The colonel took the papers and glanced over them.
"Mother thinks," said Miss Laura anxiously, "that they are the papers
we were looking for, that prove that Fetters was in father's debt."
The colonel had been thinking rapidly. The papers were, indeed, a
promissory note from Fetters to Mr. Treadwell, and a contract and
memorandum of certain joint transactions in turpentine and cotton
futures. The note was dated twenty years back. Had it been produced at
the time of Mr. Treadwell's death, it would not have been difficult
to collect, and would have meant to his survivors the difference
between poverty and financial independence. Now it was barred by the
lapse of time.
Miss Laura was waiting in eager expectation. Outwardly calm, her eyes
were bright, her cheeks were glowing, her bosom rose and fell
excitedly. Could he tell her that this seemingly fortunate accident
was merely the irony of fate--a mere cruel reminder of a former
misfortune? No, she could not believe it!
"It has made me happy, Henry," she said, while he still kept his eyes
bent on the papers to conceal his perplexity, "it has made me very
happy to think that I may not come to you empty-handed."
"Dear woman," he thought, "you shall not. If the note is not good, it
shall be made good."
"Laura," he said aloud, "I am no lawyer, but Caxton shall look at
these to-day, and I shall be very much mistaken if they do not bring
you a considerable sum of money. Say nothing about them, however,
until Caxton reports. He will be here to see me to-day and by
to-morrow you shall have his opinion."
Miss Laura went away with a radiantly hopeful face, and as she and
Graciella went down the street, the colonel noted that her step was
scarcely less springy than her niece's. It was worth the amount of
Fetters's old note to make her happy; and since he meant to give her
all that she might want, what better way than to do it by means of
this bit of worthless paper? It would be a harmless deception, and it
would save the pride of three gentlewomen, with whom pride was not a
disease, to poison and scorch and blister, but an inspiration to
courtesy, and kindness, and right living. Such a pride was worth
cherishing even at a sacrifice, which was, after all, no sacrifice.
He had already sent word to Caxton of his accident, requesting him to
call at the house on other business. Caxton came in the afternoon, and
when the matter concerning which he had come had been disposed of,
Colonel French produced Fetters's note.
"Caxton," he said, "I wish to pay this note and let it seem to have
come from Fetters."
Caxton looked at the note.
"Why should you pay it?" he asked. "I mean," he added, noting a change
in the colonel's expression, "why shouldn't Fetters pay it?"
"Because it is outlawed," he replied, "and we could hardly expect him
to pay for anything he didn't have to pay. The statute of limitations
runs against it after fifteen years--and it's older than that, much
older than that."
Caxton made a rapid mental calculation.
"That is the law in New York," he said, "but here the statute doesn't
begin to run for twenty years. The twenty years for which this note
was given expires to-day."
"Then it is good?" demanded the colonel, looking at his watch.
"It is good," said Caxton, "provided there is no defence to it except
the statute, and provided I can file a petition on it in the county
clerk's office by four o'clock, the time at which the office closes.
It is now twenty minutes of four."
"Can you make it?"
"I'll try."
Caxton, since his acquaintance with Colonel French, had learned
something more about the value of half an hour than he had ever before
appreciated, and here was an opportunity to test his knowledge. He
literally ran the quarter of a mile that lay between the colonel's
residence and the court house, to the open-eyed astonishment of those
whom he passed, some of whom wondered whether he were crazy, and
others whether he had committed a crime. He dashed into the clerk's
office, seized a pen, and the first piece of paper handy, and began to
write a petition. The clerk had stepped into the hall, and when he
came leisurely in at three minutes to four, Caxton discovered that he
had written his petition on the back of a blank marriage license. He
folded it, ran his pen through the printed matter, endorsed it,
"Estate of Treadwell _vs._ Fetters," signed it with the name of Ellen
Treadwell, as executrix, by himself as her attorney, swore to it
before the clerk, and handed it to that official, who raised his
eyebrows as soon as he saw the endorsement.
"Now, Mr. Munroe," said Caxton, "if you'll enter that on the docket,
now, as of to-day, I'll be obliged to you. I'd rather have the
transaction all finished up while I wait. Your fee needn't wait the
termination of the suit. I'll pay it now and take a receipt for it."
The clerk whistled to himself as he read the petition in order to make
the entry.
"That's an old-timer," he said. "It'll make the old man cuss."
"Yes," said Caxton. "Do me a favour, and don't say anything about it
for a day or two. I don't think the suit will ever come to trial."
_Thirty-one_
On the day following these events, the colonel, on the arm of old
Peter, hobbled out upon his front porch, and seating himself in a big
rocking chair, in front of which a cushion had been adjusted for his
injured ankle, composed himself to read some arrears of mail which had
come in the day before, and over which he had only glanced casually.
When he was comfortably settled, Peter and Phil walked down the steps,
upon the lowest of which they seated themselves. The colonel had
scarcely begun to read before he called to the old man.
"Peter," he said, "I wish you'd go upstairs, and look in my room, and
bring me a couple of light-coloured cigars from the box on my
bureau--the mild ones, you know, Peter."
"Yas, suh, I knows, suh, de mil' ones, dem wid de gol' ban's 'roun'
'em. Now you stay right hyuh, chile, till Peter come back."
Peter came up the steps and disappeared in the doorway.
The colonel opened a letter from Kirby, in which that energetic and
versatile gentleman assured the colonel that he had evolved a great
scheme, in which there were millions for those who would go into it.
He had already interested Mrs. Jerviss, who had stated she would be
governed by what the colonel did in the matter. The letter went into
some detail upon this subject, and then drifted off into club and
social gossip. Several of the colonel's friends had inquired
particularly about him. One had regretted the loss to their whist
table. Another wanted the refusal of his box at the opera, if he were
not coming back for the winter.
"I think you're missed in a certain quarter, old fellow. I know a lady
who would be more than delighted to see you. I am invited to her house
to dinner, ostensibly to talk about our scheme, in reality to talk
about you.
"But this is all by the way. The business is the thing. Take my
proposition under advisement. We all made money together before; we
can make it again. My option has ten days to run. Wire me before it is
up what reply to make. I know what you'll say, but I want your 'ipse
dixit.'"
The colonel knew too what his reply would be, and that it would be
very different from Kirby's anticipation. He would write it, he
thought, next day, so that Kirby should not be kept in suspense, or so
that he might have time to enlist other capital in the enterprise. The
colonel felt really sorry to disappoint his good friends. He would
write and inform Kirby of his plans, including that of his approaching
marriage.
He had folded the letter and laid it down, and had picked up a
newspaper, when Peter returned with the cigars and a box of matches.
"Mars Henry?" he asked, "w'at's gone wid de chile?"
"Phil?" replied the colonel, looking toward the step, from which the
boy had disappeared. "I suppose he went round the house."
"Mars Phil! O Mars Phil!" called the old man.
There was no reply.
Peter looked round the corner of the house, but Phil was nowhere
visible. The old man went round to the back yard, and called again,
but did not find the child.
