A NEW ROUTINE
It certainly was a dismal, shrunken household that Mrs. Baron presided
over that morning. Aun' Jinkey came to the rescue and prepared a meagre
breakfast. Miss Lou's room being on the side of the house furthest from
the scenes of the early morning, she had slept on till Zany wakened
her. She listened in a sort of dreary apathy to all that had occurred,
feeling that she was too weak physically and too broken-spirited to
interfere. She also had the impression that it would have been of no
use--that her uncle and aunt were so fixed in their ways and views that
nothing but harsh experience could teach them anything. In answer to
Zany's appeal for protection against "ole miss" Miss Lou said, "We
won't say anything more about it now till you get over your hurt
feelings, which are very natural. Of course my aunt can't punish
you--that's out of the question now, but by and by I reckon you will do
for her out of love for me when you see it will save me trouble. You
have done a good, unselfish act in staying with me, and having begun so
well, you will keep on in the same way. After all of the rest get free
you will, too. What's more, when I come into my property I'll make free
all who stand by me now."
So Zany brought her up a nice little breakfast and was comforted.
When at last the young girl with weak, uncertain steps came down to her
easy-chair on the piazza, she found her uncle gloomily smoking, and her
aunt solacing her perturbed mind with her chief resource--housekeeping
affairs. Little was said beyond a formal greeting.
As Miss Lou sat gazing vacantly and sadly down the avenue, a huge
figure appeared, making slow, painful progress toward the house. At
last Aun' Suke was recognized, and the truth flashed across the girl's
mind that the fat old cook had found she could not get away. Finally
the woman sat down under a tree not far from the house, not only
overcome by heat and fatigue, but also under the impression that she
must open negotiations before she could expect to be received.
"There," said Mr. Baron grimly, "is one of them coming back already.
They'll be sneaking, whining back when the crops are spoiled and it's
too late."
Miss Lou rose feebly and got an old sunshade from the hall.
"Louise, you are not able--I forbid it."
The girl felt she had strength to get to the old woman but not enough
to contend with her uncle, so she went slowly down the steps without a
word. Mr. Baron growled, "I might as well speak to the wind as to
anybody on the place any more."
When Aun' Suke saw the girl coming to her she scrambled to her feet,
and holding up her hands ejaculated all sorts of remorseful and
deprecatory comments.
"Welcome back," said Miss Lou kindly, when in speaking distance.
"There, don't go on so. Sit down and I'll sit down with you." She sank
at the foot of the tree and leaned against it, panting.
"I des feels ez ef de yeth ud op'n en swaller me," began the poor
renegade, quivering with emotion.
"Don't talk so, Aun' Suke. I'm not strong enough to stand foolishness.
You will go back with me and stay with Uncle Lusthah and Aun' Jinkey
and Zany. You will cook for us all just the same and by and by you will
be as free as I am."
"Well, Miss Lou, I comin' back lak de perdigous son, but ole miss ain'
got no fatted calf fer me, ner you neider, I reckon. I des feered on
w'at ole miss say en do."
"Aun' Suke," said the girl, taking the woman's great black hand, "you
stand by me and I'll stand by you. When I get stronger we'll see what's
best to be done. Now I can't think, I don't know. I only feel that we
must help one another till all is clearer."
Mrs. Baron accepted Aun' Suke's presence in the kitchen again in grim
silence. She believed it the earnest of the speedy return of all the
others, and resolved to bide her time when the Southern armies restored
completely the old order of things.
Mrs. Whately drove over during the day and was aghast at what had
occurred.
"I have kept the great majority of my hands by conciliation and
promising them a share in the crops. Indeed, I had virtually to treat
them as if free. It was either that or ruin."
"Well," growled her brother, "you can't keep that pace and I wouldn't
begin it."
"I can only do the best I can, from day to day," sighed the lady, "and
I've been almost distracted."
After showing her affectionate solicitude for Miss Lou she returned,
feeling that her presence at home was now hourly needed.
Gradually the little household began to adjust itself to the new order
of things, and day by day Mr. and Mrs. Baron were compelled to see that
the few servants who ministered to them were kept at their tasks by an
influence in which they had no part. Almost imperceptibly, Miss Lou
regained her strength, yet was but the shadow of her former self. Uncle
Lusthah gave his attention to the garden, already getting weed-choked.
The best he could hope to do was to keep up a meagre supply of
vegetables, and Zany in the cool of the day often gave him a helping
hand.
Late one afternoon Miss Lou, feeling a little stronger, went to Aun'
Jinkey's cabin and sat down on the doorstep.
