more so than you think, Cousin Arthur. I may call you ‘Cousin Arthur,’
may I not? You see I always called your uncle ‘Uncle Robert,’ and if
your uncle was my uncle, of course you and I are cousins. Besides I like
to call you ‘Cousin Arthur.’”
“And I like to have you call me so. But tell me about the marking of the
watermelon.”
“Oh, that’s simple enough. When you have marked your initials on a
melon, the negroes know you have seen it and so they are afraid to steal
it.”
“But how should I know who took it?”
“That’s their ignorance. They never think of that. Or rather I suppose
they think educated people know a great deal more than they do. I wonder
if it is right?”
“If what is right, Dorothy?”
“Why, to take advantage of their ignorance in that way. Have educated
people a right to do that with ignorant people? Is it fair?”
“I see your point, Dorothy, and I’m not prepared to give you an answer,
at least in general terms. But, at any rate, it is right to use any
means we can to keep people from stealing.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve thought of that. But is it stealing for the negroes to
take a watermelon which they have planted and cultivated? They do the
work on the plantation. Aren’t they entitled to all they want to eat?”
“Within reasonable bounds, yes,” answered Arthur, meditatively. “They
are entitled to all the wholesome food they need, and to all the warm
clothing, and to comfortable, wholesome quarters to live in. But we
mustn’t leave the smoke house door unlocked. If we did that the
dishonest ones among them would take all the meat and sell it, and the
rest would starve. Besides, the white people are entitled to something.
They take care of the negroes in sickness and in childhood and in old
age. They must feed and clothe them and nurse them and have doctors for
them no matter what it may cost. It is true, the negroes do the work
that produces the food and clothing and all the rest of it, but their
masters contribute the intelligent management that is quite as
necessary as the work. Imagine this plantation, Dorothy, or your own
Pocahontas, left to the negroes. They could do as much work as they do
now, but do you suppose their crops would feed them till Christmas if
there were no white man to manage for them?”
“Of course not. Indeed they never would make a crop. Still I don’t like
the system.”
“Neither do I, Dorothy, but in the present state of the public mind
neither of us must say so.”
“Why not, Cousin Arthur? Is there any harm in telling the truth?”
“Sometimes I suppose it is better to keep silence,” answered Arthur,
hesitating.
“For women, yes,” quickly responded the girl. “But men can fight. Why
shouldn’t they tell the truth?”
“I don’t quite understand your distinction, Dorothy.”
“I’m not sure,” she answered, “that I understand it myself. Oh, yes, I
do, now that I think of it. Women tell lies, of course, because they
can’t fight. Or, if they don’t quite tell lies they at least keep silent
whenever telling the truth would make trouble. That’s because they can’t
fight. Men can fight, and so there’s not the slightest excuse for them
if they tell lies or even if they keep silent.”
“But, Dorothy, I don’t yet understand. Women can’t fight, of course, but
then they are never called upon to fight. Why--”
“That’s just it, Cousin Arthur. If a woman speaks out, nobody can hold
her responsible. But anybody can hold her nearest male friend
responsible and he must fight to maintain what she has said, whether he
thinks she was right in saying it or not. The other day Jeff.
Peyton--Mr. Madison Peyton’s son, you know,--was over at Wyanoke, when
you had gone to Branton. So I had to entertain him.” Dorothy did not
know that the youth had been sent to Wyanoke by his father for the
express purpose of being entertained by herself. “I found him a pretty
stupid fellow, as I always do, but as he pretends to have been a student
at the University, I supposed he had read a great deal. So I talked to
him about Virgil but he knew so little that I asked him if he had read
‘The Vicar of Wakefield,’ and he told me a deliberate lie. He professed
a full acquaintance with that book, and presently I found out that he
had never read a line of it. I was so shocked that I forgot myself. I
asked him, ‘Why did you lie to me?’ It was dreadfully rude, of course,
but I could not help it. Now of course he couldn’t challenge _me_ for
that. But if he had been a man of spirit, he would have challenged
_you_, and you see how terribly wrong I should have been to involve you
in a quarrel of that kind. Of course if I had been a man, instead of a
woman--if I had been answerable for my words--I should have been
perfectly free to charge him with lying. But what possible right had I
to risk your life in a duel by saying things that I might as well have
left unsaid?”
“But you said the other day,” responded Arthur, “that you did not
believe in duelling?”