"I hyuhs de train comin'; I 'spec's he's gone up ter de railroad
track," he said, when he had returned to the front of the house. "I'll
run up dere an' fetch 'im back."
"Yes, do, Peter," returned the colonel. "He's probably all right, but
you'd better see about him."
Little Phil, seeing his father absorbed in the newspaper, and not
wishing to disturb him, had amused himself by going to the gate and
looking down the street toward the railroad track. He had been doing
this scarcely a moment, when he saw a black cat come out of a
neighbour's gate and go down the street.
Phil instantly recalled Uncle Peter's story of the black cat. Perhaps
this was the same one!
Phil had often been warned about the railroad.
"Keep 'way f'm dat railroad track, honey," the old man had repeated
more than once. "It's as dange'ous as a gun, and a gun is dange'ous
widout lock, stock, er bairl: I knowed a man oncet w'at beat 'is wife
ter def wid a ramrod, an' wuz hung fer it in a' ole fiel' down by de
ha'nted house. Dat gun couldn't hol' powder ner shot, but was
dange'ous 'nuff ter kill two folks. So you jes' better keep 'way f'm
dat railroad track, chile."
But Phil was a child, with the making of a man, and the wisest of men
sometimes forget. For the moment Phil saw nothing but the cat, and
wished for nothing more than to talk to it.
So Phil, unperceived by the colonel, set out to overtake the black
cat. The cat seemed in no hurry, and Phil had very nearly caught up
with him--or her, as the case might be--when the black cat, having
reached the railroad siding, walked under a flat car which stood
there, and leaping to one of the truck bars, composed itself,
presumably for a nap. In order to get close enough to the cat for
conversational purposes, Phil stooped under the overhanging end of the
car, and kneeled down beside the truck.
"Kitty, Kitty!" he called, invitingly.
The black cat opened her big yellow eyes with every evidence of lazy
amiability.
Peter shuffled toward the corner as fast as his rickety old limbs
would carry him. When he reached the corner he saw a car standing on
the track. There was a brakeman at one end, holding a coupling link in
one hand, and a coupling pin in the other, his eye on an engine and
train of cars only a rod or two away, advancing to pick up the single
car. At the same moment Peter caught sight of little Phil, kneeling
under the car at the other end.
Peter shouted, but the brakeman was absorbed in his own task, which
required close attention in order to assure his own safety. The
engineer on the cab, at the other end of the train, saw an old Negro
excitedly gesticulating, and pulled a lever mechanically, but too late
to stop the momentum of the train, which was not equipped with air
brakes, even if these would have proved effective to stop it in so
short a distance.
Just before the two cars came together, Peter threw himself forward to
seize the child. As he did so, the cat sprang from the truck bar; the
old man stumbled over the cat, and fell across the rail. The car moved
only a few feet, but quite far enough to work injury.
A dozen people, including the train crew, quickly gathered. Willing
hands drew them out and laid them upon the grass under the spreading
elm at the corner of the street. A judge, a merchant and a Negro
labourer lifted old Peter's body as tenderly as though it had been
that of a beautiful woman. The colonel, somewhat uneasy, he scarcely
knew why, had started to limp painfully toward the corner, when he was
met by a messenger who informed him of the accident. Forgetting his
pain, he hurried to the scene, only to find his heart's delight lying
pale, bleeding and unconscious, beside the old Negro who had
sacrificed his life to save him.
A doctor, who had been hastily summoned, pronounced Peter dead. Phil
showed no superficial injury, save a cut upon the head, from which the
bleeding was soon stanched. A Negro's strong arms bore the child to
the house, while the bystanders remained about Peter's body until the
arrival of Major McLean, recently elected coroner, who had been
promptly notified of the accident. Within a few minutes after the
officer's appearance, a jury was summoned from among the bystanders,
the evidence of the trainmen and several other witnesses was taken,
and a verdict of accidental death rendered. There was no suggestion of
blame attaching to any one; it had been an accident, pure and simple,
which ordinary and reasonable prudence could not have foreseen.
By the colonel's command, the body of his old servant was then
conveyed to the house and laid out in the front parlour. Every honour,
every token of respect, should be paid to his remains.
_Thirty-two_
Meanwhile the colonel, forgetting his own hurt, hovered, with several
physicians, among them Doctor Price, around the bedside of his child.
The slight cut upon the head, the physicians declared, was not, of
itself, sufficient to account for the rapid sinking which set in
shortly after the boy's removal to the house. There had evidently been
some internal injury, the nature of which could not be ascertained.
Phil remained unconscious for several hours, but toward the end of the
day opened his blue eyes and fixed them upon his father, who was
sitting by the bedside.
"Papa," he said, "am I going to die?"
"No, no, Phil," said his father hopefully. "You are going to get well
in a few days, I hope."
Phil was silent for a moment, and looked around him curiously. He gave
no sign of being in pain.
"Is Miss Laura here?"
"Yes, Phil, she's in the next room, and will be here in a moment."
At that instant Miss Laura came in and kissed him. The caress gave him
pleasure, and he smiled sweetly in return.
"Papa, was Uncle Peter hurt?"
"Yes, Phil."
"Where is he, papa? Was he hurt badly?"
"He is lying in another room, Phil, but he is not in any pain."
"Papa," said Phil, after a pause, "if I should die, and if Uncle Peter
should die, you'll remember your promise and bury him near me, won't
you, dear?"
"Yes, Phil," he said, "but you are not going to die!"
But Phil died, dozing off into a peaceful sleep in which he passed
quietly away with a smile upon his face.
It required all the father's fortitude to sustain the blow, with the
added agony of self-reproach that he himself had been unwittingly the
cause of it. Had he not sent old Peter into the house, the child would
not have been left alone. Had he kept his eye upon Phil until Peter's
return the child would not have strayed away. He had neglected his
child, while the bruised and broken old black man in the room below
had given his life to save him. He could do nothing now to show the
child his love or Peter his gratitude, and the old man had neither
wife nor child in whom the colonel's bounty might find an object. But
he would do what he could. He would lay his child's body in the old
family lot in the cemetery, among the bones of his ancestors, and
there too, close at hand, old Peter should have honourable sepulture.
It was his due, and would be the fulfilment of little Phil's last
request.
The child was laid out in the parlour, amid a mass of flowers. Miss
Laura, for love of him and of the colonel, with her own hands prepared
his little body for the last sleep. The undertaker, who hovered
around, wished, with a conventional sense of fitness, to remove old
Peter's body to a back room. But the colonel said no.
"They died together; together they shall lie here, and they shall be
buried together."
He gave instructions as to the location of the graves in the cemetery
lot. The undertaker looked thoughtful.
"I hope, sir," said the undertaker, "there will be no objection. It's
not customary--there's a coloured graveyard--you might put up a nice
tombstone there--and you've been away from here a long time, sir."
"If any one objects," said the colonel, "send him to me. The lot is
mine, and I shall do with it as I like. My great-great-grandfather
gave the cemetery to the town. Old Peter's skin was black, but his
heart was white as any man's! And when a man reaches the grave, he is
not far from God, who is no respecter of persons, and in whose
presence, on the judgment day, many a white man shall be black, and
many a black man white."
