temporarily. Three miles from Shug’s home, Pruitt Brothers, turpentine
operators, established a woods commissary. Selina Jo’s first visit to
the store left her gasping with pleasure. Filled with the usual gaudy
assortment carried in stock by the general country store, to the
half-starved eyes and soul of the woods-bred girl, the place was a
wonderland. Dress goods in loud patterns dazzled her sight; vari-colored
ribbons flaunted themselves tantalizingly before her gaze. But the one
thing that charmed her, that held her spellbound, was a cheap,
ready-made gingham dress. She made frequent unnecessary trips to the
store merely to feast her eyes upon it. She would look from it to the
faded homespun that she wore and sigh enviously. Once she even mustered
the courage to ask the price. It was an insignificant sum, but the
thought struck her with sickening force that it might just as well have
been a thousand dollars. She had never owned a piece of money.
Slowly, as her yearning for the dress became almost unbearable, a plan
formed in her mind. Coming in from her tasks one day, she found Shug,
just returned from one of his mysterious periodical trips.
“Paw,” she began timidly, “I--I got a hankerin’.”
“S’pose you have?” Shug’s manner was more surly than usual. “A hankerin’
never hurt nobody, yet.”
“But, but I shore ’nough want sump’m.”
“Wantin’ an’ gitten’ is diffe’ent things. What is it?”
“They’s the purtiest dress over to Pruitt’s store,” Selina Jo began
eagerly, “an’ it’s made outen real gingham.”
“Gingham?” Shug whirled about with a snarl. “What air you talkin’ about,
gal?”
Selina Jo’s heart sank. “I ain’t never had nary one,” she offered
placatingly. “An’----”
“Ner ain’t never li’ble to, neether. Homespun’s good enough fer yore
pore maw an’ it’ll hatter be good enough fer you. I ain’t goin’ to be
workin’ myse’f to skin an’ bone to be fittin’ out no young ’un in fancy
riggin’s.”
“But, Paw, it don’t cost much.”
“It costes just that much more ’n you’re goin’ to git. Shet up!”
It was then that Selina Jo unfolded her plan. “I’m goin’ to git me that
air dress,” she announced dispassionately. “I’m aimin’ to pay fer it
myse’f, too.”
“How?”
“Yearnin’ the money at public work.”
“You?” Shug snorted derisively. “Whare’ll you git any public work?”
“In Pruitt’s turkentime orchard. They’s a heap o’ the work I kin do. I
could do scrapin’ er dippin’; reckin I could even do hackin’.”
Shug had slumped into the one comfortable chair in the room. Turning his
head, he glared at his daughter.
“You air not goin’ to work in no turkentime orchard,” he rasped. “You
air goin’ to stay right here an’ he’p yore pore maw an’ me. I told you
oncet to shet up!”
It struck Selina Jo suddenly that life was, somehow, terribly one-sided
and unfair. Other girls in the community, who didn’t work as hard as she
did, were beginning to wear gingham dresses for Sunday. She thought
bitterly that in return for her slaving she had received bed and
board--nothing more. By everything that was right, she reasoned, she had
earned at least one store-bought dress. Yet it was roughly denied her.
Some of the thoughts which had been haunting her for months struggled
for expression. Her soul cried out against what was a patent injustice.
But she managed to speak calmly.
“Fer as I kin figger it out, Paw,” she said, “I been doin’ my sheer o’
keepin’ this here fambly up. I broke them last yoke o’ steers, an’ one
of ’em you was afeared to tech. I’ve split rails an’ laid fences; I’ve
broke new ground. An’ the fu’st time I ast fer anything you say I cain’t
have it.”
She ceased speaking for a moment, but her steady gaze never left Shug’s
face.
“Now, I’m goin’ to work fer Pruitt,” she continued slowly, “till I git
me the money I need.”
