Naturally so clannish a woman as Mrs. Gano had not let the years go by
without much solicitude on behalf of her orphan grandchild. After the
death of her eldest son, Mrs. Gano wrote to his mother-in-law, Mrs.
Tallmadge, asking her to send the little orphan to his father's people,
or else appoint a time when Mrs. Gano might come to Boston and bring her
grandson home. The reply came from Mr. Tallmadge, showing how deeply he
and his wife had resented Mrs. Gano's behavior on the marriage of her
son. Mr. Tallmadge wrote that his daughter on her death-bed had
committed the infant to the care of her own mother, and that Ethan Gano
himself had sent his son North under the protection of Mrs. Tallmadge.
He had broken with his own family, and held no communication with them.
It was plain what his wishes were with reference to his son. And the
Tallmadges might be depended upon to make good their right to the
custody of the child. Several spirited letters were exchanged, and then
silence till the close of the war and the news of Mrs. Tallmadge's
death. Mrs. Gano then made another attempt to get possession of the boy,
but finding his grandfather as resolute as ever to keep him in Boston,
she proposed a journey thither. This apparent prompting of natural
affection could not decently be thwarted, although Mr. Tallmadge
understood perfectly the suspicion and anxiety as to the way the orphan
was being brought up, that secured the Tallmadges the honor of a visit
from Mrs. Gano.
She declined to make the house in Ashburton Place her headquarters,
"having already," she wrote, "engaged an apartment at the Tremont
House." Mr. Tallmadge smiled, understanding perfectly.
But if he contemplated with serenity the descent of Mrs. Gano upon
Ashburton Place, not so his unmarried daughter and house-keeper, Hannah
Tallmadge. With nervous misgiving she looked forward to the coming of
this hereditary foe, who, moreover, had the blackest designs upon her
darling Ethan. Still, Hannah Tallmadge was a most Christian soul. Short
of giving up Ethan, she would do all in her power to exhibit a
hospitable and forgiving spirit in the approaching trial. She would do
what she could to curb her father's uncompromising bluntness of speech,
and would keep him off dangerous topics. It occurred to her that the
mere sight of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ on the parlor table might rouse angry
passions. She was in the act of putting that work into the bookcase,
when her father, observing her suspiciously, asked:
"What are you doing?"
"Just putting this away."
"Leave it on the table. It is the only work of fiction I have ever been
able to read. Leave it on the table."
Nevertheless, next day, in a moment of nervousness induced by the news
that a strange lady was getting out of a carriage at their door, Miss
Hannah dropped _Uncle Tom_ behind the horse-hair sofa-cushion.
"Where is Ethan?" said her father, turning suddenly from the window.
"I'll go and bring him," replied Miss Hannah, and she left the room with
haste.
A few moments, and the door opened again. Mrs. Gano came in with an air
that seemed to Aaron Tallmadge suspiciously gracious. She paused for
just that decisive but infinitesimal moment of first impression, as she
took the measure of the spare figure standing on guard in the middle of
his prim New England parlor.
"Mr. Tallmadge?" inquired Mrs. Gano, suavely.
"Mrs. Gano?"
He offered his hand, and then pushed a straight-backed horse-hair chair
a little nearer the fire. In the mere speaking of her name his twang
made instant attack upon the Southerner's nerves. It passed through the
man's mind presently that Mrs. Gano's voice was disagreeably reminiscent
of a runaway slave he had once befriended.
"I have just seen my grandson's face at an upper window." She looked
round eagerly. "Ah!"
The door had opened very slowly. One eye and half a little dark head
were put doubtfully in.
"Come here, Ethan!" said his grandfather.
The child disappeared altogether.
Mr. Tallmadge went out into the hall, and presently reappeared leading
Ethan in. He hung back, dropping his curly head, and shooting an
occasional look at the newcomer; but since she did not fly at him in the
objectionable way of visitors, he allowed himself to be brought by
degrees up to the strange lady's chair.
She did not even say "How do you do?" She stooped and kissed him
silently. He stared at her with great melancholy eyes, backed away, and
stood by his grandfather's side.
"I am afraid he is not strong," said Mrs. Gano, a little huskily.
"He has been singularly free from childish ailments--an occasional
cold--"
"Of course, in this trying climate."
"Oh, we find our climate does very well."
"No doubt, in the case of those to the manner born. This child is
singularly like his father."