The funeral was set for the following afternoon. The graves were to be
dug in the morning. The undertaker, whose business was dependent upon
public favour, and who therefore shrank from any step which might
affect his own popularity, let it be quietly known that Colonel French
had given directions to bury Peter in Oak Cemetery.
It was inevitable that there should be some question raised about so
novel a proceeding. The colour line in Clarendon, as in all Southern
towns, was, on the surface at least, rigidly drawn, and extended from
the cradle to the grave. No Negro's body had ever profaned the sacred
soil of Oak Cemetery. The protestants laid the matter before the
Cemetery trustees, and a private meeting was called in the evening to
consider the proposed interment.
White and black worshipped the same God, in different churches. There
had been a time when coloured people filled the galleries of the white
churches, and white ladies had instilled into black children the
principles of religion and good morals. But as white and black had
grown nearer to each other in condition, they had grown farther apart
in feeling. It was difficult for the poor lady, for instance, to
patronise the children of the well-to-do Negro or mulatto; nor was the
latter inclined to look up to white people who had started, in his
memory, from a position but little higher than his own. In an era of
change, the benefits gained thereby seemed scarcely to offset the
difficulties of readjustment.
The situation was complicated by a sense of injury on both sides.
Cherishing their theoretical equality of citizenship, which they could
neither enforce nor forget, the Negroes resented, noisly or silently,
as prudence dictated, its contemptuous denial by the whites; and
these, viewing this shadowy equality as an insult to themselves, had
sought by all the machinery of local law to emphasise and perpetuate
their own superiority. The very word "equality" was an offence.
Society went back to Egypt and India for its models; to break caste
was a greater sin than to break any or all of the ten commandments.
White and coloured children studied the same books in different
schools. White and black people rode on the same trains in separate
cars. Living side by side, and meeting day by day, the law, made and
administered by white men, had built a wall between them.
And white and black buried their dead in separate graveyards. Not
until they reached God's presence could they stand side by side in any
relation of equality. There was a Negro graveyard in Clarendon, where,
as a matter of course the coloured dead were buried. It was not an
ideal locality. The land was low and swampy, and graves must be used
quickly, ere the water collected in them. The graveyard was unfenced,
and vagrant cattle browsed upon its rank herbage. The embankment of
the railroad encroached upon one side of it, and the passing engines
sifted cinders and ashes over the graves. But no Negro had ever
thought of burying his dead elsewhere, and if their cemetery was not
well kept up, whose fault was it but their own?
The proposition, therefore, of a white man, even of Colonel French's
standing, to bury a Negro in Oak Cemetery, was bound to occasion
comment, if nothing more. There was indeed more. Several citizens
objected to the profanation, and laid their protest before the mayor,
who quietly called a meeting of the board of cemetery trustees, of
which he was the chairman.
The trustees were five in number. The board, with the single exception
of the mayor, was self-perpetuating, and the members had been chosen,
as vacancies occurred by death, at long intervals, from among the
aristocracy, who had always controlled it. The mayor, a member and
chairman of the board by virtue of his office, had sprung from the
same class as Fetters, that of the aspiring poor whites, who, freed
from the moral incubus of slavery, had by force of numbers and
ambition secured political control of the State and relegated not only
the Negroes, but the old master class, to political obscurity. A
shrewd, capable man was the mayor, who despised Negroes and distrusted
aristocrats, and had the courage of his convictions. He represented in
the meeting the protesting element of the community.
"Gentlemen," he said, "Colonel French has ordered this Negro to be
buried in Oak Cemetery. We all appreciate the colonel's worth, and
what he is doing for the town. But he has lived at the North for many
years, and has got somewhat out of our way of thinking. We do not want
to buy the prosperity of this town at the price of our principles. The
attitude of the white people on the Negro question is fixed and
determined for all time, and nothing can ever alter it. To bury this
Negro in Oak Cemetery is against our principles."
"The mayor's statement of the rule is quite correct," replied old
General Thornton, a member of the board, "and not open to question.
But all rules have their exceptions. It was against the law, for some
years before the war, to manumit a slave; but an exception to that
salutary rule was made in case a Negro should render some great
service to the State or the community. You will recall that when, in a
sister State, a Negro climbed the steep roof of St. Michael's church
and at the risk of his own life saved that historic structure, the
pride of Charleston, from destruction by fire, the muncipality granted
him his freedom."
"And we all remember," said Mr. Darden, another of the trustees, "we
all remember, at least I'm sure General Thornton does, old Sally, who
used to belong to the McRae family, and was a member of the
Presbyterian Church, and who, because of her age and infirmities--she
was hard of hearing and too old to climb the stairs to the
gallery--was given a seat in front of the pulpit, on the main floor."
"That was all very well," replied the mayor, stoutly, "when the
Negroes belonged to you, and never questioned your authority. But
times are different now. They think themselves as good as we are. We
had them pretty well in hand until Colonel French came around, with
his schools, and his high wages, and now they are getting so fat and
sassy that there'll soon be no living with them. The last election did
something, but we'll have to do something more, and that soon, to keep
them in their places. There's one in jail now, alive, who has shot and
disfigured and nearly killed two good white men, and such an example
of social equality as burying one in a white graveyard will demoralise
them still further. We must preserve the purity and prestige of our
race, and we can only do it by keeping the Negroes down."
"After all," said another member, "the purity of our race is not apt
to suffer very seriously from the social equality of a graveyard."
"And old Peter will be pretty effectually kept down, wherever he is
buried," added another.
These sallies provoked a smile which lightened the tension. A member
suggested that Colonel French be sent for.
"It seems a pity to disturb him in his grief," said another.
"It's only a couple of squares," suggested another. "Let's call in a
body and pay our respects. We can bring up the matter incidentally,
while there."
The muscles of the mayor's chin hardened.
"Colonel French has never been at my house," he said, "and I shouldn't
care to seem to intrude."
"Come on, mayor," said Mr. Darden, taking the official by the arm,
"these fine distinctions are not becoming in the presence of death.
The colonel will be glad to see you."
The mayor could not resist this mark of intimacy on the part of one of
the old aristocracy, and walked somewhat proudly through the street
arm in arm with Mr. Darden. They paid their respects to the colonel,
who was bearing up, with the composure to be expected of a man of
strong will and forceful character, under a grief of which he was
exquisitely sensible. Touched by a strong man's emotion, which nothing
could conceal, no one had the heart to mention, in the presence of the
dead, the object of their visit, and they went away without giving the
colonel any inkling that his course had been seriously criticised. Nor
was the meeting resumed after they left the house, even the mayor
seeming content to let the matter go by default.
_Thirty-three_
Fortune favoured Caxton in the matter of the note. Fetters was in
Clarendon the following morning. Caxton saw him passing, called him
into his office, and produced the note.
