There were a hundred points on which I had yearned to question her, and the most vital of them all—why had she taken the name of that unsympathetic man?—arose to my mind, but instantly it sank again. Her manner toward me was cordial and intimate, but in it I recognized a command against familiarity; that quiet something which tells a man more than a volume of words could imply. I wanted to believe that she was persuaded by her father. I was willing to believe almost anything except that she could ever have loved him. It was not alone the eye of prejudice that made him look old; it was actual age. He was older than the Senator. But his people had been great—the lords of old Virginia. I would wait, and perhaps at some time in the future she might forget a high-strung woman's caution; she might drop a thoughtless word, a firefly to glow in the dark.
The negro preacher came walking slowly down the patch, to give his attention to another part of the garden. He was humming a tune, with his eyes on the ground, and he neither spoke nor halted, but at my feet he dropped a weed.
"You have a faithful gardener," I remarked, when Washington had passed beyond the reach of a low tone.
"Yes; there was only one George Washington, and there's only one Washington Smith."
"But don't you think he's a little too zealous?"
"Too zealous? How?" she inquired, turning her eyes full upon me.
"Well, I don't know that zealous is the word. Perhaps I should have said intolerant."
"Oh, he is intolerant—yes. He believes that he's one of the anointed."
"That's all very well, but he oughtn't to believe that he is appointed to look after the souls of other men."
"Then he would have no mission," she replied. "The true strength of the preacher is his sense of responsibility."
"Pardon me, I didn't know you were of the strictly orthodox fold."
"Didn't you? Don't you know I go to church every Sunday?"
"Yes, I ought to. I have more than once waited for you to come home." She looked at me in surprise, and I made haste to add: "The Senator and I have needed you to arbitrate our disputes, you know."
"Oh, yes, and I think you were wise in acknowledging that he had brought you into his party. We all take a great interest in our converts. Everybody is looking forward to the coming of your dramatic season," she went on after a moment's pause. "And I think you'll become quite a favorite in society. I heard Mrs. Atkinson speak of you. She's our leader. She saw you somewhere. Of course there was some little prejudice against you, at first, but that has worn off. And there's a splendid catch here for you—Miss Rodney—distantly related to the Estell family. She has seen you, too. She says you must be very romantic; and she asked me all sorts of questions."
"Of course I want to be agreeable,but—"
"But what?"
"I simply don't care anything for society."
"Our stupid society, you mean."
"No, I mean any society. I like individuals but I don't care for sets."
"Oh, and you are going to rob me of the distinction of showing you off. Very well, Sir."
"I wouldn't be a distinction—more of a humiliation."
"We'll see when the time comes. You have no idea what a source of—what shall I say? Pleasure—gratification you have been to me."
"Do you really mean it?"
"Mean it? Why shouldn't I? You have helped me to pick things to pieces; and we can have a great time when you know the people here well enough to gossip about them. It's always interesting to hear what a stranger has to say of one's old acquaintances."
"Yes, if he speaks what he conceives to be the truth. The truth is spicy and not infrequently malicious."
"You make me laugh. Do you suppose I want to hear anyone speak ill of my friends?"
"Why, yes. You might demur, but you would listen."
"Yes, I believe I would," she laughed, "and isn't it mean? I've tried so hard to be good, but I can't."
"It is hard to be good, and—" I hesitated.
"And what?"
"Will you pardon an impudence?"
"Yes, if it's nottoobad."
"Hard to be good and beautiful."
Her face was turned from me, but I saw a red tint rise and spread over her neck. She spoke without looking at me, and her voice was steady and deep. "I helped you to set a trap and then walked into it, and therefore I've no right to feel offended, but if my treatment of you leads up to such compliments, I must change it."
"No!" I cried, abashed; and the negro on his knees at a tulip bed, down the path, looked up at me. "It was simply a jest; there has never been anything in your manner to warrant it. Let me tell you that at times I am a barbarian; I lose respect for polite customs. I have known ladies who liked to be told that they were beautiful—women who were charmed to have their pictures in a magazine among a collection of "types" celebrated for beauty. I—" was she laughing at me? She was.
