In old Gid's house a light was burning, and as the giant drew near, he
caught a fragment of a flat-boatman's song. He made no noise, but a dog
inside scented his approach and announced it with a whimsical bark. Gid
opened the door.
"Why, here's Jim Taylor, as wet as a drowned bear. Come in."
Sitting by the fire was the Major, with his coat off and his shirt
collar unbuttoned.
"Why, James," said he, "you are making the rounds to-night. Sit down
here and dry yourself. And look at you, mud up to your knees. Why do you
tramp about this way? Why don't you ride?"
"Too heavy," the giant answered.
"Then, I gad," Gid replied, dragging his bench from against the wall and
sitting down upon it, "I know I'd ride. Do men ride for their own
comfort or for the horse's? And what difference do a few extra pounds
make to a horse? Why, if you were a horse somebody would ride you. You
are not fat, Jim; you are just big. And a horse doesn't mind a
well-proportioned fellow; it's the wabbling fat man that riles him. I
owned a horse once that would have been willing to go without corn a
whole week for a chance to kick a fat man; and I put it down as an
unreasonable cruelty until I found out that he had once belonged to a
fellow that weighed three hundred pounds."
"And you afterward owned him," said the Major, winking at Jim.
"That's what I said, John."
"Now, Gid, I don't want to appear captious, but are you sure you ever
owned a horse?"
"I bought that horse, John. I confess that it was with borrowed money,
but under the law he was mine. Ah, Lord," he sighed, "self-imposed
frankness will be gone when I am taken from you. And yet I get no
credit."
"No credit!" cried the Major. "Credit has kept you from starving."
"Tip-toe, John; my nerves are tight-strung. Would have starved! A
befitting reproach thrown at genius. Look up there!" he shouted, waving
his hand at the shelf whereon were piled his dingy books. "They never
owned a horse and they lived on credit, but they kept the world from
starving to death. And this reminds me that those sweet potatoes must be
about done. Your name is among the coals, Jim; we've got enough for all
hands. Wish we had some milk, but I couldn't get any. Dogs couldn't
catch the cow. You hear of cows giving milk. Mine don't--I gad, I have
to grab her and take it away from her; and whenever you see milk in my
house you may know it's the record of a fight and that the cow got the
worst of it."
Jim sat striving to think of something to say. The presence of the Major
had imposed a change in his forecast. His meeting of Mayo and the negro
suddenly recurred to him, and quietly he related the adventure. But the
Major and Gid were not quiet with hearing it.
"You ought to have cut his throat!" Gid exclaimed. "To-morrow get your
gun and shoot him down--both of them, like dogs. Who ever heard of such
a thing, saying to a gentleman, 'now you may go!' I gad, I'll go with
you, and we'll shoot 'em down."
"No," said the Major, and now with his hands behind him he was slowly
pacing the floor. "That won't do."
"Why won't it do?" Gid cried. "Has the time come when a white man must
stand all sorts of abuse simply because he is white? Must he stand
flat-footed and swallow every insult that a scoundrel is pleased to
stuff into his mouth?"
The Major sat down. "Let me remind you of something," he said. "For the
average man, under ordinary circumstances, it is enough to have simple
justice on his side, but on our side we must have more than justice. No
people in the world were ever situated as we now are, for even by our
brothers we shall be deemed wrong, no matter which way we turn."
"Ah," Gid cried, "then what's the use of calculating our turn? If we are
to be condemned anyway, what's the----"
"Hold on a moment," the Major struck in, "and I will tell you. Sentiment
is against us; literature, with its roots running back into the harsh
soil of politics, is against us; and----"
"No measured oratory, John. Get down on the ground."
"Wait, I tell you!" the Major demanded. "I must get to it in my own way.
If your advice were followed, we should never be able to elect another
president. The bloody shirt would wave from every window in the North,
and from the northern point of view, justly so; and reviewed even by the
disinterested onlooker, we have not been wholly in the right."
