the fit of exalted sulks passed off, and after a while the year flared
up at Christmas, flickered, and went out.
New-Year came and passed; the beautiful garden of Belles Demoiselles
put on its spring attire; the seven fair sisters moved from rose to
rose; the cloud of discontent had warmed into invisible vapor in the
rich sunlight of family affection; and on the common memory the only
scar of last year’s wound was old Charlie’s sheer impertinence in
crossing the caprice of the De Charleus. The cup of gladness seemed to
fill with the filling of the river.
How high it was! Its tremendous current rolled and tumbled and spun
along, hustling the long funeral flotillas of drift, and how near
shore it came! Men were out day and night watching the levee. Even
the old colonel took part, and grew light-hearted with occupation
and excitement, as every minute the river threw a white arm over the
levee’s top, as though it would vault over. But all held fast, and, as
the summer drifted in, the water sank down into its banks and looked
quite incapable of harm.
[Illustration: Drawn by W. M. Berger. Half-tone plate engraved by R.
Varley
“A SOUND REVEL FELL ON THE EAR, THE MUSIC OF HARPS: AND ACROSS ONE
WINDOW ... FLITTED ONCE OR TWICE THE SHADOWS OF DANCERS”]
On a summer afternoon of uncommon mildness, old Colonel
Jean-Albert-Henri-Joseph De Charleu-Marot, being in a mood for
reverie, slipped the custody of his feminine rulers and sought the
crown of the levee, where it was his wont to promenade. Presently
he sat upon a stone bench, a favorite seat. Before him lay his
broad-spread fields; near by, his lordly mansion; and being still,
perhaps by female contact, somewhat sentimental, he fell to musing
on his past. It was hardly worthy to be proud of. All its morning
was reddened with mad frolic, and far toward the meridian it was
marred with elegant rioting. Pride had kept him well-nigh useless,
and despised the honors won by valor; gaming had dimmed prosperity;
death had taken his heavenly wife; voluptuous ease had mortgaged his
lands: and yet his house still stood, his sweet-smelling fields were
still fruitful, his name was fame enough, and yonder and yonder, among
the trees and flowers, like angels walking in Eden, were the seven
goddesses of his only worship.
Just then a slight sound behind him brought him to his feet. He cast
his eyes anxiously to the outer edge of the little strip of bank
between the levee’s base and the river. There was nothing visible. He
paused, with his ear toward the water, his face full of frightened
expectation. Ha! There came a single plashing sound, like some great
beast slipping into the river, and little waves in a wide semicircle
came out from under the bank and spread over the water.
“My God!”
He plunged down the levee and bounded through the low weeds to the edge
of the bank. It was sheer, and the water about four feet below. He did
not stand quite on the edge, but fell upon his knees a couple of yards
away, wringing his hands, moaning, weeping, and staring through his
watery eyes at a fine, long crevice just discernible under the matted
grass, and curving outward on each hand toward the river.
“My God!” he sobbed aloud--“My God!” and even while he called, his God
answered: the tough Bermuda grass stretched and snapped, the crevice
slowly became a gap, and softly, gradually, with no sound but the
closing of the water at last, a ton or more of earth settled into the
boiling eddy and disappeared.
At the same instant a pulse of the breeze brought from the garden
behind the joyous, thoughtless laughter of the fair mistresses of
Belles Demoiselles.
The old colonel sprang up and clambered over the levee. Then forcing
himself to a more composed movement, he hastened into the house and
ordered his horse.
“Tell my children to make merry while I am gone,” he left word. “I
shall be back to-night,” and the big horse’s hoofs clattered down a
by-road leading to the city.
“Charlie,” said the planter, riding up to a window from which the old
man’s nightcap was thrust out, “what you say, Charlie--my house for
yours? Eh, Charlie, what you say?”
“’Ello!” said Charlie. “From where you come from dis time of to-night?”
“I come from the Exchange.” A small fraction of the truth.
“What you want?” said matter-of-fact Charlie.
“I come to trade.”
The low-down relative drew the worsted off his ears. “Oh, yass,” he
said with an uncertain air.
“Well, old man Charlie, what you say? My house for yours, like you
said, eh, Charlie?”
“I dunno,” said Charlie; “it’s nearly mine now. Why you don’t stay dare
you’se’f?”
