overarched with low-branching evergreen oaks, and so terraced that the
trees at times robbed the view of even a middle distance. It was by this
way that Fannie and Barbara had come, with gathered skirts, picking
dainty zigzags where, now and then, the way was wet. The spirit of
spring was in the lightness of their draperies' texture and dyes--only a
woman's eye would have noticed that Barbara was in mourning--and their
broken talk was mainly on a plan for the celebration, on the
twenty-second, not of any great and exceptionally truthful patriot's
birthday--Captains Champion and Shotwell were seeing to that--but of
Parson Tombs's and his wife's golden wedding.
When John March saw them, they had just been getting an astonishing
amount of amusement out of the simple fact that Miss Mary Salter and the
younger pastor were the committee on decorations. They were standing
abreast the bridge's parapet, the evening air stirring their garments,
watching the stern-wheeler, Launcelot Halliday, back out from the
landing below into the fretting current for a trip down stream. John had
always approved this companionship; it had tended to sustain his old
illusion that Fannie's extra years need not count between her and him.
But the pleasure of seeing them together now was but a flash and was
gone, for something else than extra years was counting, which had never
counted before. He had turned over a new leaf, as he said. On it he had
subscribed with docile alacrity to every ancient grotesqueness in Parson
Tombs's science of God, sin, and pardon; and then had stamped Fannie's
picture there, fondly expecting to retain it by the very simple trick of
garlanding it round with the irrefragable proposition that love is the
fulfilling of the law! But not many days had the leaf been turned when a
new and better conscience awoke to find shining there, still wet from
God's own pen, the corollary that only a whole sphere of love can fulfil
the law's broad circumference.
As Fannie and Barbara made their bow and moved to pass on he hurriedly
raised his hat and his good horse dropped into a swift, supple walk. The
bridle hand started as if to draw in, but almost at the same instant the
animal sprang again into a gait which showed the spur had touched her,
and was quickly out of hearing.
"Barb," murmured Fannie, "you're thinking he's improved."
"Yes, only---"
"Only you think he'd have stopped if he'd seen us sooner. Why can't you
think maybe he wouldn't? But you're not to blame; you simply have a
girl's natural contempt for a boy's love. Well, a boy's love _is_ silly;
but when you see the constant kind, like John's, as sure as you live
there are not many things entitled to higher respect. O Barb! I've never
felt so honored by any other love that man ever offered me. He'll get
over it; completely. I believe it's dying now, though it's dying hard.
But the next time he loves, the girl who treats his love lightly--Let's
go down in these woods and look for hepaticas. John can't bring them to
me any more and Jeff-Jack never did. He sends candy. There's homage in a
wild flower, Barb; but candy, oh--I don't know--it makes me ashamed."
"Why don't you tell him so?"
Fannie leaned close and whispered, "I'm afraid."
"Why, he gave me wild flowers, once."
"When? Who?" The black eyes flashed. "When did he ever give you
flowers?"
"When I was five years old." They turned down a short descent into the
woods.
Fannie smiled pensively. "Barb, did you notice that John----"
"Has been trading again! His love's not very constant as to horses."
"But what a pretty mare he's got! Barb, 'pon my word, when John March is
well mounted, I do think, physically, he's--" The speaker hearkened.
From the low place where they stood her eyes were on a level with the
road. "It's him again; let's hide."
March came loping down from the bridge, slackened pace, and swept with
his frowning glance the meadows on the left. Then he moved along the
edge of the wood searching its sunset lights and glooms, and presently
turned down into them, bending under the low boughs. And then he halted,
burning with sudden resentment before the smiling, black-eyed girl who
leaned against the tree, which had all at once refused to conceal her.
Neither spoke. Fannie's eyes were mocking and yet kind, and the
resentment in John's turned to a purer mortification. A footstep rustled
behind him and Barbara said:
"We're looking for wild flowers. Do you think we're too early?"
