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my latin lesson and read to line by line or or as the book might be and had her render it into english almost as t as i read indeed i have even seen read to her as she sat in the old rocking chair after one of her with her eyes and her head in and and she would turn it into not only proper english but english with a glow and color and that gave the very life of the this was an exercise we boys all liked and often engaged in frank and joe and and i and even old for as she used to admit herself she worrying us to read to her i believe i read all of scott s novels to her of course this translation helped us as well as gratified her i do not remember that she was ever too to help us in this way except when she was actually in bed she was very fond of us boys and was always ready to take our side and to further our plans in any way whatever we would get her to steal off with us and our latin for us by the fire this of course made us rather fond of her she was so much inclined to take our part and to help us that i remember it used to be said of her as my cousin a sort of reproach cousin always sides with the boys she used to say it was because she knew how worthless women were she would say this sort of thing herself but she was very about women and never would allow any one else to say anything about them she had an old maid s temper i remember that she took up short once for talking about old maids she said that for her part she did not mind it the least bit but she would not allow him to speak so of a large class of her sex which contained some of the best women in the world that many of them performed work and made sacrifices that the rest of the world knew nothing about she said the true word for them was the old saxon term that it proved that they performed the work of the house and that it was a term of honor of which she was proud she said that christ had himself to be born of a virgin and that every woman had this honor to sustain of course such lectures as that made us call her an old maid all the more still i don t think that being mischievous or her made any difference with her frank used to worry her more than any one else even than joe and i am sure she liked him best of all that may perhaps have been because he was the best look my cousin ing of us she said once that he reminded her of some one she used to know a long time before when she was young that must have been a long time before indeed he used to the life out of her she was would anything on earth anyone told her because although she had plenty of humor she herself never would from the absolute truth a moment even in jest i do not think she would have told an to save life well of course we used to play on her to her frank would tell her the most and impossible lies such as that he thought he saw a mouse yesterday on the back of the sofa she was lying on this would make her up like a ball or that he believed he heard he was not sure that mr the man who had her old home had cut down all the old trees in the yard and pulled down the house because he wanted the bricks to make brick this would worry her excessively she loved every brick in the old house and often said she would rather live in the kitchen there than in a palace anywhere else and she would get into such a state of depression that frank would finally have to tell her that he was just her my cousin she used to make him do a good deal of waiting on her in return and he was the one she used to get to dress old fashion s back when it was raw and to put drops in her eyes he got quite expert at it she said it was a penalty for his worrying her so she was the great of the connection this is in itself no mean praise for it was the fashion for every musical gift among the girls to be cultivated and every girl played or sang more or less some of them very well but cousin was not only this she had a way of playing that used to make the old piano sound different from itself and her voice was almost the sweetest i ever heard except one or two on the stage it was particularly sweet in the evenings when she sat down at the piano and played she would not always do it she either felt not in the mood or not sympathetic or some such thing none of the others were that way the rest could play just as well in the glare of day as in the twilight and before one person as another it was we all knew just one of cousin s ol i maid when she sat down at the piano and played her was all forgotten her first notes used to be recognized through the house and people used to stop what they were mj cousin doing and come in even the children would leave off playing and come straggling in as they crossed the floor some of the other to play a | 46 |
no he would never have run away i mean and i suddenly ran up the a few steps before them and out my big pistol pointed it at them and told them that if they came one step higher i would certainly pull the i could not say i would shoot for it was not loaded well do you know they stopped they stopped dead still i declare i was so afraid the old pistol would go off though of course i knew it was not loaded that i was just but as soon as they stopped i began to attack i remembered my old grandmother and her and like general i followed up my advantage i descended the steps my pistol with both hands and them with all my might i was so afraid they might ask if it was loaded but they really thought i would shoot them you know men have not liked to be slain by a woman since the time of and they actually ran down the steps with me after them and i got them all out of the house then i locked the door and barred it and ran up stairs and had such a cry over that was like an old maid afterwards they were going to burn the house but i got hold of their colonel who was not my cousin there at first and made him really ashamed of for i told him we were nothing but a lot of poor women and a sick boy he said he thought i was right well defended as i had held a company at bay he promised that if i would give him some music he would not go up so i paid that for my and a bitter it was too i can tell you singing for a yankee but i gave him a dose songs i promise you he asked me to sing the star banner but i told him i would not do it if he burnt the house down with me in it though it was inspired by my cousin then he asked me to sing home sweet home and i did that and he actually had tears in his eyes the he had very fine eyes too i think i did sing it well though i cried a httle myself thinking of the old house being so nearly burnt there was a young doctor there a surgeon a really nice looking fellow for a yankee i made him feel ashamed of himself i tell you i told him i had no doubt he had a good mother and sister up at home and to think of his coming and on poor women and they really placed a guard over the house for me while they were there my cousin this she actually did with her old empty horse pistol she cleared the house of the mob and then vowed that if they burned the house she would burn up in it and finally saved it by singing home sweet home for the colonel she could not have done much better even if she had not been an old maid i did not see much of her after i grew up i moved away from the old county most others did the same it had been by the war and got poorer and poorer with an old maid s usual and inability to herself to the order of things cousin remained behind she refused to come away said i believe she had to look after the old place and or some such nonsense i think she had some idea that the church would go down or that the poor people around would miss her or something equally anyhow she stayed behind and lived for quite awhile the last of her connection in the county of course all did the best they could for her and had she gone to live around with her relatives as they wished her to do they would have borne with her and supported her but she said no that a single woman ought never to live in any house but her father s or her own and we could not do any my cousin thing with her she was so proud she would not take money as a gift from anyone not even from her nearest relatives her health got rather poor not considering the way she divided her time between herself and after sick people in all sorts of weather with the of her kind she finally took it into her head that she must consult a doctor in new york of course no one but an old maid would have done this the home s were good enough for else nothing would do however but she must go to new york so against the advice of she wrote to a cousin who was living there to meet her and with her old and cap and bags and bundles and stick and umbrella she started the lady met her that is went to meet her but failed to find her at the station and supposing that she had not come or had taken some other railroad which she was likely to do returned home to find her in bed with her things piled up on the floor some gentleman had come across her in washington holding the right train while she insisted on taking the wrong route and had taken compassion on her and not only escorted her to new york but had taken her and all her par my cousin and brought her to her destination where she had at once retired he was a most charming man my dear she said to her cousin who told me of it afterward in her and to think of it i don t believe i had looked in a glass all day and when i got here my cap | 46 |
had somehow got twisted around and was perched right over my left ear making me look a perfect fright he told me his name but i have forgotten it of course but he was such a gentleman and to think of his being a yankee i told him i hated all and he just laughed and did not mind my stick nor old umbrella nor bundles a bit you d have thought my old cap was a bonnet i will not believe he was a yankee well she went to see the doctor the most celebrated in new york at the of course for she was too poor to go to his office one consultation would have taken every cent she had her cousin went with her and told me of it she said that when she came downstairs to go she never saw such a sight on her head she had her blue cap and her green shade and her veil and her shawl and she had the old umbrella and long stick which she had brought from the country and a large pillow my cousin under her arm because she knew she was going to faint so they started out but it was a slow procession the noise and bustle of the street dazed her her cousin fancied and every now and then she would clutch her companion and declare she must go back or she should faint at every street crossing she insisted upon having a policeman to help her over or in of that she would stop some man and ask him to escort her across which of course he would do thinking her crazy finally they reached the where there were already a large of and many more came in afterwards here she shortly established an acquaintance with several strangers she had to wait an hour or more for her turn and then insisted that several who had come in after her should go in before her because she said the poor things looked so tired this would have gone on her cousin said if she had not finally dragged her into the doctor s room there the first thing that she did was to insist that she must lie down she was so faint and her pillow was brought into the doctor her and waited on her her friend started to tell him about her but said i prefer to have her tell me herself she presently my cousin began to tell the doctor sitting quietly by listening and seeming to be much interested he gave her some and told her to come again next day and when she went he sent for her ahead of her turn and after that made her come to his office at his private house instead of to the as at first he turned out to be the surgeon who had been at her house with the during the war he was very kind to her i suppose he had never seen anyone like her she used to go every day and soon with her friend s escort finding no difficulty in getting about indeed she came to be known on the streets she passed through and on the cars she travelled by and people guided her several times as she was taking the wrong car men stopped her and said to her madam yours is the red car she said sure enough it was but she never could divine how they knew she addressed the as my dear sir and made them help her not only off but quite to the when she thanked them and said good by as if she had been at home she said she did this on principle for it was such a good thing to teach them to help a feeble woman next time they would expect to do it and after a while it would become a habit she j cousin said no one knew what terror women had of being run over and trampled on she was as i have said an awful coward she used to stand still on the edge of the street and look up and down both ways ever so long then go out in the street and stand still look both ways and then run back or as like as not start on and turn and run back after she was more than half way across and so get into real danger one day as she was passing along a driver had in his cart an old bag of bones of a horse which he was beating to make him pull up the hill and cousin with an old maid s pushed out into the street and caught hold of him and made him stop which of course collected a crowd and just as she was coming back a little cart came rattling along and though she was in no earthly danger she ran so to get out of the way of the horse that she tripped and fell down in the street and hurt herself so much for cowardice the doctor finally told her that she had nothing the matter with her except something with her nerves and i her and that she wanted company you see she was a good deal alone he said it was the first law of health ever laid down that it was not good for man to be alone that loneliness is a r my cousin disease he said she wanted occupation some sort of work to interest her and make her forget her and he suggested missionary work of some kind this was one of the worst things he could have told her for there was no missionary work to be had where she lived besides she could not have done missionary work she had never done anything in her life she was always wasting her time about the country on her old horse | 46 |
seeing sick old or poor people in the pines no matter how bad the weather was nor how deep the roads she would go around to see some old or uncle in their out of the way or somebody s sick child i have met her on old fashion in the rain toiling along in roads that were knee deep to get the doctor to come to see some sick person or to get a dose of from the how could she have done any missionary work i believe she repaid the doctor for his care of her by sending him a charity patient to look after s eldest girl who was or something cousin had a fancy that she was musical i never knew how it was arranged i think the doctor sent the money down to have the child brought on to new york my cousin for him to see i suppose cousin turned beggar and asked him i know she told him the child was the daughter of a friend of hers a curious sort of friend was a drunken creature who had done everything he could to pain her and she took a great deal of trouble to get her to the train old fashion to haul her which was a great deal more than herself and the doctor treated her in new york for three months without any charge till i believe the child got better old maids do not mind giving people trouble she hung on at the old place as long as she could but it had to be sold and finally she had to leave it though i believe even after it was sold she tried boarding for a while with the former tenant who had bought it he treated her so badly that finally she had to leave and around i believe the real cause was she caught him with old fashion after that i do not know exactly what she did i heard that though the parish was vacant she had a sunday school at the old church and so kept the church open and that she used to play the old organ and teach the poor children the but as they grew up they my cousin all joined another church they had a new organ there i do not know just how she got on i was surprised to hear finally that she was dead had been dead since christmas it had never occurred to me that she would die she had been dying so long that i had almost come to regard her as immortal and as a necessary part of the old county and its associations i fell in some time afterwards with a young doctor from the old county who i found had attended her and i made some inquiries about her he told me that she died christmas night she came to his house on her old mare in the rain and snow the night before to get him to go to see some friend of hers who was sick he said she had more sick friends than anyone he ever knew he told her that he was sick himself and could not go but she was so that he promised to go next morning she was always very worrying he said she was wet and shivering then she never had any idea about really protecting herself and that she appeared to have a wretched cold had been riding all day seeing about a christmas tree for the poor children he urged her to stop and spend the night but she insisted that she must go on though it was nearly dark and hard and the roads would have y cousin a cat she was always self willed next day he went to see the sick woman and when he arrived he found her in one bed and cousin in another in the same room when he had examined the patient he turned and asked cousin what was the matter with her oh just a httle cold a little trouble in the chest as hook said she replied but i know how to doctor myself something about her voice struck him he went over to her and looked at her and found her suffering from acute he at once set to work on her he took the other patient up in his arms and carried her into another room where he told her that cousin was a desperately ill woman she was actually dying then sir he said to me and she died that night when she arrived at the place the night before which was not until after nine o clock she had gone to the stable herself to put up her old mare or rather to see that she was fed she always did so when she got into the house she was wet and chilled through and she had to go to bed she must have had on wet clothes he said i asked him if she knew she was going to die he said he did not think she did that he did not tell her and she talked about my cousin ing except her christmas tree and the people she wanted to see he heard her praying in the night and by the way he said she mentioned you she shortly became rather and wandered a good deal talking of things that must have happened when she was young spoke of going to see her mother somewhere the last thing she ever said was something about fashion which he said showed how is vanity in the female mind the doctor knows something of human nature he concluded what he had to say with she was in some respects a very remarkable woman if she had not been an old maid i do not suppose that she ever drew a well breath in her life not that | 46 |
i think old maids cannot be very acceptable women he they are sometimes very useful the doctor was a rather enlightened man some of her relatives got there in time for the funeral and a good many of the poor people came and she was carried in a little old spring wagon drawn by fashion through the snow to the old home place where very kindly let them dig the grave and was buried there in the old in the garden in a vacant space just beside her mother with the children around her i really miss her a my cousin great deal the other boys say they do the same i suppose it is the trouble she used to give us the old set are all doing well is a professor he says the word gave him a twist to old is in paris he had a picture in the last year an autumn landscape called le c t du i the translation of that is the his is said to be nature itself to think of old being a great artist little is now a big girl and is doing finely at school i have told her she must not be an old maid joe is a preacher with a church in the of a large city i was there not long ago he had a service the music carried me back to old times he preached on the text i was sick and ye visited me it was such a fine sermon and he had such a large congregation that i asked why he did not go to a finer church he said he was carrying soup to mrs by the way his was a splendid she introduced herself to me it was s daughter she is married and can walk as well as i can she had a little girl with her that i think she called i do not think that was mrs s name my cousin frank is now a doctor or rather a surgeon in the same city with joe and very distinguished the other day he performed a great operation saving a woman s life which was in all the papers he said to an that he became a surgeon from dressing a sore on an old mare s back i wonder what he was talking about he is about to start a woman s hospital for poor women cousin would have been glad of that she was always proud of frank she would as likely as not have quoted that verse from s song about the echoes she sleeps now under the at s i have often thought of what that doctor said about her that she would have been a very remarkable woman if she had not been an old maid i mean a the burial of the guns the burial of the guns lee surrendered the remnant of his army at april and yet a couple of days later the old colonel s battery lay right in the mountain pass where it had halted three days before two weeks previously it had been detailed with a light division sent to meet and a force which it was understood was coming in by way of the valley to strike lee in the rear of his long line from to it had done its work the mountain pass had been seized and held and the force had not gotten by that road within the blue which guarded on that side the heart of virginia this pass which was the key to the main line of passage over the mountains had been assigned by the commander of the division to the old colonel and his old battery and they had held it the position taken by the battery had been chosen with a soldier s eye a better place could not have been selected to the burial of the guns hold the pass it was its highest point just where the road crawled over the shoulder of the mountain along the cliff a hundred feet sheer above the deep river where its waters had cut their way in ages past and now lay deep and silent as if resting after their toil before they began to boil over the great which filled the bed a hundred or more yards below the little at the top guarded the de road on either side for nearly a mile and the mountain on the other side of the was the centre of a of rocky heavily spurs so inaccessible that no feet but those of wild animals or of the hunter had ever climbed it on the side of the river on which the road lay the only path out over the mountain except the road itself was a s track at times to a known only to the mountain folk which a at the could hold against an army the position well defended was and it was well defended this the general of the division knew when he detailed the old colonel and gave him his order to hold the pass until relieved and not let his guns fall into the hands of the enemy he knew both the colonel and his battery the the burial of the guns battery was one of the oldest in the army it had been in the service since april and its commander had come to be known as the wheel horse of his division he was perhaps the oldest officer of his rank in his branch of the service although he had bitterly opposed and was many years past the age of service when the war came on yet as soon as the president called on the state for her of troops to south he had raised and an company and offered it not to the president of the united states but to the governor of virginia it is just at this point that he | 46 |
suddenly up to me as a soldier the relation he never wholly lost to me afterward though i knew him for many many years of peace his gray coat with the red facing and the bars on the collar his military cap his gray flannel shirt it was the first time i ever saw him wear anything but linen his high boots his horse with a black high saddle with and breast instead of the light english hunting saddle to which i had been accustomed all come before me now as if it were but the other day i remember but little beyond it yet i remember as if it were yesterday his leaving home and the scenes the burial of the guns which immediately preceded it the excitement created by the news of the president s call for troops the unanimous judgment that it meant war the immediate determination of the old colonel who had hitherto opposed that it must be met the suppressed agitation on the plantation attendant upon the tender of his services and the governor s acceptance of them the prompt and continuous work incident to the of the men the bustle of preparation and all the scenes of that time come before me now it turned the calm current of the life of an old and placid country neighborhood far from any city or centre and stirred it into a boiling torrent strong enough or fierce enough to cut its way and join the general torrent which was bearing down and sweeping everything before it it seemed but a minute before the quiet old plantation in which the harvest the corn and the christmas holidays alone marked the passage of the quiet seasons and where a strange carriage or a single coming down the big road was an event in life was turned into a o war supplies and the neighborhood became a parade ground the old colonel not a colonel yet nor even a captain except by was on his horse by daybreak and off on his rounds the burial of the guns through the and the pines his company the office in the yard heretofore one in name only became one now in reality and a table was set out piled with papers pens ink books of and at which men were accepted and soldiers seemed to spring from the ground as they did from the of the s teeth in the days of men came up the high road or down the paths across the fields sometimes singly but oftener in little parties of two or three and asking for the captain entered the office as private citizens and came out soldiers for the war there was nothing heard of on the plantation except fighting white and black all were at work and all were eager the servants for the honor of going with their master the women to the house to assist in the work of preparation cutting out and making under clothes knitting picking preparing and sewing on for many of the men who had were of the poorest class far too poor to furnish anything themselves and their had to be contributed mainly by neighbors the work was carried on at night as well as by day for the occasion was urgent meantime the men were the burial of the guns being by the captain and his who had been officers of old we were carried to see the at the cross roads and a brave sight it seemed to us the lines marching and in the field with the horses galloping as they wheeled amid clouds of dust at the hoarse commands of the excited officers and the roadside lined with spectators of every age and condition i recall the arrival of the messenger one night with the order to the captain to report with his company at camp lee immediately the hush in the parlor that attended its reading then the forced beginning of the conversation afterwards in a somewhat strained and unnatural key and the captain s quick and decisive of his plans within the hour a dozen messengers were on their way in various directions to the members of the command of the summons and to deliver the order for their attendance at a given point next day it seemed that a sudden and great change had come it was the actual appearance of what had hitherto only been war the next morning the captain in full uniform took leave of the assembled plantation with a few solemn words all he left behind to god and galloped the burial of the guns away up the big road to join and lead his battery to the war and to be gone just four years within a month he was on the with guarding virginia on the east against the first attack his camp was first at and then on island the honor having been assigned his battery of guarding the oldest cradle of the race on this continent it was at little that his guns were first trained on the enemy and that the battery first saw what they had to do and from this time until the middle of april they were in service and no battery saw more service or suffered more in it its story was a part of the story of the southern army in virginia the captain was a rigid and his company had more work to do than most new companies a pious of the old type not uncommon to virginia he looked after the spiritual as well as the physical welfare of his men and his or he read prayers at the head of his company every morning during the war at first he was not popular with the men he made the duties of camp life so to them it was nothing but and praying all the time they said but he had not commanded | 46 |
very long before the burial of the guns they came to know the stuff that was in him he had not been in service a year before he had had four horses shot under him and when later on he was offered the command of a the old company to be one of his and still remained under his command before the first year was out the battery had through its own elements and the discipline of the captain become a force and a distinct in the army of northern virginia young farmer knew of its and expressed preference for it of many of rapidly growing or grown reputation owing to its high stand the old and clumsy guns with which it had started out were taken from it and in their place was presented a battery of four fine brass twelve pound of the and most approved kind and two three inch all captured the men were as pleased with them as children with new toys the care and attention needed to keep them in prime order broke the monotony of camp life they soon had abundant opportunities to test their power they worked admirably carried far and were accurate in their aim the men from admiration of their guns grew to have first a pride in and then an affection for them and gave them j the burial of the guns as they did their comrades the four being the and the two being the eagle because of its scream and force and the cat because when it became hot from rapid firing it jumped they said a cat from many a hill top in virginia and the spoke their hoarse message of battle and death the eagle screamed her terrible note and the cat jumped as she her deadly shot from her hot throat in the valley of virginia on the of and on the slopes of in the woods of on the heights of at and in the wilderness and again on the and on the lines before the old guns through nearly four years roared from fiery throats their deadly messages the history of the battery was bound up with the history of lee s army a sprang up among the of the different guns and their several records were kept the number of each gun was in was carefully counted every got in battle was and the men around their camp fires at their scanty or on the march of them among themselves the burial of the guns and them as witnesses new coming in to fill the made by the killed and readily fell in with the common mood and caught the spirit like a it was not an uncommon thing for a wheel to be smashed in by a shell but if it happened to one gun oftener than to another there was envy two of the seemed to be especially favored in this line while the cat was so as to become the subject of some derision the men stood by the guns till they were knocked to pieces and when the fortune of the day went against them had with their own hands oftener than once saved them after most of their horses were killed this had happened in turn to every gun the men at times working like in mud up to their and under a fire to get their guns out many a man had been killed at trail or wheel when the day was against them but not a gun had ever been lost at last the evil day arrived at a sudden and impetuous charge for a while swept everything before it and carried the where the old battery was posted but all the guns were got out by the toiling and rapidly dropping men except the cat which was captured with its entire jt the burial of the guns ment working at it until they were surrounded and knocked from the piece by most of the men who were not killed were before the day was over with many guns but the cat was lost she remained in the enemy s hands and probably was being turned against her old comrades and lovers the company was the death of comrades was too al and common a thing to the men beyond what such necessarily did but to lose a gun it was like losing the old colonel it was worse a gun was as a and the cat was equal to a major general the other guns seemed lost without her the eagle especially which generally went next to her appeared to the men to have a lonely and subdued air the battery was no longer the same it seemed broken and to a mere section it was worse than cold harbor where over half the men were killed or wounded the old captain now colonel of the appreciated the loss and apprehended its effect on the men as much as they themselves did and application was made for a gun to take the place of the lost piece but there was none to be had as the men said they had known all along it was added perhaps by a depart burial of the guns ment clerk that if they wanted a gun to take the place of the one they had lost they had better capture it by we will they said adding intended for the department clerk in his proof not to be printed in this record and they did for some time afterwards in every engagement into which they got there used to be speculation among them as to whether the cat were not there on the other side some of the men swearing they could tell her report and even going to the rash length of offering on her presence by one of those curious as strange as anything in fiction a new general | 46 |
had in come down across the to take and the old battery had found a hill top in the line in which lee s army lay stretched across the wilderness country to stop him the day though early in may was a hot one and the old battery like most others had suffered fearfully two of the guns had had wheels cut down by shells and the men had been badly cut up but the fortune of the day had been with lee and a little before nightfall after a terrible fight there was a rapid advance lee s sweeping everything before it and the after opening the way ji the burial of the guns for the charge pushing along with it now as some ground was gained and using with deadly effect now driving ahead again so rapidly that it was mixed up with the when the long line of was carried with a rush and a line of guns were caught still hot from their rapid work as the old battery with horses and smoke men swung up the crest and on the captured a cheer went up which was heard even above the long general yell of the advancing line and for a moment half the men in the battery crowded together around some object on the edge of the yelling like the next instant they divided and there was the cat smoke and blood stained and still hot from her last fire being dragged from her muddy ditch by as many men as could get hold of trail rope or wheel and rushed into her old place beside the eagle in time to be double with to the and to pour it from among her old comrades into her now retiring former masters still she had a new carriage and her record was lost while those of the other guns had been faithfully kept by the men this made a difference in her position for which even the bullets i i i the burial of the guns in her wheels did not wholly even the of her felt that it was only a few days later however that abundant was made the new general did not retire across the after his first defeat and a new battle had to be fought a battle if anything more furious more terrible than the first when the dead filled the and covered the fields he simply marched by the left flank and lee marching by the right flank to head him flung himself upon him again at court house that day the cat standing in her place behind the new and temporary thrown up when the battery was posted had the of her wheels which showed above the top of the bank entirely cut away by so that when she jumped in the her wheels smashed and let her down this covered all old scores the other guns had been cut down by shells or solid shot but never before had one been down by balls from this time all through the campaign the cat held her own beside her brazen and bloody sisters and in the cold before that winter when the new general starvation had joined the one already there she made her the burial of the guns bloody mark as often as any gun on the long lines thus the old battery had come to be known as its old commander now colonel of a had come to be known by those in yet higher command and when in the opening spring of it became apparent to the leaders of both armies that the long line could not longer be held if a force should enter behind it and sweeping the one partially portion of virginia cut the in the and a man was wanted to command the in the expedition sent to meet this force it was not remarkable that the old colonel and his should be selected for the work the force sent out was but small for the long line was worn to a thin one in those days and great changes were taking place the consequences of which were known only to the in a few days the commander of the expedition found that he must divide his small force for a time at least to accomplish his purpose and sending the old colonel with one battery of to guard one pass must push on over the mountain by another way to meet the expected force if possible and it l it crossed the farther range thus the old battery on an april evening of found it burial of the guns self toiling alone up the steep mountain road which leads above the river to the gap which formed the chief pass in that part of the blue ridge both men and horses looked in the dim and light of the gray april day rather like shadows of the beings they represented than the actual beings themselves and anyone seeing them as they toiled painfully up the thin horses in the mud and the men often up to their knees at the sinking wheels now stopping to rest and always moving so slowly that they seemed scarcely to advance at all might have thought them the ghosts of some old battery lost from some long gone and forgotten war on that deep and desolate mountain road often when they stopped the blowing of the horses and the murmuring of the river in its bed below were the only sounds heard and the tired voices of the men when they spoke among themselves seemed hardly more articulate sounds than they then the voice of the mounted figure on the horse half hidden in the mist would cut in clear and inspiring in a tone of encouragement more than of command and everything would wake up the drivers would shout and crack their the horses would bend themselves on the | 46 |
and in the mud the men the burial of the guns would spring once more to the mud wheels and the slow ascent would begin again the orders to the colonel as has been said were brief to hold the pass until he received further instructions and not to lose his guns to be ordered with him was to obey the last streak of twilight brought them to the top of the pass his soldier s instinct and a brief made earlier in the day told him that this was his place and before daybreak next morning the point was as well fortified as a night s work by weary and men could make it a prettier spot could not have been found for the purpose a small something over an acre in extent where a s hut had once stood lay right at the top of the pass it was a little higher on either side than in the middle where a small brook along which the s track was yet visible came down from the wooded mountain above thus giving a natural crest to aid the on either side with open space for the guns while the edge of the wood coming down from the mountain afforded shelter for the camp as the battery was it had to rely on itself for everything a condition which most soldiers by this time were accustomed to the burial of the guns a dozen or so of were in the camp and with these were armed and posted the pass had been seized none too soon a brought in the information before nightfall that the force had crossed the farther range before that sent to meet it could get there and taking the nearest road had avoided the main body opposing it and been met only by a rapidly moving nothing more than a party and now were advancing rapidly on the road on which they were posted evidently meaning to seize the pass and cross the mountain at this point the day was sunday a beautiful spring sunday but it was no sabbath for the old battery all day the men worked making and their re doubt to guard the pass and by the next morning with the old battery at the top it was they were just in time before noon their brought in word that the enemy were ascending the mountain and the sun had hardly turned when the advance guard rode up came within range of the and were fired on it was apparent that they supposed the force there only a small one for they retired and soon came up again in some numbers and a sharp little ensued hot the burial of the guns enough to make them more prudent afterwards though the retired up the mountain this gave them encouragement and probably them for they now advanced boldly they saw the on the crest as they came on and a section or two flung a few shells up at it which either fell short or passed over without doing material damage none of the guns was allowed to respond as the distance was too great with the the battery had and indifferent as it was it was too precious to be wasted in a at an ineffectual range doubtless deceived by this the enemy came on in force being obliged by the character of the ground to keep almost entirely to the road which really made them advance in column the battery waited under orders of the colonel the guns standing in line were double with and loaded to the were trained down to sweep the road at from four to five hundred yards distance and when the column reached this point the six guns aimed by old and skilful at a given word swept road and mountain side with a storm of leaden hail it was a fire no mortal man could stand up against and the practised their pieces full again and before the smoke had cleared or i the burial of the guns the had died away among the mountains had fired the guns again and yet again the road was cleared of living things when the draught setting do vn the river drew the smoke away but it w as no to the other force for no army that was ever could stand against that battery in that pass again and again the attempt was made to get a body of men up under cover of the woods and rocks on the mountain side while the guns below their better from longer range but it was useless although one of the and several men were killed in the and a number more were wounded though not severely the old battery commanded the mountain side and its skilful swept it at every point the foot of man could scale the sun went down flinging his last flame on a victorious battery still crowning the mountain pass the dead were buried by night in a corner of the little borne to their last on the old gun carriages which they had stood by so often which the men said would sort of ease their minds the next day the fight was renewed and with the same result the old battery in its position was only one fear the burial of the guns now faced them their was getting as low as their another such day or half day would it a was sent back down the mountain to try to get more or if not to get tidings the next day it was supposed the fight would be renewed and the men waited alert eager their spirits high their appetite for victory by success the men were at their breakfast or what went for breakfast scanty at all times now doubly so hardly deserving the title of a meal so poor and small were the portions of cooked in their which | 46 |
went for their when the sound of below broke on the quiet air they were on their feet in an instant and at the guns crowding upon the to look or to listen for the road as far as could be seen down the mountain was empty except for their own and lay as quiet as if sleeping in the air and yet after of came rolling up the mountain what could it mean that the rest of their force had come up and was engaged with that at the foot of the mountain the colonel decided to be ready to go and help them to fall on the enemy in the rear perhaps they might capture the entire force it seemed the natural thing the burial of the guns to do and the guns were up in an short time and a made through the the men working like under the excitement before they had left the however the sent out returned and reported that there was no engagement going on and the firing below seemed to be only there was quite a stir in the camp below but they had not even broken camp this was mysterious perhaps it meant that they had received but it was a queer way of showing it the old colonel sighed as he thought of the good they could throw away down there and of his empty it was necessary to be on the alert however the guns were run back into their old places and the horses once more back among the trees meantime he sent another messenger back this time a for he had but one officer left and the below was strengthened the morning passed and no one came the day wore on and still no advance was made by the force below it was suggested that the enemy had left he had at least gotten enough of that battery a however showed that he was still at the foot the burial of the guns of the mountain it was that he was trying to find a way around to take them in the rear or to cross the ridge by the preparation was made to guard more closely the mountain path across the spur and a was sent up to strengthen the there the waiting told on the men and they grew bored and restless they gathered about the guns in groups and talked talked of each piece some but not with the old spirit and the loneliness of the mountain seemed to them the mountains stretching up so brown and gray on one side of them and so brown and gray on the other with their bare dark forests from time to time as the wind swept up the pass the minds of the men seemed to go back to the time when they were not so alone but were part of a great and busy army and some of them fell to talking of the past and the battles they had figured in and of the comrades they had lost they told them off in a slow and way as if it were all part of the past as much as the dead they named one hundred and nineteen times they had been in action only seventeen men were left of the eighty odd who had first in the battery and of these four were at home crippled the burial of the guns for life two of the oldest men had been among the half dozen who had fallen in the just the day before it looked tolerably hard to be killed that way after passing for four years through such battles as they had been in and both had wives and children at home too and not a cent to leave them to their names they agreed calmly that they d have to sort of look after them a little if they ever got home these were some of the things they talked about as they pulled their old worn coats about them stuffed their thin weather stained hands in their ragged pockets to warm them and down under the to keep a little out of the wind one thing they talked about a good deal was something to eat they described meals they had had at one time or another as personal adventures and discussed the chances of securing others in the future as if they were of fortune one listening and seeing their thin worn faces and their wasted frames might have supposed they were starving and they were but they did not say so towards the middle of the afternoon there was a sudden excitement in the camp a dozen men saw them at the same time a of three men down the road at the farthest turn the burial of the guns past their but an advancing column could not have created as much excitement for the middle man carried a white flag in a minute every man in the battery was on the what could it mean it was a long way off nearly half a mile and the flag was small possibly only a pocket handkerchief or a but it was held aloft as a flag a hundred conjectures were indulged in was it a summons to surrender a request for an for some purpose or was it a trick to ascertain their number and position some held one view some another some extreme ones thought a shot ought to be fired over them to warn them not to come on no flags of were wanted the old colonel who had walked to the edge of the outside the and taken his position where he could study the advancing figures with his field glass had not spoken the lieutenant who was next in command to him had walked out after him and stood near him from time to time dropping a word or two of conjecture in a half | 46 |
audible tone but the colonel had not answered a word perhaps none was expected suddenly he took his glass down and gave an order to the lieutenant take two men and meet the burial of the guns them at the turn yonder learn their business and act as your best judgment if necessary to bring the messenger farther bring only the officer who has the flag and halt him at that rock yonder where i will join him the tone was as placid as if such an occurrence came every day two minutes later the lieutenant was on his way down the mountain and the colonel had the men in ranks his face was as grave and his manner as quiet as usual neither more nor less so the men were in a state of suppressed excitement having put them in charge of the second the colonel returned to the the two officers were slowly ascending the hill side by side the bearer of the flag now easily in his uniform as a captain of cavalry talking and the in faded gray faced with yet more faded red walking beside him with a face white even at that distance and lips shut as though they would never open again they halted at the big which the colonel had indicated and the lieutenant having saluted turned to come up to the camp the colonel however went down to meet him the two men met but there was no spoken question if the colonel inquired it was only with the eyes the the burial of the guns lieutenant spoke however he says he began and stopped then began again he says general lee again he choked then out i believe it is all a lie a damned lie not dead not killed said the colonel quickly no not so bad as that surrendered surrendered his entire army at day before yesterday i believe it is all a damned lie he broke out again as if the hot denial relieved him the colonel simply turned away his face and stepped a pace or two off and the two men stood motionless back to back for more than a minute then the colonel stirred shall i go back with you the lieutenant asked the colonel did not answer immediately then he said no go back to camp and await my return he said nothing about not speaking of the report he knew it was not needed then he went down the hill slowly alone while the lieutenant went up to the camp the interview between the two officers beside the was not a long one it consisted of a brief statement by the of the feet of lee s surrender two days the burial of the guns before near court house with the sources of his information coupled with a formal demand on the colonel for his surrender to this the colonel replied that he had been detached and put under command of another officer for a specific purpose and that his orders were to hold that pass which he should do until he was instructed otherwise by his superior in command with that they parted the captain returning to where he had left his horse in charge of his companions a little below and the old colonel coming slowly up the hill to camp the men were at once set to work to meet any attack which might be made they knew that the message was of grave import but not of how grave they thought it meant that another attack would be made immediately and they sprang to their work with renewed vigor and a zeal as fresh as if it were but the beginning and not the end the time wore on however and there was no demonstration below though hour after hour it was expected and even hoped for just as the sun sank into a bed of blue cloud a was seen coming up the darkened mountain from the eastward side and in a little while practised eyes reported him one of their i the burial of the guns own men the who had been sent back the day before for he was alone and had something white before him on his horse it could not be the but perhaps that might be coming on behind every step of his horse was anxiously watched as he drew near the lieutenant after a word with the colonel walked down to meet him and there was a short in the muddy road then they came back together and slowly entered the camp the handing down a bag of corn which he had got somewhere below with the grim remark to his comrades there s your and going at once to the colonel s camp fire a little to one side among the trees where the colonel awaited him a long conference was held and then the left to take his luck with his mess who were already the corn he had brought for their supper while the lieutenant made the round of the camp leaving the colonel seated alone on a log by his camp fire he sat without moving hardly stirring until the lieutenant returned from his round a minute later the men were called from the guns and made to fall into line they were silent tremulous with suppressed excitement the most sun burned and weather the burial of the guns stained of them a little pale the meanest and most insignificant not in the deep and solemn silence with which they stood their eyes fastened on the colonel waiting for him to speak he stepped out in front of them slowly ran his eye along the irregular line up and down taking in every man in his glance resting on some longer than on others the older men then dropped them to the ground and then suddenly as if | 46 |
with an effort began to speak his voice had a somewhat sound as if it were restrained but it was otherwise the ordinary tone of command it was not much that he said simply that it had become his duty to them with the information which he had received that general lee had surrendered two days before at court house yielding to overwhelming numbers that this afternoon when he had first heard the report he had questioned its truth but that it had been confirmed by one of their own men and no longer admitted of doubt that the rest of their own force it was learned had been captured or had and the enemy was now on both sides of the mountain that a demand had been made on him that morning to surrender too but that he had orders which he felt held good until the burial of the guns they were and he had declined later intelligence satisfied him that to attempt to hold out further would be useless and would involve needless waste of life he had determined therefore not to attempt to hold their position longer but to lead them out if possible so as to avoid being made prisoners and enable them to reach home sooner and aid their families his orders were not to let his guns fall into the enemy s hands and he should take the only step possible to prevent it in fifty minutes he should call the battery into line once more and roll the guns over the cliff into the river and immediately afterwards leaving the there he would try to lead them across the mountain and as far as they could go in a body without being liable to capture and then he should them and his responsibility for them would end as it was necessary to make some preparations he would now dismiss them to prepare any they might have and get ready to march all this was in the formal manner of a common order of the day and the old colonel had spoken in measured sentences with little feeling in his voice not a man in the line had uttered a word after the first sound half exclamation half groan which had burst from the burial of the guns them at the announcement of lee s surrender after that they had stood in their tracks like rooted trees as motionless as those on the mountain behind them their eyes fixed on their commander and only the quick heaving up and down the dark line as of horses told of the emotion which was shaking them the colonel as he ended to his subordinate officer at the end of the dim line as though he were about to turn the company over to him to be dismissed then faced the line again and taking a step nearer with a sudden movement of his hands towards the men as though he would have stretched them out to them began again men he said and his voice changed at the word and sounded like a father s or a brother s my men i cannot let you go so we were neighbors when the war began many of us and some not here to night we have been more since then comrades brothers in arms we have all stood for one thing for virginia and the south we have all done our duty tried to do our duty we have fought a good fight and now it seems to be over and we have been overwhelmed by numbers not whipped and we are going home we have the future before us we don t know just what the burial of the guns it will bring but we can stand a good deal we have proved it upon us depends the south in the future as in the past you have done your duty in the past you will not fail in the future go home and be honest brave self sacrificing god fearing citizens as you have been soldiers and you need not fear for virginia and the south the war may be over but you will ever be ready to serve your country the end may not be as we wanted it prayed for it fought for it but we can trust god the end in the end will be the best that could be even if the south is not free she will be better and stronger that she fought as she did go home and bring up your children to love her and though you may have nothing else to leave them you can leave them the that they are sons of men who were in lee s army he stopped looked up and down the ranks again which had instinctively crowded together and drawn around him in a half circle made a sign to the lieutenant to take charge and turned abruptly on his heel to walk away but as he did so the long pent up emotion burst forth with a wild cheer the men seized him crowding around and him as with prayers sobs oaths s the burial of the guns broken inarticulate they swore to be faithful to live loyal forever to the south to him to lee many of them cried like children others offered to go down and have one more battle on the plain the old colonel soothed them and their excitement and then gave a command about the preparations to be made this called them to order at once and in a few minutes the camp was as orderly and quiet as usual the fires were the scanty stores were being the place was selected and being got ready to roll the guns over the cliff the camp was being for such articles as could be carried and all preparations were being hastily made for their march the | 46 |
