HOME WITH THE MAJOR
Ahead of them, it was Court Day in Lexington. From the town, as a
centre, white turnpikes radiated in every direction like the strands of
a spider's web. Along them, on the day before, cattle, sheep, and hogs
had made their slow way. Since dawn, that morning, the fine dust had
been rising under hoof and wheel on every one of them, for Court Day is
yet the great day of every month throughout the Bluegrass. The crowd
had gone ahead of the Major and Chad. Only now and then would a laggard
buggy or carriage turn into the pike from a pasture-road or
locust-bordered avenue. Only men were occupants, for the ladies rarely
go to town on court days--and probably none would go on that day.
Trouble was expected. An abolitionist, one Brutus Dean--not from the
North, but a Kentuckian, a slave-holder and a gentleman--would probably
start a paper in Lexington to exploit his views in the heart of the
Bluegrass; and his quondam friends would shatter his press and tear his
office to pieces. So the Major told Chad, and he pointed out some
"hands" at work in a field.
"An', mark my words, some day there's goin' to be the damnedest fight
the world ever saw over these very niggers. An' the day ain't so far
away."
It was noon before they reached the big cemetery on the edge of
Lexington. Through a rift in the trees the Major pointed out the grave
of Henry Clay, and told him about the big monument that was to be
reared above his remains. The grave of Henry Clay! Chad knew all about
him. He had heard Caleb Hazel read the great man's speeches aloud by
the hour--had heard him intoning them to himself as he walked the woods
to and fro from school. Would wonders never cease.
There seemed to be no end to the houses and streets and people in this
big town, and Chad wondered why everybody turned to look at him and
smiled, and, later in the day, he came near getting into a fight with
another boy who seemed to be making fun of him to his companions. He
wondered at that, too, until it suddenly struck him that he saw nobody
else carrying a rifle and wearing a coonskin cap--perhaps it was his
cap and his gun. The Major was amused and pleased, and he took a
certain pride in the boy's calm indifference to the attention he was
drawing to himself. And he enjoyed the little mystery which he and his
queer little companion seemed to create as they drove through the
streets.
On one corner was a great hemp factory.
Through the windows Chad could see negroes, dusty as millers, bustling
about, singing as they worked. Before the door were two men--one on
horseback. The Major drew up a moment.
"How are you, John? Howdye, Dick?" Both men answered heartily, and both
looked at Chad--who looked intently at them--the graceful, powerful man
on foot and the slender, wiry man with wonderful dark eyes on horseback.
"Pioneering, Major?" asked John Morgan.
"This is a namesake of mine from the mountains. He's come up to see the
settlements."
Richard Hunt turned on his horse. "How do you like 'em?"
"Never seed nothin' like 'em in my life," said Chad, gravely. Morgan
laughed and Richard Hunt rode on with them down the street.
"Was that Captin Morgan?" asked Chad.
"Yes," said the Major. "Have you heard of him before?"
"Yes, sir. A feller on the road tol' me, if I was lookin' fer somethin'
to do hyeh in Lexington to go to Captin Morgan."
The Major laughed: "That's what everybody does."
At once, the Major took the boy to an old inn and gave him a hearty
meal; and while the Major attended to some business, Chad roamed the
streets.
"Don't get into trouble, my boy," said the Major, "an' come back here
an hour or two by sun."
Naturally, the lad drifted where the crowd was thickest--to Cheapside.
Cheapside--at once the market-place and the forum of the Bluegrass from
pioneer days to the present hour--the platform that knew Clay,
Crittenden, Marshall, Breckenridge, as it knows the lesser men of
to-day, who resemble those giants of old as the woodlands of the
Bluegrass to-day resemble the primeval forests from which they sprang.
