One morning in June, five years later, a black man limped slowly along
the old Lumberton plank road; a tall man, whose bowed shoulders made him
seem shorter than he was, and a face from which it was difficult to
guess his years, for in it the wrinkles and flabbiness of age were found
side by side with firm white teeth, and eyes not sunken,--eyes
bloodshot, and burning with something, either fever or passion. Though
he limped painfully with one foot, the other hit the ground
impatiently, like the good horse in a poorly matched team. As he walked
along, he was talking to himself:----
"I wonder what dey 'll do w'en I git back? I wonder how Nancy 's
s'ported the fambly all dese years? Tuck in washin', I s'ppose,--she was
a monst'us good washer an' ironer. I wonder ef de chillun 'll be too
proud ter reco'nize deir daddy come back f'um de penetenchy? I 'spec'
Billy must be a big boy by dis time. He won' b'lieve his daddy ever
stole anything. I 'm gwine ter slip roun' an' s'prise 'em."
Five minutes later a face peered cautiously into the window of what had
once been Ben Davis's cabin,--at first an eager face, its coarseness lit
up with the fire of hope; a moment later a puzzled face; then an
anxious, fearful face as the man stepped away from the window and rapped
at the door.
"Is Mis' Davis home?" he asked of the woman who opened the door.
"Mis' Davis don' live here. You er mistook in de house."
"Whose house is dis?"
"It b'longs ter my husban', Mr. Smith,--Primus Smith."
"'Scuse me, but I knowed de house some years ago w'en I wuz here oncet
on a visit, an' it b'longed ter a man name' Ben Davis."
"Ben Davis--Ben Davis?--oh yes, I 'member now. Dat wuz de gen'man w'at
wuz sent ter de penitenchy fer sump'n er nuther,--sheep-stealin', I
b'lieve. Primus," she called, "w'at wuz Ben Davis, w'at useter own dis
yer house, sent ter de penitenchy fer?"
"Hoss-stealin'," came back the reply in sleepy accents, from the man
seated by the fireplace.
The traveler went on to the next house. A neat-looking yellow woman came
to the door when he rattled the gate, and stood looking suspiciously at
him.
"W'at you want?" she asked.
"Please, ma'am, will you tell me whether a man name' Ben Davis useter
live in dis neighborhood?"
"Useter live in de nex' house; wuz sent ter de penitenchy fer killin' a
man."
"Kin yer tell me w'at went wid Mis' Davis?"
"Umph! I 's a 'spectable 'oman, I is, en don' mix wid dem kind er
people. She wuz 'n' no better 'n her husban'. She tuk up wid a man dat
useter wuk fer Ben, an' dey 're livin' down by de ole wagon-ya'd, where
no 'spectable 'oman ever puts her foot."
"An' de chillen?"
"De gal 's dead. Wuz 'n' no better 'n she oughter be'n. She fell in de
crick an' got drown'; some folks say she wuz 'n' sober w'en it happen'.
De boy tuck atter his pappy. He wuz 'rested las' week fer shootin' a
w'ite man, an' wuz lynch' de same night. Dey wa'n't none of 'em no
'count after deir pappy went ter de penitenchy."
"What went wid de proputty?"
"Hit wuz sol' fer de mortgage, er de taxes, er de lawyer, er sump'n,--I
don' know w'at. A w'ite man got it."
The man with the bundle went on until he came to a creek that crossed
the road. He descended the sloping bank, and, sitting on a stone in the
shade of a water-oak, took off his coarse brogans, unwound the rags that
served him in lieu of stockings, and laved in the cool water the feet
that were chafed with many a weary mile of travel.
After five years of unrequited toil, and unspeakable hardship in convict
camps,--five years of slaving by the side of human brutes, and of
nightly herding with them in vermin-haunted huts,--Ben Davis had become
like them. For a while he had received occasional letters from home, but
in the shifting life of the convict camp they had long since ceased to
reach him, if indeed they had been written. For a year or two, the
consciousness of his innocence had helped to make him resist the
debasing influences that surrounded him. The hope of shortening his
sentence by good behavior, too, had worked a similar end. But the
transfer from one contractor to another, each interested in keeping as
long as possible a good worker, had speedily dissipated any such hope.
When hope took flight, its place was not long vacant. Despair followed,
and black hatred of all mankind, hatred especially of the man to whom he
attributed all his misfortunes. One who is suffering unjustly is not apt
to indulge in fine abstractions, nor to balance probabilities. By long
brooding over his wrongs, his mind became, if not unsettled, at least
warped, and he imagined that Colonel Thornton had deliberately set a
trap into which he had fallen. The Colonel, he convinced himself, had
disapproved of his prosperity, and had schemed to destroy it. He
reasoned himself into the belief that he represented in his person the
accumulated wrongs of a whole race, and Colonel Thornton the race who
had oppressed them. A burning desire for revenge sprang up in him, and
he nursed it until his sentence expired and he was set at liberty. What
he had learned since reaching home had changed his desire into a deadly
purpose.
