RECONSTRUCTION
"HOW long has it been since, Mrs. Barrows?" asked the Baptist minister.
"Eight years, Brother Bibbs," Susan answered.
They were standing in front of Susan Barrows' cottage one late June
afternoon in the summer of 1866.
The minister sighed, flapping his worn coat-tails as a signal of
distress. Mrs. Barrows was gazing at the house next door. There the
lilac bush which had showed its first blossoms on that morning of
Ambrose's runaway had grown to full estate. Its season having passed,
however, it was no longer in bloom, but instead, the climbing rose,
known in the South as the "Seven Sisters," was spreading itself above
the front door, bestowing its flowers against the background of the once
rose-coloured cottage.
Susan's black curls moved reminiscently, eight years having wrought no
changes in her beyond the deepening of the original plan. "Yes, eight
years since Ambrose Thompson brought that orphan child home, and two
since she passed away. Seems that Ambrose wouldn't never have got off
even one year to the war if she hadn't gone on before, seein' as she
wasn't never willing to let him out of her sight a minute longer'n she
could help."
"A deeply affectionate nature," remarked the minister.
"A powerful clinger," retorted Susan, "but men is forgivin' to regular
features with a high colour." She turned at this instant to look down
the street. "I call it chokin' myself to hang on to a man the way Sarah
done to Ambrose plumb up to the hour she died. What's always needin'
proppin' ain't to my mind worth the prop. Howsomever, the child is dead,
and I'm hopeful death does change us right considerable, though I can't
see as it changes nothin' of what we were nor what we done in this
world--and more's the pity!"
Assuredly Brother Bibbs was growing restless, and Mrs. Barrows talking
to cover time. For five minutes before had she not seen him attempting
to sneak past her gate to gain refuge in the Thompson cottage unobserved
before its owner could possibly have returned from work?
Then, too, the minister's face was uncommonly harassed, and these were
disjointed days in the Pennyroyal as well as throughout the entire
country. True, the Civil War was over, which Susan called "the
uncivilest ever fit on God's earth," but while its wounds and
differences were patched up they were by no means healed. And
Pennyroyal's disposition to regard herself as one family had made her
dissensions peculiarly bitter. There were times in this past year since
the close of the war when the minister had wondered if it had not been
the bitterest year of all, for notwithstanding that Kentucky did not
suffer from reconstruction as the states further south, remember that
she was, during and after the war, a state divided within herself.
There was trouble in the Pennyroyal air this afternoon.
"Farewell, Susan," Brother Bibbs suggested, as getting out his pocket
handkerchief he removed a slight moisture from his eyes. "Ambrose and
Sarah loved one another, that was the main thing. Theirs was a spring
mating, and, like the birds whose season they chose, brief, too brief in
passing." Attempting now to move, Brother Bibbs found it impossible,
since in his moment of sentiment Mrs. Barrows, leaning over her fence,
had linked her arm through his.
"Well, thank the Lord the little love bird didn't leave a young one in
the nest for me and the male to look after," she argued more leniently.
"Come right on in, Brother, and rest yourself, as I kin see Ambrose and
his two shadders advancin' toward us up the street, and a peskier pair
of shadders than Miner Hobbs and that dog, Moses, I ain't never seen,
but it's true the two of 'em ain't left Ambrose to himself a minute
since his wife died."
With her free hand Susan now waved a friendly greeting, even releasing
at the same time the vigour of her clutch with the other, for Brother
Bibbs was a fragile gentleman, an elderly widower, and, excepting in
matters pertaining to heaven or hell, greatly subject to the sisters in
his congregation.
Also the three figures were almost in plain sight, the little man
leaning as usual on the arm of the tall one, with Moses following but a
few steps behind.
Miner Hobbs walked with a slight limp. Wounded in the battle of Resaca,
he had never entirely recovered, and although not yet thirty years old
already showed signs of advancing age in his shrivelled appearance, like
a nut whose kernel has failed to ripen.
Moses, however, was remarkably well preserved and, barring a stiffness
in his legs and a few grizzled hairs, lighter of heart than in many a
year. For since that girl who had come to his home had suddenly gone
away with equal mysteriousness his master was once more his slave.
On the surface Ambrose seemed to have changed more than either Miner or
the dog. His face had lost its look of easy laughter, the crow's feet
about the corners of his eyes spoke of nights of hard service. Perhaps
he was even longer and leaner than ever, while the hair upon his
forehead was slowly beginning to recede like a wave from the shore.
