THE NEIGHBORHOOD GOSSIP.
The streets of Nashville were almost deserted, for the cold wind, aided
by the driving rain that was falling steadily, had forced all the idlers
to seek comfort within doors. The post-office was full of them, and when
the captain walked in with Allison at his heels they greeted him
boisterously, and asked more questions in a minute than he could answer
in ten. First and foremost they wanted to know why Beardsley had come
home so unexpectedly, but that was a matter he did not care to say much
about. All they could get from him was that he had some important
business to attend to.
"But of course you are going back again," said one. "I would if I had
such a chance to make money as you have got. But perhaps you are rich
enough already."
"Well, no; I don't reckon I'll ran the blockade any more," replied the
captain. "My schooner is safe and sound now and I want to keep her that
way. The Yankees are getting tolerable thick outside, and I don't care
to have them run me down some dark night and slap me into one of their
prisons."
There were at least a dozen persons in the post-office, besides Tom
Allison, who knew that Beardsley had other and better reasons for
quitting the profitable business in which he had been engaged, and three
of them were Shelby, Dillon, and the postmaster. These men knew by the
captain's manner, as well as by the way he looked at them now and then,
that he had something of importance on his mind, and they left the store
one after another, expecting Beardsley to follow and join them as soon
as he could do so without arousing suspicion. A fourth man was Aleck
Webster, who leaned carelessly against one of the counters and listened
to what the captain had to say, although he did not seem to pay much
attention to it. If Aleck had been so disposed he could have told
Beardsley who wrote the letter that broke up his blockade running and
brought him home so suddenly, and so could several other Union men who
were in the office on this particular morning. They went there every day
to hear their doings discussed; and it gave them no little satisfaction
to learn that they had aroused a feeling of uneasiness and insecurity
among the citizens which grew more intense as the days went by and
nothing was heard from Hanson. Although Tom Allison knew nothing about
the letter that had been left on Beardsley's porch until the latter told
him, there were many in the settlement who knew about it and were
wondering who could have put it there. The captain's negroes were the
first to find it out, and Mrs. Brown, the neighborhood gossip who read
the letter for Beardsley's daughter, was the second; and among them all
they had managed to spread the story considerably.
Tom Allison was like Captain Beardsley in one respect--he could not keep
a secret any longer than it took him to find some congenial spirit who
was willing to share it with him. He was eager to tell all he knew, and
sometimes he told a good deal more; consequently, the first thing he did
after Beardsley received his mail and left the office to find the three
men who had gone out a while before, was to give his particular friend
and crony Mark Goodwin, a swaggering, boastful young rebel like himself,
a wink and a nod that brought him across to Tom's side of the store.
"What is it, old fellow?" whispered Mark. "Your face is full of news."
"And so is my head," replied Tom. "I am loaded clear to the muzzle, and
anxious to shoot myself off at _your_ head. I am going to ride down to
exchange a few yarns with Mrs. Brown; will you go along?"
"What's the use?" exclaimed Mark, looking through the moist windows into
the street. "You won't get anything but lies out of her. And just see
how it rains!"
"It doesn't rain to hurt anything, and we can't talk here," said Tom. "I
don't care whether Mrs. Brown tells me the truth or not, so long as she
will aid me in spreading a few items of news that came to my ears this
morning. Better go, for I promise that I will surprise you. You know I
rode down with Beardsley."
"And I rather wondered at it. I can remember when you used to speak of
him in a way that was anything but complimentary. Did he tell you what
brought him home?" said Mark, in a whisper. "Come along then. I am ready
to be surprised."
The two boys mounted their horses and rode away through the driving
rain, and as they rode, Tom Allison electrified his friend by making a
clean breast of everything Beardsley had told him, and which he had
promised to keep to himself; and observing that Mark was interested and
excited by the narrative, Tom added to it a few details of his own
invention. He declared that Hanson had told Beardsley, in confidence,
that Mrs. Gray owed a big pile of money to Northern men, and instead of
turning it over to the government, as the law provided, she was keeping
it for her own use.
"And how does it come that Hanson could learn so much of Mrs. Gray's
private affairs?" demanded Mark. "He didn't live in the house, but in
the quarter with the niggers."
