There was the law against Zoe taking this step, and against any one
having any part in it. Still would it be known? I was content to wait
for developments and meanwhile to put the whole thing behind me. Work
helped me to do this.
I had Sarah's boy to interest me too. They had named him Amos. I had
taken five twenty-dollar gold pieces and tied them in a package, bound
them with a ribbon, and placed them in his tiny hand. I could not
foresee the time when I should touch his hand on an occasion of very
different import and with Zoe standing by. Zoe had made Amos some pretty
little things and sent them by me. Sarah's only regret was that her
grandmother could not see the boy. Her great happiness was wholly
beautiful. And Reverdy seemed impressed with a greater dignity and a
more gracious heart, if that were possible. I had found Mrs. Brown well
adapted to my household. She liked the place; and the prospect was that
she would be long in my service. Life was moving on.
I kept in touch with affairs in England and Europe through the London
_Times_. I was also a subscriber to Greeley's _New Yorker_; and I did
not slight the local paper, which belabored Douglas in proportion as he
increased in popularity and power. I read many books as well.
For I felt the stir of a new age. I saw the North, the country around
me, growing in wealth and dominance. I saw old despotisms giving way and
new ones coming to take their place. The factory system was arising, due
to machinery. Weaving and spinning processes had improved. The cry of
women and children crowded in the factories of Pennsylvania began to be
heard. The hours of toil were long. And if the whip descended upon the
back of the negro in the South, the factory overseer in Philadelphia
flogged the laborer who did not work enough to suit him, or who was
tardy at the task. Women and children there were feeling the lash of the
whip. Just now there was talk of a machine which would cut as much grain
in a day as six men could cut with scythes. I ordered two of these
machines for the next year, for I was farming more and more on a big
scale. But what seemed most wonderful to me was an instrument now being
talked about which sent messages by electricity. It was not perfected
yet. It was treated with skepticism. But if it could be! If I could get
a message from St. Louis, a distance of more than a hundred miles, in a
few minutes or an hour!
Douglas came out to see me one night to tell me what was on his mind. He
wanted to be the prosecuting attorney. Consider the straits of a young
man who must make his way and get a place in the world! Is there
anything more desperate at times? What was the law business in this
community, divided, as it was, by eleven lawyers, shared in by visiting
lawyers? Douglas had to live. Youth is forced to push ahead or be
crushed. I know he has been accused of manipulation in having the law
passed by which he could be appointed to the office and supplant a
rival. Well, if he had not had the gifts and the energies to do such
things, how could he have served the country and maintained himself? The
next February before he was twenty-two, he was state's attorney for the
district. No wonder that lesser men railed at him. But what one of them
would not have done the same thing if he could?
And now I was seeing much of Dorothy. What did it mean? Was she only my
friend? Reverdy, her brother, was my most intimate friend. Did she
receive my attentions on account of the relations between him and me? If
she knew anything about Zoe she never betrayed it to me. Surely she
could not be in Jacksonville so long and be ignorant that Zoe was my
half-sister. At last I decided to explore Dorothy's mind. I went at it
forthrightly. Did she know that Zoe and I had the same father?
She had heard it. That was a common enough thing in the South; not
common there, however, for a colored mother to be the wife of a white
father. "I have suffered on account of this," said Dorothy. "You knew
nothing about it and had nothing to do with it. It is too bad--too bad,
Jimmy!"
There remained Zoe's misadventure. How could I approach that? But if
Dorothy had heard of it would she continue to receive me? If she knew
about it would not the present association of ideas bring it to mind
and bespeak it to me by change of color or expression? I looked at
Dorothy quizzically. I discovered nothing in her face. Then I began to
think of the certain probability that some one had come to her breathing
rumors upon her. So I said: "Promise me something, Dorothy. If any one
ever tells you anything about me, say, for example, that I haven't been
perfectly fair with Zoe in every way, and honorable as far as I know how
to be, will you withhold belief until you give me a chance? Do you
promise me that?" And Dorothy stretched her hand to me in a warm-hearted
way. "You are Reverdy's friend, aren't you, and he is yours. Well, I
promise you. But it isn't necessary, for it would have to be something
that I could believe you capable of. Then Reverdy would have to believe
it, and then I might have a mind of my own after all. Why, how could
anyone say anything about you? You have been as good to Zoe as if she
were as white as I."