“Of course I don’t. It is a barbarous thing. But it is the custom of our
country and we can’t help it. I’ve noticed that if a man fights a duel
on proper provocation, everybody says he ought not to have done it. But
if he refuses to fight, everybody says he’s a coward. So, under certain
circumstances, a man in Virginia who respects himself is absolutely
compelled to fight. If Jefferson Peyton had asked you to meet him on
account of what I said to him, you couldn’t have refused, could you,
Cousin Arthur?”
“I wouldn’t,” was all the answer the young man made; but he put a strong
stress upon the last word.
“Oh, I know you wouldn’t,” answered the girl, treating his response as
quite a matter of course. “But you see now why a woman must keep silent
where a man should speak out. If a man tells the truth he can be called
to account for it; so if he is manly he will tell it and take the
consequences. But a woman has to remember that if she tells the truth,
and the truth happens to be ugly, some man must be shot at for her
words.”
“Dorothy,” asked Arthur, with unusual seriousness, “are you afraid of
anything?”
“Afraid? No. Of course not.”
“If you were needed very badly for the sake of other people--even
negroes--if you could save their lives and ease their sufferings, you’d
want to do it, wouldn’t you?”
“Why, of course, Cousin Arthur. I’ve read in Aunt Polly’s old
newspapers, how you went to Norfolk in the yellow fever time, and how
bravely you--never mind. I’ve read all about that, over and over again,
and it’s part of what makes me like you.”
“But courage is not expected of women.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” quickly responded the girl. “Not the courage of
fighting, of course--but that’s only because men won’t fight with women,
except in mean ways. Women are expected to show courage in other ways,
and they do it too. In the newspapers that tell about your heroism at
Norfolk, there is a story of how one of your nurses went always to the
most dangerous cases, and how, when she died, you officiated at her
funeral, instead of the clergyman who had got scared and run away like a
coward that did not trust his God. I remember what the newspaper says
that you said at the grave, Cousin Arthur. I’ve got it all by heart. You
said, at the end of your address:--‘We are accustomed to pay honor and
to set up monuments to men who have dared, where daring offered its rich
reward of fame and glory. Let us reverently bow our heads and abase our
feeble, selfish souls, in presence of the courage of this frail woman,
who, in her weakness, has achieved greater things in the sight of God
than any that the valor and strength of man have ever accomplished since
the foundations of the world were laid. Let us reverently and lovingly
make obeisance to the courage of a devoted woman--a courage that we men
can never hope to match.’ You see I remember all that you said then,
Cousin Arthur, and so you needn’t tell me now that you do not expect
courage at the hands of women.”
Arthur made no immediate reply, and the two rode on in silence for a
time. After a while, as they neared the house gates, he spoke.
“Dorothy,” he said, “I need your help very badly. You cannot render me
the help I want without very serious danger to yourself. So I don’t want
you to give me any answer to what I am about to say until tomorrow. I
want you to think the matter over very carefully first.”
“Tell me what it is, Cousin Arthur.”
“Why, I find that we are to have a very dangerous epidemic of typhoid
fever among the negroes here. When the first case occurred ten days ago
I hoped that might be all; but two days later I found two more cases;
day before yesterday there were five more. So it is obvious that we are
to have an epidemic. All the cases have appeared among the field hands
and their families out at the far quarters, and so I hope that the house
servants and the people around the stables will escape. But the outbreak
is really very serious and the disease is of the most virulent type. I
must literally fight it with fire. I have already set men at work
building new quarters down by the Silver Spring, a mile away from the
infected place, and as soon as I can I’m going to move all the people
and set fire to all the old quarters. I’ve bought an old circus tent in
Richmond, and I expect it by express today. As soon as it comes I’m
going to set it up on the Haw Branch hill, and put all the sick people
into it, so as to separate them from those that are well. As fast as
others show symptoms of the disease, I’ll remove them also to the
hospital tent, and for that purpose I have ordered forty cots and a lot
of new blankets and pillows.”
Dorothy ejaculated her sorrow and sympathy with the poor blacks, and
quickly added the question: “What is it that I can do, Cousin Arthur?
Tell me; you know I will do it.”
“But, Dorothy, dear, I don’t want you to make up your mind till you have
thought it all over.”
“My mind is already made up. You want me to nurse these poor sick
people, and of course I’m going to do it. You are thinking that the
disease is contagious--”
“No, it is only infectious,” he broke in with the instinct of scientific
exactitude strong upon him.