"The fact that you take it so to heart wipes out the impudence," she said, still laughing.
I felt that my crime existed in the fact that her husband was more than twenty year older than herself. And I have reason to believe that the young woman who marries an old man, and who is constantly striving to maintain her own self-respect, has a fancied or perhaps a real cause to stand in dread of a compliment. It may be sincere, but in its candor lies an insinuation and a reproach. But when Mrs. Estell saw that no insinuation was intended, she was even more free than she had been before. She laughed with such gayety that Washington went about his work and paid no further heed to us. We talked about the people of the town, the leader of society and the young woman who had been put forward as a splendid catch for me; and once I ventured near the verge of an awkward sentiment. In making a gesture she accidentally touched my hand, and with the thrill of the moment I could have leaped high in the air. But it took only a flash of reason to assure me that I was a fool. I will say, though, and without evil, that I would have given all my prospects, the theatre and the play—anything—to have clasped her in my arms. No, not anything. I would not have given up the respect which I hoped she had for me. Ah, how many hearts are this moment aching for a love that the law has hedged about with Duty! And this to me was monstrous, for I was of a mimic life, where love pretended that there were locksmiths to be laughed at, but where in reality the law itself was vain.
The Senator came striding down the path, and seeing me, he cried: "Ha! Mr. Manager, why didn't you have them wake me? Don't want to waste any more daylight than I am compelled to, but the fact is, I've been at work pretty hard of late. A campaign always stirs me up."
We made room for him and he sat down, continuing to talk. "Didn't hear about my speech out at Briar Flat last night, did you? Well, Sir, we had a lively time. You see the Convention is really the election, and to win I must get votes enough to secure the nomination. There's a Cheap John of a fellow announced as a candidate against anybody our party may put up, a schemer out after the country vote. Well, he came to our meeting—had no earthly business there, mind you, but he came. He interrupted me several times with his fool questions, and at last I said, 'See here, Mister Whatever-your-name-may-be, I am perfectly willing to answer any question that one of these farmers may ask, but I've got no time for a man who farms with his mouth.' Well, Sir, the boys laughed and he got red hot. He stood up and cried out that any man who said he wasn't a practical farmer and a gentleman was a liar. Huh! Well! I handed my hat to a friend and—"
"Now, father," Mrs. Estell broke in, "you promised me—"
"Hold on, now; it wasn't a fight. Nothing of the sort. I know what I promised you, and I'll keep my word. Yes, I handed my hat to a friend and stepped down to where the fellow stood, with his back against the wall. I asked him—I was polite—if he meant to insinuate that I was a liar. There was no violation of a promise in that, was there, Florence?"
"No, Sir, not if you asked him politely," she answered, laughing.
"It was polite, I assure you. Well, he studied a moment, and then declared that he never did insinuate, that he came right out and said what he meant. And, Belford, I rather admired him for that. But, er—the fact is—"
"You struck him," Mrs. Estell interjected. "Didn't you?"
"Well, that depends upon the way you look at it. Now, here, Florence, you wouldn't want to know that a man had stood up in front of a whole houseful of people and called your father a liar. I mean that under such circumstances you wouldn't blame me for—for tapping him."
"Of course not," she replied.
"Ah, ha, and I did tap him. Belford, I hit that fellow a crack that he'll remember the longest day he lives. Fell? Why, Sir, he fell like a beef; and when they had taken him away, the meeting was kind enough to name me as its unanimous choice."
The negro woman who had announced her suspicion of all men came out upon the veranda to ring the supper bell, and, astonished to realize that the sun was no longer shining, I bounced up with a declaration that I must get back to town.
"No, Sir, not till you have had supper," the Senator replied. "Why, what can you be thinking about to run away at a time like this? Come on," he added, taking my arm and turning me toward the house. "I want to have a talk with you after supper—on business. Come, Florence."
