CHAPTER III.
Mr. Campbellstood watching. Very soon the front gate opened and a boy came in, driving two white mules, with red tassels on their bridle bits. Amazement filled his eyes when he saw that it was a wagon load of coffins, and on the topmost one Esther sat smiling. As they drove up near the door, he went out to help her down.
“Didn’t I tell you something would turn up, grandpa; this wagon is going right by the University this evening.” She threw her arms about his neck; her laugh rang out in pure triumph. “Hitch your team, young man; a boy will come to take it out and feed it.” When they saw Esther again she was ready for her jaunt. Her violin was in its case; her fresh white organdiefolded with as much care as she gave to anything—duty and care were unknown to her. Her visit to the University by such a conveyance would be the extreme limit of indulgence, yet she had no thought of being denied.
“I am ready,” she announced at table. Mr. Campbell burst into a laugh, half of annoyance, yet touched with the ring of true amusement.
“I really believe you would go.”
“I’d go on foot if necessary to keep my promise,” she answered quickly.
“How could the college folks know that Mr. David Pool had to be buried to-day when they printed my name on the programme?”
Watching her eyes, he caught their softness, their innocence, and knew that her eagerness was sincere.
“Let her go, Mr. Campbell, I’ll take good care of her.” The boy was a Rudd. Although he held a lowly position, he was not counted of the common people. Mr. Campbell had the old Virginia pride of race in him.
“I know you would.”
Esther looked steadily into his gray eyes and saw a relenting twinkle.
“Am I going?” Turning to her with a quiet smile: “Yes, you may go.” He could not see her disappointed when her heart was so determined. With a little cry of joy she brought her hands together. “I wish you could come along, grandpa. It will be such fun, and I wanted you to hear me to-night.” When the wagon came around Esther was helped up with her case and bundle. Her violin she held tenderly across her arm. Mr. Campbell went with them to close the gate.
“Good-bye; you will be in for me to-morrow.” Leaning down, she embraced his head. “Be sweet, God’s child,” he said, as they drove off. Esther kissed her hand to him, as he stood by the roadside looking after them. The cook, at the kitchen door, waved her dish rag for a frantic moment. The whirl of dust from the wheels soon clouded the view. The old man turned,and went slowly back to the house with a misty smile over his features.
A quaint, pathetic figure that, of Hardin Campbell, with his age, his poverty and the care of this child. Here had once been planter life in its carelessness and lavishness. It had been the home of friend and neighbor and the hospitable shelter of the transient guest. All the grand folk that came that way made this place headquarters in the days when Mr. Campbell was reckoned rich. But what he had lost in wealth he had more than gained in pride, and the child was brimming over with it. Generous, impetuous, enthusiastic, as she was, this wild young creature of nature, unhindered, venturesome and full of whims, would, he hoped, find pride her safeguard. He did not believe in curbing her. He guided, but did not limit her and tried to keep from her all warping influences. This was the way her mother had begun with her and he was only continuing her way for a while—it could not be very long before he would have to resignhis charge. To whom—he did not know and could not bear to dwell upon the thought.
About the whole place there was evidence of departed glory. In the great white buildings which rose from the labyrinth of shrubbery like grim ghosts of the past; in the rows of cabins, formerly the dwellings of a horde of happy-hearted negroes, everywhere was evidence of the bygone prodigal days. The house, of colonial style, with its series of tall columns standing about the broad colonnade, was partially screened by the live oaks and was set some distance back from the big road. These encircling columns were built of brick, with a coating of plaster, once as white as the teeth of Uncle Simon, the plantation white-washer, who in former days would put an immaculate dress on them regularly once a month by means of an elevated step-ladder, but now Uncle Simon’s labors were done. The neglected columns were crumbling with age and sadly splotched with the red of exposed masonry. At one side of the verandah therespread the delicate green of the star-jassamine, with its miniature constellations flecking the background. Through the vista, leading to the house, from the big gate in front, flashed the crimson of a flowering-pear in full blossom. The blinds of the house that had once been green, were now hanging from their hinges, weather-stained, giving full view of a number of broken window panes, in one of which, on the second story, was perched a wren, whose energetic chattering over her nest hardby was the most decided indication of active life.
In the rear of the buildings stretched the cabins. To the right of them were the stables and the carriage house, with its weather vane of a flying steed on the top, but for years the most vigorous gales had failed to spur this steed to action and its tail, at one time proudly aflaunt to the breeze, had yielded to time and rust, and, like that of Tam o’Shanter’s mare, knew naught of direction. There was the dreary stillness of desolation over all things. But still a hospitableglow was in the summer sunshine and shone as well in the eyes of the old master.
