With rain-soaked sand the road was heavy, and to walk was to struggle,
but not so to the giant treading his way homeward. Coming, he had felt
the opposition of the wind, the rain and the mushy sand, but returning
he found neither in the wind nor in the sand a foe to progress. His
heart was leaping, and with it his feet were keeping pace. In his hand
he held the letter; and feeling it begin to cool in his grasp, he
realized that the rain was beating upon it; so, holding in common with
all patient men the instincts of a woman, he put the wet paper in his
bosom and tightly buttoned his coat about it. Suddenly he halted; the
pitiful howling of a dog smote his ear. At the edge of a small field
lying close to the road was a negro's cabin, and from that quarter came
the dog's distressful outcry. Jim stepped up to the fence and listened
for any human-made noise that might proceed from the cabin, but there
came none--the place was dark and deserted. "They have gone away and
left him shut up somewhere," he mused, as he began to climb the fence.
The top rail broke under his weight, and his mind flew back to the day
when he had seen Louise in the road, confronted by the burly leader of
a sheepfold, for then with climbing a fence he had broken the top rail.
He found the dog shut in a corn-crib, and the door was locked. But with
a jerk he pulled out the staple, thinking not upon the infraction of
breaking a lock, but glad to be of service even to a hound.
"Come out, old fellow," he called, and he heard the dog's tail thrashing
the corn husks. "Come on."
The dog came to the door, licking at the hand of his rescuer; and Jim
was about to help him to the ground when a lantern flashed from a corner
of the crib. "What are you doing here?" a voice demanded.
A white man stepped forward and close behind him a negro followed. "What
are you doing here?" the white man again demanded.
"Getting a dog out of trouble."
"Getting yourself into trouble, you'd better say. What right have you to
poke about at night, breaking people's locks?"
"None at all, I am forced to acknowledge. I hardly thought of what I was
doing. My only aim was to help the dog."
"That will do to tell."
"Yes, I think so. And by the way, what right have you to ask so many
questions? You don't live here."
"But he does," the white man replied, swinging his lantern toward the
negro. "Gabe Little lives here."
"That you, Gabe?" Taylor asked.
"Yas, whut de white folks has left o' me."
"All right. You are well enough acquainted with me to know that I
wouldn't break a lock----"
"But you have, sir," the white man insisted.
"Not exactly; but I have drawn the staple. By the way, whose dog is
this?" The dog had jumped out and was frisking about Taylor's legs.
"It's a setter and doesn't belong to you, Gabe."
"Dat's fur me ter say, sah," the negro sullenly replied.
"That so? Well, I guess I'll keep him until I find out his owner."
"That's neither here nor there!" the white man almost shouted. "The
question is, what right have you got to go to a man's house at night and
break his lock?"
"None, I tell you; and I'm not only willing to pay all damages, but will
answer to the law."
"The law!" and this time he shouted. "Law to protect a negro's lock? Let
us hear no more about the law. What we want is justice, and we're going
to have it, sooner or later."
"Who are you, anyway?" the giant asked. "Oh, yes, you are Mr. Mayo, I
believe. Well, I'll bid you good-night."
"Wait. You have invaded this man's premises and committed a violence."
"That's a fact, and I'm sorry for it."
"Yes, you are now, but how will you feel about it to-morrow? You'll
forget all about it, and that's the way the colored man is treated in
this infernal state. No, Gabe," he quickly added, taking hold of the
negro's arm, "Put it up. The time ain't ripe."
The negro had drawn a knife, opening it with a spring, and with a loud
snap he closed it. "We mustn't be the first to strike, although they
break into our houses," Mayo said; and then speaking to Taylor he added:
"You may go."
The giant threw back his head and laughed. "I may go. Why, if it wasn't
for the fact that I'm feeling particularly happy to-night, I'd mash your
mouth for that. I should think that your poor fool there would teach you
better than to talk to me that way. But I'll be a better friend to you
than you have taught him to be--I'll give you some very useful advice.
If you should ever see me coming along the road, turn back or climb the
fence, for I might not be in as good humor as I'm in now."
He whistled and strode away, with the dog trotting at his heels; and by
the time he gained the road the occurrence had almost wholly passed out
of his mind, so fondly did his heart leap at the thought of the letter
in his bosom.
Upon reaching a gate that opened into his meadow, he looked about and
whistled for the dog, but the setter was gone. "You were howling for
your master," the giant said, "and the greatest service I could do you
was to let you go to him. All right, old fellow, we are both happier for
having met."
He went into the house, lighted his lamp, sat down, read the letter; he
went out and stood under the weeping-willow. "If I am foolish," he said,
"it is delicious to be a fool, and God pity the wise. But I don't know
what to do with myself. Yes, I do; I'll go over and see old Gideon."
He considered not the increasing rain, the dreariness of the road, the
moanful wind in the tops of the trees; he felt that to be alone was to
suppress a part of his happiness, that his light and talkative heart
must seek a hearing for the babbling of its joy. So off he strode, and
as he climbed over a fence, he laughingly jolted himself upon the top
rail to see whether it would break. It did not, and he laughed to find a
stick of old timber strong enough to support his weight. He called
himself a lumbering fool and laughed again, sitting there with the rain
beating upon him.
A short distance down the road was a wagon-maker's shop, and against the
outside wall a ladder was leaned. He thought of the ladder as he bore
to the edge of the road to avoid the deep ruts cut by the cotton-wagons,
and fearful that he might pass under it and thus invite ill luck, he
crossed to the other side. He smiled at this weakness, instilled by the
negroes, but he did not recross the road until he had passed far beyond
the shop. The old black mammy was lovable and affectionate, but she
intimidated man with many a superstition.