"No, I could have picked some this afternoon if I'd felt like it, but
it's a sort o' belief with me that nobody ought to pick wild flowers for
himself--ha-ha-ha!--Oh eh, Miss Garnet, I reckon I owe you an apology
for charging down on you this way, but I just happened to think, after I
passed you, that you could tell me where to find your father. He's
president _pro tem._ of our land company, you know, and I want to
consult him with Mr. Gamble--you know Mr. Gamble, don't you?--president
of the railroad? O! of course you do! Well, he's our vice-president."
"Why, no, Mr. March, I don't know where you'll find pop-a right now. I
might possibly know when I get back to the house. If it's important I
could send you word."
"O no! O no! Not at all! I'll find him easily enough. I hope you'll both
pardon me, Miss Fannie, but it seems as if I learned some things pow'ful
slow. I ought to know by this time when two's company and three's a
crowd."
Before he had finished, the two listeners had seen the remoter
significance of his words, and it was to mask this that Barbara
drawled--
"Why, Mr. March, that's not nice of you!"
But the young man's confusion was sufficient apology, and both girls
beamed kindly on him as he presently took his leave under the delusion
that his face hid his inward mortification.
XLVI.
A PAIR OF SMUGGLERS
A short way farther within the wood they began to find flowers.
"Well--yes," said Fannie, musingly. "And pop consented to be treasurer
_pro tem._, but that was purely to help John. You know he fairly loves
John. They all think it'll be so much easier to get Northern capital if
they can show they're fully organized and all interests interested, you
know." She stooped to pick a blossom. Barbara was bending in another
direction. Two doves alighted on the ground near by and began to feed,
and, except for size, the four would have seemed to an on-looker to have
been very much of a kind.
Presently Fannie spoke again. "But I think pop's more and more
distrustful of the thing every day. Barb, I reckon I'll tell you
something."
Barbara crouched motionless. "Tell on."
"O--well, I asked pop yesterday what he thought of this Widewood scheme
anyhow, and he said, 'There's money in it for some men.' 'Well, then,
why can't you be one of them,' I asked him, and said he, 'It's not the
kind of money I want, Fan.'"
"O pshaw, Fannie, men are always saying that about one another."
"Yes," murmured Fannie.
"Fan," said Barbara, tenderly, "do stop talking that way; you know I'm
nearly as proud of your father as you are, don't you?"
"Yes, sweetheart."
"Well, then, go on, dear."
"I asked him if John was one," resumed Fannie, "and, said he, 'No, I
shouldn't be a bit surprised to see John lose everything he and his
mother have got.'"
Barbara flinched and was still again. "Has he told him that?"
"No, he says John's a very hard fellow to tell anything to. And, you
know, Barb, that's so. I used to could tell him things, but I mustn't
even try now."
"Why, Fan, you don't reckon Mr. Ravenel would care, do you?"
"Barb, I'll never know how much he cares about anything till it's too
late. You can't try things on Jeff-Jack."
"I wish," softly said Barbara, "you wouldn't smile so much like him."
"Don't say anything against him, Barb, now or ever! I'm his and he's
mine, and I wouldn't for both worlds have it any other way." But this
time the speaker's smile was her own and very sweet. The two returned to
the road.
"I asked pop," said Fannie, "where Jeff-Jack stands in this affair. He
laughed and said, 'Jeff-Jack doesn't take stands, Fan, he lays low.'"
"Somebody ought to tell him."
"Tell who? Oh, John!--yes, I only wish to gracious some one would! But
men don't do that sort of thing for one another. If a man takes such a
risk as that for another you may know he loves him; and if a woman takes
it you may know she doesn't."
"Fan," said Barbara, as they locked arms, "would it do for me to tell
him?"
"No, my dear; in the first place you wouldn't get the chance. You can't
begin to try to tell him till you've clean circumgyrated yourself away
down into his confidence. It's a job, Barb, and a bigger one than you
can possibly want. Now, if we only knew some girl of real sense who was
foolish enough to be self-sacrificingly in love with him--but where are
we going to find the combination?"