In the library, after supper, I waited for the Senator to introduce the talk which we were to have on business; but he wandered off into a political reminiscence of a day when a man found out what his convictions were and then looked about for a chance to defend them with his life. He told me, as comfortably he sat with his feet in the slippers which his daughter had brought for him, that he could recall an old fellow who wrote out his principles in blood drawn from his breast. "Yes, Sir, and it created a big hurrah at the time. Copies of his creed were sought after, in the original ink, and so many of them were sent out that the suspicions of a young doctor were aroused. He calculated that the amount of blood thus put in outward circulation would leave an insufficient circulation within, though the body of the politician still appeared to be strong and active. And it was then that a most startling discovery was made. The rascal had not used his own blood, but a red powder and the juice of the pokeberry. Well, Sir, this stirred up the community from one end to the other; the people swore that they had been defrauded, and they demanded that he should make good the counterfeits or get out of the race. His circulating medium was not strong enough to warrant the output, so he retired in disgrace. Yes, Sir. Belford, do you know that I can see that fellow Petticord's hand every time I go to a political meeting? I can. He is all the time trying to tunnel under me, and it keeps me busy stepping about to keep from falling in. I am afraid, Sir, that sooner or later I'll have to kill that scoundrel."
"Father!" spoke his daughter, turning from the window.
"I beg your pardon, Florence. I don't mean to kill him—er—er—offensively, you understand, but, perhaps, necessarily. Of course we are inflicted more or less as we journey through this life, but I can't reconcile myself to the belief that we are called upon to stand everything. Let us say that sometimes the devil giveth and the Lord taketh away. Now, if I could only provoke him into a fight—I beg your pardon."
Mrs. Estell had put her hand on his shoulder. She looked at me with a smile, but the Senator glanced up to meet an expression of reproof.
"Provoke him into a fight?" she said.
"Figuratively, you understand. I wouldn't provoke him except figuratively. But I don't see why my footsteps are to be constantly dogged by that red wolf. Why doesn't he come out in his paper and give me a chance? What are you going to do?" She had stepped upon a chair and was taking down the foils. "Belford, I reckon you'll have to defend yourself. I won't fight; I'm a noncombatant."
I fenced with her, having had some little experience, but she was too quick and too skillful for me. The Senator laughed, and his face was aglow with pride to see her drive me into a corner, where I was willing enough to surrender.
"He isn't strong enough yet," she said, in excuse of my defeat.
"Oh, yes, he is," the Senator cried. "He's as strong as a deck hand, but he hasn't the skill. Just feel of that girl's arm, Belford. Don't be afraid of her—she won't hurt you."
I put my hand on her arm, so round and firm, so warm through the gauze sleeve she wore; and I thought it well for me that neither the father nor the daughter observed my agitation.
A negro came to tell the Senator that a Mr. Spencer wanted to speak to him at the gate. "Politics," said the law maker, as he took up his hat. "And that fellow wouldn't get off his horse to meet the President. Stay right where you are till I come back, Belford. I want to have a talk with you—on business."
He went out and Mrs. Estell sat down in his armchair. Her face was flushed and her eyes were a delight to behold.
"I'll be glad when this miserable campaign is over," she said. "It upsets everything, spoils our evenings, and bores everybody that comes to the house."
"It doesn't bore me," I replied.
"No; I gave him his orders not to talk politics to you."
"That's a compliment, surely."
"Oh, I don't know. I told him he ought to see that you didn't understand the political situation. And after he'd converted you he was willing enough to grant you freedom. Mr. Belford, why haven't you told me more about yourself?"
And this gave me the opportunity to ask her why she had not told me more about herself, her days of romance.
"I have had no such days," she said. "I was born here and I live here and that is all. But you have been everywhere; you came from an old and poetic country."
"And you," I replied, "have always lived in a poetic country."
"No, dreamy and visionary, but hardly poetic. Poetry means action and adventure. You have never told me abouther?"
"Her? What her do you mean?"
"Oh, any her. There must have been one."
"No; I can't recall one."
"Really? And you so sentimental?"