last charge too and we d like to fire em off once more for old times sake to remember em by if you don t think no harm could come of it the colonel reflected a moment and said it might be done they might fire each gun separately as they rolled it over or might get all ready and fire together and then roll them over whichever they wished this was satisfactory the men were then ordered to prepare to march immediately and withdrew for the purpose the were called in in a short time they were ready horses and all just as they would have been to march ordinarily except that the and were packed over in one corner by the camp with the harness hung on poles beside them and the guns stood in their old places at the ready to defend the pass the embers of the sinking camp fires threw a faint light on them standing so still and silent the old colonel took his place and at a command from him in a somewhat low voice the men except a detail left to hold the horses moved into company front facing the guns not a word was spoken except the words of command at the order each de i the burial of the guns went to its gun the guns were run back and the men with their own hands ran them up on the edge of the perpendicular bluff above the river where sheer below its waters washed its base as if to face an enemy on the black mountain the other side the pieces stood ranged in the order in which they had so often stood in battle and the gray thin fog rising slowly and silently from the river deep down between the cliffs and the mountain side above might have been the smoke from some battle fought in the dim pass by ghostly guns yet posted there in the darkness by phantom while phantom horses stood behind lit vaguely up by phantom camp fires at the given word the were pulled together and together as one the six black guns flame and lead roared their last challenge on the misty night sending a deadly hail of shot and shell tearing the trees and the rocks of the farther side and sending the thunder through the pass and down the mountain startling from its slumber the sleeping camp on the hills below and driving the deer and the mountain fox in terror up the mountain there was silence among the men about the ii y the burial of the guns guns for one brief instant and then such a cheer burst forth as had never broken from them even in battle cheer on cheer the long wild old familiar rebel yell for the guns they had fought with and loved the noise had not died away and the men behind were still trying to quiet the frightened horses when the the same who had written received from the hand of the colonel a long or roll which contained the records of the battery furnished by the men and by the colonel himself securely wrapped to make them water tight and it was down the yet warm throat of the nearest gun the cat and then the gun was to the to make her water tight and like her sisters was and her vent tight all this took but a minute and the next instant the guns were run up once more to the edge of the and the men stood by them with their hands still on them a deadly silence fell on the men and even the horses behind seemed to feel the spell there was a long pause in which not a breath was heard from any man and the of the tree tops above and the rushing of the below were the only sounds they seemed to come from far very far away then the colonel said the burial of the guns quietly let them go and god be our amen there was the noise in the darkness of and on the cliff top for a second the sound as of men straining hard together and then with a it ceased all at once and the men held their breath to hear one second of utter silence then one prolonged deep splash sending up a great mass of white foam as the brass pieces together plunged into the dark water below and then the of the trees and the murmur of the river came again with painful distinctness it was full ten minutes before the colonel spoke though there were other sounds enough in the darkness and some of the men as the dark outstretched bodies showed were lying on the ground flat on their faces then the colonel gave the command to fall in in the same quiet grave tone he had used all night the line fell in the men getting to their horses and mounting in silence the colonel put himself at their head and gave the order of march and the dark line turned in the darkness crossed the little between the and the with the harness hanging beside them and slowly entered the dim s track not a word was spoken as they moved off they might all the burial of the guns have been only the in the rear as he crossed the little which ran along the upper side and marked the boundary of the httle camp half turned and glanced at the dying fires the low newly made in the corner the abandoned and the empty and said slowly in a low voice to himself well by god r the gray jacket of no the gray jacket of no my meeting with him was accidental i came across him passing through the square i had seen him once or twice on the street each time along so drunk that he | 46 |
could scarcely so that i was surprised to hear what he said about the war he was talking to who evidently had been in the army himself but on the other side a gentleman with the loyal button in his coat and with a beautiful a cut across his face he was telling of a charge in some battle or in which he declared his company not himself for i remember he said he was no and was generally told off to hold the horses and that that day he had had the ill luck to lose his horse and get a little scratch himself so he was not in the did the finest work he ever saw and really so he claimed saved the day it was this self that first arrested my attention for i had been accustomed all my life the gray jacket of no to hear the war talked of it was one of the inspiring influences in my existence but the although they generally boasted of their commands never of themselves usually admitted that they themselves had been in the active force and thus shared in the credit no however expressly that he was entitled to any of the praise declaring that he was safe behind the crest of the hill which he said he mighty close and claimed the glory for the rest of the command it happened just as i have told you here he said in closing d joe saw the point as soon as the battery went to work and sent bin ford to the colonel to ask him to let him go over there and take it and when joe gave the word the boys went they didn t go at a walk either i tell you it wasn t any they went at first the guns shot over em didn t catch em till the third fire then they played the devil with em but the boys were up there right in em before they could do much they turned the guns on em as they went down the hill oh our boys could handle the then as well as the themselves and in a little while the rest of the line came up and we formed a line of battle fc the gray jacket of no right there on that crest and held it till nearly night that s when i got i picked up another horse and with my foolishness went over there that evening you know you all charged us we were dismounted then we lost more men then than we had done all day there were forty seven out of seventy two killed or wounded they walked all over us two of em got hold of me you see i went to get our old flag some of you had got hold of but i was too worthless to die there were lots of em did go though i tell you old joe in the lead yes sir the old company won that day and old joe led em there ain t but a few of us left but when you want us colonel you can get us we ll stand by you he paused in deep reflection his mind evidently back with his old company and its gallant commander old joe whoever he might be who was remembered so long after he passed away in the wind and smoke of that evening battle i took a good look at him at no as he called himself he was tall but stooped a little his features were good at least his nose and brow were his mouth and chin were weak his mouth was too stained with the tobacco which he to tell much about it and his chin was like so gray jacket of no many american not strong his eyes looked weak his clothes were very much worn but they had once been good they formerly liad been black and well made the buttons were all on his shirt was clean i took note of this for he had a dissipated look and a shirt would have been natural a man s linen tells on him before his other clothes his listener had evidently been impressed by him also for he arose and said abruptly let s go and take a drink to my surprise no declined no i thank you he said with i instinctively looked at him again to see if i had not him but i concluded not that i was right and that he was simply not drinking i was flattered at my when i heard him say that he had sworn off his friend said no more but remained standing while no on the difference between a man who is drinking and one who is not i never heard a more striking of it he said he wondered that any man could be such a fool as to drink liquor that he had determined never to touch another drop he presently into silence and the other reached out his hand to say good by suddenly rising he said well suppose we go and have just one for old the gray jacket of no times sake just one now mind you for i have not touched a drop in he turned away and i did not catch the length of the time mentioned but i have reason to that no it the next time i saw him was in the police court i happened to be there when he walked out of the pen among as miscellaneous a lot of thieves and of both sexes and several colors as were ever gathered together he still had on his old black suit up but his linen was and soiled like himself and he was just getting over a the effects of which were still visible on him in every line of his face and | 46 |
thin figure he walked with that exaggerated which told his state as plainly as if he had pronounced it in words he had evidently been there before and more than once the justice nodded to him familiarly here again he asked in a tone part part regret yes your honor met an old soldier last night and took a drop for good fellowship and before i knew it a shrug of the shoulders completed the sentence and the shoulders did not any more the gray jacket of no the tall officer who had picked him up said something to the justice in a tone too low for me to catch but no heard it it was evidently a statement against him for he started to speak in a way the judge interrupted him i thought you told me last time that if i let you go you would not take another drink for a year i forgot said no in a low voice this officer says you resisted him the officer looked at the prisoner as if it were a matter of not the slightest interest to him personally cursed me and abused me he said dropping the words slowly as if he were checking off a i did not your honor indeed i did not said no quickly i swear i did not he is mistaken your honor does not believe i would tell you a lie surely i have not got so low as that the justice turned his pencil in his hand doubtfully and looked away no took in his position he began again i fell in with an old soldier and we got to talking about the war about old times his voice was very soft i will promise your honor that i won t take another drink for a year the gray jacket of no here til take an oath to it swear me he seized the greasy little bible on the desk before him and handed it to the justice the magistrate took it doubtfully he looked down at the prisoner half kindly half you ll just break it he started to lay the book down no i want to take the pledge said no eagerly did i ever break a pledge i made to your honor didn t you promise me not to come back here i have not been here for nine months besides i did not come of my own free will said no with a faint of humor on his face you were here two months ago and you promised not to take another drink i forgot that i did not mean to break it indeed i did not i fell in with the justice looked away considered a moment and ordered him back into the pen with ten days to cool off no stood quite still till the officer him to the gate behind which the prisoners sat in stolid rows then he walked back into the pen and sat down by another his look touched me and the gray jacket of no i went around and talked to the magistrate privately but he was inexorable he said he knew more of him than i did and that ten days in jail would dry him out and be good for him i told him the story of the battle he knew it already and said he knew more than that about him that he had been one of the in the whole army did not know what fear was had once ridden into the enemy and torn a captured standard from its hands receiving two desperate in doing it and had done other acts of conspicuous gallantry on many occasions i pleaded this but he was hard i thought at the time and told him so told him he had been a soldier himself and ought to be easier he looked troubled not offended for we were friends and i think he liked to see me who had been a boy during the war take up for an old soldier on that ground but he stood firm i must do him the justice to say that now think it would not have made any difference if he had done otherwise he had tried the other course many times no must have heard me trying to help him for one day about a month after that he walked in on me quite sober and looking somewhat as he did the first day i saw him v tbe gray jacket of no thanked me for what i had done for him delivered one of the most impressive on that i ever heard and asked me to try to help him get work he was willing to do anything he said that is anything he could do i got him a place with a friend of mine which he kept a week then got drunk we got hold of him however and him up and he escaped the police and the justice s court being out of work and very firm in his resolution never to drink again we lent him some money a very little with which to keep along a few days on which he got drunk immediately and did fall into the hands of the police and was sent to jail as before this in fact was his regular round into jail out of jail a little spell of an accidental fall which occurred as soon as he could get a drop of liquor and into jail again for thirty or sixty days according to the of resistance he gave the police who always by their own account simply tried to get him to go home and by his insulted him and to the violence of the language he applied to them in this he for although as quiet as possible when he was sober when he was drunk | 46 |
he was a terror so the police said and his resources of were he possessed in the gray jacket of no this particular department an eloquence which was incredible his was vast infinite he told me once that he could not explain it that when he was sober he and never uttered an oath when he was in liquor his brain took this turn and in volumes he said that all of its energies were quickened and concentrated in this direction and then he took not only pleasure but pride in it he told me a good deal of his life he had got very low at this time much lower than he had been when i first knew him he recognized this himself and used to and discuss himself in quite an way this was when he had come out of jail and after having the liquor dried out of him in such a state he always referred to his condition in the past as being something that never would or could while on the other hand if he were just over a drunk he frankly admitted his absolute slavery to his habit when he was getting drunk he maintained and was ready to swear on all the in creation that he had not touched a drop and never expected to do so again indeed could not be induced to do it when in fact he would at the very time be with the of liquor i ii the gray jacket of no and perhaps had his pocket then with a bottle which he had just emptied and would willingly have his soul to i never saw such absolute dominion as the love of liquor had over him he was like a man in chains he confessed it frankly and calmly he said he had a disease and gave me a history of it it came on him he said in that when he was over one he it but when the fit seized him it came suddenly and he was in absolute slavery to it he said his father was a gentleman of habits i have heard that very dissipated though not openly so and no never admitted it he was killed at the battle of bull run his mother he always spoke of her with tenderness and reverence had suffered enough he said to her if she were not a saint already she had brought him up to have a great horror of liquor and he had never touched it till he went into the army in the army he was in a crowd and they had hard marching and poor often none liquor was scarce and was regarded as a luxury so although he was very much afraid of it yet for good fellowship s sake and because it was considered he used to drink it then he got to like it and then got to feel the need the gray jacket of no of it and took it to him when he was run down this want brought with it a great depression when he did not have the means to satisfy it he never the actual taste of it he said few did it was the effect that he was always after this increased on him he said until finally it was no longer a desire but a passion a necessity to have it he felt then that he would commit murder for it why i dream about it he said i will tell you what i have done i have made the most solemn vows and have gone to bed and gone to sleep and up and dressed and walked miles through the rain and snow to get it i believe i would have done it if i had known i was going next moment to hell he said it had ruined him said so quite calmly did not ear to have any special remorse about it at least never professed any said it used to trouble him but he had got over it now he had had a plantation that is his mother had had and he had been quite ol for a while but he said a man can t drink liquor and run a farm and the farm had gone i asked him how i sold it he said calmly that is persuaded my mother to sell it the stock that belonged to me had nearly all gone before a the gray jacket of no man who is drinking will sell anything he said i have sold everything in the world i had or could lay my hands on i have never got quite so low as to sell my old gray jacket that i used to wear when i rode behind old joe i mean to be buried in that if i can keep it he had been engaged to a nice girl the wedding day had been fixed but she had broken off the engagement she married another man she was a mighty nice girl he said quietly her people did not like my drinking so much i passed her not long ago on the street she did not know me he glanced down at himself quietly she looks older than she did he said that he had had a place for some time did not drink a drop for nearly a year and then got with some of the old fellows and they persuaded him to take a little i cannot touch it i have either got to drink or let it alone one thing or the other he said but i am all right now he declared triumphantly a little of the old fire lighting up in his face i never expect to touch a drop again he spoke so firmly that i was persuaded to make him a little loan taking his due bill for it | 46 |
which he always insisted on giving that evening i saw him being dragged along by loi the gray jacket of no three and he was cursing like a demon in the course of time he got so low that he spent much more than half his time in jail he became a perfect vagabond and with his clothes ragged and dirty might be seen about or standing around the street comers near bars waiting for a chance drink or sitting asleep in of buildings his companions would be one or two like himself with red noses faces dry hair and filthy clothes sometimes i would see him hurrying along with one of these as if they had a piece of the most important business in the world an idea had struck their brains that by some means they could manage to secure a drink yet in some way he still held himself above these creatures and once or twice i heard of him being under arrest for what he deemed an impertinence from them once he came very near being drowned there was a flood in the river and a large crowd was watching it from the bridge suddenly a little girl s dog fell in it was pushed in by a the child cried out and there was a commotion when it subsided a man was seen swimming for life after the little white head go k the gray jacket of no ing own the stream it was no he had the fellow in the face and then had sprung in after the dog he caught it and got out himself though in too exhausted a state to stand up when he was praised for it he said a member of old joe s company who would not have done that could not have ridden behind old joe i had this story from eye witnesses and it was used shortly after with good effect for he was arrested for breaking into a man s house one night it looked at first like a serious case for some money had been taken out of a drawer but when the case was it turned out that the house was a bar room over which the man lived he was the same man who had pitched the dog into the water and that no after being given enough to make him a madman had been put out of the place had broken into the bar during the night to get more and was found fast asleep in a chair with an empty bottle beside him i think the jury became satisfied that if any money had been taken the to make out a case against no had taken it himself but there was a breaking and it had to be got around so his counsel appealed to the jury telling them what he knew of no together with the story the gray jacket of no of the child s dog and no reply there were one or two soldiers on the jury and they him on which he somehow managed to get enough to land him back in jail in twenty four hours in may there was a monument in it was a great occasion and not only all virginia but the whole south in it with great much enthusiasm and many tears it was an occasion for sacred memories the newspapers talked about it for a good while beforehand preparations were made for it as for the of a great and general ceremony in which the whole south was interested it was interested because it was not only the of a monument for the old commander the greatest and and as the south holds man of his time it was an occasion consecrated to the whole south it was the in precious memories and laying away in the tomb of the southern the of the southern people as such all were interested in it and all prepared for it it was known that all that remained of the southern armies would be there of the armies that fought at and bull run and fort the gray jacket of no republic at seven pines s mill and cold harbor at and at and the wilderness and and the whole south union as it is now and ready to fight the nation s battles gathered to lee the old commander and to see and the of those and other bloody fields in which the soldiers of the south had held the world at bay and added to the glorious history of their race men came all the way from and to be present old one legged soldiers it from west virginia even no though in the caught the and shaped up and became sober he got a good suit of clothes somewhere not new and appeared quite respectable he even got something to do and in token of what he had been was put on one of the many having a hand in the entertainment arrangements i never saw a greater change in anyone it looked as if there was hope for him yet he stopped me on the street a day or two before the and told me he had a piece of good news the remnant of his old company was to be here he had got hold of the last one there were the gray jacket of no nine of them left and he had his old jacket that he had worn in the war and he was going to wear it on the march it s worn of course he said but my mother put some patches over the holes and except for the stain on it it s in good order i believe i am the only one of the boys that has his jacket still my mother kept this for me i have never got so hard up as to | 46 |
part with it i m all right now i mean to be buried in it i had never remarked before what a refined face he had his enthusiasm made him look younger than i had ever seen him i saw him on the day before the eve of the he was as busy as a bee and looked almost handsome the boys are coming in by every train he said look here he pulled me aside and his a piece of faded gray cloth was disclosed he had the old gray jacket on under his other coat i know the boys will like to see it he said i m going down to the train now to meet one i don t know whether i shall know him and i used to be much of a size we did not use to speak at one time had a falling out about which one should hold the horses i made him do it but i reckon he won t remember it now i don t the gray jacket of no i have not touched a drop good by he went off the next night about i got a message that a man wanted to see me at the jail immediately it was urgent would i come down there at once i had a and i went down it was as i suspected no was there behind the bars drunk again said the as he let me in he let me see him he wanted me to see the judge and get him out he me he wept it was all an accident he had found some of the old boys and they had got to talking over old times and just for old times sake etc he was too drunk to stand up but the terror of being locked up next day had him and his mind was perfectly clear he implored me to see the judge and to get him to let him out tell him i will come back here and stay a year if he will let me out tomorrow he said he showed me the gray jacket under his and was speechless even then he did not ask release on the ground that he was a i never knew him to urge this reason even the officials who must have seen him there fifty times were sympathetic and they told me to see the justice and they believed he would let him out for next day i the gray jacket of no applied to him as they suggested he said come down to court to morrow morning i did so no was present pale and trembling as he stood there he made a better defence than any one else could have made for him he admitted his guilt and said he had nothing to say in except that it was the old story he had not intended it he deserved it all but would like to get off that day had a special reason for it and would if necessary go back to jail that evening and stay there a year or all his life as he stood awaiting sentence he looked like a damned soul his coat was and his old faded gray jacket showed under it the justice to his honor let him off let all off that day no shook hands with him unable to speak and turned away then he had a strange turn we had hard work to get him to go into the procession he positively refused said he was not fit to go or to live began to cry and took off his jacket he would go back to jail he said we finally got him straight accepted from him a solemn promise not to touch a drop till the was over so help him god and sent him off to join his old command at the tobacco on the slip where the cavalry i t j tj the gray jacket of no had some apprehension that he would not turn up in the procession but i was mistaken he was there with the old cavalry as sober as a judge and looking every inch a soldier it was a strange scene and an impressive one even to those whose hearts were not in sympathy with it in any respect many who had been the hardest against the south were in sympathy with much of it if not with all but to those who were of the south it was sublime it passed beyond mere enthusiasm however exalted and rested in the and most sacred of their being there were many cheers but more tears not tears of regret or mortification but tears of sympathy and memory the decorated streets in all the bravery of fluttering and the martial music of many bands the constant tramp of marching troops the thronged and the gleam of arms and the flutter of gay garments and the smiles of beautiful women sweet with sympathy the long line of old soldiers faded and broken and gray yet each self sustained and inspired by the life of the south that flowed in their veins marching under the old battle flags that they had borne so often in victory and in defeat the gray jacket of no all contributed to make the outward a scene never to be forgotten but this was merely the outward image the real fact was the spirit it was the south it was the spirit of the south not of the new south nor yet merely of the old south but the spirit of the great south when the young troops from every southern state marched by in their fresh with well there were much applause and enthusiasm when the old soldiers came there was a tempest wild cheers choking with sobs and tears the once heard never forgotten cry of the south known in history as the rebel | 46 |
yell men and women and children joined in it it began at the first sight of the regular column swelled up the crowded streets rose to the thronged ran along them for squares like a and then came rolling back in volume only to rise and swell again greater than before men wept children women sobbed aloud what was it only a thousand or two of old or men riding or along through the dust of the street under some old flags dirty and ragged and stained but they represented the spirit of the south they represented the spirit which when honor was in question never no l the gray jacket of no counted the cost the spirit that had stood up for the south against odds for four years and until the south had and perished under the forces of war the spirit that is the strongest to us to day that the union is and is to be the spirit that glorious in victory had displayed a fortitude yet greater in defeat they saw in every stain on those tattered standards the blood of their noblest and best in every rent a proof of their glorious courage and sacrifice they saw in those gray and faces in those old clothes now and then with a faded gray uniform the men who in the of their youth had for the south faced death on a hundred fields and had never even thought it great men who had looked immortality in the eyes yet had been thrown down and trampled and who were greater in their overthrow than when glory poured her light upon their faces not one of them all but was self sustained by the south or had ever even for one moment thought in his extremity that he would have what was undone the crowd was immense the people on the fashionable street up which the procession passed were fortunate they had the advantage of their iii the gray jacket of no tf yards and and they threw them open to the public still the throng on the was tremendous and just before the old came along the crush increased as it itself i became conscious that a little old woman in a rusty black dress whom i had seen patiently standing alone in the front line on the street corner for an hour had lost her position and had been pushed back against the railing and had an anxious disappointed look on her face she had a little faded knot of colors fastened in her old dress and almost hidden by the crowd she was looking up and down in some distress to see if she could not again get a place from which she could see finally she seemed to give it up and stood quite still now and then to try to catch a glimpse i saw about to help her when from a gay and crowded above her a young and beautiful girl in a white dress whom i had been observing for some time as the life of a gay party as she sat in her loveliness a queen on her throne with her around her suddenly arose and ran down into the street there was a short the young beauty was offering something which the old lady was declining but it ended in the young girl leading the older woman gently up on to her the gray jacket of no tt and giving her the chair of state she was hardly seated when the old soldiers began to pass as the last mounted came by i remembered that i had not seen no but as i looked up he was just coming along in his hand with staff resting on his toe he carried an old standard so torn and tattered and stained that it was scarcely as a flag i did not for a moment take in that it was he for he was not in the gray jacket which i had expected to see he was busy looking down at the throng on the apparently searching for some one whom he expected to find there he was in some perplexity and pulled in his horse which began to rear suddenly the applause from the above arrested his attention and he looked toward it and bowed as he did so his eye caught that of the old lady seated there his face lighted up and his horse half around he dipped the tattered standard and gave the royal salute as though a queen the old lady pressed her wrinkled hand over the knot of faded ribbon on her breast and made a gesture to him and he rode on he had suddenly grown handsome i looked at her again her eyes were closed her hands were clasped and her lips were moving ii ne gray jacket of no i saw the likeness she was his mother as he passed me i caught his eye he saw my perplexity about the jacket glanced up at the torn colors and pointed to a figure just beyond him dressed in a short faded jacket no had been selected as the highest honor to carry the old colors which he had once saved and not to bear off all the honors from his fi he had with true made wear his cherished jacket he made a brave figure as he rode away and my cheer died on my lips as i thought of the sad old mother in her faded knot and of the dashing young soldier who had saved the colors in that fight after that we got him a place and he did well for several months he seemed to be cured new life and strength appeared to come back to him but his mother died and one night shortly afterward he disappeared and remained lost for several da s when we found him he had been brought to jail and i | 46 |
was sent for to see about him he was worse than i had ever known him he was half naked and little better than a madman i went to a doctor about him an old army surgeon who saw him and shook his head a very bad only a question of time he said this was true no was beyond hope the gray jacket of no m i body and brain were both gone it got to be only a question of days if not of hours some of his other friends and i determined that he should not die in jail so we took him out and carried him to a cool pleasant room looking out on an old garden with trees in it there in the dreadful terror of delirium he passed that night i with several others sat up with him i could not have stood many more like it all night long he and tore his oaths were blood he covered every past portion of his life his army life was mainly in his mind he fought the whole war over sometimes he prayed fervently prayed against his infirmity prayed that his chains might be broken then he would grow calm for awhile one thing constantly he had sold his honor betrayed his cause this was the order again and again and each time the of frightful fury came on and it took all of us to hold him he was covered with they were chains on his wrists and around his body he tried to pull them from around him at last toward morning came one of those fearful worse than any that had gone before it passed and he suddenly seemed to he sank and the administered failed to revive him the gray jacket of no he is going said the doctor quietly across the bed whether his dull ear caught the word or not i cannot say but he suddenly roused up tossed one arm and said take the horses i m going to old joe and sank back he s gone said the doctor opening his shirt and placing his ear over his heart as he rose up i saw two curious on no s breast they looked almost like small crosses about the size of the the european wear the old doctor bent over and examined them wounds he said briefly a little later i went out to get a breath of fresh morning air to quiet my nerves which were somewhat as i passed by a little second hand clothing store of the meanest kind in a poor back street i saw hanging up outside an old gray jacket i stopped to examine it it was stained behind with mud and in front with a darker color an old patch hid a part of the front but a close examination showed two holes over the breast it was no s lost jacket i asked the about it he had bought it he said of a who had got it from some who had probably stolen it last year the gray jacket of no from some old soldier he readily sold it and i took it back with me and the others being gone an old woman and i cut the patch off it and put no arms into the sleeves word was sent to us during the day to say that the city would bury him in the grounds but we told them that arrangements had been made that he would have a soldier s burial and he had it miss danger ie s roses miss s roses henry was a at least so many people said a few thought he was a wonderful person these were mostly children old women and people not in the and persons not in the do not count for much he was in fact a singular fellow it was all natural enough to him he was just like what he believed his father had been his father of whom his mother used to tell him and whom he remembered so vaguely except when he had suddenly loomed up in his uniform at the head of his company when they went away on that march from which he had never returned he meant to be like him if he was not and he remembered all that his mother had told him of his gentleness his high courtesy his his devotion to duty his so it was all natural enough to to be as he was but a man can no more tell whether or not he is a than he can tell how old he looks he was however miss s roses without doubt different in certain ways from most people this his friends admitted some said he was old fashioned some that he was old some that he was the shades of criticism up to those saying he was a fool this did not mean for none denied his intellect he drove a pen and had an tongue he had had a hard time he had borne the yoke in his youth this we have strong authority for saying is good for a man but it leaves its mark upon him he had been desperately poor he had not minded that except for his mother and he had approved of her giving up every cent to meet the old security debts it had cut him off from his college education but he had worked till he was a better scholar than he might have been had he gone to college he had kept his mother comfortable as long as she lived and then had put up a monument over her in the old churchyard as he had done before to his father s memory this said was foolish and it was for it took him | 46 |
at least two years to pay for them and he might have laid up the money and got a start or as some charitable persons said it might have been given to the poor however the monuments were miss danger lie s roses put up and on them were which recorded at length the virtues of those to whom they were erected with their descent and declared that they were christians and some one said to that he might have the and have saved something i did not want them said he he had borne the yoke otherwise also one of the first things he had done after starting in life was to fall in love with a beautiful woman she was very beautiful and a great every one said it was sheer nonsense for henry to expect her to marry him as poor as he was which was natural enough the only thing was that she led to believe she was going to marry him when she did not intend to do it and it cost him a great deal of he never said one word against her not even when she married a man much older than himself simply as said because he was very rich if ever thought that she treated him badly no one ever knew it and when finally she left her husband no one ever ventured to discuss it before henry however had suffered that could see who had eyes but only he knew how much generally grave and dreamy miss roses when quiet as calm as a dove as fierce as a hawk when aroused moving always in an eccentric which few understood flashing out now and then which some said were sparks of genius but which most people said were mere he had sunk into a he was in this state when he met her he always afterward referred to her so he was at a reception when he came upon her on a a casual word about his life a smile flashed from her large dark luminous eyes lighting up her face and henry awoke she had called him from the dead it was a case of love at first sight from that time he never had a thought for anyone else least of all for himself he lived in her and for her he under her sympathy as a tree comes out under the sunshine and soft breath of spring he grew he she was his sun his breath of life he worshipped her then one day she died suddenly sank down and died as a butterfly might die chilled by a blast with her henry buried his youth for a time people were sympathetic but they began immediately to about him then to gossip about him it made no to him or in him he was like a man that is dead who felt no more one thing about a miss s roses great sorrow is that it all lesser ones a man with a crushed body does not feel henry went on his way calmly mechanically he drifted on and was talked about continually gossip would not let him alone so she did him the honor to connect his name with that of every woman he met in fact there was as much reason to mention all as one he was fond of women and enjoyed them women liked him too there was a certain gentleness mingled with firmness a kind of protecting air about him which women admired and a mystery of impenetrable sadness which women liked every woman who knew him trusted him and had a right to trust him to none was he indifferent but in none was he interested he was simply cut off a physician him said that man is dying of this went on for some years at last his friends determined to get him back into society they made plans for him and carried them out to a certain length there the plans failed might be led up to the water but none could make him drink there he took the bit in his teeth and went his own way he would be invited to meet a girl at a dinner got up for his benefit that he might meet her and would spend he miss s roses evening hanging over a little unheard of country cousin with a low voice and soft eyes entertaining her with stories of his country days or of his wanderings or he would be put by some and after five minutes homage spend the time talking to some old lady about her you must marry they said to him when one rises from the dead he replied at length his friends grew tired of helping him and gave him up and he dropped out and settled down is one of the bitter things of life but had what is harder to bear than that it did not affect his work it was only his health and his life that suffered he was like a man who has lost the senses of touch and taste and sight if he minded it he did not show it one can get used to being one thing about him was that he always appeared poor he began to be known as an and writer it was known that he received high prices for what he did but he appeared to be no better off than when he made nothing some persons supposed that he others whispered that he spent it in other in fact one lady gave a account of the way he his money and declared herself very glad that he miss s roses had never visited her daughters when this was repeated to he said he fortunately did not have to account to her for the way he spent his money he felt that the woman out under the marble cross knew how | 46 |
his money went and so did the little cousin who was named after her and who was at school he had a letter from her in his pocket at that moment so he drifted on at length one evening he was at a reception in a strange city whither his business had taken him the rooms were filled with light and beauty was standing with a child of ten years whom he found standing in a corner gazing out with wide questioning eyes on the throng they were friends instantly and he was telling her who the guests were as they came sailing in giving them names and titles they are all queens he told her at which she laughed she pointed out a tall and stately woman with a solemn face and with a gleaming on like a and her hair up on her head like a who is that i queen and who is that it was a stout lady with a of diamonds a red face and three feathers r miss danger lie s roses queen victoria of course and who am i she placed her little hand on her breast with a pretty gesture the queen of hearts said quickly at which she laughed outright oh i must not laugh she said checking herself and glancing around her with a shocked look i forgot you shall if you don t you sha n t know who another queen is no mamma told me i must not make a bit of noise it is not style you know but you mustn t be so funny good heavens said oh who is this coming a lady richly dressed was making her way toward them the queen of coming to see solomon said as she came up to him let me introduce you to a beautiful girl she said and drew him through the throng toward a door where he was presented to a tall and strikingly handsome girl and made his bow and a civil speech to which the young lady responded with one equally polite and important other men were pressing around her to all of whom she made apt and cordial speeches and fell back and rejoined his little girl whose face lit up at his return miss s roses oh i was so afraid you were going away with her and leave you never tm not so easily disposed of goes with her they call her the queen do they do you like her yes you don t she said looking at him keenly yes she is beautiful says so she isn t as beautiful as else i know said pleasantly isn t she as whom took hold of the child s hand and said let s go and get some supper i don t like her said the little girl positively don t you said he stopped and glanced across the room toward where the girl had stood he saw only the gleam of her fine shoulders as she disappeared in the crowd surrounded by her admirers a little later met the young lady on the he had not recognized her and was passing on when she spoke to him miss danger lie s roses i saw you talking to a little friend of mine she began then over in the corner she explained h yes she is sweet they interest me i always feel when i have talked with a child as if i had got as near to the angels as one can get on earth do you know i was very anxious to meet you she said were you thank you why because of a line of yours i once read i am pleased to have written only one line that attracted your attention said bowing no no it was this the soul of man or saint is black beside a beside a child s said her oh yes so it is beside a child s her voice was low and musical glanced up and caught her look and the color deepened in her cheek as the young man suddenly a little towards her and gazed earnestly into her eyes which she dropped but instantly raised again it yes good night she held out her hand with a taking gesture and smile j miss s roses a good night said and passed on up the stairs to the dressing room he got his coat and hat and came down the a group seized him come to the club they said he declined roast and beer they said no i m going home are you ill asked a friend no not at all why you look like a man who has seen a spirit do i i m tired i suppose good night gentlemen and he passed out perhaps i have he said as he went down the cold steps into the frozen street went home and tossed about all night his life was breaking up he was all at sea why had he met her he was losing the anchor that had held him they call her the queen the little girl had said she must be he had seen her soul through her eyes sent her the poem which contained the line which she had quoted and she wrote him a note thanking him it pleased him it was sympathetic she invited him to call he went to see her she was fine in grain miss danger lie s roses and in look a closely fitting dark gown ornamented by a single glorious red rose which might have grown where it lay and her soft hair on her small head as she entered tall and straight and calm made involuntarily say to himself yes she was right he said half to himself half aloud as he stood gazing at her with inquiring eyes after she had greeted him cordially what was right | 46 |
which had been devoted for the occasion as a dressing room it was quite full at the time a man a large fellow with sleek short hair a fat chin and a dazzling waistcoat pulled open a lower drawer in a articles of a lady s apparel miss s roses were discovered and neatly arranged shut that drawer instantly said in a low imperious tone suppose i don t what then i will pitch you out of that window said quietly moving a step nearer to him the drawer was closed and the man turned away do you know who that was asked of no not the slightest idea that was young the son of the great who is the great the great pork man his son is the one who is so attentive to miss i am glad he closed the drawer said quietly he is said to be engaged to her said the gentleman he is not engaged to her said later on he was talking to miss he had taken her out of the throng do you know who introduced me to you he asked yes mrs no a little girl who why don t you remember i am surprised it was just in the doorway miss s roses tt oh yes i remember well enough i met a beauty there but i did not care for her i met you first on the and a child introduced me children interest me they always admire one she said they interest me i always admire them he said they are true she was silent then changed the subject a singular little incident me this evening she said as i was coming home from a luncheon party a wretched woman stopped me and asked me to let her look at me you did it of course he said she looked at him with her eyes wide open with surprise what do you suppose a man said to me upstairs he asked her what that you were engaged to what that i was engaged to whom pray she looked incredulous to a fellow i saw up there mr i think he said was his name the idea engaged to mr you did not believe him did you no of course i did not i trust you entirely a v miss s roses she buried her face in the roses she held in her hand and did not speak her other hand rested on the arm of her chair next him it was fine and white he laid his on it firmly and leaning towards her said i beg your pardon for mentioning it i am not surprised that you are hurt forgive me i could not care for you so much if i did not believe in you it was so kind in you to send me these roses she said aren t they she turned them round and gazed at them with her face slightly averted yes they are and yet i hate to see them tied that way i ordered them sent to you loose i always like to think of you as arranging roses yes i love to arrange them myself she said the fact is as beautiful as those are i believe i like better the old fashioned roses right out of the dew i suppose it is old association but i know an old garden up at an old where my mother used to live as a girl it used to be filled up with roses and i always think of the roses there as sweeter than any others in the world yes i like the old fashioned roses best s roses too she said with that of taste which always pleased him the next time i come to see you am going to bring some of those roses he said my mother used to tell me of my going out and getting them for her and would like you to have some of them oh thank you how lar is it from your home fifteen or twenty miles but you cannot get them there oh yes can the fact is i own the place she looked interested oh it is not worth anything as land he said but i love the association my mother was brought up there and i keep up the garden just as it was you shall have the roses some day i want to see you among them just then there was a step behind him she rose is it ours she asked over her shoulder yes come along glanced around it was the son of the great she turned to and said in an earnest i am very sorry but i had an engagement good by she held out her hand cook it and pressed it miss s roses good by he said tenderly that is all right she took the son of the great s arm one afternoon a month after miss s reception henry was packing his trunk he had just looked at his watch when there was a ring at the bell he knew it was the and a soft look came over his face as he reflected that even if he got no letter he would see her within a few hours a large box of glorious old fashioned roses was on the floor near him and a roll of money and a lay beside it he had ridden thirty miles that morning to get and bring the roses himself for one whom he always thought of in connection with them a letter was brought in and a pleased smile lit up the young man s face as he saw the handwriting he laid on the side of the trunk a coat that he held and then sat down on the arm of a chair and opened the letter his hand it softly as if it were of velvet he wore a pleased smile | 46 |
as he began to read then the smile died away and a startled look took its place the color faded out of his face and his mouth closed firmly when he was through he turned back and read the letter all miss s over again slowly it seemed hard to understand for after a pause he read it over a third time then he looked straight before him for a moment and then slowly tore it up into thin and them up in his hand ten minutes later he rose from his seat and dropped the torn pieces into the fireplace he walked over and put on his hat and coat and going out pulled the door firmly to behind him the trunk partly packed stood open with the half folded coat hanging over its edge and with the roses lying by lis side walked into the club and returning quietly the of a group of friends went over to a rack and drew ov l a newspaper file with which he passed into another room announcement of engagement and was the heading on which his eye rested it is stated ran the paragraph that they have engaged some time but no announcement has been made until now on the eve of the wedding owing to the young lady s delicacy of feeling that night henry wrote a letter this was the close of it possibly your recollection may hereafter trouble you i wish to say thai do not hold you in any way i miss s roses that night a wretched creature half beggar half worse was standing on the street under a lamp a man came along she glanced at him timidly he was looking at her but it would not do to speak to him he was a gentleman going somewhere his hands were full of roses he posted a letter in the box then to her astonishment he stopped at her side and spoke to her here are some roses for you he said and here is some money go home tonight he pushed the roses and money into her hands and turning went back up the dim street how the captain made christmas r how the captain made christmas it was just a few days before christmas and the men around the large fireplace at the club had not fallen to talking of christmas they were all men in the prime of life and all or nearly all of them were from other parts of the country men who had come to the great city to make their way in life and who had on the whole made it in one degree or another sufficient success in different fields to allow of all being called successful men yet as the conversation had proceeded it had taken a turn when it began only three persons were engaged in it two of whom and were in lounging chairs with their feet stretched out towards the log fire while the third stood with his back to the great hearth and his coat tails well divided the other men were scattered about the room one or two writing at tables three or four reading the how the captain made christmas evening papers and the rest talking and and water or only talking or only and water as the conversation proceeded around the fireplace however one after another joined the group there until the circle included every man in the room it had begun by who had been looking intently at for some moments as he stood before the fire with his legs well apart and his eyes fastened on the carpet breaking the silence by asking suddenly are you going home i don t know said doubtfully recalled from somewhere in but so slowly that a part of his thoughts were still lingering there i haven t made up my mind vm not sure that i can go so far as virginia and i have an invitation to a delightful place a house party near here anybody would know that you were a said by the way you stand before that fire said yes and then as the half smile the charge had brought up died away he said slowly i was just thinking how good it felt and i had gone back and was standing in the old parlor at home the first time i ever noticed my father doing it i remember get t ji how the captain made christmas ting up and standing by him a little scrap of a fellow trying to stand just as he did and i was feeling the fire just now just as i did that night that was thirty three years ago said slowly as if he were the years from his memory is your father living asked no but my mother is he said she still lives at the old home in the country from t is the talk had gone on and nearly all had contributed to it even the most of them drawn out by the universal sympathy which the subject had called forth the great city with all its manifold interests was forgotten and the men of the world went back to their childhood and early life in little villages or on old and told incidents of the time when the outer world was unknown and all things had those strange and large proportions which the mind of childhood gives old times were and christmas experiences in them were given without and the season was without to have been far ahead of christmas now presently one of the party said did any of you ever spend a christmas on the cars if you have not thank heaven and pray to be preserved how the captain made christmas from it henceforth for done it and i tell you it s next to i spent one once stuck in a snow | 46 |
em all for her if that would have done any good but it wouldn t i didn t have any right to get mad with em for loving her and if i had got into a row she d have sent me off in a but just then the war came on and it was a to me i went in first thing i made up my mind to go in and fight like five thousand and i thought maybe that would win her and it did it worked first rate i went in as a private and i got a bullet through me in about six months through my right that laid me off for a year or so then i went back and the boys made me a lieutenant and when the captain was made a major i was made captain i was offered something higher once or twice but i thought i d rather stay with my company i knew the boys and they knew me and we had got sort of used to each other to depending on each other as it wore the war fixed me all right though when i went home that first time my wife had come right around and as r how the captain made christmas soon as i was well enough we were married i always said if i could find that yankee that shot me i d like to make him a present i found out that the great trouble with me had been that i had not been bold enough i used to let her go her own way too much and seemed to be afraid of her i was afraid of her too i bet that s your trouble sir are you afraid of her i told him i thought i was well sir he said it will never do you mustn t let her think that never you cannot help being afraid of her for every man is that but it is fatal to let her know it stand up sir stand up for your rights if you are bound to get down on your knees and every man feels that he is don t do it get up and run out and roll in the dust outside somewhere where she can t see you why sir he said it doesn t do to even let her think she s having her own way half the time she s only you and she doesn t really want what she to want of course i m speaking of before marriage after marriage she always wants it and she s going to have it anyway and the sooner you find that out and give in the better you must consider this however that her way marriage is always laid down to her with reference to your good she thinks about you a great deal more than you how the captain made christmas do about her and she s always working out something that is for your advantage she ll let you do some things as you wish just to make you believe you are having your own way but she s just been pretending to think otherwise to make you feel good this sounded so much like sense that i asked him how much a man ought to stand from a woman stand sir he said why everything everything that does not take away his self respect i said i believed if he d let a woman do it she d wipe her shoes on him why of course she will he said and why shouldn t she a man is not good enough for a good woman to wipe her shoes on but if she s the right sort of a woman she won t do it in company and she won t let others do it at all she ll keep you for her own wiping there s a lot of sense in that said one of his at which there was a universal smile of assent said he had found it out and proceeded well we got to a little town in virginia i forget the name of it where we had to stop a short time the captain had told me that his home was not far from there and his old company was raised around there quite a number of the old fellows lived about there yet he said how the captain made christmas and he saw some of them nearly every time he passed through as they kept the of him he did not know that he d find any of them out to day as it was christmas and they would all be at home he said as the train drew up i went out on the platform however and there was quite a crowd assembled i surprised to find it so quiet for at other places through which we had pa ed they had been having high firing off and making things lively here the crowd seemed to be quiet and solemn and i heard the captain s name just then he came out on the platform and called out there he is now and in a second such a cheer went up as you never heard they crowded around the old fellow and shook hands with him and him as if he had been a girl i suppose you have reference to the time before you were married interrupted but did not heed him he went on it seemed the had got out that morning that it the captain s train that had gone off the track and that the captain had been killed in the wreck and this crowd had assembled to meet the body we were going to give you a big funeral captain said one old fellow they ve got you while you are living how the captain made christmas but we | 46 |