"And even if we could, you say no woman in love with a man would do it."
"There are exceptions, sweet Simplicity. What we want is an exception!
Law, Barb, what a fine game a girl of the true stuff could play in such
a case! Not having his love yet, but wanting it worse than life, and yet
taking the biggest chance of losing it for the chance of saving him from
the wreck of his career. O see!" They stopped on the bridge again to
watch the sun's last beams gilding the waters, and Barbara asked,
"Do you believe the right kind of a girl would do that?"
"Why, if she could do it without getting found out, yes! Why, Law, I'd
have done it for Jeff-Jack! You see, she might save him and win him,
too; or she might win him even if she tried and failed to save him."
"But she might," said Barbara, gazing up the river, "she might even save
him and still lose."
"Yes, for a man thinks he's doing well if he so much as forgives a
deliverer--in petticoats. Yet still, Barb, wouldn't a real woman sooner
lose by saving him, than sit still and let him lose for fear she might
lose by trying to save him?"
"I don't know; you can't imagine mom-a doing such a thing, can you?"
"What! Cousin Rose? Why, of all women she was just the sort to have done
it. Barb, you'd do it!" Fannie expected her friend to look at her with
an expression of complimented surprise. But the surprise was her own
when Barbara gave a faint start and bent lower over the parapet. The
difference was very slight, as slight as the smile of fond suspicion
that came into Fannie's face.
"Fannie"--still looking down into the gliding water--"how does your
father think Mr. March is going to lose so much; is he afraid he'll be
swindled?"
"I believe he is, Barb."
"And do you think"--the words came very softly and significantly--"that
that makes it any special matter of mine that he should be warned?"
"Yes, sweetheart, I do."
"Then"--the speaker looked up with distressed resolve--"I must do what I
can. Will you help me, or let me help you, rather?"
"Yes, either way, as far as I can." They moved on for a moment. Then
Barbara stopped abruptly, looking much amused. "There's one risk you
didn't count!"
"What's that?"
"Why, if he should mistake my motive, and----"
"What? suspect you of being----"
"A girl of the true stuff!"
"O but, sweet, how could he?"
As they laughed Fannie generously prepared to keep her guess to herself,
and to imply, still more broadly, that all she imputed to her friend was
the determination secretly to circumvent a father's evil designs.
Barbara roused from a reverie. "I know who'll help us, Fan,--Mr. Fair."
She withstood her companion's roguish look with one of caressing gravity
until the companion spoke, when she broke into a smile as tranquil as a
mother's.
"Barb, Barb, you deep-dyed villain!"
The only reply of the defendant--they were once more in the shady
lane--was to give her accuser a touch of challenge, and the two sprang
up a short acclivity to where a longer vista opened narrowly before
them. But here, as if rifles had been aimed at them, they shrank
instantly downward. For in the dim sylvan light two others walked slowly
before them, their heads hidden by the evergreen branches, but their
feet perfectly authenticated and as instantly identified. One pair were
twos, one were elevens, and both belonged to the Committee on
Decorations. An arm that by nature pertained unto the elevens was about
the waist that pertained unto the twos, and at the moment of discovery,
as well as could be judged by certain sinuosities of lines below, there
was a distance between the two pairs of lips less than any assignable
quantity.
XLVII.
LEVITICUS
The two maidens were still laughing as they re-entered their gate.
Fannie threw an arm sturdily around her companion's waist and sought to
repeat the pantomime, but checked herself at the sight of a buggy
drawing near.
It was old, misshapen, and caked with wet and dry mud, as also was the
mule which drew it. In the vehicle sat three persons. Two were negro
women. One of them--of advanced years--was in a full bloom of crisp
calico under a flaring bonnet which must have long passed its teens. The
other was young and very black. She wore a tawdry hat that only helped
to betray her general slovenliness. From between them a negro man was
rising and dismounting. A wide-brimmed, crackled beaver rested on his
fluffy gray locks, and there was the gentleness of old age in his face.
