“You see, in the winter, they’s most from the North. I hev accommodated
seventy-four,” added he, meditatively; “but they wuz _all_
Southerners, an’ that wuz befo’ the wo’. They took a good bar’l of
whiskey a day, they did--an’ consid’able Bo’bon,” and he ended with a
sigh.
“Your present visitors seem chiefly young ladies,” I hazarded.
“Hevn’t you heard?” and mine host looked at me as if to reassure
himself as to my social position. “They is society folks from
Knoxville--down here givin’ a play--‘The Pirates of Penzance,’”
and he handed me a newspaper wherein he pointed to a double-leaded
announcement setting forth that the well-known Amateur Shakespeare
Comedy Club of Knoxville, consisting of ladies and gentlemen of the
upper social circles of that city, would appear in this well-known
opera, the article closing with a tribute to the personal charms of
Miss Birdie McClung, the principal member of the company.
“They hev come down in a Pullman cyar, all to themselves, quite
special,” said the innkeeper.
“Are any of them married, Colonel Kipperson?” said I, timidly.
The colonel looked at me with scorn; and just then a peal of rippling
laughter, melodious as the waves of the Tennessee upon Muscle Shoals,
rang through the thin partition, accompanied by the crash of some
falling missile, I think, a hair-brush.
“Does that look as if they wuz married?” said he, and turned upon his
heel, as one who gave me up at last. “Supper’s at six,” he added,
relenting, at the door.
Coe turned up at supper, but we saw nothing of the fair actresses; and
the evening we passed socially with the leading spirits of the hotel:
Judge Hankinson, Colonel Wilkinson, General McBride, Tim Healy, the
railroad contractor, and two or three black bottles. Colonel Wilkinson
and General McBride had been trying a case before Judge Hankinson, and
both were disposed to criticise the latter’s rulings, but amiably, as
became gentlemen over a whiskey-bottle in the evening. At midnight,
just as the judge was ordering a fourth bottle, the door opened, and
in walked a very beautiful young woman with black hair and eyes.
“Good-evening, Miss Juliet,” said the others, as we rose and bowed.
Miss Juliet walked up to the judge, who with difficulty got up, and
followed her out of the room. “Good-night, jedge,” and in the pause
that followed, General McBride remarked pathetically that “the jedge
wasn’t what he used to wuz.”
“No,” said the colonel, with a sigh, “I’ve seen the time when he
wouldn’t leave a third bottle of his own.”
“What relation is Miss Juliet to Judge Wilkinson?” asked Coe.
The general and the colonel started; and Tim Healy looked
apprehensively at the door.
“Young man,” said the general, “I wouldn’t ask that question, if I wuz
you.”
“The jedge ken still shoot,” added the colonel.
All was forgiven when I had explained that Mr. Coe was an Englishman;
and we went to bed. About two in the morning the adjoining rooms became
suddenly populous with soft voices. Coe started to his elbow in his cot
and called to me. “It’s only the Amateur Shakespeare Comedy Club of
Knoxville, returning from the play,” said I; and I dropped asleep and
dreamed confusedly of Tuscumbia, the Indian chieftain, feminine voices,
and the rippling waters of the Tennessee.
In the morning I got into the train for Chattanooga, leaving Coe
behind. On the platform I noticed two graceful girls, dressed in white
muslin, wide straw hats with white satin ribbon and sashes, white lace
mitts, and thick white veils; not so thick that I could not see that
they were brunettes, with hair as black as only grows under Southern
nights. The train was composed of two cars--the ordinary Southern
local--differing from a Jersey accommodation only in that it had still
more peanut shells and an added touch of emigrant-train and circus. At
one end sat a tall gentleman in a stovepipe hat, who had removed his
boots, and was taking his ease in blue woollen stockings. At the other
was a poor, pretty woman, with large, sad eyes, petting her emaciated
husband, who was dying of consumption. Just as the train started,
he had a terrible fit of coughing; now he leans his head upon her
shoulder, and she rests her cheek upon his forehead. Behind me, but
across the aisle, are the two young ladies in white muslin.
So we jangle on through the hot Southern June morning; and pretty soon
one of the girls in white comes over and takes the seat behind me. She
has thrown off her veil, and I assure you a more beautiful face I never
saw; it’s all very well to talk of a neck like a lily and cheeks like a
rose, and eyes
“Whose depths unravel the coiled night
And see the stars at noon----”
but when you really see them you fall down and worship the aggregation
whose inventoried details, in any novel, would excite weariness.
Meantime, her sister had stretched herself out upon the other seat,
pointing one dainty russet leather foot beneath the muslin, and
disposed her handkerchief across her eyes.
How to speak to this fair beauty so close behind me I know not; I can
almost feel her eyes in the back of my head; so near that I dare not
look round; I fear she may be another daughter of Judge Wilkinson’s.
And the train jangles on, and we are winding through green dense
forests, up to the mountains. I wait half an hour for propriety,
and then look around; I catch her deep eyes full, “bows on,” as it
were, her lips parted as if almost to speak, and I--shrink back in
confusion. I hear her give a little sound, whether a sigh or a murmur
I am not sure; but pretty soon I hear her struggling with her window.
This is my chance; and I rise and with the politest bow I know and
“permit me,” I seek to help her; but the sash is old and grimed and
the angle inconvenient. Finally I have to go around into her seat; and
leaning over her I get a purchase and the window goes up with a bang
and a cloud of dust that sets us both sneezing. “It is very hot,” I
say, standing with my hand upon her seat, irresolute.
“Do you know, I thought you were never going to speak?” she says.