claim you when you are dead we ain t going to let em have you then we re going to put you to sleep in old virginia the old fellow was much affected and made them a little speech he introduced us to them all he said gentlemen these are my boys my neighbors and family and then boys these are my friends i don t know all their names yet but they are my friends and we were he rushed off to send a to his wife in new because as he said afterwards she too might get hold of the report that he had been killed and a christmas message would set her up anyhow she d be a little low down at his not getting there he said as he had never missed a christmas day at home since when dinner time came he was invited in by pretty nearly in the car but he declined he said he had to attend to a matter i was going in with a party but i thought the old fellow would be lonely so i waited and insisted on his dining with me i found that it had occurred to him that a bowl of would make it seem more like christmas and he had ahead to a friend at a little place to have the materials ready well they were on hand when we got there and how the captain made christmas we took them aboard and the old fellow made one of the finest you ever tasted in your life the rest of the passengers had no idea of what was going on and when the old chap came in with a big bowl in by nick and the old captain marching behind there was quite a cheer it was offered to the ladies first of course and then the men assembled in the and the captain did the honors he did them handsomely too made us one of the prettiest little speeches you ever heard said that christmas was not dependent on the fireplace however much a roaring fire might contribute to it that it was in s heart and might be enjoyed as well in a railway car as in a hall and that in this time of change and movement it us all to try and keep up what was good and cheerful and bound us together and to remember that christmas was not only a time for merry making but was the time when the of the world came among men to bring peace and good will and that we should remember all our everywhere and gentlemen he said there are two i always like to propose at this time and which i will ask you to drink the first is to my wife it was drunk you may believe and the sec how the captain made christmas is my friends all mankind this too was drunk and just then noticed that the old fellow had nothing but a little water in his glass why captain he said you are not drinking that is not fair well no sir said the old fellow i never drink anything on duty you see it is one of the and i them and of course i could not break my word nick there will drink my share however when you are through he isn t held up to quite such high and sure enough nick drained off a glass and made a speech which got him a handful of quarters well of course the old captain owned not only the car but all in it by this time and we spent one of the evenings you ever saw the fellow who had insisted on his rights at washington made a little speech and paid the captain one of the prettiest compliments i ever heard he said he had discovered that the captain had given him his own lower berth after he had been so rude to him and that instead of taking his upper berth as he had supposed he would have done he had given that to another person and had sat up himself all night that was i the old fellow had given the his lower in the smoking room and had given me his upper the i how the captain made christmas fellow made him a very handsome apology before us all and the captain had his own berth that night you may believe well we were all on the to see the captain s wife when we got to new the captain had told us that she always came down to the station to meet him so we were all on the for her he told me the first thing that he did was to kiss her and then he went and filed his reports and then they went home together and if you come and dine with me he said to me give you the best dinner you ever had real old virginia cooking nick s wife is our only servant and she is an excellent cook i promised him to go one day though i could not go the first day well the meeting between the old fellow and his wife was worth the trip to new to see i had formed a picture in my mind of a looking woman a southern matron you know how you do and when we drew into the station i looked around for her as i did not see her i watched the captain he got off and i missed him in the crowd presently though i saw him and i asked him captain is she here yes sir she is she never that s the sort of a wife to have sir come here and let me introduce you how the captain made christmas he pulled me up and introduced me to a sweet little old lady in an old | 46 |
their little among their pines or down on the edges of the district distinct both from the gentlemen on their old and from the sturdy farmer folk who owned the smaller places what title they had to little their lands originally or how they traced it back or where they had come from no one knew they had been there from time as long or longer if anything than the owners of the about them and insignificant as they were they were not the kind to attempt to question even had anyone been inclined to do so which no one was they had the names of the old english gentry and were a clean blue eyed people when they were growing to middle age their life told on them and made them weather beaten and not hard but when they were young there were often among them straight young fellows with clear cut features and looking girls with pink faces and blue or brown or eyes and a mien which one might have expected to find in a hall rather than in a cabin and mills short for were the leaders of the rival of the district they lived as their fathers had lived before them on opposite sides of the little stream the branches of which crept through the and between them and contributed to make the district almost as impenetrable to the as a mountain little the long log cabin of the mi uses where room had been added to room in a straight line until it looked like the side of a log fort peeped from its pines across at the clearing where the hardly more home of w set back amid a little orchard of ragged trees and half hidden under a great vine but though the two places lay within rifle shot of each other they were almost as completely divided as if the big river below had rolled between them since the great fight between old and mills over henry clay there had rarely been an election in which some members of the two families had not had a they had to be thrown together sometimes at meeting and their children now and then met down on the river fishing or at the washing hole as the deep place in the little stream below where the branches ran together was called but they held themselves as much aloof from each other as their higher neighbors the and the did on their the children of course would run together nor did the parents take steps to prevent them sure that they would as they grew up take their own sides as naturally as they themselves had done in their day mean little time children were children and they need not be worried with things like grown up folk when hall died and left his little farm and all his small to free the children of his poor neighbors the farmers about availed themselves of his and the children for six miles around used to attend the little school which was started in the large log school house on the roadside known as hall s free school few people knew the plain homely hard working man or wholly understood him some thought him some weak minded some only queer and at first his was hardly comprehended but in time quite a little began about the little fountain which the poor farmer s had opened under the big oaks by the and gradually its borders extended until finally it penetrated as far as the district and mills s children appeared one morning at the door of the little school house and with faces and timid voices informed the teacher that their father had sent them to school at first there was some debate over at s place whether they should show their contempt for the new departure of the mi uses by standing out against them or should follow little their example it was hard for a to have to follow a mills in anything so they stood out for a year as it seemed however that the were getting something to which the were as much entitled as they one morning little walked in at the door and without taking his hat off announced that he had come to go to school he was about fifteen at the time but he must have been nearly six feet his being wholly due to the fact that big was older not taller and though he was spare there was something about his face as he stood in the open door or his eye as it rested on the teacher s face which prevented more than a general of surprise take off your hat said the teacher and he took i t off slowly i suppose you can read was the first question no a ran round the room and little s brow clouded as he not only could not read but could not even spell and in fact did not know his letters he was put into the class the class of the smallest children in the school little walked over to the corner indicated with his head up his hands in his pockets i o little and a roll in his gait full of defiance and took his seat on the end of the bench and looked straight before him he could hear the around him and a lowering look came into his blue eyes he glanced sideways down the bench opposite it happened that the next seat to his was that of mills who was at that time just nine she was not laughing but was looking at earnestly and as he caught her eye she nodded to him good it was the first greeting the boy had received and though he returned it sullenly it warmed him and the cloud passed from his brow and presently he looked at her again she handed him a | 46 |
book he took it and looked at it as if it were something that might he was not an apt scholar perhaps he had begun too late perhaps there was some other cause but though he could swim better climb better and rim faster than any boy in the school or for that matter in the county and knew the habits of every bird that flitted through the woods and of every animal that lived in the district he was not good at his books his mind was on other things when he had spent a week over the he did know a letter as such but only by the places on the page they were on and gave up when big a was shown r v little him on another page only asking how in the big a got over there he pulled off his coat silently whenever ordered and took his like a lamb without a murmur and almost without but every boy in the school learned that it was dangerous to laugh at him and though he could not learn to read or to train his fingers to guide a pen he could climb the pine in the district to get a young crow for and could fashion all sorts of curious and other with his long fingers he did not court popularity was rather cold and and mills was about the only other scholar with whom he seemed to be on warm terms many a time when the tall boy stood up before the thin teacher helpless and dumb over some question which almost anyone in the school could answer the little girl twisting her fingers in an of anxiety whispered to him the answer in the face of almost certain detection and of absolutely certain punishment in return he worshipped the ground she walked on and whichever side was on was sure to be on it too he climbed the trees to get her nuts into the to find her more brilliant of flowers than the other girls had spent little hours to gather birds eggs than they had and was everywhere and always her silent and faithful champion they soon learned that the way to secure his help in anything was to get mills to ask it and the little girl quickly discovered her power and used it as over her tall slave as any other ever did they were to be seen any day trailing along the plantation paths which the school children took from the district the others in a and the tall boy and little clad girl who seemed in summer mainly sun bonnet and bare legs either following or going before the others at some distance the death of of old as he had begun to be called cut off little from his in the middle of his third year and before he had learned more than to read and a little and to write in a fashion for he had been rather irregular in his attendance at all times he now stopped altogether giving the teacher as his reason with characteristic got to work perhaps no one at the school mourned the long legged boy s departure except his little friend now a well grown girl of twelve very straight and slim and with big dark eyes she gave him when he went away the little testament she had gotten as a prize and which was one of her most cherished possessions other boys found the first honor as rock and open once more to them and were free from the silent and somewhat contemptuous gaze of him who however they looked down on him was a sort of silent power among them alone felt a void and found by its sudden absence how great a force was the steady of one who could always be counted on to take one s side without question she had to bear the of the school as miss and though her two brothers were ready enough to fight for her if boys pushed her too hardly they could do nothing against girls and the girls were her worst the name was fastened on her and it clung to her until as time went on she came to almost hate the poor innocent cause of it meantime beginning to fill out and take on the shoulders and form of a man began to fill also the place of the man in his little home this among other things meant opposition if not hostility to everything on mills s side when old died the little all went to the funeral of course but that did not prevent their having the same feeling toward little afterward and the breach continued at first he used to go over occasionally to see and carry her little presents as he had done at school but he soon found that it was not the same thing he was always received coolly and shortly he was given to understand that he was not wanted there and in time herself showed that she was not the same she had been to him before thus the young fellow was thrown back on himself and the hostility between the two was as great as ever he spent much of his time in the woods for the place was small at best only a score or so of acres and mostly covered with pines and little was but a poor hand at working with a their only farm he was however an shot with an eye like a hawk to find a flat on top of the limb of the in the woods or a hare in her bed among the in the county and he knew the habits of fish and bird and animal as if he had created them and though he could not or would not handle a he was the best hand little at an axe in | 46 |
the stump in the district and mrs was kept in game if not in meal the dilated on his and grown to be a slender slip of a girl with very bright eyes and a little nose was against him in public though said she had of her youngest brother and his jaws for something she had said of him the mills s enmity was well understood and there were not wanting those to take s side he had grown to be the young man in the district tall and straight as a and though her hate of him and turned up her little nose more than it was already turned up at his name there were many other girls in the pines who looked at him from under their long and thought he was worth both the mills boys and to boot so when at a fish the two mills boys attacked him and he whipped them both together some said it served them right while others declared they did just what they ought to have done and intimated that was less anxious to meet their father than he was them who were nothing more than boys to him these asked in proof of their view why he had declined to little fight when old had abused him so to his face this was met by the fact that he could not have been so mighty for he had jumped in and saved mills s ufe ten minutes afterward when he got beyond his depth in the pond and had already sunk twice but then to be sure it had to be admitted that he was the best on the ground and that any man there would have gone in to save his worst enemy if he had been drowning this must have been the view that mills took of the case for one day not long afterward having met at the cross roads store where she was looking at some pink and where he had come to get some duck shot and caps she turned on him publicly and with flashing eyes and cheeks gave him to understand that if she were a man he would not have had to fight two boys and he would not have come off so well either if anything this attack brought friends for he not only had whipped the mills boys fairly and had fought only when they had pressed him but had as has been said declined to fight old man mills under gross provocation and besides though they were younger than he the mills boys were seventeen and eighteen and not such babies either if they insisted little on fighting they had to take what they got and not send their sister to talk and abuse a man about it afterward and the weight of opinion was that that mills was too and set up all this reached mrs and was no doubt sweet to her ears she related it in her voice to as he sat in the door one evening but it did not seem to have much effect on him he never stirred or showed by word or sign that he even heard her and finally without speaking he rose and away into the woods the old woman gazed after him silently until he disappeared and then gave a look across to where the mills cabin peeped from among the pines which was full of hate the at which had first fought the mills boys and then pulled one of them out of the river had been given by one of the county for election as to a which was to be held at the capital and possibly the division of sentiment in the district between the and little was as much due to political as to personal feeling for the sides were growing more and more tightly drawn and the j little as usual were on one side and little on the other and both sides had strong the question was on one side with probable war and on the other the union as it was the were for the candidate who the latter and little was for him who wanted both were men of position and popularity the one a young man and the other older and both were neighbors the older man was elected and shortly the question became imminent and all the talk about the cross roads was of war as time had worn on little always silent had become more and more so and seemed to be growing he spent more and more of his time in the woods or about the cross roads the only store and post office near the district where the little tides of the quiet life around used to meet at length mrs considered it so serious that she took it upon herself to go over and talk to her neighbor mrs as she generally did on matters too intricate and grave for the experience of the district she found mrs as always sympathetic and kind and though she took back with her not much as to the cause of her son s trouble or its cure she little went home in a measure comforted with the assurance of the sympathy of one stronger than she she had found out that her neighbor powerful and rich as she seemed to her to be had her own troubles and sorrows she heard from her of the danger of war breaking out at any time and her husband would among the first little did not say much when his mother told of her visit but his usually downcast eyes had a new light in them and he began to visit the cross roads oftener at last one day the news that came to the cross roads was that there was to be war it had been in the air for some | 46 |
time but now it was it came in the presence of mr himself who had come the night before and was by the governor to raise a company there were a number of people there quite a crowd for the little cross roads for the stir had been growing day by day and excitement and anxiety were on the increase the papers had been full of firing on flags raising troops and everything but that was far off when mr appeared in person it came nearer though still few if any quite took it in that it could be actual and immediate among those at the cross roads that little day were the father and sons who looked a little at the speaker as one who had always been on the other side little was also there silent as usual but with a light burning in his blue eyes that evening when little reached home which he did somewhat earlier than usual he announced to his mother that he had as a soldier the old woman was standing before her big fireplace when he told her and she leaned against it quite still for a moment then she sat down stumbling a little on the rough hearth as she made her way to her little broken chair got up and found her a better one which she took without a word whatever entered into her soul in the little cabin that night when mrs went among her neighbors she was a soldier s mother she even went over to mills s on some pretext connected with s going was not at home but mrs mills was and she felt a sudden loss as if somehow the had fallen below the she talked of it for several days she could not make out entirely what it was s black eyes flashed the next day went to the cross roads to there was besides the who little were of every class quite a little crowd there to look at the among them were two women of the poorest class one old and faded rather than gray the other hardly better dressed though a slim figure straight and trim gave her a certain distinction even had not a few ribbons and a little ornament or two on her pink with a certain air showed that she was accustomed to being admired the two women found them selves together once during the day and their eyes met it was just as the line of soldiers passed those of the elder lighted with a sudden spark of mingled and hate those of the younger flashed back for a moment and then fell beneath the elder s gaze there was much enthusiasm about the war and among others both of the mills boys before the day was ended their sister going in with them to the room where their names were entered on the roll and coming out with flashing eyes and cheeks she left the place earlier than most of the crowd but not until after the was over and some of the young soldiers had gone home the mills boys was set down in the district to and some said it was because she was jealous of little being at the end of the company with a little new gun and such a fine uniform for her hatred of little was well known anyhow their example was followed and in a short time nearly all the young men in the district had at last one night a summons came for the company to at the cross roads next day with arms and orders had come for them to report at once at the capital of the state for before being sent into the field to a force which report said was already on the way to the state there was the greatest excitement and enthusiasm this was war and was ready to meet it the day was given to taking an of arms and and then there was a and then the company was dismissed for the night as many of them had families of whom they had not taken leave and as they had not come that day prepared to leave and were ordered to join the commander next day prepared to march little escorted his mother home as ever at first there was quite a company but as they went their several ways to their home at last little and his mother were left alone in the path and made the last part of their way alone now and then little the old woman s eyes were on him and often his eyes were on her but they did not speak they just walked on in silence till they reached home it was but a poor little house even when the vine covered it wall and roof and the bees among its clusters of violet blossoms but now the bush was only a of twisted wires hung upon it and the little weather stained cabin looked bare and poor enough as the young fellow stood in the door looking out with the evening light upon him his tall straight figure filled it as if it had been a frame he stood perfectly motionless for some minutes gazing across the before him the sun had set only about a half hour and the light was still lingering on the under edges of the clouds in the west and made a sort of glow in the little yard before him as it did in front of the cabin on the other hill his eye first swept the well known horizon taking in the below him and the heavy pines on either side where it was already dusk and then rested on the little cabin opposite whether he saw it or not one could have told for his face wore a look figures moved backward and forward over there came out and went | 46 |
in without his look changing even faintly in her gay dress came out and passed down the alone without his expression changing it was perhaps fifteen minutes later that he seemed to awake and after a look over his shoulder stepped from ihe door into the yard his mother was cooking and he strolled down the path across the little clearing and entered ihe pines his pace quickened he strode along the dusky path with as firm a step as if it were broad daylight a quarter of a mile below the path crossed the little stream and joined the path from mills s place which he used to take when he went to school he crossed at the old log and turned down the path through the little clearing there the next moment he stood face to face with mills whether he was surprised or not no one could have told for he said not a word and his face was in the shadow though s was toward the clearing and the light from the sky was on it her hat was in her hand he stood still but did not stand a side to let her pass until she made an imperious little gesture and stepped as if she would have passed around him then he stood aside but she did not appear in a to avail herself of the freedom offered she s little looked at him he took off his cap enough and said good good she said and then as the pause became embarrassing she said hear you re away to yes to when you re back she asked after a pause in which she had been twisting the pink string of her hat don t know may be never had he been looking at her he might have seen the change which his words brought to her face she lifted her eyes to his face for the first time since the half defiant glance she had given him when they met and they had a strange light in them but at the moment he was looking at a bow on her dress which had been pulled loose he put out his hand and touched it and said you re a yer bow and as she found a pin and fastened it again he added an i don know as anybody an overpowering impulse changed her and forced her to say i don t know as anybody does either i know as i don t the look on his face smote her and the spark died out of her eyes as he said slowly no i you didn i don t know as anybody does my old woman may little be she will a little i wanted to tell you that i wouldn t a fit them boys if they hadn t a pushed me so hard and i wan t to fight your old man i wouldn t that s all what answer she might have made to this was prevented by him for he suddenly held out his hand with something in it saying here she instinctively reached out to take whatever it was and he placed in her hand a book which she recognized as the little testament which she had won as a prize at school and had given him when they went to school together it was the only book she had ever possessed as her very own i brought this thinking as how maybe you might a wan ted me to keep it he was going to say but he checked himself and said might a wanted it back before she could recover from the surprise of finding the book in her hand her own he was gone the words only came to her clearly as his retreating footsteps grew fainter and his tall figure faded in the darkening light she made a hasty step or two after him then checked herself and listened intently to see if he were not returning and then as only the little answered threw herself flat on the ground and in the darkness there were few houses in the district or in the county where lights did not bum all that night the gleam of the fire in mrs s httle house could be seen all night from the door of the mills cabin as the candle by which mrs mills complained while she and could be faintly seen from little s house the two mills boys slept stretched out on the one bed in the little centre room while the women and talked by the single candle and old in a chair with his long legs stretched out toward the fire and the two shining barrels of his sons resting against his knees where they had slipped from his hands when he had finished rubbing them the younger woman did most of the sewing her fingers were than her mother s and she scarcely spoke except to answer the latter s questions presently a somewhere in the distance and almost immediately another in answer closer at hand s the second crow it s toward the said the elder woman little the young girl made no answer but a moment later rose and laying aside the thing she was sewing walked to the low door and stepped out into the night when she returned and picked up her sewing again her mother said i de you drinks mo water than anybody i ever see to which she made no answer air they a over at mis s s asked the mother they ain t a been to bed said the girl quietly and then as if a sudden thought had struck her she her chair nearer the door which she had left open and sat facing it as she on the brown thing she was working on a small bow which she took from her dress i de | 46 |
parcel up again little as nearly like what it had been before as he could and determined to give it to one of the mills boys when he reached the cross roads he his jacket and put it into the little inner pocket and then it carefully stepped out again more briskly than before it was perhaps an hour later that the mills boys set out for the cross roads their father and mother went with them but did not go she had been out to look for the cow and got in only just before they left still clad in her yesterday s finery but it was wet and with the dew when they were gone she sat down in the door limp and dejected more than once during the morning the girl rose and started down the path as if she would follow them and see the company set out on its march but each time she came back and sat down again in the door remaining there for a good while as if in thought once she went over almost to mrs s then turned back and sat down again so the morning passed and the first thing she knew her father and mother had returned the company had started they were to march to the bridge that night she heard them talking over the appearance that they had little made the speech of the captain the cheers that went up as they marched off the enthusiasm of the crowd her father was in much excitement suddenly she seized her sun bonnet and slipped out of the house and across the clearing and the next instant she was flying down the path through the pines she knew the road they had taken and a path that would strike it several miles lower down she ran a deer up hill and down herself of every short cut until about an hour after she started she came out on the road fortunately for her the incident to getting any body of new troops on the march had detained the company and a moment s inspection of the road showed her that they had not yet passed up a bank she concealed herself and lay down in a few moments she heard the noise they made in the distance and she was still panting from her haste when they came along the soldiers marching in order as if still on parade and a considerable company of friends attending them not a man however dreamed that flat on her face in the bushes lay a girl peering down at them with her breath held but with a heart which beat so loud to her own ears that she felt they must hear it least of all did marching erect little and tall in front for all the sore heart in his bosom know that her eyes were on him as long as she could see him when brought up the cow that night it was later than usual it perhaps was fortunate for her that the change made by the absence of the boys prevented any questioning after all the excitement her mother was in a fit of despondency her father sat in the door looking straight before him as silent as the pine on which his vacant gaze was fixed even when the little cooking they had was through with and his supper was offered him he never spoke he ate in silence and then took his seat again even mrs mills s complaining about the cow so far brought no word from him any more than from he sat silent as before his long legs stretched out toward the fire the glow of the embers fell on the rough thin face and lit it up bringing out the features and making them suddenly clear cut and strong it might have been only the fire but there seemed the glow of something more and the eyes burnt back under the shaggy brows the two women likewise were silent the elder now and then casting a glance at her husband she offered him his pipe but he said nothing and silence fell as before little presently she could stand it no longer i de she said i believe your takes it most harder than i does the girl made some answer about the boys it was hardly intended for him to hear but he rose suddenly and walking to the door took down from the two forks above it his old long single gun and turning to his wife said me my coat old woman by i m a the two women were both on their feet in a second their faces were white and their hands were clenched under the sudden stress their breath came fast the older woman was the first to speak what in the ken you do mills an as you is an got the all the time too i ken pint a gun said the old man an i ma an what in the is a goin to become of us an that cow got to away so i m all the time she ll in the her tone was but it was not positive and when her husband said again i m a she said no more and all the time she was getting together the few things which would take as for she seemed suddenly little she moved about with a new step swift silent her head up a new light in her face and her eyes as they turned now and then on her father filled with a new fire she did not talk much i ll a care o us all she said once and once again when her mother gave something like a moan she supported her with a word about the only ones as gives three from one family it was a word in season for the | 46 |
mother caught the spirit and a moment later declared with a new tone in her voice that that was better than mrs and still they were better off than she for they still had two left to help each other while she had not a soul i ll care o us all repeated the girl once more it was only a few things that mills took with him that morning when he set out in the darkness to overtake the company before they should break camp hardly his old game bag half full for the of the boys had stripped the little cabin of everything that could be of use he might only have seemed to be going hunting as he down the path with his old long gun in his hand and his game bag over his shoulder and disappeared in h k little the darkness from the eyes of the two women standing in the cabin door the next morning mrs mills paid mrs the first visit she had paid on that side the branch since the day three years before when and the boys had the row with little it might have seemed accidental but mrs was the first person in the district to know that all the mills men were gone to the army she went over again from time to time for it was not a period to keep up open and she was younger than mrs and better off but never went and mrs never asked after her or came ii the company in which little and the mi uses had was one of the many hundred companies which joined and were in the army it was in no way particularly by anything that it did it was commanded by the gentleman who did most toward getting it up and the officers were gentlemen the seventy odd men who made the rank and file were of all classes from the sons of the oldest and in the neighborhood to little and the in the district the war was very different from what those who went into it expected it to be until it had gone on some time it seemed mainly marching and and staying in camp quite as seemed to many and and doing nothing much of the especially later on was given to marching and getting food but and camp duties at first took up most of it this was hard on the poorer men no one knew what it was to them io little some some fell sick of the former class was little he was too strong to be sickly as one of the mills boys was who died of fever in hospital only three months after they went in and too silent to be as the other who was jolly and could dance and sing a good song and was soon very popular in the company more popular even than old who was popular in several rights as being about the oldest man in the company and as having a sort of dry wit when he was in a good humor which he generally was little was hardly distinguished at all unless by the fact that he was somewhat taller than most of his comrades and somewhat more he was only a common soldier of a common class in an ordinary company such a company as was common in the army he still had the little which he had picked up in the path that morning he left home he had asked both of the mills boys vaguely if they ever had owned such a piece of property but they had not and when old told him that he had not either he had contented himself and carried it about with him somewhat wrapped up and tied in an old piece of and in his inside jacket pocket for safety with a vague feeling that some day he might find the owner or re little turn it he was never on specially good terms with the mi uses indeed there was always a trace of coolness between them and him he could not give it to them now and then he and it in a secret place and read a little in the testament but that was all he never touched a needle or so much as a pin and when he the parcel he generally counted them to see that they were all there so the war went on with battles coming a little oftener and food growing ever a little but the company was about as before nothing particular what with killing and fever a little a good deal faded and little just one in a crowd marching with the rest sleeping with the rest fighting with the rest starving with the rest he was hardly known for a long time except for his silence outside of his mess men were fighting and getting killed or wounded constantly as for him he was never touched and as he did what he was ordered silently and was silent when he got through there was no one to sing his praise even when he was sent out on the line as a sharp if he did anything no one knew it he would disappear over a crest or in a wood and as silent as if he were hunting in the of the ot little clean his gun cut up wood eat what he could get and sit by the fire and listen to the talk as silent awake as asleep one other thing distinguished him he could handle an axe better than any man in the company but no one thought much of that least of all little it only brought him a little more work occasionally one day in the heat of a battle which the men knew was being won if shooting and cheering and rapid advancing could tell anything the advance | 46 |
which had been going on with spirit was suddenly checked by a fire which swept the top of a slope along the crest of which ran a road a little raised between two deep by the remains of heavy fences the after a gallant and hopeless charge were ordered to lie down in the ditch behind the and were sheltered from the leaden which swept the crest was needed to clear the field beyond by the which swept it but no could get into position for the and the day seemed about to be lost the only way was up the and the only break was a gate opening into the field right on top of the hill the gate was gone but two huge wooden gate posts each a tree little trunk still stood and barred the way no cannon had room to turn in between them a battery had tried and a pile of dead men horses and marked its failure a general officer galloped up with two or three of his staff to try to start the advance again he saw the impossibility if we could get a couple of into that field for three minutes he said it would do the work but in ten minutes it will be too late the company from the old county was lying behind the bank almost exactly opposite the gate and every word could be heard where the axe came from no one knew but a minute later a man himself across the road and the next second the sharp steady blows of an axe were ringing on the the had cut a wide in the brown wood and the big were flying before his act was quite taken in and then a cheer went up from the line it was no time to cheer however other were flying than those from the s axe and the bullets by him like bees the hard post and knocking the dust from the road about his feet but he took no notice of them his axe plied as steadily as if he had been cutting a tree in the little woods of the district and when he had cut one side he turned as deliberately and cut the other then placing his hand high up he flung his weight against the post and it went down a great cheer went up and the swung back across the road just as two of tore through the opening he had made few men outside of his company knew who the man was and few had time to ask for the battle was on again and the pushed forward as for little himself the only thing he said was i i could cut it down in ten minutes he had nine bullet holes through his clothes that night but little thought nothing of it and neither did others many others had bullet holes through their bodies that night it happened not long afterward that the general was talking of the battle to an english gentleman who had come over to see something of the war and was visiting him in his camp and he mentioned the incident of a battle won by an s coolness but did not know the name of the man who cut the post away the captain of the company however was the general s cousin and was dining with his guest that day and he said with pride that he knew the man that he was in his company and he gave the name little it is a fine old name said the visitor and he is a fine man said the captain but none of this was ever known by he was not mentioned in the because there was no the had no honors save the approval of their own and the love of their own people it was not even mentioned in the district or if it was it was only that he had cut down a post other men were being shot to pieces all the time and the district had other things to think of poor at all times the people of the district were now absolutely without means of fortunately for them they were to hardship and their men being all gone to the war the women made such shift as they could and lived as they might they their little patches the streams and in the woods but it was poor enough at best and the weak went down and only the strong survived mrs mills was better off than most she had a cow at first and she had turned out to be a tower of strength she more game than anyone in the district caught more fish with lines and traps she went miles to fish below the forks where the fish were bigger than above she learned to shoot with her father s old gun little which had been sent back when he got a shot like a man and better than most men she the patch she tended the cow till it was lost and then she did many other things her mother declared that when died was the boy who died of fever but for she could not have got along at all and there were many other women in the pines who felt the same thing when the news came that bob was killed was one of the first who got to bob s wife and when luck disappeared in a battle gave the best reasons for thinking he had been taken prisoner and many a string of fish and many a and hare found their way into the empty because happened to pass by from having been rather as that mills she came to be relied on and was consulted and quoted as an authority one cabin alone she never visited the house of old mrs now almost completely buried under its vine she | 46 |
never entered her mother as has been said sometimes went across the bottom and now and then took with her a hare or a bird or a string of fish on condition from that it little should not be known she had caught them but never went and mrs mills found herself sometimes put to it to explain to others her the best she could make of it to say that she always do do her own way how mrs s wood pile was kept up nobody knew if indeed it could be called a when it was only a supply of thrown as if accidentally just at the edge of the clearing mrs was not of an imaginative turn even of enough to explain how it came that so much dry wood came to be there broken up just the right length and mrs mills knew no more than that that cow was always a goin off and a a every in the all said however the women of the district had a hungry time and the war bore on them heavily as on else and as it went on they suffered more and more many a woman went day after day and week after week without even the small portion of coarse corn bread which was ordinarily her common fare they called oftener and often er at the house of their neighbors who owned the near them and always received something but as time went on the themselves were i little stripped the little things they could take with them when they went such as eggs honey etc were wanting and to go too often without anything to give might make them seem like beggars and that they were not their husbands and sons were in the army fighting for the south as well as those from the and they stood by this fact on the same level the looks of the were unpleasant and in marked contrast to the universal of their owners but they were slaves and they could afford to despise them only they must their independence thus no one outside knew what the women of the district went through when they wrote to their husbands or sons that they were in straits it meant that they were starving such a letter meant all the more because they were used to hunger but not to writing and a letter meant perhaps days of thought and enterprise and hours of labor as the war went on the hardships everywhere grew heavier and heavier the letters from home came oftener and oftener many of the men got when they were in winter quarters and sometimes in summer too from wounds and went home to see their families little never went he sent his mother little his pay and wrote to her but he did not even apply for a and he had never been touched except for a couple of flesh wounds which were barely skin deep when he heard from his mother she was always cheerful and as he knew had never even visited her there was no other reason for his going home it was in the late part of the third campaign of the war that he began to think of going when mills got a letter from his wife and told little how and his mother was getting knew that the letter was written by and he felt that it meant a great deal he applied for a but was told that no would be granted then which then meant that work was expected it came shortly afterward and little and the company were in it battle followed battle a good many men in the company were killed but as it happened not one of the men from the district was among them until one day when the company after a fierce charge found itself the ground in a wide field on the far side of which the enemy and was posted in force lying down they were pretty well protected by the of the ground from the and lying little down the generally even with their better guns could not hurt them to a great extent but a line of sharp well placed behind cover of scattered rocks on the far side of the field could reach them with their long range and them with their dropping fire picking off man after man a line of sharp was thrown forward to drive them in but their guns were not as good and the cover was inferior and it was only after numerous losses that they succeeded in most of them they still left several men up among the rocks who from time to time sent a bullet into the line with deadly effect one man in particular behind a rock on the hill side picked off the men with accuracy shot after shot was sent at him at last he was quiet for so long that it seemed he must have been silenced and they began to hope ad mills rose to his knees and in sheer waved his hat in triumph just as he did so a puff of white came from the rock and ad mills threw up his hands and fell on his back like a log stone dead a groan of mingled rage and dismay went along the line poor old crept over and fell on the boy s body with a flesh wound in his own arm fifty shots were sent at the rock but a puff of little smoke from it afterward and a hissing bullet showed that the was untouched it was apparent that he was secure behind his rock and had some opening through which he could fire at his leisure it was also apparent that he must be if possible but how to do it was the question no one could reach him the slope down and the slope | 46 |
up to the group of rocks behind which he lay were both in plain view and any man would be who attempted to cross it a bit of woods reached some distance up on one side but not far enough to give a shot at one behind the rock and though the ground in that direction dipped a little there was one little ridge in full view of both lines and perfectly bare except for a number of bodies of who had fallen earlier in the day it was discussed in the line but knew that no man could get across the ridge alive while they were talking of it little who with a white face had helped old to get his boy s body back out of fire slipped off to one side rifle in hand and disappeared in the wood they were still talking of the impossibility of the sharp when a man appeared on the edge of the wood he moved swiftly across the sheltered ground stooping little low until he reached the edge of the exposed place where he straightened up and made a dash across it he was recognized instantly by some of the men of his company as little and a of astonishment went along the line what could he mean it was sheer madness j the line of white smoke along the wood and the of dust about his feet showed that bullets were around him the next second he stopped dead still threw up his and fell prone on his face in full view ol both lines a groan went up from his com the whole company knew he was dead and on the instant a puff of white from the rock and a hissing bullet that the there was still in his covert the men were discussing little when cried out and pointed to him he was alive and not only alive but was moving moving slowly but steadily up the ridge and nearer on a line with the as flat on the ground as any of the motionless bodies about him a strange thrill of excitement went through the company as the dark object dragged itself nearer to the rock and it was not when the of a bullet and the well known white puff of smoke recalled them to the sharp shoot little er s dangerous aim for the next second the creeping figure sprang erect and made a dash for the spot he had almost reached it when the sharp discovered him and the men knew that little had the quickness of his hand and aim for at the same moment the figure of the man behind the rock appeared for a second as he sprang erect there was a puff of white and little stopped and staggered and sank to his knees the next second however there was a puff fi om where he knelt and then he sank flat once more and a moment later rolled over on his face on the near side of the rock and just at its foot there were no more bullets sent from that rock that day at least against the and that night little walked into his company s dusty from head to foot and with a bullet hole in his clothes not far from his heart but he said it was only a spent bullet and had just knocked the breath out of him he was pretty sore from it for a time but was able to help old to get his boy s body off and to see him start for the old man s wound though not dangerous was enough to him and get him a and he determined to take his son s body home which the captain s influence enabled little him to do between his wound and his grief the old man was nearly helpless and accepted s silent assistance with mute gratitude asked him to tell his mother that he was getting on well and sent her what money he had his last two months pay not enough to have bought her a pair of stockings or a pound of sugar the only other message he sent was given at the station just as set out he said tell as i got him as done it old grasped his hand and faltered his promise to do so and the next moment the train crawled away and left to back to camp in the rain vague and lonely in the remnant of what had once been a gray uniform if there was one thing that troubled him it was that he could not return the needle case until he replaced the broken needles and there were so many of them broken after this was in some sort known and was put pretty constantly on sharp service the men went into winter quarters before heard anything from home it came one day in the shape of a letter in the only hand in the world he knew s what it could mean he could not divine was his little mother dead this was the principal thing that occurred to him he the outside it had been on the way a month by the for letters travelled slowly in those days and a private soldier in an company was hard to find unless the address was pretty clear which this was not he did not open it immediately his mother must be dead and this he could not face nothing else would have made write at last he went off alone and opened it and read it it out with some pains it began without an address with the simple statement that her father had arrived with ad s body and that it had been buried and that his wound was right bad and her mother was cut up with her trouble then it mentioned his | 46 |
mother and said she had come to ad s funeral though she could not walk much now and had never been over to their side since the day after he had but her father had told her as how he had killed the man as shot ad and so she made out to come that far then the letter broke off from giving news and as if under stress of feelings long pent up suddenly broke loose she declared that she loved him that she had always loved him ever since lie had been so good to her a great big boy to little a little bit of a girl at school and that she did not know why she had been so mean to him for when she had treated him worst she had loved him most that she had gone down the path that night when they had met for the purpose of meeting him and of letting him know she loved him but something had made her treat him as she did and all the time she could have let him kill her for love of him she said she had told her mother and father she loved him and she had tried to tell his mother but she could not for she was afraid of her but she wanted him to tell her when he came and she had tried to help her and keep her in wood ever since he went away for his sake then the letter told how poorly his mother w as and how she had failed of late and she said she thought he ought to get a and come home and when he did she would marry him it was not very well written nor wholly at least it took some time to sink fully into s somewhat dazed intellect but in time he took it in and when he did he sat like a man overwhelmed at the end of the letter as if possibly she thought in the greatness of her relief at her confession that the temptation she held out might prove too great even for him or possibly only because she was a woman little there was a across the coarse blue paper don t come without a for if you don t come honorable i won t marry you this however scarcely read his being was in the letter it was only later that the picture of his mother ill and failing came to him and it smote him in the midst of his happiness and clung to him afterward like a nightmare it haunted him she was dying he applied for a but were hard to get then and he could not hear from it and when a letter came in his mother s name in a lady s hand which he did not know telling him of his mother s poverty and sickness and asking him if he could get off to come and see her it seemed to him that she was dying and he did not wait for the he was only a few days march from home and he felt that he could see her and get back before he was wanted so one day he set out in the rain it was a scene of desolation that he passed through for the country was the seat of war fences were gone woods burnt and fields cut up and bare and it rained all the time a little before morning on the night of the third day he reached the edge of the district and plunged into its well known pines and little just as day broke he entered the old path which led up the little hill to his mother s cabin all during his journey he had been the meeting with some one else besides his mother and if had stood before him as he crossed the old log he would hardly have been surprised now however he had other thoughts as he reached the old clearing he was surprised to find it grown up in small pines already almost as high as his head and tall weeds filled the rows among the old trees and grew up to the very door he had been struck by the desolation all the way as he came along but it had not occurred to him that there must be a change at his own home he had always pictured it as he left it as he had always thought of in her pink with her hat in her hand and her heavy hair almost falling down over her neck now a great horror seized him the door was wet and black his mother must be dead he stopped and peered through the darkness at the dim little structure there was a little smoke coming out of the chimney and the next instant he strode up to the door it was shut but the string was hanging out and he pulled it and pushed the door open a thin figure seated in the small split chair on the hearth hovering as close as possible over little the fire straightened up and turned slowly as he stepped into the room and he recognized his mother but how changed she was quite white and little more than a skeleton at sight of the figure behind her she pulled herself to her feet and peered at him through the gloom mother said she reached her arms toward him but so that she would have fallen had he not caught her and her down into her chair as she became a little stronger she made him tell her about the battles he was in mr mills had come to tell her that he had killed the man who killed ad was not a good however and what he had to tell was told in a few words the old | 46 |
