luncheon were being stowed he said something so graceful about Mrs.
Garnet that Barbara looked into his face with delight and the Major had
to speak his name twice befor he heard it.--"Ready? Yes, quite so. Shall
I sit--oh! pardon; yes--in front, certainly."
The Major drove. The young guest would gladly have talked with Barbara
as she sat back of him and behind her father; but Garnet held his
attention. Crossing Turkey Creek battle-ground----
"Just look at those oats! See that wheat! Cotton, ah, but you ought to
see the cotton down in Blackland!"
When the pike was dusty and the horses walked they were frequently
overtaken and passed by cavalcades of lank, hard-faced men in dingy
homespun, and cadaverous women with snuff-sticks and slouched
sun-bonnets. Major Garnet bowed to them.
"Those are our Sandstone County mountaineers; our yeomanry, sir. Suez
holds these three counties in a sort o' triple alliance. You make a
great mistake, sir, to go off to-morrow without seeing the Widewood
district. You've seen the Alps, and I'd just like to hear you say which
of the two is the finer. There's enough mineral wealth in Widewood alone
to make Suez a Pittsburg, and water-power enough to make her a
Minneapolis, and we're going to make her both, sir!" The monologue
became an avalanche of coal, red hematite, marble, mica, manganese, tar,
timber, turpentine, lumber, lead, ochre, and barytes, with signs of
silver, gold, and diamonds.
"Don't you think, however----"
"No, sir! no-o-o! far from it----"
A stifled laugh came from where Johanna's face darkened the corner it
occupied. Barbara looked, but the maid seemed lost in sad reverie.
"Barb, yonder's where Jeff-Jack and I stopped to dine on blackberries
the day we got home from the war. Now, there's the railroad cut on the
far side of it. There, you see, Mr. Fair, the road skirts the creek
westward and then northwestward again, leaving Rosemont a mile to the
northeast. See that house, Barb, about half a mile beyond the railroad?
There's where the man found his plumbago." The speaker laughed and told
the story. The discoverer had stolen off by night, got an expert to come
and examine it, and would tell the result only to one friend, and in a
whisper. "'You haven't got much plumbago,' the expert had said, 'but
you've got dead oodles of silica.' You know, Barb, silica's nothing but
flint, ha-ha!"
Fair smiled. In his fortnight's travel through the New Dixie plumbago
was the only mineral on which he had not heard the story based.
A military horseman overtook the carriage and slackened to a fox-trot at
Garnet's side. "Captain Champion, let me make you acquainted with Mr.
Fair. Mr. Fair and his father have put money into our New Dixie, and
he's just going around to see where he can put in more. I tell him he
can't go amiss. All we want in Dixie is capital."
"Mr. Fair doesn't think so," said Barbara, with great sweetness.
"Ah! I merely asked whether capital doesn't seek its own level. Mustn't
its absence be always because of some deeper necessity?"
Champion stood on his guard. "Why, I don't know why capital shouldn't be
the fundamental need, seh, of a country that's been impoverished by a
great waugh!"
Barbara exulted, but Garnet was for peace. "I suppose you'll find Suez
swarming with men, women, and horses."
"Yes," said Champion--Fair was speaking to Barbara--"to say nothing of
yahoos, centaurs, and niggehs." The Major's abundant laugh flattered
him; he promised to join the party at luncheon, lifted his plumed shako,
and galloped away. Garnet drove into the edge of the town at a trot.
"Here's where the reservoir's to be," he said, and spun down the slope
into the shaded avenue, and so to the town's centre.
"Laws-a-me! Miss Barb," whispered Johanna, "but dis-yeh town is change'!
New hotel! brick! th'ee sto'ies high!" Barbara touched her for silence.
"But look at de new sto'es!" murmured the girl. Negroes--the men in
dirty dusters, the women in smart calicoes, girls in dowdy muslins and
boy's hats--and mountain whites, coatless men, shoeless women--hung
about the counters dawdling away their small change.
