[Illustration: 9017]
N the rear of the long store, at a round table under a hanging-lamp with
a tin shade, four young men sat playing poker. The floor of that portion
of the room was raised several feet higher than that of the front, and
between the two short flights of steps was the inclining door leading
to the cellar, which was damp and dark and used only for the storage of
salt, syrup, sugar, hardware, and general rubbish.
Near the front door the store-keeper, James Blackburn, a portly, bearded
man of forty-five, sat chatting with Carson Dwight, a young lawyer of
the town.
“I don't want any of you boys to think that I'm complaining,” the elder
man was saying. “I've been young myself; in fact, as you know, I go the
gaits too, considering that I'm tied down by a family and have a
living to make. I love to have the gang around--I _swear_ I do, though
sometimes I declare it looks like this old shebang is more of a place of
amusement than a business house in good standing.”
“Oh, I know we hang around here too much,” Carson Dwight replied; “and
you ought to kick us out, the last one of us.”
“Oh, it isn't so bad at night like this, when trade's over, but it
is sort o' embarrassing during the day. Why, what do you think? A
Bradstreet commercial reporter was in the other day to get a statement
of my standing, and while he was here Keith Gordon--look at him now,
the scamp! holding his cards over his head; that's a bluff. I'll bet he
hasn't got a ten-spot. While that agent was here Keith and a lot more of
your gang were back there on the platform dancing a hoe-down. The
dust was so thick you couldn't see the windows. The reporter looked
surprised, but he didn't say anything. I told him I thought I'd be able
to pay for all I bought in market, and that I had no idea how much I was
worth. I haven't invoiced my stock in ten years. When I run low I manage
to replenish somehow, and so it goes on from year to year.”
“Well, I am going to talk to the boys,” Dwight said. “They are taking
advantage of your goodnature. The whole truth is they consider you one
of them, Jim. Marrying didn't change you. You are as full of devilment
as any of the rest, and they know it, and love to hang around you.”
“Well, I reckon that's a fact,” Blackburn answered, “and I believe
I'd rather you wouldn't mention it. I think a sight of the gang, and
I wouldn't hurt their feelings for the world. After all, what does
it matter? Life is short, and if Trundle & Hodgson are getting more
mountain custom than I am, I'll bet I get the biggest slice of life.
They'll die rich, but, like as not, friendless. By-the-way, I see your
partner coming across the street. I forgot to tell you; he was looking
for you a few minutes ago. You had a streak of luck when you joined
issues with him; Bill Gamer's a rough sort o' chap, but he is by all
odds the brainiest lawyer in Georgia to-day.”
At this juncture a man of medium stature, with a massive head crowned by
a shock of reddish hair, a smooth-shaven, freckled face, and small feet
and hands stood in the doorway. He wore a long black broadcloth coat,
a waistcoat of the same material, and baggy gray trousers. The exposed
portion of his shirt-front and the lapels of his coat were stained by
tobacco juice.
“I've been up to the den, over to the Club, and the Lord only knows
where else looking for you,” he said to his partner, as he advanced,
leaned against a showcase on the counter, and stretched out his arms
behind him.
“Work for us, eh?” Carson smiled.
“No; since when have you ever done a lick after dark?” was the dry
reply. “I've come to give you a piece of advice, and I'm glad Blackburn
is here to join me. The truth is, Dan Willis is in town. He is full and
loaded for bear. He's down at the wagon-yard with a gang of his mountain
pals. Some meddling person--no doubt your beautiful political opponent
Wiggin--has told him what you said about the part he took in the mob
that raided! negro town.”
“Well, he doesn't deny it, does he?” Dwight asked, his eyes flashing.
“I don't know whether he does or not,” said Gamer. “But I know he's the
most reckless and dangerous man in the county, and when he is drunk he
will halt at nothing. I thought I'd advise you to avoid him.”
“Avoid him? You mean to say”--Dwight stood up in his anger--“that I, a
free-born American citizen, must sneak around in my own home to avoid
a man that puts on a white mask and sheet and with fifty others like
himself steals into town and nearly thrashes the life out of a lot of
banjo-picking negroes? Most of them were good-for-nothing, lazy scamps,
but they were born that way, and there was one in the bunch that I know
was harmless. Oh yes, I got mad about it, and I talked plainly, I know,
but I couldn't help it.”
“You _could_ have helped it,” Gamer said, testily; “and you ought to
have protected your own interests better than to give Wiggin such a
strong pull over you. If you are elected it will be by the aid of that
very mob and their kin and friends. We may be able to smooth it all
over, but if you have an open row with Dan Willis to-night, the cause of
it will spread like wildfire, and bum votes for you in wads and bunches.
Good God, man, the idea of giving Wiggin a torch like that to wave in
the face of your constituency--you, a _town_ man, standing up for the
black criminal brutes that are plotting to pull down the white race! I
say that's the way Wiggin and Dan Willis would interpret your platform.”
