which had been decorated to stay shut, neither he nor his committee
could be found. He came in, warm and anxious, just in time to claim
Fannie for their schottische. At ten they walked out on the veranda and
took seats at its dark end. She was radiant, and without a sign of the
mild dismay that was in her bosom. When she said, "Now, tell me, John,
why you're so sad," there was no way for him to see that she was
secretly charging herself not to lie and not to cry.
"Miss Fannie," he replied, "you're breaking my heart."
"Aw, now, John, are you going to spoil our friendship this way?"
"Friendship!--Oh, Fannie!"
"Miss Fannie, if you please, Mister John."
"Ah! has it come to that? And do you hide that face?"--For Fannie had
omitted to charge herself not to smile at the wrong time--"Have you
forgotten the day we parted here five years ago?"
"Why, no. I don't remember what day of the week it was, but I--I
remember it. Was it Friday? What day was it?"
"Fannie, you mock me! Ah! you thought me but a boy, then, but I loved
you with a love beyond my years; and now as a man, I----"
"Oh! a man! Mr. March, there's an end to this bench. No! John, I don't
mock you; I honor you; I've always been proud of you--Now--now, John,
let go my hand! John, if you don't let go my hand I'll leave you; you
naughty boy!--No, I won't answer a thing till you let me go! John March,
let go my hand this instant! Now I shall sit here. You'll keep the
bench, please. Yes, I do remember it all, and regret it!" She turned
away in real dejection, saying, in her heart, "But I shall do no better
till I die--or--or get married!"
She faced John again. "Oh, if I'd thought you'd remember it
forty days it shouldn't have occurred! I saw in you just a brave,
pure-hearted, sensible boy. I thought it would be pleasant, and even
elevating--to you--while it lasted, and that you'd soon see how--how
ineligible--indeed I did!" Both were silent.
"Fannie Halliday," said John at last, standing before her as slim and
rank as a sapling, but in the dignity of injured trust, "when year after
year you saw I loved you, why did you still play me false!"
"Now, Mr. March, you're cruel."
"Miss Fannie Halliday, have you been kind?"
"I meant to be! I never meant to cheat you! I kept hoping you'd
understand! Sometimes I tried to make you understand, didn't I? I'm very
sorry, John. I know I've done wrong. But I--I meant well. I really did!"
The youth waved an arm. "You've wrecked my life. Oh, Fannie, I'm no mere
sentimentalist. I can say in perfect command of these wild emotions,
'Enchantress, fare thee well!'"
"Oh, fare thee fiddlesticks!" Fannie rose abruptly. "No, no, I didn't
mean that, John, but--aw! now, I didn't _mean_ to smile! Oh, let's
forget the past--oh! now, yes, you can! Let's just be simple, true
friends! And one of these days you'll love some sweet, true girl, and
she'll love you and I'll love her, and--" she took his arm. He looked
down on her.
"_I_ love again!--_I_--? Ah! how little you women understand men! Oh,
Fannie! to love twice is never to have loved. You are my first--my
last!"
"Oh, no, I'm not," said Fannie, blithely and aloud, as they reentered
the room. Then softly, behind her fan, "I've a better one in store for
you, now!"
"Two!" groaned the bass viol and bassoon. "Two! two! two-to-to-two!" and
with a propitiative smile on John's open anguish, Fannie, gayer in
speech and readier in laughter, but not lighter in heart, let a partner
waltz her away. As John turned, one of his committee seized his arm and
showed a watch.
XIX.
MR. RAVENEL SHOWS A "MORE EXCELLENT WAY"
Urged by all sorts and on all sides, the Northerners lingered a day or
two more, visiting battle-fields and things. At Turkey Creek Halliday
was talkative, Garnet overflowed with information, Captains Champion and
Shotwell were boyish, and Colonel Proudfit got tight. They ate cold
fried chicken and drank--
"Whew!--stop, stop!--I can't take--Why, half that would"--etc.
"Where's Mr. Ravenel?"
