. “I am afraid it does,” he said.
“And, John, are you glad you studied?”
“Yes,” came the answer, slowly but positively.
She watched the flickering lights upon the sea, and said thoughtfully,
“I wish I was unhappy,—and—and,” putting both arms about his neck, “I
think I am, a little, John.”
It was several days later that John walked up to the Judge’s house to
ask for the privilege of teaching the Negro school. The Judge himself
met him at the front door, stared a little hard at him, and said
brusquely, “Go ’round to the kitchen door, John, and wait.” Sitting on
the kitchen steps, John stared at the corn, thoroughly perplexed. What
on earth had come over him? Every step he made offended some one. He
had come to save his people, and before he left the depot he had hurt
them. He sought to teach them at the church, and had outraged their
deepest feelings. He had schooled himself to be respectful to the
Judge, and then blundered into his front door. And all the time he had
meant right,—and yet, and yet, somehow he found it so hard and strange
to fit his old surroundings again, to find his place in the world about
him. He could not remember that he used to have any difficulty in the
past, when life was glad and gay. The world seemed smooth and easy
then. Perhaps,—but his sister came to the kitchen door just then and
said the Judge awaited him.
The Judge sat in the dining-room amid his morning’s mail, and he did
not ask John to sit down. He plunged squarely into the business.
“You’ve come for the school, I suppose. Well John, I want to speak to
you plainly. You know I’m a friend to your people. I’ve helped you and
your family, and would have done more if you hadn’t got the notion of
going off. Now I like the colored people, and sympathize with all their
reasonable aspirations; but you and I both know, John, that in this
country the Negro must remain subordinate, and can never expect to be
the equal of white men. In their place, your people can be honest and
respectful; and God knows, I’ll do what I can to help them. But when
they want to reverse nature, and rule white men, and marry white women,
and sit in my parlor, then, by God! we’ll hold them under if we have to
lynch every Nigger in the land. Now, John, the question is, are you,
with your education and Northern notions, going to accept the situation
and teach the darkies to be faithful servants and laborers as your
fathers were,—I knew your father, John, he belonged to my brother, and
he was a good Nigger. Well—well, are you going to be like him, or are
you going to try to put fool ideas of rising and equality into these
folks’ heads, and make them discontented and unhappy?”
“I am going to accept the situation, Judge Henderson,” answered John,
with a brevity that did not escape the keen old man. He hesitated a
moment, and then said shortly, “Very well,—we’ll try you awhile.
Good-morning.”
It was a full month after the opening of the Negro school that the
other John came home, tall, gay, and headstrong. The mother wept, the
sisters sang. The whole white town was glad. A proud man was the Judge,
and it was a goodly sight to see the two swinging down Main Street
together. And yet all did not go smoothly between them, for the younger
man could not and did not veil his contempt for the little town, and
plainly had his heart set on New York. Now the one cherished ambition
of the Judge was to see his son mayor of Altamaha, representative to
the legislature, and—who could say?—governor of Georgia. So the
argument often waxed hot between them. “Good heavens, father,” the
younger man would say after dinner, as he lighted a cigar and stood by
the fireplace, “you surely don’t expect a young fellow like me to
settle down permanently in this—this God-forgotten town with nothing
but mud and Negroes?” “_I_ did,” the Judge would answer laconically;
and on this particular day it seemed from the gathering scowl that he
was about to add something more emphatic, but neighbors had already
begun to drop in to admire his son, and the conversation drifted.
“Heah that John is livenin’ things up at the darky school,” volunteered
the postmaster, after a pause.
“What now?” asked the Judge, sharply.
“Oh, nothin’ in particulah,—just his almighty air and uppish ways.
B’lieve I did heah somethin’ about his givin’ talks on the French
Revolution, equality, and such like. He’s what I call a dangerous
Nigger.”
“Have you heard him say anything out of the way?”
“Why, no,—but Sally, our girl, told my wife a lot of rot. Then, too, I
don’t need to heah: a Nigger what won’t say ‘sir’ to a white man, or—”
“Who is this John?” interrupted the son.
“Why, it’s little black John, Peggy’s son,—your old playfellow.”
The young man’s face flushed angrily, and then he laughed.
“Oh,” said he, “it’s the darky that tried to force himself into a seat
beside the lady I was escorting—”
But Judge Henderson waited to hear no more. He had been nettled all
day, and now at this he rose with a half-smothered oath, took his hat
and cane, and walked straight to the schoolhouse.
For John, it had been a long, hard pull to get things started in the
rickety old shanty that sheltered his school. The Negroes were rent
into factions for and against him, the parents were careless, the
children irregular and dirty, and books, pencils, and slates largely
missing. Nevertheless, he struggled hopefully on, and seemed to see at
last some glimmering of dawn. The attendance was larger and the
children were a shade cleaner this week. Even the booby class in
reading showed a little comforting progress. So John settled himself
with renewed patience this afternoon.
