[Illustration: 9035]
HE wide avenue which ran north and south and cut the town of Darley
into halves held the best and oldest residences. One side of the street
caught the full rays of the morning sun and the other the slanting red
beams of the afternoon. For so small a town, it was a well-graded and
well-kept thoroughfare. Strips of grass lay like ribbons between the
sidewalks and the roadway, and at the triangular spaces created by
the intersection of certain streets there were rusty iron fences built
primarily to protect diminutive fountains which had long since ceased to
play. In one of these little parks, in the heart of the town, as it
was in the hearts of the inhabitants, stood a monument erected to “The
Confederate Dead,” a well-modelled, life-size figure of a Southern
private wrought in stone in faraway Italy. Had it been correctly placed
on its pedestal?--that was the question anxiously asked by reverent
passers-by, for the cloaked and knapsacked figure, which time was
turning gray, stood with its back to the enemy's country.
“Yes, it is right,” some would say, “for the soldier is represented as
being on night picket-duty in Northern territory, and his thoughts and
eyes are with his dear ones at home and the country he is defending.”
Henry Dwight, the wealthy sire of the aggressive young man with whom the
foregoing chapters have principally dealt, lived in one of the moss and
ivy grown houses on the eastern side of the avenue. It was a red brick
structure two and a half stories high, with a colonial veranda, and had
a square, white-windowed cupola as the apex of the slanting roof. There
was a semicircular drive, which entered the grounds at one corner in the
front and swept gracefully past the door. The central and smaller
front gate, for the use of pedestrians, with its imitation stone posts,
spanned by a white crescent, was reached from the house by a
gravelled walk bordered by boxwood. On the right and left were rustic
summerhouses, grape arbors and parterres containing roses and other
flowers, all of which were well cared for by an old colored gardener.
Henry Dwight was a grain and cotton merchant, money-lender, and the
president and chief stockholder of the Darley Cotton Mills, whose great
brick buildings and cottages for employés stood a mile or so to the
west of the town. This morning, having written his daily letters, he was
strolling in his grounds smoking a cigar. To any one who knew him well
it would have been plain that his mind was disturbed.
Adjoining the Dwight homestead there was another ancestral house equally
as spacious and stand-. ing in quite as extensive, if more neglected,
grounds. It was here that Major Warren lived, and it happened that he,
too, was on his lawn just beyond the ramshackle intervening fence, the
gate of which had fallen from its hinges and been taken away.
The Major was a short, slight old gentleman, quite a contrast to the
John Bull type of his lusty, side-whiskered neighbor. He wore a dingy
brown wig, and as he pottered about, raising a rose from the earth with
his gold-headed ebony stick, or stooped to uproot an encroaching weed,
his furtive glance was often levelled on old Dwight.
“I declare I really might as well,” he muttered, undecidedly. “What's
the use making up your mind to a thing and letting it go for no sensible
reason. He's taking a wrong view of it. I can tell that by the way he
puffs at his cigar. Yes, I'll do it.”
The Major passed through the gateway and slowly drew near his
preoccupied neighbor.
“Good-morning, Henry,” he said, as Dwight looked up. “If I'm any judge
of your twists and turns, you are not yet in a thoroughly good-humor.”
“Good-humor? No, sir, I'm _not_ in a good-humor. How could I be when
that young scamp, the only heir to my name and effects--”
Dwight's spleen rose and choked out his words, and, red in the face, he
stood panting, unable to go further.
“Well, it seems to me, while he's not _my_ son,” the Major began, “that
you are--are--well, rather overbearing--I might say unforgiving. He's
been sowing wild oats, but, really, if I am any judge of young men, he
is on a fair road to--to genuine manhood.”
“Road to nothing,” spluttered Dwight. “I gave him that big farm to
see what he could do in its management. Never expected him to work a
lick--just wanted to see if he could keep it on a paying basis, but it
was an investment of dead capital. Then he took up the law. He did a
little better at that along with Bill Garner to lean on, but that never
amounted to anything worth mentioning. Then he went into politics.”
“And I heard you say yourself, Henry,” the Major ventured, gently,
“that you believed he was actually cut out for a future statesman.”