"The deuce we haven't!" Gid shouted, his eyes bulging.
"No, not wholly; we couldn't be," the Major continued. "As
self-respecting men, as Anglo-Saxons, we could not submit to the
domination of former slaves. It was asking too much. We had ruled the
nation, and though we were finally overpowered, we could not accept the
negro as a ruler."
"John, I know all that as well as you do; we have talked it many a
time, but what I want to get at is this: Has a man the right to resent
an insult? I was never cruel to a negro. I like him in his place, like
him better than I do the average white man, to tell the plain truth, for
between him and me there is the tie of irresponsibility, of
shiftlessness; but I don't want him to insult me; don't want to stand
any more from him than I would from a white man. You spoke of not being
able to elect another president. Why should we put up with so much
merely to say that a democrat is president? It doesn't make much
difference who's president, foreign nations keep on insulting us just
the same. I'd like to see a chief magistrate with nerve enough to say to
the South, 'Boys, go over and grab off Mexico.' That's me."
The Major laughed. "That's me, too," he replied.
"We ought to sweeten this country with Cuba," said Jim, with his mind on
the letter in his bosom.
"Yes," Gid replied, raising his hand, "that's what we ought to do,
and----" His hand fell, and he wheeled about and seized a poker. "I'll
bet a thousand dollars the potatoes are burned up," he said. "Just look
there," he added, raking out the charred remains of what was to be a
feast. "That's the way it goes. The devil titters when men argue. Well,
it can't be helped," he went on. "I did my part. If we had settled
upon killing that fellow Mayo, everything would have been all right. He
has not only insulted us but has robbed us as well."
"To tell you the truth," said the Major, "I'm glad I'm relieved of the
trouble of eating."
"John, don't say that, for when a Southern man loses his appetite for
roasted sweet potatoes, he's a degenerate."
The Major was about to say something, but looking at his watch he jumped
up. "Gracious, Gid, you not only kill your own time but murder mine.
It's nearly two o'clock."
"Sit down, John. Don't be snatched."
"Snatched! Wind-bag, you counsel me to blow my life away. Hold your lamp
out here so that I can see to get on my horse."
When Gid returned from the passage wherein he had stood to shelter the
light, he found Jim on the bench, with no apparent intention of taking
his leave; and this he construed to mean that the giant had something on
his mind.
"Out with it, Jimmie," he said, as he put the lamp upon the
mantel-piece. "I'll sit down here as if it was only early
candle-lighting, and let you tell me all about it."
"How do you know I've got anything to say, Uncle Gideon?"
"How do I know when a dog itches? I see him scratch. You have been
sitting there in an itching silence and now you begin to scratch. You
are more patient than a dog, for you don't scratch until you have itched
for some time. Let the fur fly, Jimmie."
Jim laughed, raised his leg and clasped his hands over his knee. "Uncle
Gideon, I reckon I'm the happiest man in Cranceford County."
The old man sat leaning back against the wall. His coat was off and
under his suspenders he had hooked his thumbs. "Go on, Jimmie; I'm
listening."
"She has written another letter--Did Tom tell you anything?" he broke
off.
"Did Tom ever tell me anything? Did Tom ever tell anybody anything? Did
he ever know anything to tell?"
"She has written another letter and in it she confesses--I don't know
how to say it, Uncle Gideon."
"Well, tell me and I'll say it for you. Confesses that she can be happy
with no one but you. Go on."
"Who told you? Did Mrs. Cranceford?"
"My dear boy, did Mrs. Cranceford ever tell me anything except to keep
off the grass? Nobody has told me anything. Confesses that you are the
only man that can make her happy. Now shoot your dye-stuff."
"But that's all there is. She says that her heart will never have a home
until my love builds a mansion for it."
"Jimmie, if the highest market price for a fool was one hundred dollars,
you'd fetch two hundred."
"Why? Because I believe her when she talks that way--when she gives me
to understand that she loves me?"