"He reminds _us_ constantly of his mother."
"Is it possible? I assure you I feel, as I look at him, that I have
dreamed these twenty years, and that my son is standing there before
me."
"You don't say!" remarked the child's grandfather, unmoved. "Everybody
here considers him so like the Tallmadges."
Mrs. Gano, with unflattering eyes on the head of the house, gave an
incredulous cough. She seemed on the point of expressing more
indubitably some further thought, looked at the boy, softened suddenly,
and smiled at the grave little face.
"You know who I am?"
He shook his brown curls. A shadow crossed the woman's face.
"Is he never told anything of his father or his father's people?"
"He is very young yet to take an interest in folks he hasn't seen."
"He is nearly six."
"What say?"
"I should have thought an intelligent child of six might have been told
that his grandmother--"
"Not six _yet_, madam. Of course, when he is older--"
He made a gesture indicating a liberal policy.
"When he is older you will have no objection, I suppose, to his making a
visit to his father's people?"
"No objection whatever to a _visit_, madam."
"How soon should you consider such a move expedient?"
"Ah, that depends," replied the wary gentleman--"depends so much on
circumstances."
"What kind of circumstances?" she inquired, stiffly.
His look and tone said unmistakably, "Depends on your behavior, madam."
"Depends on the child's health and-- Run away and play, Ethan," he said.
As the little boy closed the door: "Then you do admit he is delicate?"
Mrs. Gano spoke more coldly than when Ethan had been there to hear.
"I admit the need to consider the health of _all_ children, and
secondary only to that, their education."
"What are your views as to Ethan's schooling?"
"I shall expect him to go through the regular mill, as I did: a good
primary school, then the preparatory at Andover, then Harvard."
The woman felt a certain fainting of purpose at the cut-and-dried
programme presented in that dry manner by the dry old man. It _was_ a
"regular mill," and who could tell if the sensitive, fragile little Gano
was the stuff to stand these machine-made processes?
"I don't believe, myself," said Mr. Tallmadge, with decision, "in
haphazard, shilly-shally ways of raising children, and leaving it to
them to see what they'll take to."
"I have little experience of shilly-shally methods," replied his
visitor.
"If you leave it to boys to decide, what they take to is mischief nine
times out of ten."
"I think you may make your mind easy about my grandson."
Mr. Tallmadge looked at her in silence for a moment; then suddenly:
"Yes, yes; _he'll_ turn out all right." He nodded, as if to say, "Trust
me to see to that!" "My experience is, if you want a boy to do a
particular thing, set that aim before him at the start. That's the way I
was raised; that's the way I propose to raise my grandson."
There was a slight pause.
"And in what form of religious faith?"
"We are all members of the Presbyterian Church." It was said as though
it had been in obedience to an edict of the Everlasting from the
foundation of the world. "You will appreciate the necessity of having my
grandson raised under my own eye when I tell you it is my intention
that, after he gets through Harvard, he shall succeed to the editorship
of my paper."
"My grandson edit an Abolitionist paper?"
Mr. Tallmadge blinked in a slightly nervous fashion, but answered,
steadfastly:
"Abolition is abolished, madam; it has served its end. Ethan will
naturally fall heir to my property and my profession."
"Ethan is his father's heir first of all--heir to a man who gave his
life at Bull Run for our rights, not for the abolition of them."
"Abolition _was_ right, and _is_ law, by the sanction of the God of
battles."
Mrs. Gano rose from her chair; the door opened, and in came Miss
Hannah. Whether it was chance, or whether she had been waiting outside
for the psychological moment, certainly her entrance was opportune. She
went through her greeting with a flustered civility that, by its own
extreme nervousness, made the situation she had broken in upon seem calm
to the point of commonplace. Mrs. Gano found herself trying to put Miss
Hannah at her ease.
The tall, thin spinster, with her smooth gray hair and anxious manner,
must have been more than double the age of Ethan's mother.
Supper would be ready in twenty minutes.
"Of course," she said, "you will stay? Ethan has just been asking if he
mayn't sit up a little later to-night."
"Ethan!" Potent conjuration! Mrs. Gano had not come all this way to look
after her grandson's welfare and be turned back by a fanatical outbreak
on the part of a bigoted Abolitionist. No, and if plain speaking was to
be the order of the day, Mr. Tallmadge should not do it all. He had it
his own way, however, in the long grace with which he prefaced supper, a
performance that sounded in Mrs. Gano's ears aggressively Presbyterian.