The spring sap seemed to have started anew in the elder woman's veins.
She tittered as she scrambled to rise, and when the old man offered to
help her, she eyed him with mock scorn and waved him off.
"G'way fum me, 'Viticus Wisdom--gallivantin' round here like we was
young niggehs!--Lawd! my time is come I cayn't git up; my bones dun tuk
dis-yeh shape to staay!"
"Come, come!" said the husband, in an undertone of amiable chiding; and
the buggy gave a jerk of thankful relief as its principal burden left it
for the sidewalk, diffusing the sweet smell of the ironing-table.
While the younger woman was making her mincing descent, Fanny and
Barbara came toward them in the walk.
"Miss Halliday," said Leviticus, lifting his beaver and bowing across
the gate, "in response to yo' invite we--O bless the Lawd my soul! is
that my little--Miss Barb, is that you?"
Before he could say more Virginia threw both hands high. "Faw de Lawd's
sake!" She thrust her husband aside. "G'way, niggah! lemme th'oo dis-yeh
gate 'fo' I go ove' it!" She snatched Barbara to her bosom. "Lawd,
honey! Lawd, honey! Ef anybody 'spec' you' ole Aunt Fudjinny to stan'
off an' axe her baby howdy dey bettah go to de crazy house! Lawd! Lawd!
dis de fus' chance I had to hug my own baby since I been a po' ole free
niggah!" She held the laughing girl off by the shoulders.
"Honey, ef it's my las' ac', I"--she snatched her close again, kissed
one cheek twice and the other thrice, and held her off once more to fix
upon her a tearful, ravishing gaze. "Lawd, honey, Johanna done tole me
how you growin' to favo' my sweet Miss Rose, an' I see it at de fun'l
when I can't much mo'n speak to you, an' cry so I cayn't hardly see you;
but Lawd! my sweet baby, dough you cayn't neveh supersede her in good
looks, you jess as quiet an' beautiful as de sweet-potateh floweh!
"Howdy, Miss Fannie?" She gave her hand and courtesied.
"Howdy, Uncle Leviticus?" said Barbara.
The old man lifted his hat again, bowed very low, and looked very happy.
"I'm tol'able well, Miss Barb, thank the Lawd, an' hope an' trus' an'
pray you're of the same complexion." Still including Barbara in his
audience, he went on with an address to Fannie already begun.
"You know, Miss Fannie, yo' letteh say fo' Aunt Fudjinny an' me to come
the twentieth--yass, ma'am, we understan'--but, you know, Mr. Mahch, he
come down an' superscribe faw this young--ah----"
"Girl," suggested Barbara, with pretty condescension; but Fannie
covertly trod on her toe and said, "lady," with a twinkle at the dowdy
maiden.
"P'ecisely!" responded Leviticus to both speakers at once. "An' Mr.
Mahch, he was bereft o' any way to fetch her to he's maw less'n he taken
her up behime o' his saddle, an' so it seem' like the Lawd's call faw us
to come right along an' bring her hencefah, an' then, if she an' his maw
fin' theyse'ves agreeable, then Mr. Mahch--which his buggy happn to be
here in Suez--'llow to give her his transpotes the balance o' the way
to-morrow in hit."
"And you and Aunt Virginia will stay through the golden wedding as our
chief butler and chief baker, as I wrote you; will you?"
"Well, er, eh"--the old man scratched his head--"thass the question,
Miss Fannie. Thass what I been a-revolvin', an' I sees two views faw
revolution. On one side there is the fittenness o' we two faw this
work."
"It's glaring," mused Fannie.
"Flagrant," as gravely suggested Barbara.
