negroes around about. Lately he was gaining some reputation as a political
boss.
There was but one political party in the county (for the colored people
were so few that they could not be called a party), and the only struggle
for office came in the pursuit of a nomination, which was always equivalent
to election. Candidates were chosen at a convention or mass-meeting of the
whites and the only figure that the blacks were able to cut in the matter
was by reason of a pretended, rather than a real, prejudice against them
which was used by the candidates (who are always white men) to further
their electioneering schemes, as will presently appear.
“Hit do beat all,” Barnaby repeated, shaking his heavy head reflectively,
and making a grimace both comical and hideous. “Dat young man desput sma't
and cunnin', sho's yo' bo'n he is. He done been foolin' wid dem niggahs
a'ready.”
The reader may as well be told at once that if a candidate could by any
means make the negroes support his opponent for the nomination it was the
best card he could possibly play; or, if he could not quite do this, but
make it appear that the other fellow was not unpopular in colored circles,
it served nearly the same turn.
Phyllis, when she ran crying up-stairs after the conversation with her
father, went to her room, and fell into a chair by the window. So it
chanced that she overheard the conference between Colonel Sommerton and
Barnaby, and long after it was ended she still sat there leaning on the
window-sill. Her eyes showed a trifle of irritation, but the tears were all
gone.
“Why didn't Tom tell me that he was going to run against my father?” she
inquired of herself over and over. “I think he might have trusted me, so I
do. It's mean of him. And if he should beat papa! Papa could bear that.”
She sprang to her feet and walked across the room, stopping on the way to
rub her apple-bloom cheeks before a looking-glass. Vaguely enough, but
insistently, the outline of a political plot glimmered in her consciousness
and troubled her understanding. Plainly her father and Tom Bannister were
rival candidates, and just as plainly each was scheming to make it appear
that the negroes were supporting his opponent; but the girl's little head
could not gather up and comprehend all that such a condition of things
meant. She supposed that a sort of disgrace would attach to defeat, and she
clasped her hands and poised her winsome body melodramatically when she
asked herself which she would rather the defeat would fall upon, her father
or Tom. She leaned out of the window and saw Colonel Sommerton walking down
the road towards town, with his cigar elevated at an acute angle with his
nose, his hat pulled well down in front, by which she knew that he was
still excited. Days went by, as days will in any state of affairs, with
just such faultless weather as August engenders amid the cool hills of the
old Cherokee country; and Phyllis noted, by an indirect attention to what
she had never before been interested in, that Colonel Sommerton was growing
strangely confidential and familiar with Barnaby. She had a distinct but
remote impression that her father had hitherto never, at least never
openly, shown such irenic solicitude in that direction, and she knew that
his sudden peace-making with the old negro meant ill to her lover. She
pondered the matter with such discrimination and logic as her clever little
brain could compass; and at last she one evening called Barnaby to come
into the garden with his banjo.
The sun was down, and the half-grown moon swung yellow and clear against
the violet arch of mid-heaven. Through the sheen a softened outline of the
town wavered fantastically.
Phyllis sat on a great fragment of limestone, which, embossed with curious
fossils, formed the immovable centre-piece of the garden.
Barnaby, at a respectful distance, crumpled herself satyr-like on the
ground, with his banjo across his knee, and gazed expectantly aslant at the
girl's sweet face.
“Now play me my father's favorite song,” she said.
They heard Mrs. Wren, the housekeeper, opening the windows in the upper
rooms of the mansion to let in the night air, which was stirring over the
valley with a delicious mountain chill on its wings. All around in the
trees and shrubbery the katydids were rasping away in immelodious statement
and denial of the ancient accusation.
Barnaby demurred. He did not imagine, so at least he said, that Miss
Phyllis would be pleased with the ballad that recently had been the
Colonel's chief musical delight; but he must obey the young lady, and so,
after some throat--clearing and string--tuning, he proceeded:
“I'd rudder be er niggah
Dan ter be er whi' man,
Dough the whi' man considdah
He se'f biggah;
But of yo' mus' be white, w'y be hones' of
yo' can,
An ac' es much es poss'ble like er niggah!
“De colah ob yo' skin
Hit don't constertoot no sin,
An' yo' fambly ain't er--
Cuttin' any figgah;
Min' w'at yo's er-doin', an' do de bes' yo' kin,
An' ac' es much es poss'ble like er niggah!”