"Who, Jeff-Jack? Oh, he's over yonder pickin' blackberries--no, he
seldom ever touches--he has to be careful how he--Yes, sometimes he
disremembers."
In town again, Halliday led the way to the public grammar and high
schools. Garnet mentioned Montrose boastfully more than once.
"Why don't we go there?" asked one of the projectors, innocently.
"Oh--ah--wha'd you say, Colonel Proudfit? Yess, that's so, we pass right
by it on ow way to Rosemont"--and they did, to the sweet satisfaction of
the Misses Kinsington, who were resolved no railroad should come to Suez
if they could prevent it.
At Rosemont Mr. Dinwiddie Pettigrew told each Northerner, as soon as he
could get him from Mrs. Garnet's presence, that Virginia was the Mother
of Presidents; that the first slaves ever brought to this country came
in Yankee ships; that Northern envy of Southern opulence and refinement
had been the mainspring of the abolition movement; and--with a smile of
almost womanly heroism--that he--or his father at least--had lost all
his slaves in the war.
At Widewood, whither Garnet and Ravenel led, the travelers saw only
Judge March and the scenery. He brought them water to the fence in a
piggin, and with a wavering hand served it out in a gourd.
"I could 'a' served it in a glass, gentlemen, but we Southe'ne's think
it's sweeteh drank fum a gode."
"We met your son at the cotillion," said one, and the father lighted up
with such confident expectation of a compliment that the stranger added,
cordially, "He's quite noted," though he had not heard of the affair
with Leggett.
On the way back Garnet praised everything and everybody. He wished they
could have seen Daphne Dalrymple! If it were not for the Northern
prejudice against Southern writers, her poems would--"See that fox--ah!
he's hid, now."
But the wariest game was less coy than the poetess. She wrote, that day,
"O! hide me from the Northron's eye!
Let me not hear his fawning voice,
I heard the Southland matron sigh
And saw the piteous tear that" ...
Thus it ended; "as if," said Garnet to John, who with restrained pride
showed him the manuscript, "as if grief for the past choked
utterance--for the present. There's a wonderful eloquence in that
silence, March, tell her to leave it as it is; dry so."
John would have done this had he not become extremely preoccupied. The
affair at the old bridge was everybody's burning secret till the
prospectors were gone. But the day after they left it was everybody's
blazing news. Oddly enough, not what anybody had done, but what Leggett
had said--in contempt of the color line--was the microscopic germ of all
the fever. From window to window, and from porch to porch, women fed
alarm with rumor and rumor with alarm, while on every sidewalk men
collaborated in the invention of plans for defensive vengeance.
"Well, they've caught him--pulled him out of a dry well in
Libertyville."
"I beg your pardon, he crossed the Ohio this morning at daylight."
John March was light-headed with much drinking of praise for having made
it practicable to "smash this unutterable horror in the egg!"
Ravenel, near the _Courier_ office, stopped at the beckon of Lazarus
Graves and Charlie Champion. John was with them, laboring under the
impression that they were with him. They wanted to consult Ravenel about
the miscreant, and the "steps proper to be taken against him."
"When found," suggested Ravenel, and they pleasantly assented.
"Oh, yes," he said again, as the four presently moved out of the hot
sun, "but if the color line hadn't been crossed already there wouldn't
be any Leggett."
"But he threatens to cross it from the wrong side," replied John, posing
sturdily.
Ravenel's smile broadened. "Most any man, Mr. March, could be enticed
across."
The mouth of the enticer opened, but his tongue failed.
"A coat of tah and feathers will show him he mustn't even be enticed
across," rejoined Lazarus.
Ravenel said something humorous about the new Dixie and a peace policy,
and John's face began to show misgivings; but Captain Champion explained
that the affair would be strictly select--best citizens--no liquor--no
brawl--no life-taking, unless violent resistance compelled it; in fact,
no individual act; but----
"Yes, I know," said Ravenel, "you mean one of those irresistable
eruptions of a whole people's righteous indignation, that sweeps before
it the whining hyper-criticisms of effeminated civilizations," and the
smile went round.
