The June following young Edgar's eleventh birthday found him in Richmond
once more. The village-like little capital was all greenery and roses
and sunshine and bird-song and light-hearted laughter, and he felt, with
a glow, that it was good to be back.
In the five years of his absence he had grown quite tall for his age,
with a certain dignity and self-possession of bearing acquired from
becoming accustomed to depend upon himself. All that was left of the
nut-brown curls that used to flow over his shoulders were the clustering
ringlets that covered his head and framed his large brow. His absence
had also wrought in him other and more subtle changes which did not
appear to the friends who remarked upon what a great boy he had grown--a
maturity from having lived in another world--from having had his
thoughts expanded by new scenes and quickened by the suggestions of
historic association and surroundings.
But with his return, England and Stoke-Newington sank into the
shadowy past--their spell weakened, for the time being, by the
thought-absorbing, heart-filling scenes of which he had now become a
part. The years at the Manor House School were as a dream--_this_ was
the real thing--_this_ was Home. _Home_--ah, the charm of that word and
all it implied! His heart swelled, his eyes grew misty as he said it
over and over to himself. The clatter of drays "down town" was like
music in his ears, the dusty streets of the residential section were
fair to his eyes for old time's sake. How he loved the very pavement
under his feet, rough and uneven as it was; how dearly he loved the
trees that he had climbed (and would climb again) which stretched their
friendly boughs over his head!
In a state of happy excitement he rushed about town, visiting his old
haunts to see if they were still there, and "the same."
"Comrade," his brown spaniel--his favorite of all his pets--had grown
old and sober and had quite forgotten him, but his love was soon
reawakened. The boys he had played with, too, had almost forgotten him,
but his return called him to mind again and put them all in a flutter. A
boy who had lived five years on the other side of the ocean and had been
to an English boarding school, was not seen in Richmond every day. Mrs.
Allan gave him a party to which all of the children in their circle were
invited. In anticipation of this, he had purchased in London, out of the
abundance of pocket-money with which his doting foster-mother always saw
to it he was provided, a number of little gifts to be distributed among
the boys at home. These, with the distinction his travels gave him, made
him the man of the hour among Richmond children. And how much he had to
tell! At Stoke-Newington it was always the boys at home that were the
heroes of the stories he spun by the yard for the entertainment of his
school-fellows--the literal among whom had come to believe that there
was no feat a Virginia boy could not perform. Now that he was in
Richmond, the Stoke-Newington boys themselves loomed up as the
wonder-workers, and his playmates listened with admiration and with such
expression as, "Caesar's ghost!"--"Jiminy!"--"Cracky!" and the like, as
he narrated his tales of "Freckles," "Goggles," "the Beau," and the
rest.
One of his first visits after reaching home was to his old black
"Mammy," in the tiny cottage, with its prolific garden-spot, on the
outskirts of the town, in which Mr. Allan had installed her and her
husband, "Uncle Billy," before leaving Virginia.
"Mammy" was expecting him. With one half of her attention upon the white
cotton socks she was knitting for her spouse and the other half on the
gate of her small garden through which her "chile" would come, she sat
in her doorway awaiting him. She was splendidly arrayed in her new
purple calico and a big white apron, just from under the iron. Her
gayest bandanna "hankercher" covered her tightly "wropped" locks from
view and the snowiest of "neckerchers" was crossed over her ample bosom.
Her kind, black countenance was soft with thoughts of love.
"Uncle Billy," too, was spruced for the occasion. Indeed, he was quite
magnificent in a "biled shut," with ruffles, and an old dresscoat of
"Marster's." His top-boots were elaborately blacked, and a somewhat
battered stove-pipe hat crowned his bushy grey wool. Each of the old
folks comfortably smoked a corn-cob pipe.
"Mammy" saw her boy coming first. She could hardly believe it was
he--he was so tall--but she was up and away, down the path, in a flash.