"Probably some of the house servants posted him," answered Tom. "You
know that prying darkies sometimes find out a heap of things."
"That's so," assented Mark. "Tom, you have told me great news--Mrs. Gray
with a gold mine hidden somewhere in her house, and Marcy taking his
brother Jack out to the Yankee fleet to give him a chance to enlist
under the old flag! What are we coming to? What are you going to do
about it? You must have some plan in your head, or you wouldn't be going
to see Mrs. Brown. You had better be careful what you say in the
presence of that old witch, or she may get you into trouble."
"That is the very thing I wanted to talk to you about," replied Tom.
"What do you think we ought to do? I don't know whether I have the
straight of the story or not, but I am sure Mrs. Brown has, for
Beardsley probably told her all about it as soon as he got home last
night. That man can't keep a thing to himself to save his life. I
thought it might be a good idea to see what Mrs. Brown thinks about it,
and to ask her if there is any truth in the report that a band of men
has been got together to rob Mrs. Gray's house."
"I will tell you one thing confidentially," said Mark. "If that part of
the story isn't true, a few wags of Mrs. Brown's tongue will make it
true. There are dozens of men right here in this country, and you and I
are acquainted with some of them, who would jump down on that house this
very night if they were sure they could make anything by it."
"I know that, but I don't care; do you? I always did despise those
Grays, and now that they have shown themselves to be traitors, I say let
them suffer for it. You heard Marcy tell me to put a uniform on before I
presumed to speak to him again, didn't you?"
"Yes; and I heard his brother Jack call you a stay-at-home blow-hard. I
looked for you to tackle the pair of them the moment they insulted you;
but you surprised me and all the rest of your friends by keeping
perfectly still," observed Mark, who knew well enough that Tom lacked
the courage to "tackle" the brothers, either of whom could have tossed
him half-way across the post-office without very much trouble.
"I was biding my time," replied Allison, making his riding-whip whistle
viciously through the air just above his horse's ears. "It has come now,
and if Marcy Gray doesn't take that insulting word back as publicly as
he gave it to me----"
"Oh, you needn't look for him to do that. Marcy isn't that sort of a
fellow."
"He'll wish he was that sort before I am done with him," said Tom, with
spiteful emphasis. "That's one reason why I am going to see Mrs. Brown.
I want her to spread it around that Marcy took Jack out to the
blockading fleet."
"She is just the one to do it," said Mark, with a laugh. "And the way to
make her go about it as though she meant business is to tell her your
story under a pledge of secrecy."
"And there is another matter that I want to speak to you about,"
continued Tom. "What scheme have Shelby and Dillon and the postmaster
and your father and mine got in hand that they take so much pains to
keep from us boys?"
"I wish I knew," answered Mark, whose face showed that his companion's
words had made him angry. "They talk about something or other as often
as they get together, and if I take a step in their direction they
either send me about my business, or stop talking. And I tell you I
don't like to be treated that way."
"That is just the way they treat me, and I don't like it either," said
Tom. "More than that, I won't stand it."
"I don't see how you are going to help yourself."
"Perhaps you don't, but I think I do. Beardsley belongs to the ring, of
course, and if he doesn't keep me posted in all their plans, I'll go to
work to upset them."
"Why, Tom, are you crazy?" exclaimed Mark, who had never been more
amazed.
"No; but I am mad clear through. I am not willing to go into the army
unless I can have an office of some kind, but I am eager to fight
traitors here at home; and if those men won't give me a chance to help
them, I shall fight on my own hook."
"But how can you? And how will you go to work to upset their plans when
you don't know what they are? You take a friend's advice and behave
yourself. Why, Tom, I wouldn't willingly incur the enmity of the Union
men about here for all the money there is in the State. They are too
desperate a lot for me to fool with. Nobody knows for certain who they
are, and that makes them all the more dangerous."