“Because I don’t want,” said the colonel, savagely. “Is dat reason
enough for you? You better take me in de notion, old man, I tell you,
yes!”
Charlie never winced; but how his answer delighted the colonel! Said
Charlie:
“I don’t care, I take him. _Mais_, possession give’ right off.”
“Not the whole plantation, Charlie; only--”
“I don’t care,” said Charlie; “we easy can fix dat. _Mais_, what for
you don’t want to keep him. I don’t want him. You better keep him.”
“Don’ you try to make no fool of me, old man,” cried the planter.
“Oh, no,” said the other. “Oh, no; but you make a fool of yourself,
ain’t it?” The dumfounded colonel stared; Charlie went on:
“Yass, Belles Demoiselles is more wort’ dan t’ree block like dis one.
I pass by dare since two weeks. Oh, pretty Belles Demoiselles! De cane
was wave in de wind, de garden smell like a bouquet, de white-cap was
jump up and down on de river, seven _belles demoiselles_ was ridin’ on
horses. ‘Pretty, pretty, pretty!’ says old Charlie. Ah, _Monsieur le
père_, ’ow ’appy, ’appy, ’appy!”
“Yass,” he continued, the colonel still staring, “le Comte De Charleu
have two famil’. One was low-down Choctaw, one was high-up _noblesse_.
He give the low-down Choctaw dis old rat-hole; he give Belles
Demoiselles to your gran’fozzer; and now you don’t be _satisfait_. What
I’ll do wid Belles Demoiselles? She’ll break me in two years, yass. And
what you’ll do wid old Charlie’s house, eh? You’ll tear her down and
make you’se’f a blame’ old fool. I rather wouldn’t trade.”
The planter caught a big breath of anger, but Charlie went straight on:
“I rather wouldn’t, _mais_, I will do it for you--just de same, like
_Monsieur le Comte_ would say, ‘Charlie, you old fool, I want to shange
houses wid you.’”
So long as the colonel suspected irony he was angry, but as Charlie
seemed, after all, to be certainly in earnest, he began to feel
conscience-stricken. He was by no means a tender man, but his lately
discovered misfortune had unhinged him, and this strange, undeserved,
disinterested family fealty on the part of Charlie touched his heart.
And should he still try to lead him into the pitfall he had dug? He
hesitated. No, he would show him the place by broad daylight, and if
he chose to overlook the “caving bank,” it would be his own fault. A
trade’s a trade.
“Come,” said the planter--“come at my house to-night; to-morrow we look
at the place before breakfast, and finish the trade.”
“For what?” said Charlie.
“Oh, because I got to come in town in the morning.”
“I don’t want,” said Charlie. “How I’m goin’ to come dere?”
“I git you a horse at the liberty-stable.”
“Well, anyhow, I don’t care; I’ll go.” And they went.
When they had ridden a long time, and were on the road darkened
by hedges of Cherokee rose, the colonel called behind him to the
“low-down” scion:
“Keep the road, old man.”
“Eh?”
“Keep the road.”
“Oh, yes, all right; I keep my word. We don’t goin’ to play no tricks,
eh?”
But the colonel seemed not to hear. His ungenerous design was beginning
to be hateful to him. Not only old Charlie’s unprovoked goodness was
prevailing; the eulogy on Belles Demoiselles had stirred the depths of
an intense love for his beautiful home. True, if he held to it, the
caving of the bank at its present fearful speed would let the house
into the river within three months; but were it not better to lose it
so than sell his birthright? Again, coming back to the first thought,
to betray his own blood! It was only Injin Charlie; but had not the De
Charleu blood just spoken out in him? Unconsciously he groaned.
After a time they struck a path approaching the plantation in the
rear, and a little after, passing from behind a clump of live-oaks,
they came in sight of the villa. It looked so like a gem, shining
through its dark grove, so like a great glow-worm in the dense foliage,
so significant of luxury and gaiety, that the poor master, from an
overflowing heart, groaned again.
“What?” asked Charlie.
The colonel only drew his rein, and, dismounting mechanically,
contemplated the sight before him. The high, arched doors and windows
were thrown wide to the summer air, from every opening the bright
light of numerous candelabra darted out upon the sparkling foliage of
magnolia and bay, and here and there in the spacious verandas a colored
lantern swayed in the gentle breeze. A sound of revel fell on the ear,
the music of harps; and across one window, brighter than the rest,
flitted once or twice the shadows of dancers. But, oh, the shadows
flitting across the heart of the fair mansion’s master!
