MR. JONADAB LEECH TURNS UP WITH A CARPET-BAG AND OPENS HIS BUREAU
The young officers at the court-house meantime had fared very well. It
is true that most of the residents treated them coldly, if civilly, and
that the girls of the place, of whom there were quite a number, turned
aside whenever they met them, and passed by with their heads held high,
and their eyes straight to the front, flashing daggers. But this the
young men were from experience more or less used to.
Reely Thurston told Middleton that if he would leave matters to him,
he would engineer him through the campaign, and before it was over
would be warbling ditties with all the pretty girls in a way to make
his cousin, Miss Ruth Welch, green with envy. The lieutenant began by
parading up and down on his very fine horse; but the only result he
attained was to hear a plump young girl ask another in a clear voice,
evidently meant for him to hear, “What poor Southerner,” she supposed,
“that little Yankee stole that horse from!” He recognized the speaker
as the young lady he had seen looking at them from the door of the
clerk’s office the morning of their arrival.
Brutusville, the county seat where they were posted, was a pretty
little straggling country village of old-fashioned houses amid groves
of fine old trees, lying along the main road of the county, where it
wound among shady slopes, with the blue mountain range in the distance.
Most of the houses were hip-roofed and gray with age. The river—the
same stream that divided Red Rock from Birdwood—passed near the
village, broadening as it reached the more level country and received
the waters of one or two other streams. Before the war there had been
talk of establishing deep-water connections with the lower country, as
the last rapids of any extent were not far below Brutusville. Dr. Cary,
however, had humorously suggested that they would find it easier to
macadamize the river than to make it navigable.
[Illustration: THE GIRLS OF THE PLACE TURNED ASIDE, WHENEVER THEY MET
THEM AND PASSED BY WITH THEIR HEADS HELD HIGH.]
The county seat had suffered, like the rest of the county, during the
war; but as it happened, the main body of the enemy had been kept out
of the place by high water, and the fine old trees did much to conceal
the scars that had been made.
The old, brick court-house in the middle of the green, peeping out
from among the trees, with its great, classical portico, was esteemed
by the residents of the village to be, perhaps, the most imposing
structure in the world. Mr. Dockett, the clerk—who had filled this
position for nearly forty years, with the exception of the brief period
when, fired by martial enthusiasm, he had gone off with Captain Gray’s
company—told Lieutenant Thurston a day or two after the latter’s
arrival, that while he had never been to Greece or, indeed, out of
the State, he had been informed by those who had been there that the
court-house was, perhaps, in some respects, more perfect than any
building in Athens. Lieutenant Thurston said he had never been to
Greece either, but he was quite sure it was. He also added that he
considered Mr. Dockett’s own house a very beautiful one, and thought
that it showed evidences, in its embellishments, of that same classical
taste that Mr. Dockett admired so much. Mr. Dockett, while accepting
the compliment with due modesty, answered that if the lieutenant wished
to see a beautiful house he should see Red Rock. And thereupon began
new matter, the young officer gently leading the old gentleman to talk
of all the people and affairs of the neighborhood, including the charms
of the girls.
From this, it will be seen that the little Lieutenant was already
laying his mines, and preparing to make good his promise to Middleton
to engineer him through the campaign.
The compliment to the Dockett mansion was not without its effect on
the genius who presided in that classic and comfortable abode, and,
at length, Mrs. Dockett, a plump and energetic woman, had, with some
prevision, though in a manner to make her beneficiaries sensible of
her condescension, acceded to the young men’s request to take them as
boarders, and allow them to occupy a wing-room in her house.
Thus Middleton and Thurston were able to write Ruth Welch a glowing
account of their “head-quarters in an old colonial mansion,” and of the
“beautiful maiden” who sang them “songs of the South.”
The songs, however, that Miss Dockett sang, though as Thurston said
truly, they were in one sense sung for them, were not sung in the
sense Lieutenant Thurston implied. They were hardly just the sort
that Miss Ruth Welch would have approved of, and were certainly not
what Mrs. Welch would have tolerated. For they were all of the most
ultra-Southern spirit and tendency, and breathed the deadliest defiance
to everyone and everything Northern. Miss Dockett was not pretty,
except as youth and wholesomeness give beauty; but she was a cheery
maiden, with blue eyes, white teeth, rosy cheeks, and a profusion of
hair, and though she had no training, she possessed a pleasant voice
and sang naturally and agreeably—at least to one who, like Thurston,
had not too much ear for music. Thurston once had the temerity to ask
for a song—for which he received a merited rebuff. Of course she would
not sing for a Yankee, said the young lady, with a toss of her head and
an increased elevation of her little nose, and immediately she left the
room. When, however, the young officers were in their rooms, she sang
all the Southern songs she knew. One, in particular, she rendered with
great spirit. It had just been written. It began:
“Oh! I’m a good old rebel,
Now, that’s just what I am;
For this ’Fair land of freedom,’
I do not care a-t all.”