woman revived under it however and her eyes had a brighter light in them was too much engrossed in taking care of his mother that day to have any thought of any one else he was used to a soldier s scant fare but had never quite taken in the fact that his mother and the women at home had less even than they in the field he had never seen even in their poorest days after his father s death not only the house absolutely empty but without any means of getting any little thing outside it gave him a thrill to think what she must have endured without letting him know as soon as he could leave her he went into the woods with his old gun and shortly returned with a few which he cooked for her the first meat she told him that she had tasted for weeks on hearing it his heart grew hot why had not come and seen about her she explained it partly however when she told him that every one had been sick at mills s and old himself had come near dying no doctor could be got to see them as there was none left in the neighborhood and but for mrs she did not know what they would have done but mrs was down herself now the young man wanted to know about but all he could manage to make his tongue ask was she could not tell him she did not know anything about mrs mills used to bring her things sometimes till she was taken down but had never come to see her all she knew was that she had been sick with the others that she had been sick awoke in the young man a new tenderness the deeper because he little had done her an injustice and he was seized with a great longing to see her all his old love seemed suddenly accumulated in his heart and he determined to go and see her at once as he had not long to stay he set about his little preparations forthwith putting on his old clothes which his mother had kept ever since he went away as being more than the old worn and muddy uniform and brushing his long yellow hair and beard into something like order he changed from one coat to the other the little which he always carried thinking that he would show it to her with the hole in it which the s bullet had made that day and he put her letter into the same pocket his heart beating at the sight of her hand and the memory of the words she had and then he set out it was already late in the evening and after the rain the air was soft and though the western sky was becoming again by a cloud which low down on the horizon was up mountain on mountain of as if it might rain again by night however having dressed crossed the flat without much trouble only getting a little wet in some places where the logs were gone as he turned into the path up the hill he stood face to face with she was standing by a little spring which came from under an old oak the only one on the hill side of pines and was in a faded black he scarcely took in at first that it was she was so changed he had always thought of her as he last saw her that evening in pink with her white throat and her scornful eyes she was older now than she was then looked more a woman and taller and her throat if anything was than ever against her black dress her face was too and her eyes darker and larger at least they opened wide when appeared in the path her hands went up to her throat as if she suddenly wanted breath all of the yoimg man s heart went out to her and the next moment he was within arm s length of her her one word was in his ears he was about to catch her in his arms when a gesture restrained him and her look turned him to stone yer uniform she gasped stepping back was not quick always and he looked down at his clothes and then at her again his dazed brain wondering s yer uniform she asked at home he said quietly still wondering she seemed to catch some hope little yer got a she said more quietly coming a little nearer to him and her eyes growing softer got a he repeated to gain time for thought i i he had never thought of it before the words in her letter flashed into his mind and he felt his face flush he would not tell her a lie no i ain t got no he said and paused whilst he tried to get his words together to explain but she did not give him time what you with them se on she asked again i i he began as her suspicion dawned on him you re a she said coldly leaning forward her hands clenched her face white her eyes contracted a what he asked aghast his brain not wholly taking in her words you re a she said again and a coward all the blood in him seemed to to his head and leave his heart like ice he seized her arm with a grip like steel mills he said with his face white don t you say that to me if yer were a man i d kill yer right here where yer he little y tossed her hand from him and turned on his heel the next instant she was standing alone and when she reached the point in the path where she could see the crossing was already on | 46 |
the other side of the swamp through the water as if he were on dry land she could not have made him hear if she had wished it for on a sudden a great rushing wind swept through the pines bending them down like grass and blowing the water in the bottom into white waves and the thunder which had been in the distance suddenly broke with a great peal just overhead in a few minutes the rain came but the girl did not mind it she stood looking across the bottom until it came in sheets her to the skin and shutting out everything a few yards away the thunder storm passed but all that night the rain came down and all the next day and when it held up a little in the evening the bottom was a sea the rain had not prevented from going out he was used to it and he spent most of the day away from home when he returned he brought his mother a few provisions as much meal perhaps as a child might carry and little spent the rest of the evening sitting before the fire silent and motionless a flame burning back deep in his eyes and a cloud fixed on his brow he was in his uniform which he had put on again the night before as soon as he got home and the steam rose from it as he sat the other clothes were in a bundle on the floor where he had tossed them the evening before he never moved except when his mother now and then spoke and then sat down again as before presently he rose and said he must be going but as he rose to his feet a pain shot through him like a knife everything turned black before him and he staggered and fell full length on the floor he was still on the floor next morning for his mother had not been able to get him to the bed or to leave to get any help but she had made him a and he was as comfortable as a man might be with a raging fever feeble as she was the sudden demand on her had awakened the old woman s faculties and she was stronger than might have seemed possible one thing puzzled her in his constantly referred to a and a she knew that he had a of course but it puzzled her to hear him constantly repeating the words so the day little passed and then s delirium still continuing she made out to get to a neighbor s to ask help the neighbor had to go to mrs s as the only place where there was a chance of getting any medicine and it happened that on the way back she fell in with a couple of soldiers on horseback who asked her a few questions they were members of a home and guard just formed and when she left them they had learned her errand fortunately s illness took a better turn next day and by sunset he was free from delirium things had not well over at mills s during these days any more than at mrs s was in a state of mind which made her mother wonder if she were not going crazy she set it down to the storm she had been out in that evening for had not mentioned s name she kept his to herself thinking that thinking so many things that she could not speak or eat her heart was like lead within her but she could not rid herself of the thought of she could have torn it out for hate of herself and to all her mother s questioning glances she turned the face of a for two days she little neither ate nor spoke she watched the opposite hill through the rain which still kept up something was going on over there but what it was she could not tell at last on the evening of the third day she could stand it no longer and she set out from home to learn something she could not have gone to mrs s even if she had wished to do so for the bottom was still a sea extending from side to side and it was over her head in the current she set off therefore up the stream on her own side thinking to learn something up that way she met the woman who had taken the medicine to that evening and she told her all she knew mentioning among other things the men of the guard she had seen s heart gave a sudden bound up into her throat as she was so near she went on up to the cross roads but just as she stepped out into the road before she reached there she came on a small of riding slowly along she stood aside to let them pass but they drew in and began to question her as to the roads about them they were in long and and she thought they were the guard especially as there was a negro with them who seemed to know the roads and to be showing them the way her little one thought was of he would be arrested and shot when they questioned her therefore she told them of the roads leading to the big river around the fork and quite away from the district whilst they were still talking more came around the curve and the next instant was in the midst of a column of cavalry and she knew that they were the she had one moment of terror for herself as the horses trampled around her and the calls and noises of a body of cavalry moving in her ears but the next moment when the others gave way and a man whom she knew to be the | 46 |
commander pressed forward and began to question her she forgot her own terror in fear for her cause she had all her wits about her instantly and under a pretence of repeating what she had already told the first men she gave them such a mixture of descriptions that the negro was called up to it she made out that they were trying to reach the big river by a certain road and marched in the night as well as in the day she admitted that she had never been on that road but once and when she was taken along with them a mile or two to the place where they went into until the moon should rise she soon gave such an impression of her dense little ness aiid ignorance that after a little more questioning she was told that she might go home if she could find her way and was sent by the commander out of the camp she was no sooner out of hearing of her than she began to run with all her speed her chief thought was of as he was and dead to her he was a man and could advise her help her she tore through the woods the nearest way the branches which caught and tore her clothes the stream even where she struck it was out of its banks but she did not heed it she through it reaching about to her waist and struck out again at the top of her speed it must have been a little before midnight when she emerged from the pines in front of the cabin the latch string was out and she knocked and pushed open the door almost simultaneously all she could make out to say was the old woman was on her feet and the young man was sitting up in the bed by the time she entered was the first to speak what do you want here he asked sternly the all around she gasped out on the road yonder little what a minute later the young man white as a ghost was getting on his jacket while she told her story beginning with what the woman she had met had told her of the two men she had seen the presence of a soldier had given her confidence and having delivered her message both women left everything else to him his experience or his soldier s instinct told him what they were doing and also how to act they were a which had gotten around the body of the army and were striking for the capital and from their position unless they could be delayed they might surprise it in the face of the emergency a sudden genius seemed to the young man s mind by the time he was dressed he was ready with his plan did know where any of the guard stayed yes down the road at a certain place good it was on the way then he gave her his orders she was to go to this place and rouse any one she might find there and tell them to send a messenger to the city with all speed to warn them and were to be themselves if possible at a certain point on the road by which the were travelling where a little stream crossed it in a low place in a heavy little piece of woods they would find a there and a small force might possibly keep them back then she was to go on down and have the bridge ten or twelve miles below on the road between the forks burned and if necessary was to burn it herself and it must be done by sunrise but they were on the other road outside of the forks the girl explained to which only said he knew that but they would come back and try the bridge road and you burn the bridge if you have to do it with your own hand you hear and now go he said yes i ll do it said the girl and turned to the door the next instant she turned back to him he had his gun and was getting his axe and she began her heart in her eyes go said the young soldier pointing to the door and she went just as he took up his old rifle and stepped over to where his mother sat white and dumb as she turned at the edge of the clearing and looked back up the path over the pine bushes she saw him step out of the door with his gun in one hand and his axe in the other an hour later with the fever still hot little on him was cutting down trees in the darkness on the bank of a little stream and throwing them into the water on top of one another across the road in a way to block it beyond a dozen s work for several hours and was through the darkness miles away to give the warning every now and then the stopped cutting and listened and then went on again he had cut down a half dozen trees and formed a which it would take hours to clear away before cavalry could pass when stopping to listen he heard a sound that caused him to put down his axe the sound of horses along through the mud his practised ear told him that there were only three or four of them and he took up his gun and climbed up on the and waited presently the little of came in sight a mere black group in the road they saw the dark mass lying across the road and in then after a came on down slowly waited until they were within fifty yards of his and then fired at the nearest one a horse wheeled plunged and | 46 |
then galloped away in the darkness and several rounds from pistols were fired toward him whilst something went on on the ground before he could finish however the men i t little had turned around and were out of sight in a minute climbed over the and strode up the road after them he paused where the man he had shot had fallen the place in the mud was plain but his comrades had taken him up and carried him off hurried along after them day was just breaking and the body of cavalry were preparing to leave their when a man emerged from the darkness on the opposite side of the camp from that where little had been trees and walked up to the he was halted and brought up where the fire light could shine on him and was roughly questioned a tall young very pale and thin with an old ragged hat pulled over his eyes and an old patched uniform on his gaunt frame he did not seem at all disturbed by the pistols displayed around him but seated himself at the fire and looked about in a dull kind of way what do you want they asked him seeing how cool he was don t you want a guide he asked who are you inquired the in charge he paused some calls me a d he said slowly little the men all looked at him curiously well what do you want i thought maybe as you wanted a guide he said quietly we don t want you we ve got all the guide we want answered the roughly and we don t want any around here either you understand does he know the way all the is up now an it s sort o hard to through down yonder way if you don t know the way ble well yes he knows the way too every foot of it and a good deal more than you ll see of it if you don t look out oh that road down that way is sort o stopped up said the man as if he were carrying on a connected narrative and had not heard him they s soldiers on it too a little fur er down and they s done got word you re a that a way what s that they asked sharply it s stopped up and i knows a way down this a way in and about as nigh as that went on the speaker in the same level voice where do you live they asked him i lives back in the pines here a piece f little how long have you lived here about twenty three years i b what my mother says you know all the country about here ought to been in the army what did you desert for looked at him leisurely d you ever know a man as he d deserted i never did a faint smile on his pale face he was taken to the camp l the commander a dark self contained looking man with a piercing eye and a close mouth and there closely questioned as to the roads and he gave the same account he had already given the negro guide was brought up and his information with the new comer s as far as he knew it though he knew well only the road which they were on and which said was stopped up he knew too that a road such as offered to take them by ran somewhere down that way and joined the road they were on a good distance below but he thought it was a good deal longer way and they had to cross a fork of the river there was a consultation b en the little commander and one or two other officers and then the commander turned to and said what you say about the road s being this way is partly true do you that the other road is clear paused and reflected i ll guide you he said slowly do you that the bridge on the river is standing and that we can get across hit s standing now fur as i know do you understand that you are taking your life in your hand looked at him coolly and that if you take us that way and for any cause for any cause whatsoever we fail to get through safe we will hang you to the nearest tree waited as if in deep reflection i understand he said i ll guide you the silence that followed seemed to extend all over the camp the commander was reflecting and the others had their eyes fastened on as for him he sat as unmoved as if he had been alone in the woods all right said the leader suddenly it s a bargain we ll take your road what do you want little could you gi me a cup o coffee it s been some little time since i had anything to eat an i been sort o sick you shall have em said the officer and good pay besides if you lead us straight if not a limb and a rein you understand a quarter of an hour later they were on the march in front down the middle of the muddy road between two of the advance guard whose were conveniently carried to his fidelity what he thought of who might know plain poor ignorant unknown marching every step voluntarily nearer to certain and death for the sake of his cause as day broke they saw a few people who lived near the road and some of them recognized and looked their astonishment to see him guiding them one or two of the women broke out at him for a traitor and a dog to which he said nothing but only looked a little defiant with two | 46 |
red spots burning in his thin cheeks and on as before now and then answering a question but for the most part silent he must have thought of his mother old and by herself in her cabin but she would not live long and of some she had called him a as the other women had done a verse from the testament she gave him may have come into his mind he had never quite understood it blessed are ye when men shall ye was this what it meant this and another one seemed to come together it was something about enduring hardship like a good soldier he could not remember it exactly yes he could do that but had called him a maybe now though she would not and the words in the letter she had written him came to him and the little in his old jacket pocket made a warm place there and he felt a little than before the sun came up and warmed him as he along and the country grew flatter and flatter and the road deeper and deeper they were passing down into the bottom on either side of them were white oak so that they could not see a hundred yards ahead but for several miles had been watching for the smoke of the burning bridge and as they the river his heart began to sink there was one point on the brow of a hill before descending to the bottom where a sudden bend of the road and curve of the river two or three miles below gave a sight of the bridge r i little waited for this and when he reached it and saw the bridge still standing his heart sank like lead other eyes saw it too and a score of glasses were at it and a cheer went up why don t you cheer too asked an officer you have more to make or lose than anyone else we ain t there said once he thought he had seen a little smoke but it had passed away and now they were within three miles of the bridge and there was nothing what if after all had failed and the bridge was still standing he would really have brought the by the best way and have helped them his heart at the thought came up into his throat he stopped and began to look about as if he doubted the road when the main body came up however the commander was in no doubt and a pistol stuck against his head gave him to understand that no would be stood so he had to go on as to she had covered the fifteen miles which lay between the district and the fork road and had found and sent a messenger to give warning in the city but not finding any of the where she thought they were she had borrowed some matches and had little on herself to execute the rest of s commands the branches were high from the of the fork and she often had to up to her waist but she kept on and a little after daylight she came to the river ordinarily it was not a large stream a boy could a stone across it and there was a ford above the bridge not very deep in dry weather which people sometimes took to water their horses or because they preferred to ride through the water to crossing the steep and somewhat old bridge now however the water was far out in the woods and long before the girl got in sight of the bridge she was up to her knees when she reached the point where she could see it her heart for a moment failed her the whole flat was under water she remembered s command however and her courage came back to her she knew that it could not be as deep as it looked between her and the bridge for the messenger had gone before her that way and a moment later she had gone back and collected a bundle of and with a long pole to feel her way she carefully in as it grew deeper and deeper until it reached her breast she took the matches out and held them in her teeth hold little ing her bundle above her head it was hard work to keep her footing this way however and once she stepped into a hole and went under to her chin having a narrow escape from falling into a place which her pole could not but she recovered herself and at last was on the bridge when she tried to light a fire however her matches would not strike they as well as the wood had gotten wet when she slipped and not one would light she might as well have been at her home in the district when every match had been tried and tried again on a dry stone only to leave a white streak of smoking on it she sat down and cried for the first time she felt cold and weary the rays of the sun fell on her and warmed her a little and she wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked up the sun had just come up over the hill it gave her courage she turned and looked the other way firom which she had come nothing but a waste of water and woods suddenly from a point up over the nearer woods a little sparkle caught her eye there must be a house there she thought they might have matches and she would go back and get some but there it was again it moved there was another another and something black moving she sprang to little her feet and strained her eyes good god they were coming in a second she had turned the other way rushed across the | 46 |
the were kept clean except for useful the furniture was old and plain mahogany and and black with age and polished till they shone like the guns kept j in old virginia hung with white as snow straight backed chairs generations old with common new ones long with feet old filled much read books shining tables with slender brass tipped legs straight or holding some fine old books and in a blue social life or bowl or two with glorious roses filled with much read books this was all the servants houses smoke house wash house and carpenter shop were set around the back yard with s house a little than the others and farther off upon and beyond the quarters hill the quarters substantial buildings each for a family with chicken houses hard by and with yards closed in by split filled with fruit trees which somehow bore and apples in a mysterious profusion even when the orchard failed beyond the yard were gardens there were two the vegetable garden and the flower garden the former was the test of the mistress s power for at the most critical times she took the best hands on the place to work it the latter was the proof of her taste it was a strange affair it on the outside ran riot i in old virginia over its the air yellow in well regulated edged some borders while sweet peas and spread out over others yellow as gold and once planted blooming every spring as certainly as the trees or the birds grew in thick and here and there were tall lilies white as angels wings and stately as the maidens that walked among them big bushes blooming with snow purple and white and sweet in the spring and always with birds nests in them with the of eggs and in places and tall stems filled with rich of every hue and shade made a delicious in the autumn rich and ended the sweet procession and closed the season but the flower of all others was the rose there were roses everywhere roses over the and windows sending their fragrance into the rooms roses beside the walks j roses the yard and in the garden r of hue and delicate refinement of perfume j rich y roses thick on their bushes coming almost with the and before any others dared face the april showers to learn if march had truly gone sweet as if they had come from paradise to be worn upon maidens as they might well have who knows followed by the giant of battles on their stout stems glorious enough to have been the worthy of victorious kings white hardly less royal j cloth dainty rich old sweet hundred down their on the grass and always filling with two the place where one i social life in old virginia had fallen these and many more whose names have faded made the air fragrant whilst the and mocking birds fluttered and sang among them and the in the grass for their greedy yellow throats waiting in the hidden nests looking out over the fields was a scene not to be forgotten let me give it in the words of one who knew and loved virginia well and was her best a scene not of enchantment though contrast often made it seem so met the eye wide very wide fields of waving grain seas of green or gold as the season chanced to be over which the shadows chased and played the heart with dr george w his old virginia gentleman is perhaps the best sketch yet written in the south to it i am doubtless indebted for much in this paper his description might do for a picture of hill resting in delicious calm on its eminence above the river social life tobacco wealth far spread upon level as the floor the and corn stood tall and dense rank behind rank in military a in old virginia army and strong the rich dark soil of the gently swelling could scarcely be seen under the broad leaves of the tobacco the hills were with beneath the tree fat cattle the or peaceful sheep grateful for the shade in the midst of this plenty half hidden in foliage over which the graceful shafts of the with its garden and its heavy with fruit near at hand peered the old mansion white or dusky red or mellow gray by the storm and shine of years seen by the tired halting at the s edge this picture in the intense quivering summer moonlight filled the soul with unspeakable emotions of beauty tenderness peace home how calm could we rest in that bosom of shade with the friends we love best social life sorrows and care were there where do they not penetrate but oh dear god one day in those sweet tranquil homes a lifetime in the cities of the globe tell me nothing i naught that man s heart delights in i dearly love and great but i do know as i know nothing else that the first years of human life and the last yea if it be possible all the years should be passed in the country the towns may do for a day a week a month at most but nature mother nature pure and clean is for all time yes for eternity itself the life about the place was amazing there were the busy children playing in groups the boys of the family mingling with the little as freely as any other young animals and forming the associations which tempered slavery and made the relation one not to be understood save by those who saw it there they were stooping a typical in old virginia down and jumping up turning and twisting their heads close together like chickens over an invisible their active bodies always in | 46 |
motion busy over their little matters with that ceaseless energy of boyhood which could move the world could it but be concentrated and they were all over the place in the orchard birds nests getting into wild excitement over which they murdered because they called in spring and summer fishing or washing in the creek riding the plough horses to and from the fields running the and and being as mischievous as the young they chased there were the little girls in their great often on to preserve the wonderful blossom with their small female companions playing about the yard or garden running with and wishing they were boys and getting half social life from for being and tearing their and dresses there in the shade near her house was the with her her little charge in her arms sleeping in her ample lap or about her with broken half formed phrases better understood than framed there passed young negro girls blue running about bearing messages or older women moving at a pace doing with deliberation the little tasks which were their work whilst about the office or smoke house or or in old virginia wood pile there was always some movement and life the peace of it all was only by the sounds that broke upon it the call of to their the shrill shouts of children the chant of women over their work and as a bass the hum of spinning wheels like the of some great insect sounding from where the spun their rolls for the which were in the loom rooms making for the plantation from the back yard and quarters the social life laughter of women and the shrill joyous voices of children came p ar off in the fields the white followed singing their slow in the fresh rattled and crawled along or of hands in lines performed their work in the corn or tobacco fields loud shouts and of laughter by the distance floating up from time to time telling that the heart was light and the toil not too heavy at special times there was special activity at ice getting time at time at pulling time at wheat time but above all at corn time at killing time and at harvest harvest was spoken of as a season it was a festival the toil of the year was a every hand was eager for it it was the test of the men s and the women s skill for it took a man to swing his cradle through the long june days and keep pace with the bare in old virginia knotted armed leader as he strode and swung his ringing cradle through the heavy wheat so it demanded a strong back and fingers in the binding to keep up and bind the the young men looked forward to it as young look to the war path how gay they seemed moving in lines around the great sweeping down the yellow grain and as they the starting point with mellow voices the harvest song cool water how musical was the as taking time to get their wind they in their ringing blades though the were large so large that one master could not hear his neighbor s dog bark there was never any loneliness it was movement and life without bustle whilst somehow in the midst of it all the house seemed to sit in perpetual tranquillity with outstretched wings under its spreading oaks its children like a great gray dove social life even at night there was stirring about the ring of an axe the music of the the laughter of dancers the noise and merriment of the cabin the distant shouts of or hunters or the like chant of some serious and timid passing along the paths over the hills or through the woods and his lonely walk with religious song such was the outward scene what was there within that which has been much misunderstood that which was like the roses beyond measure in its growth and blowing but sweet beyond measure too and filling with its fragrance not only the region round about but sending it out on every breeze that wandered by the life within was of its own kind there were the master and the mistress the old master and old mistress the young masters and young in old virginia and the children besides some and cousins and the relations or friends the ve property of the mistress who did not live there but were only always on visits properly the mistress should be men social life first as she was the most important personage about the home the presence which pervaded the mansion the centre of all that life the queen of that realm the master willingly and proudly yielding her entire management of all household matters and simply carrying out her directions his within the solely to his old secretary which on the mistress s part was as sacred from her touch as her bonnet was from his there were kept mysterious folded papers and equally mysterious frequently brown with the stain of dust and age had the papers been the lost leaves instead of old and bills and had the contained diamonds instead of long dried seed or old now out of date but once ready to serve a useful purpose they could not have been more guarded by the mistress the master usually had to hunt for a long period for any particular paper whilst the mistress could in a in old virginia half hour have arranged everything in perfect order but the chaos was regarded by her with veneration as real as that with which she regarded the of the heavenly bodies on the other hand outside of this piece of furniture there was nothing in the house of which the master even pretended to know it was all in her keeping whatever he wanted he called for and she | 46 |
her she calmly took the lead and by her instinctive dignity her wisdom and her force them all as naturally as the full moon in heaven the stars such in part was the mistress as social life to the master himself it is hard to yet there were indeed certain characteristics whether he was grave and severe or jovial and easy there was the foundation of a certain pride based on self respect and consciousness of power there were nearly always the firm mouth with its strong lines the calm placid direct gaze the quiet speech of one who is accustomed to command and have his command obeyed there was a expression due to much alone with resting upon him there was absolute self confidence and often a look caused by of opinion there was not a doubtful line in the face nor a doubtful tone in the voice his opinions were convictions he was a to the and not he was incapable of seeing more than one side this prevented breadth but gave force he was proud but rarely haughty except to to that he was in old virginia he believed in god he believed in his wife he believed in his blood he was he was generous he was usually incapable of fear or of meanness to be a virginia gentleman was the first duty it embraced being a christian and all the virtues he lived as one he left it as a to his children he was fully of both the honors and the of his position he believed in a but understood that the absence of a aristocracy had to be supplied by a class more virtuous than he believed any aristocracy to be he in his own person to prove that this was practicable he established the fact that it was this and other made him grave he had inherited gravity from his father and grandfather the latter had been a in the greatest work of modern times with the shadow of the over him if he failed the former had faced the social life problems of the new government with many questions ever to answer he himself faced problems not less grave the greatness of the past the time when virginia had been the mighty power of the new world loomed ever above him it increased his natural he saw the change that was steadily creeping on the conditions that had given his class their power and had altered the fields were worked down and that had made his class rich no longer paid the cloud was already gathering in the horizon the shadow already was stretching towards him he could foresee the danger that threatened virginia a peril ever sat beside his door he was holding the wolf by the ears outside influences hostile to his interest were being brought to bear any movement must work him injury he sought the only refuge that appeared he fell back behind the constitution that his fathers in old virginia had helped to establish and became a strict for virginia and his rights these things made him grave he reflected much out on the long in the dusk of the summer nights with his wide fields stretching away into the gloom and the woods bounding the horizon his thoughts dwelt upon serious things he pondered causes and consequences he resolved everything to prime principles he with the creator and his first work nature this communion made him a wonderful he of philosophy politics and religion he read much generally on these subjects and read only the best his held the masters in mellow and who had been his father s friends and with whom he associated and more intimately than with his neighbors shakespeare milton mr pope were his social life poets bacon and dr johnson were his philosophers he knew their and tried to pattern himself on them these new fellows that his sons over he held in so much contempt that his mere statement of their inferiority was to his mind an all convincing argument in religion he was as as the parson he might not be a member of the church but he was one of its pillars ready to stand by and if need were to fight to the death for the thirty nine articles or the confession of faith yet if he was generally grave he was at times among his and guests jovial even gay on occasions no one surpassed him in to a stranger he was always a host to a lady always a when the house was full of guests he was the life of the company he led the prettiest girl out for the dance at christmas he took her hit thoughts d upon serious things in old virginia under the and paid her gracious compliments which made her blush and courtesy with face and dancing eyes but whatever was his mood whatever his surroundings he was always the of that grave and courtesy which under all conditions has become associated with the title virginia gentleman whether or not the sons were as young men peculiarly admirable may be a question they possessed the faults and the virtues of young men of their kind and condition they were given to self indulgence they were not broad in their they were apt to what did not accord with their own established views for their views were established before their they were of time and energies beyond belief they were to the pursuit of pleasure they exhibited the customary of their kind in a society of an aristocratic character social life but they possessed in full measure the corresponding virtues they were brave they were generous they were high spirited indulgence in pleasure did not destroy them it was the young french who affected to exertion even to the point of having themselves borne on on their and who yet with a hundred pounds of iron on their | 46 |
frames charged like at so these same languid young gentlemen when the occasion came suddenly appeared as the most dashing and of modern times it was the company known as the that was in a single day but whatever may be thought of the sons there can be no question as to the daughters they were like the mother j made in her own image they filled a peculiar place in the civilization the key was set to them they held by in old virginia a universal consent the first place in the system all social life revolving around them so generally did the life shape itself about the young girl that it was almost as if a bit of the age of chivalry had been n down the centuries and lodged in the old state she instinctively adapted herself to it in fact she was made for it she was gently bred her people for generations since they had come to virginia were they were so well satisfied that they had been the same in the mother country that they had never taken the trouble to investigate it she was the proof of their in right of her blood the beautiful saxon tempered by the influences of the genial southern she was exquisite fine beautiful a creature of blossom and snow languid delicate now imperious now melting always she was not in the ways of the world but she had no need to be she was better than s social life that she was well bred she had not to learn to be a lady because she was born one generations had given her that by she grew up apart from the great world but ignorance of the world did not make her provincial her instinct was an guide when a child she had in her and apron met the visitors at the front steps and entertained them in the parlor until her mother was ready to appear thus she had grown up to the duties of hostess her manners were as perfectly formed as her mother s with perhaps a shade more self possession her beauty was a title which gave her a that well her she never came out because she had never been in and the line between and was never known she began to have certainly before she reached the line but it did her no harm she would herself long walk fancy free a protracted devotion in old virginia was required of her lovers and they began early they were willing to serve long for she was a prize worth the service her beauty though it was often dazzling was not her chief attraction an old virginia that was herself that charm the result of many attractions in combination and perfect harmony which made her herself she was delicate she was dainty she was sweet she lived in an atmosphere created for her social life the pure clean sweet atmosphere of her country home she made its sunshine she was generally a often an outrageous it did not imply it was said that the worst made the most devoted wives it was simply an instinct an inheritance it was in the life her heart was tender towards every living thing but her lovers even to them it was soft in every way but one had they had a finger ache she would have with them but in the matter of love she was inexorable she played upon every of the heart perhaps it was because when she gave up the surrender was to be absolute from the moment of marriage she was the truly she was a strange being in her muslin and lawn with her delicious low slow musical speech accustomed to be waited on at every turn with servants to do her every bidding often even to putting on her dainty slippers or s in old virginia her soft hair she possessed a reserve force which was she was accustomed to have her wishes obeyed as commands it did not make her imperious it simply gave her the habit of control at marriage she was prepared to assume the duties of mistress of her establishment whether it were great or small thus when the time came the class at the south which had been deemed the most suddenly appeared as the most efficient and the most the courage which the men displayed in battle was wonderful but it was nothing to what the southern women at home there was perhaps not a doubtful woman within the limits of the whilst their lovers and husbands fought in the field they performed the harder part of waiting at home with more than a soldier s courage they bore more than a soldier s hardship for four long years they listened social life to the noise of the guns awaiting with faces but hearts the news of battle after battle buried their beloved dead with tears and still amid their tears encouraged the to fight on it was a force which has not been duly estimated it was in the blood she was indeed a strange creature that delicate dainty mischievous tender god fearing inexplicable southern girl with her fine grain her silken hair her skin her musical speech pleasure loving deep down lay the foundation of innate virtue piety and on which were planted all for which human nature can hope and all to which it can words fail to convey an idea of what she was as well try to describe the beauty of the rose or the perfume of the violet to appreciate her one must have seen her have known her have loved her there are certain other characters s in old virginia without mention of which no picture of the social life of the south would be complete the old and family servants about the house these were important and helped to make the life the was | 46 |
the zealous faithful and efficient assistant of the mistress in all that to the care and training of the children her authority was recognized in all that related to them directly or indirectly second only to that of the mistress and master she tended them regulated them them having authority indeed in cases to administer for her affection was her extended frequently through two generations occasionally through three from their infancy she was the careful and faithful nurse the affection between her and the children she nursed being often more marked than that between her and her own offspring she may have been harsh to the latter she was never anything but tender with the others social life her authority was in a measure recognized through life for her devotion was the young masters and were her children long after they had children of their own when they parted from her or met with her again after separation they embraced her with the same affection as when in childhood she led them smiling into sleep she was worthy of the affection at all times she was their faithful ally and champion them them them them yet holding them up too to a certain high her influence was always for good she received as she gave an affection if she was a slave she at least was not a servant but was an honored member of the family universally beloved universally cared for next to her in importance and rank were the butler and the carriage driver these with the were the of the family who trained the she never anything but tender the others in old virginia children in good manners and other exercises and they were the butler was apt to be severe and was feared the driver was genial and kindly and was adored i recall a butler uncle tom an austere gentleman who was the terror of the of the connection one of the children after watching him as he moved about with grand air when he had left the room and his footsteps had died away crept over and asked her grandmother his mistress in an awed whisper are you of tom the driver was the ally of the boys the of the girls and consequently had an ally in their mother the mistress as the head of the stable he was an important personage this was never forgotten it lasted through life the years might grow on him his eyes might become dim but he was left in command even when he was too feeble to hold the social life horses and though he might no longer grasp the reins he at least held the title and to the end was always the driver of s carriage other servants too there were with special places and privileges and boys about the house comrades of the boys and own maids for each girl had her own maid they all formed one great family in the social structure now passed away a structure incredible by those who knew it not and now under new conditions almost incredible by those who knew it best the social life formed of these elements combined was one of singular sweetness and freedom from vice if it was not filled with excitement it was with happiness and content it is asserted that it was narrow perhaps it was it was so sweet so charming that it is little wonder if it asked nothing more than to be let alone they who lived it were a careless the butler apt to be severe and feared in old virginia and pleasure loving people but as in most rural their were free from there was sometimes too great an indulgence on the part of young men in the state drink the but whether it was that it killed early or that it was usually abandoned as the of life increased an elderly man of dissipated habits was almost unknown they were fond of sport and in it being generally fine good shots and skilled hunters love of horses was a race characteristic and fine was a thing little considered only because it was universal the life was gay in addition to the perpetual round of ordinary entertainment there was always on hand or in prospect some more formal a club meeting a fox hunt a party a a wedding little excuse was needed to bring people together where every one was social and where the great honor was to be the host social life scientific horse racing was confined to the regular race tracks where the races were not but four mile which tested speed and bottom alike but good blood was common and even a ride with a girl in an afternoon meant generally a dash along the level through the woods where truth to tell miss was very apt to win occasionally there was even a dash from the church the carriages having received their precious loads of lily laughing girls with teeth like pearls and eyes like stars helped in by young men who would have thrown not only their but their hearts into the mud to keep those dainty feet from being soiled would go ahead and then the saddle horses being from the swinging limbs the young would mount and by an instinctive common impulse starting all together would make a dash to the first hill on top of which the dust still in old virginia lingered a golden thrown from the wheels that rolled their the chief sport however was it was in season almost universal who that lived in that time does not remember the fox the eager chase after or old the furnished more fun the more excitement the did not run so far but usually kept near home going in a circuit of six or eight miles an old red generally so called of age as a tribute to his might | 46 |
lead the dogs all day and end by losing them as evening fell after taking them a dead stretch for thirty miles the capture of a gray was what men boasted of a chase after an old red was what they about some old became historical characters and were as well known and as much discussed in the they inhabited as the leaders of the bar or the crack of the circuit the and of each social life were the pride of his neighbors and hunters many of them had names gentlemen discussed them at their club dinners lawyers told stories about them in the lawyers rooms at the court houses young men while they waited for the preacher to get well into the service before going into church about them in the on sundays there was one such that i remember he was known as after the notorious leader of s rebellion who remained in hiding for weeks after all his followers were taken great these were for there were the prettiest girls in the world in the country houses round about and each young fellow was sure to have in his heart some brown or blue eyed maiden to whom he had promised the brush and to whom with feigned indifference but with cheek and beating heart he would carry it if as he counted on doing he should in old virginia win it sometimes the girls came over themselves and rode or more likely were already there visiting and the simply followed them by a law as as that by which the result follows the premises in a proposition even the boys had their lady loves and rode for them on the or not the small girls of their own age no little girls for them their were grown young ladies with smiling eyes and silken hair and graceful mien whom their grown cousins and whom they with their boys hearts worshipped often a half dozen were in love with one always the prettiest one and with the generous spirit of boys in whom the selfish instinct has not yet awakened agreed among themselves that they would all ride for her and that whichever got the brush should present it on behalf of all what a gallant sight it was the ap social life of the hunters on the far hill in the evening with their surrounding them i who does not recall the excitement at the house the arrival in the yard with horns blowing hounds horses and girls laughing the picture of the young ladies on the front with their arms round each other s dainty the slender pretty figures the bright faces the sparkling eyes the gay laughter and musical voices as with merriment they the demanding to blow the horns themselves or to ride some specially handsome horse next morning the way the challenge being accepted they tripped down the steps some with little screams shrinking from the bounding dogs one or two with hearts fixed upon higher game bravely them and leaving their management to their masters who at their approach sprang to the ground to meet them hat in hand and the blood mounting an old fashioned mill in old virginia to their faces handsome with the beauty and pride of youth i am painfully aware of the of my picture but who could do justice to the truth it was owing to all these and some other characteristics that the life was what it was it was on a charming key it possessed an and generosity which were not splendid because they were too genuine and refined hospitality had become a recognized race characteristic and was practised as a matter of course it was universal it was spontaneous it was one of the features of the civilization as much a part of the social life as any other of the domestic relations its generosity secured it a title the it were its exercise occupied much of the time and exhausted much of the means the constant intercourse of the neighborhood with its perpetual social life round of dinners and was by visits of friends and relatives from other sections who came with their families their and personal servants to spend a month or two or as long a time as they pleased a dinner invitation was not so it was with more termed spending the day on sundays every one invited every one else from church and there would be lines of carriages passing in at the open gates it is a mystery how the house ever held the visitors only the mistress knew her resources were enormous the rooms with their low were wide and had a holding capacity which was simply the walls seemed to be made of india rubber so great was their stretching power no one who came whether friend or stranger was ever turned away if the beds were full as when were they not were put down on the in old virginia floor in the parlor or the garret for the younger members of the family sometimes even the passages being frequently at christmas the master and mistress were compelled to resort to the same refuge it was this intercourse following the and class feeling of the old families which made and caused a single common strain of blood however distant to be recognized and counted as perhaps this universal entertainment might not now be considered elegant let us see it was based upon a sentiment as pure and unselfish as can the human mind upon kindness it was easy generous and refined the manners of and entertained alike were gentle cordial simple with to strangers a slight trace of the best the hosts had was given no more was required social life the conversation was surprising it was of the crops the roads history literature politics mutual friends including the entire field of neighborhood matters related | 46 |
not as gossip but as affairs of common interest which every one knew or was expected and entitled to know among the ladies the fashions came in of course embracing particularly patterns politics took the place of honor among the gentlemen their range embracing not only state and national politics but british as well as to which they possessed astonishing knowledge interest in english matters having been handed down from father to son as a class test my father s opinion was quoted as authority on this and all points and in matters of great importance my grandfather sir was the peculiarity of the whole was that it was cast on a high plane and possessed a literary so in old virginia flavor of a high order for as has been said the latin and english with a fair of good old french authors were in the and were there not for show but for companionship there was nothing for show in that life it was all genuine real true they had preserved the old customs that their fathers had brought with them from the mother country the great of the people j was christmas spring t a had its special delights horse back rides e through the woods with the birds singing fishing parties down on the little rivers with out of doors and love making parties of various kinds from house to i social life house summer had its pleasures handsome dinners and with moonlight and rides to follow visits to or from relatives or even to the white springs called simply the white the fall had its pleasures but all times and seasons and before the joys of christmas it had been handed down for generations it belonged to the race it had come over with their forefathers it had a peculiar significance it was a title religion had given it its it was the time to shout the glad tidings it was the holidays there were other holidays for the slaves both of the school room and the plantation such as and whit monday but christmas was the holidays then the boys came home from school or college with their friends the members of the family who had moved away returned pretty cousins came for the the neighborhood grew merry the in old virginia were all to have holiday the house servants taking turn and turn about and the plantation long before the time made ready for christmas cheer it was by all the younger population looked back to half the year looked forward to the other half time was measured by it it was either so long since christmas or so long before christmas the affairs of the plantation were set in order against it the corn was got in the were killed the tried meat made meat prepared with the big specially devoted to the christmas dinner the servants winter clothes and new shoes stored away ready for distribution and the plantation began to be ready to prepare for christmas in the first place there was generally a cold spell which up everything and enabled the ice houses to be filled the seasons like a good many other social life things appear to have changed since that old time before the war this spell was the and great fun it was at the ice pond where the big of ice were floated along with the boys on them the rusty with their curled and stiff were gotten ut and maybe tried for a day then the stir began the all were put to wood nothing but now other wood might do for other times but at christmas only was used and the wood pile was heaped high with the logs while to the ordinary wood for the house were added three four a half dozen more whose shining axe rang around the wood pile all day long with what a they cut and how telling was that earnest ha as they drove the ringing into the hard wood sending the big white flying in all directions it was always the envy of the boys that of the in old virginia breath and they used to try vainly to imitate it in the midst of it all came the wagon or the ox cart from the with the big white boxes of christmas things the black driver indifference as he drove through the to the then came the rush of all the to help him the jokes among themselves as they pretended to strain in lifting of what master or was going to give them out of those boxes uttered just loud enough to reach their master s or mistress s ears where they stood looking on whilst the driver took due advantage of his temporary to give many and directions the getting the and was the sign that christmas had come was really here there were the parlor and hall and dining room to be dressed and above all the old church the last was the work of the social life neighborhood all united in it and it was one of the events of the year young men rode thirty and forty miles to help dress that church they did not go home again till after christmas the return from the church was the beginning of the then by christmas eve s eve the wood was all cut and high in the wood house and on and under the back so as to be handy and secure from the snow which was almost certain to come it seems that christmas was almost sure to bring it in old times at least it is closely associated with it the excitement increased the boxes were some of them openly to the general delight others with a mysterious secrecy which stimulated curiosity to its highest point and added to the charm of the occasion the kitchen filled up with for special skill in particular branches | 46 |