"No; but because you didn't believe all along that she loved you."
"How could I when she refused to marry me and married another man?"
"That marriage is explained. You've seen the letter she wrote the night
before she went away, haven't you?"
"Yes, her mother showed it to me."
"I didn't read it," said Gid, "but the Major gave me the points, and I
know that she married that fellow believing that she was saving his
soul."
"Yes, I read that," said Jim, "but I didn't know whether she meant it or
not. I reckon I was afraid to believe it."
"Well, I know it to be a fact--know it because I know her nature. She's
just crank enough----"
"Don't say that," Jim protested, unclasping his hands from his knee and
straightening up. "Don't call her a crank when she's an angel."
"That's all right, my dear boy, but heaven is full of the right sort of
cranks. Who serves God deeper than the religious crank, and if he's not
to be rewarded, who is? By crank I don't mean a weak-minded person; I
come nearer meaning a genius."
"I reckon you mean all right," the giant agreed; and after pondering in
silence he asked: "Do you reckon she would marry me?"
"I know it. And why not? You are a gentleman and a devilish good-looking
fellow. Why, any woman interested in a fine stock show would be proud of
you."
At this the giant rubbed his hands together and softly chuckled; but
sobering, he said that he could never hope to equal her in thought and
quickness of expression, though by reading he would make an effort to
attain that end.
"Don't worry about that, Jimmie; and don't you fool yourself that books
are everything. They smooth knots, but they don't make timber. Oh, you
are smart enough--for a woman."
"I'm not an idiot," said the giant. "Sometimes I can talk without any
trouble, and then again I can't say a thing. It's different with you."
The old man's egotism awoke--it never more than dozed. "Jimmie," said
he, "it is violating no compact to tell you that I'm no common man.
Other men have a similar opinion of themselves and are afraid to spit it
out, but I'm bold as well as wise. I know that my opinion doesn't go for
much, for I'm too good-humored, too approachable. The blitheness of my
nature invites familiarity. You go to a house and make too much of the
children, and the first thing you know they'll want to wallow on you all
the time. Well, I have made too much of the children of the world, and
they wallow on me. But I pinch them sometimes and laugh to hear them
squeal. There's only one person that I'm afraid of--Mrs. Cranceford. She
chills me and keeps me on the frozen dodge. I always feel that she is
reading me, and that makes me more of a rascal--trying to give her
something that she can't read. Look here, if we expect to get any sleep
we'd better be at it."
"You go to bed, Uncle Gideon; I'm going to sit up."
"All right; sit there as long as you please." The old fellow got up, and
walking stiffly went to the window, drew aside the red calico curtain
and looked out. "Don't see much promise of a clear-up," he said. "Not a
star in sight. I always dread the rainy season; it makes people look
sad, and I want to see them bright--I am most agreeable to them when
they're bright. Still, I understand that nothing is more tiresome than
eternal sunshine. I wonder if I locked the smokehouse," he went on,
turning from the window. "But, come to think, I don't believe I've
locked it since about a week ago, when some rascal slipped in and stole
nearly all my hams and a bushel of meal. I gad, my old joints work like
rusty hinges. Well, I'll lie down now. Good night, Jimmie. Don't slip
off before breakfast."
The giant did not hear him. He sat leaning forward, gazing at the
cliffs, the mountains, the valleys in the fire. The rain had ceased, but
now and then came a dashing shower, like a scouting party, a guerrilla
band sweeping through the dark. To the muser there was no time; time had
dribbled out and reverie had taken its place. The fire was dying. He saw
the red cliffs grow gray along the edges, age creeping over the rocks;
he saw a mountain fall into a whitening valley, and he looked up. It was
daylight. He went to the door and looked out, and far across the river
the brilliant morning sun was rising from a bath of steam.
"You here yet, Jimmie?" The bed loudly creaked, and the giant, looking
about, found old Gid sitting on the edge of his couch, rubbing his eyes.
