_Chad on his own Cabin Floor_
The night after the eventful dinner in Bedford Place, the colonel,
accompanied by his guests, had alighted at a dreary way station, crawled
into a lumbering country stage, and with Chad on the box as pilot, had
stopped before a great house with ghostly trailing vines and tall
chimneys outlined against the sky.
When I left my room on the following morning the sunlight was pouring
through the big colonial window, and the breath of the delicious day,
laden with the sweet smell of bending blossoms, floated in through the
open blinds.
Descending the great spiral staircase with its slender mahogany
balusters,--here and there a break,--I caught sight of the entrance
hall below with its hanging glass lantern, quaint haircloth sofas
lining the white walls, and half-oval tables heaped with flowers, and
so on through the wide-open door leading out upon a vine-covered porch.
This had high pillars and low railings against which stood some broad
settles--all white.
[Illustration]
The colonel, Fitz, and the English agent were still in their
rooms,--three pairs of polished shoes outside their several doors
bearing silent witness to the fact,--and the only person stirring was
a pleasant-faced negro woman with white apron and gay-colored bandana,
who was polishing the parlor floor with a long brush, her little
pickaninny astraddle on the broom end for weight.
I pushed aside the hanging vines, sat down on one of the wooden benches,
and looked about me. This, then, was Carter Hall!
The house itself bore evidence of having once been a stately home. It
was of plaster stucco, yellow washed, peeled and broken in places,
with large dormer windows and sloping roof, one end of which was
smothered in a tangle of Virginia creeper and trumpet vine climbing
to the very chimney-top.
In front there stretched away what had once been a well-kept lawn, now
a wild of coarse grass broken only by the curving line of the driveway
and bordered by a row of Lombardy poplars with here and there a
gap,--bitten out by hungry camp-fires.
To the right rose a line of hills increasing in height as they melted
into the morning haze, and to the left lay an old-fashioned garden,--one
great sweep of bloom. With the wind over it, and blowing your way, you
were steeped in roses.
I began unconsciously to recall to myself all the traditions of this
once famous house.
Yes, there must be the window where Nancy waved good-by to her lover,
and there were the flower-beds into which he had fallen headlong from
his horse,--only a desolate corner now with the grass and tall weeds
grown quite up to the scaling wall, and the wooden shutters tightly
closed. I wondered whether they had ever been opened since.
And there under my eyes stood the very step where Chad had helped his
old master from his horse the day his sweetheart Henny had been
purchased from Judge Barbour, and close to the garden gate were the
negro quarters where they had begun their housekeeping. I thought I
knew the very cabin.
And that line of silver glistening in the morning light must be the
river Tench, and the bend near the willows the spot where the colonel
would build the iron bridge with the double span, and across and beyond
on the plateau, backed by the hills, the site of the future city of
Fairfax.
I left my seat, strolled out into the garden, crossed the grass jeweled
with dew, and filled my lungs with the odor of the sweet box bordering
the beds,--a rare delight in these days of modern gardens. Suddenly
I came upon a wide straw hat and a broad back bending among the bushes.
It was Chad.
"Mawnin', Major; fust fox out de hole, is yer? Lawd a massey, ain't
I glad ter git back to my ole mist'ess! Lan' sakes alive! I ain't slep'
none all night a-thinkin' ober it. You ain't seen my Henny? Dat was
her sister's chile rubbin' down de flo'. She come ober dis mawnin' ter
help, so many folks here. Wait till I git a basket ob dese yer ole
pink rose-water roses. See how I snip 'em short? Know what I'm gwineter
do wid 'em? Sprinkle 'em all ober de tablecloth. I lay dey ain't nobody
done dat for my mist'ess since I been gone. But, Major,"--here Chad
laid down the basket on the garden walk and looked at me with a serious
air,--"I done got dat coal lan' business down to a fine p'int. I was
up dis mawnin' 'fo' daylight, an' I foun' dat rock, an' de crotch is
dar yit; I scrape de moss offen it myself; an' I foun' de tree too.
I ain't sayin' nuffin', but jes you wait till after breakfas' an' dey
all go out lookin' for de coal! Jes you wait, dat's all! Chad's on his
own cabin flo' now. Can't fool dis chile no mo'."
This was good news so far as it went. Our sudden exodus from Bedford
Place had been determined upon immediately after Chad's dismal failure
to locate the coal-field: Fitz having carried the day against Yancey,
Kerfoot, and even the agent himself, who was beginning to waver under
the accumulation of uncertainties.
"Dat's enough roses to bury up de dishes. Rub yo' nose down in 'em.
Ain't dey sweet! Now, come along wid me, Major. I done tole Henny 'bout
you an' de tar'pins an' de times de gemmen had. Dis way, Major; won't
take a minute, an' ef ye all go back to-night,--an' I yerd Mister
Englishman say _he_ got to go,--you mightn't hab anudder chance.
Henny's cookin', ye know. Dis way. Step underdat honeysuckle!"