Another verse ran:
“Three hundred thousand Yankees
Lays dead in Southern dus’,
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us;
They died of Southern fever,
Of Southern steel and shot;
I wish they were three million,
Instead of what we got.”
The continued iteration of this sanguinary melody floating in at the
open window finally induced the little Lieutenant, in his own room one
afternoon, to raise, in opposition, his own voice, which was none of
the most melodious, in the strains of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But
he had got no further than the second invocation to “the land of the
free and the home of the brave,” when there was a rush of footsteps
outside, followed by a pounding on his door, and on his opening the
door Mrs. Dockett bore down on him with so much fire in her eye that
Reely was quite overwhelmed. And when she gave him notice that she
would have no Yankee songs sung in her house, and that he must either
“quit the house or quit howling,” little Thurston, partly amused and
partly daunted, and with the wide difference between Mrs. Dockett’s
fried chicken and beat-biscuit and the mess-table “truck” before his
eyes, promised to adopt the latter course—“generally.”
Fortunately the young officers were too much accustomed to such
defiances to feel very serious about them, and they went on
ingratiating themselves with Miss Dockett—Thurston by his fun and
good-humor, and Middleton by his gentlemanly bearing and his firm
management of the negroes who hung around the camp.
The peace and comfort of the young men, however, were suddenly
much threatened by the arrival of a new official, not under their
jurisdiction, though under Colonel Krafton, who had sent him up,
specially charged with all matters relating to the negroes.
He arrived one afternoon with only a carpet-bag; took a room in the
hotel, and, as if already familiar with the ground, immediately
dispatched a note to Mrs. Dockett asking quarters in her house. Even
had the new-comer preferred his application as a request it might have
been rejected; but he demanded it quite as a right; the line which
he sent up by a negro servant being rather in the nature of an order
than a petition to Mrs. Dockett to prepare the best room in her house
for his head-quarters. It was signed “Jonadab Leech, Provost-Marshal,
commanding,” etc., etc. But the new official did not know Mrs. Dockett.
The order raised a breeze which came near blowing the two officers,
whom she had accepted and domiciled in her house, out of the quarters
she had vouchsafed them. She sailed down upon them with the letter in
her hand; and, as Thurston said, with colors flying and guns ready for
action. But, fortunately, little Thurston was equal to the emergency.
He glanced at the paper the enraged lady showed him and requested to be
allowed possession of it for a moment. When he had apparently studied
it attentively, he looked up.
“I do not know that I quite comprehend. Do I understand you to insist
on taking this man in?” He was never so innocent-looking. Mrs. Dockett
gasped:
“What!! Ta—ke in the man that wrote _that_!” She visibly expanded.
“—Because if you do, Captain Middleton and I shall have to move
our quarters. I happen to know this man personally—slightly—that
is, I once had a transaction with him as an officer which resulted
unpleasantly. His functions are entirely different from ours; he being
charged with matters relating to the freedmen, their care and support;
while ours are military and relate to the government of the county and
the maintenance of peace. (He glanced at Mrs. Dockett, who was sniffing
ominously.) While we shall uphold him in all proper exercise of his
power, and recognize his authority as an officer within the scope of
his own jurisdiction, I must say that for personal reasons his presence
would be distasteful to me, and I think I can speak for Captain
Middleton (here he looked over at his friend inquiringly), and if you
contemplate taking him in, I should prefer to remove my own quarters
back to camp.”
The little Lieutenant had gathered dignity as he proceeded, and he
delivered the close of his oration with quite the manner of an orator.
He had spoken so rapidly that Mrs. Dockett had not had a moment to get
in a word. He closed with a most impressive bow, while Middleton gazed
at him with mingled amusement and admiration.
Mrs. Dockett discovered the wind taken completely out of her sails, and
found herself actually forced into the position of making a tack and
having rather to offer an apology to the ruffled little officer.