“Well, anyhow, it’s catching, and you think I may catch it, and you
want me to think out whether I’m afraid of that or not. Very well. I’ve
already thought that out. _You_ are going to be with the sick people
night and day. Cousin Arthur, I am only a girl, but I’m no more a coward
than you are. Tell me what I’m to do. It doesn’t need any thinking out.”
“But, Dorothy, listen to me. These are not your people. If this outbreak
had occurred at Pocahontas, the matter would have been different. You
might well think that you owed a duty to the people on your own
plantation, but you owe none to these people of mine.”
“Oh, yes, I do. I live at Wyanoke. Besides they are human beings and
they are in need of help. I don’t know how I can help, but you are going
to tell me, and I’m going to do what you want. I will not waste a day in
thinking.”
“But, my child, the danger in this case is really very great. Indeed it
is extremely probable that if you do what you propose to do, you will
have the fever, and as I have already said, it has assumed an unusually
virulent form.”
“It can’t be more dangerous than the yellow fever was at Norfolk, and
you braved that in order to save the lives of people you had never heard
of--people to whom you owed nothing whatever. Cousin Arthur, do you
think me less brave than you are?”
“No, dear, but--”
“Very well. You shall tell me after breakfast precisely what I can do,
and then I’ll do it. Women are naturally bad, and so they mustn’t lose
any opportunity of doing good when they can.”
At that moment they arrived at the house gates. Slipping from her
saddle, Dorothy turned her great, earnest eyes full upon her companion,
and said with tense lips:
“Promise me one thing, Cousin Arthur! Promise me that if I die in this
work you won’t ask any clergyman to mutter worn-out words from a prayer
book over my grave, but will yourself say to my friends that I did not
shirk like a coward!”
Instantly, and without waiting for the promise she had besought, the
girl turned, caught up her long riding skirt and fled like a deer to the
house.
XI
THE WOMAN’S AWAKENING
_I_t was upon a momentary impulse that Arthur Brent had suggested to
Dorothy that she should help him in the battle with pestilence which lay
before him. As a physician he had been accustomed to practise his
profession not in the ordinary, perfunctory way, and not for gain, but
in the spirit of a crusader combating disease as the arch enemy of
humanity, and partly too for the joy of conquering so merciless a foe.
His first thought in this case therefore had been to call to his aid the
best assistance available. His chief difficulty, he clearly foresaw,
would be in getting his measures intelligently carried out. He must
secure the accurate, prompt and intelligent execution of his directions,
whether for the administration of medicines prescribed or for hygienic
measures ordered. The ignorance, the prejudice, and the inert
carelessness of the negroes, he felt, would be his mightiest and wiliest
foes in this, and there could be no abler adjutant for this purpose
than Dorothy, with her quick wit, her scrupulous conscientiousness and
her habit of compelling exact and instant obedience to all her commands.
So he had thought first of calling upon Dorothy for help. But when she
had so promptly responded, he began to feel that he had made a mistake.
The physician in him, and the crusader too, sanctioned and approved the
use of the best means available for the accomplishment of his high
purpose. But the man in him, the friend, the affectionate protector,
protested against such an exposure of the child to dreadful danger.
When he reflected upon the matter and thought of the peril; when he
conjured up a picture of dear little Dorothy stricken and perhaps dead
in a service of humanity to which no duty called her, and to which she
had been induced only by her loyalty to him, he shrank back in horror
from the program he had laid out.
Yet he knew that he could not easily undo what he had done. There was a
child side to Dorothy, and it was that which usually presented itself to
his mind when he thought of her. But there was a strong woman side to
her also, as he very well knew, and over that he had established no
influence or control. He had won the love of the child. He had not yet
won the love of the woman. He realized that it was the masterful, woman
side of her nature that he had called into activity in this matter. Now
that the heroism of the brave woman’s soul was enlisted, he knew that he
could not easily bid it turn back.
Yet something might be done by adroit management, and he resolved upon
that. After breakfast he sent for Dorothy and said, lightly:
“I’m glad I have taught you to handle drugs skilfully, Dorothy. I shall
need certain medicines frequently in this conflict. They are our
ammunition for the battle, and we must have them always ready. I’m going
to write some prescriptions for you to fill. I want you to spend today
and tomorrow in the laboratory preparing them. One of them will tax your
skill a good deal. It may take you several days to get it ready. It
involves some very careful chemical processes--for you must first
manufacture a part of your chemicals out of their raw materials. I’ll
write detailed instructions for that, but you may fail half a dozen
times before you succeed. You must be patient and you’ll get it right.