"Gentlemen, there's an easier way to get rid of Cornelius; one, Captain,
that won't hurt more by the recoil than by the discharge."
They were all silent. John folded his arms. Presently Graves said,
meditatively,
"We don't care to hang him, just at----"
"This juncture," said Ravenel; "no, better give him ten years in the
penitentiary--for bigamy."
Sunshine broke on Mr. Graves's face, and he murmured, "Go 'way!"
Champion, too, was radiant. "Hu-u-ush!" he said, "who'll get us the
evidence?"
"Old Uncle Leviticus."
The more questions they asked the more pleased with the plan were John's
two companions. "Why didn't you think of that?" asked each of the other
in mock contempt. The youth felt his growing insignificance reach
completeness as Ravenel said,
"In that case you'll not need Mr. March any longer."
"No, of course not," said John, quickly. "I was"--he forced a cough.
The other two waved good-by, and he turned to go with them, but was
stopped.
"Don't you want to see me about something else, Mr. March?" said
Ravenel, to detain him.
"No, sir," replied John, innocently. "Oh, no, I was----"
There came between them, homeward bound, an open parasol, a mist of
muslin as sweet as a blossoming tree, a bow to Mr. Ravenel, and then a
kinder one to John.
"Go," said Ravenel, softly. "Didn't you see? She wants you."
John overtook the dainty figure, lifted his military cap, and slackened
his pace.
"Miss Fannie?" he caught step with her.
"Oh!--why good morning." She was delightfully cordial.
"Did you want to see me?" he asked. "Mr. Ravenel thought you did."
Fannie raised her brows and laughed.
"Why, really, Mr. Ravenel oughtn't to carry his thinking to such an
excess. Still, I'm not sorry for the mistake--unless you are." She
glanced at him archly. "Come on," she softly added, "I do want to see
you."
XX.
FANNIE SUGGESTS
"Don't look so gruesome." She laughed.
John walked stiffly, frowned, and tried to twist the down on his upper
lip. When only fenced and gardened dwellings were about them she spoke
again.
"John, I'm unhappy."
"You, Miss Fannie?"
"Yes. As I passed you, you were standing right where you fell five years
ago. For three days I've been thinking how deep in debt to you I've been
ever since, and--how I've disappointed you."
The youth made no answer. He felt as if he would give ten years of his
life to kneel at her feet with his face in her hands and whisper, "Pay
me a little love." She laid her arm on her cottage gate, turned her face
away, and added,
"And now you're disappointing me."
"I've got a right to know how, Miss Fannie, haven't I?"
Fannie's averted face sank lower. Suddenly she looked fondly up to him
and nodded. "Come, sit on the steps a minute"--she smiled--"and I'll
pick you a rose."
She skipped away. As she was returning her father came out.
"Why, howdy, Johnnie--Fan, I reckon I'll go to the office."
"You promised me you wouldn't!"
"Well, I'm better since I took some quinine. How's y' father, Johnnie?"
"Sir? Oh, she's not very well. She craves acids, and--Oh!--Father? he's
very--I ain't seen him in a right smart while, sir. He's been sort o'
puny for----"
"Sorry," said the General, and was gone.
Fannie held the rose.
"Thank you," said John, looking from it to the kindness in her eye. But
she caressed the flower and shook her head.
"It's got thorns," she said, significantly, as she sat down on a step.
"Yes, I understand. I'll take it so."
"I don't know. I'm afraid you'll not want it when"--she laid it to her
lips--"when I tell you how you've disappointed me."
"Yes, I will. For--oh! Miss Fannie----"
"What, John?"
