praank, jest in mere plaay, you know, seh. Yeste'd'y some of 'em taken a
boyish notion to put some maasks on an' ride through Leggettstown in
'slo-ow p'ocession, with a sawt o' banneh marked, 'SEE YOU AGAIN
TO-NIGHT.' They had guns--mo' f'om fo'ce o' habit, I reckon, than
anything else--you know how ow young men ah, seh--one of 'em carry a gun
a yeah, an' nevah so much as hahm a floweh, you know. Well, seh,
unfawtunately, the niggehs had no mo' sense than to take it all in dead
earnest. They put they women an' child'en into the church an' ahmed
theyse'ves, some thirty of 'em, with shotguns an' old muskets--yondeh's
some of 'em in the cawneh. Then they taken up a position in the road
just this side the village, an' sent to Sherman an' Libbetyville fo'
reinfo'cements.
"Well, of co'se, you know, seh, what was jes' boun' to happm. Some of ow
ve'y best young men mounted an' moved to dislodge an' scatteh them befo'
they could gatheh numbehs enough to take the offensive an' begin they
fiendish work. Well, seh, about daay-break, while sawt o' reconnoiterin'
in fo'ce, they come suddenly upon the niggehs' position, an' the
niggehs, without the slightes' p'ovocation, up an' fi-ud!
P'ovidentially, they shot too high, an' only one man was inju'ed--by
fallin' from his hawss. Well, seh, ow boys fi-ud an' cha'ged, an' the
niggehs, of co'se, run, leavin' three dead an' fo' wounded; aw,
accawdin' to latest accounts, seven dead an' no wounded. The niggehs
taken shelteh in the church, ow boys fallen back fo' reinfo'cements, an'
about a' hour by sun comes word that the niggehs, frenzied with raage
an' liquo', a-comin' this way to the numbeh o' three hund'ed, an'
increasin' as they come.--No, seh, I don't know that it is unfawtunate.
It's just as well faw this thing to happm, an' to happm now. It'll teach
both sides, as Garnet said awhile ago addressin' the crowd, that the
gov'ment o' Dixie's simply got to paass, this time, away f'om a raace
that can't p'eserve awdeh, an' be undividedly transfehed oveh to the
raace God-A'mighty appointed to gov'n!"
Judge March's voice was full of meek distress. "Captain Shotwell, where
is Major Garnet, sir?"
"Garnet? Oh, he's over in the Courier office, consultin' with Haggard
an' Jeff-Jack."
"Do you know whether Gen'l Halliday's in town, sir?"
The Captain smiled. "He's in the next room, seh. He's been undeh
my--p'otection, as you might say, since daylight."
"Gen'l Halliday could stop all this, Captain."
"Stop it? He could stop it in two hours, seh! If he'd just consent to go
under parole to Leggettstown an' tell them niggehs that if they'll
simply lay down they ahms an' stay quietly at home--jest faw a day aw
two--all 'll be freely fo'givm an' fo'gotten, seh! Instead o' that, he
sits there, ca'mly smilin'--you know his way--an' threatenin' us with
the ahm of the United States Gov'ment. He fo'gets that by a wise
p'ovision o' that Gov'ment's foundehs it's got sev'l ahms, an' one holds
down anotheh. The S'preme Cote--Judge March, you go in an' see him; you
jest the man to do it, seh!"
John waited without. Presently father and son were seen to leave Captain
Shotwell's headquarters and cross the square to the Courier office.
There a crowd was reading a bulletin which stated that scouting parties
reported no negro force massed anywhere. At the top of a narrow
staircase the Judge and his son were let into the presence of Major
Garnet and his advisers.
Here John had one more good gaze at Ravenel. He was in the physical
perfection of twenty-six, his eyes less playful than once, but his smile
less cynical. His dress was faultlessly neat. Haggard was almost as
noticeable, though less interesting; a slender, high-strung man, with a
pale face seamed by a long scar got in a duel. One could see that he had
been trying to offset the fatigues of the night with a popular remedy.