"Don't go, for we'll have breakfast now in a minute. I am always glad to
look up and find a picture of manliness and strength. It takes me back
to my own early days, when I didn't know the meaning of weakness. But I
know now--I can feel it all over me. I do think I can dream more foolish
things during three to half a dozen winks of sleep than any man that
ever lived. Now, what could have put it into my mind to dream that I
was born with one leg and was trying at a county fair to swap it off for
two? Well, I hear the old woman setting the table out there. Wait till I
jump into my clothes and I'll pour a gourd of water for you to wash your
face and hands. Had a wash-basin round here somewhere, but don't know
what became of it. Had intended to get another, but have been so busy.
But I'll tell you there's nothing like a good wash under a pouring
gourd. How's your appetite this morning?"
"I don't know."
"Well, you may find it when you sniff old Liza's corn cakes. Now what
the deuce became of that other suspender? We used to call them galluses
in my day. And now where is that infernal gallus? Beats anything I ever
saw in my life. Ah, there it is, over by the window. But how it could
have jumped off I don't know. Now let me shove into my old shoes and
I'll be with you."
Out in the yard, in a fabulous net of gilded mist they stood, to bathe
under the spouting gourd, the mingling of a new day's poetry and the
shiftlessness of an old man. "Stream of silver in the gold of a
resurrected sun," he said, bareheaded and blinking. "Who'd want a
wash-pan? I gad, Jimmie, folks are forgetting how to live. They are
putting too much weight on what they can buy for money, unmindful of the
fact that the best things of this life are free. Look at that gourd,
old, with a sewed-up crack in it, and yet to my mind it serves its
purpose better than a china basin. Well, let's go in now and eat a bite.
I'm always hungry of a morning. An old fellow is nearer a boy when he
first gets up, you know; but he grows old mighty fast after he's had
breakfast."
The giant, saying never a word, followed him, the loose boards of the
passageway between the two sections of the house creaking and groaning
as he trod upon them; and coming to the door he had to stoop, so low had
it been cut.
"That's right, Jimmie, duck or you'll lay yourself out. I gad, the
world's full of traps set for big fellows. Now sit down there and fall
to. Don't feel very brash this morning, do you?"
"I feel first-rate," Jim answered, sitting down.
"Youth and love mixed," said the old man, placing himself at the head of
the board. "And ah, Lord, when we grow out of one and forget the other,
there's not much left to live for. I'd rather be a young fellow in love
than to be an emperor. Help yourself to a slab of that fried ham. She'll
bring the coffee pretty soon. Here she comes now. Waiting for you, Aunt
Liza. Have some hoe-cake, Jimmie. Yes, sir; youth and love constitute
the world, and all that follows is a mere makeshift. Thought may come,
but thought, after all, is but a dull compromise, Jimmie, a cold potato
instead of a hot roll. Love is noon, and wisdom at its best is only
evening. There are some quince preserves in that jar. Help yourself.
Thought about her all night, didn't you?"
"I think about her all the time, Uncle Gideon."
"And Jimmie, it wouldn't surprise me if the world should think about her
after a while. That woman's a genius."
"I hope not," the giant replied, looking up, and in his voice was a note
of distress, and in his eyes lay the shadow of a fear.
"And why not, Jimmie?"
"Because if she should turn out to be a genius she won't marry me."
"That's where your perception is broken off at the end, Jimmie. In the
matter of marriage genius is mighty skittish of genius--it seeks the
constancy of the sturdy and commonplace. I'll try a dip of those
preserves. Now let me see. After breakfast you'd better lie down on my
bed and take a nap."
"No, I must go. The Major is going over to Brantly to-day and I want him
to bring me a box of cartridges. I forgot to tell him last night."
"Oh, you're thinking about Mayo, eh?"
"Well, I don't know but he did cross my mind. It occurred to me that he
might waylay me some night, and I don't want to stand out in the road
and dance while he's shooting at me."
