ALMOST A RESOLUTION
Shortly after breakfast next day the Colonel dispatched Uncle Zack and
his mule with a note to Jane. He might have telephoned this message,
which simply read: "He understands, with an amplitude of grace which ill
befits him. Come over this morning and straighten Lizzie out with her
preserving. I hear that she is skinning every negro on the place, and I
greatly fear for them, or her."
But, no; this must be on a written page and delivered by hand, for the
old Colonel averred that no gentleman should assume to shriek his voice
by mechanical device into the ear of a gentlewoman. In cases of illness,
accident or fire, or perhaps in pressing business needs, the telephone
had its uses; but a _faux pas_ of the first order was to employ it
socially.
So Zack's mule ambled down the pike and home again, bringing a reply
which sparkled with merriment between its lines: "You have the maternal
instinct of that lady who lived in a shoe! I'll be over to soothe Miss
Liz and her poor, flayed darkies."
Arriving some hours later, she and Mac went directly to the shed where
bright copper kettles were hanging in a row above the old fashioned,
stone oven fires. Several negro women were moving quickly and silently
about, frightened and getting into each other's way. But now, as she
drew near, there was a commotion, and she saw Miss Liz actually lay
hands upon a girl of about seventeen and roughly draw her away from one
of the simmering pots. Unobserved, and in utter amazement, Jane stood
and stared at them.
"What were you about to do?" Miss Liz cried excitedly.
"I--I drapped de spoon in," the girl began to whimper.
"And were going to thrust in your hand and get it scalded to the bone?"
"I'se--I'se 'feerd you'd scold," she put her head down in her arm.
"Now, Amanda," Miss Liz looked at her reprovingly, "if you think I've
nothing to do but sit up nights making poultices on account of your
idiocy, you're very much mistaken! What does a spoon in the preserves
amount to compared with your suffering?--and my suffering, when I'll be
dead for sleep with nursing you? What do you all mean," she turned
angrily upon the others, "by standing there and letting her attempt such
a thing?"
"'Deed, I didn' see her, Miss Liz!" several voices were raised in
protest.
"Of course, you didn't see her! You never see anything! I must be your
eyes as well as your brains, you lazy pieces! Here, Amanda, take this
handful of cherries and go out there under the trees and eat them; and
don't swallow the seeds, either, or I'll be sitting up with you yet!"
Jane came on then, and Miss Liz gratefully recited the multitude of
grievances which had beset her since early morning. This seemed such a
vast relief that she yielded to persuasion and left for a little rest. A
few minutes later the shed was animated with a buzz of happy voices,
fingers, more skilled than Miss Liz had given herself the opportunity of
realizing, now traveled with twice their former speed, and into the
simmering kettles was being cooked a geniality which all preserves must
have to be appreciated.
Half an hour later, leaving this crew in splendid working order, she
walked slowly around to the front of the house. Out before her, in the
shaded group of rustic chairs, sat the Colonel and Brent, somewhat apart
from, but facing, Miss Liz, who seemed to be holding them at bay. Had
the men been alone Jane might doubtless have gone indoors and sought the
commander of the kettles, for she did not care to see Brent just at
once. But the human dice had fallen otherwise, and there seemed no
alternative but straight ahead.
As she drew near she noticed that Miss Liz's cheeks were flushed with
some new excitement, and guessed she was being worried by a process of
serious teasing. Her eyes then sought the reason for this and discovered
it in two julep goblets, cuddled guiltily behind a nearby tree. For as
Miss Liz had come across the lawn to join them half an hour earlier,
this refreshment was hurried out of sight--the Colonel's resolution of
independence notwithstanding--and now, before the ice could entirely
melt, Brent, by a polite tirade against the prim old lady's pet hobby,
trusted her increasing wrath to clarify the situation by routing her
housewards. While he and the Colonel knew this would inevitably come,
her anger was not yet at sufficient heat, and she held her ground with
defiance bristling from every stiff fold of her black silk dress.
Jane gave the men a reproachful look, and Brent's face flushed when he
saw her eyes hover about the juleps; but she entered their scheme by
asking:
"Why does everyone seem so serious?"
