Jim Taylor, too humane to impose the burden of his weight upon a horse,
always made his visits on foot, and this day while trudging homeward, he
met Mrs. Cranceford. She had of late conceived so marked a sympathy for
him, that her manner toward him was warmly gentle.
Taylor stepped to the road-side and halted there as she drove up alone
in a buggy. With a sorrowful reverence he took off his hat, and she
smiled sympathetically; and the lazy old horse, appearing to understand
it all, stopped of his own accord.
"Good morning, Jim. Have you been over to the house?"
"Yes, ma'm, just left there."
"How is he?"
"So much better that I believe he's going to get well."
"You don't say so! Why, I am----" she was about to say that she was
delighted to hear it, but on the giant's face she thought she saw a
deeper shadow lying, heard in his voice a softer note of sorrow; and
considerately she checked her intended utterance. Then they looked at
each other and were ashamed.
"He was up dressing himself when I left."
"You surprise me."
"And he has surprised us all, ma'm. I don't believe he's got
consumption; his cough has left him. Why, he's thinking of taking a
place in a college over in Alabama."
"He is? But I hope he won't take Louise so far from home."
He shifted his position and sunk his hands deep into his pockets. "I
guess he thinks she can't be so very far from home as long as she is
with him."
"But it makes no difference what he thinks." Mrs. Cranceford persisted.
"He must not take her over there. Why, I should think he could find
employment here." Jim looked far away, and she added: "Is your cotton
turning out well?"
"First-rate, and I want to sell it as soon as I can. I've got to go
away."
"Go away!" she repeated. "You don't mean it?"
"Yes, ma'm, I do. If he gets well they won't have any more use for me
and I might as well go off somewhere and take a fresh start; and
besides, I can't keep from showing that I love her, and no matter how
cool she might be toward me it couldn't help but pain him. And there are
people in this neighborhood mean enough to talk about it: No longer ago
than yesterday that strapping Alf Joyner threw out a hint of this sort,
and although he meant it in fun, maybe, I snatched him off the fence
where he was sitting, and walloped him in the road. No, I can't keep
from showing how much I think of her; there is so much of me," he added,
with a smile, "that I can't be a hypercrite all over at once."
At this she smiled, but her countenance grew serious and she said:
"I am sorry you have been compelled to resent an insinuation." She
gathered up the lines. "But perhaps you imagine more than is intended.
It is easy, and also natural that you should."
Jim made no reply. She bowed to him, shook the lines, and the old horse
moved on. Just before reaching a bend in the road, she looked back at
him. How powerful was his bearing, how strong his stride; and with all
his bigness he was not ungraceful.
Everywhere, in the fields, along the fences, lay October's wasteful
ripeness, but the season was about to turn, for the bleak corner of
November was in sight. A sharp wind blew out of a cloud that hung low
over the river, and far away against the darkening sky was a gray
triangle traced, the flight of wild geese from the north. With the
stiffening and the lagging of the breeze came lower and then louder the
puffing of a cotton gin.
Under a persimmon tree Jim Taylor halted, and with his arms resting on a
fence he stood dreamily looking across a field. Afar off the cotton
pickers were bobbing between the rows. The scene was more dull than
bright; to a stranger it would have been dreary, the dead level, the
lone buzzard away over yonder, sailing above the tops of the ragged
trees; but for this man the view was overspread with a memory of
childhood. He was meditating upon leaving his home; he felt that his
departure was demanded. And yet he knew that not elsewhere could he find
contentment. Amid such scenes he had been born and reared. He was like
the deer--would rather feed upon the rough oak foliage of a native
forest than to feast upon the rich grasses of a strange land. But he had
made up his mind to go. He had heard of the charm of the hills, the
valleys and the streams in the northern part of the state, and once he
had gone thither to acquaint himself with that paradise, but in
disappointment he had come back, bringing the opinion that the people
were cold and unconcerned in the comfort and the welfare of a stranger.