"That's right," said the old man. "A fellow cuts a mighty sorry figure
dancing under such circumstances. I've tried it."
He shoved his chair back from the table and Jim got up to take his
leave. "Look out for the door, Jimmie. Duck as you go under or it will
lay you out. Traps set all through life for fellows of your size."
Jim was not oppressed with weariness as he strode along the highway, for
in the crisp air a tonic was borne, but loss of sleep had made his
senses dreamy, and all things about him were touched with the spirit of
unreality--the dead leaves fluttering on the underbrush, the purple mist
rising from the fields, the water-mirrors flashing in the road; and so
surrendered was he to a listless brooding, forgetful even that he moved
along, that he did not notice, up the road, a man leap aside into the
woods. The man hid behind a tree, with his eye on the giant and with the
barrel of a pistol pressed hard against the bark. Jim passed on, with
his hands in his pockets, looking down; and when a clump of bushes, red
with frost-dyed leaves, hid him from view, Mayo came out from behind the
tree and resumed his journey down the road.
The Major had mounted his horse at the gate and was on the point of
riding forth when Jim came up. "Why, good-morning, James," the old
gentleman heartily greeted him. "Have you just crawled out of that old
man's kennel? I see that the old owl must have kept you up all night.
Why, sir, if I were to listen to him I'd never get another wink of
sleep."
"I kept myself up," said the giant; and then he added: "I wanted to see
you this morning, not very bad, but just to ask you to get me a box of
forty-fours when you go to Brantly to-day."
"I'm glad to find you so thoughtful," said the Major. "And I want to
tell you right now that you've got to look out for yourself. But staying
up all night is no way to begin. Go on into Tom's room and take a nap."
The Major whistled as he rode along, not for want of serious reflection,
for he could easily have reached out and drawn in trouble, but because
the sharp air stirred his spirits. Nowhere was there a cloud--a
speckless day in the middle of a week that had threatened to keep the
sky besmirched. Roving bands of negro boys were hunting rabbits in the
fields, with dogs that leaped high in low places where dead weeds stood
brittle. The pop-eyed hare was startled from his bed among brambly
vines, and fierce shouts arose like the remembered yell of a Confederate
troop. The holidays were near, the crops were gathered, the winter's
wood was up, the hunting season open, but no negro fired a gun. At this
time of the year steamboatmen and tavern-keepers in the villages were
wont to look to Titus, Eli, Pompey, Sam, Caesar and Bill for their game,
and it was not an unusual sight to see them come loaded down with
rabbits and quails caught in traps, but now they sat sullen over the
fire by day, but were often met prowling about at night. This crossed
the Major's mind and drove away his cheerful whistling; and he was
deeply thinking when someone riding in haste reined in a horse abreast
of him. Looking up he recognized the priest.
"Why, good morning, Mr. Brennon; how are you?"
"Well, I thank you. How far do you go?"
"To Brantly."
"That's fortunate," said the priest, "for I am selfish enough to let you
shorten the journey for me."
"I can't do that," the Major laughed, "but we can divide it. I remember
overtaking a man one miserable day out in the Indian Territory. He was
ignorant, but he was quaint; he couldn't argue, but he could amuse, and
he did until he called me a liar, and there our roads split. Don't
think, from my telling you this, that I am in the least doubt as to the
desirability of your company on the road to Brantly. Been some time
since I've seen you, Mr. Brennon."
"Yes; I have been very busy."
"And successfully so, I suppose."
"I am not in a position to complain," said the priest.
"By the way, will you answer a few questions?"
"Gladly, if they're answerable."
"I think they are. Now, the negroes that come into your communion tell
you many things, drop idle gossip that may mean much. Did any of them
ever drop a hint of preparations which their brethren may or may not be
making to demand some unreasonable concession from the white people of
this community?"