About this time the boys dismounted in front of Mrs. Brown's humble
abode--a small log-cabin which Beardsley had built for her in the edge
of a briar patch on his own plantation. That was the only neighborly act
that anybody ever knew the captain to be guilty of; but then it was not
entirely unselfish on his part. Beardsley received important letters now
and then. He was not good at reading all sorts of writing, and when he
came upon a sentence that he could not master, it was little trouble for
him to run over to Mrs. Brown's cabin and ask her to decipher it for
him. And--it is a remarkable thing to tell, but it is the truth--the
contents of those letters were safe with Mrs. Brown. She would tell any
and every thing else that came to her knowledge, no matter how it might
hurt somebody, but who Beardsley's correspondents were and what they
wrote about, no one could learn from her.
Having sheltered their horses in some fashion behind the cabin, the boys
opened the door without knocking, and went in. There were two persons in
the single room the cabin contained--a little, dried-up woman who sat in
a low rocking-chair in front of the fire with a dingy snuff-stick
between her toothless gums, and one of Beardsley's negro girls who had
come over to "slick up things."
"How do you find yourself this fine morning, mother?" said Tom
familiarly. "We thought we would drop in to warm by your comfortable
blaze, and see if you are in need of any little things we can get for
you. By the way," he added, putting his hand into his pocket, "it's a
long time since I gave anything toward buying a jar of snuff. Take that
till I come again."
"I see the captain has returned; and quite unexpectedly, too, I am
told," said Mark, pulling off his dripping overcoat and hanging it upon
a wooden peg in the chimney-corner. "I wish he might find the man who
wrote him that threatening letter and broke up his business. I am sure
he would make it warm for him."
"Every one of them triflin' hounds had oughter have a hickory wore out
on their bare backs," said the old woman, in tones which sounded so
nearly like the snarl of some wild animal that Tom Allison shuddered,
although he had often heard her speak that way before.
"Do you know who they are?"
"Of course she knows who they are," exclaimed Mark. "The question is, is
she at liberty to tell."
"Mebbe I know, an' mebbe I don't," said the woman, with a contortion of
her wrinkled face that was intended for a wink and a smile. "I aint one
of them folks who tells all they know. I am a master-hand to keep things
to myself when they are told to me for a secret."
"Everybody knows that, and it is the reason why everybody is so willing
to trust you," said Tom; and seeing that he had not given the old woman
quite enough to loosen her tongue, he turned to Mark and added: "I was
sure we would forget it, we are so careless. We came away from your
house without ever once thinking of that side of bacon we were going to
bring to Mrs. Brown."
"I knew we had forgotten something," said Mark regretfully, "and sure's
you live that's it. But it will keep till we come again, won't it,
mother? Who did you say wrote that letter?"
"You're very good boys to be always thinkin' of a poor crippled body
like me, who can't get about to hear a bit of news on account of the
pesky rheumatiz that bothers me night an' day," whined the old woman.
"Now when I was a bright, lively young gal----"
"Did I understand you to say that Jack Gray had something to do with the
abduction of his mother's overseer?" interrupted Mark, who knew it would
never do to let the old woman get started on the story of her girlhood.
"You astonish me; you do for a fact!"
"I disremember that I have spoke Jack Gray's name at all sense you two
have been here," said Mrs. Brown cautiously.
"But you did, though. Didn't she, Tom?"
"I thought so, certainly; and I told myself at the time, that I did not
see how Jack could have had any hand in Hanson's taking off, for I have
heard that he was not at home when the thing was done."
"No more he wasn't to hum. He was on his way to jine the Yankee navy,
dog-gone him an' them," snapped the woman, whose tongue was fairly
loosened now. "But he left them behine who works as well fur him when he
aint to hum as when he is."
"We know that very well," said Tom, who was surprised to hear it, "but
we don't know for certain who they are. Mark, don't you see that Mrs.
Brown is looking for her pipe?"
Mark hadn't noticed it, but all the same he hunted around on the mantel
until he found the well-blackened corn-cob, but he could not bring
himself to light it. He filled the bowl with some natural leaf he saw in
a box and handed it to the woman, who set it going with the aid of a
live coal which she took from the hearth in her bony fingers.
"You two aint furgot the stranger who popped up in Nashville all on a
sudden like, about the time that Jack Gray came hum from Newbern, have
you?" continued the old woman, after she had assured herself by a few
long, audible puffs that her pipe was well lighted. "Lemme see if I have
disremembered his name. No; sounds to me like it was Aleck Webster."