I looked through an open door and into a dingy, smoke-dried interior,
ceiled with heavy rafters, and hung with herbs, red peppers, onions,
and the like. This was lighted by three small windows, and furnished
with a row of dressers filled with crockery and kitchen ware, and
permeated by that savory smell which presages a generous breakfast On
one side of the fireplace rested the great hominy mortar, cut from a
tree trunk, found in all Virginia kitchens, and on the other the
universal brick oven with its iron doors,--the very doors, I thought,
that had closed over Chad's goose when Henny was a girl. Between the
mortar and the oven opened, or rather caverned, a fireplace as wide
as the colonel's hospitality, and high and deep enough to turn a coach
in. It really covered one end of the room.
Bending over the swinging crane hung with pots and fringed with
hooks,--baited so often with good dinners,--stood an old woman with
bent back, her gray head bound up with a yellow handkerchief.
"Henny, de major made a special p'int o' cumin' to see ye 'fo' he gits
his break-fas'."
She looked up and dropped me a curtsey.
"Mawnin', marsa. I ain't much ter see, I'm so ole an' mizzble wid dese
yer cricks in my back an' sich a passel o' white folks. How did my
Chad git along up dar 'mong de Yankees?"
[Illustration]
I gave Chad so good a character that every tooth in his head came out
on dress parade, and was about to draw from Henny some of her own
experiences,--this loyal old servant whose life from her girlhood to
her old age had been one of the romantic traditions of the roof that
sheltered her,--when Chad, who had gone out with the roses, returned
with the news that the colonel and his guests were breathing the morning
air on the front porch, and were much disturbed over my prolonged
absence.
The colonel caught sight of me as I rounded the corner, Fitz and the
agent joining in his outburst of hilarious welcome, intoxicated as
they all were with the elixir of that most exhilarating of all
hours--the hour before breakfast of a summer morning in the country.
"Welcome, my dear Major," called the colonel; "a hearty welcome to
Caarter Hall! Come up here where you can get a view of Fairfax, suh!"
and by the time I had mounted the steps he was leaning over the railing,
with Fitz on the one side and the agent on the other, sweeping the
horizon with his index finger and drawing imaginary curves and building
bridges and locating railroad stations in the air with as much
confidence and hope as if he really saw the gangs of laborers at work
across the fields, their shovels glinting in the dazzling sunlight.
"Jes cast yo' eyes, suh,"--this to the agent,--"and tell me, suh, if
you have ever in yo' world-wide experience seen such a location for
a great city. Level as a flo', watered by the Tench, and sheltered by
a line of hills that are beauty itself--it is made for it, suh!"
The agent did full justice to the natural advantages and then asked:--
"Is the coal in that range?"
"No, suh; the coal is behind us on an outlyin' spur. I will take you
there after breakfast."
And then followed a brief description of the changes the war had made
in the homestead, the burning of the barns, the abandonment of the
quarters, the destruction of the lawns--"A yard for their damnable
wagons, suh;" the colonel pointing out with great delight the very
dent in the ridge where General Early had ridden through and captured
the whole detachment without the loss of a man.
While we were talking that same rustling of silk that I had learned
to know so well in Bedford Place was heard in the hall, then a sweet,
cheery voice giving some directions to Chad, and the next instant dear
aunt Nancy--Fitz and I had long since dared to call her so--floated
(she never seemed to walk) out upon the porch with a word and a curtsey
to the agent, a hand each to Fitz and me, and a kiss for the colonel.
Then came the breakfast, and such a breakfast! The outpourings of a
Virginia kitchen, with the table showered with roses, and the great
urn shining and smoking, and the relays of waffles and corn-bread and
broiled chicken; all in the old-fashioned dining-room, with its high
wainscoting, spindle--legged sideboards, and deep window seats; the
long moon-faced clock in the corner-and the rest of it! After that the
quiet smoke under the vine-covered end of the portico with the view
towards Cartersville.
"There comes the jedge," said the colonel, pointing to a cloud of dust
following a two-wheel gig, "and Major Yancey behind on horseback."
(They had both been dropped outside their respective garden gates the
night before.) "Now, gentlemen, as soon as my attorney arrives with
the surveys and deeds we will adjourn to my library and locate this
coal-field."
Yancey's horse proved, on closer inspection, to be the remnant of an
army mule with a moth-eaten mane and a polished tail bare of hair--worn
off, no doubt, in a lifelong struggle with the Fairfax County fly. The
major was without the luxury of a saddle, some one having borrowed the
only one the owner of the mule possessed, and his breeches, in
consequence, were half way up his knees. The judge arrived in better
shape, the gig being his own and fairly comfortable,--the same he rode
to circuit, a yellow-painted vehicle washed only when it rained,--and
the horse the property of the village livery man, who had a yearly
contract with his Honor for its use.
