Doctor Bates came two days later and I saw him at breakfast as I stood
behind my Young Master's chair. I was surprised to see that the years
had touched him so lightly. Indeed, he appeared but little older than
at the time I had thrown the glass tumbler at his head. And this set me
to a study of all the faces about me. How slowly they had aged while
Young Master and I had grown so fast! The doctor was dressed beyond
any former mood of neatness, blue broad-cloth coat and ruffled shirt;
and Miss May was beautiful in a long, beflowered gown. There had been
a heavy frost, and a low, cheer-giving roar came from the logs in the
great fire-place. Outside the negroes were singing and dancing in the
crisp air. The looms and the spinning wheels were hushed; it was a time
for music, for feasting, for jollification--a whole week of "colored
freedom." The talk at the table was full of jest, for in the midst of
the company was a great bowl of egg-nog. And even the steely eyes of my
old mistress snapped with pleasant mischief.
"Doctor," she said, "Dan has become quite a student, and he writes
Latin love-letters for black Steve."
"In Latin to show that Steve is dead in love!" the doctor roared,
shaking his ruffled shirt with his mirth. "But I should think," he
added, "that a woman who could love him must be color-blind."
"Or still worse, blind to all sentiment," suggested Young Master.
"Or left alone by all lovers," Miss May declared.
"But," said Old Master, "being so ill-favored he may be faithful."
"The ugly are not truer than the beautiful," Miss May spoke up.
The doctor bowed to her. "I am glad that you assert your own fidelity,"
he said, and Young Master looked up at me. Miss May blushed, and Old
Mistress said: "Daughter, that was a charming compliment, quite worthy
of a Southern gentleman."
"And accepted by a Southern lady--with blushes," spoke my young master,
and I felt a strong impulse to grasp his hand.
"Ah, Bob," said the doctor, "you are improving. You give real evidences
of a thoughtful mind, and I have no doubt that you will make a great
lawyer." Here he looked at Old Mistress.
"Yes, lawyer," she replied, "for I have given up the hope of his
becoming a minister. He does not take to the church."
"Except to get out of a shower of rain," Bob spoke up, and his mother's
gray eyes stared at him in reproof: "Why, Robert, I am astonished at
you." Old Master put by his egg-nog cup, tittering down in his stock
collar, and Old Miss turned upon him.
"Such encouragement on such a day!" she said.
"Upon days of merriment it is meet that we should laugh," Old Master
replied.
"And not bread that we should be sad," said Bob.
At this Miss May laughed a stream of music, clear and rippling; but
Old Miss rebuked both Bob and his sister by declaring that it was easy
enough to make a wise remark appear foolish. Old Master had begun to
laugh at everything, for up to the great yellow bowl in the center of
the table his cup had been passed many times. His face glowed with good
humor and he joked with the doctor. "Really glad to see you back again,
George," the old man said, blinking a newly-felt welcome. "We never
know how much we think of a fellow until he's gone. By the Lord--"
"Why, General," Old Mistress cried in surprise.
He looked at her. "Why, what did I say? Said I was glad to see him,
didn't I, and I am. You know it, Hanna, as well as I do. Said I was
glad to see him, and you don't seem to believe it. Dan, see that a
hogshead of egg-nog is served to the negroes."
"Oh, not that much!" Old Miss protested.
"Hanna, I said a hogshead," he persisted, blinking at her, "and I can't
forfeit my word. Go out there, Dan, and tell them that they are to have
a hogshead."
That night, after a day of feast and an evening of good-natured riot,
Bob and I sat in our room, he listening, and I reading aloud "The Count
of Monte Cristo." During the day and the evening, amid the gaiety of
the negro quarter, my young master had laughed with as loud a haw-haw
as the lustiest buck on the plantation, but I had seen that at times
his face was sad; had heard a melancholy note sounding under the jig
tune of his revelry.
The hour was late, the fire was growing gray. I put the book aside and
raked the chunks together. "We have drunk the warm light and now we'll
drink the cooling dregs," he said. And looking at him I replied:
"You are a boy but sometimes you talk like an old man."
