THE FEAR
Carolina had not been a week among her kinsmen before they began to warn
her of the terror of the South. They definitely forbade her ever riding
alone, except in broad daylight along the public highway, and even then
some white man of her acquaintance generally made it his business to be
called in whatever direction she happened to be going.
All this Carolina saw and felt and appreciated, but with the natural
fearlessness of her character and the total want of comprehension which
women seem to feel who have never come into contact with this universal
dread of all Southern States, Carolina often forgot her warnings, and
tempted opportunity by striking off the highway into the pine woods to
inspect her turpentine camps.
Once Moultrie La Grange found her unaccompanied by any white man,
talking to a burly negro in a camp, and when he had taken her away and
they had gained the road where she could see distinctly, she found him
white and shaking. Knowing his physical courage, this exhibition of fear
startled her, and for a few weeks she was more cautious.
Then one afternoon she mounted Scintilla and rode into Enterprise for
the mail. She received the letter from Kate which has just been quoted
and read it as she rode along. It contained so much food for thought
that Carolina forgot everything else, until, looking up, she found that
she was just opposite the new terrapin crawl she was having prepared
under Moultrie's direction. Without thinking, she struck into the woods
and threaded her way among the giant pine-trees toward the coast.
It was virgin forest and on her own land, a tract she intended leasing
to some orchard turpentine factors in Jacksonville. It was twilight in
the forest, but Carolina rode forward fearlessly, glancing sharply at
the trees for signs of their having been boxed by thieving negroes.
Suddenly she saw a boxed tree, and, springing down, she drew Scintilla's
bridle over her arm and stooped to examine the suspected tree. As she
was bending down, Scintilla jerked her head, and the bridle slipped from
Carolina's arm. She sprang to her feet, but, with a nicker of delight,
the handsome horse kicked up her heels and pranced away from her,
looking for all the world like a child ready for a romp.
So free from fear she was that Carolina laughed aloud, but the laugh
froze on her lips, for, without turning her head, she could see,
crouching down and creeping toward her, the huge form of a negro man,
whose half-open mouth and half-closed eyes, as he stole noiselessly
closer and closer, instantly told her of her dire peril.
The girl's whole body became rigid with terror,--a terror so intense and
so unspeakable that she realized how it was that women can go mad from
the effect of it. In a moment, every warning, every hint, every word
that she had heard on the subject flashed through her brain with
lightning quickness. An intense silence reigned in the forest, broken
only by Scintilla's cropping a stray tuft of spring grass and the
footsteps of the black creeping nearer to his white prey.
Carolina never thought of screaming. No white man was within a mile of
her. Oh, for Moultrie,--Moultrie, who had saved her once before! A
sick feeling came over her--things began to swim before her eyes--she
swayed--and at the sight of her weakness the negro stood upright.
He was no longer a crawling horror. He was a man, and her God was at
hand!
The girl smote her hands together. "His truth shall be thy shield!"
"God is my all!" "He is my rock and my fortress!" "Thou shalt call
upon me and I will answer!" "Fear not, for I am with thee!" Detached
sentences, phrases, half-sentences fell from her lips in frozen
whispers. But the man stood still. He was no longer crawling toward
her. And they stood looking at each other. He had queer eyes,--one blue
and one black--where had she heard of such eyes--where had she seen this
very man?
"'Polyte!" she cried.
Instantly the white woman got the ascendency over the black blood of the
man.
"'Polyte, do you know who you are? You are the son of my father's
nurse! Your mother was my father's black mammy!"
The assurance, even the confidence, left the man's manner. His
shoulders drooped perceptibly. He took a backward step. Surely she did
not know what he was or she would not speak to him except to scream for
help.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Yas, missis."
"You don't know how you frightened me, until I saw who you were. Then I
knew that you would catch Scintilla for me. Mr. Moultrie has told me
what a way you have with animals."
In an instant the man was her servant, the son of her grandfather's
slave. His fear of detection and punishment left him, and he was quick
enough to know that her supposed ignorance of his intentions had saved
him from a horrible death. He was a bad negro partly because he was so
intelligent.
"I'll git her for you. Jes' watch me!"
He turned eagerly toward the horse and snapped his fingers. Scintilla
raised her head and began to step gingerly toward the man. 'Polyte's
power over animals may have been hypnotism, but to Carolina it was like
magic to see Scintilla's bridle in 'Polyte's hand. The man proudly led
the mare to her.
"Help me to mount," said Carolina, her shaking knees threatening every
minute to give way beneath her. "No, hold your hand, and when I put my
foot in it, you lift me. There!"
Once on her horse's back, Carolina felt her heart begin to beat with
less noise. It seemed as if he could see how it pounded against her
side.
"'Polyte," she said, "you are what people call a bad man. You have been
bleeding my trees, and I don't know what all. Why don't you behave?"
The man kicked at a tuft of moss.
"Nobody won't hire me, Miss Calline. Ise done been in de chain-gang too
often. Nobody won' trus' me!"
"Well, if I will trust you, for the sake of your dead mother, will you
be good and faithful to me?"
The man's face lighted up. He took a step toward her.
"Will I? Miss Calline, on'y jes' try me! I kin do anyt'in'!"
"I believe you. Well, I'm going to try you. I want you to be my--well,
my body-servant. To go everywhere I go and take care of
me--so--I--won't--be--frightened--again. Will you?"
The man's eyes wavered in momentary terror. But he kept his head.
"On'y jes' try me!"
"I'm going to. But you must have a horse to ride. Look out for a good
one, and one for me, too. You must get me, 'Polyte, the best
saddle-horse in South Carolina!"
"Yas'm. I'll do my bes'. I kin git you a hawse."
"I'll pay you good wages, 'Polyte. But you mustn't drink. If a lady
hires you, you can never get drunk, you know."
"I'll tek de pledge."
"Take any pledge that you can keep," said Carolina. She gathered up the
reins and turned her horse. The man took a step nearer.
"Well, 'Polyte?"
"Miss Calline--"
"Well?"
"Nobody ain't ever trusted me befo'!"
"Well?"
"Not even my ole mammy. She voodooed me. She said I brought her bad
luck, an' everybody tuk up de bad word agin me--"
"Well?"
"Even when I was a child, dey laid ever'thin' awn to me."
"I know."
"Well, you say ''Polyte, I trus' you. You tek care ob me.'"
"Yes, that is what I say."
"Well, Miss Calline, _you gwine be teken cah ob_!"
"I am sure of it. Good-bye, 'Polyte."
As she rode away, Carolina's shoulders drooped until she seemed fairly
to shrink in her saddle.
"If he had touched me--oh, my God!--if he had touched me, I would have
killed myself!"
She bowed her face in her hands, and the bitter tears streamed through
her fingers.
She strove to think--to quiet herself--no one must know. Suddenly she
heard the hoof-beats of a horse behind her. She dashed away her tears
and straightened herself in her saddle. If any white man suspected the
cause of her agitation, a human life--the life of some black man--would
pay the forfeit. 'Polyte's life was in her keeping. She began to think
of him as her property,--a human soul given into her power until it
could be saved through her ministrations. God help him to have got
away! God protect him! Black or white, he was God's child! The
tear-stained face of a white woman,--a woman riding alone?
Scintilla had never felt a spur before in her life. Carolina knew it by
her snort of fright and surprise. But she needed her best speed to draw
away from the avenging white man on her track.
In her stall that night, Scintilla knew that there was a sharp-toothed
animal which had bitten her twice in one short ride. She had tried to
run away from it, but it was fastened to a woman's heel.