Cheapside was thronged that morning with cattle, sheep, hogs, horses,
farmers, aristocrats, negroes, poor whites. The air was a babel of
cries from auctioneers--head, shoulders, and waistband above the
crowd--and the cries of animals that were changing owners that day--one
of which might now and then be a human being. The Major was busy, and
Chad wandered where he pleased--keeping a sharp lookout everywhere for
the school-master, but though he asked right and left he could find
nobody, to his great wonder, who knew even the master's name. In the
middle of the afternoon the country people began to leave town and
Cheapside was cleared, but, as Chad walked past the old inn, he saw a
crowd gathered within and about the wide doors of a livery-stable, and
in a circle outside that lapped half the street. The auctioneer was in
plain sight above the heads of the crowd, and the horses were led out
one by one from the stable. It was evidently a sale of considerable
moment, and there were horse-raisers, horse-trainers, jockeys,
stable-boys, gentlemen--all eager spectators or bidders. Chad edged his
way through the outer rim of the crowd and to the edge of the sidewalk,
and, when a spectator stepped down from a dry-goods box from which he
had been looking on, Chad stepped up and took his place. Straightway,
he began to wish he could buy a horse and ride back to the mountains.
What fun that would be, and how he would astonish the folks on Kingdom
Come. He had his five dollars still in his pocket, and when the first
horse was brought out, the auctioneer raised his hammer and shouted in
loud tones:
"How much am I offered for this horse?"
There was no answer, and the silence lasted so long that before he knew
it Chad called out in a voice that frightened him:
"Five dollars!" Nobody heard the bid, and nobody paid any attention to
him.
"One hundred dollars," said a voice.
"One hundred and twenty-five," said another, and the horse was knocked
down for two hundred dollars.
A black stallion with curving neck and red nostrils and two white feet
walked proudly in.
"How much am I offered?"
"Five dollars," said Chad, promptly. A man who sat near heard the boy
and turned to look at the little fellow, and was hardly able to believe
his ears. And so it went on. Each time a horse was put up Chad shouted
out:
"Five dollars," and the crowd around him began to smile and laugh and
encourage him and wait for his bid. The auctioneer, too, saw him, and
entered into the fun himself, addressing himself to Chad at every
opening bid.
"Keep it up, little man," said a voice behind him. "You'll get one by
and by." Chad looked around. Richard Hunt was smiling to him from his
horse on the edge of the crowd.
The last horse was a brown mare--led in by a halter. She was old and a
trifle lame, and Chad, still undispirited, called out this time louder
than ever:
"Five dollars!"
He shouted out this time loudly enough to be heard by everybody, and a
universal laugh rose; then came silence, and, in that silence, an
imperious voice shouted back:
"Let him have her!" It was the owner of the horse who spoke--a tall man
with a noble face and long iron-gray hair. The crowd caught his mood,
and as nobody wanted the old mare very much, and the owner would be the
sole loser, nobody bid against him, and Chad's heart thumped when the
auctioneer raised his hammer and said:
"Five dollars, five dollars--what am I offered? Five dollars, five
dollars, going at five dollars, five dollars--going at five
dollars--going--going, last bid, gentlemen!" The hammer came down with
a blow that made Chad's heart jump and brought a roar of laughter from
the crowd.
"What is the name, please?" said the auctioneer, bending forward with
great respect and dignity toward the diminutive purchaser.
"Chad."
The auctioneer put his hand to one ear.
"I beg your pardon--Dan'l Boone did you say?"
"No!" shouted Chad indignantly--he began to feel that fun was going on
at his expense. "You heerd me--CHAD."
"Ah, Mr. Chad."
Not a soul knew the boy, but they liked his spirit, and several
followed him when he went up and handed his five dollars and took the
halter of his new treasure trembling so that he could scarcely stand.
The owner of the horse placed his hand on the little fellow's head.
"Wait a minute," he said, and, turning to a negro boy: "Jim, go bring a
bridle." The boy brought out a bridle, and the tall man slipped it on
the old mare's head, and Chad led her away--the crowd watching him.
Just outside he saw the Major, whose eyes opened wide:
"Where'd you get that old horse, Chad?"
"Bought her," said Chad.
"What? What'd you give for her?"
"Five dollars."
The Major looked pained, for he thought the boy was lying, but Richard
Hunt called him aside and told the story of the purchase; and then how
the Major did laugh--laughed until the tears rolled down his face.