She had never dreamed of preferring this new-comer to them, she
declared. She could not but say that they had always acted in a most
gentlemanly way, so far as she was concerned. She had, indeed, been
most agreeably surprised. She had never, for a moment, dreamed of
permitting this impudent upstart, whoever he was, to come into her
house. Let him go to some of his colored friends. Of course, if they
wished to leave her house—they must do so. Her head was rising again.
Thurston hastened to interpose.
Not at all—they were most charmed, etc. Only he didn’t know but she
might not care to have them remain—and they could not do so if this
man came.
“He’s not coming. Let him try it.” And the irate lady sailed out to
deliver her broadside to the new enemy that had borne down on her.
She had no sooner disappeared than the Lieutenant’s face fell.
“Gad! Larry, we are undone. It’s that Leech who used to live with old
Bolter, and about whom they told the story of his trying to persuade
his wife to let him get a divorce, and who shirked all through the war.
Unless we can get rid of him it’s all up. We’re ruined.”
“Freeze him out,” Middleton said, briefly. “You’ve begun well.”
“Freeze——? Freeze a snow-bank! That’s his climate. He’d freeze in
——!” The little Lieutenant named a very hot place.
Thurston had not been too soon in placing the line of discrimination
clearly between themselves and the Provost Marshal, for the arrival of
the latter in the county at once caused a change of conditions.
On receipt of Mrs. Dockett’s decisive and stinging reply Leech
immediately made application to Captain Middleton to enforce his
requisition, but, to his indignation, he was informed that they were
the only boarders, and that Mrs. Dockett managed her own domestic
affairs: which, indeed, was no more than the truth. To revenge himself,
the Provost took possession of Mr. Dockett’s office, and opened his
bureau in it, crowding the old official into a back room of the
building. Here, too, however, he was doomed to disappointment and
mortification; for, on the old clerk’s representation of the danger to
his records, and of their value, enforced by Mrs. Dockett’s persuasive
arguments, Leech was required by Middleton to surrender possession and
take up his quarters in an unoccupied building on the other side of the
road. Here he opened his office under a flaring sign bearing the words,
“FREEDMEN’S BUREAU.”
So the Provost, being baffled here, had to content himself, as he
might, at the court-house tavern, where he soon laid off a new
campaign. His principal trouble there, lay in the presence of the dark,
sallow Captain McRaffle, whose saturnine face scowled at him from the
upper end of the table, and kept him in a state of constant irritation.
The only speech the Captain ever addressed to him was to ask if he
played cards, and on his saying he “never played games,” he appeared to
take no further interest in him. The Provost, however, kept his eye on
him.
The effect of the Provost’s appearance was felt immediately. The news
of his arrival seemed to have spread in a night, and the next day the
roads were filled with negroes.
“De wud had come for ’em,” they said. They “had to go to de Cap’n to
git de papers out o’ de buro.” Only the old house-servants were left,
and even they were somewhat excited.
This time those who left their homes did not return so quickly.
Immediately after the news of the surrender came, a good many of the
negroes had gone off and established settlements to themselves. The
chief settlement in the Red Rock neighborhood was known as “The Bend,”
from the fact that it was in a section half surrounded by a curve of
the river. It was accessible from both sides of the river, and in the
past had been much associated with runaway negroes.
It had always been an unsavory spot in the county, and now, the negroes
congregating there, it had come into greater ill repute than ever. It
was dubbed with some derision, “Africa.” Here Jim Sherwood and Moses
had built cabins, and shortly many others gathered about them. This,
however, might not have amounted to much had not another matter come to
light.
The Provost was summoning the negroes and enrolling them by hundreds,
exciting them with stories of what the Government proposed to do for
them, and telling them the most pernicious lies: that they need not
work, and that the Government was going to feed them and give them all
“forty acres and a mule apiece.”
Even the older negroes were somewhat excited by these tales, and,
finally, Mammy Krenda asked Dr. Cary if it was true that the Government
was going to give them all land.
“Of course not. Who says so?” asked the Doctor.
“I heah so,” said the old woman. Even she was beginning to be afraid to
tell what she had heard.
Contemporaneously with this, an unprecedented amount of lawlessness
suddenly appeared: chicken-houses were robbed; sheep and pigs and
even cattle were stolen, without there being any authority to take
cognizance of the thefts or any power to punish.
Andy Stamper and several others of the neighbors came over to see Dr.
Cary about the matter. They had been to the court-house the day before
“to see about things,” Andy said, and “had found every nigger in the
county piled up in front of that Leech’s door.”