The tune of this song was melody itself, brimming with that unkempt,
sarcastic humor which always strikes as if obliquely, and with a flurry of
tipsy fun, into one's ears.
When the performance was ended, and the final tinkle of the rollicking
banjo accompaniment died away down the slope of Sommerton Hill, Phyllis put
her plump chin in her hands and, with her elbows on her knees, looked
steadily at Barnaby for a while.
“Barn,” she said, “is my father going to get the colored people to indorse
Mr. Tom Bannister?”
“Yes, ma'm,” replied the old negro; and then he caught his breath and
checked himself in confusion. “Da-da-dat is, er--I spec' so--er--I dun'no',
ma'm,” he stammered. “Fo' de Lor' I's--”
Phyllis interrupted him with an impatient laugh, but said no more. In due
time Barnaby sang her some other ditties, and then she went into the house.
She gave the negro a large coin and on the veranda steps she called back to
him, “Good-night, Uncle Barn,” in a voice that made him shake his head and
mutter:
“De bressed chile! De bressed chile!” And yet he was aware that she had
outwitted him and gained his secret. He knew how matters stood between the
young lady and Tom Bannister, and there arose in his mind a vivid sense of
the danger that might result to his own and Colonel Sommerton's plans from
a disclosure of this one vital detail. Would Phyllis tell her lover?
Barnaby shook his head in a dubious way.
“Gals is pow'ful onsartin so dey is,” he muttered. “Dey tells der
sweethearts mos'ly all what dey knows, spacially secrets. Spec' de ole boss
an' he plan done gone up de chimbly er-kally-hootin' fo' good.”
Then the old scamp began to turn over in his brain a scheme which seemed to
offer him a fair way of approaching Mr. Tom Bannister's pocket and the
portemonnaie of Phyllis as well. He chuckled atrociously as a pretty
comprehensive view of “practical politics” opened itself to him.
Tom Bannister had not been to see Phyllis since her father had delivered
his opinion to her touching the intrinsic merits of that young man, and she
felt uneasy.
Colonel Sommerton, though notably eccentric, could be depended upon for
outright dealing in general; still Phyllis had a pretty substantial belief
that in politics success lay largely on the side of the trickster. For many
years the Colonel had been in the Legislature. No man had been able to beat
him for the nomination. She had often heard him tell how he laid out his
antagonists by taking excellent and popular short turns on them, and it was
plain to her mind now that he was weaving a snare for Tom Bannister.
She thought of Tom's running for office against her father as something
prodigiously strange. Certainly it was a bold and daring piece of youthful
audacity for him to be guilty of. He, a young sprig of the law, with his
brown mustache not yet grown, setting himself up to beat Colonel Mobley
Sommerton! Phyllis blushed whenever she thought of it; but the Colonel had
never once mentioned Tom's candidacy to her.
The convention was approaching, and day by day signs of popular interest in
it increased as the time shortened. Colonel Sommerton was preparing a
speech for the occasion. The manuscript of it lay on the desk in his
library.
About this time--it was near September 1st and the watermelons and
cantaloupes were in their glory--the Colonel was called away to a distant
town for a few days. In his absence Tom Bannister chanced to visit
Sommerton Place. Of course Phyllis was not expecting him; indeed, she told
him that he ought not to have come; but Tom thought differently in a very
persuasive way. The melons were good, the library delightfully cool, and
conversation caught the fragrance of innocent albeit stolen pleasure.
Tom Bannister was unquestionably a handsome young fellow, carrying a
hearty, whole-souled expression in his open, almost rosy face. His large
brown eyes, curly brown hair, silken young mustache, and firmly set mouth
and chin well matched his stalwart, symmetrical form. He was not only
handsome, he was brilliant in a way, and his memory was something
prodigious. Unquestionably he would rise rapidly.
“I am going to beat your father for the nomination,” he remarked, midmost
the discussion of their melons, speaking in a tone of the most absolute
confidence.
“Tom,” she exclaimed, “you mustn't do it!”
“Why, I'd like to know?”
She looked at him as if she felt a sudden fright. His eyes fell before her
intense, searching gaze.
“It would be dreadful,” she presently managed to say. “Papa couldn't bear
it.”
“It will ruin me forever if I let him beat me. I shall have to go away from
here.” It was now his turn to become intense.