"My dear," Miss Liz began to fire, "your father had suggested a Fourth
of July celebration--a most fitting tribute to our departed heroes--but
I regret to say that two not very high minded gentlemen--" The
lorgnette, turned first upon the Colonel and then on Brent, completed
her indictment.
"I'm sure we are misunderstood," Brent murmured, but the Colonel
maintained a discreet silence.
"Can it be, Mr. McElroy," she glared at him with straightening lips,
"that I misunderstood you to say George Washington was not a paragon of
truth?"
"You mean a bird?" he innocently asked.
"A bird, sir?" the black dress gave a startled rustle.
"Excuse me; I thought you said ptarmigan."
The conventional old Colonel committed a very deplorable breach of
etiquette--he snickered; but twisted it into a lusty cough, gutturally
explaining:
"Really, my cold!"
"Mr. McElroy," she turned severely to Jane, "has been
blaspheming--blaspheming the traditions of our noble heroes! My dear, it
is positively disgusting!"
"The subject is quite a closed book to him," Jane sweetly replied, and
the Colonel was threatened with another coughing spell.
"I didn't say anything against heroes," the engineer explained, "except
that none of them can measure up to our heroines."
But from the toss of Miss Liz's head this had not brought him a grain of
grace.
"What hero did I malign?"
"You said," she snapped, "that Washington was neither truthful nor
honest!"
"Oh, now, I couldn't have!" he protested. "I merely said, in regard to
the cherry tree episode, his intention was not only to cut, but to run.
You've heard the expression 'cut and run'? Well, we get it from George."
"Your surmises are intolerable!"
"Miss Liz, it isn't fair to condemn until you hear me!" It was the tone
of a much misunderstood penitent, and she hesitated. "I'll leave it to
the Colonel," he was continuing, but the old gentleman briskly
interrupted:
"You'll do nothing of the kind, sir!"
"Then I'll leave it to Jane--she may have some remote idea of
history--if I'm scandalizing your hero by saying he never set us the
extraordinary example you think. He was just a normal boy, a considerate
boy, and had no intention of worrying the family about that tree; but it
so happened that before he had time to sweep up the chips--which shows
he was a tidy boy!--his governor swooped right down on top of him, you
might say, and the game was up. George had cut, you see, Miss Liz, but
he couldn't run--and here's where he showed himself the genius which
ultimately resulted in our independence. He knew in a flash that this
was a tight place; it was an awful tight place; in fact, you might say
it pretty nearly squeezed him all over. There was the prostrate tree,
right before the old gentleman's eyes; and there was the old gentleman,
mad as hops, with his cane trembling in the air. There wasn't another
boy, or even another hatchet, in fifteen miles--and little George's mind
analyzed the full significance of that fact. It didn't take him a second
to see how the situation had to be handled; so, really, Miss Liz, I
think our lesson should be drawn, not from his love of truth, but from
his quick and accurate judgment. In all the English language there was
just one thing for him to say, and he said it. That's genius, Miss
Liz--but not always veracity."
"Some persons may think that way," she compressed her lips, taking care
to give the proper emphasis to persons. "There is no accounting for the
benighted mind. Thanks be to God that every man, woman and child of
intelligence knows otherwise."
Delivering herself of this, she calmly folded her hands and smiled at
Jane with an expression of triumph. Brent took a fleeting glance toward
the juleps.
But something now smote the Colonel's conscience. She looked so thin and
frail! He remembered, too, the suspicious watering of Zack's bad eye,
and what his good eye had seen in the "long room." In a gentle voice he
said:
"My dear, I hear that the sisters are asking where good cherries may be
had. It seems the convent would put up a certain cordial; and, if you
are passing there, would you inquire how many bushels they wish, and say
you will send them over with your compliments?"
"Thank you, John," she looked forgivingly across at him. "If Jane would
like, we may go now. The cherries are at their primest state. I shall
stop a moment," she turned and took Jane's arm, "to see how our
preserving goes, my dear. Can we be home for luncheon? And will you
remain to have it with us?"
Even before they had quite disappeared, Brent rescued the still
palatable juleps, and he and the Colonel were testing them.
"She's a good soul," the old gentleman murmured. "I'm glad for her sake
that Zack remained discreet the other day."