"And act like a fool," was his quick retort. He got up quickly,
overturning his chair, and without stopping to right it, strode slowly
up and down the room. He walked for some time, with his eyes cast
down, half theatrical, treading the forum, for his reading had a deep
influence upon him; and then he halted and turned to me.
"Do you see that chair?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why don't you take it up?"
"Pardon me, sir," I replied (at times we were stiffly formal) and then
I placed the chair back against the wall. He resumed his walk muttering
something, and suddenly his stiff forensic bearing became lithely
natural. "Dan," he said, "do you know what I believe?" and before I
had time to reply, he continued: "I believe that wolf is trying to
marry my sister. And I want to say this, to go no farther, that if he
wins her, I'll cut his throat. Mean it?" he cried, his eyes aflame, "I
mean it just as sure as there is a God in Heaven. I have always hated
that man. I never told you my first recollection of him. I was playing
alone in the yard, sitting under a tree. I was very young, I know, but
I remember it well. He came along with a bone which he threw to his
dog, and then he bent over me and wiped his greasy hands on my head. I
howled in anger, and someone came; my words were so few that I could
not set forth my resentment." He strode to the door and then hastily
came back. "He is a snake, and May is a bird, and he perhaps can charm
her, but if he does, I'll let the blood out of his throat. Father
always hated him; of late it seems that he is giving way. But I won't
give way."
"Mars. Bob, you know what I think of him. One night I tried to kill
him, and--"
"Hush!" he cried, glaring at me fiercely. "You are old enough to hang."
"Flattering growth, looking toward a hopeful majority," I replied.
He shot a keen glance at me. "Dan, sometimes you are inspired with a
scythe-like wisdom."
"My association with you, Mars. Bob--"
"That will do. You still have the negro's flattery. But it is an
infamous shame that you are not white."
"I am, nearly."
He stamped his foot hard upon the floor. "Fool, there is no such
thing under social law as nearly white. One drop of negro blood would
Africanize humanity."
"Then one drop of unfortunate blood would make the whole world unjust."
"That will do," he said. "If I let you go on you will preach me an
abolition sermon."
I bowed and he sat down, drawing his chair near to the dying fire and
placing his slippered feet against the chimney. He mused for a long
time, and then he said, without looking at me. "I have been reading
an old man's book, and it impresses upon me the glorious appreciation
of youth. To be young and to place the proper estimate upon it--how
magnificent!"
"But isn't there a danger in such early ripeness?" I asked.
"Sir Sage," he said, shifting his feet and crossing them. "Yes, there
may be, and you give evidences of it."
Another silence fell, and the candle as well as the fire was dying.
"Dan," he said, "I have done enough scanning and soon now I am going to
take up the study of the law. You know that it is my ambition to be a
great orator, and something within me says that I shall be. I talk to
you as I could talk to no one else; with some degree of literal truth,
you are a part of myself--I own you." A shadow fell black upon the wall
and he looked round at the struggling candle. For a moment the light
revived, and he continued: "I believe that one day I shall stand in the
Senate, and the storm that rages within my breast will sweep over the
land."
"The hope of every young Kentuckian," I ventured to say, determined not
always to be a negro flatterer.
The light was nearly gone, but I saw his anxious face turn toward me.
"A streak of lie and a stripe of truth," he replied. "And why do all
young Kentuckians have that hope? Because Kentucky has produced so many
orators? Oh, I know that we don't take account of the failures. The
failures come largely from the plow, from lack of advantages, but I
have advantages, and I have fire and ability. Do you believe that?"
"Mars. Bob, I know it."
I wondered what there was in the tone of my voice to impress him so,
whether it was a sadness on my part or a sudden and moving conviction
striking deep into his own mind, but I saw his feet fall from the
chimney, saw him cover his face with his hands--and then the light was
gone save a dim glow in the gray fire; no sound in the house nor from
the cabins--the boundless night was dead.