Half-way to the gate that opened on the little back street, she met him
and enveloped him at once in her loving arms.
"Bless de Lord, O my soul!" she repeated over and over again in a sort
of chant, as she held him against her bosom and rocked back and forth on
her broad feet, tears of joy rolling down her face.
"De probable am returned," announced Uncle Billy, solemnly.
"G'long, Billy," she said, contemptuously. "He ain' no _probable_. He
jes' Mammy's own li'l' chile, if he _is_ growed so tall!"
"I'se only 'peatin' what de Good Book say," replied Uncle Billy, with
dignity.
Edgar was crying too, and laughing at the same time.
"Howdy, Uncle Billy," said he, stretching a hand to the old man as soon
as he could extricate himself from Mammy's embrace. "My, my, you do look
scrumptious! How's the rheumatiz?"
"Now jes' heah dat! Rememberin' uv de ole man's rheumatiz arter all dis
time!" exclaimed the delighted Uncle Billy. "'Twus mighty po'ly,
thankee, li'l Marster, but de sight o' you done make it better a'ready.
I 'clar 'fo' Gracious, if de sight of you wouldn' be good for so' eyes!
Socifyin' wid dem wile furren nations ain' hu't you a bit--'deed it
ain't!"
"How did you expect them to hurt me, Uncle Billy?" asked Edgar,
laughing.
"I was 'feard dey mought make a _Injun_, or sum'in' out'n you."
"G'long, Billy," put in his wife, with increased contempt, "Marse Eddie
ain' been socifyin' wid no Injuns--he been socifyin' wid kings an'
queens' settin' on dey thrones, wid crowns on dey haids an' spectres in
dey han's! Come 'long in de house, Honey, an' set awhile wid Mammy."
As they crossed the threshold of the humble abode, Edgar looked around
upon its familiar, homely snugness with satisfaction--at the huge,
four-post bed, covered with a cheerful "log cabin" quilt made of scraps
of calico of every known hue and pattern; at the white-washed walls
adorned with pictures cut from old books and magazines; at the "shelf,"
as Mammy called the mantel-piece, with its lambrequin of scallopped
strips of newspaper, and its china vases filled with hundred-leaf roses
and pinks; at the spotless bare floor and homemade split-bottomed
chairs; at the small, but bright, windows, with their rows of geraniums
and verbenas, brilliantly blooming in boxes, tin-cans and broken-nosed
tea-pots.
Almost all that Mammy could say was,
"Lordy, Lordy, Honey, how you has growed!" Or, "Jes' to think of Mammy's
baby sech a big boy!"
Presently a shadow crossed her face. "Honey," she said, "You gittin' to
be sech a man now, you won't have no mo' use fur po' ole Mammy. Dar
won't be a thing fur her to do fur sech a big man-chile."
"Don't you believe that, for a minute, Mammy," was the quick reply. "I
was just wondering if you had forgotten how to make those good
ash-cakes."
"Now, jes' listen to de chile, makin' game o' his ole Mammy!" she
exclaimed. "Livin' so high wid all dem hifalutin' kings an' queens an'
sech, an' den comin' back here an' makin' ten' he wouldn' 'spise Mammy's
ash-cakes!"
"I'm in dead earnest, Mammy. Indeed, indeed and double deed, I am. Kings
and queens don't have anything on their tables half as good as one of
your ash-cakes, with a glass of cool butter-milk."
"Dat so, Honey?" she queried, with wonder. "Den you sho'ly shall have
some, right away. Mammy churn dis ve'y mornin', and dars a pitcher of
buttermilk coolin' in de spring dis minute. You des' make you'se'f at
home an' I'll step in de kitchen an' cook you a ash-cake in a jiffy.
Billy, you pick me some nice, big cabbage leaves to bake it in whilst
I'm mixin' de dough, an' den go an' git de butter-milk an' a pat o' dat
butter I made dis mornin' out'n de spring."