Garnet was dictating, Haggard writing.
"Captains Shotwell and Champion will move their forces at once in
opposite circuits--through the disturbed villages--and assure all
persons--of whatever race or party--that the right of the people
peaceably to bear arms--is vindicated--and that order is restored--and
will be maintained." A courier waited.
"At the same time," said Ravenel, indolently, "they can ask if the rumor
is true that Mr. Leggett and about ten others are going to be absent
from this part of the country until after the election, and say we hope
it's so."
Haggard cast a glance at Garnet, Garnet looked away, the postscript was
made, and the missive sent.
"Brother March, good-morning, sir." The Major kept the Judge's hand as
they moved aside. But presently the whole room could hear--"Why, Brother
March, the trouble's all over!--Oh, of course, if Halliday feels any
real _need_ to confer with us he can do so; we'll be right
here.--Oh--Haggard!"
The editor, in the doorway, said he would be back, and went out. He was
evidently avoiding Halliday. Judge March felt belittled and began to go.
"If you're bound for home, Brother March, I'll be riding that way
myself, presently. You see, in a few minutes Suez'll be as quiet as it
ever was, and I sent word to General Halliday just before you came in,
that no one designs, or has designed, to abridge any personal liberty of
his he may think safe to exercise." The speaker suddenly ceased.
Both men stood hearkening. Loud words came up the stairs.
"Your son stepped down into the street, Judge," said Ravenel. The next
instant the three rushed out and down the stairway.
John had gone down to see the two armed bands move off. They had been
gone but a few minutes when he noticed General Halliday, finely mounted,
come from a stable behind the hotel and trot smartly toward him. The few
store-keepers left in town stared in contemptuous expectation, but to
John this was Fannie's father, and the boy longed for something to occur
which might enable him to serve that father in a signal way and so make
her forever tenderly grateful. The telegraph office was up these same
stairs on the other side of the landing opposite the _Courier_ office;
most likely the General was going to send despatches. John's gaze
followed the gallant figure till it disappeared in the doorway at the
foot of the staircase.
Near the bottom the General and the editor met and passed. The editor
stopped and cursed the General. "You jostled me purposely, sir!"
Halliday turned and smiled. "Jim Haggard, why should you shove me and
then lie about it? can't you pick a fight for the truth?"
"Don't speak to me, you white nigger! Are you armed?"
"Yes!"
"Then, Launcelot Halliday," yelled the editor, backing out upon the
sidewalk and drawing his repeater, "I denounce you as a traitor, a
poltroon, and a coward!" Men darted away, dodged, peeped, and cried--
"Look out! Don't shoot!" But John ran forward to the rescue.
"Put that thing up!" he called to the editor, in boyish treble. "Put it
up!"
"Jim Haggard, hold on!" cried Halliday, following down and out with his
weapon pointed earthward. "Let me speak, you drunken fool! Get that
boy----"
"Bang!" went the editor's pistol before he had half lifted it.
"Bang!" replied Halliday's.
The editor's weapon dropped. He threw both hands against his breast,
looked to heaven, wheeled half round, and fell upon his face as dead as
a stone.
Halliday leaped into the saddle, answered one shot that came from the
crowd, and clattered away on the turnpike.
John was standing with arms held out. He turned blindly to find the
doorway of the stairs and cried, "Father! father!"
"Son!"
He started for the sound, groped against the wall, sank to his knees,
and fell backward.
"Room, here, room!" "Give him air!" "By George, sir, he rushed right in
bare-handed between 'em, orderin' Haggard"--"Stand back, you-all, and
make way for Judge March!"
"Oh, son, son!" The father knelt, caught the limp hands and gazed with
streaming eyes. "Oh, son, my son! air you gone fum me, son? Air you
gone? Air you gone?"
A kind doctor took the passive wrist. "No, Judge, he's not gone yet."
Ravenel and the physician assumed control. "Just consider him in my
care, doctor, will you? Shall we take him to the hotel?"