“I don't see what makes men think so much of office,” she complained,
evasively. “I've heard papa say that there was absolutely no profit in
going to the Legislature.” Then, becoming insistent, she exclaimed,
“Withdraw, Tom; please do, for my sake!”
She made a rudimentary movement as if to throw her arms around him, but it
came to nothing. Her voice, however, carried a mighty appeal to Tom's
heart. He looked at her, and thought how commonplace other young women were
when compared with her.
“You will withdraw, won't you, Tom?” she prayed. One of her hands touched
his arm. “Say yes, Tom.”
For a moment his political ambition and his standing with men appeared to
dissolve into a mere mist, a finely comminuted sentiment of love; but he
kept a good hold upon himself.
“I cannot do it, Phyllis,” he said, in a firm voice, which disclosed by
some indescribable inflection how much it pained him to refuse. “My whole
future depends upon success in this race. I am sorry it is your father I
must beat, but, Phyllis, I must be nominated. I can't afford to sit down in
your father's shadow. As sure as you live, I am going to beat him.”
In her heart she was proud of him, and proud of this resolution that not
even she could break. From that moment she was between the millstones. She
loved her father, it seemed to her, more than ever, and she could not bear
the thought of his defeat. Indeed, with that generosity characteristic of
the sex which can be truly humorous only when absolutely unconscious of it,
she wanted both Tom and the Colonel nominated, and both elected. She was
the partisan on Tom's side, the adherent on her father's.
Colonel Sommerton returned on the day before the convention, and found his
friends enthusiastic, all his “fences” in good condition, and his
nomination evidently certain. It followed that he was in high good-humor.
He hugged Phyllis, and in a casual way brought up the thought of how
pleasantly they could spend the winter in Atlanta when the Legislature met.
“But Tom--I mean Mr. Bannister--is going to beat you, and get the
nomination,” she archly remarked.
“If he does, I'll deed you Sommerton Place!” As he spoke he glared at her
as a lion might glare at thought of being defeated by a cub.
“To him and me?” she inquired, with sudden eagerness of tone. “If he---”
“Phyllis!” he interrupted, savagely, “no joking on that subject. I
won't---”
“No; I'm serious,” she sweetly said. “If he can't beat you, I don't want
him.”
“Zounds! Is that a bargain?” He put his hand on her shoulder, and bent down
so that his eyes were on a level with hers.
“Yes,” she replied; “and I'll hold you to it.”
“You promise me?” he insisted.
“A man must go ahead of my papa,” she said, putting her arms about the old
gentleman's neck, “or I'll stay by papa.”
He kissed her with atrocious violence. Even the knee-sag of his trousers
suggested more than ordinary vigor of feeling.
“Well, it's good-bye, Tom,” he said, pushing her away from him, and letting
go a profound bass laugh. “I'll settle him to-morrow.”
“You'll see,” she rejoined. “He may not be so easy to settle.”
He gave her a savage but friendly cuff as they parted.
That evening old Barnaby brought his banjo around to the veranda. Colonel
Sommerton was down in town mixing with the “boys,” and doing up his final
political chores so that there might be no slip on the morrow. It was near
eleven o'clock when he came up the hill and stopped at the gate to hear the
song that Barnaby was singing. He supposed that the old negro was all
alone. Certainly the captivating voice, with its unkempt melody, and its
throbbing, skipping, harum-scarum banjo accompaniment, was all that broke
the silence of the place.
His song was:
“DE SASSAFRAS BLOOM
“Dey's sugah in de win' when de sassafras bloom,
When de little co'n fluttah in de row,
When de robin in de tree, like er young gal in de loom,
Sing sweet, sing sof', sing low.
“Oh, de sassafras blossom hab de keen smell o' de root,
An' it hab rich er tender yaller green!
De co'n hit kinder twinkle when hit firs' begin ter shoot,
While de bum'le-bee hit bum'le in between.
“Oh, de sassafras tassel, an' de young shoot o' de co'n,
An' de young gal er-singing in de loom,
Dey's somefin' 'licious in 'em f'om de day 'at dey is bo'n,
An' dis darky's sort o' took er likin' to 'm.
“Hit's kind o' sort o' glor'us when yo' feels so quare an' cur'us,
An' yo' don' know what it is yo' wants ter do;
But I takes de chances on it 'at hit jes can't be injur'us
When de whole endurin' natur tells yo' to!
“Den wake up, niggah, see de sassafras in bloom!