It appeared at that meal that Miss Hannah was disposed to be indulgent
to her little nephew, and that he was devoted to her. He talked very
little, and what he had to say he confided in a whisper to his aunt. But
as he ate, he stared unceasingly with great gloomy eyes at his
grandmother. She saw with deep misgiving that he was permitted to make
the same meal as his elders. He declined to share his aunt's decoction
of "shells," as she quaintly called cocoa, and joined his grandparents
in a large cup of coffee. He bolted down quantities of that moist and
leaden Boston brown bread which Mrs. Gano regarded with amazement and
alarm, and he seemed to share the New England taste for beans and bacon,
a fare which, in the visitor's mind, ranked with the "hog and hominy" of
the hard-working plantation blacks; but to place such food before a
little delicate child!
After supper his aunt took him on her lap, and, while Mr. Tallmadge and
his guest skirted dangerous topics with stately politeness, Miss
Tallmadge, in the corner by the fire, was softly repeating nursery
rhymes to the little Ethan. Others might have been struck by the picture
of the gaunt, childless woman and her ready assumption of the mother
rôle; Mrs. Gano was vaguely conscious of a kind of remissness in herself
in having omitted to tell her own children a word about little Nannie
Etticott or Cock Robin. In all her life of maternal solicitude she had
never once mentioned "Hey-diddle-diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle," or
even hinted at the existence of "the Little Man who had a little gun."
Presently, in the midst of Mr. Tallmadge's remarks upon the beauties of
Boston Common, Mrs. Gano caught the child's more and more insistent
demand for some joy which Miss Tallmadge was minded to withhold. In
spite of "Sh! sh!" more and more shrill came the iteration:
"Nwingy Tat! Nwingy Tat!"
In his fervor Ethan had dragged the stern, unyielding horse-hair cushion
off the end of the sofa, revealing two volumes hidden behind it.
Mrs. Gano seemed not to regret this diversion. Helping the child to
restore the sofa-cushion, she took up the books. As she read the title
her look darkened. She put the work down as if it burned her fingers.
"A great, bad book," she said.
"What is that?" asked Mr. Tallmadge.
Mrs. Gano jerked her head without answering.
"What say?" persisted the old man, with his hand to his ear.
"_Uncle Tom's Cabin_," said Miss Tallmadge, trying to speak lightly.
"A very uncommon woman, Mrs. Stowe," said Mr. Tallmadge, firmly; "very
uncommon, indeed."
"Let us hope so," ejaculated Mrs. Gano, half to herself.
"Eh?" inquired Mr. Tallmadge, with gruff suspicion. "What say?"
"I was granting her uncommonness, and hoping it wouldn't get commoner."
"H'm! It could hardly be expected, I suppose, that you should think well
of--"
"No; I can't be expected to think well of a woman who is not content
with getting a whole nation by the ears, but she must interfere between
husband and wife, and--"
"What say?" inquired Mr. Tallmadge, with corrugated brows and hand to
his deaf ear. "I'm talking about Harriet Beecher Stowe."
"So am I," said Mrs. Gano. "I only hope she'll be content with the
mischief she's done already, and not rush into print with her espousal
of Lady Byron's wrongs."
"I haven't heard that Mrs. Beecher Stowe had any such intention. As a
friend of the family, from Lyman down--"
"As a friend of the family, you ought to warn them in time to curb her
propensity for attending to other people's affairs. Uncommon! Yes, an
uncommon busybody."
"I think, madam, you are misinformed," said Mr. Tallmadge, with dignity.
"I know more about Harriet Beecher Stowe than most people--though she
never _has_ set foot in the South--and I know she's a busybody. I also
know she has less excuse than some women. The spring I spent with my
sister, Mrs. Paget, in Covington, before I met the Stowes, I used to
look out and see a man trudging about the hills in front of my windows
with a basket on his arm. 'Who is that?' I asked. 'That's Professor
Stowe,' they said; and we all wondered what he had in the basket. I said
he was botanizing; Mrs. Paget said the basket was too big for that: he
must be looking for kail, or dock, or dandelion greens for dinner.
