cotton!--No, seh! White man ain't eveh goin' to lif hisseff up by
holdin' niggeh down, an' that's the pyo chaotic truth; now, ain't it?"
"Best way is to hang the nigger up."
"Aw, Mr. March, you a-jokin'! You know I espress the truth. Ef you wants
to make a rich country, you ain't got to make it a white man's country,
naw a black man's country, naw yit mix the races an' make it n yaller
man's country, much less a yaller woman's; no, seh! But the whole
effulgence is jess this: you got to make it a po' man's country! Now,
you accentuate yo' reflections on that, seh!--Seh?"
"I say that's exactly what Widewood is."
"No, seh! no, seh! I means a country what's good faw a po' man, an'
Widewood cayn't even be that 'ithout school-houses, seh! But thass what
me an' you can make it, Mr. March. Why, thass the hence an' the whence
that my constituents an' coefficients calls me School-house Leggett.
Some men cusses me that I has mix' the races in school. Well, supposin'
I has--a little; I'se mix' myseff. You cayn't neveh mix 'em hafe so fas'
in school as they mixes 'em out o' school. Yit thass not in the
accawdeons o' my new policy. Mr. March, I'm faw the specie o' schools we
kin git an' keep----"
John laughed again. "Oh, yes, you're sure to keep all the specie you
get."
Mr. Leggett giggled. "Aw! I means that _kine_ o' school. An' jiss now
that happ'm to be sep'ate schools. I neveh was hawgish like myfrien'
Gyarnit. Gyarnit's faw Rosemont an' State aid _toe_ Rosemont, an' faw
nothin' else an' nobody else, fus', las', an' everlastin'. Thass jess
why his projeckin' don't neveh eventuate, an' which it neveh will whilse
I'm there to _pre_ventuate! Whoever hear him say, 'Mr. School-house
Leggett, aw Mr. March, aw Mr. Anybody-in-God's-worl', pass yo' plate faw
a piece o' the chicken pie?' What! you heard it? Oh, Mr. March, don't
you be fool'! An' yit I favo's Rosemont----"
"Why, you've made it your standing threat to burst Rosemont wide open!"
"Yass, te-he! I has often prevaricate that intention. But Law'! that was
pyo gas, Mr. March. I favors Rosemont, an' State aid _toe_
Rosemont--perwidin'--enough o' the said thereof to go round, an' the
same size piece faw ev'y po' man's boy as faw ev'y rich man's boy. Of
co's with gals it's diff'ent. Mr. March, you don't know what a frien'
you been a-dislikin'!"
"They say you're in favor of railroads."
"Why, o' co'se! An' puttickly the Pussie an' Susie an' Great South
Railroad an' State mawgage bawns in accawdeons--perwidin!--one
school-house, som'er's in these-yeh th'ee counties, faw ev'y five mile'
o' road they buil; an' a Leggettstown braynch road, yass, seh. An', Mr.
March, yit, still, mo'over, perwiddin' the movin' the capital to Suez,
away fum the corrup' influence of Pulaski City. Faw, Mr. March, the
legislatu'e will neveh be pyo anywher's else esceptin' in Suez, an' not
evm myseff! Whew! I'm that thusty----"
XXII.
CLIMBING LOVER'S LEAP
The woods grew dense and pathless, and the whispering gave place to a
busy fending off of the strong undergrowth. Presently John tied the
horse, and the riders stepped into an open spot on a precipitous
mountain side. At their left a deep gorge sank so abruptly that a small
stone, casually displaced, went sliding and rattling beyond earshot. On
their right a wasted moon rose and stared at them over the mountain's
shoulder; while within hand's reach, a rocky cliff, bald on its crown,
stripped to the waist, and draped at its foot in foliage, towered in the
shadow of the vast hill.
"Why, good Lawd, Mr. March, this is Lover's Leap! We cayn't neveh climb
up here!"
"We've got to! D' you reckon I brought you here to look at it? Come on.
We've only got to reach that last cedar yonder by the dead pine."