"I'm not sentimental. A sentimentalist would tint the truth while I would rather view it in its natural color, be it dun or even black. Do you believe we ought to be held responsible for everything?"
"Yes, nearly everything."
"But suppose a man forgets to lock the door of his heart, and a woman out in the dark, feeling about, accidentally lifts up the latch and comes in. She is pure and innocent and she does not know that she is warming herself at the hearth of a heart. Ought he to put her out and shut the door?"
"No, he should make the fire still warmer and brighter, if she has come out of the cold and the dark."
"But suppose her lawful place is beside another fire?"
"Then she would not stray from it."
"But say that she is walking in her sleep?"
"She would run away as soon as she awakes."
"Ah, but suppose she does not awake. Should he put her out?"
"I—I don't know. He must not leave his door unlocked—he should—should even bar his windows."
We heard the Senator coming down the hallway and were silent. "Now what do you reckon that fool fellow wanted? Well, Sir, it beats anything. Told me that he had named a boy for me—said that it ought to be worth five dollars and a barrel of flour. Why, dog my cats—beg your pardon (bowing to Mrs. Estell). But I say, if it were to get out—no, keep your seat, I'll sit over here—get out that I am giving five dollars and a barrel of flour for each boy named for me, why, I'd be broke in six months. A long time ago a yellow-looking chap from the swamps came to tell me that he had given my name to as fine a boy as the country ever saw. I was a little easier flattered in those days than I am now, and it tickled me mightily; and what did I do but give the fellow a twenty-dollar gold piece. Well, Sir, about six months after that he went to a friend of mine, a candidate to fill an unexpired term of county clerk, and declared that he had just named a splendid specimen of a boy for him. And now what do you suppose we found out? The villain changed that boy's name every time a campaign came along. Yes, Sir, and he was about ten years old when he was given my name."
"By the way, there was something you wanted talk to me about," I said, to remind him that the hour was growing late. "Something on business, I understood you to say."
"Yes, but there's plenty of time. Let me see, now, what it was I had on my mind. Something I wanted to say about—well, Sir, it has escaped me."
"Then it couldn't have been very important," said Mrs. Estell.
"It couldn't, eh? Now that's where you are wrong. In this life we are prone to forget the most important things. My old grandfather used to forget his wife when she went visiting with him, and go on home without her. But come to consider more closely, it wasn't exactly a business matter I wanted to talk to you about, Belford. I wanted to tell you that day after to-morrow we'll go fox-hunting. I sent over to the plantation to have the hounds put in good condition, and they'll be ready for us. Ever ride after the hounds?"
"Only in a mimic chase—a bag of anis-seed."
"Oh, what nonsense! Do you know what ought to be done with a man that would get up such a disgrace on the greatest of all sport? Ought to be deprived of his citizenship, his vote; and I don't know of anything much worse than that. Now, you be here day after to-morrow morning, and I'll show you what it is to live like a white man."
He was so earnest and so set in his conviction that no work, however important, should be permitted to stand as a stumbling-block in the road leading to the field of this essential sport, that I yielded, but reluctantly, until Mrs. Estell dropped a word of persuasion, and then I could not have found the moral nerve to urge even the most courteous objection.
When I took my leave, soon afterward, the Senator walked out with me, through the gate and down the road; and when he halted to turn back, I looked round and saw Mrs. Estell standing on the portico, with a lamp held aloft to light his way.
Down the road not far from Talcom's house there stood a stone chimney, tall and white, in the midst of a dark thicket of scrub locust, the mark of a fire that years ago had burnt a miser and melted his gold. It was a desolate place, even in the sunlight, for the air that breathed an enchantment in the Senator's magnolia garden came hither to whine and moan. And whenever at night I passed this place I was chilled with a nervous fear that a goblin might jump out and grab me. I knew that there were no goblins, in the sun, but the night is the mother of many an imp that the day refuses to father.