Garnet supported Judge March's steps. "Cast your burden on the Lord,
Brother March. Bear up--for Sister March's sake, as she would for
yours!"
Near the top stairs of the Ladies' Entrance Ravenel met Fannie.
"I saw it all, Mr. Ravenel; he saved my father's life. I must have the
care of him. You can get it arranged so, Mr. Ravenel. You can even
manage his mother."
"I will," he said, with a light smile.
Election-day passed like a Sabbath. General Halliday returned, voted,
and stayed undisturbed. His opponent, not Garnet this time, was
overwhelmingly elected. On the following day Haggard was buried "with
great eclat," as his newspaper described it. Concerning John, the doctor
said:
"Judge March, your wife should go back home. There's no danger, and a
sick-room to a person of her----"
"Ecstastic spirit--" said the Judge.
"Exactly--would be only----"
"Yes," said the Judge, and Mrs. March went. To Fannie the doctor said,
"If he were a man I would have no hope, but a boy hangs to life like a
cat, and I think he'll get well, entirely well. Move him home? Oh, not
for a month!"
Notwithstanding many pains, it was a month of heaven to John, a heaven
all to himself, with only one angel and no church. As long as there was
danger she was merely cheerful--cheerful and beautiful. But when the
danger passed she grew merry, the play of her mirth rising as he gained
strength to bear it. He loved mirth, when others made it, and always
would have laughed louder and longer than he did but for wondering how
they made it. A great many things he said made others laugh, too, but he
could never tell beforehand what would or wouldn't. He got so full of
happiness at times that Fannie would go out for a few moments to let him
come back to his ordinary self.
Two or three times, when she lingered long outside the door, she
explained on her return that Mr. Ravenel had come to ask how he was.
Once Halliday met this visitor in the Ladies' Entrance, departing, and
with a suppressed smile, asked, "Been to see how 'poor Johnnie' is?"
"Ostensibly," said the young man, and offered a cigar.
The General overtook Fannie in the hallway. He shook his head roguishly.
"Cruel sport, Fan. He'll make the even dozen, won't he?"
"Oh, no, he'd like to make me his even two dozen, that's all."
When the day came for the convalescent to go home, he was not glad,
although he had laughed much that morning. As he lay on the bed dressed
and waiting, he was unusually pale. Only Fannie stood by him. Her hand
was in both his. He shut his eyes, and in a desperate, earnest voice
said, under his breath, "Good-by!" And again, lower still,--"Good-by!"
"Good-by, Johnnie."
He looked up into her laughing eyes. His color came hot, his heart
pounded, and he gasped, "S-say m-my John! Won't you?"
"Why, certainly. Good-by, my Johnnie." She smiled yet more.
"Will--will"--he choked--"will you b-be my--k--Fannie--when I g-get old
enough?"
"Yes," she said, with great show of gravity, "if you'll not tell
anybody." She held him down by gently stroking his brow. "And you must
promise to grow up such a perfect gentleman that I'll be proud of my
Johnnie when"--She smiled broadly again.
--"Wh-when--k--the time comes?"
"I reckon so--yes."
He sprang to his knees and cast his arms about her neck, but she was too
quick, and his kiss was lost in air. He flashed a resentful surprise,
but she shook her head, holding his wasted wrists, and said, "N-no, no,
my Johnnie, not even you; not Fannie Halliday, o-oh no!" She laughed.
"Some one's coming!" she whispered. It was Judge March. His adieus were
very grateful. He called her a blessing.
She waved a last good-by to John from the window. Then she went to her
own room, threw arms and face into a cushioned seat and moaned, so
softly her own ear could not catch it--a name that was not John's.
XIV.