Edgar and Uncle Billy followed her into the kitchen where she deftly
mixed the corn-meal dough, shaped it in her hands into a thick round
cake, which she wrapped in fresh cabbage leaves and put down in the hot
ashes on the hearth to bake. Meantime the following conversation between
Edgar and the old "Uncle:"
"Uncle Billy do you ever see ghosts now-adays?"
"To be sho', li'l' Marster, to be sho'. Sees 'em mos' any time. Saw one
las' Sunday night."
"What was it like, Uncle Billy?"
"Like, Honey?--Like ole Mose, dat's what t'wus like. Does you 'member
Mose whar useter drive de hotel hack?"
"Yes, he's dead isn't he?"
"Yes, suh, daid as a do' nail. Dat's de cur'us part on it. He's daid an'
was buried las' Sunday ebenin'--buried deep. I know, 'ca'se I wus dar
m'se'f. But dat night when I had gone to bed an' wus gittin' off to meh
fus' nap, I was woke up on a sudden by de noise uv a gre't stompin' an'
trompin' an snortin' in de road. I jump up an' look out de winder, an' I
'clar' 'fo' Gracious if dar warn't Mose, natchel as life, horses an'
hack an' all, tearin' by at a break-neck speed. I'se seed many a ghos'
an' a ha'nt in meh time, uv _humans_, but dat wus de fus' time I uver
heard tell uv a horse or a hack risin' f'um de daid. 'Twus skeery,
sho'!"
Before Edgar had time for comment upon this remarkable apparition, Mammy
set before him the "snack" she had prepared of smoking ash-cake and
fresh butter, on her best china plate--the one with the gilt band--and
placed at his right hand a goblet and a stone pitcher of cool
butter-milk. A luncheon, indeed, fit to be set before royalty, though it
is not likely that any of them ever had such an one offered them--poor
things!
Edgar did full justice to the feast and was warm in his praises of it.
Then, before taking his leave, he placed in Mammy's hands a parcel
containing gifts from the other side of the water for her and Uncle
Billy. There is nothing so dear to the heart of an old-time negro as a
present, and as the aged couple opened the package and drew out its
treasures, their black faces fairly shone with delight. Mammy could not
forbear giving her "chile" a hug of gratitude and freshly springing
love, while Uncle Billy heartily declared,
"De Lord will sho'ly bless you, li'l' Marster, fur de Good Book do
p'intedly say dat He do love one chufful giver."
* * * * *
To young Edgar's home-keeping playmates, he seemed to be the luckiest
boy in the world, and indeed, his brief existence had been up to this
time, as fortunate as it appeared to them. Even the beautiful sorrow of
his mother's death had filled his life with poetry and brought him
sympathy and affection in abundant measure.
But bitterness was soon enough to enter his soul. His thoughts from the
moment of his return to Richmond, had frequently turned to the white
church and churchyard on the hill--and to the grave beside the wall.
Thither he was determined to go as soon as he possibly could, but it was
too sacred a pilgrimage to be mentioned to anyone--it must be as secret
as he could make it; and so he must await an opportunity to slip off
when he would be least apt to be missed. He chose a sultry afternoon
when Mr. and Mrs. Allan were taking a long drive into the country. He
waited until sunset--thinking there would be less probability of meeting
anyone in the churchyard after that hour than earlier--and set out,
taking with him a cluster of white roses from the summer-house in the
garden.
It was nearly dusk when he reached the church and climbed the steps that
led to the walled graveyard, elevated above the street-level. Never had
the spot looked so fair to him. The white spire, piercing the blue sky,
seemed almost to touch the slender new moon, with the evening star
glimmering by her side. The air was sweet with the breath of roses and
honeysuckle, and the graves were deeply, intensely green. Long he lay
upon the one by the wall, near the head of which he had placed his white
roses--looking up at the silver spire and the silver star and the moon's
silver bow--so long that he forgot the passage of time, and when he
reached home and went in out of the night to the bright dining-room,
blinking his great grey eyes to accustom them to the lamp-light, supper
was over.
