MR. CAMPBELL stood watching. Very soon the front gate opened and a boy
came in, driving two white mules, with red tassels on their bridle
bits. Amazement filled his eyes when he saw that it was a wagon load of
coffins, and on the topmost one Esther sat smiling. As they drove up
near the door, he went out to help her down.
“Didn’t I tell you something would turn up, grandpa; this wagon is
going right by the University this evening.” She threw her arms about
his neck; her laugh rang out in pure triumph. “Hitch your team, young
man; a boy will come to take it out and feed it.” When they saw
Esther again she was ready for her jaunt. Her violin was in its case;
her fresh white organdie folded with as much care as she gave to
anything--duty and care were unknown to her. Her visit to the University
by such a conveyance would be the extreme limit of indulgence, yet she
had no thought of being denied.
“I am ready,” she announced at table. Mr. Campbell burst into a laugh,
half of annoyance, yet touched with the ring of true amusement.
“I really believe you would go.”
“I’d go on foot if necessary to keep my promise,” she answered quickly.
“How could the college folks know that Mr. David Pool had to be buried
to-day when they printed my name on the programme?”
Watching her eyes, he caught their softness, their innocence, and knew
that her eagerness was sincere.
“Let her go, Mr. Campbell, I’ll take good care of her.” The boy was
a Rudd. Although he held a lowly position, he was not counted of the
common people. Mr. Campbell had the old Virginia pride of race in him.
“I know you would.”
Esther looked steadily into his gray eyes and saw a relenting twinkle.
“Am I going?” Turning to her with a quiet smile: “Yes, you may go.”
He could not see her disappointed when her heart was so determined.
With a little cry of joy she brought her hands together. “I wish you
could come along, grandpa. It will be such fun, and I wanted you to
hear me to-night.” When the wagon came around Esther was helped up with
her case and bundle. Her violin she held tenderly across her arm. Mr.
Campbell went with them to close the gate.
“Good-bye; you will be in for me to-morrow.” Leaning down, she embraced
his head. “Be sweet, God’s child,” he said, as they drove off. Esther
kissed her hand to him, as he stood by the roadside looking after them.
The cook, at the kitchen door, waved her dish rag for a frantic moment.
The whirl of dust from the wheels soon clouded the view. The old man
turned, and went slowly back to the house with a misty smile over his
features.
A quaint, pathetic figure that, of Hardin Campbell, with his age, his
poverty and the care of this child. Here had once been planter life in
its carelessness and lavishness. It had been the home of friend and
neighbor and the hospitable shelter of the transient guest. All the
grand folk that came that way made this place headquarters in the days
when Mr. Campbell was reckoned rich. But what he had lost in wealth he
had more than gained in pride, and the child was brimming over with
it. Generous, impetuous, enthusiastic, as she was, this wild young
creature of nature, unhindered, venturesome and full of whims, would,
he hoped, find pride her safeguard. He did not believe in curbing her.
He guided, but did not limit her and tried to keep from her all warping
influences. This was the way her mother had begun with her and he was
only continuing her way for a while--it could not be very long before
he would have to resign his charge. To whom--he did not know and could
not bear to dwell upon the thought.
About the whole place there was evidence of departed glory. In the
great white buildings which rose from the labyrinth of shrubbery like
grim ghosts of the past; in the rows of cabins, formerly the dwellings
of a horde of happy-hearted negroes, everywhere was evidence of the
bygone prodigal days. The house, of colonial style, with its series
of tall columns standing about the broad colonnade, was partially
screened by the live oaks and was set some distance back from the big
road. These encircling columns were built of brick, with a coating of
plaster, once as white as the teeth of Uncle Simon, the plantation
white-washer, who in former days would put an immaculate dress on
them regularly once a month by means of an elevated step-ladder,
but now Uncle Simon’s labors were done. The neglected columns were
crumbling with age and sadly splotched with the red of exposed masonry.
At one side of the verandah there spread the delicate green of
the star-jassamine, with its miniature constellations flecking the
background. Through the vista, leading to the house, from the big gate
in front, flashed the crimson of a flowering-pear in full blossom. The
blinds of the house that had once been green, were now hanging from
their hinges, weather-stained, giving full view of a number of broken
window panes, in one of which, on the second story, was perched a wren,
whose energetic chattering over her nest hardby was the most decided
indication of active life.
In the rear of the buildings stretched the cabins. To the right of
them were the stables and the carriage house, with its weather vane of
a flying steed on the top, but for years the most vigorous gales had
failed to spur this steed to action and its tail, at one time proudly
aflaunt to the breeze, had yielded to time and rust, and, like that of
Tam o’Shanter’s mare, knew naught of direction. There was the dreary
stillness of desolation over all things. But still a hospitable glow
was in the summer sunshine and shone as well in the eyes of the old
master.