"Oh, mammy," she sighed, "I'm so tired, I'm so tired; yet I can do
nothing at all."
"You po' lil chile," groaned Aun' Jinkey, "how dif'ernt you looks ner
w'en you fus sot dar en wish sump'n happen."
"Oh," cried the girl almost despairingly, "too much has happened! too
much has happened! How can God let such troubles come upon us?"
"Eben Uncle Lusthah hab ter say he dunno. He say he des gwine ter hole
on twel de eend, en dat all he kin do."
"Oh, mammy, I'm all at sea. I haven't any strength to hold on and there
doesn't seem anything to hold on to. Oh, mammy, mammy, do you think
he's surely dead?"
"I feared he is," groaned Aun' Jinkey. "Dey say he spook come arter
Perkins en dat w'y de oberseer clared out."
"Oh, horrible!" cried the girl. "If his spirit could come here at all
would it not come to me instead of to that brutal wretch? Oh, mammy, I
don't know which is worse, your religion or your superstition. You
believe in a God who lets such things happen and you can think my noble
friend would come back here only to scare a man like Perkins. It's all
just horrible. Oh, Allan, Allan, are you so lost to me that you can
never look goodwill into my eyes again?"
Tears rushed to her eyes for the first time since she heard the
dreadful tidings, and she sobbed in her mammy's arms till exhausted.
That outburst of grief and the relief of tears given by kindly nature
was the decisive point in Miss Lou's convalescence. She was almost
carried back to her room and slept till late the following day. When
she awoke she felt that her strength was returning, and with it came
the courage to take up the burdens of life. For weeks it was little
more than the courage of a naturally brave, conscientious nature which
will not yield to the cowardice and weakness of inaction. The value of
work, of constant occupation, to sustain and divert the mind, was
speedily learned. Gradually she took the helm of outdoor matters from
her uncle's nerveless hands. She had a good deal of a battle in respect
to Chunk. It was a sham one on the part of Zany, as the girl well knew,
for Chunk's "tootin'" was missed terribly. Mr. and Mrs. Baron at first
refused point-blank to hear of his returning.
"Uncle," said his ward gravely, "is only your property at stake? I can
manage Chunk, and through him perhaps get others. I am not responsible
for changes which I can't help; I am to blame if I sit down idly and
helplessly and do nothing better than fret or sulk. Your bitter words
of protest are not bread and bring no money. For your sakes as well as
my own you must either act or let me act."
The honorable old planter was touched at his most sensitive point, and
reluctantly conceded, saying, "Oh, well, if you think you can save any
of your property out of the wreck, employ Chunk on your own
responsibility."
So Chunk was reinstated in his granny's cabin and given a share in all
he could raise and secure of the crops. The negro was as shrewd as
Jacob of old, but like the Hebrew patriarch could do much under the
inspiration of his twofold affection for Zany and his young mistress.
And so the summer and early fall wore away. The railroad line of
communication was maintained, and upon it drifted away Mr. Baron's
former slaves and the great majority of the others in the neighborhood.
The region in which the plantation was situated was so remote and
sparsely settled that it was a sort of border land, unclaimed and
unvisited by any considerable bodies from either party. Rev. Dr.
Williams' congregation had shrunken to a handful. He officiated at one
end of the church, and his plump, black-eyed daughter led the singing
at the other, but it was observed that she looked discontented rather
than devotional. She was keenly alive to the fact that there was not an
eligible man left in the parish. Uncle Lusthah patiently drove the
mules every clear Sunday morning and Mr. and Mrs. Baron sat in the
carriage whose springs Aun' Suke had sorely tried; but Miss Lou would
not go with them. After his readiness to marry her to her cousin she
felt it would be worse than mockery to listen to Dr. Williams again.
But a deep, yet morbid spiritual change was taking place in the girl.
As of old, she thought and brooded when her hands were busy, and during
her long, solitary evenings on the piazza. Strange to say, she was
drawing much of her inspiration from a grave--the grave of a rough,
profane soldier whom she knew only as "Yarry." There was something in
his self-forgetful effort in her behalf, even when in the mortal
anguish of death, which appealed to her most powerfully. His heroism,
expecting, hoping for no reward, became the finest thing in her
estimation she had ever witnessed. Her own love taught her why Scoville
was attracted by her and became ready to do anything for her. "That's
the old, old story," she mused, "ever sweet and new, yet old as the
world. Poor Yarry was actuated by a purely unselfish, noble impulse.
