THE TRICK-DOCTOR
Ruth Welch on awaking, still, perhaps, had some little feeling about
what she understood to be her hosts’ attitude on the question of
Northerners, but when on coming downstairs she was greeted on the
veranda by her young hostess, who presented her with a handful of dewy
roses, and looked as sweet as any one of them, or all of them put
together, her resentment vanished, and, as she expressed it to her
mother afterward, she “went over to the enemy bag and baggage.” As she
looked out through the orchard and across over the fields, glowing
after the last night’s rain, there came to Ruth for the first time that
tender feeling which comes to dwellers in the country, almost like a
sweet odor, and compensates them for so much besides, and which has
made so many a poet, whether he has written or not. Her hostess took
her around the yard to show her her rose-bushes, particularly one which
she said had come from one which had always been her mother’s favorite
at their old home.
“We have not always lived here?” Her voice had a little interrogation
in it as she looked at Ruth, much as if she had said, “You know?” And
just as if she had said it, Ruth answered, softly, “Yes, I know.”
“It was almost entirely destroyed once during the war when a regiment
of cavalry camped in the yard,” continued the young hostess, “and we
thought it gone; but to our delight a little sprig put up next spring,
and some day I hope this may be almost as good as the old one.” She
sighed, and her eyes rested on the horizon far away.
Ruth saw that the roses she had given her had come from that bush, and
she would have liked to stretch out her arms and take her into a bond
of hearty friendship.
Just then Major Welch appeared, and a moment later, breakfast was
announced. When they went into the little plain dining-room there were
other roses in an old blue bowl on the table, and Ruth saw that they
not only made the table sweet, but were arranged deftly to hide the
cracks and chipped places in the bowl. She was wondering where Dr. Cary
could be, when his daughter apologized for his absence, explaining
that he had been called up in the night to go and see a sick woman,
and then, in his name, invited them to remain as their guests as long
as might be convenient to them. They “might find it pleasanter than
to stay at Mr. Still’s?” This hospitality the travellers could not
accept, but Ruth appreciated it now, and she would have appreciated it
yet more could she have known that her young hostess, sitting before
her so dainty and fresh, had cooked their breakfast that morning. When
they left after breakfast, Miss Cary came out to their vehicle, giving
them full directions as to their road. Had her father been at home, she
said, he would have taken pleasure in conducting them himself as far as
the river. Uncle Tarquin would tell them about the ford.
The horse was held by an old colored man, of a dark mahogany hue,
with bushy gray hair, and short gray whiskers. On the approach of the
visitors he took off his hat and greeted them with an air as dignified
as Dr. Cary’s could have been. As he took leave of them, he might have
been a host bidding his guests good-by, and he seconded his mistress’s
invitation to them to come again.
When they drove off, Ruth somehow felt as if she were parting from
an old friend. Her little hostess’s patched table-cover and darned
dress, and cracked china hidden by the roses, all seemed to come before
her, and Ruth glanced at her father with something very like tears in
her eyes. They had been in her heart all the morning. Major Welch,
however, did not observe it. The fresh, balmy air filled his lungs
like a draught of new life, and he felt an interest in the country
about him, and a right to criticise it. It had been rich enough before
the war, he said, and might be made so now if the people would but give
up their prejudices and go to work. He added many other criticisms,
abstractly wise and sensible enough. Ruth listened in silence.
As the travellers drove along they passed a small house, just off
the road, hardly more than a double cabin, but it was set back amid
fruit-trees, sheltered by one great oak, and there was an air of
quietude and peace about it which went to Ruth’s soul. A lady in
black, with a white cap on her gray hair, and a white kerchief on her
shoulders, was sitting out on the little veranda, knitting, and Ruth
was sure that as they drove by she bowed to them.
The sense of peace was still on the girl when they came on a country
store, at a fork in the road a mile below. There was a well, off to
one side, and a small group of negroes stood around it, two or three
of them with muskets in their hands, and one with a hare hung at his
waist. Another, who stood with his back to the road and had a twisted
stick in his hand, and an old army haversack over his shoulder, was,
at the moment the wagon drew up, talking loudly and with vehement
gesticulation; and, as Major Welch stopped to ask a question, Ruth
caught the end of what this man was saying:
“I’m jest as good as any white man, and I’m goin’ to show ’em so. I’m
goin’ to marry a white ’ooman and meck white folks wait on me. When I
puts my mark agin a man he’s gone, whether he’s a man or a ’ooman, and
I’se done set it now in a gum-tree.”
His hearers were manifestly much impressed by him. An exclamation of
approval went round among them.
The little wagon stopping attracted attention, and the speaker turned,
and then, quickly, as if to make amends for his loud speech, pulled off
his hat and came toward the vehicle with a curious, cringing motion.
“My master; my mistis,” he said, bowing lower with each step until his
knee almost touched the ground. He was a somewhat strongly built, dark
mulatto, perhaps a little past middle age and of medium height, and, as
he came up to the vehicle, Ruth thought she had never seen so grotesque
a figure, and she took in by an instinct that this was the trick-doctor
of whom Dr. Cary had spoken. His chin stuck so far forward that the
lower teeth were much outside of the upper, or, at least, the lower jaw
was; for the teeth looked as though they had been ground down, and his
gums, as he grinned, showed as blue on the edges as if he had painted
them. His nose was so short and the upper part of his face receded so
much that the nostrils were unusually wide, and gave an appearance of
a black circle in his yellow countenance. His forehead was so low that
he had evidently shaved a band across it, and the band ran around over
the top of his flat head, leaving a tuft of coarse hair right in the
middle, and on either side of it were certain lines which looked as if
they had been tattooed. Immediately under these were a pair of little
furtive eyes which looked in quite different directions, and yet moved
so quickly at times that it almost seemed as if they were both focussed
on the same object. Large brass earrings were in his ears, and about
his throat was a necklace of blue and white beads.
Major Welch, having asked his question, drove on, the mulatto bowing
low at each step as he backed away with that curious motion toward
his companions by the well; and Ruth, who had been sitting very close
to her father, fascinated by the negro’s gaze and strange appearance,
could hardly wait to get out of hearing before she whispered: “Oh,
father, did you ever see such a repulsive-looking creature in all your
life?”
The Major admitted that he was an ugly fellow, and then, as a loud
guffaw came to them from the rear, added, with that reasonable sense
of justice which men possess and are pleased to call wisdom, that he
seemed to be very civil and was, no doubt, a harmless good-natured
creature.
“I don’t know,” said Ruth, doubtfully. “I only hope I shall never set
eyes on him again. I should die if I were to meet him alone.”
“Oh, nonsense!” said her father, reassuringly. “They are the most
good-natured, civil poor creatures in the world. I used to see them
during the war.”
The Major was still contesting Dr. Cary’s prejudices.