"What I have seen I am free to relate to you," the priest answered, "but
as to what has been told--well, that is quite another matter. I have
seen no preparations, but you doubtless remember a conversation we had
some time ago, and on that occasion I think we agreed that we might have
trouble sooner or later."
"Yes, we were agreed upon that point," the Major replied, "but neither
of us professed to see trouble close at hand. For some time I have heard
it rumored that the negroes are meeting at night to drill, but I have
paid but little attention, giving them credit for more sense than to
believe that their uprising could be more than a short, and, to
themselves, a disastrous, struggle; but there is one aspect that
impresses me, the fact that they are taking no notice of the coming of
Christmas; for when this is the case you must know that the negro's
nature must have undergone a complete change. I don't quite understand
it. Why, sir, at present they can find no possible excuse for revolt.
The crops are gathered and they can make no demand for higher wages; no
election is near and they can't claim a political cause for
disaffection. If they want better pay for their labor, why didn't they
strike in the midst of the cotton-picking? That would have been their
time for trouble, if that's what they want."
"Perhaps they hadn't money enough to buy equipment, guns and
ammunition," the priest suggested. "Perhaps they needed the money that
the gathering of the crops would bring them."
The Major looked at him. "I hadn't thought of that," he said. "But
surely the negroes have sense enough to know that the whites would
exterminate them within a week."
It was some time before Father Brennon replied. His deliberation led the
Major to believe that he would speak from his abundant resources; and
the planter listened eagerly with his head turned to one side and with
his hand behind his ear. "It is possible," the priest began, "that the
negro had been harangued to the conviction that he is to begin a
general revolt against capital, that labor organizations everywhere will
rise up when they hear that he has been bold enough to fire his gun."
The Major's shoulders stiffened. "Sir, if you have known this, why
haven't you as a white man and a Southern gentleman told us of it? Why
haven't you warned us?"
The priest smiled. "Your resentment is just," said he. "But the truth
is, it was not formulated as an opinion until late last night. I called
at your house this morning and was told that you had set out for the
county-seat. And I have overtaken you."
The Major reined up his horse. Both horses stopped. "Mr. Brennon, you
are a gentleman, sir. My hand."
They shook hands and rode on. The Major was deep in thought. "It has all
been brought about by that scoundrel Mayo," he said at last. "He has
instilled a most deadly poison into the minds of those people. I will
telegraph the governor and request him to send the state militia into
this community. The presence of the soldiers will dissolve this
threatened outbreak; and by the blood, sir, Mayo shall be convicted of
treason against the state and hanged on the public square in Brantly.
And that will be an end of it."
The priest said nothing, and after a time the Major asked: "How are you
getting on with your work?"
"I am greatly encouraged, and I wish I had more time."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I have told you that the church can save the negro. Do you know a negro
named Bob Hackett?"
"Yes; he was a worthless politician, but they tell me that he has
withdrawn from active politics and gone to work. What about him?"
"He is now a communicant of the church," the priest answered. "He
acknowledges a moral authority; and I make bold to say that should
trouble come, he will take no part in it. And I make still bolder to say
that the church, the foster mother of the soul of man, can in time
smooth all differences and establish peace and brotherly regard between
the white man and the negro. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, but
true religion whitens his soul and makes him our brother."
"Your sentiment is good," replied the Major, "but religion must
recognize an impossibility. The white man and the negro can never hold
each other in brotherly regard. Never."
"Don't say never, Major. Men pass from fixed prejudices; the church is
eternal in its purpose. Don't say never."
"Well, then, sir," cried the Major, standing in his stirrups, "I will
not say never; I will fix a time, and it shall be when the pyramids,
moldered to dust, are blown up and down the valley of the Nile."
He let himself down with a jolt, and onward in silence they rode. And
now from a rise of ground the village of Brantly was in sight. The
priest halted. "I turn back here," he said.
"Mr. Brennon," the Major replied, "between you and me the question of
creed should not arise. You are a white man and a gentleman. My hand,
sir."