[Illustration]
Chad was waiting on the flagstones surrounded by some stray pickaninnies
when the procession stopped, and assisted the major to alight, with
as much form and ceremony as if he had been the best mounted gentleman
in the land. The saddleless fragment was then led to a supporting
fence. The judicial equipage was accorded the luxury of a shed, where
the annual contract was served with a full measure of oats--Chad's
recognition of his more exalted station.
The judge bowed gracefully and with great dignity, and with the air
of a chief justice entering the court room; then preceding the colonel
and his guests,--without a word having fallen from his lips,--he
entered a small room opening into the parlor. There he placed upon a
chair certain mysterious-looking packages, long and otherwise, one a
tin case, which he uncapped, spreading its contents upon a table.
It proved to be another and larger map than the one Chad had pored
over, and showed distinctly the boundary lines between two dots marked
"Oak" and "Rock" dividing the Carter and Barbour estates.
Up to this time Fitz and the agent had preserved the outward appearance
of two idle gentlemen visiting a friend in the country, with no interest
beyond the fresh air and the environments of a charming hospitality.
With the unrolling of this map, however, and the discovery of the very
boundary points insisted on by Chad in Bedford Place, their excitement
could hardly be suppressed. The agent broke loose first.
"Before we find out, Colonel Carter, to whom this coal belongs, which
may take some valuable time, I want to examine the quality of the vein
itself. I would like to go now."
"By all means, suh; and my people shall go with us," said the colonel,
turning to Kerfoot with instructions to bring Chad and all the maps
later.--Yancey excused himself on the ground of the heat. Then donning
a wide straw hat and picking up a cane,--something he never used in
New York,--the colonel led the way through the rear door, across a
stone wall, and up a hill covered with a second growth of timber.
The experienced eye of the Englishman took in the lay of the land at
a glance, and beckoning Fitz to one side he stooped and picked something
from the ground which he examined carefully with a magnifying glass.
Then they both disappeared hurriedly over the hill.
When they returned, half an hour later, the perspiration was rolling
from the agent, and Fitz's eyes were blazing. Both were loaded down
with bundles of broken bits of rock, tied up in their several
handkerchiefs, large enough to start a geological collection in a
country museum.
"What is it, Fitz--diamonds?" I said, laughing.
"Yes; black ones at that." He was almost breathless. "Solid bed of
bituminous! Clear down to China! Don't breathe a word yet, for your
life!"
The agent was calmer. The coal-bed, he said, seemed to be of more than
ordinary richness, and as far as he could judge lay in a vein of
generous width. He was ready for the survey, and would like the boundary
points located at once.
The next instant Chad's head peered through the tangled underbrush.
He carried the roll of maps, the judge, who followed, contenting himself
with a package tied with red tape.
The old darky's face was one broad grin from ear to ear.
The judge unrolled a map and placed it on a flat rock with a stone at
each corner. Then he untied the package, selected an ink-stained and
faded document marked "Deed--John Carter to E. A. Barbour," and ran
his eye along the quaint page, reading as he went:--
Starting from an oak, blazed diamond C, along a line S. E. to a rock
marked C cross B, C+B, in all a distance of 1437 linear feet.
"Now, Chad, we will fust find the tree," said the judge, looking around
for his map-bearer. "Where's that nigger? Chad!"
The old man had disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed
him up. The next minute we heard a faint halloo below us near the edge
of a small swamp. A man was waving his hat and shouting:--
"Eve'ybody come yer!"
Fitz started on a run, and the agent and I followed on the double-quick.
At the end of a crooked stone wall, half surrounded by water, was a
great spreading oak, its branches reaching half way across the narrow
marsh. Within touching distance of the yielding ground stood Chad
pointing to a smooth blaze, stained and overgrown with lichen.
It bore this mark, [C in a diamond]!
"It tallies to a dot. Now, Chad, the rock! the rock!" said Fitz, hardly
able to contain himself.
The darky pointed straight up the hill, the sky line of which could
be seen entire from where we stood, and indicated an isolated rock
jutting out above the tree-tops.
I thought Fitz would have hugged him.
"How do you know it is the rock with the crotch in it? Speak, you
grinning lunatic!"
"I was dar dis mawnin' by daylight."
"What's it marked?" said Fitz, catching him by both shoulders. "What's
it marked? Quick!"
"Wid a C an' a cross an' a B--so." And the old man traced it with his
finger in the mud.
"Every pound of coal on the colonel's land!" said Fitz, with a yell
that brought his host and Kerfoot as fast as their legs could carry
them.
"Stop!" said Kerfoot. "This only settles the Caarter and Barbour
division. There was another division here a year ago between Miss Ann
Caarter and the colonel. With that I am mo' familiar, for I drew the
deeds, which are here," holding up a bundle; "and I was also present
with the surveyor. You are wrong, Mr. Fitzpatrick; this entire hill
outside the Barbour division is Miss Ann Caarter's, and the coal is
on her land. The colonel's portion is back there along the Tench."