Esther took off her hat when she got into the depths of the woods and drew out her violin. “I will amuse the boy,” she thought, “if I play to him,” for she had tired of talking against the rumbling of the wagon and its load. In his way, he appreciated her motive, for now and again he called back to her, awkwardly commending her, and urging her to continue. Near the spring they saw the negro washerwomen, with sleeves rolled to their shining shoulders, bending over their tubs; faded, limp skirts, bloused through apron belts, and dangled about their bare legs. A big wash kettle heaped with white linen stood to one side. Around it a fire was burning low for want of fuel.
“O—o—h! Yo’ Tagger, Tag-g-e-r; you’d better come on here, ef you know what’s good for you,” called one of the women with a long, resoundingecho that drowned the answer of the small voice that said he was on his way. A troop of little niggers came to the roadside pulling a wagon load of brush and bark gathered through the woods. They looked back and spied Esther on the coffins. With a wild yell the children, load and all, tumbled over the embankment, rolling over each other in the dust, screaming, “Mammy! mammy!” at the top of their voices, scrambling to their feet and running with might and main down the road. As Esther drew up to the wash-place, the little fellows were clinging frantically to the knees of their mothers.
“It’s a little ha’nt blowin’ Gabel’s trumpet. Don’t let it ketch me! don’t let it ketch me!”
“In de name ob de Lawd!” said one of the women, seeing what had caused the fright; “ain’t you all got de sense you was born wid? Don’t you know Miss Esther Powel, Marse Hardin’s granddaughter?” The eyes of the pickaninnies were blinded by the wads of wet aprons they had covered them with, and the sound of the wheelsfilled them with terror. “Dry up!” The big dripping hand pounded on their heads. “Scuse ’em, Miss Esther, you’d think dese youngun’s been fotch up wid wild injun’s.”
“Tagger,” Esther called the boy, whose name, Montague, she had been responsible for. “Don’t you know me? I played for you to dance a jig for the young men who used to visit Will Curtis before he died. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?” Hearing her familiar voice, he slowly peeped out with scared eyes.
“You little monkey. Dip me some water out of the spring.” She saw a long, yellow gourd hanging from a striped bough above their heads. “I want a drink.” He sprang up and snatched the gourd, and before she could say more, he was holding it up to her, standing on his tiptoes, grinning, as the tears ran down and stained his dusty face.
“I am going to play at the University to-night,” she said, hanging back the gourd.
“You don’ say? One of dem ’Varsity gemmen’scoming out to see Marse Will’s folks next week.” Tagger’s mother lived with the Curtises, whose home was just beyond the spring. “I’ll be bound, you beat ’em all dar if you does play to-night,” she said when she saw they were leaving.
Bareheaded, Esther rode on, as long as the shade was over them, tying on her hat only when they got to the sunny way of the road. A man plowing in a cornfield, looked up as he stopped at the turn of the row. He gazed intently, rapping the line mechanically about his wrist.
“What is her grandpa thinking of?” seeing it was Esther, whom he knew. “But she’d a gone in spite of hell and high water.” With this aloud to himself, he drew his shirt sleeve across the sweat on his brow and trudged back down the row, relieved.
After two hours or more, through the heat, Esther was glad when at last she could see the end of her journey. The sunlight lay radiant upon the stretch of country famed for this honoredinstitution of learning. Just before her, upon an eminence, spread the University buildings, the tall spires marking their profile on the sky. The sun’s rays shot up behind them its last warm flashes. Its heat had already dampened Esther’s hair, deepening the red tint of its waves against her temples. The campus was alive with students coming and going in every direction. The tenor of the glee club, in his striped sweater of the college colors, humming a popular air, walked leisurely across to where one fellow was sprawled on the ground, gazing at the wagon with an amused curiosity on his handsome face.
“By Jupiter! that’s a pretty child.” The tenor turned to look, as his friend spoke.
“Well, if that isn’t a caper! Wonder where she is bound?” Just then a pert freshman, standing in a group, gave a college yell. Then there was a chorus of rapturous cheers, in which most of them joined. Before the noise had subsided, the man on the grass had leaped to his feet, full of indignation, and dashed off toward the freshman.
“Silence! you fellows! Have you forgotten yourselves?” A few hisses were mingled with the applause that greeted him, but the freshman was quick to say at his elbow:
“I didn’t mean it for her.”
“How could she know that?” He walked away saying: “I’ll wager there is something out of the ordinary in that girl.”
He was of the fiber that commanded the respect of men at a glance.
“Andrews always turns up at the right time, you may count on that,” said one of the students as he watched him sauntering in the direction of the wagon, his eyes following the child. She was perched like a white winged bird of good omen on a funeral pyre. Only a nature adventurous to audacity would do such a thing as that. But he loved daring personalities, strong motives and even a misadventure, if it were a brave one.