A MORTGAGE ON JOHN
As John grew sound and strong he grew busy as well. The frown of purpose
creased at times his brow. There was a "perfect gentleman" to make, and
only a few years left for his making if he was to be completed in the
stipulated time. Once in a while he contrived an errand to Fannie, but
it was always in broad day, when the flower of love is never more than
half open. The perfect transport of its first blossoming could not quite
return; the pronoun "my" was not again paraded. Only at good-by, her
eyes, dancing the while, would say, "It's all right, my Johnnie."
On Sundays he had to share her with other boys whom she asked
promiscuously,
"What new commandment was laid on the disciples?"--and----
"Ought not we also to keep this commandment?"
"Oh! yes, indeed!" said his heart, but his slow lips let some other
voice answer for him.
When she asked from the catechism, "What is the misery of that estate
whereinto man fell?" ah! how he longed to confess certain modifications
in his own case. And yet Sunday was his "Day of all the week the best."
Her voice in speech and song, the smell of her garments, the flowers in
her hat, the gladness of her eyes, the wild blossoms at her belt,
sometimes his own forest anemones dying of joy on her bosom--sense and
soul feasted on these and took a new life, so that going from Sabbath to
Sabbath he went from strength to strength, on each Lord's day appearing
punctually in Zion.
One week-day when the mountain-air of Widewood was sweet with wild
grapes, some six persons were scatteringly grouped in and about the
narrow road near the March residence. One was Garnet, one was Ravenel,
two others John and his father, and two were strangers in Dixie. One of
these was a very refined-looking man, gray, slender, and with a
reticent, purposeful mouth. His traveling suit was too warm for the
latitude, and his silk hat slightly neglected. The other was fat and
large, and stayed in the carryall in which Garnet had driven them up
from Rosemont. He was of looser stuff than his senior. He called the
West his home, but with a New England accent. He "didn't know's 'twas"
and "presumed likely" so often that John eyed him with mild surprise.
Ravenel sat and whittled. The day was hot, yet in his suit of gray
summer stuffs he looked as fresh as sprinkled ferns. In a pause Major
Garnet, with bright suddenness, asked:
"Brother March, where's John been going to school?"
The Judge glanced round upon the group as if they were firing upon him
from ambush, hemmed, looked at John, and said:
"Why,--eh--who; son?--Why,--eh--to--to his mother, sir; yes, sir."
"Ah, Brother March, a mother's the best of teachers, and Sister March
one of the most unselfish of mothers!" said Garnet, avoiding Ravenel's
glance.
The Judge expanded. "Sir, she's too unselfish, I admit it, sir."
"And, yet, Brother March, I reckon John gets right smart schooling from
you."
"Ah! no, sir. We're only schoolmates together, sir--in the school of
Nature, sir. You know, Mr. Ravenel, all these things about us here are a
sort of books, sir."
Ravenel smiled and answered very slowly, "Ye-es, sir. Very good reading;
worth thirty cents an acre simply as literature."
Thirty cents was really so high a price that the fat stranger gave a
burst of laughter, but Garnet--"It'll soon be worth thirty dollars an
acre, now we've got a good government. Brother March, we'd like to see
that superb view of yours from the old field on to the ridge."
Ravenel stayed behind with the Judge. John went as guide.
"Judge," Ravenel said, as soon as they were alone, "how about John? I
believe in your school of nature a little. Solitude for principles,
society for character, somebody says. Now, my school was men, and hence
the ruin you see----"
"Mr. Ravenel, sir! I see no ruin; I----"
"Don't you? Well, then, the ruin you don't see."
"Oh, sir, you speak in irony! I see a character----"
"Yes "--the speaker dug idly in the sand--"all character and no
principles. But you don't want John to be all principles and no
character? He ought to be going to school, Judge." The father dropped
his eyes in pain, but the young man spoke on. "Going to school is a sort
of first lesson in citizenship, isn't it?--'specially if it's a free
school. Maybe I'm wrong, but I wish Dixie was full of good, strong free
schools."
"You're not wrong, Mr. Ravenel! You're eminently right, sir."
Mr. Ravenel only smiled, was silent for a while, and then said, "But
even if it were--I had an impression that you thought you'd sort o'
promised John to Rosemont?"