Only such an impulse can sustain and carry me through my life. No, no,
Mrs. Waldo, I can never become happy in making others happy. I can
never be happy again. The bullet which killed Allan Scoville pierced my
heart also and it is dead, but that poor soldier taught me how one can
still live and suffer nobly, and such a life must be pleasing to the
only God I can worship." All wondered at the change gradually taking
place in the girl. It was too resolute, too much the offspring of her
will rather than her heart to have in it much gentleness, but it was
observed that she was becoming gravely and patiently considerate of
others, even of their faults and follies. As far as possible, her uncle
and aunt were allowed their own way without protest, the girl
sacrificing her own feelings and wishes when it was possible. They at
last began to admit that their niece was manifesting a becoming spirit
of submission and deference, when in fact her management of their
affairs was saving them from an impoverishment scarcely to be endured.
For Mrs. Whately the girl now had a genuine and strong affection,
chilled only by her belief that the plan in regard to the son was ever
in the mother's mind. So indeed it was. The sagacious woman watched
Miss Lou closely and with feelings of growing hope as well as of
tenderness. The girl was showing a patience, a strength of mind, and,
above all, a spirit of self-sacrifice which satisfied Mrs. Whately that
she was the one of all the world for her son.
"I do believe," she thought, "that if I can only make Louise think it
will be best for us all as well as Madison, she will yield. The spirit
of self-sacrifice seems her supreme impulse. Her sadness will pass away
in time, and she would soon learn to love the father of her children.
What's more, there is something about her now which would hold any
man's love. See how her lightest wish controls those who work for her,
even that harum-scarum Zany."
In the late autumn a long-delayed letter threw Mrs. Whately into a
panic of fear and anxiety. A surgeon wrote that her son had been
severely wounded and had lost his left arm, but that he was doing well.
Here the author laid down his pen. In Mr. Roe's journal, under date of
July 11, is an entry alluding to a conversation with a friend. That
conversation concerned the conclusion of this book, and was, in effect,
substantially the same as the outline given by him in a letter, part of
which is quoted as follows:
"It is not my purpose to dwell further on incidents connected with the
close of the war, as the book may be considered too long already. It
only remains for me now to get all my people happy as soon as possible.
Zany and Chunk 'make up,' and a good deal of their characteristic
love-making will be worked in to relieve the rather sombre state of
things at this stage. Whately returns with his empty sleeve, more of a
hero than ever in his own eyes and his mother's. Miss Lou thinks him
strangely thoughtful and considerate in keeping away, as he does, after
a few short visits at The Oaks. The truth is, he is wofully
disappointed at the change in his cousin's looks. This pale, listless,
hollow-eyed girl is not the one who set him to reading 'Taming of the
Shrew.' That her beauty of color and of outline could ever return, he
does not consider; and in swift revulsion of feeling secretly pays
court elsewhere.
"Mrs. Whately, however, makes up for her son's deficiencies. Utterly
ignorant how affairs are shaping, she works by her representations upon
Miss Lou's sympathies until the weary consent is wrung from the poor
girl--'Nothing matters to me any more! If it makes you all
happy--why--then--But I must wait a year.' She feels that her love for
Allan Scoville will never be less, and that this period of time is
little enough to devote to him in silent memory.
"The delighted aunt hastens to report to her son, who stares rather
blankly, for a lover, as he hears of this concession on his cousin's
part, and without answer, he orders his horse and rides furiously away.
The ride is one that has been very frequently taken since the young
man's return, and pretty soon he is in earnest conversation with the
rosy-cheeked, black-eyed daughter of Dr. Williams. There seems to be
very good understanding between the two, and later, just at the final
scene, it will come out as effectively as can be portrayed the
startling news of their secret marriage.
"The days go on. One afternoon in the late autumn, Aun' Jinkey, smoking
and 'projeckin'' as usual in her cabin, has a vision which fairly sends
her heart, as she will express it, 'right troo de mouf.' Was it a
'spook,' or had the dead really come back to life? And I hear her
exclaim, throwing up her hands, 'Bress de Lawd, Marse Scoville, dat
you? Whar you drap fum dis yere time? I doan almos' know you widout de
un'fo'm!'
"But the 'vision' will not stop to narrate to the old aunty of his
capture, imprisonment and illness, his release and hurried journey
North. He catches sight of the slight figure of Miss Lou in the
distance near the run, and in a moment is beside her. 'Only death could
keep me from seeking you and living for you always, did I not tell you,
my darling, my darling?'
"And here I will leave them. The reader's imagination will picture more
if more is wished. It is better so."
THE END