|HOAG had become so nervous and low-spirited that he found himself every
day waking earlier than usual. The dusky shadows of night were still
hovering over the earth one morning in August when, being unable to
return to sleep, he rose and went to a window and looked out. He was
preparing to shave himself when he happened to see a man leaning against
the front fence watching the house attentively.
“It looks like Purvynes,” Hoag mused. “I wonder what on earth the fellow
wants. This certainly ain't in his regular beat.”
Hoag put down his mug and brush, listened to see if Jack and his
grandmother in the adjoining room were awake, then, hearing no sound
in that part of the house, he cautiously tiptoed out into the corridor,
opened the front door, and crossed the veranda to the lawn. He now saw
that the man was indeed Purvynes.
“Some new trouble may be brewin',” Hoag surmised, “or he wouldn't be
out as early as this.” Purvynes saw him approaching and moved along the
fence to the gate, where he stood waiting, a stare of subdued excitement
blended with other emotions in his dim gray eyes. His hair was tousled,
his grizzled head untrimmed, and there were shadows, lines, and angles
in his sallow visage.
“Early for you to be so far from home, ain't it?” was Hoag's
introductory question.
“I reckon it is, Cap,” the man answered, sheepishly, his lips quivering.
“I didn't know whether you was here or off in Atlanta, but--but I
thought I'd walk over an' see. I've been awake for an hour or more--in
fact, I hardly closed my eyes last night. My women folks are nigh
distracted, Cap. I was here yesterday, but Cato said you was over at
your new mill. I'd 'a' come after supper, if my women folks hadn't been
afraid to be left alone in the dark.”
“Huh! I see.”
There was an ominous pause. It was as if Hoag dreaded further
revelations. He felt sure that something decidedly unpleasant lay
beneath the man's perturbed exterior. For once in his life Hoag failed
to show irritation, and his next question was put almost in the tone of
entreaty.
“What's got into you an' them all of a sudden?” he faltered.
“You may well ask it,” Purvynes said with a voluminous sigh. “A fellow
may try to put on a brave front, an' act unconcerned when trouble's in
the wind, but if he's got a gang o' crazy women an' children hangin' on
to his shirt-tail he _is_ in a fix.”
“Well, what is it--what is it?” Hoag demanded, with staccato asperity
born of his growing anxiety.
For answer Purvynes fumbled in the pocket of his patched and tattered
coat and produced a folded sheet of foolscap paper which he awkwardly
attempted to spread out against the palings of the fence.
“Summoned to court?” Hoag smiled, riding a wave of sudden relief. “Ah, I
see--moonshinin'. Well, you needn't let that bother you. We'll all stick
together an' swear black is white. I see. You are afeard them young
devils may turn ag'in' us out o' spite, but I can fix all that. You just
lie low, an'--”
“God knows 'tain't that!” Purvynes held the quivering sheet open. “If
that was all I'd not bother; I wouldn't mind goin' to Atlanta again, but
we are up ag'in' som'n a sight worse. What do you think o' this paper?”
Hoag took the sheet, and looked at it with a dull, widening stare. It
was headed by the crude design of two cross-bones and a skull which his
“klan” had used in frightening the negroes with gruesome threats and
warnings. Beneath the drawing was the following:
TO AWL IT CONSERNS
This is to inform the grate White mens klan that the Blak Foxes has met
in secret session and took axion to protect ther rights. Paysyence has
seased to bee a vurture. The white klan has lernt the foxes the trick of
how to work in the dark. Wait and see the mighty fall. We know who the
Captin is at last. We also know some of his main followers who is workin
for his smile and his gold. We don't want his cash. We are after his
meat and bones. Hel will take his sole. His body wil hang for crows to
peck out the eyes. No power above or below this earth can save him. He
wil never know the day or the hour. But his doom is seeled. They need
Marse Jimmy down where the worm dyeth not. He has sowed his seed, and
his harvest is rype. Woe unto hym and awl his gang.
Signed in the blood of Blak Buck the Captin of the Foxes.
his (Blak X Buck) mark.
The sheet of paper shook, though the morning air was as still as a
vacuum. Hoag was as white as death could have made him. He silently
folded the paper and handed it back. But Purvynes waved it aside with a
dumb gesture of despair.
“Whar did you git it?” finally fell from Hoag's lips.
“It was tacked up on my corn-crib. I seed it from the kitchen window
yesterday mornin' 'fore breakfast. I went out an' pulled it down.”