And so Dorothy didn't know. I left the matter where it was. I could not
go on. You see I was nineteen and Dorothy was eighteen and the year was
1834.
But Lamborn. I had made an enemy of him. Rather, he had turned himself
into my enemy. He was running with a gang of rough fellows called the
McCall boys. They drank and fought, using clubs or stones or knives.
They were suspected of trying to rob the stage when it was driven by the
poor wretch who had died of the cholera two summers before. That driver
was noted for his courage, his ready use of the rifle; and he had
frightened the marauders off, and had wounded one of them, who limped
away until the trail of his blood was obscured.
Every time I came into town I was subjected to wolfish leers from some
member of this gang. Evidently they had taken up Lamborn's cause.
Something was preying upon him. He was drinking more heavily. Perhaps he
was tormented with the thought that I knew his secret and abided some
vengeance upon him. Perhaps his conscience tortured him. At any rate he
had become a skulking figure of hatred, showing his teeth and snarling
when he saw me and sidling away like a wolf. He had muttered curses as
he hurried to one side. "Bloody Englishman" and the like were his
remarks. Something told me to watch him, to watch the McCall boys. I
began to take pains to guard my house in the country, sleeping always
with my rifle by my side; and I had provided my men with rifles,
instructing them to shoot if trespassers approached during suspicious
hours or when warned away.
The autumn was the most delicious weather I had experienced since coming
to America. Enough of the summer was carried over into October, and even
November, to keep the days warm and full of sunlight, while the nights
were clear and frosty, and always over this boundless prairie the far
scattered stars. I had bought an astronomical chart and located the
constellations, in which Zoe had joined me in increasing wonder. Then I
had a taste of real hunting. Reverdy and I had gone to marshes a few
miles away for wild geese and ducks; and we had come back loaded with
game for ourselves and friends. There were many parties and what were
called "shucking bees," where the company set to to assist the host in
ridding the corn of its sheath; and quilting bees; and apple parings.
These were occasions of festival, the local rituals of Dionysius.
Earlier in the fall I had gone to a county fair and had seen the
products of the field on display; and had studied the people: the tall
angular gawks, the men carrying whips, the dust, the noise, the cheap
fakirs and gamblers, the fights, the drunkenness, the women tired and
perspiring carrying their babies and leading a brood. To me it was more
like a cattle pen befogged with dust than an assemblage of human beings.
And there was no happiness, no real joy; only barbaric breaking away
from hard labor and the silence of the farms; only a reeling and a
howling and a war dance; and only here and there a flash of breeding and
fineness, and intelligent use of the occasion for sweeter joys and
fuller life.
The winter came down; but I was better prepared for it than I was the
year before. My house with its walls a foot thick of solid oak and
tightly plastered against the penetrating winds kept out the cold. And
my fireplaces built under my very eye threw a steady heat into the
rooms. I was giving parties from time to time and attending them as
well. Douglas always came. He was unfailingly the life of the party. He
had reënforced his political successes with a genuine hold upon the
hearts of the young people and the older people. He was attacked weekly
by the Whig newspaper. But he was not without defense. Almost upon
arriving at Jacksonville he had written a letter of praise to the editor
of a newly started journal. The editor was greatly pleased at this
spontaneous expression of interest and had become Douglas' friend and
stanch champion. Ah! Douglas was only manipulating. He had written this
letter to win a newspaper to his support. The wily schemer! "Genius has
come into our midst," wrote the editor. "No one can doubt this who heard
Mr. Douglas expound Democratic doctrine in his wonderful debate with
John Wyatt. This country is richer for having attracted Douglas to it.
He is here to stay. And he will be one of the great men of the country
as President Jackson is now the greatest figure since Washington; and
Illinois will send him forth as her son to speak and to act on the great
questions that are already beginning to fill the minds of the people."
Douglas often came out to stay for the night or for a day or two. He had
little law business, but his energies were always employed in shaping
his powers toward a participation in the politics of the country. His
superhuman energy was intensified by the fact that he had been deprived
of an opportunity to educate himself. It was the gadfly that drove him
forward with such restless industry. I could see that he had no patience
for a detailed study of the law; that he might be ignorant of the
technical steps to be taken in the collection of a promissory note, but
he would know something about the resources of a treaty; that if he did
not know how to settle the title to a farmer's field, he had considered
ways to put at rest any claim of England to the territory of the Oregon.