"I'm glad for all our sakes," Brent gravely nodded. "Though I suppose he
wouldn't have done it under any circumstances."
"He's a perspicacious nigger," the Colonel chuckled. In a moment he
spoke more soberly: "I've been in town every day, and have heard no
single word about Potter. Do you suppose he's dead somewhere in the
hills?"
"Oh, no," Brent evasively answered. "He's all right. A shot at him would
scare him away for a month. He has too much on his conscience."
"Well, I shall persist," the old gentleman sighed.
They were leaning back--just as two contented idlers in the shade; but
each with a weight upon his heart to rob it of that needed peace which
makes for perfect days. Yet, Brent could hardly now be called an idler.
He had worked late the night before plotting his field notes, and the
afternoon would be devoted to this same pursuit. Finally he said:
"Suppose I had killed Tusk! Would you stand by me?"
"Yes, sir," the old gentleman opened his eyes, "I would stand by you
with a shot gun until I had the satisfaction of seeing you safely locked
up in jail."
A longer pause.
"Assuming that I'd acted in self defense, would there be much of a stir
about it?"
"Hm," came the noncommital response, but this time with closed eyes, for
the Master of Arden had passed the point of active interest.
It was a morning to invite sleep. No leaf stirred, but the shaded air
was fresh and comforting. Great cumulus clouds lazily, ponderously,
glided across the sky, prototypes of nomadic wandering. Somewhere back
by the stables a mellow farm bell proclaimed across the smiling fields
the hour of noon; then negroes straightened up from the rows of young
tobacco, stretched their tired backs, and in groups wandered toward a
cool spring where their dinner buckets had been left. Yet it was some
little while before the Colonel's midday meal.
Again Brent asked (or perhaps he only thought, for thoughts have a knack
of seeming loud to those at the threshold of Nod):
"I wonder how it would feel to stop drinking and buckle all the way
down?"
No answer.
"If she could only care for me--after I've wiped the bad spots out!"
No answer.
"But I'm such a pup--and what a devilishly sweet miracle she is!"
Still no answer, so he may have been only thinking, after all. At any
rate, the Colonel remained steeped in tranquil apathy.
The messengers to the convent, returning somewhat late, caught sight of
the men beneath the trees and went that way in order to bring them in
for luncheon. But as they approached, Jane stopped. She saw the
immaculately white pleated bosom of the Colonel's shirt bulging out to
support his chin, which rested firmly and comfortably in it. Then her
eyes went to Brent, occupying three chairs for himself and his legs,
while one arm hung inertly to the ground and his head lolled back in
childish abandon. She smiled. But this was not what had stopped her. By
the hand of each of these sleeping men, in glaring, accusing sight,
stood a julep goblet.
Miss Liz, now wondering at her hesitation, was making ready to raise the
terrifying lorgnette, and this would have spelled disaster. Those
penetrating lenses would never have missed the dazzling light reflected
from that traitorous silver. Smiling again, though with a dull heart
ache as her gaze still lingered on the sprawling Brent, she took Miss
Liz's wrist in the nick of time, saying:
"They're asleep. Let's go in first and brush off." She knew the
invariable appeal which "brushing off" had for prim Miss Liz.
Soon the dainty chimes, manipulated in the front hall to the enduring
joy of Uncle Zack, fell upon the sleeping ears in vain, and the old
servant came across the lawn to call them. He also stopped, in dumb
amazement, then hastened forward to gather the telltale evidence beneath
his jacket. This aroused the Colonel and, after him, Brent, who looked
up blinking.
"For de Lawd sake," the old darky frowned on them with all the severity
of his five-feet-one, "don' you-all know Miss Liz is done got back!--an'
heah you is sleepin' wid dese globuts a-settin' out in plain sight! I
never seed sich reckerless doin's since I'se bawned--an' Marse Brent
ain't no moh'n smelt his'n, at dat! Luncheon is sarved, Marse John," he
added, with his usual formality.
"By Jove, Colonel," Brent laughed, "they might have caught us nicely!"
"It's God's truth, sir," the old gentleman chuckled, taking his arm and
starting toward the house.