"Don't know him," said Tom, in a disappointed tone.
"I don't know him either," chimed in Mark, "but I have seen him. You
know old man Webster, Tom, who lives about six miles down the main road.
Well, Aleck is his son."
"Now I do think, in my soul," exclaimed Allison, "things have come to a
pretty pass when Crackers like those Websters can throw a settlement
like this into a panic, and order prominent and wealthy planters like
Captain Beardsley to quit business and come home on penalty of being
burned out in case of disobedience."
"You're mighty right," said Mrs. Brown, who was pleased to hear the
captain called a prominent and wealthy planter. "Sich trash aint no call
to live on this broad 'arth. They're wuss than the niggers, an' a heap
lower down."
"But have you any evidence against the Websters?" inquired Mark.
"I've got a plenty. In the fust place they don't say nothing; an' folks
as don't say nothing these times ain't fitten to live. Now is the day
when every man oughter come out an' show their colors," said the woman,
quoting from Beardsley.
"That means Marcy Gray," said Tom. "I wish I could see a gang of armed
men take him out of the house and carry him off."
"He mustn't be teched," said the woman very decidedly.
"Who mustn't--Marcy?" exclaimed Tom and Mark in a breath. "Who said so?
What's the reason he mustn't be touched? He's a traitor."
"I don't know whether he is or not; but he mustn't be pestered.
Leastwise by folks living around here in the settlement."
Tom looked at Mark, and Mark looked about for a chair and sat down. Then
they both looked at the old woman. This was something mysterious, and
they wanted to have it explained.
"I aint got no more to say on that there p'int," said Mrs. Brown, her
tone and manner showing that the question did not admit of argument.
"He'll be teched fast enough when the time comes, Marcy Gray will, an'
don't you furget to remember what I'm tellin' you. But them as goes for
Marcy will be folks that can't be pestered by the men who toted Hanson
off to the swamp."
"Ah! Now I see daylight," said Tom, with something that sounded like a
sigh of relief. "I thought you meant that Marcy was to be left alone
altogether for the reason that he was believed to be a good Confederate.
And when these friends of ours, whoever they may be, go for him, I
suppose they'll not neglect to look for the money that Mrs. Gray is
known to have in her house?"
"I aint heared that anybody knows for sartin that the money is there,"
said Mrs. Brown. "Leastwise, they don't know it _yit._ There won't be
nothing much done till that there is settled fur a fact."
"Then Marcy will never be molested," declared Tom, throwing a chip
spitefully into the fire. "He can go out to the blockading fleet as
often as he pleases and ship a dozen brothers in the Yankee navy if he
wants to, and nothing will be done to him. If Jack Gray left men behind
to work for him while he is at sea, Marcy must know who they are and
where to find them, and he can set them on to Mark's father or mine
whenever he feels like it. I'll touch him the first good chance I get,
and don't you forget to remember _that._ He is a traitor, and I wouldn't
let him alone if all the Captain Beardsleys in the country should say
so. And how is any one to find out for certain that his mother has money
concealed in her house? She isn't going to publish it to the world, is
she?"
The longer Allison talked the more his anger rose, and when he got
through he was stalking about the narrow limits of the cabin, shaking
his fists over his head in the most frantic manner. The old woman waited
patiently for him to sit down again, and then she took her pipe from her
mouth long enough to say:
"Kelsey is out of a job jest now."
"That's no news. He's always that way. He won't work when he gets the
chance. He would rather beg his living or steal it."
"I know that he's mighty shiftless an' triflin', but he's a tol'able
overseer, Kelsey is, when he onct makes up his mine to do something,"
said the woman. "Now that Hanson has went off the Grays aint got nobody
to boss the hands."
"The idea!" cried Tom, who began to "see daylight" once more. "Does
Captain Beardsley labor under the delusion that Marcy Gray will hire
that man Kelsey, who is next door to a fool, and allow him----"
"Yes, Kelsey is tol'able triflin', an' that there is a fact,"
interrupted the woman. "But he aint nobody's fule. He's as sly an ole
fox as you can meet in a day's travel."