"P'ecisely! Faw, as you say in yo' letteh, we two was chief butler an'
chief baker to they wedd'n' jess fifty year' ago, bein' at that time
hi-ud out to 'Squi' Usher--the ole 'Squieh, you know--by Miss Rose'
motheh, which, you know, Miss Tomb' she was a Usher, daughteh to the old
'Squi' Usher, same as she is still sisteh to the present 'Squieh, who
was son to the ole 'Squieh, his father an' hern. The ole 'Squieh, he
married a Jasper, an' thass how come the Tombses is remotely alloyed to
the Mahches on the late Jedge's side, an' to you, Miss Barb, on Miss
Rose's Montgomery side, an' in these times, when cooks is sca'ce an'
butlehs is yit mo' so, it seem to me--it seem to me, Miss Fannie, like
yo' letteh was a sawt o'--sawt o'----"
"Macedonian cry," said Fannie.
"Hark from the Tombses," murmured Barbara.
"And so you'll both come!" said Fannie.
"Why, as I say, Miss Fannie, thass the question, fo' there's the care o'
my flock, you know."
"De laymbs," put in Virginia, "de laymbs is bleeds to be fed, you know,
Miss Fannie, evm if dey is black."
"Yass, ma'am," resumed Leviticus; "an' if we speak o' mere yearthly
toys, Fudjinia's pigs an' chickens has they claims."
"Well, whoever's taking care of them now can keep on till the
twenty-second, Uncle Leviticus; and as for your church, you can run down
there Sunday and come right back, can't you? Why can't you?"
"Uncle Leviticus," said Barbara, "we expect, of course, to pay you both,
you know."
"Why, of course!" said Fannie, "you understood that, didn't you?"
"Yass'm, o' co'se," interposed Virginia, quickly, while Leviticus
drawled,
"O the question o' pay is seconda'y!--But we'll have to accede,
Fudjinia; they can't do without us."
"I think, Fannie," said Barbara, looking very business-like, "we'd
better have them name their price and agree to it at once, and so be
sure----"
"Lawd, honey!" cried Virginia, "we ain't goin' to ax no prices to
you-all! sufficiend unto de price is de laboh theyof, an' we leaves dat
to yo' generos'ty. Yass, dass right where we proud an' joyful to leave
it--to yo' generos'ty."
"Well, now, remember, the Tombses mustn't know a breath about this.
You'll find Johanna in the kitchen. She'll have to give you her room and
sleep on the floor in Miss Barb's; she'll be glad of the excuse----"
"Thaank you, Miss Fannie," replied Virginia, with amiable complacency,
"but we 'llowin' to soj'u'n with friends in town."
"O, indeed! Well"--Arrangements for a later conference were made.
"Good-evening. I'm glad you're bringing such a nice-looking girl to Mrs.
March. What is her--what is your name?"
"Daaphne."
"What!"
"Yass'm. Mr. Mahch say whiles I wuck faw he's maw he like me to be naame
Jaane, but my fo'-true name's Daaphne, yass'm."
"Barb," said Fannie, "I've just thought of something we must attend to
in the house at once!"
XLVIII.
DELILAH
Daphne Jane was one of Leggettstown's few social successes. She was
neither comely nor guileless, but she was tremendously smart. Her pious
parents had sent her for two or three terms to the "Preparatory
Department" of Suez University, where she had learned to read, write,
and add--she had been born with a proficiency in subtraction. But she
had proved flirtatious, and her father and mother had spent their later
school outlays on her younger brothers and sisters. Daphne Jane had
since then found sufficient and glad employ trying to pomatum the
frizzles out of her hair, and lounging whole hours on her window-sill to
show the result to her rivals and monopolize and cheer the passing
toiler with the clatter of her perky wit and the perfumes of bergamot
and cinnamon.
Cornelius Leggett had easily discovered this dark planet, but her
parents were honestly, however crudely, trying to make their children
better than their betters expected them to be, and they forbade him the
house and her the lonely stroll.
The daughter, from the first moment, professed to look with loathing
upon the much-married and probably equally widowed Cornelius, but her
mother did not trust her chaste shudderings. When John March came
looking for a domestic, she eagerly arranged to put her out to service
in a house where, Leviticus assured her, Cornelius dared not bring his
foot. John March, however, was not taken into this confidence. The
maid's quick wit was her strong card, and even Leviticus did not think
it just to her to inform a master or mistress that it was the only
strong card she held.