Something must have occurred during Shug’s recent trip--probably a
hurried flight from officers--to increase his normal perverseness. He
had risen from his chair. Taking a heavy leather strap from the wall, he
started toward Selina Jo.
“You air, huh?” Advancing, he fondled the strap suggestively. “You’ll
git a larrupin’, that’s what!”
With the first evidence of her father’s intention, Selina Jo’s face had
flushed a brick-red. Now it paled suddenly. She had not even been
threatened with corporal punishment for years. Wild rebellion surged
within her. A carving knife lay upon the rude deal table beside which
she was standing. One slim, brown hand dropped down beside the knife.
Her emotion visible only in the tumultuous heaving of her breast and the
white, set expression of her face, she waited, motionless, her dark,
sombre eyes gazing unwaveringly into Shug’s face.
“Paw,” she said evenly, “just you tech me oncet with that strop an’, as
shore as God gives me stren’th, I’ll cut yore heart out.”
An innate coward, Shug recognized a danger sign when he saw it. The hand
which held the strap dropped to his side. He backed slowly away.
“You ... you ...” he sputtered and stopped.
“You an’ Maw been sayin’,” Selina Jo continued, “that I’m tryin’ to be
better ’n my raisin.’ But I ain’t forgot how them Briggs settlement
folks looked at us slanchwise. ’Tweren’t ’cause we was p’izen pore,
neither. They knowed, somehow, we was plumb low-down an’ ornery. That’s
why they didn’t none of ’em ast us to a Sunday dinner. They seed we was
trash. Course I’m honin’ to be better ’n that kind o’ raisin’--an’ I’m
goin’ to, too!”
Shug had retreated to the doorway, where he stood watching this new
daughter of his with furtive, fearful eyes. The meanest of petty
tyrants, when he held the whip hand, doubtless he expected that Selina
Jo would exhibit the same trait. There was nothing of the bully in the
girl, though. Threatened with what she considered to be undeserved
punishment, she had simply acted upon the dictates of her immature mind
and had seized upon the only means at hand to escape it.
It was several moments before Shug mustered courage to speak. “Sence you
air goin’ to do public work,” he whined presently, “’tain’t nothin’ but
right you ort to pay fer yore bed an’ board.”
Selina Jo was glad to agree to this arrangement. When informed of it
later, Marthy sullenly acquiesced. She would have to do the housework
now, which was no more to her liking than the realization that Shug
would permanently pocket the money for their daughter’s board.
It was the next day that Selina Jo sought out Lige Tuttle, woods foreman
for Pruitt Brothers.
“I’m lookin’ fer a job,” she announced bluntly.
“Sorry,” Tuttle answered brusquely, “but all our cooks are niggers.”
“Cook?” was the scornful answer. “I ain’t astin’ to be no cook. I want
shore ’nough work.”
Tuttle smiled patronizingly. “What can you do?’
“Scrapin’, dippin’, er hackin’,” was the confident answer.
“You?” Tuttle laughed softly. “Why, that’s a man’s work. It’s hard.”
“Any harder ’n breakin’ bull yearlin’s to the yoke? Er splittin’ rails
an’ breakin’ new ground?”
“Mean to say you’ve done all that?”
“I most bardaceously have!”
Labour was scarce at the time. Tuttle considered the girl’s request
carefully, asked a few more questions, and decided to take a chance.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“S’liny Jo.”
“What else?”
It was the first time Selina Jo had ever been asked her surname; she
felt the blood rush to her face.
“What’s your last name?” Tuttle repeated.
The answer came almost inaudibly: “Hudsill.”
“Shug Hudsill’s young ’un?”
“How kin I he’p it?” the girl burst out passionately. “If you’d a been
borned a Hudsill, you’d hatter be one, too!”
“Don’t get mad, child.” There was something in the spirit of this
strange creature that Tuttle could not understand; but he respected it.
“I wasn’t aimin’ to low-rate you none just because of your daddy. Come
here to-morrow mornin’, an’ I’ll try you out.”