You always do in the end. Then there’s another thing I want you to do
for me. I’m going to burn all the clothing, bedding and so forth at the
quarters. I’ll make each of the well negroes put on the freshest
clothing he has before removing to the sanitary camp, and I’ll burn all
the rest. I sent Dick early this morning to the Court House, telling
Moses to send me all the blankets and all the cloth he has of every
kind, from calico and osnaburgs to heavy woollen goods, and I’ve written
to Richmond for more. We must clothe the negroes anew--men, women and
children. So I want you to get together all your seamstresses--every
woman on the plantation indeed who can sew even a little bit--and set
them all at work making clothes. I’ve cleared out the prize barn for the
purpose, and the men are now laying a rough floor in it and putting up
some tables on which you and Aunt Polly can ‘cut out’--that’s what you
call it, isn’t it?”
“Cousin Arthur,” said the girl, looking at him with something of
reproach in her great, dark blue eyes, “I’ll do all this of course, and
everything else that you want done. But please, Cousin Arthur, don’t
tell lies to me, even indirectly. I couldn’t stand that from you.”
“What do you mean, child?”
“Oh, you have made up your mind to keep me busy with all these things so
that I shall not go into your hospital to serve as a nurse. I’ll do
these things for you, but I’ll do the nursing too. So please let us be
good friends and please don’t try to play tricks.”
The young man was astonished and abashed. Under ordinary circumstances
he might truthfully have pleaded that the work he was thus laying out
for her was really and pressingly necessary. But Dorothy anticipated him
in that.
“Don’t tell me that these things are necessary, Cousin Arthur. I know
that perfectly well. But you know that I am not necessary to
them--except so far as the prescriptions are concerned. Aunt Polly can
direct the clothes making better than I can, and her maid, Jane, is
almost as good. So after I compound the prescriptions I shall go to my
duty at the hospital. I don’t think I like you very well today, Cousin
Arthur, and I’ll not like you at all if you go on trying to make up
things to keep me busy, away from the sick people. If you do that again
I’ll stop calling you ‘Cousin Arthur’ and you’ll be just ‘Dr. Brent’ to
me.”
“Please don’t do that, Dorothy,” he said very pleadingly. “I only
meant--”
“Oh, I know what you meant,” she interrupted. “But you shouldn’t treat
me in that way. I won’t call you ‘Dr. Brent,’ unless you do that sort of
thing again, and if you let me do my duty without trying to play tricks,
I’ll go on liking you just as much as ever.”
“Thank you, Dorothy,” he replied with fervor. “You must forgive me,
please. I didn’t want to expose you to this danger--that was all.”
“Oh, I understand all that,” she quickly responded. “But it wasn’t
treating me quite fairly--and you know I hate unfairness. And--why
shouldn’t I be exposed to the danger if I can do any good? Even if the
worst should happen--even if I should take the fever and die, after
saving some of these poor creatures’ lives, could you or anybody have
made a better use of a girl like me than that?”
Arthur looked at the child earnestly, but the child was no longer there.
The eyes that gazed into his were those of a woman!
XII
MAMMY
_W_hen Arthur Brent reached the “quarters” that morning he found matters
in worse condition than he had feared.
“The whole spot is pestilential,” he said. “How any sane man ever
selected it for quarters, I can’t imagine. Gilbert,” calling to the head
man who had come in from the field at his master’s summons, “I want you
to take all the people out of the crop at once, and send for all the
house servants too. Take them with you over to the Haw Branch hill and
put every one of them at work building some sort of huts. You must get
enough of them done before night, to hold the sick people, for I’m going
to clear out these quarters today. I must have enough huts for the sick
ones at once. Those who are well will have to sleep out of doors at the
Silver Spring tonight.”
“But, Mahstah,” remonstrated Gilbert, “dey ain’t no clapboa’ds to roof
wif. Dey ain’t no nuffin--”
“Use fence rails then and cover them with pine tops. I’ll ride over and
direct you presently. Send me eight or ten of the strongest young women
at once, and then get everybody to work on the shelters. Do you hear?”