of the cook s art who about with glistening faces dressing the church in old virginia and shining teeth proud of their elevation and eager to prove their merits and add to the general cheer it was now christmas eve from time to time the hired out servants came home from or other places where they had been hired or had hired out themselves their terms having been by common custom framed with due regard to their rights to the holiday to in time for them to spend the christmas at home there was much over their arrival and they were welcomed like members of the family as with their new winter clothes a little ahead of time they came to pay s to master and then the went off to the distant station for the visitors the visitors and the boys oh the excitement of that at first the drag of the long hours and then the eager as the time approached for their return the the ran from new year to christmas social life making up of the fires in the visitors rooms of the big fires there had been fires there all day to air them but now they must be made up afresh the hurrying backwards and forwards of the servants the feverish impatience of every one especially of the children who are sure the train is late or that something has happened and who run and look up towards the big gate every five minutes notwithstanding the s oft repeated caution that a watch pot never b there was one exception to the general excitement the mistress calm deliberate moved about with her usual serene composure her watchful eye seeing that everything was ready her orders had been given and her arrangements made days before such was her system the young ladies having finished dressing the parlor and hall had disappeared satisfied at last with their work after innumerable final touches in old virginia every one of which was an improvement to that which had already appeared perfect they had suddenly vanished vanished as completely as a dream to appear again later on at the parlor door radiant visions of loveliness or maybe if certain visitors unexpectedly arrived to meet accidentally in the less embarrassing and safer of the dimly lighted halls or passages when they appeared what a had taken place if they were before now they were the gay laughing creature who had been dressing the and hanging the with many and of the was now a or stately maiden in all the dignity of a new gown and with all the of a young but this is after the carriages return they have not yet arrived they are late they are always late and it is dark before they come the glow of social life the fires and candles shines out through the windows on the snow often blackened by the shadows of little figures whose noses are pressed to the cold panes which grow with their warm breath meantime the carriages piled outside and in are slowly making their way homeward through the frozen roads followed by the creaking wagon filled with trunks on which are perched small muffled figures whose places in the carriages are taken by unexpected guests the drivers still keep up a running fire with their young masters though they have long since been dry as to every conceivable matter connected with home in return for which they receive information as to school and college at last the big gate is reached a half frozen figure rolls out and runs to open it flapping his arms in the darkness like some strange bird they pass through the gleam of a light shines away off on a far hill the in old virginia shout goes up there she is i see her the light is lost but a little later appears again it is the light in the mother s chamber the curtains of the windows of which have been left up that the gleam may be seen afar off by her boys on the first hill a blessed shining from home and her mother s heart across the white fields the dark move then toil up the house hill filled with their eager occupants who can scarce restrain themselves approach the house by this time glowing with lighted windows and enter the yard just as the doors open and a swarm rushes out with joyful cries of here they are yes here we are comes in cheery answer and one after another they roll or step out according to age and dignity and run up the steps stamping their feet the boys to be taken fast into arms and the visitors to be given warm and cordial social life later on the children were got to bed scarce able to keep in their for excitement the stockings were all hung up over the big fireplace and the grown people grew gay in the crowded there was no splendor nor show nor style as it would be understood now had there been it could not have been so charming there were only profusion and sincerity and cordiality and cheer and withal and refinement next morning the stir began before light white clad little figures stole about in the gloom with stockings clasped to their opening doors shouting christmas gift into dark rooms at sleeping elders and then away like so many white with delight to open the embers and inspect their treasures at prayers shout the glad tidings was sung by fresh young voices with due in old virginia how gay the scene was at breakfast what had been performed in the name of every had been played on what lovely and glances and laughter greeted the the larger part of the day was spent in going to and coming from the beautifully dressed church where the service was read and | 46 |
gilded my little room and my quiet office and was back in the past among the overgrown fence rows and fields of my home it was then that i met the old gentleman of the black stock for the first time and he spoke to me of course then i spoke to him i was ready to speak to any one would have spoken to any one in the world had indeed not yet gotten over the strange feeling at not speaking to every one i met in accordance with the country custom which made passing any one on the road without a bow a breach of manners i was strolling along an old street that morning looking at the old yards full of trees and in a tangled and some the old gentleman what neglected state which reminded me of the yard at home and had only half taken in the fact that out of the largest and most tangled of them perhaps the oldest and most retired house on the street had come some one an old gentleman who had paused just outside his broken gate and was looking back at the trees behind him i followed his eye and looked up at the trees myself as i walked slowly along there were three or four big two elms and one all large and very old the had a seat under it and it was at this that the old gentleman s gaze seemed to be particularly directed they too reminded me of the country everything did and i suppose i must have had that in my face for when i brought my gaze down to the ground again i was only a few paces from the old gentleman at the gate and of the black stock when i glanced at him i caught his eye and looked away i glanced at him again for there was something about him which was unusual quite as unusual as that square of old houses and yards in a growing city and he attracted me he seemed just to fit in with them and to be separate from the rest of the people i had seen almost as separate as i was so when i looked at him again i tried to do it as if quite casually and to take in as much of him as i could in my glance the principal features which i noted were a tall slender figure ij clad in the manner in which an old gentleman of his age should be clad with a black coat somewhat more flowing than usual however and a black stock up to the chin with a high white collar falling over it such as i remembered very old gentlemen used to wear years before the old gentleman when i was a child but such as i had not seen for years this was all that i took in of his dress for i caught his eye again as my glance reached his thin and somewhat face clean shaven except for a white his eyes were gray and were set back very far under somewhat heavy brows and i looked into them involuntarily he did not give me time to look away again but spoke to me easily pleasantly quite so much indeed as if he had known me that it flashed across my mind in the half second which passed before i returned his salutation that he had mistaken me for some one else i replied however good morning sir and as a sort of apology for my stare said you have some fine old trees there sir and was passing on with a somewhat quickened step when he said yes sir they were very fine once of the black stock and would be so now if they could escape the universal curse of age you are fond of trees he added as i had paused to avoid leaving him while he was speaking yes sir i was brought up amongst them i was going on to say that they carried me back to my home but he did not give me time how long have you been from the country he asked i was a little taken for apart from the fact that his abrupt question im plied that he knew i was not a city man i was sufficiently conscious of a certain difference between myself and the young city fellows i met to think that he meant to remark on my appearance so with a half formed idea that he might explain himself differently i simply said the old gentleman sir how long have you been in the city h about three weeks i said with assumed indifference and still feeling a little uncomfortable over the meaning i assigned him and gradually getting somewhat warm over it i moved to go on where are you from he asked i told him the county oh i thought so he said and me so boldly and i fancied rudely that i said quite shortly good morning sir it was only when i went over in my mind afterward all the circumstances of the interview to see if i could find anything to soothe my wounded spirit that i recalled how gracious his manner was and how courteous his tone as he returned my part of the black stock ing salute and decided that he could not have meant to insult or wound me i asked my cousin who he was and attempted to describe him but though i went into some detail and i know gave a faithful of him my cousin who was a man about town as well as a lawyer in extensive practice failed to recognize him from my description in time i made acquaintances and in further time yet i secured practice enough to justify me in selecting more quarters than those i at first had in my little hall room | 46 |
and as i fell into city ways i began to visit more and more until i became quite as much of a city man and indeed of a society man as a still very modest income coupled with some ambition to increase it would allow yet i never met my old gentleman of the black lo the old gentleman stock in any of the bright houses i visited or indeed anywhere else except on the street and there only very rarely perhaps two or three times at most in the two years which went by before i ever did more than exchange his passing and pleasant salutation of the black stock ii ii two years or so after the summer morning when i met him coming out of the shady yard on that old street it was i remember in the month of may i was passing down a business street one morning when a vehicle coming along attracted my attention it was only one of a number of carriages that were coming down the principal driving street from the fashionable residence quarter of the town and were turning into the chief street of the city but of all the number this one attracted my attention most for whilst the others were city with and fashionable women back in the easy or easy style of the old gentleman ladies of fashion when they honor the trading section at the change of the seasons and who if they knew me condescended to acknowledge my bow with cold this vehicle my interest at once it was an old country carriage and as i walked along through the spring time air which felt like feathers on my cheek i had just been thinking before i saw it of the country and of the little willow shaded stream where i used to fish in spring when the leaves were tender like those above me before i became a lawyer and a man of affairs just then the old carriage came swinging down the hill it was and high swung and as muddy as a country wagon and drawn by two ill matched though not ill bred horses with mud to their ears their long tails tied up in of the black stock knots and was driven by an old with a low hat and a high white collar it reminded me of the old carriage with its old driver uncle at home but what struck me more than anything else as it passed me was that it was filled with fresh young country girls who of the of fashion were their pretty heads out of the windows three at a time to look at everything on the street that struck their fancy and with glowing cheeks and dancing eyes were chattering to each other in the highest spirits showing their white teeth and going off into fits of laughter over the fun they were making for themselves whilst a lady with gray hair and a smiled softly and happily among them well content with their and joy they caught my eye for i never saw more the old gentleman roses in one carriage and i had stopped and was staring at them open mouthed with a warm glow about my heart and a growing tenderness coming over me as i gazed i suppose i must have shown this somehow i may even have sighed for i thought again of my fishing days and the country girls i knew whom these were like one of them particularly struck me and i thought i had caught her gaze on me when a hand was laid on my shoulder and a voice just beside me said my son when you want a wife stop a carriage like that and pick one out of it you might almost do it at random you could hardly go amiss i turned and there was my old gentleman of the black stock i smiled my thanks to him and passed on whilst he walked up the street i had not gone over of the black stock two steps when some one touched me and a gentleman evidently a stranger in the town said to me i beg your pardon can you tell me who that old gentleman is i turned and he indicated my old friend for at that moment i felt him to be such he was walking up the street quite slowly with his head a little bowed and his hands clasped behind his back as lonely as an in a desert no i am very sorry but i cannot i said oh i thought i saw you speak to him he said with a little disappointment i did but i do not know his name i have rarely seen a more man said he as he went on i do not know just why it was but i found myself all that day as soon as i had gotten through with whatever the old gentleman i was doing i went back up the street and began to search diligently among the throng of there for an old carriage i went up square after square looking for it among the shining with their and sleek horses and then not finding it went through the second street but all was in vain it was plain that the driver was feeding his horses somewhere at a so i even went as far as to enter three or four of the larger and more frequented stores on the street in the hope of catching a glimpse once more of a pink face and a pair of laughing eyes which i had caught smiling at me out of the window of the old coach i had wandered through several long floors between of women s backs of every shape and species of curve or with attentive clerks or of the black stock tired women standing on the other side of the and had | 46 |
just given up my search in despair and was returning to my office when i passed a s window i happened to glance in and there were my clustered together in front of a large mirror my especial one in the midst of the group with a great broad straw hat covered with roses on top of her little brown head her fresh face making as she stood before the mirror turning her little person from side to side one of the prettiest pictures in the world fool that i was i might have known that a girl would go first for a bonnet she must have received a compliment just then though whether it was from one of her sisters or from the glass only i do not know for at the same moment that she turned to her sister she suddenly smiled the old gentleman thank heaven the sister stood on the side toward the window i just loved her for it a smile which lit up her face so that even the over hat with its roses could not shadow it but seemed only a bower for the roses beneath i had become so engrossed with the pretty that i had forgotten i might be seen from within quite plainly and stood staring open eyed at my young beauty through the window so that when i became aware she was looking through the glass past her sister and straight into my eyes i gave quite a jump at my the look of embarrassment almost on horror which was on her face was all that i saw and i almost fled toward my office i learned afterward that had i waited i should have seen her confusion give way to amusement over my flight if i fled of the black stock however it was only a momentary which my growing soon checked and i stopped at the next corner and crossing over the street waited to watch from a more secure quarter further at the s i had not long to wait for shortly from the door the three young each imder a new and wide straw hat but only one now filled my eye the wide creation which served as setting for the flower garden above the yet more charming flower garden below which even at that distance i could see glowing in the cheeks of the youngest and possibly the of the three sisters they passed down the street arm in arm laughing heartily especially my little lady at something i learned afterward at my sudden jump and unexpected flight and turned in at a dry goods store one which i had already the old gentleman that morning in my search for my unknown lady if there was any common though law against a man s going into a store there was thank heaven none against his going into a store at least if he could devise some want which he could get supplied there i had the want beyond doubt but a sweetheart if she were wholly unknown as happened to be the case with me would not do i could not ask for her so i my brains for something that i might ask for if i were halted within i finally lit on give time in the examination and selection and have a sort of half way place between a woman s wear and a man s so having made this resolution i ventured in and found the same rows of backs somewhat by new additions bending over piles of of the black stock every conceivable stuff and the same clerks and tired women on the other side of the as i passed on i heard many and some complaints some harsh some only from the women with backs received for the most part in silence by the women without backs suddenly i started to find myself quite close to the large hat with the roses which i now knew so well it was forming a bower for the pretty head at the moment bending over a piece or pieces of some white stuff her gloves were off and the slender little hands were feeling the texture with a touch as soft as if it had been her face which i could see in was deeply serious it is beautiful beautiful i wish i could get it she almost sighed but i am afraid it is too dear for me i have only the old gentleman so much to spend do you think you could possibly find anything a little lower and almost as pretty that you could show me she glanced up at the shop girl before her with a little smile i was going to say almost pitiful but the expression which came on her face as she looked into the tired eyes above her banished that aren t you very tired she asked suddenly with the sweetest tenderest tone in the world i should think you would be h it s a pleasure to wait on you said the older woman sincerely as she turned away to her shelves pleased at the tone of sympathy and who would not think so i at least did and overcome by a sudden feeling as my young rose whose face had lit up at the praise turned to take a survey of the crowd about her i my of the black stock idea of turned and hurried out of the store it was a strange feeling delicious to me i knew that i must be in love i did not even know her name but i knew her eyes her voice her heart and they were enough as i came out on the street there was the old carriage coming slowly along down with the old driver looking anxiously to one side as if to recognize some given sign if you want a wife stop | 46 |
a carriage like that and take one out of it even at random you can hardly go amiss had said my old gentleman of the black stock and i believed him i could not resist the temptation to go up and render my first act of assistance to the family i signed to the driver and he stopped the old gentleman you are looking for your young mistress i said yes tell me to come and stop right by two big rocks in front of a red s de but i b done move rocks i see em dis when i went by he gave another look they are there still i said the two carriage stones by his description but those carriages hide them yes i never see folks in my life put right in yo way don what you do and won out to save yo life told me to be here by three an why it s only half past one now i said yes but i likes to be sort o in town see by of the black stock rocks now i want to in once an i me out b fo my come i don like city ways an i never did like a i got a right good ways to go too how far do you live from town i asked him i was growing in and about eighteen miles i start b fo light dis i comes from colonel s place hill an calls it i knew at once then who my wild rose was the were among the best old people in the state and hill and was as well known as the capital city one of the old country places celebrated for generations as the home of hospitality and refinement colonel had died not very long after the war from a wound received at the old gentleman mill and had left a widow and a family of young daughters whose reputation for beauty had reached me even before i left my old country home though i had never seen any of them as their home was in another county quite seventy miles from us well they are in that store now i said to put his mind at rest at least one of them is is he asked the next second he gave a bow over my head s miss now he said in some excitement trying to attract her attention miss miss he called me me but it was in vain i turned in some confusion but she was standing under her big straw hat just outside of the door looking alternately up and down evidently expecting who had promised to come and had not my of the black stock resolution was taken in a second though it set my heart to against my ribs to do it wait i said i will tell her for you and i actually walked up to her and taking off my hat said i beg your pardon but i think your driver is there trying to attract your attention is he thank you where she said so sweetly that my already heart began to bound then as i indicated the direction and she caught the old man s eye her face lit up with that charming smile which was like sunlight breaking out on an already sweet and lovely prospect oh thank you she said again away whilst i passed on to make it appear that i had only happened accidentally to see her driver s signal i turned a few rods farther on however the old gentleman as if quite casually to get another peep at her she stood on the very edge of the stone bending forward talking very earnestly to her driver out in the street but just as i turned she caught up her dress with a graceful motion and tripped over to the carriage showing as she did so just a glimpse of the pair of ankles in the world then the intervening carriages shut her out from view and i went on so the name of my prize was elizabeth and i had spoken to her i did not fail to pass along the street again quite indifferently a few minutes before three and again at frequent intervals until more than a few minutes after three but though them two rocks were there and the red store and many other carriages came and went the old coach from of the black stock hill and came not and neither did its pretty little rose and sunshine mistress the street seemed quite deserted i went home to my boarding house with new sensations and if i was in love i set all rules at defiance for i ate like a and slept that night like a log f the old gentleman iii i did not meet my young lady again for a long time nor shall i pretend that all this while i cherished no other image than hers in my heart i certainly carried hers there impressed with great for quite a period for several weeks at least i should say and i always bore a sweet and pleasant picture of her never wholly however much softened by the steadily intervening months but i found that there were other eyes besides hers and other girls wore roses in their hats and roses under them too so that though at first i formed all sorts of plans romantic and otherwise to meet her and even carried one so far into execution as to purchase a handsomely bound set of ten of the black stock to send her and mark one or two passages which described her and should force her curiosity to penetrate my almost yet courage failed me in face of the practical act of sending anything to a young lady whom i did not know and after a few weeks i made another disposition | 46 |
of the books sending them without change of marked passages and with a note which i considered quite to a girl whom i did know still no serious results came from any of this and i applied myself somewhat more faithfully to what i called my practice and never wholly forgot the old hill and carriage with the pretty faces laughing together out of the windows nor became entirely indifferent to the little hill and lady of the big summer hat and the the old gentleman large sunny eyes if i ever saw a pretty face with a rose garden above it it was very apt to call up a picture of a s window on a may morning or if i caught a glimpse of a pair of pretty ankles i thought of a pair and a slender girlish figure with them out into the street and once or twice things occurred to remind me of her once when i read in a paper a notice of a pretty country wedding at hill and l ale my heart gave quite a jump into my throat and when i read that it was the eldest daughter i was sensible of a feeling of relief she had married an clergyman whom i knew by reputation as a fine earnest fellow and a good preacher the notice went on to speak of the beauty of the sisters all of whom had acted as and mentioned particularly the charming appearance of the youngest miss s of the black stock elizabeth whose character it stated was as lovely as her personal beauty might lead one to suppose the notice evidently was written by a friend it went on to say that there was a report that another sister would soon follow the example of the eldest my heart had another sink at this and i could have cursed the writer for not giving some intimation as to which sister it was another occasion when i was reminded of her was when i saw the published notice in a newspaper of the sale of the hill and estate under a decree it seemed that the old place had finally gone to satisfy long standing and later debts accumulated through the years this was later on though i had been reminded of them occasionally in the during the two or three years which had the old gentleman passed i had formed many new acquaintances in the city and made some friends i had of course in this time not only learned the name of my old gentleman of the black stock but had also come to know him personally his speech to me on the street comer that may morning when with my heart in my eyes i was looking into the window of the old hill and carriage had excited me enough to make me take the trouble to follow him up and learn his name before my interest in the subsided indeed my office boy william proved to be one of his old servants and still waited on him i found that he was mr miles mr miles one of the old of the city and owner of the old house and tangled yard at the gate of which i had first encountered him and where he still resided when he was in town he had once been a of the black stock member of the bar and had had the reputation of being very eccentric and very proud he lived alone when in the city and took his meals at the house of one of his neighbors an old lady who lived next door but one to him but he was away from town a good deal of his time both winter and summer either visiting old friends in the country at some of the smaller and watering places or travelling no one of my knew just where he had had a brilliant opening at the bar for he was the son of one of the big lawyers of his day a man who had stood at the head of his profession and had died with what was deemed even better than a national reputation a state reputation and he himself had been in with one of the leading lawyers of his own time a man who had died the head of the local bar old the old gentleman lawyers still told stories of the cleverness and skill of miles and but he had suddenly given up practice abandoned the bar gone abroad and dropped out no one of my knew anything further if they knew that for it was only by together bits of recollection of old tradition at second hand or heaven knows at how many hands that i got this much from the men of my own time of course there were other stories on or even reaching the scandalous echoes of old gossip so plainly out and distorted that i will not even give them the of a denial there was one suggestion that seemed to occur often enough in the reports of my to reach the dignity of what is known to the law as general reputation this was that it was something about a woman of the black k some said one woman some said two some hinted at even a half dozen some said it was a scandal some said that it was a some only that he was crossed in love and gave up and the more numerous part asserted the first men are always ready to believe scandal of a man i was interested enough to investigate farther for somehow the idea of the base and horrid life of a with my clean old gentleman of the black stock with his thin high bred face soft and linen and kindly firm gentle voice seemed too to entertain his countenance was grave it was true but it was the gravity of one who had faced | 46 |
sorrow not shame his eye was melancholy but it was calm and his gaze direct and his voice which as much as either the face or the the old gentleman eye tells the true history that lies deep and within was grave and sad but bore the unmistakable ring of sincerity and command so unwilling to leave one who was somewhat linked in my mind with the object who at that moment engrossed my meditation for i am speaking of the days immediately succeeding the incident of the rose filled carriage i applied myself to the further and more careful investigation of these echoes of old tradition and i learned that there was not one grain of truth in any story which to the old gentleman the least act of the two or three old members of the bar to whom i applied answered my opening question in almost the same words i would ask them tell me something about old mr miles miles old mr miles miles of the black stock what about him he used to be a member of the bar and the best lawyer at it he argued the case of against brown have you ever read his argument it s the greatest of where s the report etc no but why did he leave the bar was there ever anything ah out of the way about him any story of ah about miles old mr miles miles why no who says there was he was one of the highest men who were ever at the bar he left the bar because hunting through the book gave it up because which ah here it is listen to this why he gave it up because he didn t need it had plenty of money without it i d have done the same thing if i had been in his fix i believe there was a woman had something to do with it him or some the old gentleman thing and he never got over it ah here it is reading s ex or against brown s and others listen to this and then would follow page after page of clear argument which only a lawyer would appreciate fully why sir he made the court reverse itself by that argument and established that for the law and i want to tell you that s not the easiest thing in the world to do young man this was what i got from three or four of the oldest men at the bar and i stopped satisfied i had established the fact which i had already believed that if my old gentleman had dropped out it was his own choice of the black stock iv not long after that i met mr miles it was at the house of one of the old of the city where i had become an occasional visitor and where he had come that evening to play he remembered me as his street acquaintance and spoke of our first meeting at his gate and our talk about the trees he made no reference however to the incident from which my chief interest in him then came he evidently did not know i was the one to whom he had given the advice about stopping a carriage for a wife the absence of some member of the family with whom he usually played seemed to cause him keen disappointment and he appeared to regard it as so much of a the old gentleman misfortune that partly through vanity and partly through i was induced to take a hand i quickly found that i was and that the according to myself game which i then played was worse than nothing i him forced his hand lost him tricks and finally lost him the rubber this was more than he could stand he would not play any more the rest of the time he stayed he talked about his health i was feeling a little over his on my game but when he had left my host spoke of him with so much affection and my hostess with so much pity that i was quite and meeting him on the street next day i stopped and spoke to him asking him about his health and taking occasion to to him for my wretched performance the evening before of the black stock and the annoyance i had caused him he appeared not only pleased at my attention but gratified at my inquiry as to his health and not only expressed regret for giving an exhibition of what he termed his constitutional but invited me to call and see him himself for proposing so dull a duty to a young man as a visit to an old one by suggesting that he had a few old books and some other things which i might find of interest for a i went as i had promised more from a sense of duty i must admit than from any other motive even than from that of curiosity to see his old books but i found as he had said that he had a rare collection both of books and of other things the i had ever seen his house itself was a curiosity one of the old double houses the old gentleman built on a simple and dignified plan almost square with that to the old simple classic models adapted for room sunshine and air which we now call because it is so long since we departed from them in the vain endeavor to be and fine it was as different from the new houses near it as he himself was from the other men on the street a handsome with columns dignified its front the door with a large fan shaped above it and a lock strong enough to have secured the was itself a | 46 |
feature and admitted you to the ample hall which ran entirely through the house to the back door and a long back beyond it a sufficiently wide to suggest in the rooms above led on one side of the hall to the upper floor the front door was not only equipped with a of the black stock bell which when i pulled the handle for a minute or more somewhere outside behind the house but it was with a large and handsome old brass of a classical design everything was solid and had once been handsome but struck me now as sadly out of repair indeed an air of neglect and loneliness seemed to the whole place when i entered which i did not do until i had both rung and knocked several times and a negro woman had come around the side of the house and after looking at me had asked whom i wanted to see i found things much the same way within that they were without the hall was hung with paintings some of which seemed to me fine but they were dim and and the frames were all dingy and old the room i was shown into was furnished the old gentleman with old furniture and filled with handsome things but everything appeared to me to be placed without the least regard to either fitness or comfort the chairs were all ranged back stiffly against the wall and and other a were scattered around in a hopeless fashion that was distressing the library into which i was at length shown was the only exception to this condition it was evidently a living room and the fine old books everything yet even there were signs of the neglect which spoke from every spot books piled on tables and chairs and even on the floor in a confusion which nobody but one long familiar to it could have understood my host however who met me most graciously when i was at length admitted to the house seemed to divine where things of the black stock were in that room at least and made my visit so agreeable that instead of spending one half hour with him i spent several he possessed a knowledge of books which appeared to me rare and possessed what was more that delightful art of books of which he talked with a certain personality which made them seem like living beings he did not quote books so much as he made them quote themselves they were not books but the men who wrote them he brought their authors in and made them talk with you he appeared particularly fond of the poets and the though he declared there were very few of either who were sincere when you find a sincere man in a book sir he said he is like a sincere man in life you know him at once and he is the old ones ere sincere shake the old gentleman of course i remember he said because he knew the human soul and could not help it it was as if he had stood face to face with god and dared not tell anything but truth milton was sincere because he was a bacon because he was too wise not to be of the he said old johnson was almost the only who was sincere and that was his value you could always count on him a clear and vigorous man who saw straight and told it as he saw it the others were nearly all writing either for popularity or for some other miserable end why sir he said i have piles of them there i will not even put on my shelves i will not admit them to the companionship of gentlemen the poets at least try to do something some of them do was sincere because he was a of the black stock poet and was they had a high idea of their profession as a lawyer for instance he may not have a large or practice and yet may be an ornament to the bar because of the high plane on which he i asked him about and he admitted the sincerity of both but he did not like because he was ill tempered and sour and was always at others without his inspiration or his occasion he said of him he is not a gentleman sir and has never forgiven either the world or himself for it he put on a much higher plane but though he admitted his sincerity and him the first american literary man he said he did not read him he too much for me he said and he is all when i want preaching i go to church so the old gentleman he liked his poetry better than his prose though he declared it was hardly verse after all he said the best of these to me is the first and next to him the second is as modern as if he had just written because he knew human nature it is always the same drew from him and the others from they have all been him ever since he wrote he was a man who knew himself as he was and had the sense and the courage to be truthful was not so great as because he was less spiritual but he knew the human heart why sir he added with unwonted enthusiasm i am enough like to be his embodied spirit when i read i feel as if i were reading myself it is a pleasure to me to know that they are the two which we know of the black stock absolutely shakespeare read you cannot get a man nowadays to tell you what he really feels or thinks feeling has gone out of fashion every one is to repress his feeling and he does not think at all why sir we are all | 46 |
trying to say what we think our neighbor thinks it does not seem to me now recalling it that what he said was remarkable or even altogether sound but there was something about his manner in saying it which impressed me he appeared to be in strong opposition to the rest of the world to hold a correct position but to have a tendency to push his views to extremes he did not see things precisely as they were but through a medium or atmosphere of some kind which threw them a little out of line as if a man might look at objects through a pane of old glass i observed the same thing the old gentleman when he spoke of old times and things his talk of old days was delightful but was mainly critical his reminiscences being i thought all a little tinged by something i would not call it but just a bit off from the sweet of perfect as if at some period he had been shut off a little too much from the sun and had been under the shadow of disappointment i left him with something of sadness passing out of the cheerless hall and through the old weather door and i was not aware until i got into the sunshine without how chilly i had been within i had an indescribable feeling of half sorrow half pity for the old gentleman which did not change until i met him again out calm dignified and serene with his manner of the black stock s i met him occasionally after that and always with a feeling of mingled regard and sympathy i could hardly tell why for i set him down as one of the most self contained and fortunate of men a man who with enough means to gratify his tastes and follow his own bent chose to live just as he did in fact i think i began rather to envy him for my little affair in which the figured had not ended very satisfactorily to me the of the volume had smiled more kindly than i liked on a smooth young man who had an advantage over me in the of his the freshness of his complexion and the of his heels not to the matter of income in which he probably mine but i not only believed these were the only advantages he had over me but the old gentleman was conceited enough to have even a mild contempt for him which nevertheless did not prevent my young lady from at first openly him and afterward on him not only herself but my as well side marked passages and all and i had not even the poor consolation of thinking that he would see them and be jealous for i do not believe he ever opened the book or for that matter any book in his life anyhow the affair left me with a certain feeling of discontent not only with the world at large but a much harder thing to bear with myself also and t rather envied my old gentleman of the black stock and the quiet life about this time the vision of the little country girl with the big rose covered hat began to come back to me again and took its place once more in my recollection of the black stock during these years i had come to know many old people in the town besides the old lawyers and mr miles among them several old ladies i have always had a fancy for old ladies i was brought up in the house with a number of them and as i am of little girls than i am of boys so old ladies appeal to me more than old men there is a certain something about them quite indescribable some of them have a beauty with which the beauty of the most radiant can hardly compare but it is not of this beautiful class only that i speak even when they are faded and worn when all tints have vanished and all lines have subsided with age which is con the old gentleman tent to acknowledge itself graciously as age and does not pretend to a there is a charm all its own there is a fragrance of and of as well as of roses and and and have their sweetness no less than heart s ease and there were more of these old ladies in my city than anywhere else i ever knew and i had come quite easily to know a number of them they seemed to be found in the older and cheaper part of the town where the ancient once comfortable houses still lingered though it was no longer fashionable or most convenient and as my practice had not yet enabled me to to the desirable new quarter i had quite naturally met a number of them there are certain characteristics which are common to them all they all dress in black of the black stock they all live in the past and talk of your grandmother as if she were your sister completely forgetting your mother and they all smile on the little children they pass in the street i am rather fond of children myself and have always followed a habit of making friends with those on my street a practice from which i have at times found certain to follow there are some of course for instance in seasons of snow and also at other times but they are occasionally at those seasons when tops come like winged on warm days in out of the ground or from somewhere else i had to submit to the of being stopped on the corners and compelled to display my inability to make one do anything except around on its side like a chicken before a party of ss the old gentleman young every one of whom could | 46 |
a top with accuracy or could whip it high in air and bring it down whirling like a saw or i would be held up on the and compelled against my strongest to jump a rope held by two of a group of little creatures who would shout with laughter as they knocked my hat off in the dirt threw sand into my eyes and pursued me down the street with of derision or i would have to play a game of while i lost or stood the chance of losing a as well as the game but on the whole i think it had its and my acquaintance with the old ladies and the children in my quarter played an accidental part in my knowledge of the history of the old gentleman of the black stock oftener than once indeed as i was playing with the of the black stock children he came along and stopped to look at us lucky dog he said to me once as he passed i would rather be able to play than to play monarch and he went on his way rather slowly o the old gentleman vi but this was the way i came to hear of his history i happened to hear one evening a conversation between two old ladies which threw some light on the old fellow s past i was calling on one of them whom i knew as a friend of my mother s and who had been good enough to call on me when i was sick once and the other old lady happened to come to see her whilst i was there her visit as i recollect it was to tell her friend of some old of theirs from whom she had lately had a letter and who had sent her a message in it she had brought the letter with her and they read it and talked about the writer who they both agreed must be older than either of them by several years of the black stock i and then they drifted back to their when they were all three together at the springs one summer it was forty odd years before yet they went over it all recalled incidents got them straight between them and enjoyed them again down to the partners they had the flowers they gave them and the dresses they wore at the ball as if it had all been yesterday they had grown young again in the course of their discussion the name of miles occurred more than once one of them declared that some incident occurred the summer miles was so attentive to green the other thought not but that it was the summer after and she tried to refresh her friend s memory by reminding her of two immense their friend had had one of which they thought miles had given her whilst they the old gentleman could not make out who had given the other and then it had turned out that miles had given her neither but had given his to robinson whom he had just met and whom he danced with that night and one of s had been given her by an old gentleman from south for whom she had sung and had come back and given her the other and that a was the beginning of his success she said the circumstance was remembered but it failed to fix the year in my friend s memory then the other said why don t you remember that night i had on a and you had on a white embroidered muslin oh yes to be sure this fixed it the girl s white muslin recalled it with all its long attendant train of circumstances after nearly fifty years of activity and change of the black stock my my how long ago that was and yet it seems only yesterday said my friend quietly softly passing her thin hands over her black dress her eyes were no longer looking before her but back at the past i wondered what she was thinking of in that forty odd years where lay so many things love making marriage age perhaps for the thin hands still smoothed softly the old black dress of the girl s embroidered muslin and the young girl it held in its fresh folds that night her thoughts were not painful whatever they were for a pleasant and placid air rested on her face and when she at length awoke from her reverie it was with a smile her friend too had been back in the past what a handsome man miles was then she said the old gentleman i never thought so there was always a self consciousness about him which his looks to me said my friend oh i think he was a perfect i i wonder if he has ever regretted not marrying i think he was really in love with no not he said my friend he was too well satisfied with himself i am very sure never did i wouldn t give with his kind old heart for a hundred of him with all his cleverness the conversation had interested me and i had sat still putting off my departure and feeling a certain interest in their talk and the train of reflections it had called up in me still i did not put the parts together i simply felt vaguely rather than saw anything which concerned me personally i had certainly never thought of miles as an or as a careless and heart of the black stock and i followed the idea off into reverie and and was recalled only by the mention of the name hill and the old lady who had worn the and who was much the of the two was speaking and i had lost a part of the conversation yes she said her health has been very poor | 46 |
ever since the birth of her last infant and then her mother s death just after hill and was sold told greatly on her so she does not get to see me as often as she did when she first came to live here last spring i must go and see her said my friend softly i will try and get there to morrow i would have been before but i walk so badly now i find myself putting things off she brought her youngest sister to see me not very long very like i could the old gentleman almost have thought it was herself as she sat by me and talked to me elizabeth yes she is like but not so pretty said the other old lady rising to leave i thought she was rather prettier but then i see so badly these days good by you must come again don t wait for me to come i can t walk much and oh gray you have been trading on those three of superior age to me ever since you were twelve years old and i am not going to put up with it any longer you are as about it as miles used to be about his intellect good by and they kissed laughing at their and going over many new things and some old ones and starting to take leave of each other and beginning again over and of the black stock over as is the way with their sex of every age i m was leaving so i saw the visitor down the steps and would have seen her home if she would have let me but she positively declined this attention declaring that i would think her as old and helpless as gray as i went home i saw miles turn in at his gate a little before me his collar was turned up and he had a around his neck although the air seemed to me quite and as he slowly climbed his broad steps and let himself in at his old stained door i thought he appeared more than usually feeble i did not meet him or see him again on the street for some little time but one day as i turned into a new street i saw a figure some distance ahead of me all muffled up and the old gentleman walking with the slow and painful steps of an old man when i was still about half a block from him his hat blew off and was caught in a sudden gust of wind and whirled out into the street he stepped slowly down after it but before he could reach it a young girl who had evidently seen him through a window ran down from one of the little new tidy houses on the opposite side tripped out into the street and caught the hat and restored it to its owner and then as he attempted to wrap his which had become more closely around his neck she reached up and wrapped it about him herself and as he thanked her warmly as i could see even at a distance turned laughing and tripped back across the street her brown hair blown about her little head and ran up the steps into her of the black stock house giving me just a glimpse of dainty ankles which reminded me of elizabeth that day so long ago i had recognized miles at a distance as his hat blew off but i did not recognize the young lady who had rendered him the service indeed i did not see her face but i was sure she was a stranger for i knew every girl on the street by sight at least i was so busy as to who the graceful stranger was and looking at her windows that i forgot my intention to overtake old mr miles who might have told me and he turned the corner of the street before i could catch up with him and went down a cross street so that i did not get a chance to speak to him he was walking more rapidly than i had thought as i was late though i thought it was just as well for i had observed that when i met him on the street the old gentleman now he talked more and more about his health and my chief regret was that i did not find out who the new comer was as it turned out i discovered later that he did not know her the next time i met him he asked me to find out who she was and let him know i suggested that i might find some difficulty in doing so difficulty he said why sir when i was your age i knew every pretty girl in town was she pretty i asked i did not see her face pretty she was a beauty sir she looked like an angel i don t know that a man is a judge of the beauty of a person who runs after and catches his hat for him he added his deep eyes lighting faintly with a little half gleam of amusement what of the black stock between rage and gratitude he is not in a very temper but she seemed to me a beauty and he sighed and turned away the old gentleman vii only a day or two after this conversation i am not sure that it was not the next day i happened to be on a little street in the same direction with but several blocks farther out than the quarter where my old friend and i had our on the border of respectability the ground was so broken there that the street was not half built up and such houses as were there were of the poorest class as i passed along i was attracted by a little crowd | 46 |
gathered around some object in the middle of the street they were shouting with laughter and my curiosity prompted me to go and look to see what amused them i found it to be a very small and exceedingly dirty lit of the black stock tie boy who certainly presented an amusing enough spectacle he was so little that it was wonderful how so much dirt could have gotten on so small a person his clothes were good better than those of the children around him but were covered with mud from top to bottom as if he had been making mud which indeed no doubt he had been doing his hands were with mud and his face also was with it where it showed through the skin looked fair and the face refined he did not seem at all disturbed or disconcerted by the crowd about him or the amusement he was causing or the questions put to him all of them he answered promptly and with perfect coolness the only difficulty was in our understanding him he was so small that he could not talk plainly the old gentleman what is your name they were asking him n ale what n ale in a different key what n ale nor n ale with some impatience they changed the question where do you live at ome where is that at ome evidently struck by their what street asked street nor where is that the crowd asked of each other no one knew of the black stock what did you leave home for honey asked a woman stooping over him away he answered promptly with a of interest away with a nod of satisfaction what did you run away for id n know at this a child who had worked its way into the inner circle about him gave a shrill explosion of laughter the little fellow s face flushed suddenly and he walked up and his little dirty fist struck the child as hard a blow as he could which caused a universal shout and set the children to whirling in the street and screaming with laughter for the first time the boy showed signs of distress his little dirty mouth began to and his little round chin to the old gentleman tremble and he dug one black fist in his eye warn do ome he said in a low voice yes you shall go don t cry honey said several women pressing around him and one of them asked him don t you want to eat ain t you hungry yes ma am he said with a little and of his manners ah right i ll give you something come along and then we ll take you home and several of the women with kindness began to talk as to which could give him something which way is your home little man i asked taking advantage of the break in the crowd he turned and waved his little arm taking in half of the horizon way of the black stock a t least it was the half of the horizon toward which i was going so i said to the women that if they would give him something to eat i would to get him home safely this division of labor was acceptable and the woman who had first suggested feeding him having given him two large of bread covered thick with jam and others having contributed double as much more i took the little stray s wrist in of a hand both of those members being full of bread and having taken leave of his friends we started out to find his home we had not gone more than fifty steps when he said i tired or something as near that as a mouth filled with bread and jam would allow this was a new phase of the case i had not counted on this but as there was no help for it when he had the old gentleman repeated the statement again and added the request me i picked him up dirt and all and marched on it was a little funny to find myself carrying such a bundle of boy and mud anyhow to which was added the fact that every now and then of jam were being over my clothes and face and stuck in my hair a process to which the warmth of the day did not fail to contribute its part but it was only when i got into my own section of the town that i fully appreciated the of the figure i must cut would gladly have put my little burden down but he would not be so disposed of under prosperity he had grown a tyrant and whenever i proposed putting him down he said so firmly no no i tired me that i was forced to go on of the black stock the first person i met that i knew was old mr miles he was muffled up but still was walking rather more vigorously than when i last saw him before he stopped in apparent doubt as to my identity and looked rather pleased as well as amused over my but expressed no surprise when i made a half explanation the child possibly impressed by his pale thin face suddenly held out his hand with a piece of jam bread in it and said warn it pleased the old fellow for he actually bent over and made a pretence of biting a piece when i left him i took a side street i was going to a police station to learn if any notice had been left there of a lost child but as i passed through a rather retired street which i had chosen to avoid observation from people i knew on my own o the old gentleman street i heard a voice behind me exclaim why | 46 |