The mulatto moaned, but they climbed. As they rose the black gorge
seemed to crawl under them and open its hungry jaws.
"Great Lawd! Mr. March, this is sut'n death! Leas'wise it is to me. I
cayn't go no fu'ther, Mr. March; I inglected to tell you I'se got a
pow'ful lame foot."
"Keep quiet," murmured John, "and come on. Only don't look down."
The reply was a gasp of horror. "Oh! mussy me, you spoke too late! Wait
jess a minute, Mr. March, I'll stan' up ag'in in a minute. I jess mus'
set here a minute an' enjoy the view; it's gr-gran'!
"Yass, seh. I'se a-comin', seh. I'll rise up in a few minutes; I'm sick
at my stomach, but it'll pass off if I kin jiss set still a shawt while
tell it passes off."
The speaker slowly rose, grabbling the face of the rock.
"Mr. March, wait a minute, I w-want to tell you. Is-is-is you w-waitin'?
Mr. March, this is pufficly safe and haza'dous, seh, I feels that, seh,
but I don't like this runnin' away an' hidin'! It's cowardly; le's go
down an' face the thing like men! I'm goin' to crawl down back 'ards;
thass the skilfullest way."
"Halt!" growled John, and something else added "tick-tick."
"Oh! Mr. March, faw God's sake! Ef you mus' shoot me, shoot me whah I
won't fall so fuh! Why, I was a-jokin'! I wa'n't a-dreamin' o' goin'
back! Heah I come, seh, look out! Oh, please put up that-ah
naysty-lookin' thing!--Thank you, seh!--Mr. March, escuse me jiss a
minute whilse I epitomize my breath a little, seh, I jess want to
recover my dizziness--This is fine, ain't it? Oh, Lawd! Mr. March,
escuse my sinkin' down this a-way! Oh, don't disfunnish yo'seff to come
back to me, seh; I's jiss faint and thusty. Mr. March, I ain't a-scared;
I'm jiss a-parishin' o' thust! Lawd! I'm jiss that bole an' rackless I'd
resk twenty lives faw jiss one hafe a finger o' pyo whiskey. I dunno
what'll happm to me ef I don't git some quick. I ain't had a drap sence
the night o' the ball, an' thass what make this-yeh flatulency o' the
heart. Oh! please don't tech me; ev'm ef you lif' me I cayn't stan'. Oh,
Lawd! the icy han' o' death is on me. I'll soon be in glory!"
"Glory!" answered an echo across the gorge.
John laughed. "We're nearly to the cave. If I have to carry you it 'll
double the danger."
"Oh, yass, seh! you go on, I'll jine you. I jis wants a few minutes to
myseff faw prayer."
"Cornelius," said the cautiously stooping youth, "I'm going to take you
where I said I would, if I have to carry you there in three pieces.
Here--wait--I'd better tote you on my back. Put your arms around my
neck. Now give me your legs. That's it. Now, hold firm; one false step
and over we go."
He slowly picked his way. Once he stopped, while a stone which had
crumbled from under his tread went crashing through the bushes and into
the yawning gulf. The footing was terribly narrow for several rods, but
at length it widened. He crouched again. "Now, get off; the rest is only
some steep climbing in the bushes."
"Mr. March, I ain't eveh goin' to git down to God's blessed level groun'
ag'in!"
"Think not? You'll be there in five seconds if you take hold of any dead
wood. Come on."
They climbed again, hugged the cliff while they took breath, climbed
once more, forebore to look down, and soon, crowding into what had
seemed but a shallow cleft, were stooping under the low roof of a small
cavern. Its close rocky bounds and tumbled floor sparkled here and there
in the light of the matches John struck. From their pockets the pair
laid out a scant store of food.
"Now I must go," said John. "I'll come again to-morrow night. You're
safe here. You may find a snake or two, but you don't mind that, do
you?"
"Me? Law, no! not real ones. Di'mon'-back rattlesnake hisself cayn't no
mo' scare me 'n if I was a hawg. Good-by, seh."