“Yes, and like the fool that I was I hoped for it. I was so glad to see
him really interested in politics that I laid awake at night thinking
of his success. I heard of his popularity on every hand. Men came to me,
and women, too, telling me they loved him and were going to work for
him against that jack-leg lawyer Wiggin, and put him into office with
a majority that would ring all over the State; and they meant it, I
reckon. But what did he do? In his stubborn, bull-headed way he abused
those mountain men who took the law into their hands for the public
good, and turned hundreds of them against him; and all for a nigger--a
lazy, trifling nigger boy!”
“Well, you see,” Major Warren began, lamely, “Carson and I saw Pete the
night he was whipped so severely and we took pity on him. They played
together when they were boys, as boys all over the South do, you know,
and then he saw Mam' Linda break down over it and saw old Lewis crying
for the first time in the old man's life. I was mad, Henry, myself, and
you would have been if you had been there. I could have fought the men
who did it, so I understand how Carson felt, and when he made the remark
Wiggin is using to such deadly injury to his prospects my heart warmed
to the boy. If he doesn't succeed as a politician it will be because he
is too genuine for a tricky career of that sort. His friends are trying
to get him to make some statement that will reinstate him with the
mountain people who sympathized with the White Caps, but he simply won't
do it.”
“Won't do it! I reckon not!” Dwight blurted out. “Didn't the young idiot
wait in Blackburn's store for Dan Willis to come and shoot the top of
his head off? He sat there till past midnight, and wouldn't move an inch
till actual proof was brought to him that Willis had left town. Oh,
I'm no fool! I know a thing or two. I've watched him and your daughter
together. That's at the bottom of it. She sat down on him before she
went off to Augusta, but her refusal didn't alter him. He knows Helen
thinks a lot of her old negro mammy, and in her absence he simply took
up her cause and is fighting mad about it--so mad that he is blind to
his political ruin. That's what a man will do for a woman. They say
she's about to become engaged down there. I hope she is, and that Carson
will have pride enough when he hears of it to let another man do her
fighting, and one with nothing to lose by it.”
“She hasn't written me a thing about any engagement,” the Major
answered, with some animation; “but my sister highly approves of the
match and writes that it may come about. Mr. Sanders is a well-to-do,
honorable man of good birth and education: Helen never seemed to get
over her brother's sad death. She loved poor Albert more than she ever
did me or any one else.”
“And I always thought that it was Carson's association with your son in
his dissipation that turned Helen against him. For all I know, she may
have thought Carson actually led Albert on and was partly the cause of
his sad end.”
“She may have looked at it that way,” the Major said, musingly. They had
now reached the porch in the rear of the house and they went together
into the wide hall. A colored maid with a red bandanna tied like a
turban round her head was dusting the walnut railing of the stairs.
Passing through the hall, the old gentlemen turned into the library,
a great square room with wide windows and tall, gilt-framed pier-glass
mirrors.
“Yes, I'm sure that's what turned her against him,” Dwight continued,
“and that is where, between you and Helen, I get mixed up. Why do you
always take up for the scamp? It looks to me like you'd resent the way
he acted with your son after the boy's terrible end.”
“There is a good deal more in the matter, Henry, than I ever told you
about.” Major Warren's voice faltered. “To be plain, that is my secret
trouble. I reckon if Helen was to discover the actual truth--_all of
it_--she would never feel the same towards me. I think maybe I ought to
tell you. It certainly will explain why I am so much interested in your
boy.” They sat down, the owner of the house in a reclining-chair at an
oblong, carved mahogany table covered with books and papers, the visitor
on a lounge near by.
“Well, it always has seemed odd to me,” old Dwight said. “I couldn't
exactly believe you wanted to bring him and Helen together, after your
experience with that sort of man under your own roof.”