"That's no good," said Fetters contemptuously. "It was outlawed
yesterday. I suppose you allowed I'd forgotten it. On the contrary,
I've a memorandum of it in my pocketbook, and I struck it off the list
last night. I always pay my lawful debts, when they're properly
demanded. If this note had been presented yesterday, I'd have paid it.
To-day it's too late. It ain't a lawful debt."
"Do you really mean to say, Mr. Fetters, that you have deliberately
robbed those poor women of this money all these years, and are not
ashamed of it, not even when you're found out, and that you are going
to take refuge behind the statute?"
"Now, see here, Mr. Caxton," returned Fetters, without apparent
emotion, "you want to be careful about the language you use. I might
sue you for slander. You're a young man, that hopes to have a future
and live in this county, where I expect to live and have law business
done long after some of your present clients have moved away. I didn't
owe the estate of John Treadwell one cent--you ought to be lawyer
enough to know that. He owed me money, and paid me with a note. I
collected the note. I owed him money and paid it with a note. Whoever
heard of anybody's paying a note that wasn't presented?"
"It's a poor argument, Mr. Fetters. You would have let those ladies
starve to death before you would have come forward and paid that
debt."
"They've never asked me for charity, so I wasn't called on to offer
it. And you know now, don't you, that if I'd paid the amount of that
note, and then it had turned up afterward in somebody else's hands,
I'd have had to pay it over again; now wouldn't I?"
Caxton could not deny it. Fetters had robbed the Treadwell estate, but
his argument was unanswerable.
"Yes," said Caxton, "I suppose you would."
"I'm sorry for the women," said Fetters, "and I've stood ready to pay
that note all these years, and it ain't my fault that it hasn't been
presented. Now it's outlawed, and you couldn't expect a man to just
give away that much money. It ain't a lawful debt, and the law's good
enough for me."
"You're awfully sorry for the ladies, aren't you?" said Caxton, with
thinly veiled sarcasm.
"I surely am; I'm honestly sorry for them."
"And you'd pay the note if you had to, wouldn't you?" asked Caxton.
"I surely would. As I say, I always pay my legal debts."
"All right," said Caxton triumphantly, "then you'll pay this. I filed
suit against you yesterday, which takes the case out of the statute."
Fetters concealed his discomfiture.
"Well," he said, with quiet malignity, "I've nothing more to say till
I consult my lawyer. But I want to tell you one thing. You are ruining
a fine career by standing in with this Colonel French. I hear his son
was killed to-day. You can tell him I say it's a judgment on him; for
I hold him responsible for my son's condition. He came down here and
tried to demoralise the labour market. He put false notions in the
niggers' heads. Then he got to meddling with my business, trying to
get away a nigger whose time I had bought. He insulted my agent
Turner, and came all the way down to Sycamore and tried to bully me
into letting the nigger loose, and of course I wouldn't be bullied.
Afterwards, when I offered to let the nigger go, the colonel wouldn't
have it so. I shall always believe he bribed one of my men to get the
nigger off, and then turned him loose to run amuck among the white
people and shoot my boy and my overseer. It was a low-down
performance, and unworthy of a gentleman. No really white man would
treat another white man so. You can tell him I say it's a judgment
that's fallen on him to-day, and that it's not the last one, and that
he'll be sorrier yet that he didn't stay where he was, with his
nigger-lovin' notions, instead of comin' back down here to make
trouble for people that have grown up with the State and made it what
it is."
Caxton, of course, did not deliver the message. To do so would have
been worse taste than Fetters had displayed in sending it. Having got
the best of the encounter, Caxton had no objection to letting his
defeated antagonist discharge his venom against the absent colonel,
who would never know of it, and who was already breasting the waves of
a sorrow so deep and so strong as almost to overwhelm him. For he had
loved the boy; all his hopes had centred around this beautiful man
child, who had promised so much that was good. His own future had been
planned with reference to him. Now he was dead, and the bereaved
father gave way to his grief.
_Thirty-four_
The funeral took place next day, from the Episcopal Church, in which
communion the little boy had been baptised, and of which old Peter had
always been an humble member, faithfully appearing every Sunday
morning in his seat in the gallery, long after the rest of his people
had deserted it for churches of their own. On this occasion Peter had,
for the first time, a place on the main floor, a little to one side of
the altar, in front of which, banked with flowers, stood the white
velvet casket which contained all that was mortal of little Phil. The
same beautiful sermon answered for both. In touching words, the
rector, a man of culture, taste and feeling, and a faithful servant of
his Master, spoke of the sweet young life brought to so untimely an
end, and pointed the bereaved father to the best source of
consolation. He paid a brief tribute to the faithful servant and
humble friend, to whom, though black and lowly, the white people of
the town were glad to pay this signal tribute of respect and
appreciation for his heroic deed. The attendance at the funeral, while
it might have been larger, was composed of the more refined and
cultured of the townspeople, from whom, indeed, the church derived
most of its membership and support; and the gallery overflowed with
coloured people, whose hearts had warmed to the great honour thus paid
to one of their race. Four young white men bore Phil's body and the
six pallbearers of old Peter were from among the best white people of
the town.
The double interment was made in Oak Cemetery. Simultaneously both
bodies were lowered to their last resting-place. Simultaneously ashes
were consigned to ashes and dust to dust. The earth was heaped above
the graves. The mound above little Phil's was buried with flowers, and
old Peter's was not neglected.
Beyond the cemetery wall, a few white men of the commoner sort watched
the proceedings from a distance, and eyed with grim hostility the
Negroes who had followed the procession. They had no part nor parcel
in this sentimental folly, nor did they approve of it--in fact they
disapproved of it very decidedly. Among them was the colonel's
discharged foreman, Jim Green, who was pronounced in his denunciation.
"Colonel French is an enemy of his race," he declared to his
sympathetic following. "He hires niggers when white men are idle; and
pays them more than white men who work are earning. And now he is
burying them with white people."
When the group around the grave began to disperse, the little knot of
disgruntled spectators moved sullenly away. In the evening they might
have been seen, most of them, around Clay Jackson's barroom. Turner,
the foreman at Fetters's convict farm, was in town that evening, and
Jackson's was his favourite haunt. For some reason Turner was more
sociable than usual, and liquor flowed freely, at his expense. There
was a great deal of intemperate talk, concerning the Negro in jail for
shooting Haines and young Fetters, and concerning Colonel French as
the protector of Negroes and the enemy of white men.
_Thirty-five_
At the same time that the colonel, dry-eyed and heavy-hearted, had
returned to his empty house to nurse his grief, another series of
events was drawing to a climax in the dilapidated house on Mink Run.
Even while the preacher was saying the last words over little Phil's
remains, old Malcolm Dudley's illness had taken a sudden and violent
turn. He had been sinking for several days, but the decline had been
gradual, and there had seemed no particular reason for alarm. But
during the funeral exercises Ben had begun to feel uneasy--some
obscure premonition warned him to hurry homeward.
As soon as the funeral was over he spoke to Dr. Price, who had been
one of the pallbearers, and the doctor had promised to be at Mink Run
in a little while. Ben rode home as rapidly as he could; as he went up
the lane toward the house a Negro lad came forward to take charge of
the tired horse, and Ben could see from the boy's expression that he
had important information to communicate.