Hoag had never attempted a more fragile sneer. “An' you let a puny thing
like that scare you out o' your socks,” he said, flamboyantly.
Purvynes's hat-brim went down and his eyes were not visible to the
desperately alert gaze of his companion. “I can take my own medicine,
Cap,” he answered, doggedly, “but I can't manage women. They read the
thing 'fore I could hide it, an' you know what excited women would do
at the sight of a sheet like that. My wife's been ag'in' our doin's all
along, anyway.”
Hoag perused the sheet again, his putty-like lips moving, as was his
habit when reading.
“How do you reckon,” he glanced at the drawn face beside him, “how do
you reckon they got on to _me_ as--as the main leader?”
Purvynes was quite sure he could answer the question. “Nape Welborne's
gang give it away. They've been braggin' right an' left about how Nape
forced you to back down that night. They've been drunk an' talked 'fore
black an' white like a pack o' fools.”
“But from _this_,” Hoag tapped the fence with the folded sheet, “it
looks like the nigger that wrote, this thinks I am _still_ the head.”
“An' so much the worse,” Purvynes moaned, and he clutched the fence
nervously as if to steady himself. “You an' me an' all us old members
has to suffer for the drunken pranks of them young roustabouts. When
they shot up nigger-town last week, an' abused the women an' children,
the darkies laid it at our door. In fact, that is the cause of this
very move. It was the last straw, as the sayin' is. They've got plumb
desperate, an' when niggers work underhand they will resort to anything.
It's quar, as my wife says, that we never thought they might turn the
tables an' begin our own game.”
Hoag shrugged his shoulders, but made no comment. His shaggy brows had
met and overlapped. His eyes had the glare of a beast at bay.
“My wife thought”--Purvynes evidently felt that the point was a delicate
one, but he made it with more ease than he could have done on any former
occasion--“she thought maybe your boy Henry might have got onto you an'
talked reckless, but if he did, Cap, it was some time ago, for the boy
ain't like he used to be. He's more serious-like. I got it straight from
one o' the gang he used to run with that he's really quit his old ways
an' gone to work.”
“It's Nape Welborne's lay-out,” Hoag declared. “They've done it out o'
pure spite an' enmity ag'in' me.”
Purvynes had averted his eyes; he seemed to feel that the conversation
was drifting into useless waters, so far as he was personally concerned.
“Well, I just come over. Cap, to ask you what you think _I_ ought to
do.” he finally got out, as if aided by his clutch on the fence, to
which he clung quite automatically.
“_You?”_ Hoag emphasized the word.
“Why, yes, me. You see, Cap, my women say they simply won't stay here a
single day longer. They are scared as nigh death as any folks you ever
saw. That's why I come to you for--for advice an' to ax a favor. I'm in
an awful plight. I owe a good deal on my land. My brother is well fixed,
out in Texas, you know, an' I can move thar, but I'll have to raise some
ready cash. My farm would be good for another loan, an' you are the only
money-lender I know. You see, you know why I have to have the money, an'
I couldn't explain so well to a bank. So my wife said--”
“I don't care what she said.” Hoag's mind seemed to be making rapid
flights to and from his own numerous holdings. “If you think _you_ got
anything at stake, look at me,” he plunged, dejectedly. “Why, the black
imps could--could--”
“I ain't carin' about my farm,” Purvynes broke in irrelevantly. “It's
peace of mind I want, an' freedom from the awful chatter of my folks.
Even the little ones are scared half to death. They've picked up a word
here an' thar an' follow me about whimperin' an' beggin' to be tuck to a
place of safety. Women may know how to scrub an' cook an' sew, but they
can't keep a secret like our'n when they are under pressure like this.
The wives of all the old klan--mark my words--will be together before
twelve o'clock to-day. They will brand the'rselves an' us by it, but
they won't care a red cent. They'd go to the gallows in a bunch if they
could talk about it beforehand. Cap, a hundred dollars is all I need,
an'--”
“Don't call me Cap no more,” Hoag snapped, angrily, “an' don't ask me
for money, either. I hain't got none to lend. Besides, you can't leave
your property no more than I can mine. We've got to stay an'--”
“Your wife's dead, Cap--Jim, I mean--an' you kin talk, but my folks will
git away from these mountains if they have to foot it on ragged uppers.