And then and there he got out of his carriage and went into a saddler's
shop and bought a brand new saddle with a red blanket, and put it on
the old mare and hoisted the boy to his seat. Chad was to have no
little honor in his day, but he never knew a prouder moment than when
he clutched the reins in his left hand and squeezed his short legs
against the fat sides of that old brown mare.
He rode down the street and back again, and then the Major told him he
had better put the black boy on the mare, to ride her home ahead of
him, and Chad reluctantly got off and saw the little darky on his new
saddle and his new horse.
"Take good keer o' that hoss, boy," he said, with a warning shake of
his head, and again the Major roared.
First, the Major said, he would go by the old University and leave word
with the faculty for the school-master when he should come there to
matriculate; and so, at a turnstile that led into a mighty green yard
in the middle of which stood a huge gray mass of stone, the carriage
stopped, and the Major got out and walked through the campus and up the
great flight of stone steps and disappeared. The mighty columns, the
stone steps--where had Chad heard of them? And then the truth flashed.
This was the college of which the school-master had told him down in
the mountains, and, looking, Chad wanted to get closer.
"I wonder if it'll make any difference if I go up thar?" he said to the
old driver.
"No," the old man hesitated--"no, suh, co'se not." And Chad climbed out
and the old negro followed him with his eyes. He did not wholly approve
of his master's picking up an unknown boy on the road. It was all right
to let him ride, but to be taking him home--old Tom shook his head.
"Jess wait till Miss Lucy sees that piece o' white trash," he said,
shaking his head. Chad was walking slowly with his eyes raised. It must
be the college where the school-master had gone to school--for the
building was as big as the cliff that he had pointed out down in the
mountains, and the porch was as big as the black rock that he pointed
out at the same time--the college where Caleb Hazel said Chad, too,
must go some day. The Major was coming out when the boy reached the
foot of the steps, and with him was a tall, gray man with spectacles
and a white tie and very white nails, and the Major said:
"There he is now, Professor." And the Professor looked at Chad
curiously, and smiled and smiled again kindly when he saw the boy's
grave, unsmiling eyes fastened on him.
Then, out of the town and through the late radiant afternoon they went
until the sun sank and the carriage stopped before a gate. While the
pickaninny was opening it, another carriage went swiftly behind them,
and the Major called out cleanly to the occupants--a quiet, sombre,
dignified-looking man and two handsome boys and a little girl. "They're
my neighbors, Chad," said the Major.
Not a sound did the wheels make on the thick turf as they drove toward
the old-fashioned brick house (it had no pillars), with its windows
shining through the firs and cedars that filled the yard. The Major put
his hand on the boy's shoulder:
"Well, here we are, little man."
At the yard gate there was a great barking of dogs, and a great shout
of welcome from the negroes who came forward to take the horses. To
each of them the Major gave a little package, which each darky took
with shining teeth and a laugh of delight--all looking with wonder at
the curious little stranger with his rifle and coonskin cap, until a
scowl from the Major checked the smile that started on each black face.
Then the Major led Chad up a flight of steps and into a big hall and on
into a big drawing-room, where there was a huge fireplace and a great
fire that gave Chad a pang of homesickness at once. Chad was not
accustomed to taking off his hat when he entered a house in the
mountains, but he saw the Major take off his, and he dropped his own
cap quickly. The Major sank into a chair.
"Here we are, little man," he said, kindly.
Chad sat down and looked at the books, and the portraits and prints,
and the big mirrors and the carpets on the floor, none of which he had
ever seen before, and he wondered at it all and what it all might mean.
A few minutes later, a tall lady in black, with a curl down each side
of her pale face, came in. Like old Tom, the driver, the Major, too,
had been wondering what his sister, Miss Lucy, would think of his
bringing so strange a waif home, and now, with sudden humor, he saw
himself fortified.
"Sister," he said, solemnly, "here's a little kinsman of yours. He's a
great-great-grandson of your great-great-uncle--Chadwick Buford. That's
his name. What kin does that make us?"