"Yo' uncle is monst'ous low, sir," said the boy. "You bettah go in an'
see 'im quick, er you'll be too late. Dey ain' nobody wid 'im but ole
Aun' Viney."
Ben hurried into the house and to his uncle's room, where Malcolm
Dudley lay dying. Outside, the sun was setting, and his red rays,
shining through the trees into the open window, lit the stage for the
last scene of this belated drama. When Ben entered the room, the sweat
of death had gathered on the old man's brow, but his eyes, clear with
the light of reason, were fixed upon old Viney, who stood by the
bedside. The two were evidently so absorbed in their own thoughts as
to be oblivious to anything else, and neither of them paid the
slightest attention to Ben, or to the scared Negro lad, who had
followed him and stood outside the door. But marvellous to hear, Viney
was talking, strangely, slowly, thickly, but passionately and
distinctly.
"You had me whipped," she said. "Do you remember that? You had me
whipped--whipped--whipped--by a poor white dog I had despised and
spurned! You had said that you loved me, and you had promised to free
me--and you had me whipped! But I have had my revenge!"
Her voice shook with passion, a passion at which Ben wondered. That
his uncle and she had once been young he knew, and that their
relations had once been closer than those of master and servant; but
this outbreak of feeling from the wrinkled old mulattress seemed as
strange and weird to Ben as though a stone image had waked to speech.
Spellbound, he stood in the doorway, and listened to this ghost of a
voice long dead.
"Your uncle came with the money and left it, and went away. Only he
and I knew where it was. But I never told you! I could have spoken at
any time for twenty-five years, but I never told you! I have
waited--I have waited for this moment! I have gone into the woods and
fields and talked to myself by the hour, that I might not forget how
to talk--and I have waited my turn, and it is here and now!"
Ben hung breathlessly upon her words. He drew back beyond her range of
vision, lest she might see him, and the spell be broken. Now, he
thought, she would tell where the gold was hidden!
"He came," she said, "and left the gold--two heavy bags of it, and a
letter for you. An hour later _he came back and took it all away_,
except the letter! The money was here one hour, but in that hour you
had me whipped, and for that you have spent twenty-five years in
looking for nothing--something that was not here! I have had my
revenge! For twenty-five years I have watched you look for--nothing;
have seen you waste your time, your property, your life, your
mind--for nothing! For ah, Mars' Ma'colm, you had me whipped--_by
another man_!"
A shadow of reproach crept into the old man's eyes, over which the
mists of death were already gathering.
"Yes, Viney," he whispered, "you have had your revenge! But I was
sorry, Viney, for what I did, and you were not. And I forgive you,
Viney; but you are unforgiving--even in the presence of death."
His voice failed, and his eyes closed for the last time. When she saw
that he was dead, by a strange revulsion of feeling the wall of
outraged pride and hatred and revenge, built upon one brutal and
bitterly repented mistake, and labouriously maintained for half a
lifetime in her woman's heart that even slavery could not crush,
crumbled and fell and let pass over it in one great and final flood
the pent-up passions of the past. Bursting into tears--strange tears
from eyes that had long forgot to weep--old Viney threw herself down
upon her knees by the bedside, and seizing old Malcolm's emaciated
hand in both her own, covered it with kisses, fervent kisses, the
ghosts of the passionate kisses of their distant youth.
With a feeling that his presence was something like sacrilege, Ben
stole away and left her with her dead--the dead master and the dead
past--and thanked God that he lived in another age, and had escaped
this sin.
As he wandered through the old house, a veil seemed to fall from his
eyes. How old everything was, how shrunken and decayed! The sheen of
the hidden gold had gilded the dilapidated old house, the neglected
plantation, his own barren life. Now that it was gone, things appeared
in their true light. Fortunately he was young enough to retrieve much
of what had been lost. When the old man was buried, he would settle
the estate, sell the land, make some provision for Aunt Viney, and
then, with what was left, go out into the world and try to make a
place for himself and Graciella. For life intrudes its claims even
into the presence of death.
When the doctor came, a little later, Ben went with him into the death
chamber. Viney was still kneeling by her master's bedside, but
strangely still and silent. The doctor laid his hand on hers and old
Malcolm's, which had remained clasped together.
"They are both dead," he declared. "I knew their story; my father told
it to me many years ago."
Ben related what he had overheard.
"I'm not surprised," said the doctor. "My father attended her when she
had the stroke, and after. He always maintained that Viney could
speak--if she had wished to speak."
_Thirty-six_
The colonel's eyes were heavy with grief that night, and yet he lay
awake late, and with his sorrow were mingled many consoling thoughts.
The people, his people, had been kind, aye, more than kind. Their warm
hearts had sympathised with his grief. He had sometimes been impatient
of their conservatism, their narrowness, their unreasoning pride of
opinion; but in his bereavement they had manifested a feeling that it
would be beautiful to remember all the days of his life. All the
people, white and black, had united to honour his dead.
He had wished to help them--had tried already. He had loved the town
as the home of his ancestors, which enshrined their ashes. He would
make of it a monument to mark his son's resting place. His fight
against Fetters and what he represented should take on a new
character; henceforward it should be a crusade to rescue from
threatened barbarism the land which contained the tombs of his loved
ones. Nor would he be alone in the struggle, which he now clearly
foresaw would be a long one. The dear, good woman he had asked to be
his wife could help him. He needed her clear, spiritual vision; and in
his lifelong sorrow he would need her sympathy and companionship; for
she had loved the child and would share his grief. She knew the people
better than he, and was in closer touch with them; she could help him
in his schemes of benevolence, and suggest new ways to benefit the
people. Phil's mother was buried far away, among her own people; could
he consult her, he felt sure she would prefer to remain there. Here
she would be an alien note; and when Laura died she could lie with
them and still be in her own place.
"Have you heard the news, sir," asked the housekeeper, when he came
down to breakfast the next morning.
"No, Mrs. Hughes, what is it?"
"They lynched the Negro who was in jail for shooting young Mr. Fetters
and the other man."
The colonel hastily swallowed a cup of coffee and went down town. It
was only a short walk. Already there were excited crowds upon the
street, discussing the events of the night. The colonel sought Caxton,
who was just entering his office.
"They've done it," said the lawyer.
"So I understand. When did it happen?"
"About one o'clock last night. A crowd came in from Sycamore--not all
at once, but by twos and threes, and got together in Clay Johnson's
saloon, with Ben Green, your discharged foreman, and a lot of other
riffraff, and went to the sheriff, and took the keys, and took Johnson
and carried him out to where the shooting was, and----"
"Spare me the details. He is dead?"
"Yes."
A rope, a tree--a puff of smoke, a flash of flame--or a barbaric orgy
of fire and blood--what matter which? At the end there was a lump of
clay, and a hundred murderers where there had been one before.
"Can we do anything to punish _this_ crime?"
"We can try."