They simply won't stay. Jim, my trouble is a sight deeper than I've
admitted. I--I feel like a dead man that nobody cares enough about to
bury. Say, I'm goin' to tell you, an' then I know you will pity me if it
is in you to pity _any_ man. Jim, I always thought my wife loved me as
much as the average woman loves the father of her children; but last
night--last night, away late, when she couldn't sleep, she come over to
my bed an' set down on the rail an' talked straighter than she ever has
in her life. Jim, she said--she said she thought I ought to be willin'
to go away for good an' all, an' leave 'er an' the children, since I
was responsible for this calamity. She said she was sure her an' the
children would be let alone if I'd go clean off an' never show up ag'in,
an' that she'd rather work 'er fingers to the bone than be bothered
like she is. Lord, Lord, Jim, I felt so awful that I actually cried
an' begged for mercy like a whipped child. I'd always thought she was a
soft-hearted, lovin' woman, but she was as hard as flint. She said she'd
rather never lay eyes on me ag'in than have this thing hangin' over her
an' the children. She finally agreed, if I'd git the money from you an'
leave at once, that maybe her an' the rest would follow. So that's why
I come to see you. Jim, a rich man like you can rake up a small amount
like that to accommodate an old--”
“And leave _me_ with the bag to hold.” Hoag's misery was eager for any
sort of company. “I won't lend you a cent--not a cent!” he snorted.
“We've got to--to fight this thing out. No bunch o' lazy niggers can
scare the life out o' me.”
“But we are tied hand an' foot, Jim,” Purvynes faltered. “The black
brain that writ that warnin' is equal to a white man's when it comes to
that sort o' warfare. I know the threat word for word by heart. I can
shut my eyes an' see the skull an' bones. Even if we went to law for
protection we'd have to show that sheet, an' you wouldn't want to do
that as it stands, an' I don't believe all the Governor's guards in the
State could help us out, for in these mountains the niggers kin
stay under cover an' pick us off one by one as we walk about, like
sharpshooters lyin' in the weeds an' behind trees an' rocks. Then thar
is a danger that maybe you hain't thought of.”
“What's that?” Hoag asked, with a dumb stare into the other's waxlike
countenance.
“Why, if they take a notion they kin poison all the drinkin'-water
anywhars about. Niggers don't look far ahead. They wouldn't even think
o' the widespread results to them as well as us.”
A desperate look of conviction crept across Hoag's eyes. At this
juncture he heard the front door of his house open, and, turning, he
saw Jack come out on the veranda and eagerly start down the steps toward
him.
“Stay thar!” Hoag waved his hand dejectedly. “I'm comin' up right away.”
Jack paused on the steps, a beautiful figure with supple, slender limbs,
high, white brow under waving curls. Even at that distance, and through
the lowering mists which lay on the grass like downy feathers dropped
from the wings of dawn, the two men marked the boy's expression of
startled surprise over being so peremptorily stopped. He sat down on the
steps, his beautiful eyes fixed inquiringly on his father.
“I'd send that boy off, anyway,” Purvynes said, as if thinking for
himself.
“You say you would!” slowly and from a mouth that twitched. “What do you
mean by--that?”
“I mean all the niggers know how you dote on 'im, Jim. I've heard folks
say that they didn't believe you ever loved any other human alive or
dead. The niggers that got up that warnin' wouldn't hesitate to strike
at you even through a purty innocent chap like that.”
Hoag dropped his stare to the ground. He clutched a paling with a
pulseless hand and leaned forward. “I reckon maybe you are right,” he
muttered. “I've heard of 'em doin' the like, even kidnappin' an' makin'
threats of bodily torture.”
Hoag glanced at his son again, and, catching his eyes, he waved his hand
and forced a smile. “I'm comin'!” he called out. “See if our breakfast
is ready. We'll have it together.”
He was turning away as if forgetful of the caller's presence, when
Purvynes stopped him.
“What about that money, Jim?” he inquired, slowly, desperately.
“I can't let you have it,” was Hoag's ultimatum, in a rising tone of
blended despair and surliness. “We've got to fix some way to head
this thing off an' must stand together. Your folks will have to be
reasonable. I'll come over an' talk to--”
“No, no, no, no!” in rapid-fire. “Don't come about, Jim. That would
scare 'em worse than ever. They was afraid some nigger might see me here
this mornin', an' if you was to come--”
“Huh, I'll be looked on like a leper in a pest-house 'fore long, I
reckon!” Hoag snarled, but perhaps not so much from anger as from a
sense of the fitness of the remark.
“Well, don't come, Jim,” Purvynes repeated, bluntly. “If you hain't got
no money for me, all well an' good, but don't come about. My women are
crazy, an' the sight of you wouldn't help at all.”