"Colored and white treated precisely alike, you notice," said Garnet,
and Barbara suppressed a faint grunt from Johanna.
Trade had spread into side-streets. Drinking-houses were gayly bedight
and busy.
"That's the new _Courier_ building."
The main crowd had gone down to the railway tracks, and it was
midsummer, yet you could see and feel the town's youth.
"Why, the nig--colored people have built themselves a six-hundred dollar
church; we white folks helped them," said Garnet, who had given fifty
cents. "See that new sidewalk? Our chain-gang did that, sir; made the
bricks and laid the pavement."
The court-house was newly painted. Only Hotel Swanee and the two white
churches remained untouched, sleeping on in green shade and sweet age.
The Garnet's wheels bickered down the town's southern edge and out upon
a low slope of yellow, deep-gullied sand and clay that scarce kept on a
few weeds to hide its nakedness while gathering old duds and tins.
"Yonder are the people, and here, sir," Garnet pointed to where the
green Swanee lay sweltering like the Nile, "is the stream that makes the
tears trickle in every true Southerner's heart when he hears its song."
"Still 'Always longing for the old plantation?'" asked the youth.
"Yes," said Barbara, defiantly.
The carriage stopped; half a dozen black ragamuffins rushed up offering
to take it in charge, and its occupants presently stood among the people
of three counties. For Blackland, Clearwater, and Sandstone had gathered
here a hundred or two of their gentlest under two long sheds on either
side of the track, and the sturdier multitude under green booths or out
in the sunlight about yonder dazzling gun, to hail the screaming herald
of a new destiny; a destiny that openly promised only wealth, yet
freighted with profounder changes; changes which, ban or delay them as
they might, would still be destiny at last.
Entering a shed Barbara laughed with delight.
"Fannie!"
"Barb!" cried Fannie. A volley of salutations followed: "Good-morning,
Major"--"Why, howdy, Doctor.--Howdy, Jeff-Jack.--Shotwell, how are you?
Let me make you acquainted with Mr. Fair. Mr. Fair, Captain Shotwell.
Mr. Fair and his father, Captain, have put some money into our"--A tall,
sallow, youngish man touched the speaker's elbow--"Why, _hel_-lo,
Proudfit! Colonel Proudfit, let me make you," etc.--"I hope you
brought--why, Sister Proudfit, I decl'--aha, ha, ha!--You know Barb?"
General Halliday said, "John Wesley, how goes it?"
Garnet sobered. "Good-morning, Launcelot. Mr. Fair, let me make you
acquainted with General Halliday. You mustn't believe all he says--ha,
ha, ha! Still, when a radical does speak well of us you may know it's
so! Launcelot, Mr. Fair and his father have put some money"--Half a
dozen voices said "Sh-sh!"
"Ladies and gentle_men_!" cried Captain Shotwell. "The first haalf--the
fro'--the front haalf of the traain--of the expected traain--is full of
people from Pulaaski City! The ster'--the rear haalf is reserved faw the
one hundred holdehs of these red tickets." (Applause.) "Ayfter the
shor'--brief puffawn'--cerem'--exercises, the traain, bein' filled, will
run up to Pulaaski City, leave that section of which, aw toe which, aw
at least in which, that is, belonging toe--I mean the people containing
the Pulaaski City section (laughter and applause)--or rather the section
contained by the Pu--(deafening laughter)--I should saay the city
containing the Pulaas'--(roars of laughter)--Well, gentlemen, if you
know what I want to say betteh than I do, jest say it yo'se'ves an'----"
His face was red and he added something unintelligible about them all
going to a terminus not on that road, while Captain Champion, coming to
his rescue, proclaimed that the Suez section would be brought back,
"expectin' to arrive hyeh an hou' by sun. An' now, ladies and
gentle_men_, I propose three cheers faw that gallant an' accomplished
gentleman, Cap'm Shotwell--hip-hip--'" And the company gave them, with a
tiger.