“They’re talkin’ about every one of ’em gittin’ forty acres and a mule,
Doctor,” said little Andy, with a twinkle in his eye; but a grim look
about his mouth.
“The biggest men down thar are that Jim Sherwood of yours; that
trick-doctor nigger of Miss’ Gray’s, Moses Swift, and a tall, black
nigger of General Legaie’s, named Nicholas Ash. They’re doin’ most of
the talkin’. Well, I ain’t got but eighty acres—jest about enough for
two of ’em,” added Andy, the grim lines deepening about his mouth;
“but I’m mighty sorry for them two as tries to git ’em—I told Hiram
so.” The twinkle had disappeared from his blue eyes, like the flash on
a ripple, and the eyes were as quiet and gray as the water after the
ripple had passed.
“Hiram, he’s the chief adviser and friend of the new man. I thought he
was hatchin’ something. He was down there inside of the office—looked
like a shot cat when I come in—said he was tryin’ to git some hands.
You watch him. He’s a goin’ over. He was at the nigger meetin’-house
th’ other night. I heard some white man was there; but I couldn’t git
at who ’twas till old Weev’ly let it out.”
Dr. Cary told of his conversation with Still a few days before; but the
little Sergeant was not convinced.
“Whenever he talks, that’s the time you know he ain’t goin’ to do it,”
he said.
Still’s attentions to Miss Delia Dove had not only quickened Andy’s
jealousy, but had sharpened his suspicion generally, and he had
followed his movements closely.
Still had quickly become assured that the two young soldiers in command
at the county seat were not the kind for him to impress. And when the
new officer came he had at once proceeded to inspect him.
Leech was expecting him; for though they had never met, Still had
already secretly placed himself in communication with Krafton, the
Provost-Marshal in the city.
The new Provost was not pleasing to look on. He was a man spare in
figure and with a slight stoop in his shoulders—consequent perhaps
on a habit he had of keeping his gaze on the ground. He had mild blue
eyes, and a long, sallow face, with a thin nose, bad teeth, and a
chin that ended almost in a point. He rarely showed temper. He posed
rather as a good-natured, easy-going fellow, cracking jokes with anyone
who would listen to him, and indulging in laughter which made up in
loudness what it lacked in merriment. When he walked, it was with a
peculiar, sinuous motion. The lines in his face gave him so sour an
expression that Steve Allen, just after he moved to the court-house to
practise law, said that Leech, from his look, must be as great a stench
in his own nostrils as in those of other people. This speech brought
Steve Leech’s undying hatred, though he veiled it well enough at the
moment and simply bided his time.
The Provost-Marshal was not a prepossessing person even to Still; but
Mrs. Gray’s manager had large schemes in his mind, and the new-comer
appeared a likely person to aid him in carrying them out. They soon
became advisers for each other.
“You can’t do nothin’ with them two young men,” the overseer told the
Provost. “I’ve done gauged ’em. I know ’em as soon as I see ’em, and I
tell you they don’t think no more of folks like you and me than of the
dirt under their feet. They’re for the aristocrats.”
He shortly gauged the Provost.
“When I know what a man wants, I know how to git at him,” he said
to his son Wash, afterward. “He wants to get up—but first he wants
money—and we must let him see it. I lent him a leetle too—just to
grease the skillet. When you’ve lent a man money you’ve got a halter on
him.”
“You’re a mighty big fool to lend your money to a man you don’t know
anything about. You’ll never get it back,” observed Wash, surlily.
“Ah! Won’t I? Trust me; I never lend money that I don’t get it back in
one shape or another—with interest too. I don’t expect to get that
back.” He dropped his voice. “That’s what I call a purchase—not a
loan. Don’t try to fry your chicken till you’ve greased the pan, my
son.”
“Something in that,” admitted the young medical student. They were
sitting on the little front porch of the overseer’s house, and Hiram
Still’s eye took in the scene about him—the wide fields, the rich,
low-grounds, the chimneys of the mansion-house peeping from the grove
of great trees on its high hill a half mile away. His face lit up.
“Ah! Wash, if you trust your old pappy, you’ll see some mighty changes
in this here county. What’d you say if you was to see yourself some day
settin’ up in that big hall yonder, with, say, a pretty young lady from
acrost the river, and that Steve and Mr. Jacquelin ploughin’ in the
furrer?”
“By G—d! I’d love it,” declared Wash, decisively, his good-humor
thoroughly restored.