"You needn't tell me at all. I know it already. And I'm going to change
it. You shan't be disappointed. I've learned an awful lot in these last
three days--and these last three hours. I've done my last
sentimentalizing. I--I'm sure I have. I'll be too good for it, or else
too bad for it! I'll always love you, Miss Fannie, even when you're
not--Miss Fannie any more; but I'll never come using round you and
bothering you with my--feelings." He jerked out his handkerchief, but
wiped only his cap--with slow care.
"As to that, John, I shouldn't blame you if you should hate me."
"I can't, Miss Fannie. I've not done hating, I'm afraid, but I couldn't
hate you--ever. You can't conceive how sweet and good you seem to anyone
as wicked as I've been--and still am."
"You don't know what I mean, John."
"Yes, I do. But you didn't know how bad you were f-fooling me. And even
if you had of--it must be mighty hard for some young ladies not
to--to----"
"Flirt," said Fannie, looking down on her rose. "I reckon those who do
it find it the easiest and prettiest wickedness in the world, don't
they?"
"Oh, I don't know! All my wickedness is ugly and hard. But I'm glad you
expected enough of me to be disappointed."
"Yes, I did. Why, John, you never in your life offered me a sign of
regard but I felt it an honor. You've often tripped and stumbled, but
I--oh, I'm too bad myself to like a perfect boy. What I like is a boy
with a conscience."
"My guiding star!" murmured John.
"Oh! ridiculous!--No, I take that back! But--but--why, that's what
disappoints me! If you'd made me just your first mile-board. But it
hurts me--oh, it hurts me! and--far worse--it's hurting Cousin Rose
Garnet! to--now, don't flush up that way--to see John March living by
passion and not by principle!"
"H--oh! Miss Fannie!" He strained up a superior smile. "Is passion--are
passions bound to be ignoble? But you're making the usual mistake----"
"How, John?" She put on a condescending patience.
"Why, in fancying you women can guide a man by----"
"Preaching?" the girl interrupted. Her face had changed. "I know we
can't," she added, abstractedly. John was trying to push his advantage.
"Passion!" he exclaimed. "Passion? Miss Fannie, you look at life with a
woman's view! We men--what are we without passion--all the passions?
Furnaces without fire! Ships without sails!"
"True! John. And just as true for women. But without principles we're
ships without rudders. Passion ought to fill our sails, yes; but if
principles don't steer we're lost!"
"Now, are you not making yourself my guiding star?"
"No! I won't have the awful responsibility! I'm nothing but a misguided
girl. Guiding star! Oh, fancy calling me that when your dear old----"
"Do--o--on't!"
"Then take it back and be a guiding star yourself! See here! D'you
remember the day at the tournament when you were my knight? John March,
can you believe it? I! me! this girl! Fannie Halliday! member of the
choir! I prayed for you that day. I did, for a fact! I prayed you might
come to be one of the few who are the knights of all mankind; and here
you--John, if I had a thousand gold dollars I'd rather lose them in the
sea than have you do what you're this day----"
"Miss Fannie, stop; I'm not doing it. It's not going to be done. But oh!
if you knew what spurred me on--I can't expl----"
"You needn't. I've known all about it for years! I got it from the girls
who put you to bed that night. But no one else knows it and they'll
never tell. John," Fannie pushed her gaiter's tip with her parasol,
"guess who was here all last evening, smoking the pipe of peace with
pop."
"Jeff-Jack?"
"I mean besides him. Brother Garnet! John, what is that man mostly, fox
or goose?"
"Oh, now, Miss Fannie, you're unjust! You're--you're partisan!"
"Hmm! That's what pop called me. He says Major Garnet means well, only
he's a moss-back. Sakes alive! That's worse than fox and goose in one!"
Her eyes danced merrily. "Why, that man's still in the siege of
Vicksburg, feeding Rosemont and Suez with its mule meat, John."
"Miss Fannie, it's my benefactor you're speaking of."
"Aw! your grandmother! Look here. Why'd he bring Mr. Ravenel here--for
Mr. Ravenel didn't bring him--to pow-wow with pop? Of course he had some
purpose--some plan. It's only you that's all sympathies--no plans."