Selina Jo found that the work _was_ hard. The dry, slippery pine needles
underfoot made walking itself a task. She carried a heavy bucket into
which she dipped the raw gum, emptying the bucket, when filled, into
barrels scattered about the orchard. From sun-up till sunset, and later,
she toiled; not once, though, did she grumble. She was too foolishly
happy. What she was undergoing was the prelude to real existence, as she
saw it. What better, she asked herself, could any strong, healthy girl
desire than a steady job dipping turpentine for which she was paid real
money?
Occasional passersby, strangers to the vicinity, amazed at seeing a girl
engaged in such unusual work, would pause to ask friendly questions. The
first flush of pleasure that this gave Selina Jo was quickly erased by
the bitter after-tang of reflection: these people were kind because they
did not know she was a Hudsill.
While with practice she developed skill, it was three months before she
had saved the money she needed. The gingham dress had been laid aside
for her. But her ambition had soared. A beautiful dress above a pair of
bare legs and feet would never do. Then, too, since her only item of
headgear was the sunbonnet which she wore every day, she would need,
besides shoes and stockings, a hat.
The day came at last, though, when she could make her purchases. With
her arms filled with bundles, she started out joyously on her three-mile
walk home.
A half mile from the commissary she paused indecisively at a crossroads.
The right-hand road, leading to Shoalwater River, meant the lengthening
of her journey a full mile; but the river, with its promise of a cooling
plunge, enticed her. As she stood hesitant, trying to decide, she
observed a stranger approaching on horseback. She drew aside to let him
pass, but he reined in his horse and hailed her.
“Evenin’, little sister! Live hereabouts?”
“Down the left-hand fork a piece.” Selina Jo bent her steady glance upon
the stranger. “Who air you?”
“I’m Holmes--sheriff of the county.”
Instinctively the girl drew back. “What air you wantin’ o’ me? I ain’t
done nothin’.”
“Lord bless you, little sister,” the sheriff laughed, “I’m not after
you. Thought maybe as you live round here you might tell me something I
want to know.”
It seemed that a murder had recently been committed in the bay-shore
country ten miles distant. Circumstances pointed to the guilt of two men
who had been arrested. Assuming that the murderers had passed through
the Hudsill section en route to or from the scene of the crime, the
sheriff was seeking evidence to prove this.
Strangers were enough of a rarity in the neighbourhood to be remembered
easily. Selina Jo recalled two men who had passed that way whose
description fitted those charged with the murder.
Sheriff Holmes was elated. “Would you like a trip to Eastview?” he
asked.
“Eastview?” Selina Jo’s heart skipped a beat. “That’s town, ain’t
it--whare the railroad trains is at?”
“Yes. We’ll want you there a week from to-day.” The sheriff filled in a
blank subpœna and extended it to the girl. “Look me up in the
courthouse soon as you get to town.”
Selina Jo’s breathless announcement that she was going to court created
a flurry at home until Shug learned why she had been summoned. Then he
breathed easily.
It was decided that she could use the oxen and wagon for the trip, as
Eastview was twenty-five miles distant. This method of travel, being
slow, would necessitate an early start on the day before the trial. When
that day dawned, though, one of the oxen was found to be indisposed.
Selina Jo assembled a lunch of corn pone and side meat, filled a small
bottle with molasses, and, dressed in her new finery, set out on foot.
Within an hour the new shoes began to pinch. She took them off, tied
them together by their strings and slung them over her shoulder. The
stockings were rolled into balls and stuffed into her pockets.
Late in the afternoon she bathed her feet and legs in a brook just
outside Eastview and donned shoes and stockings again.
It was dusk when she arrived at the sheriff’s office. An overflow crowd
at the single hotel necessitated her staying with Sheriff Holmes’s
family that night.
With the inborn timidity of the woods-bred girl, she remained there
until summoned to court in the late forenoon of the following day. By
the time her evidence was concluded, though, she had partially overcome
her shyness, and was ready for sightseeing.