At that moment, faint and far, the whistle sounded. The great outer
crowd ran together, all looking one way. Again it sounded, nearer; and
then again, near and loud. The multitude huzzaed; the bell clanged; gay
with flags the train came thundering in; out in the blazing sunlight
Captain Champion, with sword unsheathed, cried "Fire!" The gun flashed
and crashed, the earth shook, the people's long shout went up, the
sax-horns sang "Way Down upon the Swanee River"--and the tears of a true
Southerner leaped into Barbara's eyes. She turned and caught young Fair
smiling at it all, and most of all at her, yet in a way that earned her
own smile.
The speeches were short and stirring. When Ravenel began--"Friends and
fellow-citizens, this is our Susie's wedding," the people could hardly
be done cheering. Then Barbara, by him led forth and followed by
Johanna's eager eyes, gave the spike its first wavering tap, the
president of the road drove it home, and "Susie" was bound in wedlock to
the Age. Married for money, some might say. Yet married, bound--despite
all incompatibilities--to be shaped--if not at once by choice, then at
last by merciless necessity--to all that Age's lines and standards, to
walk wherever it should lead, partner in all its vicissitudes, pains and
fates.
The train moved. Mr. Fair sat with Barbara. Major Grant secured a seat
beside Sister Proudfit--"aha--ha-ha!"--"t-he-he-he-he!" Fannie gave
Shotwell the place beside her, and so on. Even Johanna, by taking a
child in her lap, got a seat. But Ravenel and Colonel Proudfit had to
stand up beside Fannie and Barbara. Thus it fell out that when everyone
laughed at a moonshiner's upsetting on a pile of loose telegraph poles,
Ravenel, looking out from over the swarm of heads, saw something which
moved him to pull the bell-cord.
"Two people wanting to get on," said Shotwell, as Ravenel went to the
coach's rear platform. "They in a buggy. Now they out. Here they--Law',
Miss Fannie, who you reckon it is? Guess! You _cayn't_, miss!"
Barbara, with studied indifference, asked Fair the time of day.
"There," said Shotwell, "they've gone into the cah behind us."
"Sister March and her son," observed Garnet to Mrs. Proudfit and the
train moved on.
XXV.
BY RAIL
Everybody felt playful and nearly everybody coquettish. When Sister
Proudfit, in response to some sly gallantry of Garnet's used upon him a
pair of black eyes, he gave her the whole wealth of his own. He must
have overdone the matter, for the next moment he found Fannie's eyes
levelled directly on him. She withdrew them with a casual remark to
Barbara, yet not till they had said to him, in solemn silence:
"You villain, that time I saw you!"
Mrs. March had pushed cheerily into the rear Suez coach. Away from home
and its satieties no one could be more easily or thoroughly pleased. Her
son said the forward coach was better, but in there she had sighted
Fannie and Barbara, and so----
"There's more room in here," she insisted with sweet buoyancy.
Hamlet Graves rose. "Here, Cousin Daphne!" His brother Lazarus stood up
with him.
"Here, John, your maw'll feel better if you're a-sett'n' by her."
But she urged the seat, with coy temerity, upon Mr. Ravenel.
"How well she looks in mourning," remarked two Blackland County ladies.
"Yes, she's pretty yet; what a lovely smile."
"Don't go 'way," she exclaimed, with hostile alarm, as John turned
toward the coach's front. He said he would not, and chose a
standing-place where he could watch a corner of Fannie's distant hat.
"You won't see many fellows of age staying with their mothers by choice
instead o' running off after the girls," commented one of the Blackland
matrons, and the other replied:
"They haven't all got such mothers!"
Mrs. March was enjoying herself. "But, Mr. Ravenel," she said, putting
off part of her exhilaration, "you've really no right to be a bachelor."
She smiled aslant.