"Hush, brother," said Miss Lucy, for she saw the boy reddening with
embarrassment and she went across and shook hands with him, taking in
with a glance his coarse strange clothes and his soiled hands and face
and his tangled hair, but pleased at once with his shyness and his dark
eyes. She was really never surprised at any caprice of her brother, and
she did not show much interest when the Major went on to tell where he
had found the lad--for she would have thought it quite possible that he
might have taken the boy out of a circus. As for Chad, he was in awe of
her at once--which the Major noticed with an inward chuckle, for the
boy had shown no awe of him. Chad could hardly eat for shyness at
supper and because everything was so strange and beautiful, and he
scarcely opened his lips when they sat around the great fire, until
Miss Lucy was gone to bed. Then he told the Major all about himself and
old Nathan and the Turners and the school-master, and how he hoped to
come back to the Bluegrass, and go to that big college himself, and he
amazed the Major when, glancing at the books, he spelled out the titles
of two of Scott's novels, "The Talisman" and "Ivanhoe," and told how
the school-master had read them to him. And the Major, who had a
passion for Sir Walter, tested Chad's knowledge, and he could mention
hardly a character or a scene in the two books that did not draw an
excited response from the boy.
"Wouldn't you like to stay here in the Bluegrass now and go to school?"
Chad's eyes lighted up.
"I reckon I would; but how am I goin' to school, now, I'd like to know?
I ain't got no money to buy books, and the school-teacher said you have
to pay to go to school, up here."
"Well, we'll see about that," said the Major, and Chad wondered what he
meant. Presently the Major got up and went to the sideboard and poured
out a drink of whiskey and, raising it to his lips, stopped:
"Will you join me?" he asked, humorously, though it was hard for the
Major to omit that formula even with a boy.
"I don't keer if I do," said Chad, gravely. The Major was astounded and
amused, and thought that the boy was not in earnest, but he handed him
the bottle and Chad poured out a drink that staggered his host, and
drank it down without winking. At the fire, the Major pulled out his
chewing tobacco. This, too, he offered and Chad accepted, equalling the
Major in the accuracy with which he reached the fireplace thereafter
with the juice, carrying off his accomplishment, too, with perfect and
unconscious gravity. The Major was nigh to splitting with silent
laughter for a few minutes, and then he grew grave.
"Does everybody drink and chew down in the mountains?"
"Yes, sir," said Chad. "Everybody makes his own licker where I come
from."
"Don't you know it's very bad for little boys to drink and chew?"
"No, sir."
"Did nobody ever tell you it was very bad for little boys to drink and
chew?"
"No, sir"--not once had Chad forgotten that.
"Well, it is."
Chad thought for a minute. "Will it keep me from gittin' to be a BIG
man?"
"Yes."
Chad quietly threw his quid into the fire.
"Well, I be damned," said the Major under his breath. "Are you goin' to
quit?"
"Yes, sir."
Meanwhile, the old driver, whose wife lived on the next farm, was
telling the servants over there about the queer little stranger whom
his master had picked up on the road that day, and after Chad was gone
to bed, the Major got out some old letters from a chest and read them
over again. Chadwick Buford was his great-grandfather's twin brother,
and not a word had been heard of him since the two had parted that
morning on the old Wilderness Road, away back in the earliest pioneer
days. So, the Major thought and thought suppose--suppose? And at last
he got up and with an uplifted candle, looked a long while at the
portrait of his grandfather that hung on the southern wall. Then, with
a sudden humor, he carried the light to the room where the boy was in
sound sleep, with his head on one sturdy arm, his hair loose on the
pillow, and his lips slightly parted and showing his white, even teeth;
he looked at the boy a long time and fancied he could see some
resemblance to the portrait in the set of the mouth and the nose and
the brow, and he went back smiling at his fancies and thinking--for the
Major was sensitive to the claim of any drop of the blood in his own
veins--no matter how diluted. He was a handsome little chap.
"How strange! How strange!"
And he smiled when he thought of the boy's last question.
"Where's YO' mammy?"
It had stirred the Major.
"I am like you, Chad," he had said. "I've got no mammy--no nothin',
except Miss Lucy, and she don't live here. I'm afraid she won't be on
this earth long. Nobody lives here but me, Chad."