Wandering about the interior of the courthouse, she marvelled at the
white plaster walls. Then she watched several people using the sanitary
drinking fountain. Presently she found courage to try it herself. The
technic she found to be rather difficult, but after she had mastered it
she became a frequent patron.
Later, she ventured outside the courthouse.
Sheriff Holmes found her during the noon recess. She had commandeered a
small goods box which she was using as a seat. Her enraptured gaze was
fastened upon a scene across the street. Three large, two-story frame
buildings, painted a dazzling white, stood upon a lot which occupied an
entire block. Beneath the branches of huge water oaks, were scores of
girls, dressed in white blouses and dark-blue skirts.
Sheriff Holmes smiled understandingly. “Like it?”
Selina Jo did not even turn her head. “Whose is them air li’l gals?” she
asked breathlessly.
“The state’s--for the present,” was the answer.
“Who?”
“The state. That’s the reformatory for girls.”
It was plain that the remark conveyed no information to Selina Jo. “Do
which?” she asked.
“When girls--young ones, like you--break the law,” the sheriff
explained, “they bring them here to be reformed.”
“What’s re-formed?”
“Well ... it’s like this: before they let a girl go again, she has to
prove that she’s been changed for the better.”
“Changed?” Selina Jo looked up with a quick indrawn breath. “They make
’em diffe’ent f’um what they was?”
“Ye-e-es ... that’s about it, I guess.”
“Do they learn ’em outen books in there?”
“Oh, yes; they have regular hours for study.”
“An’ could--could a gal git in there what didn’t know nothin’ but a part
o’ the fu’st reader?”
“You don’t understand, yet, child. It’s only for girls who do wrong.
Now, a girl like you never would go there.”
Selina Jo sighed dejectedly. Her eyes caressed the buildings with their
spotless white walls and wide-flung shutters, and the groups of girls
scattered about the lawn.
Presently she pointed to a high iron picket fence which enclosed the
lot. “What’s the fence fer?” she asked.
“Why, if that fence wasn’t there, little sister, half the girls there
would light out before midnight,” the sheriff answered.
“They’d run away?” Selina Jo shook her head incredulously. “F’um them
purty houses?”
Since it would be impossible for her to reach home that day, she spent
another night with the sheriff’s family. In her dreams she saw
white-painted buildings fashioned of real lumber. There was real glass
in the windows, too; they weren’t just yawning black holes in the walls.
And the chimneys were of brick; so different from the flimsy
stick-and-clay affair that leaned drunkenly against one end of the cabin
at home. Home! She seemed to sicken at the thought.
Her dreams were peopled with girls in white blouses and blue skirts,
thousands of them, it seemed to her. They were all within an iron-fenced
inclosure, beckoning to her to enter; and she was always just on the
outside.
With morning came thoughts of her work in the turpentine orchard.
Inexplicably, a vague dissatisfaction awoke within her. The idea began
to burn itself into her consciousness that, though she might spend a
lifetime in honest toil there, she would always be referred to as “one
of that Hudsill tribe.” Apparently there was no escape from that.
During breakfast she was unusually quiet and thoughtful. With a shy
acknowledgment of thanks, she accepted the liberal lunch provided by the
sheriff’s wife and made her adieus. Two miles outside the town she left
the highway. A hundred yards from the road she seated herself upon a log
and grimly prepared to wait.
Darkness had fallen when she again entered Eastview and cautiously
approached the reformatory from the rear. She scaled the iron fence with
comparative ease. Crouching low, she crept toward a lighted window on
the ground floor. Two girls of about her own age sat at a study table.
Standing before the window, Selina Jo spoke.
“Kin I come in?” she asked softly.
One of the girls screamed slightly; the other, after her first
involuntary start of amazement, seemed wonderfully selfpossessed.
“Sure, Rube!” she invited cordially. “Step right in!”