By-and-by we heard he had twins in the basket, and was taking them about
for an airing. The Stowes were very poor, too, and what with that and
twins, Harriet B. ought to have found enough to do at home."
"Nwingy Tat! Nwingy Tat!"
"Sh!" said his aunt.
"_Mus'_ sing it," answered Ethan, in the only distinct words his
grandmother had heard from his lips.
"What is it?" she asked, more interested in Ethan's infant tastes than
even in Mrs. Stowe's enormities.
"It's that foolish little rhyme, 'The New England Cat,'" replied Miss
Hannah.
"I don't know it," said Mrs. Gano.
"Ethan likes it for some unknown reason. When he had scarlet-fever last
year--"
She stopped, seeing the sudden change in Mrs. Gano's face.
"We had an epidemic of it," said Mr. Tallmadge, as though that fact
lessened the danger. "Ethan came out of it famously--didn't you, my
little man?"
"Nwingy Tat!" said Ethan.
"Oh yes, he came out all right," said Miss Hannah; "but before the
crisis I sat up with him at night, and I sang 'The New England Cat' to
him till I nearly died of it. Through sheer exhaustion my voice would
get weaker and weaker, till it seemed to die too natural a death for him
to notice. But the moment I stopped he would start up and say
feverishly, 'Nwingy Tat!' It was the only thing that quieted him."
Mrs. Gano might have been supposed to regard this passion for New
England cats as a depraved taste on the part of a Gano, but she said,
graciously:
"Let me add my petition to Ethan's. I would like to hear his favorite
song."
Perhaps in the dim recesses of her mind she had some formless idea of
learning this lyric.
"It's not a song," said Miss Hannah, hurriedly. "Come, child, it's time
you went to bed."
"Nwingy Tat, first," said Ethan, firmly.
"Oh, hum it for the child!" said Mr. Tallmadge, impatiently.
Miss Hannah's face took on a dull-red hue, but obediently she began in a
thin, sweet little voice:
"'There was an old New England cat,
New England cat, New England cat--
There was an old New England cat went out to seek her prey.
"'She chased a mouse from house to house,
From house to house, from house to house--
She chased a mouse from house to house upon the Sabbath day.
"'The parson so astonished was,
Astonished was, astonished was--
The parson so astonished was to see--the cat profanes!
"'He took his book and threw it down,
And threw it down, and threw it down--
He took his book and threw it down, and bound the cat in chains.'"
Mrs. Gano was as "astonished" at this performance as "the parson." Ethan
nodded a grave encore.
"Nwingy Tat!"
Whereat they all laughed with the best humor in the world, and Ethan was
carried off to bed.
Mrs. Gano, under plea of weariness from travel, made her "good-nights"
at the same time, arranging to return to Ashburton Place the next day.
She wakened early the following morning. Reviewing the events of the
evening before, and having now dispassionate regard to the object of her
visit, she registered a vow that no provocation upon earth should induce
her another time to touch upon any vexed question. The opinions of these
Tallmadges were not apparently to be altered any more than her own were.
If she were going to wring any concession out of them with reference to
Ethan, she must walk warily, she must appeal more to their sense of
justice and family feeling. She was in their power. It was theirs to
dictate terms. A new situation for Sarah C. Gano, but she would make the
best of it.
When she arrived at Ashburton Place before ten o'clock, Miss Hannah was
just leaving the house.
"_Oh!_" she said, as nervous people will, as though you had pinched
them.
"Good-morning!" Mrs. Gano bowed urbanely.
"Good-morning! We understood you couldn't go out before the afternoon."
"Yes, I can never count on being fit for much in the morning; but to-day
I am abroad early. Shall I find the child?"
She made a motion towards the house.
"Ethan has just gone to school. Pa took him to-day."
"Oh! And you are going to walk?"
"No--y-yes--a little way."
Miss Tallmadge's embarrassment seemed to rouse in Mrs. Gano's breast a
sentiment to which it was commonly a stranger. She was curious. Ought
she not to know something about this woman who stood in the relation of
mother to Ethan? What was her life like? What were her interests?
"I have always heard," the visitor said, as they walked along Somerset,
and through Beacon to Tremont Street--"always heard what admirable
house-keepers the New England women are. Do you do your own marketing?"
"Yes; but always earlier."
"This is a good time for shopping, before the crowded mid-day. I must
look for a shawl of some kind."
"I would be glad to show you the best place for such things, but to-day
I--I have a most important engagement."