“It is this way,” said the Major, awkwardly. “To begin with, I am sure,
from all I've picked up, that it was not your son that was leading
mine on to dissipation, but just the other way. He's dead and gone, but
Albert was always ready for a prank of any sort. Henry, I want to talk
to you about it because it seems to me you are in the same position in
regard to Carson that I was in regard to my poor boy, and I've prayed
a thousand times for pardon for what I did in anger and haste. Henry,
listen to me. If ever a man made a vital mistake I did, and I'll bear
the weight of it to my grave. You know how I worried over. Albert's
drinking and his general conduct. Time after time he made promises that
he would turn over a new leaf only to break them. Well, it was on the
last trip--the fatal one to New York, where he had gone and thrown away
so much money. I wrote him a severe letter, and in answer to it I got a
pathetic one, saying he was sick and tired of the way he was doing and
begging me to try him once more and send him money to pay his way home.
It was the same old sort of promise and I didn't have faith in him. I
was unfair, unjust to my only son. I wrote and refused, telling him that
I could not trust him any more. Hell inspired that letter, Henry--the
devil whispered to me that I'd been indulgent to the poor boy's injury.
Then came the news. When he was found dead in a small room on the top
floor of that squalid hotel--dead by his own hand--my letter lay open
beside him.”
“Well, well, you couldn't help it!” Dwight said, most awkwardly, and he
crossed his short, fat legs anew and reached for an open box of cigars.
“You were trying to do your duty as you saw it, and to the best of your
ability.”
“Yes, but my method, Henry, resulted in misery and grief to me and Helen
that can never be cured. You see, it is because of that awful mistake
that I take such an interest in Carson. I love him because Albert loved
him, and because sometimes it seems to me that you are most too quick
to condemn him. Oh, he's different! Carson has changed wonderfully since
Albert died. He doesn't drink to excess now, and Garner says he has quit
playing cards, having only one aim, and that to win this political
race--to win it to please you, Henry.”
“Win it!” Dwight sniffed. “He's already as dead as a salt mackerel--laid
out stiff and stark by his own bull-headed stupidity. I've always talked
down drinking and card-playing, but I have known some men to succeed in
life who had such habits in moderation; but you nor I nor no one else
ever saw a blockhead succeed at anything. I tell you he'll never make
a successful politician. Wiggin will beat the hind sights off of him.
Wiggin is simply making capital of the fool's inability to control his
temper and sympathies. Wiggin would have let that mob thrash his own
father and mother rather than antagonize them and lose their votes. He
knows Carson comes of fighting stock, and he will continue to egg Dan
Willis and others on, knowing that every resentful word from Carson will
make enemies for him by the score.”
“Oh, I can see that, too!” the Major sighed; “but, to save me, I can't
help admiring the boy. He thinks the White Caps did wrong that night
and he simply can't pretend otherwise. It is the principle of the thing,
Henry. He is an unusual sort of candidate, and his stand may ruin his
chances, but I--I glory in his firmness. I must say g me to try him once
more and send him money to pay his way home. It was the same old sort of
promise and I didn't have faith in him. I was unfair, unjust to my only
son. I wrote and refused, telling him that I could not trust him any
more. Hell inspired that letter, Henry--the devil whispered to me that
I'd been indulgent to the poor boy's injury. Then came the news. When he
was found dead in a small room on the top floor of that squalid hotel--
dead by his own hand--my letter lay open beside him.”
“Well, well, you couldn't help it!” Dwight said, most awkwardly, and he
crossed his short, fat legs anew and reached for an open box of cigars.
“You were trying to do your duty as you saw it, and to the best of your
ability.”
“Yes, but my method, Henry, resulted in misery and grief to me and Helen
that can never be cured. You see, it is because of that awful mistake
that I take such an interest in Carson. I love him because Albert loved
him, and because sometimes it seems to me that you are most too quick to
condemn him. Oh, he's different! Carson has changed wonderfully since
Albert died. He doesn't drink to excess now, and Garner says he has quit
playing cards, having only one aim, and that to win this political race-
-to win it to please you, Henry.”
“Win it!” Dwight sniffed. “He's already as dead as a salt mackerel--laid
out stiff and stark by his own bull-headed stupidity. I've always talked
down drinking and card-playing, but I have known some men to succeed in
life who had such habits in moderation; but you nor I nor no one else
ever saw a blockhead succeed at anything. I tell you he'll never make a
successful politician. Wiggin will beat the hind sights off of him.