How the heavy-eyed youth the next day finished his examinations he
scarcely knew himself, but he hoped he had somehow passed. He could not
slip away from Rosemont until after bedtime, and the night was half gone
when he reached the cliff under Lover's Leap. A light rain increased the
risk of the climb, but he reached the cave in safety only to find it
deserted. On his way down he discovered ample signs that the promiscuous
lover, an hour or two before, had slowly, safely, and in the
"skilfullest way" reached the arms of his most dangerous but dearest
love; "cooned it every step," John said, talking to his horse as they
trudged back toward Rosemont. "What the rattle-snakes couldn't do," he
added, "the bottle-snake has done."
Mr. Leggett's perils might not be over, but out of the youth's hands
meant off his indulgent conscience, and John returned to his slighted
books, quickened in all his wilful young blood by the knowledge that a
single night of adventurous magnanimity had made him henceforth master
of himself, his own purposes, and his own mistakes.
XXIII.
A SUMMONS FOR THE JUDGE
Baccalaureate Sunday. It was hot, even for Suez. The river seemed to
shine with heat. Yet every convenient horse-rack was crowded with
horses, more than half of them under side-saddles, and in the square
neighing steeds, tied to swinging limbs because too emotionally noble to
share their privileges with anything they could kick, pawed, wheeled,
and gazed after their vanished riders as if to say, "'Pon my word, if he
hasn't gone to _church_."
The church, Parson Tombs's, was packed. Men were not few, yet the pews
and the aisles, choked with chairs from end to end, were one yeast of
muslins, lawns, and organdies, while everywhere the fans pulsed and
danced a hundred measures at once in fascinating confusion.
In the amen pews on the right sat all Montrose; facing them, on the
left, sat all Rosemont, except the principal; Garnet was with the pastor
in the pulpit. The Governor of Dixie was present; the first one they of
the old _regime_ had actually gotten into the gubernatorial chair since
the darkies had begun to vote. Two members of the Governor's staff sat
in a front pew in uniform; blue!
"See that second man on the left?" whispered Captain Shotwell to an old
army friend from Charleston; "that handsome felleh with the wavy auburn
hair, soft mustache, and big, sawt o' pawnderin' eyes?"
"What! that the Governor? He can't be over thirty or thirty-one!"
"Governor, no! _he_ wouldn't take the governorship; that's Jeff-Jack
Ravenel, editor of the _Courier_, a-ablest man in Dixie. No, that's the
Governor next to him."
"That old toad? Why, he's a moral hulk; look at his nose!"
"Yes, it's a pity, but we done the best we could--had to keep the
alignment, you know. His brother leases and sublets convicts, five
stockades of 'em, and ought to be one himself.
"These girls inside the altar-rail, they're the academy chorus. That
one? Oh, that's Halliday's daughter. Yass, beautiful, but you should 'a'
seen her three years ago. No use talkin', seh--I wouldn't say so to a
Yankee, but--ow climate's hard on beauty. Teach in the acad'? Oh! no,
seh, she jus' sings with 'em. Magnificent voice. Some Yankees here last
week allowed they'd ruther hear her than Adelina Patti--in some sawngs.
"She's an awful man-killeh; repo'ted engaged to five fellehs at once,
Jeff-Jack included. I don't know whether it's true or not, but you know
how ow Dixie gyirls ah, seh. An' yet, seh, when they marry, as they all
do, where'll you find mo' devoted wives? This ain't the lan' o'
divo'ces, seh; this is the lan' o' loose engagements an' tight
marriages.
"D' you see that gyirl in the second row of Montroses, soft eyes, sawt
o' deep-down roguish, round, straight neck, head set so nice on it?
That's Gyarnet's daughteh. That gyirl's not as old as she looks, by
three years."
