followed the divine guidance when only a day or two later the
"university" insulted and exasperated all Suez by enrolling three young
white women from Sandstone. The _Courier_, regretting to state that this
infringed no statute, deprecated all violence, and while it extolled the
forbearance of the people, yet declared that an education which educated
backward, and an institution which sought to elevate an inferior race by
degrading a superior, would compel the people to make laws they would
rather not enact. The Black-and-Tannery's effort for a union revival
meeting lay at the door of "our church," said Garnet smilingly to Sister
Proudfit, "as dead as Ananias." The kind pastor was troubled.
Yet he was gladdened again when Barbara, on horseback, brought word from
"pop-a" that he had found half a dozen of his students praying together
for the conversion of their fellows, and that the merest hint of revival
meetings in Suez had been met by them with such zeal that he saw they
were divinely moved. "Get thee up, brother," the Major's note ended,
"for there is a sound of abundance of rain."
"Is it good news?" asked Barbara. The white-haired man handed her the
note, joyfully, and stood at her saddle-bow watching her face as she
gravely read it.
"Bless the Lord," he said, "and bless you, too, my daughter, faw yo'
glad tidin's. I'll see Mary and Martha Salter and Doctor Grace right
off, and get ready to ketch the blessed shower. May the very first
droppin's fall on you, my beautiful child. I've heard what a wise an'
blessed help you've been to yo' father since yo'--here lately. Ain't you
a-goin' to give yo' heart to Jesus, daughter?"
She met his longing look with the same face as before; not blankly, yet
denying, asking, confessing nothing. Truth there, but no fact.
"Well, good-by," said the old man, "I believe you're nearer the kingdom
now than you know." His awkward kindness brought her nearer still.
Thus the revival began at Rosemont. The two congregations joined
counsel, and decided to hold the meetings in Parson Tombs's church.
"I'm proud, Brother Tombs--or, rather, I'm grateful," said Garnet. "I
look on this as a divine vindication against the missionary solicitude
of an alien institution's ambitious zeal. My brethren, it's a heavenly
proof of the superior vitality of Southern Christianity."
But they decided not to begin at once. Mary Salter thought they should,
and so did the unmarried pastor of the other church, who, they said, was
"sweet on her."
"All we need is faith!" said Miss Mary.
"No, it's not," was Miss Martha's calm response, "we need a little
common sense." She said the two pastors ought to preach at least two
Sunday sermons, each "pointed toward the projected--that is to say
expected--showers of blessing."
"Sort o' take the people's temperature," put in Doctor Grace, but she
ignored him. By that time, she said, it would be too near Christmas to
start anything of the kind before----
"Why, Christmas, Sister Martha, think what Christmas is? It ought to be
just the time!"
"Yes, but it isn't."
"I think Miss Martha's right," said Parson Tombs, very sweetly to Mary;
"and I think," turning as affectionately to Martha, "that Miss Mary's
right, too. We need faith _and_ wisdom. The Lord promises both, and so
we must use all we can _uv_ both. Now, if we can begin a couple of days
before New Year, so's to have things agoin' by New Year's eve, I _think_
we'll find that wisdom and faith have kissed each other."
Miss Martha and Sister Tombs smiled softly at the startling figure. Miss
Mary and the unmarried pastor dropped their eyes. But when Doctor Grace
said, fervently, "That sounds good!" all admitted the excellence of
Parson Tombs's suggestion.
XXXVIII.
RUBBING AGAINST MEN
About three in the afternoon on the last day of the year John March was
in the saddle loping down from Widewood.
He was thinking of one of the most serious obstacles to the furtherance
of his enterprise: the stubborn hostility of the Sandstone County
mountaineers. To the gentlest of them it meant changes that would make
game scarcer and circumscribe and belittle their consciously small and
circumscribed lives; to the wilder sort it meant an invasion of aliens
who had never come before for other purpose than to break up their
stills and drag them to jail. As he came out into the Susie and Pussie
pike he met a frowsy pinewoodsman astride a mule, returning into the
hills.
"Howdy, Enos." They halted.
"Howdy, Johnnie. Well, ef you ain't been a-swappin' critters ag'n, to be
sho'! Looks mighty much like you a-chawed this time, less'n this critter
an' the one you had both deceives they looks a pow'ful sight."
John expressed himself unalarmed and asked the news.
"I ain't pick up much news in the Susie," said Enos. "Jeff-Jack's house
beginnin' to look mos' done. Scan'lous fine house! Mawnstus hayndy,
havin' it jined'n' right on, sawt o', to old Halliday's that a way.