Selina Jo climbed over the low window sill into the room.
“What you doin’ here?” one of the girls asked.
“I’m j’inin’ o’ this here re-formin’ place,” was the unruffled answer.
“You’re _wha-a-at_?”
Very simply Selina Jo made known her intentions.
“But you’ll be caught, sure as shootin’,” one of the girls objected. “In
the first place you’ve got no uniform.”
Naturally, Selina Jo expected to be discovered sooner or later; but she
had prepared for this eventuality--as she thought.
“Maybe we can fix that,” the other girl broke in eagerly. “There’s that
old blouse of mine and your extra skirt. Gee! I wish we could put it
over! Wouldn’t old Iron Jaw be wild?”
Between them they rigged a uniform for Selina Jo. At the nightly
inspection she crept under the bed. Later, she slept on a pallet.
The fortunate indisposition of a girl across the hall solved the
breakfast problem. Selina Jo, taking the vacant place in the formation,
passed undiscovered for the moment.
Among the many contingencies which she could not have provided against,
though, were the sharp eyes and keen memory for faces possessed by Mary
Shane, the matron in charge. As the girls were forming for certain
duties shortly after breakfast, Selina Jo felt a heavy hand upon her
shoulder. She looked up into the stern face of the matron.
“What are you doing here?” was the curt inquiry.
“Me?” Selina Jo’s attempt at surprise was ludicrous. “I--I b’long here,
ma’am.”
“You do? You ought to know me then. What is my name?”
Instinct told the girl that this must be the matron. “Old Iron Jaw,” she
answered unabashed.
Mary Shane smiled grimly. “Come with me,” she ordered.
She led the way, Selina Jo following meekly, to her little cubby-hole of
an office.
“Now, then,” the matron commanded sternly, “tell me the truth. How did
you get in here?”
“I--I clumb that fence.”
“Why?”
“Just ’cause, ma’am, I nacherly got to git re-formed,” was the perfectly
serious answer. “I ralely b’long here. I’m so p’izen mean they ain’t no
other place fitten fer me.”
“What’s your name?”
Now it came, not hesitantly, but proudly--even defiantly: “S’liny Jo
Hudsill!”
Mary Shane knitted her brows thoughtfully: “Hudsill?”
“Yes’m. Them low-down, sneakin’, ornery Shoalwater River Hudsills,
ma’am. Ever’body in the country knows ’bout ’em. They air the
shif’lesses’ fambly that ever was borned. An’ what’s furdermore, I’m the
hellraisin’es’ one o’ the intire gin’ration!”
“What are you trying to tell me, child?”
“Just how tarnation mean I am, ma’am.”
In her plans for forcibly entering the reformatory, Selina Jo had hit
upon the idea of charging herself, when her presence should be
discovered, with an assortment of crimes sufficient to insure her
incarceration for an indefinite period. It seemed to her now that the
moment for her confession had arrived.
“Last mont’, ma’am,” she continued earnestly. “I burned down three cow
stalls. Right atter that I went inta my own blood uncle’s cornfiel’ an’
pulled up ever’ smidgin’s bit o’ his young corn--pulled it smack up by
the roots, ma’am. Ner that ain’t all, not nigh all. I almost hate to
tell you this’n, ma’am. But last week I stobbed a li’l nigger baby to
death. Killed him dead. Dead as----”
“Hush, child, hush!” the matron ordered. “You did none of those things.
Now then: Tell me--the truth!”
It came then--the truth--a story haltingly told of a child’s scarcely
understood heartache for self-betterment. Selina Jo didn’t want to stay
in the reformatory long, she said; only long enough to learn all there
was in the books. Then she would be willing to leave. She would change
her name and go away off somewhere. Maybe the folks there, not knowing
that she was a Hudsill, would invite her to a Sunday dinner when she
went to meeting.
