THE TRAVELLERS ARE ENTERTAINED IN A FARM-HOUSE
The sun had already set some little time and the dusk was falling when
they came to a track turning off from the “main, plain road,” which
they agreed must be that described to them as leading to Dr. Cary’s.
They turned in, and after passing through a skirt of woods came out
into a field, beyond which, at a little distance, they saw a light.
They drove on; but as they mounted the hill from which the light had
shone Ruth’s heart sank, for, as well as they could tell through the
gathering dusk, there was no house there at all, or if there was, it
was hidden by the trees around it. On reaching the crest, however, they
saw the light again, which came from a small cottage at the far side of
the orchard, that looked like a little farm-house.
“Well, we’ve missed Dr. Cary’s after all,” said Major Welch.
It was too late now, however, to retrace their steps; so Major Welch,
with renewed objurgations at the stupidity of people who could not
give a straight direction, determined to let Dr. Cary’s go, and ask
accommodation there. Accordingly, they picked their way through the
orchard and drove up to the open door from which the light was shining.
At the Major’s halloo a tall form descended the low steps and came to
them. Major Welch stated their case as belated travellers.
Ruth’s heart was instantly warmed by the cordial response:
“Get right out, sir—glad to have you.”
“Ah, my dear—here are a lady and gentleman who want to spend the
night.” This to a slender figure who had come out of the house and
joined them. “My daughter, madam; my daughter, sir.”
“Good-evening,” said the girl, and Ruth, who had been wondering at
the softness of these farmer-voices, recollected herself just in time
to take the hand which she found held out to her in the darkness in
instinctive friendliness.
“I am Major Welch,” said that gentleman, not to be behind his host in
politeness. “And this is my daughter.”
“We are glad to see you,” repeated the young girl simply to Ruth in her
charming voice, as if the introduction required a little more formal
greeting.
“Ah! Major, glad to see you,” said the host, heartily. “Are you any
relation to my old friend, General Welch of Columbia, who was with
Johnson?”
“I don’t think so,” said Major Welch.
“Ah! I knew a Major Welch in the Artillery, and another in the Sixth
Georgia, I think,” hazarded the host. “Are you either of those?”
“No,” said the Major, with a laugh, “I was not. I was on the other
side—I was in the Engineer Corps under Grant.”
“Oh!” said the host, in such undisguised surprise that Ruth could feel
herself grow hot, and was sensible, even in the darkness, of a change
in her father’s attitude.
“Perhaps it may not be agree——I mean, convenient, for you to take us
in to-night?” said Major Welch, rather stiffly.
“Oh, my dear sir,” protested the other, “the war is over, isn’t it? Of
course it’s convenient. My wife is away just now, but, of course, it
is always convenient to take in wayfarers.” And he led the horse off,
while his daughter, whose quiet “Won’t you walk in?” soothed Ruth’s
ruffled spirit, conducted them into the house.
When Ruth entered she had not the slightest idea as to either the
name or appearance of their hosts. They had evidently assumed that the
travellers knew who they were when they applied to spend the night,
and it had been too dark outside for Ruth to see their faces. She only
knew that they had rich voices and cordial, simple manners, such as
even the plainest farmers appeared to have in this strange land, and
she had a mystified feeling. As she entered the door her mystification
only increased. The room into which she was conducted from the little
veranda was a sitting or living room, lower in pitch than almost any
room Ruth had ever been in, while its appointments appeared curiously
incongruous to her eyes, dazzled as they were from coming in suddenly
from the darkness. Ruth took in this rather than observed it as she
became accustomed to the light, for the first glance of the two girls
was at each other. Ruth found herself astonished at the appearance of
her hostess. Her face was so refined and her figure so slim that it
occurred to Ruth that she might be an invalid. Her dress was simple to
plainness, plainer than Ruth had ever seen the youngest girl wear, and
her breast-pin was nothing but a brass button, such as soldiers wear on
their coats; yet her manners were as composed and gracious as if she
had been a lady and in society for years.
“Why, she looks like a lady,” thought the girl, with a new feeling
of shyness coming over her, and she stole a glance around her for
something which would enable her to decide her hosts’ real position.
The appointments of the room, however, only mystified her the more. A
plain, white board bookcase filled with old books stood on one side,
with a gun resting in the corner, against it; two or three portraits
of bewigged personages in dingy frames, and as many profile portraits
in pastel hung on the walls, with a stained print or two, and a number
of photographs of soldiers in uniform among them. A mahogany table
with carved legs stood in the centre of the room, piled with books,
and the chairs were a mixture of home-made split-bottomed ones and
old-fashioned, straight-backed armchairs.