“Old Charlie,” said he, gazing fondly at his house, “you and me is both
old, eh?”
“Yass,” said the stolid Charlie.
“And we has both been had enough in our time, eh, Charlie?”
Charlie, surprised at the tender tone, repeated, “Yass.”
“And you and me is mighty close?”
“Blame’ close, yass.”
“But you never know me to cheat, old man?”
“No,” impassively.
[Illustration: Drawn by W. M. Berger. Half-tone plate engraved by R. C.
Collins
THE OLD COLONEL AND HIS NURSE]
“And do you think I would cheat you now?”
“I dunno,” said Charlie. “I don’t believe.”
“Well, old man, old man,”--his voice began to quiver,--“I sha’n’t cheat
you now. My God! old man, I tell you--you better not make the trade!”
“Because for what?” asked Charlie in plain anger; but both looked
quickly toward the house. The colonel tossed his hands wildly in the
air, rushed forward a step or two, and, giving one fearful scream of
agony and fright, fell forward on his face in the path. Old Charlie
stood transfixed with horror. Belles Demoiselles, the realm of maiden
beauty, the home of merriment, the house of dancing, all in the tremor
and glow of pleasure, suddenly sank, with one short, wild wail of
terror--sank, sank, down, down, down, into the merciless, unfathomable
flood of the Mississippi.
* * * * *
Twelve long months were midnight to the mind of the childless father.
When they were only half gone, he took to his bed; and every day
and every night old Charlie, the “low-down,” the “fool,” watched
him tenderly, tended him lovingly, for the sake of his name, his
misfortunes, and his broken heart. No woman’s step crossed the floor
of the sick chamber, the western dormer-windows of which overpeered
the dingy architecture of old Charlie’s block. Charlie and a skilled
physician, the one all interest, the other all gentleness, hope, and
patience, only these entered by the door; but by the window came in
a sweet-scented evergreen vine, transplanted from the caving hank of
Belles Demoiselles. It caught the rays of sunset in its flowery net and
let them softly in upon the sick man’s bed; gathered the glancing beams
of the moon at midnight, and often wakened the sleeper to look, with
his mindless eyes, upon their pretty silver fragments strewn upon the
floor.
By and by there seemed--there was--a twinkling dawn of returning
reason. Slowly, peacefully, with an increase unseen from day to day,
the light of reason came into the eyes, and speech became coherent; but
withal there came a failing of the wrecked body, and the doctor said
that monsieur was both better and worse.
One evening as Charlie sat by the vine-clad window with his fireless
pipe in his hand, the old colonel’s eyes fell full upon his own, and
rested there.
[Illustration]
“Charl--,” he said with an effort, and his delighted nurse hastened to
the bedside and bowed his best ear. There was an unsuccessful effort or
two, and then he whispered, smiling with sweet sadness:
“We did’nt trade.”
The truth in this case was a secondary matter to Charlie; the main
point was to give a pleasing answer. So he nodded his head decidedly,
as who should say, “Oh, Yes, we did; it was a bona-fide swap.” But
when he saw the smile vanish, he tried the other expedient, and shook
his head with still more vigor to signify that they had not so much as
approached a bargain; and the smile returned.
Charlie wanted to see the vine recognized. He stepped backward to the
window with a broad smile, shook the foliage, nodded, and looked smart.
“I know,” said the colonel, with beaming eyes; “many weeks.”
The next day he said:
“Charl--”
The best ear went down.
“Send for a priest.”
The priest came, and was alone with him a whole afternoon. When he
left, the patient was very haggard and exhausted, but smiled, and would
not suffer the crucifix to be removed from his breast.
One more morning came. Just before dawn Charlie, lying on a pallet in
the room, thought he was called, and came to the bedside.
“Old man,” whispered the failing invalid, “is it caving yet?”
Charlie nodded.
“It won’t pay you out.”
“Oh, dat makes not’ing,” said Charlie. Two big tears rolled down his
brown face. “Dat makes not’ing.”
The colonel whispered once more:
“_Mes belles demoiselles_--in paradise--in the garden. I shall be with
them at sunrise.” And so it was.