above me though it was still far below the large and practice which was to be my stepping stone to the chief it was only as a beautiful being whose mere of the black stock smile was more than all other rewards and all that i dared to i was not then in love with miss elizabeth i only admired her and hated those who were almost the only time i thought of old mr miles that summer was one afternoon that elizabeth and i were strolling through the old street on which his house stood as we passed slowly along exchanging the pleasant momentous which two young people deal in in such cases the old yard stretching back looked cool and inviting under its big trees the seat under the old looked convenient and an air of placid and calm seemed to rest on everything i suggested going in which surprised her but i told her the owner was a friend of mine and was absent from the city and then informed her that he was the old gentleman whose hat she had picked up the old gentleman in the street that spring the gate was tied up and i was about to cut the when she said she would climb over it which she did with my aid and with the which her every movement we wandered about for awhile and then came to a stop under the old which showed on its gray trunk the rough traces of many a s pride or lover s devotion most of the carving was old for few entered that secluded yard of late and much was one pair of high up enclosed in a heart i made out as b m and e g but my companion did not entirely agree with me the b m she thought probably correct but the e g only possibly so those letters would stand for my mother she said softly only she was always or for example said i with the of the black k light wit of a young man now if i just cut d after that and change the b m it would be all right why it would be like she said whoever they were they were no doubt two lovers and that old may be the only trace left of them on earth i don t know whether it was that our conversation began to grow a little too grave after that but she suddenly decided that we had better be going home and notwithstanding my she rose and started this was the only time she went with me into the old yard and the only time i remember that we ever spoke of old mr miles as the summer passed and the autumn came i began to grow restless and unhappy the trees had lost their and the town was taking on its autumn look and my the old gentleman happy summer evenings with along the summer streets or drifting out on the river were gone with the of the leaves and something had come like a frost over me and my happiness i could not tell just what it was unless it were the frequent visits to town of a young man a certain mr who lived in another state and a larger city i had met him once in the early summer and had thought nothing of him not as much as i did of several others who used to sit on mrs s front porch and interfere with my enjoyment there but now he was back in the city staying at one of the biggest hotels and spending most of his time all of it i said at mrs s i met him there every time i went there and though i do not think i would ever have been base enough to murder him i would cheerfully have seized and dropped him into of the black stock some far off to pass the rest of his natural life in painful and solitude my to him was not at all tempered by the fact that he was very and was reported to be exceedingly rich nor even by the further fact that miss was going somewhere to teach that year her term beginning a month or two later than usual on account of the absence in europe of the lady who had engaged her i gave myself so many airs about mr s continuous business for such was the cause assigned for his protracted stay among us and made myself so generally disagreeable a faculty which i possess that finally miss gave me clearly to understand that she would put up with no more of my and sent me about my business the exact cause of our was some the old gentleman speech of mine to the effect that it was not only the poor but the rich that we had always with us with some other observation of like tenor bearing on mr s name which miss considered offensive and though i freely confess i would have been mean enough to tumble down in the dirt and eat ever so much humble pie if i had thought it would have done any good the young lady was so inexorable in her indignation that i found not the slightest ground for hope that she would and accept my apologies i was accordingly forced to assume the high horse as my sole refuge which i did with what outward grace i might though i was inwardly consumed between consternation regret and rage the high horse is sometimes perhaps a successful but it is mighty poor riding and i spent an autumn as wretched of the black stock as my summer had been delightful passing my time meditating to my successful rival and punishment for my young lady the old gentleman in my time of i began to think of many | 46 |
is a very difficult man to deal with what can you do with him he is going to die anyhow and of the black stock loi knows it and he says the idea of anyone staying in the house with him makes him nervous i have told his man william to stay in the house to night but i don t know that he will let him do it i went to see mr miles that night for i was very anxious about him and found william much stirred up and sincerely glad to see me he had proposed to stay with him as the doctor had directed but the old gentleman had positively forbidden it he won have nobody him tall he said hopelessly two or three people been to see him to day but he won see none on em he ll hardly see me an he tell me when come to up as an let him lone but i m to stay in house to night don what he say said the old servant positively x the old gentleman i asked if he thought he would see me and we agreed that the best thing for me to do was to go right up and announce myself so i did it and found him sitting up as before he looked if anything than he had done the evening before he talked in a weaker voice and was more drowsy he said he could not lie down i made up my mind to sit up with him that night if he did not actually drive me out of the house so after a time as he seemed sleepy i fixed m self comfortably in an which i emptied of a score of books i think my presence comforted him for he said little and simply on toward midnight he roused up and having taken a which the doctor had left him seemed stronger and rather inclined to talk the first question he asked surprised me of the black stock he said suddenly is your mother living i told him that she was that is the greatest blessing a man can have he said mine died when i was ten years old and i have never gotten over her loss i have missed her every hour since had she lived my life might have been different it might not then have been the failure which it has been i was surprised to hear him speak so of himself for i had always thought him one of the most self contained of men and i made some polite of his remark he turned on me almost fiercely yes sir it has been a complete and utter failure he said bitterly i was a man of parts and look at me now a woman s influence might have changed me as he appeared inclined to talk i pre i the old gentleman to listen he seemed to find a grim pleasure in talking of himself and his life his mother s death he continued to dwell on she used to sit out on that seat under the tree he told me and he loved the tree better than almost anything in the world it was associated he said with almost every happy moment he had ever spent young man he said sitting up in the energy of his speech marry marry i do not say marry for your own hi though heaven knows i am a proof of the truth of my words dying here alone and almost but marry for the good you may accomplish in the world and the happiness you may give others not to marry he said was the extreme of selfishness for if a man does not marry of the black stock generally it is because he is for something more than love he then told me that his great fault was selfishness i made one mistake sir he said early in life and it has lasted me ever since i put brains before everything intellect before heart it was all selfishness that was the rock on which i split i was a man of parts sir and i thought that with my intellect i could do everything but i could not young man were you ever in love he asked under the sudden question i stammered and finally said i did not know i believed i had been but it was over anyhow young man he said treasure it treasure it as your life i was in love once once only really in love and i believed i had my happiness in my own hands and flung it away and wrecked my life j j v j j j j lo the old gentleman he then proceeded to tell me the story of his love and how instead of being content with the affection of the lovely and beautiful girl whose heart he had won he had wanted to with every one and to shine in all eyes and i simply flung away salvation he said i am not speaking he said for i was not even left the poor consolation of doubt as to whether i should have succeeded when at last i awoke from my condition my chance was gone the woman for whom i had given up the one i loved because i thought she would advance me in life proved as shallow and heartless as i was myself and after i had made my plans and prepared my house for her threw me over for what she esteemed a better match and married a rich fool and when at length i of the black stock went back to the woman i loved and offered her my heart which indeed had always been hers she had given hers to another heaven knows i did not blame her for though i had been fool enough to | 46 |
despise him he was a thousand times of her than i was and made her a thousand times happier than i should have done with my selfishness she told me that she had loved me once and would have married me had i spoken but that time was long past and she now loved another better than she had ever loved me my pride was stung but i fell back on my intellect and determined again to marry brilliantly i might have done so perhaps but i could not forget the woman i loved and i was not quite base enough to offer again an empty heart to another lo the old gentleman woman and so the time passed by i had means enough to the necessity of working for my support and so did not work as i should have done had i been dependent on my profession and men who had less than half my intellect me at length having no to labor i threw up my profession and travelled abroad in time that failed me and i returned to my tree only to find that i had dropped out of the current of life and had exchanged the happiness of a home for the experiences of a wanderer i had lost the universal touch in all the infinite little things which make up the sum of life and even my friends with few exceptions were not just what they had been if they were necessary to me i was no longer necessary to them they had other ties had married had children and new of the black stock interests formed in my absence i found myself alone everywhere a visitor welcomed at some places because i was agreeable when i chose to be at others but still only a visitor an then i fell back on my books they lasted me for awhile and i read but only for my amusement and in time my appetite was and my stomach turned i had not the tastes of a scholar or even of a student but only those of a i was too social to enjoy long alone even books and i did not read for use so i turned to the world again to find it even worse than it had been before i was as completely alone as if i had been on an island and it was too late for me to re enter life i do not mean to give this as his connected speech for it was not it was what he no the old gentleman said at times through the long night as he dwelt on the past and felt like talking finally he broke in suddenly cultivate the young man cultivate the affections they alone give true happiness take an old word for it that the men who are happy are those who love and are loved better love the meanest thing that lives than only yourself even as a matter of policy it is best i had the best intellect of any young man of my time and set and i have seen men with half my brains under the inspiration of love and the obligations and duties it go forward to success which i could never achieve whilst i was and drying up they were and reaching out in every direction often i have gone along the street and envied the poorest man i met with his children on their of the black stock m holiday my affections had been awakened but too late in life and i could not win friendship then that child that you had in your arms the day i met you was the first child i had seen in years who looked at me without either fear or indifference he sat back in a reverie the old man had of course mentioned no names but i had recalled the conversation of the two ladies that evening and now under his earnestness i was drawn to admit that i had been in love and feared i was yet he was deeply interested and when i told him that he had already had his part in my affair he was no less astonished then i recalled to him the advice he had given me on the street corner on that may morning several years before he remembered the incident of the carriage with its ill the old gentleman burden of young girls but had no idea i was the young man he was evidently pleased at the coincidence so you took my advice and picked a girl out of that very carriage did you he said with the first smile i had seen on his wan face since i had been with him whose carriage was it and what was her name if you don t mind telling an old man he asked then as i hesitated a little he said gently oh no matter don t feel obliged to tell me no i said i was only thinking it was the hill and carriage and her name was elizabeth elizabeth he said his eyes opening wide as they rested on my face and then as he turned to the fire and let them fall he said to himself how strange of the black stock has she beauty he asked me presently after a reverie in which he repeated to himself softly over and over very strange i think she has i said and others think so too i believe you do yourself how is that i have never seen her yes you have i said do you remember your hat blowing off one day last spring on street and a young girl running out of a house and catching it for you well that was i i was it indeed he said and then added i ought to have known it she looked so like her only i thought it was simply her | 46 |
er i can excite your curiosity so far as to make yon go back to that early and delightful chronicle of old virginia life you will owe me a debt of gratitude which will all my page contents how her mind s old sue the of mrs s bargain the true story of the surrender of the when little was at the bar s christmas party how the one from four the of being too thorough uncle jack s views of geography she had on her leaves a story of charles he would have gotten a lawyer how carried the her sympathetic editor he knew what was due to the court her great grandmother s ghost s lovers john s wedding suit when the colonel was a illustrations he had heard a and he wanted a place how her mind s i found her a bunch of apple ms is the mule at his heels tou has done commit a of fence i g d n satan i is de of de american he a p int one p int w i have got a drop of the irish in the i behind me said hold on take off your coat j he was as mellow as an apple ll l your pa never would stood no thing as ef i i i a got me a lawyer i ll warm you i tou knows cruel society animals is i round which is the editor he was not exactly a vagabond i became gradually conscious of a ence s you s a rat i ll you p h he looked at himself solemnly i was in s bed how her mind ben was as well known in town as the mayor or the governor he was an old time and to this character owed his position which was a good one he had been boy about law offices in the law building ever since the first evening some years before when he had knocked gently at judge s door and then after a invitation had slipped slowly in sideways with his old hat in his hand and having taken in in his comprehensive glance the whole room including the judge himself had said apparently satisfied that he had heard they wanted a boy and he wanted a place it was an moment for the old fellow the last boy a and a thief had just been discharged and the judge had been much worried that day trying to wait on himself his thoughts had turned in the evening light to his home from which the light had faded for all time and his heart was softened the old lawyer had looked ben over too and been satisfied something about him had called up tender recollections of his little office at the old court house before he became a successful lawyer and a celebrated judge and when his best friend was the old drunken negro who waited on him cleaned up his room and was his principal and most sympathetic friend and in his long love affair with his sweetheart the old colonel s brown eyed daughter he had just been dreaming of her first as she wore his first and then as she lay for the last time with her head in his roses and her white slender hands than ever clasped over his last on her quiet breast he had recalled all the sweet difficulties in winning her his back into his picking himself up again and again his failure and then the lonely evening when he had sat in front of the dying fire sad despairing and had wondered if life were worth holding longer then old william slipping in hat in hand he recalled the old man s keen look f at him as be sat before the fire with the pistol half hidden under the papers on his desk and his sudden breaking of the silence with don t you give her up don t you give her up ef she s she s for an ef she say no she to mean yes don t you give her up and he had not given her up and she had called him from the dead and had made him he would not have given the right to put those in her calm hands for a long life of unbroken happiness with any one else so when the opened quietly and uncle ben in bis clean shirt time coat and patched breeches slipped in it was an moment for him where did you come from he asked him from old sub used to to de can you clean up j he laughed a spontaneous jolly laugh kin i clean up s what i come to do ken too can you read well nor sub not i ain t no free issue ner preacher the shade of disappointment on his face this however do you get drunk yes sir sometimes cheerfully not so often i ain t got to de but ef ts drunk up who is she s my wife what sort of a woman is she she s a black woman oh i she s a good sort o a ble good sort o ef you know how to long her sort o sometimes like but i kin manage her you kin try us ef you don t like us we ken go we ain t got no root to we you ll do i ll try you said the judge and from that time uncle ben became the of the offices he was a treasure as he had truly said he got drunk sometimes but when he did took his place and cleaned up her temper was as he had said certainly even flattery must have admitted this and uncle ben wore a or plaster on some part of his head a considerable part of his time but no | 46 |
one ever heard him complain been kind o her mine he said in answer to at length it one night went to work on him with a flat iron to such good purpose that first a came in and then a doctor had to be called to bring him to and was arrested next morning when was sent on to the grand jury for striking with intent to and kill ben was a trifle triumphant when the justice announced his decision he rose and shaking his long finger at her exclaimed aye aye what i tell you r silence roared the big and ben sat down with a puzzled look on his face when the police court closed he went up to his wife and said in a commanding tone now come long home me an have yourself i ll teach you to flat iron at folks head the officer announced however that would have to go to jail the case had passed beyond his she had been sent on to the grand jury ben s countenance fell got to go to jail he repeated mechanically in a dazed kind of way got to go to jail then the prisoners were taken down to the jail he followed behind the line of that generally attended that interesting procession and he sat on a stone outside the iron door nearly all day that afternoon he spent in the judge s office the grand jury was in and next day a true bill was found against for an attempt to and kill a the same day her case was called the first on the she had good counsel she could have had every lawyer in the building had she wanted them so had old ben the bar but the case was a dead open and shut one unhappily the judge was ill with the called ben first man and he told simply the same story he bad told at the police court and to the grand jury had always had a vicious temper and had often exercised it towards him that evening she had gone rather far and finally he had attempted to with her had tapped her with his open hand and she had his head with the flat iron the officer was o v called and the story he had heard the noise had gone in and found ben unconscious and the woman in a fury swear ing to him the surgeon pronounced the wound one which came near being very serious but for ben s hard head the skull would have been as it was only the outer plate of the bone was broken he had known several men killed by blows much less vigorous no cross examination affected the witnesses ben had evidently told his story unwillingly the jury was solemn earnest if short speeches were made the judge gave a strong instruction upon the evil of women being lawless and and the jury retired the counsel leaned over and told ben he thought they had lost the case and the jury would probably send his wife up for at least a year ben said nothing he only looked once at sitting sullen and lowering in the prisoners box beside a thief then after a while he got up and went out and a minute later slipped in again at the door sideways and making his way over to her put an orange not a very large or fresh one into her lap she did not look at him the appearance of the jury in and important sent him to his seat the clerk called the names and asked gentlemen of the jury have you agreed on a verdict the looking bowed and handed in the amid a sudden silence and the clerk read slowly we the jury find the prisoner guilty etc and sentence her to confinement in the for two years neither nor ben stirred nor did the counsel he was evidently considering the judge in a voice slightly troubled said he would pronounce sentence at once and asked the prisoner if she had anything she wished to say she rocked a little and glanced over towards ben with a sort of appealing look her first said nothing looked down again and turned her orange over in her lap stand up said the judge and she stood up just then ben stood up too and making his way over to her said ken i say a why ah yes said the judge doubtfully it is very unusual but go on he sat back in his arm chair well began ben i wants to say be paused and took in tbe entire court room in tbe sweep of bis glance i wants to say i don t think you ought to do a way y all ain got t all she ain do to you all t all she s my wife an what she done she done to me ef i kin it y all ought to be able to s now hit s dis a way y all is married an yo knows bow tis yo knows sometimes a de in her tain t her fault tis de s hit like wolf in cows sometimes in de skin an em kick up an run an mean s de way tis i done know ever she a little at home in de country i done know how mean she is i done know all an i done marry her she suit me i had plenty o i could a marry but i ain want i want an i her tell she had me well she n i think she is but ain i satisfied her an s y all don know bow mean she is she mean as a faced mule she kick an she fight an she tell sometimes i hardly ken stay in | 46 |
house but ain i stay an when she i right same as an i know den i have a good supper an i ain got to my mine bout y all done been all long y all is married well s de way night been good so long i feared she some n de matter her an i kind o an sort o her up but she ain t she all right i so glad to find her way i sort o an when she hit me i her i didn mean to hu t her i hit her a little tap side her head so an she went all to pieces in a minute i done hurt her s y all knows how tis yo self s got mighty s ain like s nor men s ef you slap em goes a way an den got to ease mine well she got mighty big mine an when she a way it right smart to ease it to it she done try den cheer den den but ain none o able to ease her an den she got to try de flat iron she got to do it y all knows how tis ef s got to do anything got to do it an s all don hu t none i ain feel it hit knock me out head little while an i good as i when i come to i fine done rest s what hu t me done been her mine all years an we ain had no trouble an now y all say she got to go to de pen y how d y all like somebody to sen you wife to pen y when she her mine i ax you how she ease her mine i ax you i know y all sen her you done say you is i know you is an i ain got to say bout it not a but all i ax you is to le me go too i don want stay here b an y all ain to know how to manage her b me i is de on one kin do got six little dis she didn none some years an den she had six i bring em all right up to y all to on i her ef you le me i it by myself i mo went last night y all kin have em y all ken on em an i t i would like you to let her go home for a while fo yo sen her up i would like she got a right new baby for her dis minute an i mighty feared hit to die her an be right hard she ain never los but one an i had right smart trouble her bout she sort o out her head some till she got straight i long ble well de but i ain able to new one an she all night i got a to come an look it but she say she want an i think want her i think she do let her go a little while s all i want to ax you he sat down a glance at proved his assertion her eyes were shut fast and with her arms tightly folded across her ample bosom she was rocking gently from side to side two tears had pushed out from under her eyes and stood gleaming on her black cheeks the counsel glanced up at the judge whose face wore a look of deep perplexity and then at the jury i would like to the jury he said the clerk read the verdict over and called the first name is that your verdict the arose well judge i thought it was but he looked down at his fellows i think if i could i would like to talk to one or two of the other a minute if it is not too late my wife s got a right new baby at home herself that a little last night and i d like to go back to the room and think about it take the jury back to their room said the judge firmly in a few minutes they returned and the verdict was read we the jury all married men find the prisoner guilty of only her mind s it was st s day and owing to an engagement to go duck shooting had taken a holiday the storm had however broken up the shooting and was now seated in the sitting room of his apartments alone except for his own thoughts the rain outside in fitful showers against the windows and the fact that all his had gone wrong for several days past had inclined him to be serious and two he had just received completed the work for an hour he had been engaged in that dismal occupation of looking himself in the face both presents were cigar cases and the messages on the two cards were identical simply these words from st one of the cases was solid silver exquisitely chased and engraved with s crest and coat of arms the other was simply two bits of card board covered and bound together with a piece of old on which was embroidered a of apple blossoms i wish i had the courage said for the twentieth time he half turned and looked at the two cases and presently stretched out his arm lazily to take up one of them at first his hand hovered over the embroidered one but the beautiful chasing on the other struck him and he leaned over and took up that very handsome he said to himself it that girl has a great deal of taste so that was the reason she wanted to see my coat of arms he reached over and put the case down carefully and after a second s reflection | 46 |
picked up the other that s a really lovely thing he said those apple blossoms are perfect she made that herself and by jove that s a piece of the old dress she wore that night at the ball ten years ago i he leaned his head back and shut his eyes lord lord how sweet she was that night he said with his eyes still shut she seventeen and i twenty five i remember i told her she had the spirit of her great grandmother in her and she said no she had only her dress on her i remember i did not have the money to buy her flowers and i went and found her a bunch of apple blossoms that had come out in the warm spell i told her it was a miracle performed for her and they were the only flowers she wore i did not ask her to marry me because i did not feel that i had a right to do it till i could support her and then i came off to new york to get able here he stopped and his countenance changed well i got her the place at the he said in a tone once more he leaned his head back let me see what was the old rhyme i repeated to her that night t roses are red are blue are sweet and so are you and that other ah i this is it as sure as the bloom grows on the vine i ll choose you for my he into silence and after a second got up slowly and walked about the room with his hands deep in his pockets catching sight of himself in a mirror he stopped and gazed at himself earnestly what a cursed ugly thing a man is he said turning away he flung himself into his chair again and retired within himself once more suddenly he sat up by jove i ll do it he said in five years i won t be fit for any woman to have he reached over and took a sheet of paper and a pen dipped his pen in his silver and with a look of determination on his face himself to write st s day he began and paused a look of perplexity came on his face which deepened into one of worry he laid the pen down which one he said to himself half audibly he looked into the fire oh hang it i ll write a he said and dipping the pen into the ink again he began to write briskly saint st why dost thou leave me to still at her shrine so but bid her eyes to me incline ask no other sun to shine more rich than is gk s mine range all that woman song or wine can give wealth power and fame combine for her gladly all resign take all the pearls are in the heaven for stars earth s flowers but be her heart my here he stopped and read it over that s pretty good for an off hand effort he said to himself he read it over again more rich than is s mine he repeated i wonder if that could be considered personal for her i d gladly all resign he read by jove this would do for either he leaned back and the same expression his face had worn a little while before came back on it suddenly with a growl he sat up and began again but his pen would no longer go only the old rhyme rang in his head are red are blue are sweet and so are if he picked up the embroidered case and looked at it as he did so he seemed to catch a faint of apple blossoms and he actually lifted the case to his face to see if it were only fancy ah if he had only had then a fourth of what he had now how different it might have been he made ten thousand a year but wanted fifty thousand he put the case down and picked up the silver one fifty thousand horses books paintings travel everything except the perfume of those apple blossoms he laid the case down and took up his pen he had in mind such as line thine f resign but the old verse as sure as the bloom grows on the vine choose you for my drove out all others once more there came that perfume of the apple blossoms there seemed to be a sudden lighting up he gazed out of the window and became aware that the rain had stopped and the sun was shining oh hang it he said til go to walk he folded up his and putting it into an envelope he placed it in his pocket dressed he went out and strolled up the avenue looking at the pretty girls whom the sunshine had brought out like so many flowers presently he stepped into a s and bought a large bunch of glorious roses great rich crimson with long stems each fit for a princess to wear he paid for them and gave the address to which he wished them sent the price he thought half grimly was more than his month s board used to cost this almost interfered with the other thought that twenty five dollars was a small matter with him now he took out the and picked up a pen to address it but put it back into his pocket again and continued his stroll bowing to men and bowing and smiling to girls he met he went on into the park there was a faint hint of green in some favored spots and to his surprise as he passed on he came on a little bush in blossom an apple bush it grew in a sunny nook sheltered from the north and | 46 |
me and the prize i got enabled me to get the place i have well here s my place by the way miss van s father is the new good bye she had shaken hands with him and was gone up the steps before was aware that it was beginning to shower strolled across to the flower shop to get out of the rain but just as he reached the door some one called him he turned as miss van s carriage rolled up let me take you home she said i caught you whom were you going to order flowers for she asked laughing for no one they are ordered he said and remember they were ordered before i saw you this morning come and confide in me and save the on that hat she said and sprang in pulled up the seal skin robe and drove off by her side as the rain began to pour that afternoon he addressed his his friends all declare it was a true love match old sue on the other side of ninth street outside of my office window was the stand of old sue the mule that the green car around the curve from main street to and np the hill to broad between her and the young bow legged negro that her on drove her up and brought her back down the hill for the next car there always existed a peculiar friendship he used to hold long conversations with her generally her in that complaining tone with terms which the employ which she to take meekly at times he her with his arm around her neck or her her in the ribs and walking about around her quarters of her stump of a tail backed ears and uplifted foot and threatening her with all sorts of punishment if she to him kick me kick me i you to lay you foot g me he would say standing against her as she appeared about to let fly at him then he would seize her with a or at times coming down the hill he would haul ofl and hit her and take out with her at his heels her long ears backed and her mouth wide open as if she would tear him to pieces and just as she nearly caught him he would come to a stand and wheel around and she would stop dead and then walk on by him as as if she were in a in all the years of their association she never failed him and she never failed to fling herself on the collar the sharp curve at ninth and to get the car up the difficult turn last fall however the road passed into new hands and the management changed the old on the line and put on a lot of new and green horses it happened to be a dreary rainy day in november when the first new team was put in they came along ab hit three o clock old sue had been standing out in the pouring rain all day with her head bowed and her tail tucked in and her black back dripping she had never failed nor faltered the boy in an old rubber suit and battered hat had been out also his coat shining with the wet he and old sue appeared to mind it little the were running full and the stones were wet and slippery the street cars were crowded inside and out the wretched people on the vainly trying to shield themselves with held sideways it was late in the afternoon when i first observed that there was trouble at the comer i thought at first that there was an accident but soon found that it was due to a pair of new horses in a car old sue was to the and was doing her part faithfully finally she threw her weight on the collar and by sheer strength bodily dragged the car horses and all around the curve and on up the straight track until the horses finding themselves moving went off with a rush i saw the boy shake his head with pride and heard him give a of triumph the next car went up all right but the next had a new team and the same thing occurred the streets were like glass the new horses got to slipping and and old sue bad to drag them up as she did before from this time it went from bad to worse the rain changed to and the curve at ninth became a place for every car finally just at dark there was a block there and the cars piled up i intended to have taken a car on my way home but finding it i stepped into my friend miller s store just on the comer to get a cigar s and to keep warm i could see through the glass of the door the commotion going on just outside and could hear the shouts of the driver and of the boy mingled with the clatter of horses feet as they reared and jumped and the cracks of the boy s whip as he called to sue up sue up sue presently i heard a shout and then the tones changed and things got quiet a minute afterwards the door slowly opened and the boy came in his old hat pushed back on his head and one leg of his wet trousers rolled up to his knee showing about four inches of black which he leaned over and rubbed as he walked his wet face wore a half pain half anger mist miller kin i use yo he asked the company had the privilege of using it by courtesy yes there tis he up and still rubbing his leg with one hand took the off the hook with the other and put it to his ear central please | 46 |
f o an three on three fo fo an three on three fo s sub fo hand an three on three fo street car stables on three fo you street car stables who oh you mis yes jim jim dis jim g i m jim jim drive sue in mis miller oh mis kin i off to night matter sue she done tu n fool done gone i can t do tall her she ain got no sense she pull a nor nor i done try ev i done beg her done her done her to death she ain got no she do she done haul off an mo knock my brains out she done kick me right my right he stooped over and rubbed it again at the reflection done bark it all up tell nine o clock reckon so try it longer good night good bye i he hung the back on the hook stooped and rolled down the leg of his breeches mist miller good night he walked to the door and opened it as he passed slowly out without turning his head he said as if to himself but to be heard by us i wish i had a an twenty five dollars i i d buy mule an cut her th oat the op mrs i was on a visit to my friend at bis mountain home and was standing one day in the court yard at the county town discussing the possibilities of his re election to the position of s attorney when down the street came at a long gallop an old fellow mounted on a thin whose long rusty tail whipped between his legs at every jump up to the court yard gate he and flung the rein over the post in utter disregard of the large printed notice posted on it that no horses were to be there through the and up the walk he came swinging i believe that s old from said he s a man of influence up there and dead against me always is i wonder what he wants he had not long to wait for the old fellow strode up to a group and said the s attorney i am the man said what can i do for you mr i wants you to put my wife in the he said what exclaimed then recovered himself what do you want that for she s my name and she s got to go to the pen said he well tell me about it said seeing the gravity of the situation and turning he led the way into his office and offered chairs well it s this way my oldest is been a to marry a named for on two years and i wouldn t let her why said in a professional tone drawing a pen and paper towards him cause s on t other side said oh said writing down something go on well i wouldn t let come over on our side i him word ef he did to look out and she got kind o sick and and my old woman she wanted me to do it then and i wouldn t cause i had to sign the then she got kinder and my wife she wanted me to go for the doctor so day before i went down for the doctor and he said he d come to ay and i stayed at jim s store all night an a for him an when i got home last night my wife she said s the doctor and i said he s how s and she said she s done got well she s got all the doctor she wanted she s done married how did she done it says i and i ain t signed the license says i i signed your name for it says she and i said you has done commit a offence and i kin put you in the pen for it says i and she bet me a dollar she hadn t and i couldn t and i says i bet you two dollars i kin and i will says i and now i are to do it i kin do it can t i reflected while the old sat still perfectly passive well he said slowly there are not a great many the old fellow s the n fo ri v face hardened but of course he added is a very serious thing and ah the old fellow s eye was upon him how long you been married he asked twenty year come next month wrote it down wife always been good wife to you ain got no fault to find her till now when she my name an ever have any trouble with her at all of course fights like all married folks has wrote it down industrious got no fault to find her about help you save what you got ain t a hard er er on the mountain how many children she got eight i don t count that one how many dead four wrote laboriously wife good to em as good as could be nursed em faithful sit up with em when they were sick never went to bed at all never took her clothes oflf go hard with her went mighty hard specially when died he was named after me wrote silently go hard with you eight sort o hard sort o after that mighty how old your youngest one now f on three that s fond of his mother can t bear her out of his sight fond of you sort of right smart say was your oldest yes thought right smart of her when you didn t have any others just at first i reckon might a done don t remember wife did anyhow yes always fool bout her | 46 |
oldest see she was young and fresh then yes woman on the mountain bet she was used to have good time sitting up to her going to see her summer evenings walking through the woods yes sir did that she thought more of first baby than you she had more trouble with her than you when she was a baby i mean oh yes guess she did carried her round in her arms nursed her when she was sick made her little for her yes as she did s yes and does little s yes she s made a little pair of breeches with pockets in them yes two laid down his pen opened the code and read a little to himself well i can put her in the for you he said not less than one nor more than ten years he read t sat forward a little how old is your wife bout fifty year i ll draw the let me see the grand jury will meet when then the jury he was talking to himself with his eyes turned up to the ceiling there might be some of those on the jury that would be bad twisted around in his chair they d send her on for the full time though ten years that would be good leaned forward are them to be on that jury he asked no said not at all only they may be on there that s all he lifted his eyes again to the ceiling that might be all the better they d of course be pretty rough on her ten years she d be about sixty when she came out they d have worked her pretty hard let me see i suppose they d put her with the thieves dress her in maybe whip her started to give an exclamation but stopped to listen i suppose little would be sorry at night at first but he d get used to it or he might go down to see her once a year o so for a few minutes in his breeches if she lived he d miss her some if she died she d go to well the wouldn t be sorry yes i can do it i think he said bringing his eyes down on s face and speaking positively rose with a jump look a here mr mr what s your name he said i ll just be ef any of them damned can put my wife in the and ef anybody thinks they kin let em try looked at him calmly i agree with you he said and i ll help you there was a pause in which was reflecting then he asked what would you me to do i don t advise you to do anything said but i know what i d do if i was in your place what i d go home and send for to come over to dinner next sunday and tell her to bring that fellow with her he s more now than he is and every time my wife got i d tell her i could have put her in the for ten years but i was too good to her to do it reflected and then said i ll do it what does i owe you a good deal said but i want you to present it to mrs for me well he walked to the door paused and then said slowly th time you runs for anything is a to vote for you he went out was re elected s bargain in i was at college after the war clothing was very scarce there was not a dress suit in college and very few new suits of any kind i remember my best coat was made out of an old cloth skirt of my mother s however tall and was a swell and in his third year he turned up with a brand new suit long trousers and a hat that was dazzling he was simply a and caught miss the doctor s pretty daughter out of hand was the of the town as black as your boot and though he could not make a small city a great one he could play the fiddle he was also a and a thief he and were great friends he considered himself a swell also but the night before the st of april on which night we always had a followed the next night by a ball was sulky owing partly to a recent and powerful sermon against by the rev brown and partly to a difference they had had about a dusky sister in the rev s congregation in which the rev had come off victor when we as usual approached him about the music for the ball he announced that he had done gin up and gone to it took several stiff drinks from a large bottle obtained for the by and a sight of s new suit to soften him a little mellow even put the suit on to show him how he would look when he should lead his partner up the floor to his music up to the top of the room he turned with a swing shouted in s tone s your and gave a long low bow as he lifted the bottle to his lips s countenance relaxed he declared fiddle ef i jest had a coat and o breeches like i could a few hours later we swept the sleeping town like a in character as the devil with a leading we reached our rooms about three o clock a m pretty well tired as flung open his door there sat fast asleep in his arm chair with the empty bottle beside him and his old basket between his feet well filled with s effects he had been overtaken in the very | 46 |
act get up here i m going to kill you and bury you shouted he seized him by the collar and pulled him out of the chair as he let him go fell in a drunken heap on the floor disappeared with two or three fellows and in a little while came back with a bucket of paint and the finest coffin from little s the s shop the old doctor and little both declared next day that it was but i think they took an extreme view of it little had lost his front door and his best coffin and the old as we called the doctor s wife was exciting him about the of her anyhow got the coffin and old his face painted a livid blue and his chin tied up like a corpse s with one of s handkerchiefs and every flower from the old s green house on his breast was borne out the hall used as a chapel was forcibly entered and the corpse was borne in his devil s head up over the doctor s gown he had the doctor s very voice perhaps it was the doctor s voice which startled the corpse but anyhow he opened his eyes he got under his coat of paint as he fixed his e on s horns the devil raised his fork now at last we have him in torment what shall we do with him he asked in terrific voice damn him came from two hundred throats light the fire he said he turned towards the victim and his how many hen have you robbed he asked s jaw worked his eyes were out of his head m m satan y y you ain back o de war is you he asked since i i don know m master not but three i b he was evidently in doubt he has lied record it add three hundred years for each one he left out there was an awful addition with sticks on the floor at the head of the coffin a hundred throats responded it is recorded groaned how often have you been drunk i i i don know master i done he said seeking safety in oblivion add two hundred years it was added on the floor how often have you stolen from the college students particularly from that pious virtuous upright and righteous gentleman i i bout a million times faltered there was a groan on all sides he has told one truth take off two minutes heat the fire and set the big middle kettle to boiling a red light suddenly lit up the scene turning the devil s head and flowing robe a fiery red he his and advanced with a yell sprang from the coffin the devil caught him and they and the two rolled around together in a of coffin legs chairs and devil s horns yelling and fighting for salvation the devil tangled up in the doctor s gown which was being torn to shouting to us to help him suddenly dealt him a tremendous blow broke loose and with one bound sprang crashing through the nearest window taking the with him and with his gown in and his mask torn off scrambled breathless to his feet we saw him start to speak then look towards the door a change came over his face and with a shout of the doctor he swept the lamp from the table and followed through the shattered window followed by the rest of us the attendance at chapel next morning was better than it had been before in years every student showed up was the of the congregation sat well forward but kept in the shadow of a pillar to hide an ugly over the eye and sang devoutly the coffin had been removed but there was no need of a coffin to make the occasion solemn little sat on the front bench and the doctor s face wore a look of doom i believe every man of the three hundred stopped breathing i know i did he said a great outrage bad been committed little groaned and that the faculty had met and determined to inflict the punishment in their power we shall every one concerned in its the town authorities will probably follow it up with a little the doctor paused you could put your hand out and feel the silence as soon as the are discovered he added a hundred men drew long it was late in the afternoon when we saw an old lame across the lawn with a stick his mother would hardly have recognized him his eye was apparently up his head was over with court plaster like a map his arm was in a and he was so lame he could scarcely but he was evidently not entirely blind for he was making straight for the doctor s he was nearly there gazed at him intently and suddenly cut out of the door we after him it was he had actually reached the door and raised his hand to knock when got to him wait come here i want to speak to you he said to him in a breathless him away from the door who asked lifting his head and peering at him out of his up eye as if he could not see him who i see you done put my eye out no he hasn t how do you know he did it said come this way a minute i want to talk to you about it yes he did i got he he name on it i know he do it i what you say talk louder he done stop up my r he put his hand up to his ear as if to try and hear him the doctor was moving within with a look of desperation at the door caught hold of him | 46 |
come here uncle he said cried boy done my arm he done ruin me for life he raised his voice no he didn t don t talk so loud please sir with a glance at the door if you come this way i ll talk to yoa about it i don want to talk to you i want to talk to de doctor who is you you ain de doctor is you i see you he raised bis head again as if to try and see his groaned with pain and then turned to the door and caught the come here i ll pay you uncle paused how much you pay me i ll pay you well come here come on s voice was never so i walk boy done my leg i ll help you i ll carry you come on and he took the old fellow and helped him along almost carrying him to his room come in he flung the door open but sank down at the step with a groan exhausted offered him five dollars not to tell he was at last in despair asked him what he would hold his tongue for he reflected then turned and glanced around inside the room through his almost closed eyes me new suit o es called him by a bad name pulled himself up with a groan and started for the doctor s just as he reached the door rushed after him his education his future his sweetheart hung on the issue breathing and slaughter he went to get the clothes examined them and them into his basket de he asked in surprise looking around as if he expected to see that article lying beside the basket it was not in the contract explained but to no purpose oh yes it was said suit o es ain de you kin em back i want to see de doctor he took the clothes out and rose painfully the was brought and having put it carefully into his basket on top of the clothes and surrendered the handkerchief rose good satan he said i ll have de music in time to night and he off spent the afternoon having the rents made the night before in his old black coat up so that he could wear it to the ball he was a little late in arriving v v i as he led miss up the floor to the head of the room his eyes fell on the players well oat in front of them sat as well as he ever was in his life without a scratch on him and out in s new suit and with his cocked on his head he waited till reached his place then threw his head back and took a long look at him with his eyes nearly closed as if trying to see him caught his eye and bowed low to him good satan he said lifted his elbow and with a triumphant wag of his head shouted s your and began to the true story of the surrender of the i had the honor done me once to be appointed pro secretary and of the state chapter of the society of the sons of the revolution or of the american revolution i never could remember which to this unhappy fault of memory i owed my early removal from the responsible and office for the offspring of the two were like the first pair of brothers not wholly in unity in the discharge of this office i became acquainted with a good deal of history which has satisfied me that the commonly received are far from accurate among the true accounts which i thus received is the following story of the surrender of the which was related to me by an eye witness and is therefore of course true i was seated one day in my office when there came a tap at my door it differed from either the tap of a or the more imperious rap of the creature who carries around a packet of long narrow invitations to settle the acceptance of which keeps a man poor this knock was light and and yet had in it a certain assertion come in i called it was repeated i knew then that it was not the gentleman of the narrow and inconvenient invitations he never waits to be invited twice sometimes he comes even when a response is withheld called more boldly come in the door opened slowly and a person entered a little old dried up looking individual with a little old dried up black face surmounted by a little old dried up black the white comers of two little eyes or of what from their position i supposed were eyes were visible the visitor with his back to me closed the door without the slightest sound as carefully as if a would have blown the house down then he turned and faced me well i said what is it is dis de place you you money no it is not i said feeling that i was safe within the bounds of truth this far tain t i he reflected a little while dis de place me was de place he gazed all around curiously who told you i asked who is you is you de american his little eyes were on me well i believe i am but i am not sure i said well you s de one he looked relieved i is de son of de this cast some doubt on my identity you are the son of which one i asked having learned to be discreet of he said i right at de time in little york i seed it all you saw it what general wash n t n s surrender i seed it i seed it when he come a up on he big iron gray an | 46 |
i see de too i see em i began to be interested the new s public library a t r and foundations you saw it all i asked well tell me about it den you gi me my money yes if it is not too much well i ll tell you he said you see dis a way i bom right in little york my she de for an i wait how old are you i asked i don know how i is i so i done i know i is over a i know i is i twelve year when my die an she die when she had after de holidays de one o all an know she ol er n i know i is over a i reckon maybe i is two maybe i is this was convincing so i said go on you know all about it oh yes i knows all about it hi how i help it warn t i right i of it f um de top of de father apple tree in he had done been for i don know how long a it off o an silver rub up an an big as an he use to an war he hat an he d an set on de front an drink he like he own all de pigeon quarter to g an he say ef gen l wash n n to set he foot he d de hide off him he say an one day after dinner he on de a he cigar an come a on a mule a note an he look at it an he eye up dis a way an say he now an de say who v an he say gen l wash n n an de say he want me to s render an all laugh an he say you go back an tell him i say to come on an ef he come i ll de hide him he say an i ll him one han my back he say talk bout s render he say an he de back an for he an he d an f us thing you know come gen l wash n n a on a big iron gray a l to he saddle an a silver bit to he bridle long as you arm an a to it big as log chain an a d by he side long as a fence rail an as he come up he say did n i you to s render he say you don s render don you y he say an soon as he see him he so he ain know what to do he turn white as you shut an he ain wait ner he took out hard as he could it an gen l wash n n he out after him an he stop s render i says he an he say i ain s render says he an he a up him an he out a apple tree a t big apple tree a father apple tree an gen l wash n n he out right after him an it well you see san fly so in you life an den gen l wash n n he of a little an she a her legs look like guinea hen s g n l wash n n he of a big an he like elephant de war n an ev y now an den gen l wash n n he out an say s render an he say i ain s render says he an he a an n y gen l wash n n he come up so an he draws he d an he out an say i s renders says he but tain no use to say s render den gen l wash n n he done he blood up an he say oh yes he say who you de hide oflf n him v he say an he he an he a an he cut he head right clean off he did yes he done thing i seed him i i right up in de apple tree what did i do i slip down out n de tree an gen l wash n n for him while he he head off an when he he say how s de l an de ladies an de v an he he d an put t back in de an when he ready to mount he gi me two an an says he a man less n to a servant says he well anything you choose you is a man i see an gen l wash n n he say a man a servant less n i you a man when little was at the ll lawyers have a good opinion of their profession but the member of the bar that ever was was peter peter as he was called the had a right to his title he had the position of boy boot black book body servant and for every lawyer in the circuit for two generations besides sweeping up the court house filling the and being general for the clerk the and the he had eventually retired owing to a change of administration in the court house coupled on his part with habitual drunken ness and contemptuous reference to the new and was thereafter compelled to dig potatoes and do odd like any other common hand but he never regarded his subsequent occupation as any thing at all and held everything modern in sovereign contempt he was too proud generally to enter in a private capacity the court room in which he had once presided it was only on extraordinary occasions such as murder trials that he ever relaxed his dignity so far as to enter the once so familiar to him and he for it when | 46 |
there by carrying his head with an air and wearing on his face a look of disdain which would have the judge in sending him to jail for contempt of court whatever happened he was ready with when me an little was at de bar it was thus that he happened to be present at the trial of the murderer who killed a woman in the lower end of the county and who after coming near being hanged by the mob was saved by judge through one of the ever known in the state the jury at first hung for a short time but the crowd was completely carried away by the judge s speech and it was at this crisis that peter was found busily engaged outside of the court green with indifference making a for his handle went up to him fine speech judge made wasn t it he asked him peter turned his around slowly and measured the eye stuck the a little way in it and straightened up he said what does i know about yo i s little when i was at de bar this was what wanted and he told him of the jury being hung yes an he hung de jury too declared the his chin high in the air and his whole figure expressing his disdain hung de jury an hung de an ev else an hung th ee good an two in his deed of too in he breeches pocket he did looked incredulous and him on who was his and what had he done he he had so many i member de one be bad time but be bad done do some n he killed no little po one be bad done tb ee so no bat all bad wide open an cut em up like you cut up bim up an lodge bim in jail and tell me to keep bim an i did i lock bim up in de cell log him like a bull an de folks so bout bim i tell de ner to by me warn like few an de county out an be me a ny o an all me an could do together to keep em bim but we did an we bim good till de trial come on a trial as a trial de state an de tb ee went an tb ee la apiece to bim made ten you know s al a la yer fur de state to an come in de books an papers an lock de do an wouldn le nobody come in but me bed to insult me an i to be i bed done put de log chain on him ten to be de prisoner he a he wouldn no la yer for him he bed done all de way down fur little little said yes little little warn no he a la yer giants in days he come in a his him an he tell me to it oflf an t to he room an he boots an he wash an put on he ruffled shut an he snuff box an tell me to come on an he went to de jail an i open de do an he out he snuff box an he ax me dam scoundrel an i le him in an he me to de do an he walk in an look at him on he bed with my on him he look at him tell he look like he up an he say is you little v an he say yes an i big too he say an he say i warn you to me he say an little he say how much does you think your dam neck is v he say an he say i will give you a dollars i is a po man he say an little he a pinch o dis away an he say po too he say an you is got th ee on de an two he say an he say i will give you two dollars he say an little he up a pinch o dis away an he pitch it away away an he say two dollars ain he say i ll see you dam neck i will open my for less n ten dollars he say on a deed o he say an you will in hell too a years he say an he shiver like a p inter dog so an he say i will do it an little he han in he pocket an pull de deed o out he pocket de whereas an de an a pen an ink out he pocket he em lar an meek him sign it right an to it de he know he to had him de chain him an he done de deed o him all de whereas an de an an de an he put he name to it an kiss de book right him he fur as an little put de deed o in he pocket an button it up an say word to him tu n an went back to supper an set down de an all an em to de man in jail an night he ain sleep none he bu n candles o he deed o de whereas an de an de day he went way an de meet an de man in jail de log chain on him an meet an him an meet an den de jury him an when little come time he a of a fine black bred my ah two white an keen as an he had shoes on her an when de meet he me to tie her at de fence outside de yard gate an when de trial on de de man in de house an de ten la de th ee he done hire to little an to him an de s attorney a | 46 |