So, with this experience fresh in his mind, he was resolved not to
re-settle in his own commonwealth, but to go to a city, though feeling
his unfitness for urban life. But he thought, as so many men and women
have been forced to think, that life in a crowd would invite
forgetfulness, that his slow broodings would find a swift flow into the
tide that swallows the sad thoughts of men.
A sudden noise in the road broke the web of his musing, and looking
about, he recognized Low, the Englishman. Between his teeth the Briton
held his straight-stem pipe, and on his shoulder he carried his bath
tub.
"Moving?" Taylor asked.
"Ah, good morning. No--not moving. An outrage has been committed. During
the night someone punched a hole in the bottom of my bath. Don't know
who could have done it; most extraordinary, I assure you. One of those
ungrateful blacks, I warrant. Going this way? I shall be glad of your
company. Ah, do you happen to know of a tinker?" he asked, as together
they walked along the road.
"A what?"
"A tinker to mend my bath?"
"Haven't any such thing about here, but I guess the blacksmith can mend
your tub. Here, let me carry it for you a ways. You must be tired of it
by this time."
He protested, but Taylor took the tub. "Thank you. You are very kind,
I'm sure. I would have sent it, but these rascals are so untrustworthy.
Ah, how long do you conjecture it would take one to make his fortune in
this community?"
"It depends more upon the man than the community," Taylor answered. "I
know one that never could."
"And by Jove, I fancy I have a very intimate acquaintance with another.
But I rather like it here, you know. I have plenty of room and no one is
much disposed to interfere with me except those rascally blacks, and
upon my honor I believe they tried to ruin my bath. Don't you think
you'd better let me take it now?"
"No; I'll carry it. Wouldn't have known I had it if you hadn't reminded
me."
"You are very kind, I'm sure. Ah, by the way, a very singular man called
on me yesterday. Mayo, I believe, is his name."
"Yes, we know him down here. Came very near getting a dose of rope once.
He tries to be a Moses among the negroes, but instead of leading them
out of the wilderness he's going to lead them into trouble."
"I dare say as much, if they listen to him. But he avers that he doesn't
want an office--wants only to see that the blacks get what they are
entitled to."
"And about the first thing that will be done for him after he gets what
he's entitled to," Jim replied, "will be the sending of his measure to a
coffin maker."
"I surmise as much, I assure you. I didn't encourage him to prolong his
visit; indeed, I told him that I preferred to be alone."
They turned out of the lane into a wood, crossed a bayou, and pursuing
their way a short distance further, Taylor halted, and handing the
Englishman his tub, pointed to a path that crossed the road. "That will
take you to the blacksmith shop," he said.
"Ah, you are very kind," Low replied, shouldering his treasure. He
turned down the path, but after going a short distance stopped and faced
about. "I say, there!" he cried. "Oh, Taylor. Just a moment. I wouldn't
mind having you over any evening, you know. You are a devilish decent
fellow."
"All right; you may look for me most any time. Take you out 'possum
hunting some night."
Low was now humping himself down the path, and Taylor turned to pursue
his way homeward, when once more the Englishman faced about and shouted:
"You are very kind, I'm sure. I shall be delighted."
Jim Taylor was master of a small plantation and sole inhabiter of the
house wherein he was born. In the garden, under a weeping-willow tree,
were the graves of his parents and of his sister, a little girl,
recalled with emotion--at night when a high wind was blowing, for she
had ever been afraid of a storm; and she died on a day when a fierce
gale up the river blew down a cottonwood tree in the yard. She and
Louise were as sisters. At her grave the giant often sat, for she was a
timid little creature, afraid to be alone; and sometimes at night when
the wind was hard, when a cutting sleet was driving, he would get out of
his bed and stand under the tree to be near her. It was so foolishly
sentimental of so strong a man that he would not have dared to tell
anyone, but to the child in the grave he told his troubles. So, on this
morning, when the wind was gathering its forces as it swept the fields,
as the clouds were thickening far away among the whitish tops of the
dead cypress trees, he went straightway to the weeping-willow, passed
the grave of his father, his mother, and sat down beside the stone that
bore the name and the age of the little one.