Now his familiar spirit of fun took hold on him. The little man was
talking to him earnestly. "Go easy, Miner," he whispered, bending his
tall head, "ef you want to keep your secret from the women; there's Miss
Susan less'n a block away." He also continued his teasing even after
joining the minister and Mrs. Barrows, managing in a few moments to pass
with the two men into his house, leaving the lady bristling with anger.
"There's somethin' fermentin' in the head of every man in this here
town," she flared, coming out on to the sidewalk and then following the
trio into Ambrose's yard the better to deliver her message, "somethin'
you're hidin' from the women, and what men keeps to themselves ain't no
good and never was! Suppose we ain't noticed you plottin' new mischief
together? Like it wasn't enough," she ended bitterly, "that women has
had to bear a war, go half starved, and do man's work as well as their
own 'thout bein' asked whether they'd like a war or not. Wonder if the
good time's comin' when women kin reveal what they think and not have to
stand fer the things they don't have no hand in the makin' of."
Although during this tirade her audience had disappeared, eternal
vigilance was forever Mrs. Barrows' motto. So now she went on with her
watching, while the three men remained a long time inside the cottage,
and by and by, when darkness had fallen, other men with their faces
hidden followed in after them. Soon these men came out, and last of all
Miner, Ambrose, and Brother Bibbs. Miner was scowling; nevertheless his
scowl was concealing an expression of triumph; the minister's figure
plainly showed defeat, but Ambrose, whatever his former look, laughed
aloud, catching sight of his neighbour through the gloom, standing on a
kitchen chair and leaning across the dividing rails between her house
and his in order to peep through the closed slats of his sitting-room
window.
"Look out, Miss Susan, the meetin' is over, and high places is rickety,"
he called suddenly.
Mrs. Barrows started guiltily, accomplishing her own downfall, and over
she went with the wreck of her chair, only to spring up so quickly
afterward that her hoopskirts appeared to carry her higher than the laws
of gravity.
Although assistance from Ambrose arrived too late, still he lingered.
"Ain't you no faith in what men undertakes 'thout advice from women,
Miss Susan?" he inquired, and when that lady, breathless for once, was
able only to shake her head, he gave her a slow, anxious smile,
whispering, "I'm none too sure but you're right," before moving along.
Notwithstanding, at midnight on the same night Ambrose and Miner were
riding side by side through the Kentucky woods at the head of a small
cavalcade that had come together silently on the outskirts of
Pennyroyal. The riders wore masks, excepting Ambrose, who, with face
uncovered, squirmed restlessly upon the sunken back of old Liza.
"The men have give their word there ain't nobody goin' to git hurt," he
repeated three or four times, until finally Miner turned upon him.
"Mebbe you'd better not have went, Ambrose, ef you haven't the nerve,"
he remarked testily.
And at this the tall man stiffened. "It ain't nerve, Miner. I just ain't
never liked a ten-man-against-one game in my life, and I ain't hidin' my
sentiments. No more than the rest of you do I want this Yankee teacher
bein' brought into Pennyrile to show us _our_ business, but I'm with
this crowd to-night to see he don't get hurt 'cept in his feelin's."
"He's got to git, notwithstandin'!" Miner's attitude was that of a
fierce little dog, who even when he couldn't change a situation liked to
bark in order to hear the noise.
These men had both fought on the Southern side in the Civil War, but
with a difference. Miner had plunged into it at once with pigheadedness
and with passion; the full story of why Ambrose had failed to go south
when his comrades did has not been told by Mrs. Barrows. At that time
most men's hearts were on the one side or the other. Ambrose Thompson's
heart was on both sides at once. Indeed, during the first hateful years
of the war he had felt like a child whose equally beloved parents were
engaged in getting a divorce, and not until after Miner was wounded and
the South had showed herself the weaker did he heed her mothering call.
And then he was never much of a success as a soldier because of his
habit of so frequently misplacing his gun while he helped on a weaker
brother, and because of his never having been known to fire at anything
in particular. Still his companions did not count him a coward, merely
recognizing that his imagination had a longer reach than theirs.
Kentuckians, however, have not the grace of easy forgiveness, and also
have a fixed determination to attend to their own affairs. To-night's
expedition meant that the teacher sent from the North into the
Pennyroyal district to instruct their coloured children must go. Not
that Pennyroyal wished her negroes to remain untaught, "seein'," as
Ambrose had said, "that readin' and writin' ought to belong to them same
as seein' and smellin'," but because they preferred to have time to
attend to the matter themselves. Also, the new teacher had been secretly
hurried into the county that day, driven through the adjoining town, and
finally installed in the Pennyroyal district schoolhouse without
Pennyroyal's being allowed a chance to take even a look.