I walked slower as I came abreast of the thicket, to prove to myself that I was not afraid, yet ready to take to my heels, when suddenly I halted, statue-still, with a gasp and a loud beating of the heart. A great black figure plunged out of the bushes, into the road, and in another moment I am sure that I should have run like a deer had not a voice familiar to my ear exclaimed:
"Fo' de Lawd, I didn' know I wuz comin' through dat place. Walkin' 'cross de pasture thinkin', an' de fust thing I knowed—"
"That you, Washington?" I cried.
"Yes, Sir. Oh, it's Mr. Belford," he said, coming forward.
"You almost scared the life out of me."
"Yes, Sir, and scared myself, too. I am on my way from prayer meeting, and my mind was so occupied that I didn't think of the thicket until I was into it. Going to town? I'll walk a piece with you if you have no objections."
"None at all; be glad to have you. It made you forget your education," said I, as we walked along.
"It did that, Sir. It makes no difference how many colleges a colored man has gone through nor how many books he has read, scare him and he is what the white people call a nigger. My mother used to tell me stories about that place back there, and I can't forget them. But Miss Florence isn't afraid of it, Sir. When a child she often played there alone, after dark, and the Senator would have to go after her. Pardon me, but why did you cry 'No!' so loud in the garden!"
"Why, it must have been when I was reciting something."
He grunted and we strode on in silence until he said: "Mr. Belford, I have heard that there is no moral responsibility among the people that play on the stage—that the winning or losing of love means little to them. Is it true?"
"Washington, I have read of a hundred scandals in the church. Were they true?"
He did not answer at once; he strode for a long time in silence, and then he spoke: "There are bad people everywhere, and some of them carry the outward form of the cross, but it is made of light paper and not of heavy wood. But there are many who carry the true cross. Let us, however, put that aside, for I must turn back when we get to the first gaslight down yonder, and there is something I want to say to you if I can get at it properly."
"Out with it; don't try to lead up to it."
"You are in love with Mrs. Estell," he bluntly said, and I had expected something to the point, but nothing so straightforward and undiplomatic; and I could have knocked him down for his impertinence, but I swallowed my wrath and waited for him to proceed.
"I can see it."
"But can she?" I compelled myself, quietly, to ask.
"No. If she were to see it, she would never step into your presence again."
"But the Senator! Can he see it?"
"No. Honor makes him blind to such a sight. He could not understand such a violation of hospitality. He has made you almost a member of his family; your misfortune demanded his sympathy, and he gave you his confidence."
"Then you stand alone with your eyes open?" I replied.
"I may stand alone, but other eyes are open—and they wink at one another."
"What! Do you mean that the neighbors—"
"Yes," he broke in, "that is what I mean—the neighbors."
"Washington, you were graduated from the Fisk University, I understand, an institution made possible by the generosity of a band of jubilee singers; and, having been educated at the instance of song, I should think that you would have aspired to poesy rather than to stilted talk and a detective's disposition to pry into affairs that don't concern you."
With the slouching habit of his race, he had been dragging his feet along, but now his heels struck hard upon the road. He sighed like a steam valve, to lessen the pressure of his boiling resentment, but he did not speak. I expected him to turn back in silence, as we were now beneath the light of the street lamp, but he did not; he strode forward as if vaguely in quest of some sort of support, and put his hand on the lamp-post, a hand so black that it looked like a bulge of the iron. And then he turned to me. "Mr. Belford," he said, "an educated negro is an insult to every unthinking white man. And unless he jabbers they call him stilted. Let me tell you, Sir, that I have stretched myself on the floor to read by the firelight because I couldn't afford to buy a candle—struggling to conquer the dialect of my father—and now you reproach me with it. My poor and ignorant people wouldn't listen to me if I talked as they do. Heaven, to them, is a place of magnificence, and the man who paints the picture of Paradise for them must use extravagant colors. Sir, I am no more stilted than you are; you serve the devil on stilts."
I had to laugh, and then I apologized. "There is a good deal of truth in what you say," said I. "The actor struts, and just as you do, to impress the unthinking. But let us drop it. I'm sorry I offended you. But, really, I don't like your interference."
