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|NE beautiful morning near the first of June, as Carson was strolling on
the upper veranda at home, waiting for the breakfast-bell, Keith Gordon
came by on his horse on his way to town.
“Heard the news?” he called out, as he reined in at the gate and leaned
on the neck of his mount.
“No; what's up?” Carson asked, and as he spoke he saw Helen Warren
emerge from the front door of her father's house and step down among the
dew-wet rose-bushes that bordered the brick walk.
“Horrible enough in all reason,” Keith replied. “There's been a
cold-blooded murder over near your farm. Abe Johnson, who led that mob,
you know, and his wife were killed by some negro with an axe. The whole
country is up in arms and crazy with excitement.”
“Wait, I'll come right down,” Carson said, and he disappeared into
the house. And when he came out a moment later he found Helen on the
sidewalk talking to Keith, and from her grave face he knew she had
overheard what had been said.
“Isn't it awful?” she said to Carson, as he came out at the gate. “Of
course, it is the continuation of the trouble here in town.”
“How do they know a negro did it?” Carson asked, obeying the natural
tendency of a lawyer to get at the facts.
“It seems,” answered Gordon, “that Mrs. Johnson lived barely long enough
after the neighbors got there to say that it was done by a mulatto, as
well as she could see in the darkness. In their fury, the people are
roughly handling every yellow negro in the neighborhood. They say the
darkies are all hiding out in the woods and mountains.”
Then the conversation paused, for old Uncle Lewis, who was at work with
a pair of garden-sheafs behind some rose-bushes close by, uttered a
groan and, wide-eyed and startled, came towards them.
“It's awful, awful, awful!” they heard him say. “Oh, my Gawd, have
mercy!”
“Why, Uncle Lewis, what's the matter?” Helen asked, in sudden concern
and wonder over his manner and tone.
“Oh, missy, missy!” he groaned, as he shook his head despondently. “My
boy over dar 'mongst 'em right now. Oh, my Lawd! I know what dem white
folks gwine ter say fust thing, kase Pete didn't had no mo' sense 'an
ter--”
“Stop, Lewis!” Carson said, sharply. “Don't be the first to implicate
your own son in a matter as serious as this is.”
“I ain't, marster!” the old man groaned, “but I know dem white folks
done it 'fo' dis.”
“I'm afraid you are right, Lewis,” Keith said, sympathetically. “He may
be absolutely innocent, but, since his trouble with that mob, Pete has
really talked too much. Well, I must be going.”
As Keith was riding away, old Lewis, muttering softly to himself and
groaning, turned towards the house.
“Where are you going?” Helen called out, as she still lingered beside
Carson.
“I'm gwine try to keep Linda fum hearin' it right now,” he said. “Ef
Pete git in it, missy, it gwine ter kill yo' old mammy.”
“I'm afraid it will,” Helen said. “Do what you can, Uncle Lewis. I'll
be down to see her in a moment.” As the old man tottered away, Helen
looked up and caught Carson's troubled glance.
“I wish I were a man,” she said.
“Why?” he inquired.
“Because I'd take a strong stand here in the South for law and order
at any cost. We have a good example in this very thing of what our
condition means. Pete may be innocent, and no doubt is, for I don't
believe he would do a thing like that no matter what the provocation,
and yet he hasn't any sort of chance to prove it.”
“You are right,” Carson said. “At such a time they would lynch him, if
for nothing else than that he had dared to threaten the murdered man.”
“Poor, poor old mammy!” sighed Helen. “Oh, it is awful to think of what
she will suffer if--if--Carson, do you really think Pete is in actual
danger?” Dwight hesitated for a moment, and then he met her stare
frankly.
“We may as well face the truth and be done with it,” he said. “No negro
will be safe over there now, and Pete, I am sorry to say, least of all.”
“If he is guilty he may run away,” she said, shortsightedly.
“If he's guilty we don't _want_ him to get away,” Carson said, firmly.
“But I really don't think he had anything to do with it.”
Helen sighed. They had stepped back to the open gate, and there they
paused side by side. “How discouraging life is!” she said. “Carson, in
planning to get Pete over there, you and I were acting on our purest,
noblest impulses, and yet the outcome of our efforts may be the gravest
disaster.”
“Yes, it seems that way,” he responded, gloomily; “but we must try to
look on the bright side and hope for the best.”
On parting with Helen, Carson went into the big, old-fashioned
dining-room, and after hurriedly drinking a cup of coffee he went down
to his office. Along the main thoroughfare, on the street comers, and in
front of the stores he found little groups of men with grave faces, all
discussing the tragedy. More than once in passing he heard Pete's name
mentioned, and for fear of being questioned as to what he thought about
it he hurried on. Garner was an early riser, and he found him at his
desk writing letters.
“Well, from all accounts,” Garner said, “your man Friday seems to be in
a ticklish place over there, innocent or not--that is, if he hasn't had
the sense to skip out.”
“Somehow, I don't think Pete is guilty,” Carson said, as he sank into
his big chair. “He's not that stamp of negro.”
“Well, I haven't made up my mind on that score,” the other remarked. “Up
to the time he left here he seemed really harmless enough, but we don't
know what may have taken place since then between him and Johnson. Funny
we didn't think of the danger of sticking match to tinder like that. I
admit I was in favor of sending him. Miss Helen was so pleased over it,
too. I met her the other day at the post-office and she was telling me,
with absolute delight, that Pete was doing well over there, working like
an old-time cornfield darky, and behaving himself. Now, I suppose, she
will be terribly upset.”
Carson sighed. “We blame the mountain people, in times of excitement,
for acting rashly, and yet right here in this quiet town half the
citizens have already made up their minds that Pete committed the crime.
Think of it, Garner!”
“Well, you see, it's pretty hard to imagine who _else_ did it,” Garner
declared.
“I don't agree with you,” disputed Carson, warmly; “when there are half
a dozen negroes who were whipped just as Pete was and who have
horrible characters. There's Sam Dudlow, the worst negro I ever saw,
an ex-convict, and as full of devilment as an egg is of meat. I saw his
scowling face the next day after he was whipped, and I never want to see
it again. I'd hate to meet him in the dark, unarmed. He wasn't making
open threats, as Pete was, but I'll bet he would have handled Johnson
or Willis roughly if he had met either of them alone and got the
advantage.”
“Well, we are not trying the case,” Garner said, dryly; “if we are,
I don't know where the fees are to come from. Getting money out of an
imaginary case is too much like a lawyer's first year under the shadow
of his shingle.”