[Illustration]
COLONEL WATTERSON’S REJOINDER TO EX-SENATOR EDMUNDS
COMMENTS ON “ANOTHER VIEW OF ‘THE HAYES-TILDEN CONTEST’” (~SEE PAGE
193~)
To the Editor of ~The Century~:
Sir: If I may say so without departing from the respect and regard
in which I hold Senator Edmunds, he has made rather a case at law
than a contribution to history. With the trained skill of an expert,
he emphasizes all that may be pleaded on his own side, whilst either
ignoring or belittling the strength of the other side. The ultimate
verdict in the matter of Tilden _versus_ Hayes will turn on issues
which the Electoral Commission refused, by a party vote of eight to
seven, to consider; on evidence in equity which was not allowed to
become a part of the record; upon rulings of the majority which the
minority claimed, and justly claimed I think, to have been sometimes
erroneous and sometimes inconsistent, but in every instance obedient to
the party exigency.
I have neither the mind nor the heart to recall the wrangles and
passions of the controversy. To me they mean nothing more than the
half-forgotten dreams of a very dark night of the long ago. One may
dismiss the exciting incidents: the conflicting testimony in Florida
and Louisiana; the contested elector in Oregon; the tergiversation in
opinions of some of the members of the court; the playing State law
against National law, and vice versa, in a shuttlecock process all
on one side, the unescapable inference being that from the first the
majority was bent upon denying Tilden the one vote needed to make him
President and securing to Hayes the twelve votes needed to make him
President.
One may likewise dismiss the long list of questionable persons
appointed to office under the Hayes administration, apparently from no
other consideration than their service as members of returning boards
and officers of election, most of them charged with corrupt practices.
At the election of the seventh of November, 1876, the popular vote was
as follows:
For Tilden 4,300,316
For Hayes 4,036,016
---------
Tilden’s majority 264,300
The total vote for Tilden was nearly 700,000 larger than Grant’s
against Greeley. Of the electoral vote, the Republicans conceded Tilden
184. The electoral votes of Louisiana and Florida, thrown into dispute
before Congress and the Electoral Commission, but finally cast by the
commission for Hayes, determined the result. Referring to my narrative
of the events immediately succeeding the election and preceding the
creation of the electoral tribunal, judge Edmunds says:
Historically, it is very unfortunate that Mr. Watterson did not
include in his enlivening article copies of his telegraphic
and other correspondence with Mr. Tilden from New Orleans, and
elsewhere, for it would certainly and truly, as far as it went,
throw much light on the existing drama being displayed, as well as
the plans and work behind the curtain whereby (we may believe) it
was hoped to produce the election of Mr. Tilden. We Republicans at
Washington were forced to believe that an effort was being made, by
every means that could be employed, to overcome the Hayes majority
of one. During that whole period, so far as I personally knew or
was informed, there never was any scheme or act of the Republicans
to bribe any State canvassing board or elector by money or promise
in support of Mr. Hayes’s election. We did (if I may borrow an
ancient classic simile) fear “the Greeks bearing gifts.” We were
morally certain that a large majority of the legal voters in the
States of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana were earnestly
in favor of the election of Mr. Hayes, and we believe that if
violence or some other kind of unlawful influence were not brought
to bear the electoral votes of those States would be cast for
him; but when the secret though bold operations of Colonel Pelton
became partly known we were astonished and alarmed, though not
disheartened, and we went forward in our efforts to provide by law
for the final act in the great drama.
It is quite certain that all the telegraphic correspondence I had
with Mr. Tilden reached Republican headquarters as soon as it reached
Gramercy Park. Assuredly I never wrote or wired him a word that I
should be unwilling to have appear in print. May I not claim the
circumstance that the Republicans used none of it as going to the
credit either of my prudence or my patriotism, or of both?
At no time did I apprehend any physical collision, although General
Grant seemed to fear one, and although two of the most famous and
popular heroes among the general officers of the Union army at
Washington were pressing armed organization upon the Democrats. It was
distinctly the South that would not listen to the suggestion of force.
Truth to say, both sides were playing something of a “bluff.” Neither
was either ready or anxious for a fight, and, in extremis, whichever
won, the other was bound to submit. My sole thought was publicity,
agitation; this I urged from the outset and continued to urge to the
end.
In reverting to these events, my purpose was chiefly to vindicate the
personal integrity of Mr. Tilden. Neither he nor Mr. Hewitt nor any one
in authority was willing to win by fraud. As I have stated, and as Mr.