He ceased. The chorus under the high pulpit stood up, sang, and sat
again. Parson Tombs, above them, rose with extended arms, and the
services had begun. The chorus stood again, and the church choir faced
them from the gallery and sang with them antiphonally, to the spiritual
discomfort of many who counted it the latest agony of modernness. In the
long prayer the diversity of sects and fashions showed forth; but a
majority tried hard not to resent any posture different from their own,
although Miss Martha Salter and many others who buried their faces in
their own seats, knew that Mr. Ravenel's eyes were counting the cracks
in the plastering.
Barbara knelt forward--the Montrose mode. She heard Parson Tombs confess
the Job-like loathsomeness of everyone present; but his long-familiar,
chanting monotones fainted and died in the portals of her ears like a
nurse's song, while her sinking eyelids shut not out, but in, one
tallish Rosemont senior who had risen in prayer visibly heavy with the
sleep he had robbed from three successive nights. The chirp of a lone
cricket somewhere under the floor led her forth in a half dream beyond
the town and the gleaming turnpike, across wide fields whose
multitudinous, tiny life rasped and buzzed under the vibrant heat; and
so on to Rosemont, dear Rosemont, and the rose mother there.
Her fan stops. An unearthly sweetness, an unconditioned bliss, a
heavenly disembodiment too perfect for ecstasy, an oblivion surcharged
with light, a blessed rarefaction of self that fills the house, the air,
the sky, and ascends full of sweet odors and soothing sounds, wafts her
up on the cadenced lullaby of the long, long prayer. Is it finished? No.
"Oh, quicken our drowsy powers!" she hears the pastor cry on a rising
wave of monotone, and starts the fan again. Is she in church or in
Rosemont? She sees Johanna beckoning in her old, cajoling way, asking,
as in fact, not fancy, she had done the evening before, for the latest
news of Cornelius, and hearing with pious thankfulness that Leggett has
reappeared in his official seat, made a speech that filled the house
with laughter and applause, put parties into a better humor with each
other than they had been for years, and remains, and, for the present,
will remain, unmolested.
Still Parson Tombs is praying. The fan waggles briskly, then more
slowly--slowly--slowly, and sinks to rest on her white-robed bosom. The
head, heavy with luminous brown hair, careens gently upon one cheek;
that ineffably sweet dissolution into all nature and space comes again,
and far up among the dream-clouds, just as she is about to recognize
certain happy faces, there is a rush of sound, a flood of consternation,
a start, a tumbling in of consciousness, the five senses leap to their
stations, and she sits upright fluttering her fan and glancing round
upon the seated congregation. The pastor has said amen.
Garnet spoke extemporaneously. The majority, who did not know every line
of the sermon was written and memorized, marvelled at its facility, and
even some who knew admitted it was wonderful for fervor, rhetorical
richness and the skill with which it "voiced the times" without so much
as touching those matters which Dixie, Rosemont's Dixie, did not want
touched. Parson Tombs and others moaned "Amen," "Glory," "Thaynk Gawd,"
etc., after every great period. Only General Halliday said to his
daughter, "He's out of focus again; claiming an exclusive freedom for
his own set."
The text was, "But I was born free."
Paul, the speaker said, was as profound a believer in law as in faith.
Jealous for every right of his citizenship, he might humble himself, but
he never lightly allowed himself to be humbled. Law is essential to
every civil order, but the very laying of it upon a man makes it his
title-deed to a freedom without which obedience is not obedience, nor
citizenship citizenship. No man is entirely free to fill out the full
round of his whole manhood who is not in some genuine, generous way an
author of the laws he obeys. "At this sacred desk and on this holy day I
thank God that Dixie's noble sons and daughters are at last, after great
tribulations, freer from laws and government not of their own choice
than ever before since war furled its torn and blood-drenched banner! We
have taught the world--and it's worth the tribulation to have taught the
world--under God, that a people born with freedom in the blood cannot be
forced even to do right! 'What you order me to do, alien lawmaker, may
be right, but I was born free!' My first duty to God is to be free, and
no freedom is freedom till it is purged of all indignity!