The keen eyes of John Allan looked sternly upon him from under their
fierce brows. The boy saw at once that his foster-father was very angry.
"Where have you been?" he demanded, harshly.
"Nowhere," replied the boy.
"What have you been doing all this time?"
"Nothing," was the answer.
"Nowhere? Nothing? Don't nowhere and nothing me, Sir. Those are the
replies--the lying replies--of a boy who has been in mischief. If you
had not been where you shouldn't have been, and doing as you shouldn't
have done, you would not be ashamed to tell. Now, Sir, tell me at once,
where you have been and what you have been doing?"
The boy grew pale, but made no reply, and in the eyes fixed on Mr.
Allan's face was a provokingly stubborn look. The man's wrath waxed
warmer. His voice rose. In a tone of utter exasperation he cried, "Tell
me at once, I say, or you shall have the severest flogging you ever had
in your life!"
The boy grew paler still, and his eyes more stubborn. A scowl settled
upon his brow and a look of dogged determination about his mouth, but
still he spoke not a word.
Mrs. Allan looked from one to the other of these two beings--husband and
son--who made her heart's world. The evening was warm and she wore a
simple white dress with low neck and short sleeves. Anxiety clouded her
lovely face, yet never had she looked more girlishly sweet--more
appealing; but the silent plea in her beautiful, troubled eyes was lost
on John Allan, much as he loved her.
"Tell him, Eddie dear," she implored. "Don't be afraid. Speak up like a
man!"
Still silence.
She walked over to the table where the boy sat before the untouched
supper that had been saved for him, and dropped upon one knee beside
him. She placed her arm around him and drew him against her gentle
bosom--he suffering her, though not returning the caress.
"Tell _me_, Eddie, darling--tell Mother," she coaxed.
The grey eyes softened, the brow lifted. "There's nothing to tell,
Mother," he gently replied.
Mr. Allan rose from his chair. "I'll give you five minutes in which to
find something to tell," he exclaimed, shaking a trembling finger at the
culprit; then stalked out of the room.
In his absence his wife fell upon the neck of the pale, frowning child,
covering his face and his curly head with kisses, and beseeching him
with honeyed endearments, to be a good boy and obey his father. But the
little figure seemed to have turned to stone in her arms. In less than
the five minutes Mr. Allan was back in the room, trimming a long switch
cut from one of the trees in the garden as he came.
"Are you ready to tell me the truth?" he demanded.
No answer.
Still trimming the switch, he approached the boy. Frances Allan
trembled. Rising from the child's side, she clasped her husband's arm in
both her hands.
"Don't, John! Don't, please, John dear. I can't stand it," she breathed.
He put her aside, firmly.
"Don't be silly, Frances. You are interfering with my duty. Can't you
see that I must teach the boy to make you a better return for your
kindness than lying to hide his mischief?"
"But suppose that he is telling the truth, John, and that he has been
doing nothing worse than wandering about the streets? You know the way
he has always had of roaming about by himself, at times."
"And do you think roaming about the streets at this time of night proper
employment for a boy of eleven? Would you have him grow up into a
vagabond? A boy dependent upon the bounty of strangers can ill afford to
cultivate such idle habits!"