"Why, it's not an hour," cried John, rising, "since Jeff-Jack told me he
wasn't a man of plans, other men's plans were good enough for him!"
Fannie's mouth opened and her eyes widened with merriment.
"Oh--oh--mm--mm--mm." She looked up at the sky and then sidewise at the
youth. "Sit down, sit down; you need the rest! Oh!" She rounded her
mouth and laughed.
"Now, see here, John March, you've no right to make me behave so.
Listen! I have a sneaking notion that, with some reference to your
mountain lands, Brother Garnet--whom, I declare, John, I wouldn't speak
to if it wasn't for Cousin Rose--has for years built you into his plans,
including those he brought here last night. In a few days you'll at last
be through Rosemont; but I believe he'd be glad to see you live for
years yet on loves, hates, and borrowed money. Oh! for your father's
sake, don't please that man that way! Why can't you plan? Why don't you
guide? You plan fast enough when passion controls you; plan with your
passions under your control. Build men--_build him_--into your plans.
Why, John, owning as much of God's earth as you do, you're honor bound
to plan."
"I know it, Miss Fannie. I've been feeling it a long time; now I see
it." He started to catch up the rose she had dropped, but the laugh was
hers; her foot was on it.
"You--don't you dare, sir! John, there's my foot's sermon. D'you see?
Everybody should put his own rose and thorn, both alike, under his own
foot. Shod or unshod, sir, we all have to do it. Now, why can't you
bring Mr. Ravenel to see pop with a plan of your own? I believe--of
course I don't know, but I suspect--Brother Garnet has left something
out of his plan that you can take into yours and make yours win. Would
you like to see it?" She patted her lips with her parasol handle and
smiled bewitchingly.
"Would I--what do you mean, Miss Fannie?"
"Why, I've got it here in the house. It's a secret, but"--lips and
parasol again, eyes wickeder than ever--"it's something that you can see
and touch. Promise you'll never tell, never-never-never?"
He promised.
"Wait here." She ran into the house, trolling a song. As John sat
listening for her return, the thought came abruptly, "Hasn't Jeff-Jack
got something to do with this?" But there was scarcely time to resent it
when she reopened the door coyly, beckoned him in, passed out, and
closed it; and, watchworn, wasted, more dead than alive, there stood
before John the thing Garnet was omitting--Cornelius Leggett.
When John passed out again Fannie saw purpose in his face and smiled.
"Well?--Can you build him in?--into your plans?"
The youth stared unintelligently. She laughed at him.
"My stars! you forgot to try!"
* * * * *
It was late at night when Lazarus Graves and Captain Champion, returning
from Pulaski City, where they had been hurrying matters into shape for
the prosecution of Leggett, rode down the Susie and Pussie Pike toward
Suez. Where the Widewood road forked off into the forest on their left
they stopped, having unexpectedly come upon a third rider bound the
other way. He seemed quite alone and stood by his horse in deep shade,
tightening the girth and readjusting blanket and saddle. Champion
laughed and predicted his own fate after death.
"Turn that freckled face o' yo's around here, Johnnie March; we ain't
Garnet and Pettigrew, an' th' ain't nothin' the matteh with that
saddle."
"Howdy, Cap'm," said John, as if too busy to look up.
"Howdy yo'seff! What new devilment you up to now? None? Oh, then we
didn't see nobody slide off fum behine that saddle an' slip into the
bushes. Who was it, John? Was it Johanna, so-called?"
"No, it was Leggett," said John.
"Oh, I reckon!" laughed the Captain.
"Come on," grumbled Graves, and they left him.
XXI.
MR. LEGGETT'S CHICKEN-PIE POLICY
THE youth whistled his charge out of the brush and moved on, sometimes
in the saddle with the mulatto mounted behind, sometimes, where the way
was steep, walking beside the tired horse. When both rode he had to bear
a continual stream of tobacco-scented whisperings poured into his ear.