And they tried. The colonel went to the sheriff. The sheriff said he
had yielded to force, but he never would have dreamed of shooting to
defend a worthless Negro who had maimed a good white man, had nearly
killed another, and had declared a vendetta against the white race.
By noon the colonel had interviewed as many prominent men as he could
find, and they became increasingly difficult to find as it became
known that he was seeking them. The town, he said, had been disgraced,
and should redeem itself by prosecuting the lynchers. He may as well
have talked to the empty air. The trail of Fetters was all over the
town. Some of the officials owed Fetters money; others were under
political obligations to him. Others were plainly of the opinion that
the Negro got no more than he deserved; such a wretch was not fit to
live. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of suicide, a grim joke
which evoked some laughter. Doctor McKenzie, to whom the colonel
expressed his feelings, and whom he asked to throw the influence of
his church upon the side of law and order, said:
"It is too bad. I am sorry, but it is done. Let it rest. No good can
ever come of stirring it up further."
Later in the day there came news that the lynchers, after completing
their task, had proceeded to the Dudley plantation and whipped all the
Negroes who did not learn of their coming in time to escape, the claim
being that Johnson could not have maintained himself in hiding without
their connivance, and that they were therefore parties to his crimes.
The colonel felt very much depressed when he went to bed that night,
and lay for a long time turning over in his mind the problem that
confronted him.
So far he had been beaten, except in the matter of the cotton mill,
which was yet unfinished. His efforts in Bud Johnson's behalf--the
only thing he had undertaken to please the woman he loved, had proved
abortive. His promise to the teacher--well, he had done his part, but
to no avail. He would be ashamed to meet Taylor face to face. With
what conscience could a white man in Clarendon ever again ask a Negro
to disclose the name or hiding place of a coloured criminal? In the
effort to punish the lynchers he stood, to all intents and purposes,
single-handed and alone; and without the support of public opinion he
could do nothing.
The colonel was beaten, but not dismayed. Perhaps God in his wisdom
had taken Phil away, that his father might give himself more
completely and single-mindedly to the battle before him. Had Phil
lived, a father might have hesitated to expose a child's young and
impressionable mind to the things which these volcanic outbursts of
passion between mismated races might cause at any unforeseen moment.
Now that the way was clear, he could go forward, hand in hand with the
good woman who had promised to wed him, in the work he had laid out.
He would enlist good people to demand better laws, under which Fetters
and his kind would find it harder to prey upon the weak.
Diligently he would work to lay wide and deep the foundations of
prosperity, education and enlightenment, upon which should rest
justice, humanity and civic righteousness. In this he would find a
worthy career. Patiently would he await the results of his labours,
and if they came not in great measure in his own lifetime, he would be
content to know that after years would see their full fruition.
So that night he sat down and wrote a long answer to Kirby's letter,
in which he told him of Phil's death and burial, and his own grief.
Something there was, too, of his plans for the future, including his
marriage to a good woman who would help him in them. Kirby, he said,
had offered him a golden opportunity for which he thanked him
heartily. The scheme was good enough for any one to venture upon. But
to carry out his own plans, would require that he invest his money in
the State of his residence, where there were many openings for capital
that could afford to wait upon development for large returns. He sent
his best regards to Mrs. Jerviss, and his assurance that Kirby's plan
was a good one. Perhaps Kirby and she alone could handle it; if not,
there must be plenty of money elsewhere for so good a thing.
He sealed the letter, and laid it aside to be mailed in the morning.
To his mind it had all the force of a final renunciation, a severance
of the last link that bound him to his old life.
Long the colonel lay thinking, after he retired to rest, and the
muffled striking of the clock downstairs had marked the hour of
midnight ere he fell asleep. And he had scarcely dozed away, when he
was awakened by a scraping noise, as though somewhere in the house a
heavy object was being drawn across the floor. The sound was not
repeated, however, and thinking it some trick of the imagination, he
soon slept again.
As the colonel slept this second time, he dreamed of a regenerated
South, filled with thriving industries, and thronged with a prosperous
and happy people, where every man, having enough for his needs, was
willing that every other man should have the same; where law and order
should prevail unquestioned, and where every man could enter, through
the golden gate of hope, the field of opportunity, where lay the
prizes of life, which all might have an equal chance to win or lose.
For even in his dreams the colonel's sober mind did not stray beyond
the bounds of reason and experience. That all men would ever be equal
he did not even dream; there would always be the strong and the weak,
the wise and the foolish. But that each man, in his little life in
this our little world might be able to make the most of himself, was
an ideal which even the colonel's waking hours would not have
repudiated.
Following this pleasing thread with the unconscious rapidity of
dreams, the colonel passed, in a few brief minutes, through a long and
useful life to a happy end, when he too rested with his fathers, by
the side of his son, and on his tomb was graven what was said of Ben
Adhem: "Here lies one who loved his fellow men," and the further
words, "and tried to make them happy."
* * * * *
Shortly after dawn there was a loud rapping at the colonel's door:
"Come downstairs and look on de piazza, Colonel," said the agitated
voice of the servant who had knocked. "Come quick, suh."
There was a vague terror in the man's voice that stirred the colonel
strangely. He threw on a dressing gown and hastened downstairs, and to
the front door of the hall, which stood open. A handsome mahogany
burial casket, stained with earth and disfigured by rough handling,
rested upon the floor of the piazza, where it had been deposited
during the night. Conspicuously nailed to the coffin lid was a sheet
of white paper, upon which were some lines rudely scrawled in a
handwriting that matched the spelling:
_Kurnell French_:
_Take notis. Berry yore ole nigger somewhar else. He can't stay
in Oak Semitury. The majority of the white people of this town,
who dident tend yore nigger funarl, woant have him there.
Niggers by there selves, white peepul by there selves, and them
that lives in our town must bide by our rules._
_By order of_
CUMITTY.
The colonel left the coffin standing on the porch, where it remained
all day, an object of curious interest to the scores and hundreds who
walked by to look at it, for the news spread quickly through the town.
No one, however, came in. If there were those who reprobated the
action they were silent. The mob spirit, which had broken out in the
lynching of Johnson, still dominated the town, and no one dared to
speak against it.
As soon as Colonel French had dressed and breakfasted, he drove over
to the cemetery. Those who had exhumed old Peter's remains had not
been unduly careful. The carelessly excavated earth had been scattered
here and there over the lot. The flowers on old Peter's grave and that
of little Phil had been trampled under foot--whether wantonly or not,
inevitably, in the execution of the ghoulish task.
The colonel's heart hardened as he stood by his son's grave. Then he
took a long lingering look at the tombs of his ancestors and turned
away with an air of finality.
From the cemetery he went to the undertaker's, and left an order;
thence to the telegraph office, from which he sent a message to his
former partner in New York; and thence to the Treadwells'.
_Thirty-seven_
Miss Laura came forward with outstretched hands and tear-stained eyes
to greet him.
"Henry," she exclaimed, "I am shocked and sorry, I cannot tell you how
much! Nor do I know what else to say, except that the best people do
not--cannot--could not--approve of it!"