The Judge straightened up, distressed. "Mr. Ravenel, I have! I have,
sir! It's true; it's true!"
"I don't think you did, Judge, you only expressed an intention."
But the Judge waived away the distinction with a gesture.
"Judge," said the young man, slowly and gently, "wouldn't you probably
be sending John to Rosemont if Rosemont were free?"
The Judge did not speak or look up. He hunted on the ground for chips.
"Why don't you sell some land and send him?"
"Oh, Mr. Ravenel, we can't. We just can't! It's the strangest thing in
the world, sir! Nobody wants it but lumbermen, and to let them, faw a
few cents an acre, sweep ove' it like worms ove' a cotton field--we just
can't do it! Mr. Ravenel, what _is_ the reason such a land as this can't
be settled up? We'll sell it to any real sett'ehs! But, good Lawd! sir,
where air they? Son an' me ain't got no money to impote 'em, sir. The
darkies don't know anything but cotton fahmin'--they won't come. Let me
tell you, sir, we've made the most flattering offers to capitalists to
start this and that. But they all want to wait till we've got a good
gov'ment. An' now, here we've got it--in Clearwateh, at least--an' you
can see that these two men ain't satisfied!"
"What do you reckon's the reason?"
"Mr. Ravenel, my deah sir, they can't tell! The fat one can't and the
lean one won't! But politics is at the bottom of it, sir! Politics keeps
crowdin' in an' capital a-hangin' back, an'----"
"Johnnie doesn't get his schooling," said Ravenel.
The response was a silent gesture, downcast eyes, and the betrayal of an
emotion, not of the moment, but of months and years of physical want and
mental distress.
"We all get lots of politics," said Ravenel.
"Not son! not fum me, sir. Oh, my Lawd, sir, that's one of the worst
parts of it! I don't dare teach him mine, much less unteach him his
mother's. She's as spirited as she's gentle, sir."
"Whatever was is wrong," drawled the young man. "That's the new creed."
"Oh, sir, a new creed's too painful a thing fo' jest. Ow South'n press,
Mr. Ravenel, is gett'n' a sad facility fo' recantin'. I don't say it's
not sincere, sir--least of all ow _Courier_ since it's come into the
hands of you an' President Garnet!"
"Garnet! Oh, gracious!" laughed Jeff-Jack. "Sincere--Judge, if you won't
say anything about sincerity, I'll tell you what I'd like to do for
John, sir. I'll take your note, secured by land, for the money you need
to put John through Rosemont, and you needn't pay it till you get ready.
If you never get ready, I reckon John'll pay it some day."
The moment the offer began to be intelligible, Judge March tried to
straighten up and look Jeff-Jack squarely in the face, but when it was
completed his elbows were on his knees and his face in his slender brown
hands.
Up in the old field Garnet had talked himself dizzy. Northern travelers
are by every impulse inquirers, and Southern hosts expounders; they fit
like tongue and groove. On the ridge he had said:
"Now, Mr. Fair, here it is. I don't believe there's a finer view in the
world."
"Hm!" said the slender visitor.
The two guests had been shown the usual Sleeping Giant, Saddle Mountain,
Sugar Loaf, etc., that go with such views. John had set Garnet right
when he got Lover's Leap and Bridal Veil tangled in the bristling pines
of Table Rock and the Devil's Garden, and all were charmed with the
majestic beauty of the scene. On the way back, while Garnet explained to
Mr. Gamble, the heavier guest, why negroes had to be treated not as
individuals but as a class, John had been telling Mr. Fair why it was
wise to treat chickens not as a class but as individuals, and had
mentioned the names and personal idiosyncrasies of the favorites of his
own flock; Mr. Fair, in turn, had confessed to having a son about John's
age, and wished they knew each other. Before John could reply, the party
gayly halted again beside his father and Mr. Ravenel. As they did so Mr.