She paused near a stationer's. On the right a staircase led from the
street to the floor above. Several ladies bustled past, nodding
good-morning to Miss Tallmadge, and disappearing up these stairs. Mrs.
Gano's keen eyes explored the precincts. A small placard in the entry
stated in white letters on lacquered tin: "Ladies' Domestic
Philanthropic Society (Colored Registry Office)."
"H'm!" she said, not seeming to see the nervous hand seeking farewell.
"Colored! What color?"
"I suppose you would say black."
Miss Tallmadge had drawn herself up.
"I should probably say negro. But I've heard they like to call
themselves colored. Seems a curious taste. Always suggests variegated to
me."
"That is not how we mean it," said Miss Tallmadge solemnly, making way
for more ladies who swarmed up the staircase. "We are a little group of
people working on purely humanitarian principles, finding succor and
employment for the destitute, thrown out of work by--"
"Yes; we know by whom." Then, with a misleading geniality: "This idea of
restitution seems to me very right and proper."
Miss Tallmadge's face betrayed perplexity. A shivering little quadroon
girl crept up the stairs behind a coal-black old man.
"It is too difficult, perhaps, to make plain our point of view," said
Miss Hannah, with quiet dignity, "otherwise I should feel it my duty
while you are in Boston to show you--"
"Have you the right," interrupted her visitor, "to bring a stranger to
these colored meetings?"
"I have frequently brought a friend. Perhaps--" Miss Hannah's good face
brightened. "We don't discuss politics, and perhaps if you could see
something of the pains we take to befriend and find homes for these poor
creatures--"
"I am ready to attend the meeting," announced Mrs. Gano, tightening her
bonnet-strings. "It sounds like a sensible institution. We had the best
cooks, the only well-trained servants in America. They must be a godsend
here in the North."
She remembered, as she mounted the stairs behind Miss Hannah, that her
hostess had not provided 16 Ashburton Place with any of these "colored"
joys, and she reflected that she had not yet seen a darky since her
arrival except the old man and little girl on in front of them.
A clock struck ten as Miss Tallmadge hurriedly led the way up the second
flight to the registry-office. When she caught up to the old negro, the
domestic philanthropist applied her handkerchief to her nose.
The society's room was unexpectedly spacious, furnished with a desk
fronting a goodly assemblage of ladies seated in rows upon rows of cane
chairs. On the right a space was railed off, and set close with empty
wooden benches. Miss Tallmadge explained in a whisper that "the
candidates" were kept in an adjoining room till a later stage in the
proceedings. As for the domestic philanthropists, there were so many of
them that there was some difficulty in finding Mrs. Gano a seat. As the
late-comers settled themselves, a thin, hard-featured lady with a dogged
manner took her place at the desk. This action moved the D. P.'s to a
faint flutter of applause. The President laid down some papers, drew off
her gloves, folded her hands, and invoked a blessing.
"And now, ladies, we will proceed to business."
She read a report. At the end she characterized it as highly
satisfactory, considering the wellnigh superhuman difficulties in the
way of the object of the society. She gave an unflattering account of
the extravagance, filth, and idleness cultivated in servants by the
Southern régime. She told of thrifty New England housewives' experience
with highly recommended Southern cooks--stories that moved the domestic
philanthropists to open expressions of horror. No one denied colored
women knew how to cook, but they were lazy and dirty beyond measure, and
required the markets of the whole world to supply their inordinate
wants. As for what they threw away, it would feed a cityful! To Miss
Hannah's evident relief, Mrs. Gano nodded and whispered:
"True as Gospel--_that_ much of it."
"Still," the President pointed out, "philanthropy must bear with these
evils; philanthropy must find these outcasts homes. What can be expected
of poor down-trodden slaves? called on to suffer every ignominy, torn
from their children, quivering under the lash, bought and sold like
dumb-driven cattle! Out of compassion for these fellow-creatures who
are, like ourselves, children of God--His latter-day martyrs--we have
met here this morning to bring succor and to offer service. Daughter,
call in the candidates."
A young lady rose, wiped away a sympathetic tear, crossed behind the
wooden bar, and opened a door. The President meanwhile opened a
reticule, took out a bottle of lavender-water, and poured a few drops on
her handkerchief. Through the open door presently appeared the old
negro, the little quadroon girl (evidently ill), and a great strapping
mulatto woman. Mrs. Gano kept looking for the rest, while the trio
huddled together like sheep in the farthest corner, until "daughter"
indicated that benches were to be sat upon.