load o books meek me spread out on de bar em i strain my back so many i ain over it s de way i happen to be in de house to day hit hut me so i try in to it i ain bout dis little trials a whole f o load o books spread out on de bar an an made speeches an tell de bout de de murderer done kill an ax little is he ready an down an little he didn had but one book one book de book you ever see like books de back sort o like it been buried an he open it slow sort o so an he face sort o an he tell em to de chains de prisoner de internal didn low no prisoner to chains in an done an de crowd so thick you couldn breathe an de to by me an little he pinch o sort o so an look an he shut sort o so an bow to ev den he begin he pay he to all de an to de an to all on us on de bar an to de crowd an de an den he a pint a pint he a barrel he could a but a pint fur him an he up de book de book an a pint an he read an so couldn nobody him say dead an de book been buried a year an he de pint one pint like i say an couldn hang de man an couldn even try him he pint an talk about hung jury he hang de jury an he hang de an he hang de folks all him couldn set right still like nail in plank like an de say an de fo an de f o well dam me ef tain so v an all set right still an speechless an little in up an an de murderer by him white an an little he turned an whisper a word a word to de man an he an walk out o de house right easy like he not to wake em up an made a dart for de green gate an flung on de back o de black an headed her down de road as de crowd in de house f um de spell o little s pint an po ed out o de him d a him ef could a got him but little s de de devil done her she up oflf de an flew like a bud she didn meek a piece o track didn but a cloud o dust an she nor man ever been seed an little he come out de he arm de s neck an he went an live on he th ee de deed o an de whereas an de two an de s what he done don talk to me bout your he couldn a open he in de house when me an little at de bar the and foundations s christmas party i met them just after i came to town to practise law they were engaged in what they termed the term was appropriate for they lived literally from day to day they could have secured positions which would have maintained them at least henry could for he was a man of parts and has made his mark since in another profession but what did they want with positions they were and were bound to be famous or die i suppose that together they made sixty dollars a month some months and spent a hundred or as much more as they could when we make ten dollars we live on it said henry when we make fifty dollars we give a ball said but they were rich two of the richest men i ever knew certainly was lie already owned one of the great newspapers which he was going to make the he only had not got possession of it yet they lived in a palace the little back third story room at mrs s was only temporary quarters which they occupied for convenience it was there that they invited me the day before christmas to open the with and a little supper don t ring or knock just walk right up to the third floor said we have our apartments in the third story for the light and air nothing like pure air for pure reasoning and clear light for clearness of expression he went off talking about the beauties of nature to be studied from his windows by which he must have meant the sky and the english which built in the he may have detected me looking at his old patent leather once the pride of his college days now worn into holes his coat and his faded hat for he said suddenly my dear boy i will give j ou a hint in domestic economy always wear your est clothes the day before a ball they will make your others look new next day when i arrived the following evening i s i did not ring for a good reason the bell had long since disappeared carried off declared later by henry in a wild attempt to rival one saturday night when mrs had locked the door on him i was trying to arouse mrs said henry you aroused her said if it had not been for my presence of mind she would have turned us out into the street if it had not been for your presence of body i would have turned her out said henry shook his head mournfully you have no idea what a time i have keeping the peace he said i have told mrs lies enough on his account to take a thousand years of and enough on your own account to take two thousand said henry but i am this was told me after i | 46 |
got up to the apartments when i ar d at the house not liking the look of the dark passage and narrow stairs shown by the little smoky in the window i knocked knocked not once bat twenty times without the slightest result the twenty first time however was a it created a stir somewhere below for from the i heard a voice which told that mrs was aroused an who is that to break the door down now she shouted as she climbed the stairs i prepared for the worst but it was worse even than i had expected she was a stout and whose absent eye was said by to have been lost in a conflict with the lamented who had however come off from the worse than his as he had disappeared and had never been heard from again a fact which gave henry s of him as the departed a peculiarly appropriate significance an is it the door down ye re she asked as she advanced war in her voice and in her garments she was evidently just out of the kitchen as i discovered with more senses than that which noted the yellow cake on her arms my civil answer her somewhat but on my asking if my friends lived there she burst out again live here is it an that they do an is the wan as it too an lives on the fat of the they do an it out of may they do too may a poor or as good as wan an not a tin pace o their money has i sane for three months an they to pay me every wake an a an a themselves up stairs as full as st s well an all o me best glasses an an the manners to say to may mrs will ye walk in an wet ye whistle v this and much more till i reached the third floor where i announced myself by j up three steps i found in his shirt sleeves and with the seat of his breeches rather out but with a shiny new on the back of his head over a large bowl of made in the wash basin while henry was preparing something over a not very large fire one or two other fellows were already assembled and in of chairs were lying re on the bed and were being entertained by reminiscences of mrs evidently called forth by the sound of her voice below so caught you said henry as i entered by jove when i heard you tumble i thought she was flinging you down the steps why henry said reproachfully then to us she really has a beautiful temper she is a little ruffled this evening owing to the way henry approached her on a small domestic matter he stirred in the approached her said henry if you had bought the things instead of buying that to put on your empty head i should not have had to go to her what do you f think of my giving him the money to get up the ball and his spending it all in a hat and silk handkerchiefs protested that a hat and silk handkerchiefs were the first necessity for a gentleman who was going to give a supper to an irish lord on christmas eve besides didn t i get the eggs and he asked yes but where s the supper asked henry i bet you this hat against your best pair of breeches i get it yet said done said henry i will wear that hat to church to morrow i told her we were going to have an irish lord to sup with us said and i would have got everything all right if henry had not spoilt it lord of castle county ireland wasn t that the name i gave he addressed henry mrs came from county but rather young some years ago i may observe well you had better go and get some coal from her for this fire is going out i may observe said henry up where are the asked aren t there still four left yes but there are no more to spare the bed feels like a now better men than you have lain on a said what a you are he stirred in more why not sleep on the floor that is the natural place to sleep anyhow no i ll be hanged if i do said henry and i suppose we could not spare another chair he gazed over at henry doubtfully but henry shook his head positively why then you must go down stairs and get it he said cheerfully do wn stairs where we haven t any coal down stairs we have not why of course we have do you suppose we are going to let an old sleep with her coal cellar literally with coal whilst we have no fire entertaining a real live irish lord too suppose we borrow some from suggested henry was the little next door but was shocked borrow of a petty and the night before christmas too he exclaimed where is your pride besides i borrowed some from him last week go down and get some coal but henry was he told him to go and get it himself which finally proceeded to do what are you going to bring it up in asked henry why this said the low case from the only pillow left with that article on it he disappeared down the stairs and a little later we heard a as of a door breaking and a minute afterwards we heard him coming hastily back up the steps evidently with a burden on his back suddenly there was another sound the voice of mrs broke on the air an where is he the villain let me get at him i ll fix him down me | 46 |
house an me under me very eyes she came stamping up the stairs quickened his steps but she was evidently gaining on him suddenly there was the most tremendous crash the pillow case had parted in the middle and the whole load rolled down the steps nearly carrying mrs with it bounded into the room with a single large lump in his hand and with the upper half of the slip which he had saved don t lock the door henry mrs will be up directly to call on us he said his face glowing with excitement as henry sprang to the door mrs was indeed already there the next instant she nearly knocked the door from its hinges she evidently be i it locked flung it wide open and stood fall in it why is that you mrs he asked in a tone of pleased surprise holding out his yet hand an an it is mrs an if ye don t her i mane to make ye her panted the enraged landlady her fists clenched and her arms she paused for breath it was s opportunity know you why of course i know you mrs said he in the of tones i have got a drop of the irish in me which was true if he was talking about me was irish ye dropping into the her father was a from county an i never forgets the pretty irish face i says it i was of down to ask ye if ye would not us by up an us sure i was just to me friend here if ye want to say the prettiest this side of the say it s down stairs she is says i an maybe we kin her to come up says i an m stale down says i an break public j into her coal box says i an fling a pace or two down the steps says i an that will fetch her up says i to say what the is the it says i an ye kin say how pretty she is yourself says i mrs took down her arms and told him to away his irish not that she had not had her looks as well as the best of them before so much came upon her is it an you have had mrs said but it hasn t touched yer looks sure it s yer own folks takes you for any time why me friend here was just to me who is that likely irish that l t me in the door down stairs an is she a girl or is she married v says he an if she s married is she a widow v says he an i says to him if she was a widow do ye think she d be so long says i an me in the house too v says i but in i d like to ye to me friend lord castle county ireland ye knows all about the mc i knows mrs you was a an was says my to me was me boy when the could muster five hundred in this was too much for mrs she came in smiling and blushing and an hour later at a table which she had spread with her own hands and loaded from her own kitchen her health was proposed by henry and was drunk by all and dressed in henry s best breeches responded in the best irish speech i ever heard how the n and i were f in oar bachelor days he bad been in the army and i naturally looked up to him he had an idea that he was an austere man and was fond of referring to his severity he used to say i always the he had been a brave soldier and i had bo reason to doubt his courage on any point his was one of those natures whose freshness is preserved by its own quality and though past middle life he was a man about town a toast with every one and bad a reputation for coolness if not for anything more he used to foster the idea with me that he was impudent to women i never knew that it rendered him with them they like it air he used to say all women are slaves and need a master this was his condition when we went to live in the second floor of mrs s little house mrs had been a friend of his in his youth when she was in good circumstances before the war she was now a sorrowful little widow slim refined and delicate with the remains of her beauty not yet faded and with a look in face and a tone in her voice which were pathetic i know now that went to live there because she was so poor though the reason he assigned to me for our move was that with whom he made the arrangement satisfied him that the rooms were the best in town and that we could not do so well anywhere else was mrs s maid and i believe her cook also though of this i was never sure she was small thin elderly of a dark brown and as near a copy of mrs as she could make herself she moved with a tread as soft as a black cat s spoke in a tone as low as a whisper and wore an old black silk dress of mrs s that had been turned more than once in fact she copied mrs as faithfully as she served her i observed shortly after we moved in that treated and me differently mrs treated us with entire being equally kind to both of us and watchful for our comfort but s manner was not the same to us she brought hot water in the morning looked after his linen put his shirt | 46 |
buttons into his dress shirts and placed pillow on his pillows whilst i shaved cold when i could not wait for s can looked after my own shirts and did without pillow at table she would say to more mr or another cup of coffee mr in a tone hardly above a whisper but full of quiet interest i mentioned this to but he the idea and declared that i was of an envious nature if there was a difference he said it was because he treated with more severity than i did you must hold a woman up to her duty sir he said you must the this care extended came to exercise a certain over she saw that he had on his in snowy weather or she at least placed them out for him with a constancy which could not be un noticed she never said anything she only looked gradually became careful how he omitted acting on these unmistakable suggestions she took to sitting up for him if she knew he was out just as she did for mrs once or twice on very evenings he actually in view of s silent presence gave up the idea of going out he gradually took to dressing very quickly and slipping out very quietly in a way that i could not understand till once i thought i heard him in answer to a question from in the hall tell her that he was not going out and afterwards found him dressing i him with it but he assured me that i was mistaken which i was willing to admit at any rate he slipped out of the house hurriedly whilst i went out at my leisure indeed more slowly than i wished because i could not find my pet shirt and had to put up with a broken set as i passed on the steps i told her i wanted her to hunt for the buttons she made no reply as usual we came home together and i after a very jolly evening where had been the life of the party and he with his usual me against making any noise and tripped hastily up the stairs giving a single glance down over the into the darkness below a day or two afterwards he asked me with concern what in the world i had said to i could remember nothing he said mrs had told him that i had said something to which had deeply offended her that had never before been so spoken to and that her honesty was above question i recalled the matter of the and said i had never dreamed of her of stealing them and that i would tell her so he said no that he thought he had better settle it which he would do with mrs and that anyhow it was just as well to keep her up to her duty i let him do as he pleased a short time after this i came home one night and found dressing for a ball he was nearly dressed and was in a drawer the things angrily backwards and forwards and using very strong language about that little fool who would not let things stay where he put them finally he asked me to lend him my buttons i com plied and my generosity moved him to ask me to tell that fool after he was gone that he wanted her to find his buttons and to let them alone thereafter i promptly refused and asked him if he was afraid to tell her himself afraid he said with contempt he only thought that as was already down on me it might be better if we were going to continue to live there that she should be kept in a good humor with at least one of us as to being afraid he would show me that he always his i heard let him out but he said nothing about the buttons the next morning i was dressing in my room when i heard talking i looked in at his door he was curled up under the cover and his eyes were fast shut he was talking i supposed in his sleep i listened he was saying i have unfortunately my buttons i wish you would hunt for them the tone was too placid to please him he began again on a higher key my shirt have got i want you to hunt for them this did not satisfy him either and he began again quite sternly what in the devil have you done with my shirt get them for me and hereafter let them just then the door opened and entered silent as a shadow shut up like a moved about opened the windows lit the fire and fixed his water i watched through the crack of the door just as she was going out yawned stretched and opened his eyes as if just waking up oh he said in his and most of tones if you should happen to come across any shirt buttons on the floor today when you are sweeping will you please put them up on my for me yes sir said as she passed silently out waiting breathless until she must be down the stairs shouted did you hear that who says i am afraid of do you see how i the when he learned that i had seen he bought two sets of buttons and gave me one one four upon a time there was a lady who was young beautiful accomplished and very rich she was also very clever but her most striking characteristic was that she was every a woman she had three lovers who had been college she always spoke of them as her friends there was a fourth gentleman whom she knew but by no means so intimately who was a friend of the other three one of the three friends | 46 |
was tall handsome had eyes a long and a fine figure one was clever almost brilliant and what some women call intellectual the third was rich good looking and successful none of them had any the first was clever enough the second was very good looking and like the first was comfortably oflf and the third was neither a fool nor all three were considered good catches by who had daughters and were popular the fourth gentleman was a silent man who kept his own counsel went his own gait and was thought to be independent in his fortune as he was known to be in his views after a season in which the young lady had been greatly and generally admired each of the three friends having observed the growing attachment of the other two discovered that he was in love with her each the others about her to sound them each denied the charge hated the others warmly for the time and each decided to get ahead of his friends all three made the fourth gentleman their tke society beau was the first to declare himself he had had the best opportunities j had danced with the lady all winter had the finest figure had been the best dressed man in the set had driven a good team and had talked easily of s poems and of s stories the occasion which presented itself to him was it was a spring afternoon in the grounds of a beautiful place where an entertainment was being given by a mutual friend the spot was secluded the air was the flowers were dazzling the birds sang he was arrayed and he and the lady were alone he naturally began to talk love to her and was about to reach the point where his voice should grow deep and his look intense he had told her of her beauty she had listened with a pleased smile and a changing color he felt that he almost had her they were at the end of a long flower bed blue with which just matched her eyes he stooped and picked one as he rose she said a race to the other end you that side i this and dashed off she ran like a he had a record and could easily have beaten her but as they approached the other end he sa that her path divided there one fork ran oflf from him the other turned into his it flashed on him in a second he would let her choose and she would run into his arms she chose and when they returned to the house he had her answer he resolved to say nothing of it just afterwards the second gentleman found his opportunity it was after the intellectual entertainment he had easily all others she had applauded him warmly and had afterwards congratulated him he took her into the library old books were about them beautiful pictures were on the walls the light fell tempered to the glow he recognized his opportunity he felt his intellect strong within him he approached her he hinted at the delights of the union of two minds perfectly he illustrated by a reference to the harmony just heard and to numerous instances in literature he talked of the charm of culture spoke confidently of his suggested without appearing to do so his fortunate advantages over others and referred with some contempt to commonplace men like the fourth gentleman he praised her her eye kindled her form trembled he felt his influence over her he repeated a poem he had written her it was good enough to have been published in a magazine her face glowed he glanced up caught her eye and held his hand ready to receive hers she lifted her hand looked into his eyes and he had his answer they strolled back and he determined to keep it all a secret passing they happened upon the third gentleman who spoke to her and no a moment later left her with him he led the way into a little apartment just by it seemed to have escaped the notice of the guests it was fitted up for a a wealth and taste had combined to make it perfect she exclaimed with pleasure at its beauty after handing her a chair as luxurious as art could make it the gentleman began he told of his home of his enterprise of his success of his wealth it had doubled year after year it was hers he laid before her his plans they were large enough to be bewildering she would be the richest woman in her acquaintance she could be an angel with it with cheek and glowing face she bent towards him it is yours he said all yours you will be worth he paused then stated the sum she leaned towards him with an earnest gesture her voice trembling as she spoke he had his answer the v j public and as they passed out through the corridor they met the fourth gentleman he did not speak he stood aside to let them pass he glanced at her lover but if he looked at her she did not see it he was evidently leaving are you going she said casually as she passed yes is it later i do not know she paused and her lover politely passed on why are you going then because i wish to go will you take me to my with pleasure with pleasure with great pleasure tou are not very civil i had not intended to be do you sometimes this evening for instance there is your i did not think so i supposed you made a mistake d bye good bye yes good bye the wedding cards of the young lady were issued within a few weeks and ten days later she was married in the press accounts of the wedding the bride | 46 |
was spoken of as beautiful accomplished clever good and wise and the groom was described as handsome intellectual and wealthy some people said they always thought she would have married differently some said they always knew she would marry just as she did these were mostly women she herself said that she made up her mind suddenly v v l y ns t l f the danger of being too thorough we had been discussing now i tell you there s such a thing as being too thorough said the judge when i first went on the bench i determined to the law every time one of the first cases that came up before me was a suit in one of my upper for divorce brought by a wife against her husband the were all right and the proof was clear so clear indeed that although the strongly i became satisfied that there was and dismissed the suit it created a sensation i reached home feeling very virtuous i was sitting on the next day reading when a man evidently a rode up on a thin mule and it to the fence came in at the gate i recognized the in the divorce suit he was dressed in his sunday best by an old and was carrying a pair of saddle bags over his arm i invited him to take a seat and he at once began calling me your honor your honor he said i came to see you about that divorce suit well what about it i asked sharply getting ready to pitch into him but he was so meek i held up he just shook his head your honor that was the decree your honor ever made you didn t know about it or your honor wouldn t a done it why your honor all that fuss i made was put on i wanted it as bad as my wife why we had arranged everything and we was both ready to married ag in directly we was to have a double wedding she was to marry a keeper what makes three hundred dollars a year and i was to marry a lady as has considerable she is got a hundred and acres o and two cows and a she broke off one engagement to marry me and the man is a her for breach and now he is to sue me for breach too and i don t know what to do and neither did i said the judge i could hear my wife inside i once made a mistake myself by trying to be very thorough said the governor shutting his teeth down on his and closing his eyes when was it we asked not so long ago said the governor does any of you think i look like a he asked the replies were not unanimous well i was arrested as one within the last two years he said when i came into the i thought i would be very thorough and one of the first things i was the system the newspapers said i had made promises that i would give honest labor a show perhaps i had so one day i slipped oflf by myself and went up to the mines to see how the thing was being worked when no one was expected the charge had been made that the ran things very differently when an committee was expected from the way they usually ran them and that ordinarily the treatment was very harsh i intended to go down into the mines and i put on an old suit of clothes in which i used to hunt occasionally they were torn and muddy and i congratulated myself that no one would know me in the pockets were all sorts of odds and ends such as string wire a knife etc i got the conductor to let me off the train at a crossing and walked a mile or two up to the mines as i got near them thinking i would look over the ground before going out into the cleared space i turned out of the path and struck up the hill through the brush i took a survey and saw a small group of men around a fire one or two of them one or two perhaps visitors and one a guard with a double shot gun across his arm i was thinking of going down and took a step or two when some one behind me said hold on come back here i turned and there thirty steps from me was a guard an ugly old fellow long and bony standing with his across his arm what do you want v i asked i wants you he said and i wants you quick come here i went over moved rather by curiosity well what do you want with me v ti e new york public library a tor and i m goin to take you to the he said but i won t go i said i don t want to go to the and i won t go you won t well well see if you won t if you don t you ll a load o in you he said dropping his gun and pulling back the hammer slowly i saw that he had me and i determined to explain i am a visitor up here i said yes no doubt that s why i wants you i wants you to finish out your visit we can t bar to part with you walk along i began but nothing said he you don t want no but but this and he gave me a crack with the butt of his gun which nearly knocked me over march on look here i m the governor of the state said i trying to look imposing he looked at me you re a pretty looking | 46 |
he was an old thing the new public and foundations with a like him you never heard such a lecture in your life i preached like the doctor presently he said he would go back to the hotel he was catching cold i told him no i could not let him go back just yet but that i had some he said he never touched i told him that neither did i but i had brought this along to keep him from catching cold and he must drink it he turned to link and asked him in an if he thought i really would shoot him said link buck ain t got a bit better sense n to shoot you he ain t got no sense about shooting folks well sir you never saw such a drink as he took i don t believe he had had a drop in a year i thought he was going to the bottom of the bottle the next thing i did i him into the and jumped in after him link jumped out as i the reins and the horses went oflf with a bolt they were the finest team you ever saw and i let em go you never heard a man pray so in all your life when we got back it was about half past eleven and he was as mellow as an apple i pat him to bed and went down to the doctor s the lights were still burning in the parlor and i walked in miss was sitting before the fire with her little red shoes on the and her on a chair pretending to read i told her she bad just as well take off those leaves and put out those lights that her old beau with his was in bed drunk and his team had had all the moonlight driving they could stand that night but she was mad she never spoke to me till i went back there but she never spoke to him again at all he went home next day and died soon afterwards ben said it was but i don t think it was and i both agree it was old age just then the door opened and a black negro with a jolly face his head in and said with his teeth shining buck miss say you can bring de man up now she done put on her a story of charles there are few of us who ever knew who will not remember him best as the faithful fat and delightful body servant friend and guardian of colonel of his soft dialect his accent his natural gestures his limp long since forgotten but put on again when his master recalled the heroic incident in which he received the bullet in his leg all combined to make him the only real on the stage but to know truly one had to know him off the stage one night at the rooms of some friends high up on fifth avenue we got him to talking about old times and his life in boys if you think i am a good you ought to see me as a villain you do not know what a villain i am it was the first character i ever played he said then he told us he had not been playing long when his company went to new his old home was near there and one day his old and her husband uncle called on liim they had come down from the country to see him he invited them to come and see him play that night and sent them front seats in the colored people s gallery they thought i owned the theatre he said and expected to see me looking like a king at the well in the piece that night i was the villain i was not made up much and consequently i could be easily recognized i cut my eye up towards the gallery as i entered and saw the old folks in their places uncle knew me at once for he undertook to point me out to i could hear him describing me s him nor not one one fat one over presently saw me and made a gesture to me well i was the meanest rascal in that play you ever saw as cold as a and as calculating as a rat i cheated every one and everybody hated me for a time i succeeded but after a period of prosperity i was at last found out and everybody jumped on me i was caught stealing and was abused like a without a word to say for myself in the middle of it i heard an exclamation from the gallery and caught a glimpse of uncle and they were both leaning far over the rail in great excitement just then i was seized and around the room by the hero i was too busy to notice more than that both and uncle were on their feet but just as i was being to the door to be kicked out i heard a scream yo all let my alone and a deeper voice shouting knock him down knock him down wait i m then the door closed on me and a storm of applause went through the house when the play was over some one told me that two old were waiting outside to see me i had them shown in i saw that something was the matter and tried to be but it was too serious with them was and with arms folded tightly was rocking from side to side and uncle was as solemn as a you didn t steal things she did you asked uncle whilst rocked and moaned no i exclaimed of course not i you so i you so said i other so up stairs twas other man i em so i | 46 |
tried to explain for i saw my danger i had played too naturally it never had occurred to me that they would think me a thief i was not entirely successful however your pa never would a stood no thing as said uncle he never d a let no man lay a han him in dis why that was in the play i explained don t you see mighty sort of play said uncle solemnly have a man knock you down and all over you like and then even raise your han bout it i bound your pa would a knocked his head any man that laid his han him well he to a said mi ty hard way to a said uncle suspiciously i glad old ain know bout it s all they went out they are both dead now said softly and now is dead too he would have gotten a lawyer i was attending the term of court one spring when i had been at the bar only a year or two and was in the court room when the criminal was called the clerk read out the case of the johnson an for a and my attention was arrested by hearing the say the prisoner had no counsel if there is one thing which the sympathy of a young lawyer it is a prisoner who has no counsel there was a little between the judge the s attorney and the and the judge finally said well bring him in anyhow i will see about it the long legged retired and in a little while re entered with his most professional solemnity about him preceded by a little rusty bow legged negro thirty five years of age and about five feet in height who looked perhaps as unlikely to be able to steal a steer as anybody in the world the roughly pointed out a chair to him and he sat down in it without even taking a look at the jury lounging in their box is that the man asked the judge did that man steal a steer the smiled the smile of one familiar with the classes who steal the s attorney smiled with the smile of one who makes ten dollars out of each for a which he is able to draw and get a grand jury to find even the jury smiled i know i smiled the prisoner with his old ragged hat in his hand was the only one who did not smile he glanced up for a second at the judge on the bench then dropped his eyes to a level and sat as motionless as before have you any counsel asked the judge the prisoner looked at him but said nothing and the judge the fact that he perhaps did not understand the question asked have you any lawyer nor he said twisting a little in his seat and settling down as before the judge turned to me and asked me to defend him adding if my other could wait a little while i informed him that i thought my other could wait that i always made my wait my own pleasure they had then been waiting some months and going around took a seat near to my new s side have you any witnesses i asked he did not look at me or if he did it was only a glance he simply said nor can you get any if i get a continuance if i get the case put off till next month i don know nor he said scarcely taking the trouble to speak well i said rising i think we are ready we might as well go into trial the jury was up and sworn the clerk made the prisoner stand up and read an as long as himself and the s attorney called his witnesses there were five of them the first was a who that he owned the steer in question and that one evening he saw him in his pasture when he attended to his stock and the following ing when he went out he missed him he thought at first that he might have fallen into a ditch but not finding him he went around the fence and finally found his tracks going out of the gate and down the road towards followed by the tracks of a man who was evidently driving him he got his horse and followed in hot haste but the steer had evidently been stolen early in the night and he did not overtake him until he got to town there after some hunting he found him in the possession of a butcher who claimed to have bought him from the negro now at the bar the butcher himself was sworn and that early one morning the prisoner drove the steer up to his gate claiming it to be his and stating that he wanted some money very badly in consideration of which he the butcher gave him fifteen dollars for the steer the other witnesses were two men who happened to be present and who identified the prisoner as the person who sold the butcher he steer and the policeman who made the arrest and who to something which the s attorney called a confession v of li y a t r and i l ii at i asked for several instructions which the judge very as i thought at that time refused positively to give i am bound to say now that my views upon this matter have become modified by time i cross examined the witnesses with much severity then the s attorney made a few remarks stating that it was not necessary to make a speech as the evidence was all one way and then i entered upon my argument i made what i deemed a very able and eloquent defence i charged all five witnesses with and proved | 46 |
it to my complete satisfaction the jury i am bound to say were flattering in their attention only a few of them when i closed the s attorney rose and commented upon my argument in a way which came very near bringing on a personal collision in court between him and myself then the jury retired and returned so promptly that i felt a glow of enthusiasm that they should have hesitated so short a time even after my able defence the clerk took the and read the verdict we the jury find the prisoner guilty and sentence him to the for ten years i was scarcely able to believe my own senses i arose immediately and with some heat moved to set the verdict aside on the ground that it was contrary to the evidence this the judge refused to do and i my never he simply sat as ever but i was outraged i turned to him and said well i did the best i could for you he but did not look at me and i felt that he was overcome with emotion at what i had done for him and said the only thing for us to do now is to get an appeal i will take it up to the higher court and fight it through for you but it will take some money because there are costs and of course you ought to pay me a fee if you can have you got any money at all without looking at me he said nor sur ef i had i d a got me a lawyer i have become satisfied that he ought to have gone to the but the informed me afterwards that he got out of jail that night how carried the a political story without politics and were about equally well known in the county they had both belonged to the same estate as boys but their lives had been as different as their persons was a slender small keen looking bright who had been house servant and had picked up a good deal of information including both reading and writing of which he was as vain as he was of his slim figure and hair was a big black creature as dull as he was ugly and as as he was tall he had been till he grew too big and then he became a steer driver it was to this position coupled with his easy good nature that was due the intimacy between him and his young master out of which possibly grew the following incident his had always declared that had more sense than people gave him credit for which did not necessarily imply great wisdom between and there had always existed a strong enmity and the small frequently exercised his ingenuity to and worry that ugly black big ed only once did he carry it too far got him to write a for him to his sweetheart a young house girl in the family and when delivered it it turned out to be a ridiculous piece of nonsense which brought down upon her black lover her lasting anger thought it a good joke and boasted of it but suddenly struck out he would perhaps in his fury have broken s neck had not his young master come up at the moment and saved him never forgot it after the war turned out to be a great and with his accomplishments became quite a leader in his county was one of the very few who stood by their masters he declared that he was a man and was going to vote de and he did it subjected him to no little and trouble and his temper and health both suffered the county was a very close one and for several reasons was an important one in the district and as in it became a man of his was talked of even in other only of all his color who there him the latter possessed a certain influence due to a singular circumstance he claimed to see spirits and to have the gift of prophecy his habit of about at night his of and a certain unusual knowledge of the weather coupled with his singular appearance and his moody look gave him and he was not a little feared in the county this saved him from trouble which he would otherwise have had and he remained only by those who had they not been afraid of him would have taken more active steps finally as a reward for his services was given a position as in a negro insane asylum he had not been there long when it began to be in the old county that was going crazy i grew himself who happened to be at home was present at the examination and to a number of facts which went far to establish the charge of insanity wandering about at night familiarity with spirits a claim to the gift of prophecy all were proved when asked if he wished to say anything said he was a that a was a good place for and old that he sometimes saw spirits it was true but he never troubled them and they never him and that was a liar the negro with brother johnson at their head decided that was crazy and sent him on there was an election coming on and himself could not take to the asylum but he told him he would be there soon and he would attend to him and he kept his word was reported so often for under s and appeared to be getting constantly so much worse that finally he was removed to another ward and to the surprise of every one was soon pronounced in due time indeed he was declared well enough to go home for a while and was released on trial the report soon came back that he | 46 |
was entirely well some months after this however the next election came on it was deemed very close and every in the state counted s young was a candidate in his county and it was known that was working for him and was having much effect notwithstanding the threats against him was put up to run against him some little time before the election went home in a little while came the announcement that it might be better to send and bring back to the asylum said he would take him two nights before the election a large meeting was held in a colored church not far from the and it was that was not crazy at all and that had persuaded him to vote right appeared and made a telling speech announcing s and that he would appear the following evening and make a full of his errors de the following evening just at dusk the hour appointed repaired to the at the of two paths and awaited his convert he had in his hand a book and writing materials to make out a list of the he was just becoming impatient when he heard his man coming down the path through the pines i jest to give j ou up he said well me said you said severely ef you hadn t been you know what i d done you i know said you done member the times i done laid ry upon y o back down yonder ain t you i member said meekly well now come long an don you open yo as i tells you if you does i ll he made an expressive gesture as if he held a whip in his hand and turned down the path through the pines walking meekly behind him they were in a little bottom still walking before when a rope was suddenly thrown over his head from behind and jerked tight and he was s down on his back with s little black eyes dose to his face ef you say a word i ll kill you right he said and his big hands on s throat proved his intention in a minute more the s arms were tightly and then the lunatic lifted him to his feet and said walk the came near fainting with fear but he walked till he got to a small stream his first fright somewhat relieved as they were going out towards the road said and he in half way across turned him at right angles and made him down stream bowing low under the bushes which lined its banks deeper and deeper into the pines they penetrated growing more and more alarmed but the faintest hesitation to obey his s command brought the big hands to his throat with a dangerous clutch half a mile down the stream ordered him to turn up a smaller branch and a hundred or two yards up he lifted him to his shoulder as easily as he would have done a child and walking out pushed upward into the pines presently they came to a heavier thicket and stooping low and his way through the thorn set him down in a little cleared spot s eyes nearly from their for by the dim light of the stars he saw the doll white of a number of old and recognized the fact that he was in an old which was known throughout the country as being the worst spot for in that section set him against a small tree around which he wrapped the end of the rope that bound him and then took his seat on a fallen log just before and looked at him silently presently he said quietly you kin talk now but he was mistaken the s mouth was dry and his tongue why n t you talk asked calmly s teeth you cold said warm you he arose and began to gather sticks thought he might slip away and glanced around his appeared to divine his intention for he suddenly came back to him and the rope differently made fast the end of it to the tree behind him the new yo public ox and don t you try it he said the of his thought struck the with more terror than all that had gone before when the fire was kindled drew up his log and sat down again opposite his captive presently he said le me what you warn me to tell de i don warn you to tell em said you does said cause you said so didn t you say so but i don warn it now a gleam struck him he said ef you ll le me off i won t trouble you no more i won t take you back to the i ll let you lone i i will looked at him in contempt i he le me you speak remained silent say yo rs den muttered he leaned over picked up a burning from the fire and walked around towards his prisoner s eyes i ll speak he said all right begin sat down again and stuck the back into the embers began enough and said his prepared speech fellow citizens and all he made no mention of tell em bout me said what i tell em tell em what a nice white man i is his captive uttered a few sentences sufficiently s said presently now tell em how you treat me down yonder at de protested but the of fire came out again how many you hit me down asked i i i don know i mighty sorry i hit you any is too said i don know how many but i know mo n a i know an i hit you a clean to even em up he arose and turning cut a bunch of stout suddenly a thought seemed to strike him you see he | 46 |
said pointing at them where they lay on the ground well i warn you to write me a letter an ef you ll write it right i ll let you off i will you know you writes mighty good cause you s got a heap o you brought up in de house an i warn t but a steer driver you s a man an i ain t but a big black i done see you write you know cause you writ me a once you member you pen an ink you like used to do when he went to court you got em in yo pocket now an now i warn you to write by this time was ready to promise anything i will he said what you warn me to write who i write to well said i warn you to write to de s eyes brightened he saw escape in it saw it too i warn you to write it mighty good he said ef you don t i s to kill you right s a little of s came back in the presence of s and he said ef you to kill me d hang you don t hang folks said i done at de an you know you s de one em i he leaned down over him and peered into his face i ll write said got out the ink pen and paper and placed the book on s knee rs it to little he kin read mighty good good you kin he added an ef s anything wrong er ef he t read it to let you starve to death right protested what you warn me to write he asked feebly well said i warn you to write em what a nice white colored man i is like you done said to me an i ain t no mo den you is an i warn you to tell em you done had to go right back to de an you done de word f urn wash n ton s all to vote to morrow fer young john an ef don t de word come wash n ton bout it kin you member remained so long in thought that said suddenly rising mine i don b i warn i is a an i bum you a little and he turned to the fire and pulled out a again protested that he would write and after a little his keeper replaced the and his right arm gave him his pen and book he by him and held the in one hand and the blazing knot in the other as a torch begin by em what a nice man i is he said following with his eye the slow tracing of the pen on the paper wrote carefully now read it said he read it and it appeared to satisfy him pat s it he said now tell em how you s got to go right back to de now read it am he said nodding with satisfaction as it was read now tell em how de word done come wash n ton an vote fer young an do ev like i say it was written now sign yo name to it he said an dress it to de to johnson cause i ain t no great han at he but don seal it he said with a sudden change of manner i little to read it he can seal it an ef s a word wrong in it he said leaning down and looking at it keenly i to you to starve to death you member bout the explanation of his prisoner appeared to satisfy him and he took the letter and started away you ain to me in dis place by myself is you asked the captive glancing around fearfully you ll have plenty of company said grimly evil all thick as on yo head i sees em any time two on em over yonder now a upon at you he half turned faced the and taking off his hat bowed politely he said hope you s well dis ain t you till i come back he added to ef you keep right quiet ef you don u you right you i to de fire fer em keep yo eye on him good tell i come back he said with another bow to the he examined the rope carefully and turning disappeared with his letter in his hat it was ten o clock when he walked into the meeting at the church at first there was much excitement with some threats against him but his coolness held them at bay he walked up to the desk of the clerk and with a sudden instinctive power of command ordered him to call the meeting to order it was done and he produced his letter it created consternation but the writing was and s story was too straightforward and earnest to be questioned his sudden power of command or something placed the meeting under his control and the leaders became his the next day the under the lead of johnson to the astonishment of every one and of no one more than himself went for s and he was elected it was claimed afterwards that this was a trick of certain but it is due to to say that he never united in the charge he moved away from the county shortly afterwards and he always declared that whatever others might say he knew that was a uncle knew as well as knew him that is saying a good deal for peter had worn out more over s head than he could count indeed this gives a very inadequate idea of the number of he had so broken because as he himself said he wa n t no t hand at and when he was with money for the firm which not happened he used to | 46 |
say on his return as he spread it out on the table i reckon henry you had better count over i it is all cause i hold my hand out to him right study after he done count once and looked mighty wise until he counted it over and said s right and den i come long but i reckon you better count it over the fact was that uncle peter had been trying and had been trying uncle peter ever since the day when old mule the mule that the firm had when uncle peter first came down from the country and demanded work of his young master his henry dropped dead in the shafts trying to back the up to the uncle peter had truly mourned for his mule he allowed no one else to bury him and he always talked of him with affection as if he had been a beloved member of his family and when the firm took him down next day to look at a young mule in the pens near the stock yards he would not consent to the purchase of one until he had tried it this was at least six years before the time referred to but though the mule had been paid for within forty eight hours uncle peter never would admit that he was doing anything but her this he told herself at least a dozen times a day in every conceivable tone between that of the most confidence and that of the menace occasionally he even told the firm so when his threats and blows floated in at the door of the and brought some one out to see what the trouble was and to with him on his treatment of one day he actually marched solemnly into the office and hat in his hand lodged a complaint against declaring that he had done try her and found she would not do why what s the matter uncle peter asked his employer and former master doesn t she pull well oh yes she pull enough i ain t got no bout she pull well as any mule i ever see de mule i never see a mule pull like him but she is de mule in de she always pull de wrong way and she won t back a step to save yo life she like a ef you want her to go one way she want to go ef you want her to back she want to go ef you want her to go she won t move till she done back over de house i s done broke more over her head den i could cut on de place the old man was with the statement that he had better go back and her a little longer and he went muttering that he would try her jest a little longer and then if she didn t suit he would send her back she come from uncle peter called his employer as he went out why do you call her lie turned back i calls her henry cause is a and i knock her head off too ef she don t mind he went out nothing more was heard of the matter beyond uncle peter s customary threats coming in from the street he and got along in the same old friendly way he over s head and his temper until one day a new member of the society for the of cruelty to animals happened to come along just as peter his over in the same old affectionate way the next morning the old man was ten dollars in the police court which his paid and from his wages a short time after that his employer coming down the street observed the standing at right angles to the at some little distance from the and uncle peter standing with his in his hand immediately in front of making violent of beating her over the head but never really touching her he ij his failure to strike her was due to s as he drew near he heard uncle peter talking with the uplifted in both hands as if ready to strike he was saying oh yes you black you i i know you i you done cost me ten dollars once and you jest to me i knows you you done had me down in de police bout you over your black head and ten dollars right out of my pocket and you jest to make me hit you but you ain t do it i tell you you knows cruel s animals is round here and you jest want me to pay you ten dollars i d like to bust your black brains out but i wouldn t you to save your life back fool don t you hear me he brought the down as if he would the mule s head in but stopped just short of touching her his employer amused at his ire said uncle peter i reckon we had better sell that mule and get another one that will back the old fellow s countenance fell sell her sell nor henry s de best mule in dis town she got de in her s all you her to me m make her back i ll her just then ea as if she understood the whole situation quietly backed up against the and calmly drooping her head let her ears fall forward and peacefully shut her eyes peter went around and replaced the and as his master went into the door he heard him saying to yes you black you better had back you what he says de only one done save you mind next time he want to sell you i m to let you go he d sell you long ago ef i d let him i jest to try you a little longer i den you | 46 |