"But mark the limitation! Freemen are not made in a day! It was to a man
who had bought his freedom that Paul boasted a sort that could not be
bought! God's word for it, it takes at least two generations to make
true freemen; fathers to buy the freedom and sons and daughters to be
born into it! Wherefore let every one to whom race and inheritance have
given beauty or talent, and to whom the divine ordering of fortune and
social rank has added quality and scholarship, hold it the first of
civic virtues to reply to every mandate of law or fate, Law is law, and
right is right, but, first of all, I was born free, and, please God,
I'll die so!
"Gentlemen of the graduating class:"
Nine trim, gray jackets rose, and John March was the tallest. The
speaker proceeded, but he had not spoken many words before he saw the
attention of his hearers was gone. A few smiled behind their hands or
bit their lips; men kept a frowning show of listening to the address;
women's faces exchanged looks of pity, and John turned red to his
collar. For, just behind the Governor, the noble head and feeble frame
of Judge March had risen unconsciously when his son rose, and now stood
among the seated multitude, gazing on the speaker and drinking in his
words with a sweet, glad face. The address went on, but no one heard it.
Nor did any one move to disturb the standing figure; all Suez, nay, the
very girls of Montrose knew that he who seemed to stand there with
trembling knees and wabbling hands was in truth not there, but was
swallowed up and lost in yonder boy.
Garnet was vexed. He shortened the address, and its last, eloquent
sentence was already begun when Ravenel rose and through room swiftly
made for him stepped back to Judge March. He was just in time to get an
arm under his head and shoulders as he sank limply into the pew, looking
up with a smile and trying to say nothing was wrong and to attend again
to the speaker. Garnet's hearers were overcome, but the effect was not
his. Their gaze was on the fallen man; and when General Halliday cleared
his sight with an agitated handkerchief, and one by one from the son's
wide open eyes, the hot, salt tears slipped down to the twitching
corners of his mouth, and the aged pastor's voice trembled in a hurried
benediction, women sobbed and few eyes were dry.
"Father," said John, "can you hear me? Do you know me?"
A glad light overspread the face for reply. But after it came a shadow,
and Doctor Coffin said, softly,
"He's trying to ask something."
Fannie Halliday sat fanning the patient. She glanced up to Garnet just
at John's back and murmured,
"He probably wants to know if----"
John turned an eager glance to his principal, and Garnet nodded "Yes."
"Father," cried John, "I've passed! I've passed, father; I've passed! Do
you hear, dear father?"
The Major touched the bending youth and murmured something more. John
turned back upon him a stare of incredulity, but Garnet smiled kindly
and said aloud,
"I tell you yes; it will be announced to-morrow."
"Father," cried John, stooping close to the wandering eyes, "can you see
me? I'm John! I'm son! Can you hear me, father? Father, I've got first
honors--first honors, father! Oh, father, look into my eyes; it will be
a sign that you hear me. Father, listen, look; I'm going to be a better
son--to you and to mother--Oh, he hears me! He understands--" The
physician drew him away.
They carried the sick man to the nearest house. Late in the afternoon
Tom Hersey and two or three others were talking together near the
post-office.
"Now, f'r instance, what right had he to give that boy first honors! As
sho's you're a foot high, that's a piece o' pyo log-rollin'."--Doctor
Coffin came by.--"Doctor, I understand Mrs. March has arrived. I hope
the Jedge is betteh, seh.--What?--Why--why, you supprise--why, I'm
mighty sorry to heah that, seh.--Gentlemen, Jedge March is dead."
XXIV.
THE GOLDEN SPIKE
About a week beyond the middle of June, 1878, when John March had been
something like a year out of Rosemont and nine months a teacher of
mountain lads and lasses at Widewood, Barbara finished at Montrose. She
did not read her graduation essay. Its subject was Time. Its spelling
was correct, and it was duly rosetted and streamered, but it was
regretfully suppressed because its pages were mainly given to joyous
emphasis of the advantages of wasting the hours. Miss Garnet had not
been a breaker of rules; yet when she waved farewell and the younger
Miss Kinsington turned back indoors saying,
"Dearest, best girl!" the sister added, affectionately--
"That we ever got rid of."