Yet he had to live as a lawyer before he could flourish as a statesman.
And he had become the prosecuting attorney. His enemies said it was by a
trick; that he had had the state law changed so that the legislature
could appoint him state's attorney for the district of Jacksonville. The
accusation proved too much. Douglas was not quite twenty-two when he
reached this office. He had been in the state but two years, not quite
that. How had such a youth first won the confidence of enough people who
wished to give him this office and were able to do it; and then won the
legislature to do the extraordinary thing of changing the law to give
him the office, while at the same time supplanting a seasoned and
experienced man in the place? How? Was every one corrupt, people and
legislature? But it was February and he was the prosecuting attorney for
the people.
He came out to see me, and we drank his health and fortune. It was on
this occasion that Douglas talked to me with the greatest freedom about
my own affairs. His frankness and sincerity, his friendship for me,
relieved this broaching of my intimate interests of intrusiveness. I
felt no inclination to resent it. He had glanced at Zoe who had come
into the room once or twice, remarking that she was an unusual young
woman. Then he said: "Your father must have been much of a man. I think
his marriage worked upon his feelings ... and Zoe. Don't let this get on
your imagination. You are handling it in the right way ... just go on.
Let me warn you. The McCall gang is a desperate one. Do not on any
account come to an issue with them. There are too many of them. They
will sneak up upon you. They carry grudges ... and another thing,
there's Lamborn ... as bad as the McCalls. He's been talking too, making
threats against you. I tell you this for your own good. He has been
boasting of Zoe's interest in him ... to speak euphemistically of the
matter ... but just be careful." Whatever else he had in his mind he
communicated it to me by the look of his speaking eyes, keen and blue.
Then he arose and went.
Dorothy had returned to Nashville for the winter. She expected to take
her place again in Reverdy's household in the spring. And we were
writing. I had thought of proposing marriage to her the night before she
left. But I could not bring myself to do so. I needed some one in my
life. But I was just twenty, and Dorothy seemed so much more mature and
wise than I. Then always there was this matter of Zoe. I lived in the
expectation that something would come out of Zoe's misfortune; and if it
did my name was bound to be connected with it. What would Dorothy say if
in the midst of our engagement, if she engaged herself to me, the word
should be brought to her that I was the father of Zoe's aborted child
and that by some one, perhaps Mrs. Brown, Zoe had been saved the open
shame of giving birth to the child and while an inmate of my house? I
could see the probative force of these facts against me. This is what
kept me from speaking to Dorothy on the subject of becoming my wife and
having it settled before she went to Nashville. And then something
happened that made my situation infinitely worse before it was any
better.
The spring had come on early and I had much to do. I was buying
machinery. The mowers that I had ordered were soon to be delivered and I
had need to be in town almost daily. There were always loafers about the
streets; and among them, not infrequently, the McCall boys or Lamborn.
Reverdy had told me that Lamborn had been talking in the barber shop,
saying that I was living in a state of adultery with my nigger sister.
At the same time I knew, and Reverdy knew, that Lamborn was trying to
get Zoe to meet him. He had sent her a note to that effect, which Zoe
had turned over to me. Once he had accosted Zoe as she was coming from
Reverdy's to join me at the courthouse preparatory to starting home.
Reverdy thought that the fellow was eaten up with insane jealousy and
had brought himself to the belief that I had taken Zoe from him, if he
could be said ever to have had a right to her.
It is an April day and I have come into town and am rushing from place
to place attending to many things. Reverdy has met me at the bank to
tell me of another opportunity to buy a team of horses and some oxen;
for we use the latter mostly to draw the plows that turn up the heavy
sod of the prairie. Reverdy has just told me of Lamborn's threat to come
to my farm and take Zoe: that when a girl was once his she was always
his. He had said these things at the barber shop. Something came over
me. I resolved that this intolerable state of affairs, of anxiety for
Zoe, of misunderstanding for myself, of dread of the future, of a sort
of brake on my life as of something holding me back and impeding my
happiness and peace of mind ... all this had to end somehow and soon. I
could not live and go on with things as they were.