Wiggin is simply making capital of the fool's inability to control his
temper and sympathies. Wiggin would have let that mob thrash his own
father and mother rather than antagonize them and lose their votes. He
knows Carson comes of fighting stock, and he will continue to egg Dan
Willis and others on, knowing that every resentful word from Carson will
make enemies for him by the score.”
“Oh, I can see that, too!” the Major sighed; “but, to save me, I can't
help admiring the boy. He thinks the White Caps did wrong that night and
he simply can't pretend otherwise. It is the principle of the thing,
Henry. He is an unusual sort of candidate, and his stand may ruin his
chances, but I--I glory in his firmness. I must say that.”
“Oh yes, that's the trouble with you sentimental people,” Dwight fumed.
“Between you and the boy's doting mother, the Lord only knows where
he'll land. I've overlooked a lot in him in the hope that he'd put this
election through, but I shall let him go his own way now. It has come
to a pretty pass if I have to see my son beaten to the dust by a man of
Wiggin's stamp because of that long-legged negro boy of yours who would
have been better long ago if he had been soundly thrashed.”
When his visitor had gone Dwight dropped his unfinished cigar into the
grate and went slowly upstairs to his wife's room. At a small-paned
window overlooking the flower-garden, on a couch supported in a
reclining position by several puffy pillows, was Mrs. Dwight. She was
well past middle-age and of extremely delicate physique. Her hair was
snowy white, her skin thin to transparency, her veins full and blue.
“That was Major Warren, wasn't it?” she asked, in a soft, sweet voice,
as she put down the magazine she had been reading.
“Yes,” Dwight answered, as he went to a little desk in one corner of the
room and took a paper from a pigeon-hole and put it into his pocket.
“How did he happen to come over so early?” the lady pursued.
“Because he wanted to, I reckon,” Dwight started out, impatiently, and
then a note of caution came into his voice as he remembered the warning
of the family physician against causing the patient even the slightest
worry. “Warren hasn't a blessed thing to do, you know, from mom till
night. So when he strikes a busy man he is apt to hang on to him and
talk in his long-winded way about any subject that takes possession of
his brain. He's great on showing men how to manage their own affairs. It
takes an idle man to do that. If that man hadn't had money left to him
he would now be begging his bread from door to door.”
“Somehow I fancied it was about Carson,” Mrs. Dwight sighed.
“There you go!” her husband said, with as much grace of evasion as lay
in his sturdy compound. “Lying there from day to day, you seem to have
contracted Warren's complaint. You think nobody can drop in even for a
minute without coming about your boy--your boy! Some day, if you live
long enough, you may discover that the universe was not created solely
for your son, nor made just to revolve around him either.”
“Yes, I suppose I _do_ worry about Carson a great deal,” the invalid
admitted; “but you haven't told me right out that the Major was _not_
speaking of him.”
The old man's face was the playground of conflcting impulses. He grew
red with anger and his lips trembled on the very verge of an outburst,
but he controlled himself. In fact, his irritability calmed down as he
suddenly saw a loop-hole through which to escape her questioning.
“The truth is,” he said, “Warren was talking about Albert's death. He
talked quite a while about it. He almost broke down.”
“Well, I'm so worried about Carson's campaign that I imagine all sorts
of trouble,” Mrs. Dwight sighed. “I lay awake nearly all of last night
thinking about one little thing. When he was in his room dressing the
other day, I heard something fall to the floor. Hilda had taken him some
hot water for shaving, and when she came back she told me he had dropped
his revolver out of his pocket. You know till then I had had no idea he
carried one, and while it may be necessary at times, the idea is very
disagreeable.”
“You needn't let _that_ bother you,” Dwight said, as he took his hat to
go down to his office at his warehouse. “Nearly all the young men carry
them because they think it looks smart. Most of them would run like a
scared dog if they saw one pointed at them even in fun.”
“Well, I hope my boy will never have any use for one,” the invalid said.
“He is not of a quarrelsome nature. It takes a good deal to make him
angry, but when he gets so he is not easily controlled.”