Hewitt stated, fraudulent possession was offered, and I directly know
that Mr. Tilden refused to accept the Presidency as the result of an
arrangement perfectly simple and obvious and absolutely certain.
One might imagine, by a perusal of Judge Edmunds, that the Republican
lambs were greatly afraid of the Democratic wolves, and put themselves
to many pains to circumvent the Democratic conspiracy set on foot
immediately after the election. As a matter of fact, the reverse is
true. The returning boards were made up of Republicans, not Democrats.
The Southern States were still under military surveillance and
martial law. All were invoked to coerce the vote and the counting of
the vote. Whatever the worst of Democrats may have contemplated, the
Republicans overmatched by deeds. They held the resources and the power
of possession; the State governors, the President of the United States,
the Senate, the Supreme Court, the army and navy; the Democrats held
only the lower House of Congress, and what they believed the justice of
their case.
Hayes had to receive every vote in dispute to be elected. The loss
of a single vote would have defeated him. Hence the majority of the
Electoral Commission could not throw out Florida and Louisiana, as
many thought the equities in each instance required. In his speech on
the vote of Louisiana, the very eminent Julius H. Seelye, president of
Amherst College, who sat in the Forty-fourth Congress as a Republican
from Massachusetts, said:
Wiser and more candid men would be hard to find than those of this
Electoral Commission who have pronounced the decision on which
we are now called to vote. I acknowledge I think I appreciate
the strength of their position. We cannot be too jealous of
the constitutional right of a State to choose its Presidential
electors “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” We
cannot be too careful of congressional interference with the duly
accredited results of such a choice. Whether we like or dislike it,
the right of a State to choose its electors in its own way, and to
ascertain and certify as to the method of their choice, is beyond
our lawful control. All this I accept as a formal and technical
statement of a clear principle of our Constitution; a principle,
moreover, in its general application as wise as it is clear.
But, Mr. Speaker, there are cases where the _summum jus_ becomes
the _summa injuria_; cases where the law, strictly interpreted and
strenuously enforced, works out results contrary to all law; and in
such cases equity lays the letter of the law aside and lifts her
voice in judgment as the sovereign spirit of the law, the spirit of
righteousness and truth declares. I find such a case in the pending
issue.
Granted--and I hold this to be incontestable--that this Electoral
Commission has clearly interpreted and accurately applied the
Constitution and the laws to the question submitted to them, yet
what if the very principle on which the Constitution and the laws
must ultimately rest becomes thereby subverted? Granted that the
decision reached is fairly within the bond; yet what if the pound
of flesh cannot be taken without its drop of blood? What if this
jealous care for State rights and constitutional prerogatives
may so foster faction, and so blunt the sense of justice, and
so increase the prevalence of fraud that the very foundation of
prerogatives and rights has disappeared?
... No nation, said Niebuhr, ever died except by suicide; and the
suicidal poison is engendered not so much in the unjust statutes
of a government as in the immoral practices of a people, which
the government is unable to punish and unable to restrain. It is
because I fear that the strict and accurate interpretation of the
Constitution, applied to the electoral vote of Louisiana, would
imperil that vote in the future, and increase the very danger which
the Constitution intended to avoid, that I am unable to concur with
such an application.
I commend this to the perusal of Senator Edmunds, though it is unlikely
to impress a mind which could declare, as Senator Edmunds does
declare in the April issue of ~The Century Magazine~, “that
the constitutional amendments and reconstruction and other laws were
passed by Congress as the best measures available in the complicated
and untoward situation. These measures were not measures of cruelty or
tyranny, but of justice and hopefulness. After the lapse of years it
is evident to me that nothing better could have been done, and that
nothing done by Congress should have been omitted.”
Against the plan of reconstruction, here approved so unreservedly and
despite the events that came after, unremembered if not condoned by
Judge Edmunds, I set the plan of Abraham Lincoln, laid in a larger
conception of human nature and better knowledge of the character
of the people of the South. None of the dangers apprehended and
foreshadowed by Mr. Edmunds would have come to pass had Lincoln lived
to put his plan on foot and conduct it to achievement. The South was
in desolation. The leaders of the secession movement had been wholly
discredited by the result of the war. All their calculations and
promises had been disastrously falsified. They could no more escape the
consequences of their failure than could other public men, baffled and
defeated by events.