"The best people, Laura," he said with a weary smile, "are an
abstraction. When any deviltry is on foot they are never there to
prevent it--they vanish into thin air at its approach. When it is
done, they excuse it; and they make no effort to punish it. So it is
not too much to say that what they permit they justify, and they
cannot shirk the responsibility. To mar the living--it is the history
of life--but to make war upon the dead!--I am going away, Laura, never
to return. My dream of usefulness is over. To-night I take away my
dead and shake the dust of Clarendon from my feet forever. Will you
come with me?"
"Henry," she said, and each word tore her heart, "I have been
expecting this--since I heard. But I cannot go; my duty calls me here.
My mother could not be happy anywhere else, nor would I fit into any
other life. And here, too, I am useful--and may still be useful--and
should be missed. I know your feelings, and would not try to keep you.
But, oh, Henry, if all of those who love justice and practise humanity
should go away, what would become of us?"
"I leave to-night," he returned, "and it is your right to go with me,
or to come to me."
"No, Henry, nor am I sure that you would wish me to. It was for the
old town's sake that you loved me. I was a part of your dream--a part
of the old and happy past, upon which you hoped to build, as upon the
foundations of the old mill, a broader and a fairer structure. Do you
remember what you told me, that night--that happy night--that you
loved me because in me you found the embodiment of an ideal? Well,
Henry, that is why I did not wish to make our engagement known, for I
knew, I felt, the difficulty of your task, and I foresaw that you
might be disappointed, and I feared that if your ideal should be
wrecked, you might find me a burden. I loved you, Henry--I seem to
have always loved you, but I would not burden you."
"No, no, Laura--not so! not so!"
"And you wanted me for Phil's sake, whom we both loved; and now that
your dream is over, and Phil is gone, I should only remind you of
where you lost him, and of your disappointment, and of--this other
thing, and I could not be sure that you loved me or wanted me."
"Surely you cannot doubt it, Laura?" His voice was firm, but to her
sensitive spirit it did not carry conviction.
"You remembered me from my youth," she continued tremulously but
bravely, "and it was the image in your memory that you loved. And now,
when you go away, the old town will shrink and fade from your memory
and your heart and you will have none but harsh thoughts of it; nor
can I blame you greatly, for you have grown far away from us, and we
shall need many years to overtake you. Nor do you need me, Henry--I am
too old to learn new ways, and elsewhere than here I should be a
hindrance to you rather than a help. But in the larger life to which
you go, think of me now and then as one who loves you still, and who
will try, in her poor way, with such patience as she has, to carry on
the work which you have begun, and which you--Oh, Henry!"
He divined her thought, though her tear-filled eyes spoke sorrow
rather than reproach.
"Yes," he said sadly, "which I have abandoned. Yes, Laura, abandoned,
fully and forever."
The colonel was greatly moved, but his resolution remained unshaken.
"Laura," he said, taking both her hands in his, "I swear that I should
be glad to have you with me. Come away! The place is not fit for you
to live in!"
"No, Henry! it cannot be! I could not go! My duty holds me here! God
would not forgive me if I abandoned it. Go your way; live your life.
Marry some other woman, if you must, who will make you happy. But I
shall keep, Henry--nothing can ever take away from me--the memory of
one happy summer."
"No, no, Laura, it need not be so! I shall write you. You'll think
better of it. But I go to-night--not one hour longer than I must, will
I remain in this town. I must bid your mother and Graciella good-bye."
He went into the house. Mrs. Treadwell was excited and sorry, and
would have spoken at length, but the colonel's farewells were brief.
"I cannot stop to say more than good-bye, dear Mrs. Treadwell. I have
spent a few happy months in my old home, and now I am going away.
Laura will tell you the rest."
Graciella was tearfully indignant.
"It was a shame!" she declared. "Peter was a good old nigger, and it
wouldn't have done anybody any harm to leave him there. I'd rather be
buried beside old Peter than near any of the poor white trash that dug
him up--so there! I'm so sorry you're going away; but I hope,
sometime," she added stoutly, "to see you in New York! Don't forget!"
"I'll send you my address," said the colonel.
_Thirty-eight_
It was a few weeks later. Old Ralph Dudley and Viney had been buried.
Ben Dudley had ridden in from Mink Run, had hitched his horse in the
back yard as usual, and was seated on the top step of the piazza
beside Graciella. His elbows rested on his knees, and his chin upon
his hand. Graciella had unconsciously imitated his drooping attitude.
Both were enshrouded in the deepest gloom, and had been sunk, for
several minutes, in a silence equally profound. Graciella was the
first to speak.
"Well, then," she said with a deep sigh, "there is absolutely nothing
left?"
"Not a thing," he groaned hopelessly, "except my horse and my clothes,
and a few odds and ends which belong to me. Fetters will have the
land--there's not enough to pay the mortgages against it, and I'm in
debt for the funeral expenses."
"And what are you going to do?"
"Gracious knows--I wish I did! I came over to consult the family. I
have no trade, no profession, no land and no money. I can get a job at
braking on the railroad--or may be at clerking in a store. I'd have
asked the colonel for something in the mill--but that chance is gone."
"Gone," echoed Graciella, gloomily. "I see my fate! I shall marry you,
because I can't help loving you, and couldn't live without you; and I
shall never get to New York, but be, all my life, a poor man's wife--a
poor white man's wife."
"No, Graciella, we might be poor, but not poor-white! Our blood will
still be of the best."
"It will be all the same. Blood without money may count for one
generation, but it won't hold out for two."
They relapsed into a gloom so profound, so rayless, that they might
almost be said to have reveled in it. It was lightened, or at least a
diversion was created by Miss Laura's opening the garden gate and
coming up the walk. Ben rose as she approached, and Graciella looked
up.
"I have been to the post-office," said Miss Laura. "Here is a letter
for you, Ben, addressed in my care. It has the New York postmark."
"Thank you, Miss Laura."
Eagerly Ben's hand tore the envelope and drew out the enclosure.
Swiftly his eyes devoured the lines; they were typewritten and easy to
follow.
"Glory!" he shouted, "glory hallelujah! Listen!"
He read the letter aloud, while Graciella leaned against his shoulder
and feasted her eyes upon the words. The letter was from Colonel
French:
_"My dear Ben_:
_I was very much impressed with the model of a cotton gin and
press which I saw you exhibit one day at Mrs. Treadwells'. You
have a fine genius for mechanics, and the model embodies, I
think, a clever idea, which is worth working up. If your
uncle's death has left you free to dispose of your time, I
should like to have you come on to New York with the model, and
we will take steps to have the invention patented at once, and
form a company for its manufacture. As an evidence of good
faith, I enclose my draft for five hundred dollars, which can
be properly accounted for in our future arrangements._"
"O Ben!" gasped Graciella, in one long drawn out, ecstatic sigh.
"O Graciella!" exclaimed Ben, as he threw his arms around her and
kissed her rapturously, regardless of Miss Laura's presence. "Now you
can go to New York as soon as you like!"