"It is not an interference. I am an old servant of that family. Look here!" He snatched his hand from the lamp-post and folded his arms. "What do you intend shall be the outcome?"
"I don't know—I don't see—"
"Don't see the end," he interposed. "But don't you think that the end of everything ought to be kept well in view?"
"Yes, I do. But sometimes a beginning is so delightful that we are afraid to look toward the end. But I realize my own selfishness, and I acknowledge to you that in spite of what you may term the immoral atmosphere of a player's life—I confess, or, rather, I affirm, that in my blood there is a strong current of good old English puritanism; and I will swear to you that I would cut my own throat rather than to bring disgrace upon that family."
He put his mighty hands upon my shoulders, and, turning my face to the light, he looked hard into my eyes.
"No man could say more, Mr. Belford. But what are you going to do?"
"I am going to stay away from—from her."
"When, Mr. Belford; when will you begin to stay away?"
"I have promised to go fox-hunting day after to-morrow."
"And after that?"
"I will not go to the house."
He took my hand, and I forgot that he was a stilted and officious negro. "Good-night, Mr. Belford." He turned away, but faced about and said: "I am going to a cabin on the hillside—to pray for you. Good-night."
The town was going to bed; the late moon was rising, and in the magnolia gardens there seemed to waver a bright and shadowy silence—a night when every sound was afar off, a half mysterious echo—the closing of a window shutter, the subdued footfall of a thief, the indistinct notes of an old song lagging in the soft and lazy air. I walked about the courthouse, its pillars classic in the shadow, its gilded cupola gaudy in the light. I did not turn to my habitation across the square, to sniff the lifeless atmosphere and the sickish paint of the opera house; I bent my way to the river where the moon was free. And upon a rotting yawl I sat down to think, shoulder to shoulder with the ghost of a dead commerce. Far across the stream a mud scow fretted and fluttered like a duck in distress, making just enough of noise to cry "silence" in the ear of night.
There is religion in the reverie of even an atheist; and in the meditation of a free-thinker, whose grandfather was a believer, there is almost a confession of faith. I thought of all that the negro had said; I reviewed his earnestness and saw his look of trouble; I pictured Talcom in his trustfulness; I saw his daughter in her unsuspecting innocence, impulsive, almost eccentric, and yet a type of the South. I thought of it all, and I swore that I would keep faith with the preacher. I swore it with my hand held up, I ground myself down until I felt the rotting old boat crumbling beneath me, and yet it seemed that some devil arose in the air maliciously to whisper, "No you won't." And in this reproach, intended to tantalize the conscience, there was a shameful sweetness, a promise that again I should sit in the garden with her. But I went to bed strong, and I arose with strength the next morning. I would chase a fox with her, and then, I should see her no more, except by accident.
The Senator had enjoined me not to appear overglad to make acquaintances; not to invite the approach of the idle, lest they should become familiar, but it was hard to maintain dignity in the presence of such good humor and friendliness. A man whom I might have passed a hundred times, without suspecting his importance, would stop me to say that his name was Hopgood or Leatherington or Yancey; to assure me that his grandfather, after having come out of the Mexican War, had served as Clerk of the Circuit Court; that he was pleased to welcome me to Bolanyo; that it was about his time of day (looking at his watch) to take a drink, and that he would be pleased to have me join him. I had not the nerve nor the dignity to cool these warm advances, rich in a yellowing sort of humor, the sad fun of a dying importance; and I found that the Senator, himself, while pretending to preserve the austerity of a high position, brought matters close to earth by putting his arm about some old fellow to laugh over an ancient and shady joke. In the town there was one man who scouted the idea of self-importance, except when drunk, and then he sometimes assumed to own the community. This man was Joe Vark, a shoemaker.
In the forenoon, the day after my moral vow had been taken, I went into his shop. He was sitting on his low bench; and he looked up, with a number of shoe-pegs showing between his lips, and mumbled me an invitation to sit down. He was short, with a fine head and thin, light hair. His wrinkled face was rather pale and clean of beard. Beside him lay a book, held partly open by an old shoe sole.