People, some of them, rather, said of Mary Shane that her long
association with the so-called criminally inclined young had rendered
her immune to every human emotion. But as the recital progressed, the
matron turned her back suddenly and strode over to a window.
Presently the story was finished.
“An’ please, ma’am,” a voice was asking hopefully, “I kin stay now,
cain’t I?”
Mary Shane did not reply, for a moment. “I’m afraid not, child,” she
said presently. Few who thought they knew her would have recognized the
matron’s voice. “You--you’ve done nothing to be kept here for. You’ll
have to go home.”
Then it was that Selina Jo’s heart broke. She flung herself upon the
matron.
“Oh, God, ma’am,” she sobbed, “please don’t make me go back! I _ain’t_
goin’ back! I don’t want to be one o’ them low-down Hudsills all o’ my
endurin’ days. I want to be somebody, like other folks is. I don’t want
to have a passel o’ dang li’l’ old gals lookin’ at me slanchwise when I
go to meetin’. You don’t know what it is, ma’am, to have a hankerin’. I
want to be changed! I want to be made diffe’ent! Ma’am, I just _got_ to
git re-formed!”
Mary Shane had opened her mouth to speak, to check this outburst;
suddenly her iron jaws closed with a snap.
“Come with me, child,” she said. “We’ll see the superintendent.” A
moment later she added: “Jim Wellborn generally runs this reformatory to
suit himself, anyway!”
The matron was the one person connected with the institution who took
whatever liberties she chose. When she wished to be particularly
impressive, she addressed people by their full names.
“Jim Wellborn,” she said brusquely, as she and Selina Jo entered the
superintendent’s office, “this girl wants to tell you something. You
listen closely.”
Wellborn, big and broad-shouldered, had glanced up as they entered. His
quizzical glance had rested first upon the girl; now he looked at Mary
Shane.
“When you’ve heard her story,” the matron continued, “if you can’t find
some way to keep her here so she can learn to live the life that
Almighty God has shown her that she’s fitted for, why I’ll undertake the
job of looking after her myself and the reformatory can get another
matron.”
“Hm-m-m!” Superintendent Wellborn’s gray eyes twinkled; but he did not
smile outright. “Well ... the reformatory is fairly well satisfied with
its present matron. Good-day, Mary Shane! Sit down, little girl.”
The matron closed the door and returned to her office. For nearly an
hour she sat, idle, at her desk. It was the first of the month; there
were statements to be prepared, reports to be rendered, bills to be
checked. But it was patent that her mind was upon none of these things.
From time to time she glanced up impatiently at some noise in the
hallway. Presently there came the sound of hurrying footsteps. She
whirled her chair about.
Selina Jo stood in the doorway. Questions, answers, were unnecessary.
The flush in her cheeks, the flame in her sloe-black eyes, blazoned her
happiness to the world. As she realized what the superintendent’s
decision had been, an answering light gleamed, momentarily, in Mary
Shane’s face. Characteristically, though, it was quenched upon the
instant, as she slipped once more, automatically, into her habitual mask
of granite.
But even a granite mask--since it is only a mask--cannot stifle a heart
song; at best, it can only muffle it. For as she went about the prosaic
business of acquainting Selina Jo with her duties, Mary Shane was well
aware that, somewhere, deep within herself, a small voice was chanting,
chanting over and over:
“For this one--just this one, Lord--who comes of her own accord to be
changed, for this single one who wants to be made different, I thank
Thee!”
A FRIEND OF NAPOLEON
BY RICHARD CONNELL
From _Saturday Evening Post_
All Paris held no happier man than Papa Chibou. He loved his work--that
was why. Other men might say--did say, in fact--that for no amount of
money would they take his job; no, not for ten thousand francs for a
single night. It would turn their hair white and give them permanent
goose flesh, they averred. On such men Papa Chibou smiled with pity.
What stomach had such zestless ones for adventure? What did they know of
romance? Every night of his life Papa Chibou walked with adventure and
held the hand of romance.