Johnnie, why don't _you_ marry? You kin do it; the gal fools ain't all
peg out yit."
"No," laughed John, "nor they ain't the worst kind, either."
"Thass so; the wuss kine is the fellers 'at don't marry 'em. Why, ef I
was you, I'd have a wife as pooty as a speckle' hound pup, an' yit one
'at could build biscuits an' cook coffee, too! An' I'd jess quile down
at home in my sock feet an' never git up, lessen it wus to eat aw go to
bed. I wouldn't be a cavortin' an' projeckin' aroun' to settle up laynds
which they got too many settlehs on 'em now, an' ef you bring niggehs
we'll kill 'em, an' ef you bring white folks we'll make 'em wish they
was dead."
The two men smiled good-naturedly. March knew every word bespoke the
general spirit of Enos's neighbors and kin; men who believed the world
was flat and would trust no man who didn't; who, in their own forests,
would shoot on sight any stranger in store clothes; who ate with their
boots off and died with them on.
"Reckon I got to risk it," said John; "can't always tell how things 'll
go."
"Thass so," drawled Enos. "An' yit women folks seem like evm they think
they kin. I hear Grannie Sugg, a-ridin' home fum church, 'llow ef
Johnnie March bring air railroad 'ithin ten mile' o' her, he better
leave his medjer 'ith the coffin man."
"Tell her howdy for me, will you, Enos?" said John; and Enos said he
would.
Deeply absorbed, but clear in bloody resolve, March walked his horse
down the turnpike in the cold sunshine and blustering air. He heard his
name and looked back; had he first recognized the kindly voice he would
not have turned, but fled, like a partlet at sight of the hawk, from
Parson Tombs.
"Howdy, John! Ought to call you Mister March, I reckon, but you know I
never baptized you Mister." They moved on together. "How's yo' maw?"
John said she was about as usual and asked after the parson's folks.
"O they all up, thank the Lawd. Mr. March, this is the Lawd's doin' an'
mahvellous in ow eyes, meetin' up with you this way. I was prayin' faw
it as I turned the bend in the road! He's sent me to you, Mr. March, I
feel it!"
March showed distress, but the parson continued bright.
"I jest been up to get Brother Garnet to come he'p us in ow protracted
meet'n', an' to arrange to let the college boys come when they begin
school ag'in, day after to-morrow. Mr. March, I wish you'd come, won't
you? to-night!"
"I couldn't very well come to-night, Mr. Tombs. I--I approve of such
meetings. I think it's a very pleasant way to pass--" he reddened. "But
I'm too busy----"
"This is business, Mr. March! The urgentest kind! It's the spirit's
call! It may never call again, brotheh! What if in some more convenient
season Gawd should mawk when yo' fear cometh?"
The young man drooped like a horse in the rain, and the pastor,
mistaking endurance for contrition, pressed his plea. "You know,
the holy book says, Come, faw _all_ things ah _now_ ready; it
don't say _all_ things will ever be ready again! The p'esumption
is they won't! O my dear young brotheh, there's a wrath to
come--real--awful--everlasting--O flee from it! Come to the flowing
fountain! One plunge an' yo' saved! Johnnie--do I make too free? I've
been prayin' faw you by name faw years!"
"O you hadn't ought to have done that, sir! I wa'n't worth it."
"Ah! yes you air! Johnnie, I've watched yo' ev'y step an' stumble all
yo' days. I've had faith faw you when many a one was savin' you was jess
bound to go to the bad--which you know it did look that way, brotheh.
But, s' I, Satan's a-siftin' of him! He's in the gall o' bitterness jess
as I was at his age!"
"You! Ha-ha! Why, my dear Mr. Tombs, you don't know who you're talking
about!"
"Yes, I do, brotheh. I was jess so! An' s' I, he'll pull through! His
motheh's prayers 'll prevail, evm if mine don't! An' now, when ev'ybody
sees you a-changin' faw the better----"
"Better! Great Sc----"
"Yes, an' yet 'ithout the least sign o' conversion--I say, s' I, it's
restrainin' grace! Ah! don't I know? Next 'll come savin' grace, an'
then repentance unto life. Straight is the way, an' I can see right up
it!"