will find somebody u make you back and den you ll know how good i to you her sympathetic editor the editor sat in his the name for all places where that particular species of animal sits and which is so called because it is sacred to every soul who can a line except the editor himself the implements of his craft lay all about him litter waste basket and all a pile of letters was before him with ms in that of arrangement which only understand and which to the ordinary mortal would be the of disorder his associate sat at a side desk glancing over and placing them in piles for future examination further consideration or return the second pile being the smallest and the last much the largest to spring summer autumn and winter to the snow the frost to rain hail and sunshine had been tossed on the return pile with perfect papers on george washington on the tree on the wars the napoleon and s ark had experienced the same from prejudice finally the associate editor said well here is a letter he read a few sentences and passed the letter across to his chief did you read it no it s ten pages and i have only one lifetime exclaimed the other i knew it said the associate with a virtuous air interrupting the further protest but it s a woman and she says that she is for intellectual companionship for the intellectual companionship of a young magazine editor cut in the editor in his turn casting his eyes down the closely written and crossed pages to find the name where the mischief is it here find it if you can he tossed the letter back to hia associate i ll that she is a tall and dame who lets her husband eat sour bread and her children wear stockings while she writes poems on the eternal of the infinite by the way where is the poem i bet she is not she is a fresh enthusiastic girl with large blue eyes and a skin and she teaches school and a mother and two little sisters and sends her younger brother to college and he her and she writes poems of and the sunset said her champion over the pile of further consideration papers what s the name he asked j l as well as i can make it out said the senior but where is the poem said his associate isn t this it asked the editor looking into the waste basket and picking up a ms rolled together as tightly as paper can be rolled the younger man took it yes this does look like the same hand it must have fallen into the basket it is written on both sides and does not appear to have any enclosed for its return perhaps that was the reason it was thrown there perhaps said the associate you might at least have taken the trouble to read it for the poor young thing will expect an answer anyhow i wouldn t be as hard hearted and as you for anything and besides i have no the poem is at least np to the average i do not deny that let s see bead a little of it if yon can what is it the champion began to what is this r sour bread f suggested his friend not at au to to the at sunset no to my the of i told you that was it no it s well that the sour bread theory anyhow go ahead the associate oh thou who from me far through all the lonely hours thou art to me a shining star mid a shade passed over the reader s face as his senior cut his eye around at him and he felt to see how many there were how many pages are there what do you think we ought to pay for that well it is not very but she s young said the associate he let the paper go and it sprang together like a wire it strikes me as quite very said the editor but you are the poet s friend and you can do as you like well said the younger after a pause i am sincerely sorry for the poor soul and i ll take it we need not publish it all right said the editor but it would be a great deal better to write frankly and tell her the thing s rot and that she d better dam her children s stockings and see that the bread is sweet he went back to his work and the associate editor returned to his writing among his first letters one to the of the to my in it he enclosed a check not a very large one and said as little as he could about the poem which he pitched into a drawer the incident was forgotten until the next month when a few days after the appearance of the magazine the mail brought a letter of im pages from the her that her had not i and in language her of its to several poems which had published the associate editor read this letter and slipped it out of the way with a side look at his senior he started to write a stating that magazines were made np several months e their he t better of it and took no notice of the letter during the next month and the next came other letters each longer and more than its the last openly declaring the writer s o hi that only malicious jealousy or a more motive could such treatment which she as outrageous and the associate had just read this letter and was scratching his head over it when the editor looking up caught his woe b one expression what is | 46 |
it a from the he asked well yes that s just what it is said the associate just at that moment voices were heard in the outer the voice of the young lady clerk who had a desk there and a strange and higher voice which was doing most of the speaking well i don t want to talk to any young woman i did not come here for that i ve got five children older than you i want to see the editor and i am going to the next instant she into the door a sharp little woman with a keen thin nose thin lips and small black eyes above which was a fringe of dark hair down as stiff as tin she carried a black bag in one hand and a red fan in the other which she as if it were a weapon which is the poetry editor i or maybe you are both the gentlemen with a strong sarcastic emphasis on the first syllable well i have come to know what you have done with that poem i sent you months ago and which you accepted and have suppressed she seated herself sharply and threw out her fan with a uke a the associate editor seeing her intention to take possession without an invitation said will yoa take a seat she glared at him plainly her declaration that she did not need his permission to do so well what have you done with my poem she asked with cold severity as might have asked of some victim who stood a self confessed thief madam that is the poetry editor said the chief with a twinkle in his eye ah she gave a half wheel towards the associate well i m glad to find the right person and my name is not nor spirit nor brandy nor anything like it though i have no doubt you are quite familiar with all those names my name is mrs and a very good respectable name it is too even if it is not as aristocratic as the one i gave up to take it which was though no doubt you never heard of it as you must be giving up all your time to reading the stuff you publish which is enough to make any one sick who has a grain of the divine in her soul being second cousin once removed to colonel if you ever heard of him as no doubt you are ready i enough to claim you have being on the governor s for three years till he took the fever and died leaving one of the biggest fortunes in the state and six children and a widow who gives herself as many airs as if she wa n t old sam s daughter that kept the bar at twenty second street well i want to tell you that i know my rights and i mean to have them if mr had had a grain of manhood in him he d have come down here and had that poem published in the very next number of the magazine after you suppressed it but he hasn t but i have and i ve consulted a lawyer and he says it s a clear case and i can get and big at that and i m going to and he s one of the best lawyers in the country and a great friend of mine what have you done with it she paused for breath in sheer exhaustion the associate editor was speechless but the chief came to his rescue he said calmly madam we shall not be able to your poem it was accepted under a mistake and we will return it to you her fell what she began but he was too quick for her he saw his advantage the poetry editor has it and will return it to you and you can keep the money we sent you in payment for the time we have had possession of it she rose well i am glad to get it back on any terms if i were not too much of a lady ever to be able to quarrel i should give you a piece of my mind about it but i never could no madam your is poetry said the associate editor mildly handing her the ms roll which he had got from its thank you i don t want any compliments from you sir she said as she seized the paper and it looked over it page by page to see if any of it had been abstracted then she turned to the editor morning sir i know a gentleman when i see him turning her head with nose in the air towards the associate she sailed out with her fan clutched in her hand the editor in chief turning to his desk began to thou art to me a star mid when the associate said the bread was after all wasn t it he knew what was due to the court he was one of the characters about tiie town when i first knew it and though i did not at the time know his history and could not now my witnesses i somehow took it in from the city at large he was not exactly a vagabond for he had a house a brick house at that though a little one and one of the oldest and most in the town and there was a garden beside it though it was nothing more than a of bushes weeds and and no was left to the old he was not exactly a in the police for though he was often full he generally got home at some hour of the night however drunk he might be and he rarely got into the police court it may be doubted if a man can be a vagabond | 46 |
however drunken and he may be if he has a house of his own to which he can retire at will and a garden however grown up and in which he can wander when he chooses if he was not a vagabond however it was a shadowy wall which withheld him from being one and if he was not a the line which divided him from it was he was of a family which once owned a considerable part of the land on which the town was built other members of the family had got rich thereby but he had grown poorer and poorer he belonged to a past age and was at with everything new he was a privileged character he abused everybody but nobody minded him if he said a biting thing every one laughed if he got drunk some one carried him home and him inside of his broken door if he got angry some one took his stick from him till he became quiet he was known universally as old how he lived was not absolutely known no one would have dared to offer to give him anything he had been at one time a fact of which he was very proud he had owned then not only the old house and its torn garden u bat the ground on both sides of it where the two large owned by a nephew and of his a somewhat gentleman had since gone up at least he claimed to have owned this ground though the courts had decided otherwise people said generally that and had ruined him he said the man who owned the on either side of him and the of the world at large had done so and he expended every resource at his command in him he had long since the remnant of his property the old house and garden in fighting him and when he lost the suits he consoled himself by hours a day to him wherever he could get a to listen which was not difficult he always treated me with distinguished politeness though i was counsel against him he was at this time and could just along with his hook handled stick but his command of language was by no means as limited as his command of his limbs and he used to curse his nephew with a which would have put to the blush he even applied to court to change his new york l ry a tor a no foundations s name claiming that he had no right to it and when that was refused threatened to change his own name that it might not remain the same with his at length his s patience gave way the application to court to change his name was the last feather and matters he applied for a writ of and old was brought up before three to be examined i was counsel we appeared before the in the room in a corner of the old court house looking out over the old part of the town where the fashionable had been years before when the town was a village but which was now almost covered by tall with their blank walls and high chimneys almost the only break among them was the gap immediately facing the window where a dingy little old house with windows and a broken porch was set back in an yard filled with bushes and half hidden by two or three old trees which leaned above it as if to rest on it as much as to shelter it when we arrived old was already there in charge of the he was dressed in a dean shirt which showed marks of and his long gray beard gave him a distinguished air i had fallen in with the three and one of the examining outside the door and the other doctor who had been summoned soon arrived as we entered old tried to rise the said he need not get up but he to his feet and made a profound bow to the remaining standing until they had all taken their seats when he resumed his he never looked at his nephew though his manner showed hostility in every fibre of his frame do you think i do not know what is due to a court sir i was before you were bom he said to the officer who half smiled and said nothing yes sir no either high who made sir the officer still said nothing and the next moment the old fellow to him declaring that he had always treated him like a gentleman which is more than i can say for every one in this room he added there was a brief consultation among the and then the one who had issued the writ said that they would begin the inquiry the papers were examined and found in form and then the two doctors were called upon to testify the evidence was all one way and was pretty clear old had persistently refused for years to sell his old house or garden and had let bushes grow on land worth five dollars a square foot till it was all eaten up he had pursued his nephew with extraordinary there were besides a great many other curious things this proved something certainly the doctors thought insanity old sat scornfully silent till they had both this ended the evidence the justice asked him if he wished to say anything he said no not there he should appeal but a moment afterwards as they were out the he said suddenly there is one infamous rascal in this room everybody looked up i don refer to you your worship or you or you sir to one justice after the other very i know too well what is due to the court and turning and looking at me very doubtfully i don t mean you | 46 |
either sir i knew your father and he was a gentleman i youve been trying to help rob me of my house all these years bat i don t blame yon that s your business that you are paid for and i don t mean you or you addressing the doctors if i were speaking of fools i might not be able to overlook you i don t mean you mr and more briskly i don t mean myself he sat back and looked straight ahead of him while his relative shifted in his chair and tried to look the was made out and delivered to the officer who with some evident concern beckoned to him on which he rose and went shuffling ont stopping at the door to make a profound bow to the court to which he knew so well what was due a few days later i met the old fellow shuffling along on the street and i suppose i showed some surprise in my face for he stopped and spoke to me i m back you see he said cheerfully yes how is it well you see he said when i got to the asylum where that rascal got me sent the board was in and i knew most of them and their fathers before them and they asked me what i was doing there and i made a clean breast of the whole thing all about that who has been me and you and those two other fools and all and that i had a damned sight more sense than all of you put together and they said they knew you all and that i was right he off her great grandmother s ghost had been talking of ghosts in which my old had taught me to believe i was not a in my early days bat i had a singular experience once she said in her calm soft voice you know my people all came from county and the old family place is there it was too expensive to keep up after the war the house being one of the large old fashioned brick and my father having no taste for country life or rather perhaps i should say he was not able to support the family and us in the country after the neighborhood was broken up so he removed first to a city in virginia and then to new york he never would sell the place but at every sacrifice kept it just as it was with the old furniture and all in it some of the fields out and getting a neighbor to look after it as well as to take care of uncle the old butler who still lived he always talked of going back there and used to tell us stories of it in his childhood when the large grounds were kept up and the house was constantly full of visitors i got thus an accurate idea of the house except that i always pictured it as being of immense size and i knew every room and in it as well as if i had been brought up there instead of never having seen it since i left it at three years old i knew as well as if i had lived there the old garret where the trunks and used to stand the wide with the and the turned the big hall with its settle around the large fireplace and the with the straight backed chairs and the long coming down to the floor and the old family portraits on the walls from one of which the faded lady with the brown and the black dress used to come down on summer evenings and rock in the big rocking chair so that every one could hear her all over the house she was the daughter of my father s great grandfather and having lost her husband soon after her marriage came home to live with her father when he died which was not long afterwards she lived with her little boy all alone in the house and used to spend hours by herself in the drawing room sitting in the rocking hair weeping or looking before her her servants used to take her orders from her there finally she was induced to leave and went away to visit some relatives but one day when the old butler went into the parlor she was sitting in her rocking chair as usual only paler than ever she did not seem to know him and asked who he was and then sent him to look for her carriage saying she was going away there was no carriage in sight nor had any been seen to drive up and when he went back she was dead in her chair how she got there no one knew my father always said i looked like her my father died suddenly you know without ever having fulfilled his wish to go back there to end his days i was seized immediately with an irresistible desire to see the place and i wrote to his old friend and neighbor that i should come down on a particular day to see it he wrote me that he would be delighted to see me and would meet me at the wharf some miles off the impulse to go however was so strong that i could not wait till the day i had appointed so i packed up and set out at once i thus arrived at tlie wharf two or three days before i was expected and there was no one to meet me the man who kept the little store there however learning where i was going kindly agreed to send me over to my destination and called a boy to a horse to a and when i asked him what i should pay him declined to receive pay saying that he was in | 46 |
my father s company during the war and never charged neighbors anything and the horse wasn t doing anything anyhow i however insisted on paying something and he finally named a price which was so low that i who was used to city charges felt all day as if i had robbed him the up of the horse took some time but i did not mind it for my new friend said dinner was ready and i must come over and get some i saw that he wanted me and i went over to the little house back in a behind the store there i was received by a woman who made me welcome and was set down to a plain but substantial dinner my hosts seemed to know all about the gentleman to whose house i was going and assured me that he would be very glad to see me i asked them if they had ever been to the old place the man said he had and that it had been a line place once the woman gave a little laugh i ain ever been there she said and i don t want to go i asked her why too many ghosts there she laughed as if half ashamed of her superstition her husband it but she stuck to her point they say that old lady can be seen there any time in broad daylight and that old negro too and they d be sure to be there now the place has been shut up so long i said that i was not afraid of ghosts in a short time i was on the way in a little high pitched which made as much noise as a coach with my host s son a sleepy looking shock headed boy of fourteen as my driver i found that did not believe in ghosts but he admitted that he did not like at night though he did not mind them in the day and he didn t care to go around old deserted houses alone even in the he had never been to our old place and would not care to go by himself though he would not admit that he was afraid to do so we had been on the road over an hour most of the time driving through what seemed to me an unbroken forest with only a cabin now and then to break the monotony though occasionally pointed to dim roads going off into the woods and indicated them as mrs so and so s place presently he pointed to a road almost grown up that s your place he said suddenly an irresistible impulse seized me and i asked him if he would mind going in there with me he said not though he was evidently surprised and a little startled and as we drove along the old road washed into and grown up in weeds he intimated that we should probably see the lady in black and her old negro we had to go up and down several hills though none very high and cross one or two fields which were in a partial state of cultivation which he said was done by then we came to the last hill on which the house stood the grounds were really quite extensive or had been for the fence around the house and yard had once enclosed several acres it was now all broken down and many of the trees were gone so that the old house standing up in the hot sunlight looked gaunt and bare i remembered that my father had had a tenant at one time in the yard and that he had turned him off because he cut down so many of the yard trees the grass was very short which my companion explained by stating that the house field was as a pasture and the sheep d nd cows liked to around an old house spot that s the he said pointing to a group of some still standing and others lying about off to one side under a of trees which i knew had once been in the garden i made him drive across the grass to it but did not get out there a small flock of sheep were lying down among the old the place did not appear very and as i wished to be left to wander about quite alone i told my companion that he could drive back down the road a few hundred yards and wait for me he seemed to be relieved for he had hardly taken his eyes from the old door since we drove up as if he expected the ghostly lady and her to walk out on us and he accepted my proposal with alacrity though he evidently regarded me as he drove over towards the house and i sprang out and he rattled off across the grass and was soon out of sight though for some little time i could hear his vehicle i stood and gazed at the house with a strange feeling it filled me with emotion i was fascinated by it here was where my father was born and had lived and where i was born the last of my branch of the family the silence and softness of the warm summer afternoon settled down about me and i walked about on the short grass under the trees almost as if i were in a trance the sound of a cat bird from time to time in a of bushes seemed to fill all the quiet air and when it ceased the stillness was almost painful the sunlight in wavering above the ground i observed that several of the window shutters were open blown back i judged in some wind i went up the steps and walked to the front door bat it was fastened i put my eye close to the filled windows beside the | 46 |
door and peeped in i could see the wide hall dimly lighted through the large fan shaped over the door the big fireplace had the old brass in it and the settle beside it and there were several old chairs ranged back along the walls i could see the end of the wide staircase where it came down i went around and tried a door at the side and found it either unlocked or so that the bolt did not catch and i could push it open this let me into a narrow which i knew led into the hall so leaving the door slightly i went in the place was close and i went over to the front door to try to open it instinctively stepping softly to prevent any sound of my footsteps it was fastened by a bar across and i found it so difficult to undo that i let it alone and went to the door of the or parlor on the right one window of which i knew had blown open i found the door unlocked and entered the room was large and high pitched and filled with old fashioned stiff black furniture ill a half dozen old portraits more or less faded hung on the walls in frames dim with age and neglect at the windows hung old fashioned yellow satin curtains very much worn and two long pier glasses in gilt frames reached from the floor almost to the ceiling and repeated everything in the room it was too dim to see much so i put back a curtain to let in a little more light it was thick with dust and opened the window to get the air among the pictures the most striking one was that of a lady in deep black which hung over the old mantel piece i knew at once that she was my ghostly great grandmother but i was struck by two things she was not half as old as i had always imagined her to be indeed hardly more than a girl and even in the dim light i could see the resemblance to myself this picture fascinated me whichever way i turned those large melancholy eyes followed me until i forgot everything else and could look only at them the light was not good on it where it hung and i climbed upon a chair and tried to take the picture down to place it in a better light as i did so the cord with age gave way and it came near falling i caught it however and stepping down set it on a chair against the wall opposite the window and pulling up a large rocking chair took my seat where i could see it well as i sat there a strange f came over me to think that i sitting alone in that old house was the last of my family suddenly i felt a singular to the woman in the frame before me of all who had lived there only two could come back for at least she come back to me if only in imagination she too had suffered she too had sat there in her loneliness where i sat now in if i might but die there in that chair as she had died and be at rest how long i sat there i do not know but i seemed in a little while to have changed places with the woman in the chair she was in the and i was in that by the wall i became gradually conscious of a presence i opened my eyes and they fell on the long mirror to my right in it i saw through the open door a man an old negro man he seemed though the shadow of the door on his face prevented my seeing him plainly he wore a u k curious looking old hat and had a very serious expression on his face his hand was on the and he pushed the door noiselessly wider open as if to enter at sight of me he stopped short with a startled look on his face and the next moment took off his h t and bowed low your he said in a low voice i was afraid to move was he a or what i tried to speak but my throat and tongue were dry and though i made a motion with my lips there was no sound i did not dare to take my eyes from the mirror presently with an effort i said without moving what do you want v i am the butler ma am he said with another low bow his voice sounding very far away do you live here v yes ma am is i did live he said with some hesitation thinking that if he had any malicious intention it might be well to let him know that i had a companion not far off i said as quietly as i could it is time for me to go do you see my vehicle out there v he seemed to bow i turned quickly towards the door but the door was shut for the first time my nerves seemed shaken what was he after a mo hesitation i roused myself nd came out into the hall it was empty i made my way out by the same door by which i had entered it stood slightly as i had left it in the sunlight my courage revived and i went over to the old where the sheep lay in the sunshine and let me walk among them only one or two jumping up and running off quickly a few paces with their noses to the ground the cat bird still sang in the of bushes among the of course the one tomb which interested me more than all the others was that of my great grandmother it lay | 46 |
behind the bushes in which the cat bird sang she had died at the age of twenty two just my age then a sheep path led through a break in the fence out towards the road and i took it and passed out that way i found my driver almost in a fit over my long absence he was sure that i had been caught by a ghost i did not tell him what i had seen on my arrival my host received me with great cordiality and offered to drive me over to the old place that evening but the hot sun had given me a headache old uncle was even m re delighted to see me he appeared almost startled at my looks lord master you is like old he exclaimed am i like my grandmother v like you pa s like one hang on de wall an walk all bout and come down and set in her big cheer in de parlor but you never saw her i said ain t i yes m i is too done see her and talk to her too you know my he de butler in her time like i in you pa s time an say i is like him maybe s de reason she so ly to me i done see her right in broad daylight i see her in her big cheer an i see her when she come out an her to drive back to the you know she so proud she have her even to drive herself from de to de house and you is like her i said yes my father always said i was like her s lovers was as black as a crow or more as a but this did not prevent her from being a on the plantation and though she had reached the mature age of twenty without taking a husband it was not for want of offers for she had had many she was indeed the of the plantation but she was also the and more than the usual number of the young had endeavored to secure her without success finally it was supposed that stable dick had won the prize and captured the s affections and the other lovers fell back dick was a young fellow with shoulders almost as broad as his stable door and was as black as herself he had been her ever since she was twelve years old and jacob never served her historical more faithfully or joyfully than dick did this on st s day he had for many years gotten his young master several years his junior to write her until they had all the verses in the of with many of own invention which were more original than poetic at christmas he had with loyalty given her presents which took all of the little tips he had received from gentlemen whose horses he had taken during the preceding months and had requested her to accept his company at the christmas parties with fidelity taking her customary refusal with as much as he took her occasional acquiescence with joy thus when finally smiled on him and one year along towards the fall began to accept his attentions there was a general of her action on the plantation which was akin to sentiment herself felt the influence of it enough to openly encourage dick and the wedding began to be talked about as one of the events which were to make christmas notable dick was already in the sixth heaven and was getting ready to climb into the seventh when a bar was placed across the entrance on the plantation there was one of the characters which were almost always found on large an old who was always ready to bis duty and to live so to speak by his wits both his work and the other of the plantation he was generally a wag and occasionally something of a wit or failing this rare possession he made good his position by a certain assurance which might take the form of grand ness of manner or of mere impudence uncle was of the latter class he had no wit he was a a liar and a but he possessed a certain manner copied from that of his old master and so like it that it gave him an air of distinction which no woman on the place seemed able to resist and which when by constant reference to former companionship with his master and to a certain blue coat with brass buttons which his master had once given him impressed even the men he was moreover something of an not a preacher exactly for he was far too fond of drink to enable him to shine in that but he supported that of and his were the more impressive in that whatever his life was he was a most sincere in a personal satan with the most of fork fire and perhaps it was the fact of the former companionship with his old master which gained the old man indulgence from his young master s father and made him shut his eyes to of the plantation law which would have got any other person on it into trouble had already had four wives two of whom had departed in what is known as the ordinary course of nature their exit certainly if not caused by his treatment and the other two of whom had departed in a different course having left him because they were unable to stand his which were said to be not only frequent but tremendous this did not however at all uncle s popularity with the sex and his last wife had barely been borne from his cabin when the old man was a declared lover of as well as of one or two less popular urging as his excuse for such that text of scripture which declares | 46 |
that it is not good for man to be alone in fact t e old fellow was afraid to be by himself believing firmly that he was in danger of being carried off bodily by the unless he had some living thing with him he was accustomed to himself during his terms of with a cat the presence of a cat he believed to bring good luck when cat notice rat den look out he used to say whether it was that the idea of proving successful where four women had already failed or whether it was the of and whether it was the magnificent airs and speech of old or whether it was only the natural of her sex that decided need not be discussed but the october sunday that uncle appeared at the big in his old master s blue coat and brass buttons which he wore only when he was setting up to his several wives and held his old umbrella over decided the fate of poor stable dick and though after a most impressive got so full that he fell down and broke his umbrella and had to the now article over him instead of his holding it over her she accepted him and sent poor dick adrift she even went so far as to agree to marry the old fellow without waiting for christmas but fortunately for dick their master interposed and declared that he would not permit to any more wives and would not consent to his marrying until he had and had proved his sincerity by his for a certain period this period he at first fixed at six months but upon the joint application of both and he agreed to reduce it to less than three and set christmas eve as the final limit perhaps the master thought that in this case two months were as good as six and that would no more hold out that time than he would an eternity at least every one else thought so except dick but dick surrendered himself to despair he around in the blackness of gloom dividing his time between the entire female sex of the african race to the lowest depths of and trying to get the to give him even the smallest share of her thought finally he went so far as to apply to his master and ask to be sold in the south this was serious enough to call for the of authority the next thing might be a or even suicide and dick was told that if did not hold out no further on s part would be allowed and she should become his bride also was and simply over this disposal of her freedom this did not help her unhappy who was not comforted even by his young master s sympathetic assurance that would never hold out that drunk fool hold out jest out o pure said he it did indeed look as if dick s apprehension was well founded and as week after week went by dick s spirits and those of his young master and ally sank tried to secure his father s assistance in the cause but was told that his word had been given to both and and must stand if chose to make a fool of herself it was her right as a woman made the most of her opportunity and about and poor dick with the cruelty and of a much more advanced state of civilization two days before christmas eve uncle got an indulgence he had to get ready to be married he shut himself up in his house and was or seemed to be getting it in readiness for his fifth bride too occupied herself in getting ready with her young mistress s assistance and enjoyed the of her position as much as the most fashionable bride could have done stable dick confined himself to the stable and his fate into the sympathetic ear of his young master at length it occurred to that ally to go and see what direct with the triumphant rival might avail he sought in his cabin and made known his mission when he was received with so much scorn that he nearly burst into tears the disappointment was too much uncle you know you are three times as old as he asserted and dick is just the right age s so much de better said the old man with a i ll know how to manage her and needs management hit s like to em i got de for her he glanced up at a in the wall from which hung a large bunch of which said he had often used during his m earlier periods of matrimony on some of the looked new enough to suggest s eye caught the direction of his and he fired up fm going to tell he said you know you beat your other wives the old fellow looked at him angrily s some lie o black bed stable dick he said scornfully m trick him if he fool me i keep to my cat s last arrow was gone his eyes filled with tears at the failure of his mission uncle he said if you ll give up i ll pay you he did not see the change in the old man s face nor the shrewd look which crossed it how much you gi me he asked well i ve got a dollar and a half and i ll get another dollar in my christmas morning he paused to see if he had any other available is you got any umbrella you kin gi me asked the for a wife ko o but i think i could get mamma to give me one there are several in the house well i tell you what do if you ll go and me de dollar an a half right now and me de best umbrella you | 46 |
had also more sentiment than most when he was a boy his room was always up with what the other boys called odds and ends broken tops knives dried grass pressed flowers etc which no other boy cared about but which were precious in john s eyes because they were associated with something which had given them a value to him this top had been made by his father this old knife had been won as a prize for going to a after dark that book mark was his little sister s first piece of etc he would stand an amount of and which would have set any of the other boys at war and then suddenly when some little right had been invaded or some sentiment he would be a perfect fury the other boys learned to know the signs and would impose on him to a certain extent but when his face began to grow pale and his hands to tremble they stopped in time john became a doctor and returned from college to practise medicine in his native town he had a genius for and his professors had urged him to go straight to a city but he declined and with his and prize cases of instruments went back to his little village where he soon was on all the poor people and little girls dogs in the place possibly the fact that his sweetheart a pretty girl with whom he had been in love since his boyhood lived there was one of the causes which brought him back anyhow there he was and when he was not at some sick bed or working over some lame beast he was apt to be on the vine covered of her house or in its little plain parlor if he was not at any of these places he was sure to be over a book in his little office or playing with some child none of these occupations however is very and john was much than he was rich such a man is sure to be imposed on and john was better liked than paid if he ever collected a bill the money went either to buy for some patient who could not afford it or to get new books or new instruments thus john s library and instrument case were a good deal better furnished than his wardrobe he lived in a little room back of his office down on the principal street of the village and was waited on by a boy whose only recommendation was that he was the son of one of john s father s old servants a more worthless rascal could not be at least such was the general opinion of john s friends but john held on to him they were about the same age and had played together as boys and this was sufficient short for was a young fellow about john s size on which he himself and of a dark color he was a bully much feared among his set who knew his strength and the quickness with which he could whip out a as soon as he began to be a liar noted around town and a thief most people believed some on general principles others on more specific grounds few however ventured to suggest this to john who was a fool about as many thought and some said when was put in jail for cutting another at a dance john used his utmost to get him off and did succeed in getting him a very light punishment he took him back as soon as he was out used to carry his notes to his sweetheart and wear his old clothes which was pretty much all he did for john s rooms were sadly neglected at length even john s mind up to this fact and as declared that he cleaned up every day he set a trap for him placing several papers on certain spots there they were next day but when explained that he everything every night but always put everything back just where he found it at length john s suit with his sweetheart prevailed and she rewarded his years of constancy by finally fixing the day she had in fact always been in love with him and had only waited so long because she knew she could marry him whenever she chose and the torture she had inflicted on her lover was a species of cruelty which all her sex enjoy and as many as dare practise the town rejoiced in john s success and joined in his happiness he had the counsel of several of his friends as to his arrangements and for as they said unless some one looked after him he would very probably forget his wedding ring if he did not forget his wedding day and be found at the hour appointed for the ceremony either gathering wild flowers somewhere for his sweetheart or setting off for a ten mile drive to see some old woman who wanted him to cure her cat a pretty little house had been secured with more room outside on the vine covered than within its walls and it was fitted up with what little the two young people could get together john went to the city at least a month ahead of time to get his wedding suit it was his first full evening suit and he felt about it as a girl must feel about her first ball dress he the parcel with his door locked and a feeling as if it were a sacred then tried it on gravely and looked at himself solemnly it fitted him exactly and set off his strong figure well but he did not think of this he thought only of her he took it off and folding it up again in the of paper placed it in the box and laid it away in his | 46 |
wardrobe one side of which he cleared for its more fitting reception he would wear it first when he claimed her for his wife it was sacred in his eyes every day or two he locked his door and taking the suit out tenderly laid it out and looked at it but never put it on again thinking to do her greater honor by wearing it first at her wedding and dreaming dimly of laying it away afterwards in and rose leaves the day before the wedding he set aside to clean up and settle his matters which he had been delayed in doing by several very ill they were still ill so he set to work and went off to see them on his return he found little done and absent in a short while however appeared he would have met with a warm reception but he prevented it by assuming a very mournful look he spoke before john could say anything mr he always used that term when he wanted to gain anything it recalled old associations mr he said i s had a mighty bad piece of luck hit me he waited and john looked at him i s done lost grandmother why i thought you lost your grandmother two months ago said john you buried her anyhow yes but this is my other grandmother john s face assumed a expression why you lost one last winter too he said and one this is the fourth grandmother you have lost to my certain knowledge yes s so man marry mo n any other man i see in de said she die night an de funeral comes off dis an i thought ax you to let me off dis to go to it he had spoken so rapidly that john had not had time to put in a question he put one now however when did she die oh she died night what was the matter with her what was the matter with her oh i don t know why didn t you send for me or mention it before well you see she kind o sudden night an went right off so they are burying her in a great hurry said john yes looks so to me too said i man be de week s out he didn wait but two weeks time i know he won t wait mo n a week dis time he looked the image of john told him he was afraid there would not be much of an attendance at the funeral as he had heard from one of his that there was to be a big negro ball that night at their hall mournfully admitted that such was his fear too john let him go and taking off his coat set to work himself that night a couple of john s most intimate friends dropped in just to see if he were all right and had all his arrangements made they found everything ready one of them was growling about his servant having gone off to a negro ball and left his room in disorder how about your wedding suit is that all right does it fit they asked john said it was all right and fitted perfectly they urged him to let them see it and finally after much persuasion he consented he went to his wardrobe and took out the box with a warm feeling about his heart laid it tenderly on the bed and gently opened it it was empty had his friends known the history of the suit they would have understood his action better for a moment john perfectly still with a look on his face then he turned slowly to the wardrobe and looked through it then he turned back to the empty box and stood over it the next moment a string of words streamed from his lips he wheeled suddenly up his hat seized a large stick from a corner and bolted out of the door five minutes later a man was posted in the shadow of a tree just outside of the light of a gas lamp a half square from the lighted hall in which the negro ball was now going on and close to the along which were beginning to stream the attendants of the couple after couple passed him but the man stood in the shadow as motionless as the tree against which he was planted a half hour passed the crowd was already in and only an occasional pair came by now still he did not at last a couple came strolling along to each other and for the first time the shadow stirred the voices could be heard distinctly the man was talking he couldn t long at all me i s him my es i s to him dis suit to married in to the girl laughed oh mr you s me no i ain t i declare i ain t ef i is i hope de may rise right by tree an he rose the couple were right in the full glare of the lamp in a brand new evening suit when john stepped out could not have been more startled had his wish been fulfilled he dropped the girl s arm and staggered back then he tried to recover himself he stepped forward again mr le me speak to you a minute will you step over dis a way a minute won t you take them off said john his voice was perfectly quiet mr take them off said john mr right where you stand said john he stepped a step nearer and the light fell more fully on his face his stick was in his hand which was squeezed tight around it till it looked and white his eyes burned like live coals i ll give you one minute yes said and began to out of the | 46 |
clothes a dozen had but neither john nor took any more notice of them than if they had been in a desert now walk before me said john and with the clothes over his arm walked back up the street before john as if he felt the crust of the earth breaking beneath him came out of john s door a quarter of an hour later john had not committed murder but knew he had had a narrow escape when the was a the question of was up and had been discussed most of the group were young men some approved the code others were doubtful the colonel alone had not in it he had sat through it all calmly smoking his pipe with his head thrown back against the wall and his eyes lazily turning from one speaker to another as the talk proceeded finally some one said colonel you have had a of course once he put his pipe back into his mouth and went on smoking again as before tell us about it they said for the colonel was a man of wide experience and of approved courage in the war the colonel s eyes turned up to the ceiling and stayed so for some time while his face took on a expression and when his eyes dropped again there was a look of amusement in them he waited at least two minutes then took his pipe out of his mouth and a cloud which would have almost concealed a mountain top well when i was as young and almost as big a fool as some of you are he said i thought like you was a fine thing i had read a great deal about it and talked more i considered the code the proper recourse of a gentleman and i so declared myself frequently this did not prevent me from being disagreeable enough in other ways to get into a number of in which as i was a young fellow at the time i was generally victorious i was then law in the little county town where i started and i deemed myself easily the greatest lawyer in the circuit if not in the it was necessary to be i thought i had taken lord as my model and i fancied myself like him there were only two things that stood in my way there was an older lawyer there who always treated me as if i were about three years old and the people rather seemed to lean naturally to him i never went into court with him that he did not make me feel like a fool i could not pick a quarrel with him and beat him be cause he was always most polite when he was most insulting and besides he had only one ann having lost the other i had heard in a wheat machine i thought he rather took advantage of it and i used to under his polished sarcasm and lie awake at night cursing him at last i could stand it no longer and once when he had gone too far for me to endure it i consulted friends i selected two young fellows in the village as my one a young lawyer the other had no profession he was one of the best fellows in the world but did nothing but drink however he was sober at that time and as he was a great authority on the code i felt that he would keep sober while the responsibility was upon him i consulted them as my friends and they advised me the only thing as to which we differed was whether i should give my adversary an opportunity to i maintained that the code required it they with me about it they were so indignant with him that they had taken up the notion that he was really a coward and that i could him they seemed to me to be really blood thirsty i might have overcome their if i had not been afraid of being thought a coward besides i was rather in love with a pretty girl in the place and i believed that a would make something of a hero of me and help my if there were no women and no fools there d be no gentlemen after this the colonel proceeded anyhow they stood out and had their way and a challenge was written and to jim it had all the vigor and in it that jim and could i thought it too bitter but was a lawyer and a challenge was a anyhow it was one of the i ever remember the snow was about a foot deep and had frozen hard on top and i well recollect how we gathered around s fire whilst we waited for the reply to my i was afraid to go home for we knew the row and my intention to send the challenge had got out and the and his would be after us we the door and pulled down the old blinds at the windows jim stayed so long that finally we were about to send out to look for him when he gave the three agreed on at the window he was let in and after warming up a bit told his story he had had much difficulty in finding was his name i forgot to say but had finally found him and had presented the challenge had read it first with amusement jim thought then with anger or fear he could not tell which fear without doubt we both decided i thought of my girl then he had said he would send for some one and lay the matter before him and had told jim he would let us hear from him in the course of a few hours did you tell him where to send v we asked jim of course he said i | 46 |
xx s xxi the s ball visits strange lands tries his fortunes abroad xxv the dinner at mrs s xxvi a misunderstanding and the rev mr rim mon finds the marriage xxx s last dance and s final the run on the bank reconciliation the consultation the of the the old ideal she was the first to break the silence if yon don t go back to your seat i ll dash brains out said then why don t you answer me t sprang over the edge of the road into the thick bushes below why mr i she exclaimed sit down i want to talk to you tis he she cried i have he began ix c i s was the son of a gentleman and this like the cat the miller left to his youngest son was his only as in that case also it stood to the possessor in the place of a good many other things it helped him over many rough places he carried it with him as a devoted wears a sacred next to the heart his father general of was a gentleman of the old kind a type so old fashioned that it is hardly accepted these days as having existed he knew the past and lived in it the present he did not understand and the future he did not know in his latter days when his son was growing up after war had swept like a vast over the land burying almost everything it had not borne away general still survived unchanged unmoved an antique memorial of the life of which he was a his one standard was that of a gentleman this idea was what the son inherited from the father along with some other old things which he did not know the value of at first but which he came to understand as he grew older when in after times in the swift rush of life in a great city amid other scenes and new manners looked back to the old life on the plantation it appeared to him as if he had lived then in another world was indeed a world to itself a long rambling house set on a hill with white closed on the side toward the evening sun by green blinds and on the other side looking away through the lawn trees over wide fields brown with or green with cattle dotted pasture land and waving grain to the dark rim of woods beyond to the westward the made a straight line except on clear days when the mountains still farther away showed a blue across the sky a stranger passing through the country prior to the war would have heard much of the plantation but he would have seen from the main road which except in summer was bad only long stretches of rolling fields well and far beyond them a grove on a high hill where the mansion rested in proud seclusion amid its oaks and elms with what appeared to be a small hamlet lying about its feet had he turned in at the big gate and driven a mile or so he would have found that was really a world to itself almost as much cut off from the outer world as the home of the had been in the old country a number of little would have opened the gates for him several boys would have run to take his horse and he would have found a of servants about the house he would have found that the hamlet was composed of extensive stables and with shops and houses within which were their trades with the ring of the of and the hum of spinning all for the plantation whilst on a lower hill farther to the rear were the servants quarters laid out in streets filled with children had the visitor asked for shelter he would have received s whatever his condition a hospitality as gracious as if he had been the highest in the land he would have found culture with philosophy and wealth with content and he would have come away charmed with the of his entertainment and yet if from any other country or region than the south he would have departed with a feeling of as though he had been drifting in a counter current and had discovered a part of the world sheltered and to some extent secluded from the general movement and progress of life this plantation then was s world the woods that it were his horizon as they had been that of the for generations more or less they always affected his horizon his father appeared to the boy to govern the world he governed the most important part of it the without ever raising his voice his word had the convincing quality of a law of nature the quiet tones of his voice were irresistible the calm face lighting up at times with the flash of his gray eyes was always commanding he looked so like the big picture in the library of a straight man and and partly in with a steel hat over his long curling hair and a grave face that looked as if the sun were on it it was no wonder thought the boy that he was given a sword by the state when he came back from the war no wonder that the governor had appointed him a position he declined because of his wife s ill health gk s wonder was that his father was not made president or in chief of the army it no more occurred to him that any one could withstand his father than that the great oak trees in front of the house which it took his outstretched arms six times to could fall yet it came to pass that within a few years an army marched through the plantation on the lawn and cut down | 46 |
a good smooth tongue for the and a good upper cut for as on your toes you are right said mr you re for but boy to be quick with both and don t who you s it was that while was still a boy of about twelve or thirteen instead of being on the old plantation by the great woods where his life had hitherto been spent except daring the brief when he had been at dr s school he found one summer in a little watering place on the shores of an english lake as blue as a china plate set amid of high green hills on which pretty white or brown surrounded by gardens and the water was a new element for the home of the was in the high country back from the great and had never had a pair of oars in his hands nor did he know how to swim but he meant to learn the sight of the boats rowed about by boys of his own age filled him with envy and one of them when he first caught sight of it inspired him with a stronger feeling than envy it was painted white and was gay with blue and red around the in it sat two boys one who sat in the stern was about s age the other a little larger than was and used the oars like an in the bow was a flag and was staring at it when it came to him with a rush that it was a yankee flag he was conscious for half a moment that he took some pride in the superiority of the over the boys in the other boats his next thought was that he had a little flag in his trunk he had brought it from home among his other treasures he would show his colors and not let the yankee boys have all of the honors so away he put as hard as his legs could carry him when he got back to the he hired a boat from among those lying tied at the stairs and soon had his little flag up when taking his seat he picked up the oars and pushed off it was rather more than it had looked the oars would not go together however after a little he was able to move slowly and was quite elated at his success when he found himself out on the lake just then he heard a shout i w i take down that flag gk wished to turn his boat and look around but could not do so however one of the oars came out of the water nd as the boat a little he saw the boys in the te boat with the union flag bearing down on him the was with strong swift strokes even while he looked over his shoulder and the boat was shooting along as straight as an arrow with the clear water curling about its wished for a moment that he had not been so daring but the next second his fighting blood was up as the other boy called strike that flag could see his face now for he was almost on him it was round and and the eyes were blue and clear and flashing with excitement his companion who was cheering him on was i strike that flag i say called the i won t who are you strike your own flag i am that s who i am and if you don t take that flag down i will take it down for you you little driving rebel was not a boy to neglect the of the occasion come and try it then will you you stealing he called i will fight both of you and he settled himself for defence well i will cried his drop the and sit tight i will fight fair then to again i have given you fair warning and i will have that flag or sink you s answer was to drop one oar as useless seize the other and himself as well as he could raise it aloft as a weapon i will kill you if you try it he said between teeth however the boy the other boat was not to be frightened he gave a vigorous stroke of his oars that sent his boat straight into the side of s boat the shock of the two boats coming together pitched to his knees and came near flinging him the water but he was up again in a second and his oar dealt a vicious blow with it not at the boy in the boat but at the flag in the bow of the boat the of his footing however caused him to miss his aim and he only his oar into fragments hit him with the oar called the boy in the stem knock him out of the boat the other boy made no answer but with a quick turn of his wrist twisted his boat out of its direct course and sent it oflf to one side then dropping one oar he caught up the other with both hands and with a rapid swing swept a of water in s face him blinding him and filling his eyes mouth and ears with the unexpected gk gasped and and before he could recover from this flank movement another turn of the wrist brought the attacking boat sharp across his bow and with a shout of triumph the defiant flag out of its had no time for thought he had time only to act with a cry half of rage half of defiance he sprang up on the point of the bow of his boat and with outstretched arms launched himself at the bow of the other where the had flung the flag to use both oars his boat slipped from under his feet and he fell short but | 46 |
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