This schoolhouse was an old-fashioned log cabin set in the middle of a
clearing in a young papaw grove, and to-night, with a light burning in
the front room, the oncoming men could see through a half-opened window
the shadow of a figure.
Without waiting for word of command, silently they got down from their
horses, forming a line about the house, and then one man, pounding
savagely on the closed door, shouted: "Come out from there or we'll drag
you out."
There was no answer at first, and when a candle appeared at the opening
of the door the wind blew it out so quickly that the person holding it
remained in indistinct outline.
Miner, having been previously chosen as spokesman, now advanced toward
this door and said: "Ahem!" He was feeling it a different thing to plan
to bully a fellow-man by force of numbers and another to make so ugly a
statement to his face, while Ambrose in even deeper embarrassment
flattened his thin body against the front wall of the cabin until it
suggested a tall plank left to rest there over night.
"You got to git away from our district school-house to-night," blurted
Miner at last; "Pennyroyal kin take care of its own coloured children
'thout help from the outside. But you needn't be scairt, for nobody's
goin' to hurt you if you go peaceable, but there's a horse waitin' fer
you out here and we'll 'low you fifteen minutes to clear out."
Then the little man jumped a few steps backward and the hand of each of
his companions slipped toward the trigger of his gun. However, whatever
of danger the past moment seemed to have had, it passed swiftly, for the
weapon, held by the lonely figure in the doorway, dropped to the ground
with a peculiar clatter, and an instant later the voice said:
"There aren't men enough in Kentucky to make _me_ run away like a thief;
if I am made to go it must be by force." The tones were low and
tremulous, but were sufficiently clear and held no hint of surrender.
Then, putting out both hands like a child at play in blind man's buff,
the figure groped its way forth from the cabin, moving directly toward
Miner and saying: "How can I talk with you, though, when I can't see
you? Till to-night I never dreamed a Kentuckian would be ashamed to show
his face."
Actually Miner's hand shook as he tore off his mask, for the figure
approaching him was that of a woman, possibly a girl, and she must have
been preparing for bed at the time the men arrived, for her hair was
hanging over her shoulders, and through the opening of her wrapper there
showed the white glimmer of a gown.
Even in the midst of his own shame and chagrin Ambrose inwardly
chuckled, seeing that for the first time in his life Miner had to
discuss a question with a woman without his primeval conviction that man
was ordained to be always in the right and woman in the wrong.
"Madam, there has been some mistake; surely you can see that----" he
began pompously. But the girl shook her head. "I told you I couldn't
_see_ anything."
Something of relief hid in Ambrose's grin this time, for if the Yankee
school teacher had a sense of humour even the situation in which he and
his companions found themselves was not utterly hopeless.
But an impatient voice now spoke from the crowd. "Oh, fer the love of
heaven, can't you understand we didn't know you was a woman? Reckon we'd
all 'a' come shyin' out here to drive a woman away? You pack up your
duds in the mornin' and leave comfortable, and no more said."
"I won't," came the defiant answer. Then changing her tactics, the girl
drew nearer Miner, and putting out one hand almost touched his coat
sleeve, although actually he seemed to shrivel away under it. "Do let me
stay, at least for a while," she pleaded. "My father was killed in the
war; I have to make my own living and this is my first chance. I didn't
know you would mind so much. And, please, I am not so very
Yankee--Indiana is only just across the river."
There were no tears in the voice, but a sound so suspiciously near them
that ten men, shuffling their feet, wished one of their number would
speak.
At last an answer came from a long shadow against the front wall of the
cabin. "Certain you kin stay, Miss, and thank you. Just move on inside
your house now and lock the door, for there's some among us that mebbe
won't be anxious to be recognized later on as havin' give you--well, a
kind of house warmin' in the Pennyrile."
A moment later, while his companions were mounting their horses,
Ambrose lingered, groping before the closed door; soon he touched
something of strange formation with a smooth back and a prickly
arrangement on the underneath side. "Lord, what a weapon of defence--a
hairbrush," he drawled, slipping it into his pocket as he visioned the
girl's interrupted preparations for the night. And then when old Liza
had caught up with the others: "Boys, ain't to-night enough to cure us
of Ku-Kluxing, or whatever you want to call this gol darn business?"