So, thanks to Leviticus, the only man in Leggettstown who would stop at
no pains to "suckumvent wickedness in high places," here she was,
half-way to Widewood, and thus far safe against any unguessed
machinations of the enemy or herself. In Suez, too, all went well.
Before Mrs. March Jane seemed made of angelic "yass'ms," and agreed,
with a strange, sweet readiness to go to Widewood and assume her duties
in her mistress's absence, which would be for a few days only.
"And you'll go"--"yass'm"--"with my son"--"yass'm"--"in the
buggy"--"yass'm"--"and begin work"--"yass'm"--"just as
though"--"yass'm"--"I were there"--"yass'm." Mrs. March added, half to
herself, half to her son, "I find Suez"--"yass'm"--"more lonely
than"--"yass'm"--"our forest home." "Yass'm"--said the black damsel.
John was delighted with such undaunted and unselfish alacrity. He was
only sorry not to take her home at once, but really this business with
Garnet and Gamble was paramount. It kept him late, and the next morning
was well grown when he sought his mother to say that he could now take
Jane to Widewood.
"My son, you cannot. It's too late."
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, my dear John."
"Where's the girl?"
"On the way to her field of labor."
"How is she getting there?"
"In our buggy."
"You haven't let her drive out alone?"
"My son, why should you charge me with both cruelty and folly?"
"Who took her out?"
"One, my dear boy, who I little thought would ever be more attentive to
the widow's needs than her own son: Cornelius Leggett." Mrs. March never
smiled her triumphs. Her lips only writhed under a pleasant pain.
"Well, I'll be----"
"Oh!"
"Why, what, mother? I was only going to say I'll be more than pleased if
he doesn't steal the horse and buggy. I'll bet five dollars----"
"Oh!"
"O, I only mean I don't doubt he's half ruined both by now, and all to
save a paltry hour."
"My son, it is not mine to squander. Ah! John, the hours are not ours!"
"Why, what are they? O! I see. Well, I wish whoever they belong to would
come take 'em away!"
Cornelius was at that moment rejoicing that this one was peculiarly his.
As he drove along the quiet Widewood road he was remarking to his
charge:
"I arrove fum Pussy on the six o'clock train. One o' the fus news I get
win' of is that you in town. Well! y'ought to see me!"
But his hearer refused to be flattered. "Wha'd you do--run jump in de
riveh?"
"Jump in--I reckon not! I flew. Y'ought to see me fly to'a'ds you, sweet
lady!"
The maiden laughed. "Law! Mr. Leggett, what a shoo-fly that mus' 'a'
been! Was de conducto' ayfteh you?"
Mr. Leggett smiled undaunted. "My mos' num'ous thanks to yo' serenity,
but I enjoys fum my frien' Presi_dent_ Gamble the propriety of a free
paass ove' his road."
"Oh? does you indeed! _Is_ dat so! Why you makes me proud o' myse'ff.
You hole a free paass on de raailroad, an' yit you countercend to fly to
me!" The manner changed to one of sweet curiosity. "Does you fly jess
with yo' two feet, aw does you comp'ise de assistance o' yo' ears?"
"Why, eh--why, I declah 'pon my soul, you--you es peart es popcawn! You
trebbles me to respond to you with sufficient talk-up-titude."
"Does I? Laws-a-me! I ax yo' pahdon, Mr. Leggett. But I uz bawn sassy. I
ought to be jess ashame' o' myseff, talkin' dat familious to a gen'leman
o' yo' powehs an' 'quaintances. Why you evm knows Mr. Mahch, don't you?"
"Who, me? Me know Johnnie Mahch? Why, my dea'--escuse my smile o'
disdaain--why Johnnie Mahch--why--why, I ra-aise' Johnnie!"