Lis'n how de sleepy wedder blow!
An' de robin in de haw--bush an' de young gal in de loom
Is er-singin' so sof' an' low.”
“Thank you, Barn; here's your dollar,” said the voice of Tom Bannister when
the song was ended. “You may go now.”
And while Colonel Sommerton stood amazed, the young man came clown the
veranda steps with Phyllis on his arm. They stopped when they reached the
ground.
“Good--night, dear. I'll win you to-morrow or my name is not Tom Bannister.
I'll win you, and Sommerton Place too.” And when they parted he came right
down the walk between the trees, to run almost against Colonel Sommerton.
“Why, good-evening, Colonel,” he said, with a cordial, liberal spirit in
his voice. “I have been waiting in hopes of seeing you.”
“You'll get enough of me to-morrow to last you a lifetime, sah,” promptly
responded the old man, marching straight on into the house. Nothing could
express more concentrated and yet comprehensive contempt than Colonel
Sommerton's manner.
“The impudent young scamp,” he growled. “I'll show
him!”
Phyllis sprang from ambush behind a vine, and covered her father's face
with warm kisses, then broke away before he could say a word, and ran up to
her room.
In the distant kitchen Barnaby was singing:
“Kick so high I broke my neck,
An' fling my right foot off'm my leg
Went to work mos' awful quick,
An' mended 'em wid er wooden peg.”
Next morning at nine o'clock sharp the convention was called to order,
General John Duff Tolliver in the chair. Speeches were expected, and it had
been arranged that Tom Bannister should first appear, Colonel Sommerton
would follow, and then the ballot would be taken.
This order of business showed the fine tactics of the Colonel, who well
understood how much advantage lay in the vivid impression of a closing
speech.
As the two candidates made their way from opposite directions through the
throng to the platform, which was under a tree in a beautiful suburban
grove, both were greeted with effusive warmth by admiring constituents.
Many women were present, and Tom Bannister felt the blood surge mightily
through his veins at sight of Phyllis standing tall and beautiful before
him with her hand extended.
“If you lose, die game, Tom,” she murmured, as he pressed her fingers and
passed on.
The young man's appearance on the stand called forth a tremendous roar of
applause. Certainly he was popular. Colonel Sommerton felt a queer shock of
surprise thrill along his nerves. Could it be possible that he would lose?
No; the thought was intolerable. He sat a trifle straighter on his bench,
and began gathering the points of his well-conned speech. He saw old
Barnaby moving around the rim of the crowd, apparently looking for a seat.
Meantime, Tom was proceeding in a clear, soft, far-reaching voice. The
Colonel started and looked askance. What did it mean? At first his brain
was confused, but presently he understood. Word for word, sentence for
sentence, paragraph for paragraph, Tom was delivering the Colonel's own
sonorous speech! Of course the application was reversed here and there, so
that the wit, the humor, and the personal thrusts all went home. It was a
wonderful piece of _ad captandum_ oratory. The crowd went wild from start
to finish.
Colonel Mobley Sommerton sat dazed and stupefied, mopping his forehead and
trying to collect his faculties. He felt beaten, annihilated, while Tom
soared superbly on the wings of Sommertonian oratory so mysteriously at his
command.
From a most eligible point of view Phyllis was gazing at Tom and receiving
the full brilliant current of his speech, and she appeared to catch a fine
stimulus from the flow of its opening sentences. As it proceeded her face
alternately flushed and paled, and her heart pounded heavily. All around
rose the tumult of unbridled applause. Men flung up their hats and yelled
themselves hoarse. A speech of that sort from a young fellow like Tom
Bannister was something to create irrepressible enthusiasm. It ended in
such a din that when General John Duff Tolliver arose to introduce Colonel
Sommerton he had to wait some time to be heard.
The situation was one that absolutely appalled, though it did not quite
paralyze, the older candidate, who, even after he had gained his feet and
stalked to the front of the rude rostrum, was as empty of thought as he was
full of despair. This sudden and unexpected appropriation of his great
speech had sapped and stupefied his intellect. He slowly swept the crowd
with his dazed eyes, and by some accident the only countenance clearly
visible to him was that of old Barnaby, who now sat far back on a stump,
looking for all the world like a mightily mystified baboon. The negro
winked and grimaced, and scratched his flat nose in sheer vacant stupidity.
Colonel Sommerton saw this, and it added an enfeebling increment to his
mental torpor.