The boy's already large and dark pupils dilated and darkened until his
eyes looked like black, storm-swept pools. His already white face grew
livid. He drew back as if he had been struck and fixed upon his
foster-father a gaze in which every spark of affection was, for the
moment, dead. He had been humiliated by the threat of a flogging, but
the prospect of the hardest stroke his body might receive was as nothing
to him now. His sensitive soul had been smitten a blow the smart of
which he would carry with him to his last day. "Dependent upon the
bounty of strangers,"--_of strangers!_
Up to this time he had been the darling little son of an over-fond
mother, and though his foster-father had been at times, stern and
unsympathetic with him, no hint had ever before dropped from him to
indicate that the child was not as much his own as the sons of other
fathers were their own--that he was not as much entitled to the good
things of life which were heaped upon him without the asking as an own
son would have been. His comforts--his pleasures had been so easily, so
plentifully bestowed that the little dreamer had never before awaked to
a realization of a difference between his relation with his parents and
the relation of other children with theirs. Brought face to face with
this hard, cold fact for the first time, and so suddenly, he was for the
moment stunned by it. He felt that a flood of deep waters in which he
was floundering helplessly was overwhelming him.
A deep silence had followed the last words of Mr. Allan, who continued
to trim the switch, while his wife, sinking into a chair, bowed her
face in her arms, folded upon the table, and began to cry softly. The
gentle sounds of her weeping seemed but further to infuriate her
husband.
"Come with me," he commanded, placing his hand on the shoulder of the
child, who unresistingly suffered himself to be pushed along toward his
foster-father's room. Frances Allan broke into wild sobbing and placed
her fingers against her ears that she might not hear the screams of her
pet. But there were no screams. Silently, and with an air of dignity it
was marvellous so small a figure could command, the beautiful boy
received the blows. When one's soul has been hurt, what matters mere
physical pain? When both the strength and the passion of Mr. Allan had
been somewhat spent, he ceased laying on blows and asked in a calmed
voice,
"Are you ready to tell me the truth now?"
In one moment of time the child lived over again the beautiful hour at
his mother's grave. He saw again the silver spire and the silver
half-moon and the silver star--smelled the blended odors of honeysuckle
and rose, made sweeter, by the gathering dews, and felt the coolness and
freshness of the long green grass that covered the grave. Who knew but
that deep down under the sweet grass she had been conscious he was
there--had felt his heart beat and heard his loving whispers as of old,
and loved him still, and understood, though she would see him nevermore?
Share the secret of that holy hour with anyone--of all people, with this
wrathful, blind, unsympathizing man who had just confessed himself a
stranger to him? Never!
A faint smile, full of peace, settled upon his poet's face, but he
answered never a word.
There was a stir at the door. John Allan looked toward it. His wife
stood there drying her eyes. He turned to the boy again.
"Go with your mother and get your supper," he commanded.
"I don't want it," was the reply.
"Well, go to bed then, and tomorrow afternoon you are to spend in your
own room, where I hope meditation upon your idle ways may bring you to
something like repentance."
The boy paused half-way to the door. "Tomorrow is the day I'm going
swimming with the boys. You promised that I might go."
"Well, I take back the promise, that's all."
"Don't you think you've punished him enough for this time, John?"
timidly asked his wife.
"No boy is ever punished enough until he is conquered," was the reply.
"And Edgar is far from that!"
Mrs. Allan, with her arm about the little culprit's shoulder went with
him to his room. How she wished that he would let her cuddle him in her
lap and sing to him and tell him stories and then hear him his prayers
at her knee and tuck him in bed as in the old days before he went to
boarding-school! Her heart ached for him, though she had no notion of
the bitterness, the rebellion, that were rankling in his. As she kissed
him goodnight she whispered,
"You shall have your swim, in the river, tomorrow, Eddie darling; I'll
see that you do."
"Don't you ask _him_ to let me do anything," he protested, passionately.
"I'm going without asking him. He disowned me for a son, I'll disown him
for a father!"
He loved her but he was glad when the door closed behind her so that he
could think it all out for himself in the dark--the dear dark that he
had always loved so well and that was now as balm to his bruised spirit.