"My dear lady," he murmured, "people who live in gla----"
She started and tried to look sour, but grew sweeter. He became more
grave. "You're still young," he said, paused, and then--"You're a true
Daphne, but you haven't gone all to laurel yet. I wish--I wish I could
feel half as young as you look; I might hope"--he hushed, sighed, and
nerved himself.
"Why, Mr. Ravenel!" She glanced down with a winsome smile. "I'm at least
old enough to--to stay as I am if I choose?"
"Possibly. But you needn't if you don't choose." He folded his arms as
if to keep them from doing something rash.
Mrs. March bit her lip. "I can't imagine who would ever"--she bit it
again. "Mr. Ravenel, do you remember those lines of mine--
"'O we women are so blind'"?
"Yes. But don't call me Mr. Ravenel."
"Why, why not?"
"It sounds so cold." He shuddered.
"It isn't meant so. It's not in my nature to be cold. It's you who are
cold." She hushed as abruptly as a locust. A large man, wet with the
heat, stood saluting. Mr. Ravenel rose and introduced Mr. Gamble,
president of the road, a palpable, rank Westerner; whereupon it was she
who was cold. Mr. Gamble praised the "panorama gliding by."
"Yes." She glanced out over the wide, hot, veering landscape that rose
and sank in green and yellow slopes of corn, cotton, and wheat. The
president fanned his soaking shirt-collar and Mrs. March with a
palm-leaf fan.
"Mercury ninety-nine in Pulaski City," he said to Ravenel, and showed a
telegram. Mr. Ravenel began to ask if he might introduce----
"Mr. March! Well, you _have_ changed since the day you took Major Garnet
and Mr. Fair and I to see that view in the mountains! If anybody'd
a-told me that I'd ever be president of--Thanks, no sir." He wouldn't
sit. He'd just been sitting and talking, he said, "with the two
beauties, Miss Halliday and Miss Garnet." Didn't Mrs. March think them
such?
She confessed they looked strong and well, and sighed an unresentful
envy.
"Yes," said he, "they do, and I wouldn't give two cents on the dollar
for such as don't."
Mrs. March smiled dyingly on John, and said she feared her son wouldn't
either. John looked distressed and then laughed; but the president
declared her the picture of robust health. This did not seem to please
her entirely, and so he added,
"You've got to be, to write good poetry. It must be lots of fun, Mrs.
March, to dash off a rhyme just to while away the time--ha, ha, ha! My
wife often writes poetry when she feels tired and lazy. I know that
whirling this way through this beautiful country is inspiring you right
now to write half a dozen poems. I'd like to see you on one of those
lovely hillsides in fine frenzy rolling"--He said he meant her eye.
The poetess blushed. A whimper of laughter came from somewhere, but one
man put his head quickly out of a window, and another stooped for
something very hard to pick up, while John explained that crowds and
dust were no inspiration to his mother, who was here to-day purely for
his sake. She sat in limp revery with that faint shade on her face which
her son believed meant patience. He and the president moved a reverent
step aside.
"I hear," said Gamble, in a business undertone, "that your school's a
success."
"Not financially," replied John, gazing into the forward coach.
"Mr. March, why don't you colonize your lands? You can do it, now the
railroad's here."
"I would, sir, if I had the capital."
"Form a company! They furnish the money, you furnish the land. How'd I
build this road? I hadn't either money or lands. Why, if your lands were
out West"----the speaker turned to an eavesdropper, saying sweetly,
"This conversation is private, sir," but with a look as if he would
swallow him without sauce or salt, John mused. "My mother has such a
dislike,"--he hesitated.
"I know," the president smiled, "the ladies are all that way. If a
thing's theirs it just makes 'em sick to see anybody else make anything
out of it. I speak from experience. They'll die poor, keeping property
enough idle to make a dozen men rich. What's a man to do? Now, you"--a
long pause, eye to eye--"your lands won't colonize themselves."
"Of course not," mused John.
The president showed two cigars. "Would you like to go to the
smoking-car?"