“Fellow-citizens,” he presently roared, in his melodious bass voice, “I am
proud of this honor.” He was not sure of another word as he stood, with
bagging trousers and sweat-beaded face, but he made a superhuman effort to
call up his comatose wits. “I should be ungrateful were I not proud of this
great demonstration.” Just then his gaze fell upon the face of his
daughter. Their eyes met with a mutual flash of restrospection. They were
remembering the bargain. The Colonel was not aware of it, but the
deliberateness and vocal volume of his opening phrases made them very
impressive. “I assure you,” he went on, fumbling for something to say,
“that my heart is brimming with gratitude so that my lips find it hard to
utter the words that crowd into my mind.” At this point some kindly friend
in the audience gingerly set going a ripple of applause, which, though
evidently forced, was like wine to the old man's intellect; it flung a glow
through his imagination.
“The speech you have heard the youthful lamb of law declaim is a very good
one, a very eloquent one indeed. If it were his own, I should not hesitate
to say right here that I ought to stand aside and let him be nominated;
but, fellow-citizens, that speech belongs to another and far more
distinguished and eligible man than Tom Bannister.” Here he paused again,
and stood silent for a moment. Then, lifting his voice to a clarion pitch,
he added:
“Fellow-citizens, I wrote that speech, intending to deliver it here to-day.
I was called to Canton on business early in the week, and during my absence
Tom Bannister went to my house and got my manuscript and learned it by
heart. To prove to you what I say is true, I will now read.”
At this point the Colonel, after deliberately wiping his glasses, drew from
his capacious coat-pocket the manuscript of his address, and proceeded to
read it word for word, just as Bannister had declaimed it. The audience
listened in silence, quite unable to comprehend the situation. There was no
applause. Evidently sentiment was dormant, or it was still with Tom.
Colonel Sommerton, feeling the desperation of the moment, reached forth at
random, and seeing Barnaby's old black face, it amused him, and he chanced
to grab a thought as if out of the expression he saw there.
“Fellow-citizens,” he added, “there is one thing I desired to say upon this
important occasion. Whatever you do, be sure not to nominate to-day a man
who would, if elected, ally himself with the niggers. I don't pretend to
hint that my young opponent, Tom Bannister, would favor nigger rule, but I
do say--do you hear me, fellow-citizens?--I do say that every nigger in
this county is a Bannister man! How do I know?? I will tell you. Last
Saturday night the niggers had a meeting in an old stable on my premises.
Wishing to know what they were up to, I stole slyly to where I could
overhear their proceedings. My old nigger, Barnaby--yonder he sits, and he
can't deny it--was presiding, and the question before the meeting was,
'Which of the two candidates, Tom Bannister and Colonel Sommerton, shall we
niggers support? On this question there was some debate and difference of
opinion, until old Bob Warmus arose and said, 'Mistah Pres'dent, dey's no
use er talkin'; I likes Colonel Sommerton mighty well; he's a berry good
man; dey's not a bit er niggah in 'im. On t' odder han', Mistah Pres'dent,
Mistah Tom Bannistah is er white man too, jes de same; but I kin say fo'
Mistah Bannistah 'at he's mo' like er niggah an' any white man 'at I ebber
seed afore!”'
Here the Colonel paused to wait for the shouting and the hat-throwing to
subside. Meantime the face of old Barnaby was drawn into one indescribable
pucker of amazement. He could not believe his eyes or his ears. Surely that
was not Colonel Sommerton standing up there telling such an enormous
falsehood on him! He shook his woolly head dolefully, and gnawed a little
splinter that he had plucked from the stump.
“Of course, fellow-citizens,” the Colonel went on, “that settled the
matter, and the niggers endorsed Tom Bannister unanimously by a rising
vote!”
The yell that went up when the speaker, bowing profoundly, took his seat,
made it seem certain that Bannister would be beaten; but when the ballot
was taken it was found that he had been chosen by one vote majority.
Colonel Mobley Sommerton's face turned as white as his hair. The iron of
defeat went home to his proud heart with terrible effect, and as he tried
to rise, the features of the hundreds of countenances below him swam and
blended confusedly in his vision. The sedentary bubbles on the knees of his
trousers fluttered with sympathetic violence.
Tom Bannister was on his feet in a moment--it was an appealing look from
Phyllis that inspired him--and once more his genial voice rang out clear
and strong.