"The finest fellows in the world," said the young man. "An occasional
dead-beat among them, of course, but it's amazing how high an average of
character they strike, considering that they came out of four years of
war--war's demoralizing, you know!--with only their shirts to their
backs, and often those were only borrowed. You'll find some mighty solid
business men in the ranks out there, and then on down to the humblest
occupations. Look! See that little one-legged man with the beard that
everybody's cheering! That's Corporal Henkel of Petersburg, commended I
don't know how many times for bravery, and they would have given him the
town for a keepsake when it was all over, if he had wanted it. Well,
Henkel's a cobbler--been one since '65--and let me tell you he's a
blamed good one, and if you're ever in Petersburg and want any
half-soling done, let me tell you--Yea-a-a! See that trim-looking one
with the little mustache--saluting now? He tried to save Stonewall
Jackson's life on the 2d of May, 1863,--threw himself in front of him
and got badly potted. He's a D.D. now. Yea-a-a-a!"
A victoria containing two lovely young girls, sponsor and maid of honor
for South Carolina, dressed just alike, with parasols and enormous hats,
rolled by. The girls smiled kindly at the young man, and he went through
a very proper salute.
"Watch the people!" he dashed on eagerly. "Wonderful how they love these
old soldiers, isn't it?--they'd give 'em anything! And what a fine thing
that is for them!--for the people, not the soldiers, I mean. I tell you
we all give too much time to practical things--business--making
money--taking things away from each other. It's a fine thing to have a
day now and then which appeals to just the other side of us--a regular
sentimental spree. Do you see what I mean? Maybe I'm talking like an
ass.... But when you talk about Americans, Mr. Queed--let me tell you
that there isn't a State in the country that is raising better
Americans than we are raising right here in this city. We're as solid
for the Union as Boston. But that isn't saying that we have forgotten
all about the biggest happening in our history--the thing that threw
over our civilization, wiped out our property, and turned our State into
a graveyard. If we forgot that, we wouldn't be Americans, because we
wouldn't be men."
He went on fragmentarily, ever and anon interrupting himself to give
individual ovations to his heroes and his gods:--
"Through the North and West you may have one old soldier to a village;
here we have one to a house. For you it was a foreign war, which meant
only dispatches in the newspapers. For us it was a war on our own front
lawns, and the way we followed it was by the hearses backing up to the
door. You can hardly walk a mile in any direction out of this city
without stumbling upon an old breastworks. And in the city--well, you
know all the great old landmarks, all around us as we stand here now. On
this porch behind us sits a lady who knew Lee well. Many's the talk she
had with him after the war. My mother, a bride then, sat in the pew
behind Davis that Sunday he got the message which meant that the war was
over. History! Why this old town drips with it. Do you think we should
forget our heroes, Mr. Queed? Up there in Massachusetts, if you have a
place where John Samuel Quincy Adams once stopped for a cup of tea, you
fence it off, put a brass plate on the front door, and charge a nickel
to go in. Which will history say is the greater man, Sam Adams or Robert
F. Lee? If these were Washington's armies going by, you would probably
feel a little excited, though you have had a hundred and twenty years to
get used to Yorktown and the Philadelphia Congress. Well, Washington is
no more to the nation than Lee is to the South.
"But don't let anybody get concerned about our patriotism. We're better
Americans, not worse, because of days like these, the reason being, as I
say, that we are better men. And if your old Uncle Sammy gets into
trouble some day, never fear but we'll be on hand to pull him out, with
the best troops that ever stepped, and another Lee to lead them."
Somewhere during the afternoon there had returned to Queed the words in
which Sharlee Weyland had pointed out to him--quite unnecessarily--that
he was standing here between two civilizations. On the porch now sat
Miss Weyland's grandmother, representative of the dead aristocracy. By
his side stood, clearly, a representative of the rising democracy--one
of those "splendid young men" who, the girl thought, would soon be
beating the young men of the North at every turn. It was valuable
professionally to catch the point of view of these new democrats; and
now he had grasped the fact that whatever the changes in outward form,
it had an unbroken sentimental continuity with the type which it was
replacing.
"Did you ever hear Ben Hill's tribute to Lee?" inquired the young man
presently.
Queed happened to know it very well. However, the other could not be
restrained from reciting it for his own satisfaction.
"It is good--a good piece of writing and a fine tribute," said Queed.
"However, I read a shorter and in some ways an even better one in
_Harper's Weekly_ the other day."
"_Harper's Weekly!_ Good Heavens! They'll find out that William Lloyd
Garrison was for us next. What'd it say?"
"It was in answer to some correspondents who called Lee a traitor. The
editor wrote five lines to say that, while it would be exceedingly
difficult ever to make 'traitor' a word of honorable distinction, it
would be done if people kept on applying it to Lee. In that case, he
said, we should have to find a new word to mean what traitor means now."
The young man thought this over until its full meaning sank into him. "I
don't know how you could say anything finer of a man," he remarked
presently, "than that applying a disgraceful epithet to him left him
entirely untouched, but changed the whole meaning of the epithet. By
George, that's pretty fine!"