"Marcy Gray will not have him on the place, I tell you," said Tom. "And
even if he should be dunce enough to hire him, how could Kelsey find out
whether or not there was any money in the house? If the captain has
anything against Kelsey, and wants him to disappear some dark night as
Hanson did, he is taking the right course to bring it about. That's what
will happen to Kelsey if he goes to work on that plantation, and I want
you both to remember my words."
"And let me tell you another thing," added Mark. "No one man is going to
find the hiding-place of that money if there is any about the house.
When the building is down and the foundations are torn up, then it will
be found, and not before."
"That there is a fact," observed the woman.
"Where do you think it is concealed, any way?" inquired Tom. "I had an
idea that it might be buried in the garden."
"I am willing to bet my horse against your jack-knife that it isn't,"
replied Mark. "It is so close to the house that the family can keep an
eye on all the approaches to it, and it is where fire can't touch it."
"Then it must be buried in the cellar," exclaimed Tom. "I declare! I
believe you have hit the exact spot. I should like to be left alone in
that place for about an hour with a shovel to work with. I would be rich
when I came out."
"You jest keep away from that there suller," said the old woman sternly.
"Don't go nigh the house, nary one of you."
The two boys elevated their eye-brows and looked at each other, and it
was as much as half a min ate before Mark Goodwin continued:
"You would be fooled if you looked anywhere but in the walls for it. So
a shovel would be of no use to you. I have been in that cellar when
Marcy and I were on better terms than we are now, and I know that the
floor is laid in cement. It would be a job, I tell you, for a woman to
dig it up and put it down again, and she couldn't do it so that the spot
would not show itself to the first person who might happen to go in
there."
"A woman!" exclaimed Allison.
"Yes, for a woman did the work," answered Mark, who could not have
spoken with more confidence if he had been in Mrs. Gray's company on the
night the thirty thousand dollars were concealed. "You know Marcy was
not at home when his mother made those trips about the country."
"What of that? Didn't she take some of her old servants into her
confidence?"
"No, sir. When people are trying to carry water on both shoulders as
Mrs. Gray is, they don't let one hand know what the other does."
"And I believe," said Allison, getting upon his feet again and walking
about the cabin, "that if somebody should go for Mrs. Gray's coachman in
the right way, he would find out all about it. But I say, Mark, it's
time for us to be riding along. What shall we bring you when we come
again, mother? Snuff and smoking tobacco are always acceptable, I
suppose?"
"And don't forget to say that you haven't seen either one of us for more
than a week," chimed in Mark. "Doings of some sort are liable to happen
in the settlement at any hour of the day or night, and we don't want our
names mixed up with them. We shall attend strictly to our own business,
and hope that those ruffians who carried Hanson away will do the same."
"I am mighty glad to hear you say that, and I don't want you to
disremember what I have tole you," answered the old woman, with some
earnestness. "You aint to go a-pesterin' of Marcy Gray an' his maw, kase
there is folks about here who won't by no means take it kind of you if
you do."
The boys promised that they would bear her warning in mind, but Tom
Allison told himself that he thought he should do as he pleased about
heeding it. He was not obliged to consult anybody's wishes, in dealing
with such a traitor as Marcy Gray had shown himself to be. He turned his
back to the fire while Mark was putting on his overcoat, and just then a
gentle snore reminded him that there was one person in the cabin whom he
had forgotten. It was the negro girl who, having cleared away the late
breakfast dishes and put the little furniture there was in the room to
rights, had drawn a chair to the table and fallen fast asleep with her
head resting on her folded arms. Tom took one look at her, and then he
and Mark went out. Neither of them said a word, until they had mounted
their horses and ridden into the road, and then Mark inquired:
"What do you know now more than you did when you came here? All I have
learned is that Beardsley is afraid of Marcy Gray, and don't want
anything to happen to him, if he can help it, for fear that the blame
would be laid at his door. I tell you, Tom Allison, as long as those men
who carried Hanson away are at large, we have got to look out what we
say and do. It's an awful state of affairs, but that is the way it looks
to me."
That was the way it looked to Tom also; and as he could not say anything
encouraging, he held his peace, and rode on with his eyes fastened upon
the horn of his saddle.