“How curious these farmers are,” thought Ruth; but she did not have a
great deal of time for reflection, for the next instant her hostess,
who had been talking to her father, was asking if she would not “take
her things off” in so pleasant a voice, that before hat and coat were
removed all constraint was gone and Ruth found herself completely at
home. Then her hostess excused herself and went out for a moment. Ruth
took advantage of her absence to whisper to her father, with genuine
enthusiasm, “Isn’t she pretty, father? What are they?”
“I don’t know, but I suspect—” Just what it was that he suspected
Ruth did not learn, for at that moment their host stepped in at the
door, and laying his old worn hat on a table, made them another little
speech, as if being under his roof required a new welcome. Major Welch
began to apologize for running in on them so unceremoniously, but the
farmer assured him that an apology was quite unnecessary, and that they
were always glad to welcome travellers who came.
“We are told to entertain strangers, you know; for thereby, they say,
some have entertained angels unawares, and though we cannot exactly say
that we have ever done this yet,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye,
“we may be beginning it now—who knows?” He made Ruth a bow with an
old-fashioned graciousness which set her to blushing.
“What a beautiful nose he has, finer even than my father’s,” she
thought.
Just then the young hostess returned, and the next moment an old negro
woman in a white kerchief stood in the door dropping courtesies as
though she were in a play. Ruth was shown up a narrow little flight of
stairs to a room so close under the sloping roof that it was only in
the middle of it that she could stand upright. Everything, however, was
spotlessly clean, and the white hangings, plain and simple as they
were, and the little knick-knacks arranged about, made it dainty. The
girl picked up one of the books idly. It was an old copy of “The Vicar
of Wakefield.” As she replaced the book, she observed that where it lay
it covered a patch.
At supper they were waited on by the old negro woman she had seen
before, whom both their host and hostess called “Mammy,” and treated
not so much as a servant, as if she were one of the family; and though
the china was old and cracked, and mostly of odd pieces, the young
hostess presided with an ease which filled Ruth with astonishment.
“Why, she could not do it better if she had lived in a city all her
life, and she is not a bit embarrassed by us,” she thought to herself.
She observed that the only two pretty and sound cups were given to her
and her father. The one she had was so dainty and unusual that she
could not help looking at it closely, and was a little taken aback, on
glancing up, to find her hostess’s eyes resting on her. The smile that
came into them, however, reassured Ruth, and she ventured to say, half
apologetically, that she was admiring the cup.
“Yes, it is pretty, isn’t it?” assented the other girl. “It has quite a
history; you must get my father to tell it to you. There used to be a
set of them.”
“It was a set which was presented to one of my ancestors by Charles
the Second,” said the father thus appealed to, much as if he had said,
“It is a set that was given me yesterday by a neighbor.” Ruth looked
at him with wide-open eyes and a little uncomfortable feeling that he
should tell her such a falsehood. His face, however, wore the same calm
look. “If you inspect closely, you can still make out the C. R. on it,
though it is almost obliterated. My ancestor was with his father at
Carisbrooke,” he added, casually, and Ruth, glancing at her father, saw
that it was true, and at the same moment took in also the fact that
they had reached the place they had been looking for; and that this
farmer, as she had supposed him to be, was none other than Dr. Cary,
and the young girl whom she had been patronizing, was Larry Middleton’s
Blair Cary, a lady like herself. How could she have made the mistake!
As she looked at her host again, the thoughtful, self-contained face,
the high-bred air, the slightly aquiline nose, the deep eyes, and the
calm mouth and the pointed beard made a perfect Vandyke portrait.
Even the unstarched, loose collar and turned-back cuffs added to the
impression. Ruth seemed to have been suddenly carried back over two
hundred years to find herself in presence of an old patrician. She
blushed with confusion over her stupidity, and devoutly hoped within
herself that no one had noticed her mistake.
After supper, Major Welch and Dr. Cary, who had renewed their old
acquaintance, fell to talking of the war, and Ruth was astonished to
find how differently their host looked at things from the way in which
all the people she had ever known regarded them. It was strange to the
girl to hear her people referred to as “the Yankees” or “the enemy”;
and the other side, which she had always heard spoken of as “rebels,”
mentioned with pride as “the Confederates” or “our men.” After a
little, she heard her father ask about the man he had come South to
see—Mr. Hiram Still. “Do you know him?” he asked their host.
“Oh, yes, sir, I know him. We all know him. He was overseer for one of
my friends and connections, who was, perhaps, the wealthiest man in
this section before the war, Mr. Gray, of Red Rock, the place where you
spent the night you spoke of. Colonel Gray was killed at Shiloh, and
his property all went to pay his debts afterward. He had some heavy
endorsements, and it turned out that he owed a great deal of money to
Still for negroes he had bought to stock a large plantation he had in
one of the other States—at least, the overseer gave this explanation,
and produced the bonds, which proved to be genuine, though at first it
was thought they must be forged. I suppose it was all right, though
some people thought not, and it seems hard to have that fellow living
in Gray’s house.”