“I can't help it,” Dwight repeated, more calmly, though his voice
shook with suppressed feeling as he went on. “If I lose all I hope for
politically--and this seems like the best chance I'll ever have to get
to the legislature--I'll stand by my convictions. We must have law
and order among ourselves if we expect to teach such things to poor,
half-witted black people. I was mad that night. You know that I love the
South. Its blood is my blood. Three of my mother's brothers and two of
my father's died fighting for the 'Lost Cause,' and my father was under
fire from the beginning of the war to the end. In fact, it is my love
for the South, and all that is good and pure and noble in it, that made
my blood boil that night. I saw a part of it you didn't see.”
“What was that?” Garner asked.
“It was a clear moonlight night,” Dwight went on. “I was sitting at the
window of my room at home, looking out over Major Warren's yard, when
the first screams and shouts came from the negro quarter. I suspected
what it was, for I'd heard of the threats the mountaineers had made
against that part of town, but I wasn't prepared for what I actually
saw. The cottage of old Uncle Lewis and Mammy Linda is just behind the
Major's house, you know, and in plain view of my window. I saw the
old pair come to the door and run out into the yard, and then I heard
Linda's voice. 'It's my child!' she screamed. 'They are killing him!'
Uncle Lewis tried to quiet her, but she stood there wringing her hands
and sobbing and praying. The Major raised the window of his room and
looked out, and I heard him ask what was wrong. Uncle Lewis tried to
explain, but his voice could not be heard above his wife's cries. A few
minutes later Pete came running down the street. They had let him
go. His clothes were torn to strips and his back was livid with great
whelks. He had no sooner reached the old folks than he keeled over in a
faint. The Major came down, and he and I bent over the boy and finally
restored him to consciousness. Major Warren was the maddest man I ever
saw, and a mob a hundred strong couldn't have touched the negro and left
him alive.”
“I know, that was all bad enough,” Garner admitted, “but antagonizing
those men now won't better the matter and may do you more political
damage than you'll get over in a lifetime. You can't be a politician
and a preacher both; they don't go together. You can't dispute that
the negro quarter of this town was a disgrace to a civilized community
before the White Caps raided it. Look at it now. There never was such a
change. It is as quiet as a Philadelphia graveyard.”
“It's the way they went about it that made me mad,” Carson Dwight
retorted. “Besides, I know that boy. He is as harmless as a kitten, and
he only hung around those dives because he loved to sing and dance with
the rest. I _did_ get mad; I'm mad yet. My people never lashed their
slaves when they were in bondage; why should I stand by and see them
beaten now by men who never owned negroes and never loved or understood
them? Before the war a white man would stand up and protect his slaves;
why shouldn't he now take up for at least the most faithful of their
descendants?”
“That's it,” Blackburn spoke up, admiringly. “You are a chip off of the
old block, Carson. Your daddy would have shot any man who tried to whip
one of his negroes. You can't help the way you feel; but I agree with
Bill here, you can't get the support of mountain people if you don't, at
least, _pretend_ to see things their way.”,
“Well, I can't see _this_ thing their way,” fumed Dwight; “and I'm not
going to try. When I saw that old black man and woman that awful night
with their very heart-strings torn and bleeding, and remembered
that they had been kind to my mother when she was at the point of
death--sitting by her bedside all night long as patiently as blocks of
stone, and shedding tears of joy at the break of day when the doctor
said the crisis had passed--when I think of that and admit that I
stand by with folded hands and see their only child beaten till he
is insensible, my blood boils with utter shame. It has burned a great
lesson into my brain, and that is that we have got to have law and order
among ourselves if we expect to keep the good opinion of the world at
large.”
“I understand Pete would have got off much easier if he hadn't fought
them like a tiger,” said Blackburn. “They say--”
“And why _shouldn't_ he have fought?” Carson asked, quickly. “The nearer
the brute creation a man is the more he'll fight. A tame dog will fight
if you drive him into a corner and strike him hard enough.”
“Well, you busted up our game,” joined in Keith Gordon, who had left
the table in the rear and now came forward, accompanied by another young
man, Wade Tingle, the editor of the _Headlight_. “Wade and I both agree,
Carson, that you've got to handle Dan Willis cautiously. We are backing
you tooth and toe-nail in this campaign, but you'll tie our hands if you
antagonize the mountain element. Wiggin knows that, and he is working it
for all it's worth.”
“That's right, old man,” the editor joined in, earnestly. “I may as well
be plain with you. I'm making a big issue out of my support of you, but
if you make the country people mad they will stop taking my paper. I
can't live without their patronage, and I simply can't back you if you
don't stick to _me_.”
“I wasn't raising a row,” the young candidate said. “But Garner came to
me just now, actually advising me to avoid that dirty scoundrel. I won't
dodge any blustering bully who is going about threatening what he will
do to me when he meets me face to face. I want your support, but I can't
buy it that way.”
“Well,” Garner said, grimly, more to the others than to his partner,
“there will be a row right here inside of ten minutes. I see that now.
Willis has heard certain things Carson has said about the part he took
in that raid, and he is looking for trouble. Carson isn't in the mood to
take back anything, and a fool can see how it will end.”