When the women came he instructed them how to carry the sick on
improvised litters, and half an hour later, with his own hand he set
fire to the little negro village. He had allowed nothing to be carried
away from it, and he left nothing to chance. One of the negroes came
back in frantic haste to save certain “best clothes” and a banjo that he
had laboriously made. Arthur ordered him instead to fill up the well
with rubbish, so that no one might drink of its waters again.
As soon as the fire was completely in possession the young master rode
away to Haw Branch hill to look after the sick ones and direct the work
of building shelters for them. Dorothy was already there, tenderly
looking to the comfort of the invalids. The litter-bearers would have
set their burdens down anywhere and left them there but for Dorothy’s
quiet insistence that they should place them in such shade as she could
find, and gather an abundance of broomstraw grass for them to lie upon.
To Arthur she offered no explanation of her presence, nor was any
needed. Arthur understood, and all that he said was:
“God bless you, Dorothy!” a sentiment to which one of the stricken ones
responded:
“He’ll do dat for shuah, Mahstah, ef he knows he business.”
“Dick has returned from the Court House,” said Dorothy reporting. “He
says the big tent is there and I’ve sent a man with a wagon to fetch it.
These shelters will do well enough for tonight, and we’ll get our
hospital tent up soon tomorrow morning.”
“Very well,” responded Arthur. “Now, Dorothy, won’t you ride over to
Silver Spring and direct the men there how to lay out the new quarters?
I drew this little diagram as I rode over here. You see I want the
houses built well apart for the sake of plenty of air. I’m going to put
the quarters there ‘for all the time’ as you express it. That is to say
I’m going to build permanent quarters. I’ve already looked over the
ground carefully as to drainage and the like and roughly laid out the
plan of the village so that it shall be healthy. Please go over there
and show the men what I want, I’ll be over there in an hour and then
you can come back here. I must remain here till the doctors come.”
“What doctors, Cousin Arthur?”
“All the doctors within a dozen miles. I’ve sent for all of them.”
“But what for? Surely you know more about fighting disease than our
old-fashioned country doctors do.”
“Perhaps so. But there are several reasons for consulting them. First of
all they know this country and climate better than I do. Secondly, they
are older men, most of them, and have had experience. Thirdly, I don’t
want all the responsibility on my shoulders, in case anything goes
wrong, and above all I don’t want to offend public sentiment by assuming
too much. These gentlemen have all been very courteous to me, and it is
only proper for me to send for them in consultation. I shall get all the
good I can out of their advice, but of course I shall myself remain
physician in charge of all my cases.”
The explanation was simple enough, and Dorothy accepted it. “But I don’t
like anybody to think that country doctors can teach you anything,
Cousin Arthur,” she said as she mounted. “And remember you are to come
over to Silver Spring as soon as you can. I must be back here in an hour
or so at most.”
Just as she was about to ride away Dorothy was confronted with an old
negro woman--obviously very old indeed, but still in robust health, and
manifestly still very strong, if one might estimate her strength from
the huge burden she carried on her well poised head.
“Why, Mammy, what are you doing here?” asked the girl in surprise. “You
don’t belong here, and you must go back to Pocahontas at once.”
“What’s you a talkin’ ’bout, chile?” answered the old woman. “Mammy
don’t b’long heah, don’t she? Mammy b’longs jes whah somever her
precious chile needs her. So when de tidins done comes dat Mammy’s
little Dorothy’s gwine to ’spose herself in de fever camp jes to take
kyar of a lot o’ no ’count niggas what’s done gone an’ got dey selves
sick, why cou’se dey ain’t nuffin fer Mammy to do but pack up some
necessary ingridiments an come over and take kyar o’ her baby. So jes
you shet up yer sweet mouf, you precious chile, an’ leave ole Mammy
alone. I ain’t a gwine to take no nonsense from a chile what’s my own to
kyar fer.”
“You dear old Mammy!” exclaimed the girl with tears in her voice. “But I
really don’t need you, and I will not have you exposed to the fever.”
“What’s Mammy kyar fer de fever? Fever won’t nebber dar tetch Mammy.
Mammy ain’t nebber tuk no fevers an’ no nuffin else. Lightnin’ cawn’t
hu’t Mammy anymore’n it kin split a black gum tree. G’long ’bout yer
business, chile, an don’t you go fer to give no impidence to yer ole
Mammy. She’s come to take kyar o’ her chile an’ she’s a gwine to do it.
Do you heah?”