A point of land just across the lake from the camp belonged to the
Darlings' mother, the Princess Oducalchi. One night the light of fires
and lanterns appeared on this point and the next morning it was seen to
be studded here and there with pale-brown tents. The Darlings were
annoyed to think that any one should trespass on so large a scale on
some one else's land. In a code of laws shot to pieces with class
legislation, trespassers are, of course, exempt from punishment; their
presence and depredations in one's private melon-patch are none the less
disagreeable, and Arthur Darling, as his mother's representative, was
peculiarly enraged.
Arthur, in his idle moments, when, for instance, he was not studying the
webs of spiders or classifying the cries of frogs, sometimes let his
mind run on politics and the whole state of the Union. In such matters,
of course, he was only a tyro. Why should the puny and prejudiced
population of Texas have two votes in the Senate when the hordes of New
York have but two? Why, in a popular form of government, should the
minority do the ruling? Why should not a hard-working rich man have an
equal place in the sun with a man who, through laziness and a moral
nature twisted like a pretzel, remains poor? Why should education be
forced on children in a country where education, which means good
manners and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, amounts
practically to disfranchisement?
Arthur, in his political ruminations, could never get beyond such
questions as these. If A has paid for and owns a piece of land, why is
it not A's to enjoy, rather than B's, whose sole claim thereto is
greater strength of body than A, and the desire to possess those things
which are not his?
At least, Arthur could row across to the point and protest in his
mother's name. If the trespassers were gentlefolk who imagined
themselves to have camped upon public land, they would, of course, offer
to go and to pay all damages--in which event, Arthur would invite them
to stay as long as they pleased, only begging that they would not set
the woods on fire. If, however, the trespassers belonged to one of the
privileged classes for whose benefit the laws are made and continued, he
would simply be abused roundly and perhaps vilely. He would then take a
thrashing at the hands of superior numbers, and the incident would be
closed.
Colonel Meredith, seeing Arthur about to embark on his mission, offered
help and comfort in the emergency.
"Just you wait till I fetch my rifle," he said; "and if there's any
trifling, we'll shoot them up."
"Shoot them up!" exclaimed Arthur. "If we shot them up, we'd go from
here to prison and from prison to the electric chair."
"In South Carolina," Colonel Meredith protested, "if a man comes on our
land and we tell him to get off and he won't, we drill a hole in him."
"And that's one of the best things about the South," said Arthur. "But
we do things differently in the North. If a man comes on my land and I
tell him to get off and he says he won't, then I have the right to put
him off, using as much force as is necessary. And if he is twice as big
as I am and there are three or four of him, you can see, without using
glasses, how the matter must end."
"Then all you are out for is to take a licking?"
"That is my only privilege under the law. But I hope I shall not have to
avail myself of it. Where there are so many tents there must be money.
Where there is money there are possessions, and where there are
possessions, there are the same feelings about property that you and I
have."
"Still," said Colonel Meredith, "I wish you'd take me along and our
guns. There is always the chance of managing matters so that fatalities
may be construed into acts of self-defense."
"Get behind me, you man of blood!" exclaimed Arthur, laughing, and he
leaped into a canoe, and with a part of the same impulse sent it flying
far out from the float. Then, standing, he started for the brown tents
with easy, powerful strokes, very earnest for the speedy accomplishment
of a disagreeable duty. That anything really pleasant might come of his
expedition never entered his head.
"Arthur gone to put them off?"
"Why, yes! Good-morning, Miss Gay."
"Good-morning, yourself, Colonel Meredith, and many of them. Want to
look?"
"Thank you."
Colonel Meredith focussed the glasses upon the brown tents.
"What do you make them out to be?"
"I can make out a sort of nigger carrying tea into one of the tents. And
there's a young lady in black. She seems to be walking down to the
shore to meet your brother. And now she's waving her hand to him."
"The impudent thing," exclaimed Gay. "What's my brother doing?"
"He's paddling as if he expected to cross a hundred yards of water in a
second. If the young lady comes any closer to the water, she'll get
wet."
Suddenly blushing crimson, he thrust the field-glasses back into Gay's
hands, and cried with complete conviction that he was "blessed."
In the bright field of magnification, hastily focussed to her own
vision, Gay beheld her brother and the young woman in black tightly
locked in each other's arms.