March glanced toward his mother. She was looking at her two kinsmen with
such sweet sprightliness that he had trouble to make her see his
uplifted cigar. She met his parting smile with a gleam of terror and
distrust, but he shook his head and reddened as Hamlet winked at
Lazarus.
"It means some girl," observed one of the Blackland matrons.
"Well, I hope it does," responded the other.
"Wait," said the giver of the cigar, "we're stopping for wood and water.
It'll be safer to go round this front coach than through it." John
thought it would not, but yielded.
"Now, Mr. March," they stood near the water-tank--"if you could persuade
your mother to give you full control, and let you get a few strong men
to go in with you--see? They could make you--well--secretary!--with a
salary; for, of course, you'd have to go into the thing, hot, yourself.
You'd have to push like smoke!"
"Of course," said John, squaring his handsome figure; as if he always
went in hot, and as if smoke was the very thing he had pushed like, for
years.
"I shouldn't wonder if you and I"--Gamble began again, but the train
started, they took the smoker and found themselves with Halliday,
Shotwell, Proudfit, and a huge Englishman, round whom the other three
were laughing.
XXVI.
JOHN INSULTS THE BRITISH FLAG
The Briton had seen, on the far edge of Suez, as they were leaving the
town, a large building.
"A nahsty brick thing on top a dirty yellow hill," he said; what was it?
"That?" said Shotwell, "that's faw ow colo'ed youth o' both sexes.
That's Suez University."
"Univer--what bloody nonsense!"
All but March ha-haed. "We didn't name it!" laughed the Captain.
John became aware that some one in a remote seat had bowed to him. He
looked, and the salute came again, unctuous and obsequious. He coldly
responded and frowned, for the men he was with had seen it.
Proudfit touched the Briton. "In the last seat behind you you'll see the
University's spawnsor; that's Leggett, the most dangerous demagogue in
Dixie."
"Is that your worst?" said the Englishman; "ye should know some of
ours!"
"O, yes, seh," exclaimed Shotwell, "of co'se ev'y country's got 'em bad
enough. But here, seh, we've not on'y the dabkey's natu'al-bawn
rascality to deal with, but they natu'l-bawn stupidity to boot. Evm
Gen'l Halliday'll tell you that, seh."
"Yes," said the General, with superior cheerfulness, "though sometimes
the honors are easy."
"O, I allow we don't always outwit 'em"--everybody laughed--"but
sometimes we just haf to."
"To save out-shooting them," suggested the General.
"O, I hope we about done with that."
"But you're not sure," came the quick retort.
"No, seh," replied the sturdy Captain, "we're not shore. It rests with
them." He smoked.
"Go on, Shot," said the General, "you were going to give an instance."
"Yes, seh. Take Leggett, in the case o' this so-called University."
"That's hardly a good example," remarked Proudfit, who, for Dixie's and
Susie's sake, regretted that Shotwell was talking so much and he so
little.
"Let him alone," said Halliday, thoroughly pleased, and Shotwell went on
stoutly.
"The concern was started by Leggett an' his gang--excuse my careless
terms, Gen'l--as the public high-school. They made it ve'y odious to ow
people by throwin' it wide open to both raaces instead o' havin' a'
sep'ate one faw whites. So of co'se none but dahkeys went to it, an'
they jest filled it jam up."
"What did the whites do?" asked the Briton.
"Why, what _could_ they do, seh? You know how ow people ah. That's right
where the infernal outrage come in. Such as couldn't affode to go to
Rosemont aw Montrose jest had to stay at home!" The speaker looked at
John, who colored and bit his cigar.
"So as soon as ow crowd got control of affairs we'd a shut the thing up,
on'y faw Jeff-Jack. Some Yankee missiona'y teachers come to him an'
offe'd to make it a college an' spend ten thousand dollahs on it if the
State would on'y go on givin' it hafe o' the three counties' annual
high-school funds."