"Mr. March, that crowd wouldn't do me this a-way if they knowed the
patri'tisms I feels to 'em. You see, it's they financialities incur the
late rise in Clairwateh County scrip. Yass, seh; which I catch the
fo'cas' o' they intentions in time to be infested in a good passle of it
myseff."
"So that now your school funds are all straight again?"
"Ezac'ly! all straight an' comp'ehensive. An' what shell we say then?
Shell we commit sin that grace may aboun'? Supposin' I has been too
trancadillious; I say jis' _supposin'_ I may have evince a rather too
wifely pretendencies; what does they care fo' that? No, seh, all they
wants is to git shet o' me."
"And do you think they're wrong?"
"Mr. March, I does! Thass right where they misses it. Why, they _needs_
me, seh! I got a new policy, Mr. March. I 'llowed to espound it las'
week on the flo' of the house, same day the guvneh veto that bill we
pass; yass, seh. The guvneh's too much like Gyarnit; he's faw the whole
hawg or none. Thass not my way; my visions is mo' perspectral an' mo'
clairer. Seh? Wha'd you say?"
"Oh, nothing," laughed John. "Only a shudder of disgust."
"Yass, seh. Well, it is disgusting ev'm to me. You see, I discerns all
these here New Dixie projeckin'. I behole how they all a-makin' they
sun'ry chicken-pies, which notinstanin' they all diff'ent, yit they all
alike, faw they all turnovers! Yass, seh, they all spreads hafe acrost
the dish an' then tu'n back. I has been entitle Slick an' Slippery
Leggett--an' yit what has I always espress myseff? Gen'le_men_, they
must be sufficiend plenty o' chicken-pie to go round. An', Mr. March, if
she don't _be_ round, she won't _go_ round. 'Tis true the scripter say,
To them what hath shell be givened, an' to them what hath not shell be
takened away that which seem like they hath; but the scripter's one
thing an' chicken-pie's anotheh."
"Listen," whispered John, stopping the horse; and when Mr. Leggett would
have begun again--"Oh, do shut your everlasting----"
"P-he-he-he-he!" tittered the mulatto under his breath. John started
again and Leggett resumed.
"Whew! I'm that thusty! Ain't you got no sawt o' pain-killeh about yo'
clo'es? Aw! Mr. March, mos' sholy you is got some. No gen'leman ain't
goin' to be out this time o' night 'ithout some sawt o'
corrective--Lawd! I wisht you had! Cayn't we stop som'er's an' git some?
Lawd! I wisht we could! I'm jest a-honin' faw some sawt o' wetness.
"But exhumin' my subjec', Mr. March, thass anotheh thing the scripters
evince--that ev'y man shall be judge' by his axe. Yass, seh, faw of
co'se ev'y man got his axe to grime. I got mine. You got yo's, ain't
you?--Well, o' co'se. I respec' you faw it! Yass, seh; but right there
the question arise, is it a public axe? An' if so, is it a good one? aw
is it a private axe? aw is it both? Of co'se, ef a man got a good public
axe to grime, he espec'--an' you espec' him--to bring his private axe
along an' git hit grime at the same junction. Thass natchiul. Thass all
right an' puffiely corrosive. On'y we must take tu'ns tunnin' the
grime-stone. You grime my axe, I grime yo's. How does that strack you,
Mr. March?"
John's reply was enthusiastic. "Why, it strikes me as positively
mephitic."
"Mr. March, thass what it is! Thass the ve'y word! Now, shell me an' you
fulfil the scripter--'The white man o' the mountains an' the Etheropium
o' the valleys shell jine they han's an' the po' man's axe shell be
grime'?' Ain't them words sweet? Ain't they jess pufficly syruptitious?
My country, 'tis of thee! Oh, Mr. March, ef you knowed how much
patri'tism I got!--You hear them Suez fellehs say this is a white man's
country an' cayn't eveh be a rich man's country till it is a white
man's----"
"See here, now; I tell you for the last time, if you value your life
you'd better make less noise."