The worst of it was that he could not disown John Allan as a father. He
had to confess to himself with renewed bitterness that he was indeed,
and by no fault of his own--a helpless dependent upon the charity of
this man who had, in taunting him with the fact, wounded him so
grievously. His impulse was to run away--but where could he go? Though
his small purse held at that moment a generous amount of spending money
for a boy "going on twelve," it would be a mere nothing toward taking
him anywhere. It would not afford him shelter and food for a day, and he
knew it--it would not take him to the only place where he knew he had
kindred--Baltimore. And what if he could get as far as Baltimore, would
he care to go there? To assert his independence of the charity of John
Allan only to throw himself upon the charity of relatives who had never
noticed him--whom he hated because they had never forgiven his father
for marrying the angel mother around whose memory his fondest dreams
clung?
No, he could not disown Mr. Allan--not yet; but the good things of life
received from his hands had henceforth lost their flavor and would be
like Dead Sea fruit upon his lips. Hitherto, though he knew, of course,
that he was not the Allans' own child, he had never once been made to
feel that he was any the less entitled to their bounty. They had adopted
him of their own free will to fill the empty arms of a woman with a
mother's heart who had never been a mother, and that woman had lavished
upon him almost more than a mother's love--certainly more than a prudent
mother's indulgence. He had been the most spoiled and petted child of
his circle, and the bounty had been heaped upon him in a manner that
made him feel--child though he was--the joy that the giving brought the
giver, and therefore no burden of obligation upon himself in receiving.
If Mr. Allan had been strict to a point of harshness with him, at times,
Mr. Allan was a born disciplinarian--it seemed natural for him to be
stern and unsympathetic and those who knew him best took his stiffness
and hardness with many grains of allowance, remembering his upright life
and his open-handed charities. He had administered punishment upon the
little lad when he was naughty in the years before he went away to
school, and the little lad had taken his medicine philosophically like
other naughty boys--had cried lustily, then dried his eyes and forgotten
all about it in the pleasure which the goodies and petting he always had
from his pretty, tender-hearted foster-mother at such times gave him.
But _this_ was different. He was a big lad now--very big and old, he
felt, far too big to be flogged; quite big enough to visit his mother's
grave, if he chose, without having to talk about it. And he had not only
been flogged because he would not reveal his sacred, sweet secret, but
had had his dependence upon charity thrown up at him!
Henceforth, he felt, his life would be a lonely one, for he now knew
that he was different from other boys, all of whom (in his acquaintance)
had fathers to whose bounty they had a right--the right of sonship. Yes,
he was a very big boy (he told himself) and he had not cried when he was
flogged, but under the cover of the kindly dark, hot tears of
indignation, hurt pride and pity for his own loneliness--his
singularity--made all his pillow wet.
Comfort came to him from an unexpected source. The door of his room had
been closed, but not latched. It was now pushed open by "Comrade," his
old spaniel, who made straight for his side, first pushing his nose
against his face and then leaping upon the bed and nestling down close
to him, with a sigh of satisfaction. The desolate boy welcomed this
dumb, affectionate companionship. The feel of the warm, soft body, and
the thought of the velvety brown eyes which he could not see in the
dark, but knew were fixed upon him with their intense, loving gaze, were
soothing to his overwrought nerves. Here was something whose love could
be counted upon--something as dependent upon him as he was upon Mr.
Allan; yet what a joy he found in the very dependence of this devoted,
soft-eyed creature! Never would he taunt Comrade with his dependence
upon charity.
"No;" he said, his hands deep in the silky coat, "I would not insult a
dog as he has insulted me! Never mind, Comrade, old fellow, we'll have
our swim in the river tomorrow, and he may flog me again if he likes."
* * * * *
But he was not flogged the next day. An important business engagement
occupied Mr. Allan the whole afternoon, and when he came in late, tired
and pre-occupied, he found Edgar fresh and glowing from his exercise in
the river, the curls still damp upon his forehead, quietly eating his
supper with his mother. _She_ knew, but tender creature that she was,
she was prepared to do anything short of fibbing to shield her pet from
another out-burst. But John Allan, still absorbed in business cares,
hardly looked toward the boy, and asked not a question.