“But he bought it, did he not?” asked Major Welch.
“Oh, yes, sir, he bought it—bought it at a forced sale,” said Dr.
Cary, slowly. “But I don’t know—to see that fellow living up there
looks very strange. There are some things so opposed to the customary
course of events that the mind refuses to accept them.”
“Still lives somewhat lower down, I believe?” said Major Welch.
“No, sir, he is not very far off,” said Dr. Cary. “He is just across
the river a few miles. Do you know him?”
“No, I do not. Not personally, that is. What sort of a man is he?”
“Well, sir, he does not stand very well,” answered Dr. Cary,
deliberately.
“Ah! Why, if I may ask?” Major Welch was stiffening a little.
“Well, he went off to the radicals,” said Dr. Cary, slowly, and Ruth
was amused at the look on her father’s face.
“But surely a man may be a republican and not be utterly bad?” said
Major Welch.
“Yes, I suppose so, elsewhere,” admitted the other, doubtfully. “In
fact, I have known one or two gentlemen who were—who thought it best
to accept everything, and begin anew—I did myself at first. But I
soon found it impossible. It does not prove efficacious down here. You
see—But, perhaps, you are one yourself, sir?” very politely.
“I am,” said Major Welch, and Ruth could see him stiffen.
“Ah!” Their host leaned a little back. “Well, I beg your pardon.
Perhaps, we will not discuss politics,” he said, with great courtesy.
“We should only disagree and—you are my guest.”
“But surely we can talk politics without becoming—ah—We have been
discussing the war?” said Major Welch.
“Ah, my dear sir, that is very different,” said Dr. Cary. “May I ask,
have you any official—ah—? Do you expect to stay among us?”
“Do you mean, am I a carpet-bagger?” asked Major Welch, with a smile.
But the other was serious.
“I would not insult you under my roof by asking you that question,”
he said, gravely. “I mean are you thinking of settling among us as a
gentleman?”
“Well, I can hardly say yet—but, perhaps, I am—thinking of it,” said
Major Welch. “At least, that is one reason why I asked you about that
man, Still.”
“Oh, well, of course, if you ask as my guest, I will take pleasure in
giving you any information you may wish.”
“Is he a gentleman?” interrupted Major Welch.
“Oh, no—certainly not that, sir. He is hand in glove with the
carpet-baggers, and the leader of the negroes about here. He and a
carpet-bagger named Leech, and a negro preacher or exhorter named
Sherwood, who, by the way, was one of my own negroes, and a negro
named Ash, who belonged to my friend General Legaie, and a sort of
trick-doctor named Moses, whom I once saved from hanging, are the worst
men in this section.”
Major Welch had listened in silence, and now he changed the subject;
for from the reference to Leech he began to think more and more that it
was only prejudice which made these men objects of such narrow dislike.
When Ruth went up to bed she was in a sort of maze. The old negro woman
whom she had seen downstairs came up to wait on her, and Miss Welch was
soon enlightened as to several things. One was, that Dr. Cary’s family
was one of the greatest in the State—perhaps, in the old woman’s
estimation, the greatest—except, of course, Mrs. Cary’s, to which
Mammy Krenda gave rather the pre-eminence as she herself had always
belonged to that family and had nursed Mrs. Cary and Miss Blair,
her daughter. According to her they had been very rich, but had lost
everything, first by the war, and then, by the wickedness of someone,
against whom the old woman was especially bitter. “He ain’ nuttin’ but
a low-down nigger-trader, nohow,” she declared, savagely. “He done
cheat ev’ybody out der home, he and dat Leech together, an’ now dey
think dey got ev’ything der own way, but dey’ll see. Dey’s dem as knows
how to deal wid ’em. An’ ef dee ever lay dee han’s pon me, dee’ll fine
out. We ain’ gwine live in blacksmiff shop always. Dem’s stirrin’ what
dee ain’ know ’bout, an’ some day dee’ll heah ’em comin for ’em to
judgment.”
“Ken I help you do anything?” she asked, presently.
“No, I thank you,” said Ruth, stiffly. “Good-night.”
“Good-night,” and she went.
“Why, she don’t like us as much as she does them!” said the girl to
herself, filled with amazement at this revolution of all her ideas.
“Well, Larry’s right. Miss Cary is charming,” she reflected.
As she dropped off to sleep she could hear the hum of voices below,
where Dr. Cary and her father were keeping up their discussion of the
war. And as she was still trying to make out what they were saying, the
sun came streaming into her room through a broken shutter and woke her
up.