"Why, Mr. Tombs, you're utterly wrong! I've only learned a little
manners and a little sense. All that's ever restrained me, sir, was lack
of sand. The few bad things I've kept out of, I kept out of simply
because I knew if I went into 'em I'd bog down. It's not a half hour
since I'd have liked first-rate to be worse than I am, but I didn't have
the sand for that, either. Why, sir, I'm worse to-day than I ever was,
only it's deeper hid. If men went to convict camps for what they are,
instead of what they do, I'd be in one now."
"Conviction of sin! Praise Gawd, brotheh, you've got it! O bring it
to-night to the inquirer's seat!"
But the convicted sinner interrupted, with a superior smile: "I've no
inquiries to offer, Mr. Tombs. I know the plan of salvation, sir,
perfectly! We're all totally depraved, and would be damned on Adam's
account if we wa'n't, for we've lost communion with God and are liable
to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and the pains of hell
forever; but God out of his mere good pleasure having elected some to
everlasting life, the rest of us--O I know it like a-b-c! Mother taught
it to me before I could read. Yes, I must, with grief and hatred of my
sin, turn from it unto God--certainly--because God, having first treated
the innocent as if he were guilty, is willing now to treat the guilty as
if he were innocent, which is all right because of God's sovereignty
over us, his propriety in us, and the zeal he hath for his own
worship--O----
"But, Mr. Tombs, what's the use, sir? Some things I can repent of, but
some I can't. I'm expecting a letter to-day tha'll almost certainly be a
favorable answer to an extensive proposition I've made for opening up my
whole tract of land. Now, I've just been told by one of my squatters
that if I bring settlers up there he'll kill 'em; and I know and you
know he speaks for all of them. Well, d' you s'pose I won't kill him the
minute he lifts a hand to try it?" The speaker's eyes widened
pleasantly. He resumed:
"There's another man down here. He's set his worm-eaten heart on
something--perfect right to do it. I've no right to say he sha'n't. But
I do. I'm just _honing_ to see him to tell him that if he values his
health he'll drop that scheme at the close of the year, which closes
to-day."
"O John, is that what yo' father--I don't evm say yo' pious
mother--taught you to be?"
"No, sir; my father begged me to be like my mother. And I tried, sir, I
tried hard! No use; I had to quit. Strange part is I've got along better
ever since. But now, s'pose I should repent these things. 'Twouldn't do
any good, sir. For, let me tell you, Mr. Tombs, underneath them all
there's another matter--you can't guess it--please don't try or ask
anybody else--a matter that I can't repent, and wouldn't if I could!
Well, good-day, sir, I'm sure I reciprocate your----"
"Come to the meeting, my brotheh. You love yo' motheh. Do it to please
her."
"I don't know; I'll see," replied John, with no intention of seeing, but
reflecting with amused self-censure that if anything he did should
visibly please his mother, such a result would be, at any rate, unique.
XXXIX.
SAME AFTERNOON
Suez had never seen so busy a winter. Never before in the same number of
weeks had so much cotton been hauled into town or shipped from it. Goods
had never been so cheap, gross sales so large, or Blackland darkeys and
Sandstone crackers so flush.
And naturally the prosperity that worked downward had worked upward all
the more. Rosemont had a few more students than in any earlier year;
Montrose gave her young ladies better molasses; the white professors in
the colored "university," and their wives, looked less starved; and
General Halliday, in spite of the fact that he was part owner of a
steamboat, had at last dropped the title of "Agent." Even John March had
somehow made something.
Barbara, in black, was shopping for Fannie. Johanna was at her side. The
day was brisk. Ox-wagons from Clearwater, mule-teams from Blackland,
bull-carts from Sandstone, were everywhere. Cotton bales were being
tumbled, torn, sampled, and weighed; products of the truck-patch and
door-yard, and spoils of the forest, were changing hands. Flakes of
cotton blew about under the wheels and among the reclining oxen. In the
cold upper blue the buzzards circled, breasted the wind, or turned and
scudded down it. From chimney tops the smoke darted hither and yon, and
went to shreds in the cedars and evergreen oaks. On one small space of
sidewalk which was quiet, Johanna found breath and utterance.
"Umph! dis-yeh town is busy. Look like jess ev'ybody a-makin' money."
She got her mistress to read a certain sign for her. "Jawn Mawch,
Gen'lemun!--k-he-he!--dass a new kine o' business. An' yit, Miss Barb, I
heah Gen'l Halliday tell Miss Fannie 'istiddy dat Mr. Mawch done come
out ahade on dem-ah telegraph pole' what de contractors done git sicken'
on an' th'ow up. He mus' be pow'ful smart, dat Mr. Mawch; ain't he, Miss
Barb?"