Esther took off her hat when she got into the depths of the woods and
drew out her violin. “I will amuse the boy,” she thought, “if I play to
him,” for she had tired of talking against the rumbling of the wagon
and its load. In his way, he appreciated her motive, for now and again
he called back to her, awkwardly commending her, and urging her to
continue. Near the spring they saw the negro washerwomen, with sleeves
rolled to their shining shoulders, bending over their tubs; faded, limp
skirts, bloused through apron belts, and dangled about their bare legs.
A big wash kettle heaped with white linen stood to one side. Around it
a fire was burning low for want of fuel.
“O--o--h! Yo’ Tagger, Tag-g-e-r; you’d better come on here, ef you know
what’s good for you,” called one of the women with a long, resounding
echo that drowned the answer of the small voice that said he was on his
way. A troop of little niggers came to the roadside pulling a wagon
load of brush and bark gathered through the woods. They looked back and
spied Esther on the coffins. With a wild yell the children, load and
all, tumbled over the embankment, rolling over each other in the dust,
screaming, “Mammy! mammy!” at the top of their voices, scrambling to
their feet and running with might and main down the road. As Esther
drew up to the wash-place, the little fellows were clinging frantically
to the knees of their mothers.
“It’s a little ha’nt blowin’ Gabel’s trumpet. Don’t let it ketch me!
don’t let it ketch me!”
“In de name ob de Lawd!” said one of the women, seeing what had caused
the fright; “ain’t you all got de sense you was born wid? Don’t you
know Miss Esther Powel, Marse Hardin’s granddaughter?” The eyes of the
pickaninnies were blinded by the wads of wet aprons they had covered
them with, and the sound of the wheels filled them with terror. “Dry
up!” The big dripping hand pounded on their heads. “Scuse ’em, Miss
Esther, you’d think dese youngun’s been fotch up wid wild injun’s.”
“Tagger,” Esther called the boy, whose name, Montague, she had been
responsible for. “Don’t you know me? I played for you to dance a jig
for the young men who used to visit Will Curtis before he died. You
haven’t forgotten that, have you?” Hearing her familiar voice, he
slowly peeped out with scared eyes.
“You little monkey. Dip me some water out of the spring.” She saw a
long, yellow gourd hanging from a striped bough above their heads. “I
want a drink.” He sprang up and snatched the gourd, and before she
could say more, he was holding it up to her, standing on his tiptoes,
grinning, as the tears ran down and stained his dusty face.
“I am going to play at the University to-night,” she said, hanging back
the gourd.
“You don’ say? One of dem ’Varsity gemmen’s coming out to see Marse
Will’s folks next week.” Tagger’s mother lived with the Curtises, whose
home was just beyond the spring. “I’ll be bound, you beat ’em all dar
if you does play to-night,” she said when she saw they were leaving.
Bareheaded, Esther rode on, as long as the shade was over them, tying
on her hat only when they got to the sunny way of the road. A man
plowing in a cornfield, looked up as he stopped at the turn of the row.
He gazed intently, rapping the line mechanically about his wrist.
“What is her grandpa thinking of?” seeing it was Esther, whom he knew.
“But she’d a gone in spite of hell and high water.” With this aloud
to himself, he drew his shirt sleeve across the sweat on his brow and
trudged back down the row, relieved.
After two hours or more, through the heat, Esther was glad when at last
she could see the end of her journey. The sunlight lay radiant upon the
stretch of country famed for this honored institution of learning.
Just before her, upon an eminence, spread the University buildings,
the tall spires marking their profile on the sky. The sun’s rays shot
up behind them its last warm flashes. Its heat had already dampened
Esther’s hair, deepening the red tint of its waves against her temples.
The campus was alive with students coming and going in every direction.
The tenor of the glee club, in his striped sweater of the college
colors, humming a popular air, walked leisurely across to where one
fellow was sprawled on the ground, gazing at the wagon with an amused
curiosity on his handsome face.
“By Jupiter! that’s a pretty child.” The tenor turned to look, as his
friend spoke.
“Well, if that isn’t a caper! Wonder where she is bound?” Just then a
pert freshman, standing in a group, gave a college yell. Then there was
a chorus of rapturous cheers, in which most of them joined. Before the
noise had subsided, the man on the grass had leaped to his feet, full
of indignation, and dashed off toward the freshman.
“Silence! you fellows! Have you forgotten yourselves?” A few hisses
were mingled with the applause that greeted him, but the freshman was
quick to say at his elbow:
“I didn’t mean it for her.”
“How could she know that?” He walked away saying: “I’ll wager there is
something out of the ordinary in that girl.”
He was of the fiber that commanded the respect of men at a glance.
“Andrews always turns up at the right time, you may count on that,”
said one of the students as he watched him sauntering in the direction
of the wagon, his eyes following the child. She was perched like
a white winged bird of good omen on a funeral pyre. Only a nature
adventurous to audacity would do such a thing as that. But he loved
daring personalities, strong motives and even a misadventure, if it
were a brave one.