On a day near the middle of the following month there began almost at
dawn to be a great stir in and about Suez. The sun came up over Widewood
with a shout, hallooing to Rosemont a promise for all Dixie of the most
ripening hours, thus far, of the year, and woods, fields, orchards,
streams, answered with a morning incense. Johanna stood whispering
loudly at Barbara's bedside:
"Week up, honey; sun high an' scoldin'! jess a-fuss-in' an' a-scoldin'!"
One dark hand lifted back the white mosquito-net while the other
tendered a cup of coffee.
Barbara winked, scowled, laid her wrists on the maid's shoulders and
smiled into her black face. Johanna put away a brown wave of hair. "Come
on, missie, dat-ah young Yankee gen'leman frien' up an' out."
Barbara bit her lip in mock dismay. "Has he de-part-ed?" She had a droll
liking for long words, and often deployed their syllables as skirmishers
in the rear for her sentences.
Johanna tittered. "Humph! you know mawnstus well he ain't gone. Miss
Barb, dass de onyess maan I even see wear a baang. Wha' fuh he do dat?"
"I must ask him," said Barbara, sipping her coffee. "It's probably in
fulfillment of a vow."
The maid tittered again. "You cay n't ast as much as he kin. But dass my
notice 'twix Yankees an' ow folks; Dixie man say, Fine daay, seh! Yankee
say, You think it a-gwine fo' to raain? Dixie man--Oh, no, seh! hit jiss
cayn't rain to-day, seh! Den if it jiss po' down Yankee say, Don't
dis-yeh look somepm like raain? An' Dixie man--Yass, seh, hit do; hit
look like raain, but Law'! hit ain't raain. You Yankees cayn't un'stan'
ow Southe'n weatheh, seh!"
Only Johanna laughed. Presently Barbara asked, "Have you seen pop-a?"
"Yo' paw? Oh, yass'm, he in de wes' grove, oveh whah we 'llowin' to
buil' de new dawmontory. He jiss a-po'in' info'mations into de Yankee."
Barbara laughed this time--at the Yankee--and Johanna mimicked: "Mr.
Fair, yo' come to see a beautiful an' thrivin' town, seh. Suez is
change' dat much yo' fatheh wouldn' know it ag'in!"
"Pop-a's right about that, Johanna."
"Oh, yass'm." Johanna was rebuked; but Barbara smiled. By and by--"Miss
Barb, kin I ax you a favo'?--Yass'm. Make yo' paw put me som'ers in de
crowd to-day whah I ken see you when you draps de hammeh on de golden
spike--Law'! dass de dress o' dresses! You looks highly fitt'n' to eat!"
Young Fair had come to see the last spike driven in the Pulaski City,
Suez and Great South Railroad.
At breakfast Mrs. Garnet poured the coffee. Garnet told the New
Englander much about New England, touching extenuatingly on the blueness
of its laws, the decay of its religion, and the inevitable decline of
its industries. The visitor, with only an occasional "Don't you think,
however"--seemed edified. It pleased Barbara to see how often,
nevertheless, his eye wandered from the speaker to the head of the board
to rest on one so lovely it scarce signified that she was pale and
wasted; one whose genial dignity perfected the firmness with which she
declined her daughter's offer to take her place and task, and smiled her
down while Johanna smoothed away a grin.
The hour of nine struck. Fair looked startled. "Were we not to have
joined Mr. Ravenel's party in Suez by this time?"
"Yes, but there's no hurry. Still, we'll start. Johanna, get your
lunch-baskets. Sorry you don't meet Mr. March, sir; he's a trifle
younger than you, but you'd like him. I asked him to go with us, but his
mother--why, wa'n't that all right, Barb?"
"Oh, it wasn't wrong." Barbara smiled to her mother. "It was only
useless; he always declines if I don't. We're very slightly acquainted.
I hope that accounts for it." She arched her brows.