"Do they come in threes?" Mrs. Gano whispered to Miss Tallmadge.
"This is all there are this time."
The President opened a large ledger, dipped and poised a pen, and nodded
to "daughter." Daughter bent down and spoke to the old man. He got up
trembling, and followed the young lady out behind the bar to the little
open space in front of the desk. The look on his face was not the look
negroes commonly wore when mounting the block in Southern slave-markets.
It was more like the look that would come into their faces when they
were knocked down to some notoriously hard master.
"What is your name?"
"Jake, mehm."
"Jake what?"
"Jes' Jake, mehm. F'om Henderson's."
"Oh, I have a letter about you." She looked about among her papers.
"Yes, here; I will tabulate this and see what we can do for you. You may
come to the next meeting."
"Yes, mehm."
He hobbled a step or two away in a dazed fashion, when a piercing shriek
rang across the room. He started as if a lash had been laid across his
back. The little quadroon girl was standing up, holding out two shaking
arms to him. The old man blinked.
"I swar I ain't leabin' yo', Till. I gwine t' wait by de do'."
But the little girl flew forward, climbing benches and creeping under
the bar. She had nearly reached the old man when the President, leaning
forward, said:
"Are you not the girl I sent to Mrs. Parsons's as general servant?"
"Yes, mehm," said the candidate, taking tight hold of the old man's
coat.
"I have a very bad account of you."
"Yes, mehm."
"Mrs. Tilson says you are idle and good for nothing."
"Yes, mehm."
The old man took her hand.
"She ain't berry well, mehm, sence we come t' Bosting. Mebbe she'll be
better able by'm-by t' go where dere ain't eleben chillen and so much
snow ter shubbel."
"You look anything but strong," said the President. "I'll try to find
you an easier place. They all want easier places," she said, over her
shoulder, to the domestic philanthropists.
"Hush! Hush! I'll tell de lady, honey, ef yer don' take an' cry."
But the President was motioning the other candidate forward. The old man
stood hesitating, and then began shakily:
"It 'ud be mighty kin', mehm, ef yo' could get Till an' me de same
place."
"The _same_ place!" echoed the President, sharply.
"Y--yes, mehm," faltered the old man, backing timidly; "or anyways
places close togedder, mehm, please, mehm."
"That's seldom possible."
The little quadroon wept audibly. The old man patted her arm feebly.
"I--I disremember it myself, but Till, yere, _she_ says I tol' 'er down
Georgy dat up yere in Bosting dey didn't nebber make de chilluns go one
way an' de ole folks anudder."
"We'll do what we can."
"Thank yo', mehm."
And they went out.
The President made an entry in the ledger.
"The old grandfather is said to be an invaluable hand at polishing
plate," she said, with a sardonic look at her fellow philanthropists.
"Any one who wishes may see his credentials after the meeting. Daughter,
I called the next candidate."
"I _have_ told her, ma."
"Come forward!" commanded the President.
The big mulatto woman wriggled about, and then got up, frightfully
embarrassed, and by dint of kindly urging from "daughter" and the
President, she was finally landed in front of the desk.
"Now," said the President, fixing the woman through her spectacles,
"where have you resided?"
This question was repeated three times and in three forms.
"Oh, w'ere I libs? Up Corn Alley."
"But before you lived in Corn Alley, where did you come from?"
"F'om Jacksing's."
"Where did the Jacksons live?"
"On de hill."
"What hill?"
She thought deeply, and then looked up, grinning and silent.
"What State?" asked the President, with a haggard air.
"State?"
"Yes, Georgia or Alabama?"
"No, mehm. It was Keziah wus f'om Alabammy."
"What is your name?"
"Yellah Sal."
She squirmed with an elephantine coquetry.
"Your last name?"
"Las'?"
"Are you married?"
"Huh! Yes, mehm," she chuckled.
"What was your husband's name?"
"W'ich husbin?"
"Have you been married more than once?"
"Huh! Yes, mehm." She bridled and twisted. "Six or seben times."
"As Vice-President," said a white-haired woman, standing up suddenly
near the desk, "I suggest that it would be a more practical investment
of our time if we confine ourselves to finding out what the candidates
could do."