When he had again bandaged his feet and slipped them into his shoes, he
looked around him, and selected a stout sapling from among the
undergrowth that covered the bank of the stream. Taking from his pocket
a huge clasp-knife, he cut off the length of an ordinary walking stick
and trimmed it. The result was an ugly-looking bludgeon, a dangerous
weapon when in the grasp of a strong man.
With the stick in his hand, he went on down the road until he approached
a large white house standing some distance back from the street. The
grounds were filled with a profusion of shrubbery. The negro entered the
gate and secreted himself in the bushes, at a point where he could hear
any one that might approach.
It was near midday, and he had not eaten. He had walked all night, and
had not slept. The hope of meeting his loved ones had been meat and
drink and rest for him. But as he sat waiting, outraged nature asserted
itself, and he fell asleep, with his head on the rising root of a tree,
and his face upturned.
And as he slept, he dreamed of his childhood; of an old black mammy
taking care of him in the daytime, and of a younger face, with soft
eyes, which bent over him sometimes at night, and a pair of arms which
clasped him closely. He dreamed of his past,--of his young wife, of his
bright children. Somehow his dreams all ran to pleasant themes for a
while.
Then they changed again. He dreamed that he was in the convict camp,
and, by an easy transition, that he was in hell, consumed with hunger,
burning with thirst. Suddenly the grinning devil who stood over him with
a barbed whip faded away, and a little white angel came and handed him a
drink of water. As he raised it to his lips the glass slipped, and he
struggled back to consciousness.
"Poo' man! Poo' man sick, an' sleepy. Dolly b'ing Powers to cover poo'
man up. Poo' man mus' be hungry. Wen Dolly get him covered up, she go
b'ing poo' man some cake."
A sweet little child, as beautiful as a cherub escaped from Paradise,
was standing over him. At first he scarcely comprehended the words the
baby babbled out. But as they became clear to him, a novel feeling crept
slowly over his heart. It had been so long since he had heard anything
but curses and stern words of command, or the ribald songs of obscene
merriment, that the clear tones of this voice from heaven cooled his
calloused heart as the water of the brook had soothed his blistered
feet. It was so strange, so unwonted a thing, that he lay there with
half-closed eyes while the child brought leaves and flowers and laid
them on his face and on his breast, and arranged them with little
caressing taps.
She moved away, and plucked a flower. And then she spied another farther
on, and then another, and, as she gathered them, kept increasing the
distance between herself and the man lying there, until she was several
rods away.
Ben Davis watched her through eyes over which had come an unfamiliar
softness. Under the lingering spell of his dream, her golden hair, which
fell in rippling curls, seemed like a halo of purity and innocence and
peace, irradiating the atmosphere around her. It is true the thought
occurred to Ben, vaguely, that through harm to her he might inflict the
greatest punishment upon her father; but the idea came like a dark shape
that faded away and vanished into nothingness as soon as it came within
the nimbus that surrounded the child's person.
The child was moving on to pluck still another flower, when there came a
sound of hoof-beats, and Ben was aware that a horseman, visible through
the shrubbery, was coming along the curved path that led from the gate
to the house. It must be the man he was waiting for, and now was the
time to wreak his vengeance. He sprang to his feet, grasped his club,
and stood for a moment irresolute. But either the instinct of the
convict, beaten, driven, and debased, or the influence of the child,
which was still strong upon him, impelled him, after the first momentary
pause, to flee as though seeking safety.
His flight led him toward the little girl, whom he must pass in order
to make his escape, and as Colonel Thornton turned the corner of the
path he saw a desperate-looking negro, clad in filthy rags, and carrying
in his hand a murderous bludgeon, running toward the child, who,
startled by the sound of footsteps, had turned and was looking toward
the approaching man with wondering eyes. A sickening fear came over the
father's heart, and drawing the ever-ready revolver, which according to
the Southern custom he carried always upon his person, he fired with
unerring aim. Ben Davis ran a few yards farther, faltered, threw out his
hands, and fell dead at the child's feet.
* * * * *
Some time, we are told, when the cycle of years has rolled around, there
is to be another golden age, when all men will dwell together in love
and harmony, and when peace and righteousness shall prevail for a
thousand years. God speed the day, and let not the shining thread of
hope become so enmeshed in the web of circumstance that we lose sight of
it; but give us here and there, and now and then, some little foretaste
of this golden age, that we may the more patiently and hopefully await
its coming!