_Thirty-nine_
Colonel French took his dead to the North, and buried both the little
boy and the old servant in the same lot with his young wife, and in
the shadow of the stately mausoleum which marked her resting-place.
There, surrounded by the monuments of the rich and the great, in a
beautiful cemetery, which overlooks a noble harbour where the ships of
all nations move in endless procession, the body of the faithful
servant rests beside that of the dear little child whom he unwittingly
lured to his death and then died in the effort to save. And in all the
great company of those who have laid their dead there in love or in
honour, there is none to question old Peter's presence or the
colonel's right to lay him there. Sometimes, at night, a ray of light
from the uplifted torch of the Statue of Liberty, the gift of a free
people to a free people, falls athwart the white stone which marks his
resting place--fit prophecy and omen of the day when the sun of
liberty shall shine alike upon all men.
When the colonel went away from Clarendon, he left his affairs in
Caxton's hands, with instructions to settle them up as expeditiously
as possible. The cotton mill project was dropped, and existing
contracts closed on the best terms available. Fetters paid the old
note--even he would not have escaped odium for so bare-faced a
robbery--and Mrs. Treadwell's last days could be spent in comfort and
Miss Laura saved from any fear for her future, and enabled to give
more freely to the poor and needy. Barclay Fetters recovered the use
of one eye, and embittered against the whole Negro race by his
disfigurement, went into public life and devoted his talents and his
education to their debasement. The colonel had relented sufficiently
to contemplate making over to Miss Laura the old family residence in
trust for use as a hospital, with a suitable fund for its maintenance,
but it unfortunately caught fire and burned down--and he was hardly
sorry. He sent Catherine, Bud Johnson's wife, a considerable sum of
money, and she bought a gorgeous suit of mourning, and after a decent
interval consoled herself with a new husband. And he sent word to the
committee of coloured men to whom he had made a definite promise, that
he would be ready to fulfil his obligation in regard to their school
whenever they should have met the conditions.
* * * * *
One day, a year or two after leaving Clarendon, as the colonel, in
company with Mrs. French, formerly a member of his firm, now his
partner in a double sense--was riding upon a fast train between New
York and Chicago, upon a trip to visit a western mine in which the
reorganised French and Company, Limited, were interested, he noticed
that the Pullman car porter, a tall and stalwart Negro, was watching
him furtively from time to time. Upon one occasion, when the colonel
was alone in the smoking-room, the porter addressed him.
"Excuse me, suh," he said, "I've been wondering ever since we left New
York, if you wa'n't Colonel French?"
"Yes, I'm Mr. French--Colonel French, if you want it so."
"I 'lowed it must be you, suh, though you've changed the cut of your
beard, and are looking a little older, suh. I don't suppose you
remember me?"
"I've seen you somewhere," said the colonel--no longer the colonel,
but like the porter, let us have it so. "Where was it?"
"I'm Henry Taylor, suh, that used to teach school at Clarendon. I
reckon you remember me now."
"Yes," said the colonel sadly, "I remember you now, Taylor, to my
sorrow. I didn't keep my word about Johnson, did I?"
"Oh, yes, suh," replied the porter, "I never doubted but what you'd
keep your word. But you see, suh, they were too many for you. There
ain't no one man can stop them folks down there when they once get
started."
"And what are you doing here, Taylor?"
"Well, suh, the fact is that after you went away, it got out somehow
that I had told on Bud Johnson. I don't know how they learned it, and
of course I knew you didn't tell it; but somebody must have seen me
going to your house, or else some of my enemies guessed it--and
happened to guess right--and after that the coloured folks wouldn't
send their children to me, and I lost my job, and wasn't able to get
another anywhere in the State. The folks said I was an enemy of my
race, and, what was more important to me, I found that my race was an
enemy to me. So I got out, suh, and I came No'th, hoping to find
somethin' better. This is the best job I've struck yet, but I'm hoping
that sometime or other I'll find something worth while."
"And what became of the industrial school project?" asked the colonel.
"I've stood ready to keep my promise, and more, but I never heard from
you."
"Well, suh, after you went away the enthusiasm kind of died out, and
some of the white folks throwed cold water on it, and it fell through,
suh."
When the porter came along, before the train reached Chicago, the
colonel offered Taylor a handsome tip.
"Thank you, suh," said the porter, "but I'd rather not take it. I'm a
porter now, but I wa'n't always one, and hope I won't always be one.
And during all the time I taught school in Clarendon, you was the only
white man that ever treated me quite like a man--and our folks just
like people--and if you won't think I'm presuming, I'd rather not take
the money."
The colonel shook hands with him, and took his address. Shortly
afterward he was able to find him something better than menial
employment, where his education would give him an opportunity for
advancement. Taylor is fully convinced that his people will never get
very far along in the world without the good will of the white people,
but he is still wondering how they will secure it. For he regards
Colonel French as an extremely fortunate accident.
* * * * *
And so the colonel faltered, and, having put his hand to the plow,
turned back. But was not his, after all, the only way? For no more now
than when the Man of Sorrows looked out over the Mount of Olives, can
men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. The seed which the
colonel sowed seemed to fall by the wayside, it is true; but other
eyes have seen with the same light, and while Fetters and his kind
still dominate their section, other hands have taken up the fight
which the colonel dropped. In manufactures the South has gone forward
by leaps and bounds. The strong arm of the Government, guided by a
wise and just executive, has been reached out to crush the poisonous
growth of peonage, and men hitherto silent have raised their voices to
commend. Here and there a brave judge has condemned the infamy of the
chain-gang and convict lease systems. Good men, North and South, have
banded themselves together to promote the cause of popular education.
Slowly, like all great social changes, but visibly, to the eye of
faith, is growing up a new body of thought, favourable to just laws
and their orderly administration. In this changed attitude of mind
lies the hope of the future, the hope of the Republic.
But Clarendon has had its chance, nor seems yet to have had another.
Other towns, some not far from it, lying nearer the main lines of
travel, have been swept into the current of modern life, but not yet
Clarendon. There the grass grows thicker in the streets. The
meditative cows still graze in the vacant lot between the post-office
and the bank, where the public library was to stand. The old academy
has grown more dilapidated than ever, and a large section of plaster
has fallen from the wall, carrying with it the pencil drawing made in
the colonel's schooldays; and if Miss Laura Treadwell sees that the
graves of the old Frenches are not allowed to grow up in weeds and
grass, the colonel knows nothing of it. The pigs and the
loafers--leaner pigs and lazier loafers--still sleep in the shade,
when the pound keeper and the constable are not active. The limpid
water of the creek still murmurs down the slope and ripples over the
stone foundation of what was to have been the new dam, while the birds
have nested for some years in the vines that soon overgrew the
unfinished walls of the colonel's cotton mill. White men go their way,
and black men theirs, and these ways grow wider apart, and no one
knows the outcome. But there are those who hope, and those who pray,
that this condition will pass, that some day our whole land will be
truly free, and the strong will cheerfully help to bear the burdens of
the weak, and Justice, the seed, and Peace, the flower, of liberty,
will prevail throughout all our borders.
* * * * *
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