“Now, Mandy,” he said cheerfully, “that’s better; but you mustn’t chop
your words up so: ‘If—the-man—goes.’ Why, your little brother even
wouldn’t tell a story that way, now would he?”
“Naw, suh, he cain’t talk.”
“All right; now let’s try again: ‘If the man—’
“John!”
The whole school started in surprise, and the teacher half arose, as
the red, angry face of the Judge appeared in the open doorway.
“John, this school is closed. You children can go home and get to work.
The white people of Altamaha are not spending their money on black
folks to have their heads crammed with impudence and lies. Clear out!
I’ll lock the door myself.”
Up at the great pillared house the tall young son wandered aimlessly
about after his father’s abrupt departure. In the house there was
little to interest him; the books were old and stale, the local
newspaper flat, and the women had retired with headaches and sewing. He
tried a nap, but it was too warm. So he sauntered out into the fields,
complaining disconsolately, “Good Lord! how long will this imprisonment
last!” He was not a bad fellow,—just a little spoiled and
self-indulgent, and as headstrong as his proud father. He seemed a
young man pleasant to look upon, as he sat on the great black stump at
the edge of the pines idly swinging his legs and smoking. “Why, there
isn’t even a girl worth getting up a respectable flirtation with,” he
growled. Just then his eye caught a tall, willowy figure hurrying
toward him on the narrow path. He looked with interest at first, and
then burst into a laugh as he said, “Well, I declare, if it isn’t
Jennie, the little brown kitchen-maid! Why, I never noticed before what
a trim little body she is. Hello, Jennie! Why, you haven’t kissed me
since I came home,” he said gaily. The young girl stared at him in
surprise and confusion,—faltered something inarticulate, and attempted
to pass. But a wilful mood had seized the young idler, and he caught at
her arm. Frightened, she slipped by; and half mischievously he turned
and ran after her through the tall pines.
Yonder, toward the sea, at the end of the path, came John slowly, with
his head down. He had turned wearily homeward from the schoolhouse;
then, thinking to shield his mother from the blow, started to meet his
sister as she came from work and break the news of his dismissal to
her. “I’ll go away,” he said slowly; “I’ll go away and find work, and
send for them. I cannot live here longer.” And then the fierce, buried
anger surged up into his throat. He waved his arms and hurried wildly
up the path.
The great brown sea lay silent. The air scarce breathed. The dying day
bathed the twisted oaks and mighty pines in black and gold. There came
from the wind no warning, not a whisper from the cloudless sky. There
was only a black man hurrying on with an ache in his heart, seeing
neither sun nor sea, but starting as from a dream at the frightened cry
that woke the pines, to see his dark sister struggling in the arms of a
tall and fair-haired man.
He said not a word, but, seizing a fallen limb, struck him with all the
pent-up hatred of his great black arm, and the body lay white and still
beneath the pines, all bathed in sunshine and in blood. John looked at
it dreamily, then walked back to the house briskly, and said in a soft
voice, “Mammy, I’m going away—I’m going to be free.”
She gazed at him dimly and faltered, “No’th, honey, is yo’ gwine No’th
agin?”
He looked out where the North Star glistened pale above the waters, and
said, “Yes, mammy, I’m going—North.”
Then, without another word, he went out into the narrow lane, up by the
straight pines, to the same winding path, and seated himself on the
great black stump, looking at the blood where the body had lain. Yonder
in the gray past he had played with that dead boy, romping together
under the solemn trees. The night deepened; he thought of the boys at
Johnstown. He wondered how Brown had turned out, and Carey? And
Jones,—Jones? Why, he was Jones, and he wondered what they would all
say when they knew, when they knew, in that great long dining-room with
its hundreds of merry eyes. Then as the sheen of the starlight stole
over him, he thought of the gilded ceiling of that vast concert hall,
heard stealing toward him the faint sweet music of the swan. Hark! was
it music, or the hurry and shouting of men? Yes, surely! Clear and high
the faint sweet melody rose and fluttered like a living thing, so that
the very earth trembled as with the tramp of horses and murmur of angry
men.
He leaned back and smiled toward the sea, whence rose the strange
melody, away from the dark shadows where lay the noise of horses
galloping, galloping on. With an effort he roused himself, bent
forward, and looked steadily down the pathway, softly humming the “Song
of the Bride,”—
“Freudig geführt, ziehet dahin.”
Amid the trees in the dim morning twilight he watched their shadows
dancing and heard their horses thundering toward him, until at last
they came sweeping like a storm, and he saw in front that haggard
white-haired man, whose eyes flashed red with fury. Oh, how he pitied
him,—pitied him,—and wondered if he had the coiling twisted rope. Then,
as the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to his feet and turned his
closed eyes toward the Sea.
And the world whistled in his ears.
XIV.
Of the Sorrow Songs
I walk through the churchyard
To lay this body down;
I know moon-rise, I know star-rise;
I walk in the moonlight, I walk in the starlight;
I’ll lie in the grave and stretch out my arms,
I’ll go to judgment in the evening of the day,
And my soul and thy soul shall meet that day,
When I lay this body down.