"Do you wish me to register this woman as Yellow Sal?" inquired the
President, severely.
"Put her down as Sarah Yellow," advised the Vice-President, and resumed
her seat.
This passage seemed to unhinge the candidate. The question of what she
could do found her relapsed into speechlessness. Even its repetition
elicited only twistings and spasmodic grins.
"Come, come," said the President, wearily. "You are a strong,
able-bodied woman; you at least can do a good day's work at something.
Now, the question is, what?"
Yellow Sal only moved her massive shoulders with an air of conscious
power.
"Did you cook?"
"_Cook?_ No, mehm."
She smiled in a superior fashion.
"What then?"
She twisted a piece of her calico gown.
"Were you the laundress?"
"_Me?_ No, mehm. Bet an' Sabina done de washin'."
"Well, and you? Were you nurse?"
The down-trodden one shook her head.
"Nebber could abide chillen."
"Well, what _did_ you do?"
The President leaned in a threatening attitude over the desk.
"Huh! Me, mehm? _Me_--w'y," speaking soothingly, "Lor bress yo' soul,
mehm, I done kep' de flies off'n ole missis."
Miss Hannah's hope of the possible good effects of the meeting upon her
guest was more than justified. Mrs. Gano returned to Ashburton Place in
a distinctly cheerful frame of mind.
Whether Mr. Tallmadge, too, had begun the day with vows of peace, he
certainly bore himself towards his unwelcome visitor with no little
consideration and courtesy. Mrs. Gano was forced to admit to herself a
growing respect, an unwilling admiration even, for her old enemy. The
only outward and visible sign of this change of heart was made manifest
after the departure of the one other visitor that evening brought to
Ashburton Place. Mr. Tallmadge had not only prevented Mr. Garrison from
speaking of the war, but he had headed the conversation off every time
it approached any topic of the day that bore upon the South. When the
door closed behind him Mrs. Gano turned to her host and said, formally:
"I appreciate your desire not to have these questions raised in my
presence; but I see that in one regard you misapprehend me. I agree with
your visitor as to the undesirability of slavery."
"You, madam?"
She bowed.
"My objection is almost solely on the score of its evil effects on the
superior race. Still, slavery was an institution we had inherited, and
in which our social and industrial life was rooted. One part of a free
country had no right to dictate to another part. The South would have
freed her slaves herself in due time."
Mr. Tallmadge was unable to repress an incredulous smile.
"Slaves were once held in the North," his guest reminded him, drawing
herself up. "If the African had been able to live in this terrible
climate, New England would not so soon have seen the iniquity of
slavery. The South, on wider grounds, was coming to the same
conclusion. The war only precipitated with bloodshed and disaster that
which, if left to right itself, would have been done without such awful
squandering of blood and gold."
Mr. Tallmadge shook his head.
"I cannot agree with you, madam. Violent uprooting is the only way to
clear the ground of certain noxious growths."
"Ah, you think you've cleared the ground--by inflicting the duties of
citizenship all in an instant upon a barbarian horde? You are more of an
optimist even than your friends."
"What friends are you quoting?"
"Your Harriet Beecher Stowe, for instance. Even in the full tide of her
romantic enthusiasm she can find no better use for the idealized
ex-slave than to ship him to Liberia. This, too, after educating
him--sending him for four years to a French university." She smiled.
"But since you and I may not meet again, all I wish to point out before
I go is that you need not count me as an advocate of slavery."
She rose.
"Before you go?" he began, hesitating.
"I am needed at home," she said. "I shall not remain in Boston longer
than is necessary to secure your agreement to Ethan's coming to us for a
visit."
"I have already said, madam--"
"I should not feel the object of my journey attained unless the date
were fixed."
They stood looking at each other.
It will never be known how much Mr. Tallmadge's readiness to restore
Mrs. Gano to the bosom of her family influenced his views at this
juncture. He turned away and considered, with one foot on the fender and
chin-whisker in hand.
"This next summer," he said, "I have promised to take Ethan to my
brother's place in the White Mountains."
"Then the summer after this."
"Yes; the summer after he could come, if he were well."
"If he were ill, I would come to see him."
"Ah--yes."
"When does his vacation begin?"
"About the middle of June."
"If he is well, you will send him to us the third week?"
"Yes."
They shook hands solemnly.