We stepped from the bank. And there, not ten feet away, stood Lamborn.
His mouth became a scrawl, he uttered a growl, he swayed with passion,
he moved his hands at his side in a sort of twisting motion. And I
thought: there are Zoe and Dorothy, and I may create a feud against me
that will follow me for years ... yet this man must die. And I drew my
pistol and fired ... Lamborn sank to the ground without a groan. Some of
the McCall boys ran out. I fired at them. They fled. I walked forward a
step or two. Then I asked Reverdy if he had seen Lamborn reach for his
pistol. Reverdy had seen this. I had not. In fact, Lamborn did nothing
of the sort. But if Reverdy saw this he could swear to it and help me.
The excitement of the precise moment was now over. I felt weak and
anxious. I wanted to see Douglas. As state's attorney he could help me.
Douglas was soon on the scene. He had heard what I had done. I wanted
to talk with him. He waved me off saying: "You must have counsel of your
own. You must not talk to me. I would be compelled in the discharge of
my duty to use against you anything you might tell me." With that he
walked away.
He could not be my friend in this hour of need! What was I to do? Yes,
there was Reverdy. But when it came to the matter of locking me up
Douglas said: "If Mr. Clayton signs the bond ... make the bond $1000 ...
don't lock him up. Get a coroner's jury."
There was not a member of this jury who had not been exposed to some of
this vile talk about Zoe and me, in the general contagion of the village
gossip. How should this examination be managed? Of course the single
question, they told me, was the manner of Lamborn's meeting his death.
But the coroner's jury had the power to bind me to the grand jury for an
indictment, and that I wished to escape. Well, I had been threatened, to
be sure. But why? If Lamborn wanted Zoe and I had her in my house and
kept him from seeing her, was it for a good or a selfish reason? Were we
not rivals for the same favor? Did one have her and one lose her? Had I
killed Lamborn for jealousy, or in self-defense? The single fact that I
had shot him stood against the background of all this gossip and village
understanding, and was necessarily read into it for my undoing or my
freedom.
There was the note that Lamborn had written Zoe! That proved that
Lamborn was seeking her; but it might be used to prove that I resented
his pursuit. And why? As Zoe's brother, or as her unnatural lover? My
brain was in a whirl. I could not think for myself. I talked these
subjects over with Reverdy and with Mr. Brooks, who was my counsel. All
these things were done the day of the killing. The next morning, with
the body of Lamborn lying in the room, I mounted the witness chair in my
own behalf, after Reverdy had testified that he had seen Lamborn reach
to his pocket, and that it was not until then that I drew my pistol and
fired.
Was Douglas turned against me? He plunged into the matter of Zoe almost
at once in his cross examination of me. And at last I told the whole
story ... with but two exceptions: I did not produce Lamborn's note to
Zoe and I did not tell of Zoe's illness and its cause; of returning from
St. Louis and finding Zoe in tears, of what she had told me, of the
embarrassment I then found myself in, of my perplexity, of my failure to
invite Lamborn to my housewarming and the reason for it, of Lamborn's
attitude toward me after that, his menacing looks, his growling insults
when he saw me ... of all these things I told with full
circumstantiality under the examination of the new state's attorney, and
with the whole of the countryside looking on, Whigs and Democrats, and
with the audience permeated with slavery and with slavery feeling, at
least so far as the present case was concerned. What would Douglas now
do? He rose and in his deep voice, with perfect command of himself,
looking over the audience as if it was a great instrument whose keys he
knew, he spoke these brief words: "Gentlemen, it makes no difference to
me whether this girl is white or black; if you bind this young man over
to the grand jury, I will do what I can to prevent an indictment; and if
the grand jury indicts him I will do what I can to have him acquitted.
This dead man here met his just fate."
The audience cheered. The jury acquitted me without leaving their seats.
I walked a free man into the soft air of April. Douglas came out. His
manner was changed. He spoke to me in freedom and in the old tone of
friendship. "The boil is now open," he said. "The cut place will heal."
And he walked with me down the street followed by a cheering crowd.
Douglas had won the people; and I was free!