"I don't know," murmured Barbara; "anybody can make money when
everybody's making it." She bent her gaze into a milliner's window.
The maid eyed her anxiously. There were growing signs that Barbara's
shopping was not for the bride-elect only, but for herself also, and for
a long journey and a longer absence.
"Miss Barb, yondeh Mr. Mawch. Miss Barb, he de hayn'somess mayn in de
three counties!"
"Ridiculous! Come, make haste." Haste was a thing they were beginning to
make large quantities of in Suez. It has some resemblance to speed.
"Miss Garnet, pardon me." March gave the Rosemont bow, she gave the
Montrose. "Don't let me stop you, please." He caught step.
"Is General Halliday in town? I suppose, of course, you've seen Miss
Fannie this morning?" His boyish eyes looked hungry for a little
teasing. She stopped in a store doorway. Her black garb heightened the
charm of her red-brown hair, and of the countenance ready enough for
laughter, yet well content without it.
"Yes. I'm shopping for her now." Her smiling lip implied the coming
bridal, but her eyes told him teasing was no longer in order. General
Halliday was in Blackland, she said, but would be back by noon. March
gave the Rosemont bow, she gave the Montrose, Johanna unconsciously
courtesied.
In the post-office John found two letters. One he saw instantly was from
Leggett. He started for his office, opening the other, which was
post-marked Boston. It ran:
"MY DEAR MR. MARCH.--My father has carefully considered your very
clear and elaborate plan, and, while he freely admits his judgment
may be wrong, he deems it but just to be perfectly frank with you."
The reader's step ceased. A maker of haste jostled him. He did not know
it. His heart sank; he lost the place on the page. He leaned against an
awning-post and read on:
"He feels bound to admire a certain masterly inventiveness and
courage in your plan, but is convinced it will cost more than you
estimate, and cannot be made at the same time safe and commercially
remunerative."
There was plenty more, but the wind so ruffled the missive that, with
unlifted eyes, he folded it. He looked across the corner of the
court-house square to his office, whose second month's rent was due, and
the first month's not yet paid. He saw his bright blue sign with the
uncommercial title, which he had hoped to pay the painter for to-day.
For, had his proposition been accepted, the letter was to have contained
a small remittance. A gust of wind came scurrying round the post-office
corner. Dust, leaves, and flakes of cotton rose on its wave,
and--ah!--his hat went with them.
Johanna's teeth flashed in soft laughter as she waited in a doorway.
"Run," she whispered, "run, Mr. Jawn Mawch, Gen'lemun. You so long
gitt'n' to de awffice hat cayn't wait. Yass, betteh give it up. Bresh de
ha'r out'n yo' eyes an' let dat-ah niggeh-felleh ketch it. K-he! I
'clare, dat's de mos' migracious hat I eveh see! Niggeh got it! Dass
right, Mr. Mawch, give de naysty niggeh a dime. Po' niggeh! now run tu'n
yo' dime into cawn-juice."
At his desk March read again:
"We appreciate the latent value of your lands. Time must bring changes
which will liberate that value and make it commercial; but it was more a
desire to promote these changes than any belief in their nearness which
prompted my father's gifts to Rosemont College and Suez University. Not
that he shares the current opinion that you are having too much
politics. Progress and thrift may go side by side with political storms,
and I know he thinks your State would be worse off to-day if it could
secure a mere political calm.
"In reply to your generous invitation to suggest changes in your plan, I
will myself venture one or two questions.
"First--Is not the elaborateness of your plan an argument against it?
Dixie is not a new, wild country; and therefore does not your scheme--to
establish not only mines, mills and roads, but stores, banks, schools
and churches under the patronage and control of the company--imply that
as a community and commonwealth you are, in Dixie, in a state of
arrested development?
"Else why propose to do through a private commercial corporation what is
everywhere else done through public government--by legislation,
taxation, education, and courts? Cannot--or will not--your lawmakers and
taxpayers give you their co-operation?
"The spirit of your plan is certainly beyond criticism. It seeks a
common welfare. It does not offer swift enrichment to the moneyed few
through the use of ignorant labor unlifted from destitution and
degradation, but rather the remuneration of capital through the social
betterment of all the factors of a complete community. But will the plan
itself pay? Have not the things around you which paid been those which
cared little if savings-bank, church or school lived or died, or whether
laws or customs favored them?