The Englishman frowned perplexedly and Proudfit put in--
"That is, three thousand a year from our three counties' share of the
scrip on public lands granted Dixie by the Federal Government."
"Expressly for the support of public schools," said General Halliday,
and March listened closer than the foreigner, for these facts were
newest to John.
"Still," said March, "the State furnishes the main support of public
education."
"No," responded Shotwell, "you're wrong there, John; we changed that.
The main suppote o' the schools is left to the counties an' townships."
"That's stupid, all round," promptly spoke the Briton.
"I thought," exclaimed John, resentfully, "we'd changed our State
constitution so's to forbid the levy of any school tax by a county or
township except on special permission of the legislature."
"So you have," laughed the General.
"The devil!" exclaimed the Englishman.
"O, we had to do that," interposed Proudfit again, and Gamble testified,
"You see, it's the property-holder's only protection."
"Then Heaven help his children's children," observed the traveler. John
showed open disgust, but the General touched him and said, "Go on,
Shotwell."
"Well, seh, we didn't like the missiona'y's proposition. We consid'ed it
fah betteh to transfeh oveh that three thousan' a year to Rosemont,
entire; which we did so. Pub--? No, seh, Rosemont's not public, but it
really rep'esents ow people, which, o' co'se, the otheh don't."
"Public funds to a private concern," quietly commented the
Englishman--"that's a steal." John March's blood began to boil.
"O," cried Shot well--"ow people--who pay the taxes--infinitely rather
Rosemont should have it."
"I see," responded the Briton, in such a tone that John itched to kick
him.
"Well, seh," persisted the narrator, "you should 'a' heard Leggett howl
faw a divvy!" All smiled. "Worst of it was--what? Wha'd you say, Gen'l?"
"He had the constitution of the State to back him."
"He hasn't now! Well, seh, the bill faw this ve'y raailroad was in the
house. Leggett swo' it shouldn't even so much as go to the gove'neh to
sign _aw_ to veto till that fund--seh? annual, yes, seh--was divided at
least evm, betwix Rosemont an' the Suez high school."
"Hear, hear!"
"Well, seh"--the Captain became blithe--"Jeff-Jack sent faw him--you
remembeh that night, Presi_dent_ Gamble--this was the second
bill--ayfteh the first hed been vetoed--an' said, s'e, 'Leggett, if I
give you my own word that you'll get yo' fifteen hund'ed a year as soon
as this new bill passes, will you vote faw it?'--'Yass, seh,' says
Leggett--an' he did!"
Proudfit laughed with manly glee, and offered no other interruption.
"Well, seh, then it come Jeff-Jack's turn to keep his word the best he
could."
"Which he's done," said Gamble.
"Yes, Jeff-Jack got still anotheh bill brought in an' paassed. It give
the three thousan' to Rosemont entieh, an' authorized the three counties
to raise the fifteen hund'ed a year by county tax." The Captain laughed.
"Silly trick," said the Englishman, grimly.
"Why, the dahkeys got they fifteen hund'ed!"
"Don't they claim twenty-two fifty?"
"Well, they jess betteh not!"
"Rascally trick!"
"Sir," said John, "Mr. Ravenel is my personal friend. If you make
another such comment on his actions I shall treat it as if made on
mine."
"Come, Come!" exclaimed Gamble, commandingly; "we can't have----"
"You'll have whatever I give, sir!"
Three or four men half rose, smiling excitedly, but sank down again.
"You think, sir," insisted John, to the Englishman's calmly averted
face, "that being in a free country--" he dashed off Shotwell's
remonstrant hand.
"'Tain't a free country at all," said the Briton to the outer landscape.
"There's hardly a corner in Europe but's freer."
"Ireland, for instance," sneered John.
"Ireland be damned," responded the foreigner, still still looking out
the window. "Go tell your nurse to give you some bread and butter."
John leaped and swept the air with his open palm. Gamble's clutch half
arrested it in front, Shotwell hindered it from behind, neither quite
stopped it.