"My only criticism on the character, or rather on the greatness, of
Lee," said Queed, introspectively, "is that, so far as I have ever read,
he never got angry. One feels that a hero should be a man of terrible
passions, so strong that once or twice in his life they get away from
him. Washington always seems a bigger man because of his blast at
Charles Lee."
The young man seemed interested by this point of view. He said that he
would ask Mrs. Beauregard about it.
Not much later he said with a sigh: "Well!--It's about over. And now I
must pay for my fun--duck back to the office for a special night
session."
Queed had taken a vague fancy to this youth, whose enviably pleasant
manners reminded him somehow of Charles Gardiner West. "I supposed that
it was only in newspaper offices that work went on without regard to
holidays."
The young man laughed, and held out his hand. "I'm very industrious, if
you please. I'm delighted to have met you, Mr. Queed--I've known of you
for a long time. My name's Byrd--Beverley Byrd--and I wish you'd come
and see me some time. Good-by. I hope I haven't bored you with all my
war-talk. I lost a grandfather and three uncles in it, and I can't help
being interested."
The last of the parade went by; the dense crowd broke and overran the
street; and Queed stood upon the bottom step taking his leave of Miss
Weyland. Much interested, he had lingered till the other guests were
gone; and now there was nobody upon the porch but Miss Weyland's mother
and grandmother, who sat at the further end of it, the eyes of both, did
Mr. Queed but know it, upon him.
"Why don't you come to see me sometimes?" the daughter and granddaughter
was saying sweetly. "I think you will have to come now, for this was a
party, and a party calls for a party-call. Oh, can you make as clever a
pun as that?"
"Thank you--but I never pay calls."
"Oh, but you are beginning to do a good many things that you never did
before."
"Yes," he answered with curious depression. "I am."
"Well, don't look so glum about it. You mustn't think that any change in
your ways of doing is necessarily for the worse!"
He refused to take up the cudgels; an uncanny thing from him. "Well! I
am obliged to you for inviting me here to-day. It has been interesting
and--instructive."
"And now you have got us all neatly docketed on your sociological
operating table, I suppose?"
"I am inclined to think," he said slowly, "that it is you who have got
me on the operating table again."
He gave her a quick glance, at once the unhappiest and the most human
look that she had ever seen upon his face.
"No," said she, gently,--"if you are on the table, you have put yourself
there this time."
"Well, good-by--"
"And are you coming to see me--to pay your party-call?"
"Why should I? What is the point of these conventions--these little
rules--?"
"Don't you _like_ being with me? Don't you get a _great deal_ of
pleasure from my society?"
"I have never asked myself such a question."
He was gazing at her for a third time; and a startled look sprang
suddenly into his eyes. It was plain that he was asking himself such a
question now. A curious change passed over his face; a kind of dawning
consciousness which, it was obvious, embarrassed him to the point of
torture, while he resolutely declined to flinch at it.
"Yes--I get pleasure from your society."
The admission turned him rather white, but he saved himself by instantly
flinging at her: "However, _I am no hedonist_."
Sharlee retired to look up hedonist in the dictionary.
* * * * *
Later that evening, Mrs. Weyland and her daughter being together
upstairs, the former said:--
"Sharlee, who is this Mr. Queed that you paid so much attention to on
the porch this evening?"
"Why, don't you know, mother? He is the assistant editor of the _Post_,
and is going to be editor just the minute Mr. West retires. For you see,
mother, everybody says that he writes the most wonderful articles,
although I assure you, a year ago--"
"Yes, but who is he? Where does he come from? Who are his people?"
"Oh, I see. That is what you mean. Well, he comes from New York, where
he led the most interesting literary sort of life, studying all the
time, except when he was doing articles for the great reviews, or
helping a lady up there to write a thesaurus. You see, he was fitting
himself to compose a great work--"
"Who are his people?"
"Oh, that!" said Sharlee. "Well, that question is not so easy to answer
as you might think. It opens up a peculiar situation: to begin with, he
is a sort of an orphan, and--"
"How do you mean, a sort of an orphan?"
"You see, that is just where the peculiar part comes in. There is the
heart of the whole mystery, and yet right there is the place where I
must be reticent with you, mother, for though I know all about it, it
was told to me confidentially--professionally, as my aunt's agent--and
therefore--"
"Do you mean that you know nothing about his people?"
"I suppose it might be stated, crudely, in that way, but--"
"And knowing nothing about who or what he was, you simply picked him up
at the boarding-house, and admitted him to your friendship?"
"Picking-up is not the word that the most careful mothers employ, in
reference to their daughters' attitude toward young men. Mother, don't
you understand? I'm a democrat."
"It is not a thing," said Mrs. Weyland, with some asperity, "for a lady
to be."
Sharlee, fixing her hair in the back before the mirror, laughed long and
merrily. "Do you dare--do you _dare_ look your own daughter in the eye
and say she is no lady?"
"Do you like this young man?" Mrs. Weyland continued.
"He interests me, heaps and heaps."
Mrs. Weyland sighed. "I can only say," she observed, sinking into a
chair and picking up her book, "that such goings on were never heard of
in my day."