"Suppose that on your own lands your colony should seem for a time to
succeed, would you not be an island in an ocean of misunderstanding and
indifference? If you should need an act of county or township
legislation, could you get it? Is this not why capital seeks wilder and
more distant regions when it would rather be in Dixie?
"I make these points not for their own sake, but to introduce a
practical suggestion which my father is tempted to submit to you. And
this, it may surprise you to find, is based upon the contents of the
paper handed you as I was leaving Suez, by the colored man, Leggett,
whose peculiar station doubtless makes it easy for him to see relations
and necessities which better or wiser men, from other points of view,
might easily overlook.
"This man would make your scheme as public as you would make it private,
and my father is inclined to think that if public interest, action, and
credit could be enlisted as suggested in Leggett's memorandum, your
problem would have new attractions much beyond its present merely
problematic interest, and might find financial backers. Alliance with
Leggett is, of course, out of the question; but if you can consent and
undertake to exploit your lands on the line of operation sketched by him
we can guarantee the pecuniary support necessary to the effort, and you
may at once draw on us at sight for the small sum mentioned in your
letter, if your need is still urgent. With cordial regard,
"Yours faithfully,
"HENRY FAIR."
March started up, but sat again and gazed at the missive.
"Well, I will swear!" He smiled, held it at arm's length, and read again
facetiously. "'Alliance with Leggett is, of course, out of the question;
but if you can consent and undertake to exploit your lands on the line
of operation sketched by him----'
"Now, where's that nigger's letter?--I wonder if I--" a knock at the
door--"come in!--could have dropped it when my hat--O come in--ha!
ha!--this isn't a private bedroom; I'm dressed."
XL.
ROUGH GOING
"Ah! Mr. Pettigrew, why'n't you walk right in, sir? I wasn't at prayer."
Mr. Pettigrew, his voice made more than usually ghostly by the wind and
a cold, whispered that he thought he had heard conversation.
"O no, sir, I was only blowing up my assistant for losing a letter. Why,
well, I'll be dog--You picked it up in the street, didn't you? Well, Mr.
Pettigrew, I'm obliged to you, sir. Will you draw up a chair. Take the
other one, sir; I threw that one at a friend the other day and broke
it."
As the school-teacher sat down John dragged a chair close and threw
himself into it loungingly but with tightly folded arms. Dinwiddie
hitched back as if unpleasantly near big machinery. John smiled.
"I'm glad to see you, Mr. Pettigrew. I've been wanting a chance to say
something to you for some time, sir."
Pettigrew whispered a similar desire.
"Yes, sir," said John, and was silent. Then: "It's about my mother, sir.
Your last call was your fourth, I believe." He frowned and waited while
the pipe-clay of Mr. Pettigrew's complexion slowly took the tint of old
red sandstone. Then he resumed: "You used to tell us boys it was our
part not so much to accept the protection of the laws as to protect
them--from their own mistakes no less than from the mistakes of those
who owe them reverence--much as it becomes the part of a man to protect
his mother. Wasn't that it?"
The school-master gave a husky assent.
"Well, Mr. Pettigrew, I'm a man, now, at least bodily--I think. Now, I'm
satisfied, sir, that you hold my mother in high esteem--yes, sir, I'm
sure of that--don't try to talk, sir, you only irritate your throat. I
know you think as I do, sir, that one finger of her little faded hand is
worth more than the whole bad lot of you and me, head, heart, and
heels."
The listener's sub-acid smile protested, but John--
"I believe she thinks fairly well of you, sir, but she doesn't really
know you. With me it's just the reverse. Hm! Yes, sir. You know, Mr.
Pettigrew, my dear mother is of a highly wrought imaginative
temperament. Now, I'm not. She often complains that I've got no more
romance in my nature than my dear father had. She idealizes people. I
can't. But the result is I can protect her against the mistakes such a
tendency might even at this stage of life lead her into, for they say
the poet's heart never grows old. You understand."
The school-master bowed majestically.
"My mother, Mr. Pettigrew, can never love where she can't idealize, nor
marry where she can't love; she's too true a woman for that. I expect
you to consider this talk confidential, of course. Now, I don't know,
sir, that she could ever idealize you, but against the bare possibility
that she might, I must ask you not to call again. Hm! That's all, sir."
Mr. Pettigrew rose up ashen and as mad as an adder. His hair puffed out,
his eyes glistened. John rose more leisurely, stepped to the hearth,
picked up a piece of box stuff and knocked a nail out of one end.