Fair saw Ravenel give a little nod to Garnet that said, "It's all
arranged."
On another evening, shortly after this, father and son coming to supper
belated, John brought his mother a bit of cross-road news. The "Rads"
had given a barbecue down in Blackland, just two days before the visit
of Jeff-Jack and those others to Widewood--and what did she reckon!
Cornelius Leggett had there made a speech, declaring that he was at the
bottom of a patriotic project to open a free white school in Suez, and
"bu'st Rosemont wide open."
"Judge March," said the wife, affectionately, "I wonder why Mr. Ravenel
avoided mentioning that to you. He needn't have feared your sense of
humor. Ah! if you only had a woman's instincts!"
John said good-night and withdrew. He wished his mother loved his father
a little less. They would all have a so much better time.
"No," Mrs. March was presently saying, "Mr. Ravenel's motives are not
those that concern me most. Rosemont, to me, must always signify Rose
Montgomery. It is to her presence--her spell--you would expose my child;
she, who has hated me all her life. Ah! no, it's too late now to draw
back, he shall go. Yes, without my consent! Oh! my consent! Judge March,
you're jesting again!" She lifted upon him the smile of a heart really
all but broken under its imaginary wrongs.
There was no drawing back. The mother suffered, but the wife sewed, and
when Rosemont had got well into its season's work and November was
nearly gone, John was ready for "college." One morning, when the wind
was bitter and the ground frozen, father and son rode side by side down
their mountain road. A thin mantle of snow made the woods gray, and
mottled the shivering ranks of dry cornstalks. At each rider's saddle
swung an old carpet-bag stuffed with John's clothes. His best were on
him.
"Maybe they're not the latest cut, son, or the finest fit, but you won't
mind; you're not a girl. A man's dress is on'y a sort o' skin, anyhow; a
woman's is her plumage. And, anyhow, at Rosemont you'll wear soldier
clothes. Look out son, I asked yo' dear motheh to mend----"
The warning came too late; a rope handle of one of the carpet-bags
broke. The swollen budget struck the unyielding ground and burst like a
squash. John sprang nimbly from the saddle, but the Judge caught his leg
on the other carpet-bag and reached the ground in such a shape that his
horse lost all confidence and began to back wildly, putting first one
foot and then another into the scattered baggage.
One, or even two, can rarely get as much into a bursted carpet-bag,
repacking it in a public road and perspiring with the fear that somebody
is coming, as they can into a sound one at a time and place of their own
choice. There's no place like home--for this sort of task; albeit the
Judge's home may have been an exception. Time flew past while they
contrived and labored, and even when they seemed to have solved their
problem one pocket of John's trousers contained a shirt and the other
was full of socks, and the Judge's heart still retained an anxiety which
he dared neither wholly confess nor entirely conceal.
"Well, son, it's a comfort to think yo' precious motheh will never have
the mawtification of knowin' anything about this."
"Yass, sir," drawled John, "that's the first thing I thought of."
XV.
ARRIVALS AT ROSEMONT
The air was mild down on the main road which, because it led from Suez
to Pulaski City, was known as the Susie and Pussie pike. The highway
showed a mere dusting of snow, and out afield the sun had said
good-morning so cavalierly to some corn-shocks that the powder was
wholly kissed off one sallow cheek of each. The riders kept the pike
northwesterly a short way and then took the left, saying less and less
as they went on, till the college came into view, their hearts sinking
as it rose.
The campus was destitute of human sounds; but birds gossiped so openly
on every hand concerning the tardy intrusion that John was embarrassed,
and hardly felt, much less saw, what rich disorder the red and yellow
browns of clinging and falling leaves made among the purple-gray trunks
and olive-dappled boughs, and on the fading green of the sod.
The jays were everywhere, foppish, flippant, the perfection of
privileged rudeness.
It seemed a great way through the grove. At the foot of the steps John
would have liked to make the acquaintance of some fat hens that were
picking around in the weak sunshine and uttering now and then a pious
housewifely sigh.