"Well, how are they coming?" he inquired, talking through his teeth.
"All right," I answered, and he looked up with a twinkle in his eye. I waited for him to say something, but he went on with his work, taking a peg from his lips and driving it into a shoe.
"You were not born here, were you, Mr. Vark?"
He drove five or six pegs, until there were no more between his lips, loosened the strap with which he held the shoe upon a piece of iron, whistled softly as he examined his work, looked up at me and said:
"No, I came here from Pennsylvania a long time ago. And it was years before they granted me the privilege of being natural when I was drunk. Oh, it was all right to get drunk, mind you, but they wanted me to be quiet; and I hold that a man who acts about the same, drunk or sober, is dangerous to a community. Oh, they meet you with a warm shake, but it takes years to become one of them. But after you do get to be one of them you are proud of it. Yes, Sir, and about all I've got to boast of is that I've been here more than thirty years. I'm not worth a cent, you understand, but I'm as proud as a peacock What of? That I've lived here thirty years. What of it? Everything of it. I can take a few drinks and be natural. Not long ago I had a little row and I snatched a comparative stranger from one side of the street to the other. And what did they do with me? Why, I had been here so long that the judge couldn't do anything. He fined the other fellow for being a stranger and that settled it."
He put more pegs between his lips, adjusted the shoe on the iron and resumed his work. The shop was small and dingy, and the floor, almost hidden by scraps of leather, had doubtless never been swept. An encased stairway from the outside made a low, dark corner, and here, on a shelf, the old man kept an array of books. It was said that he sometimes indulged in a reading spree, just after a season of liquor; and then he slammed his door in the face of the present and lived locked up with the long ago.
I did not disturb him, but waited for his spirit to move of its own accord. He pegged the shoe, removed the strap, and from a small bottle that hung on the wall within reach he blackened the edge of the sole; he inserted a hook, pulled out the last, and set the shoe aside to dry. Then he took up an old boot and said: "This thing is beyond all repair. Ought to have been thrown away years ago. But the fool would leave it here, and I'm expecting him every minute. Heigho, I don't know what to do with it. Guess I'll put it aside until he comes, and then beg him to take it down and throw it into the river."
He threw the boot aside, took up a piece of leather and began to examine it. Then, brushing everything aside, he picked up a clay pipe, and as he was filling it, I handed him a lighted match.
"Thank you." He lighted his pipe, puffing it with a loud smack of the lips, and then settled himself down to talk. "No use of a man killing himself with work. I've been here too long for that. How are you and Talcom getting along?"
"First rate. I have never met a more genial companion—never bores, always interesting."
"Yes, Talcom is a good fellow. He'll recommend a gold brick, and then, to prove his sincerity, he'll turn round and buy it himself. He held me off for a long time. Of course I never expected him to make a brother of me—our lines keep us too far apart for that—but he's friendly, and has done me many a favor. But I lived here a long time under suspicion, and whenever anything was stolen they naturally looked to me. But, gradually, I convinced them that I was inclined to be honest."
"By going to church?" I inquired.
"Oh, no, by accepting a challenge from a rival shoemaker to fight a duel. The fellow backed down; his custom came to me, and he went away. I am under great obligations to that man—best friend I ever had; don't know what would have become of me if he hadn't backed out."
"But you would have fought him."
"Well, I don't know about that. I do know, however, that I felt like hugging him when he refused to fight. Yes," he went on, after a short pause and an industrious puffing at his pipe, "Talcom is all right. But you never can tell which way he'll jump in his likes and dislikes. He may like a man and he may not, and he's as sudden as a gun going off. You caught him—not by anything you could have said or done, but you just happened to fit him."
"All hands at home?" came a voice as whining as a mendicant's plea, and, looking up, I recognized the gaunt and drooping form of the notorious Bugg Peters. He stood for a moment in the doorway, and then came forward with a slouching lurch, with a grin and nod at me and a bow of profound respect for the "boss" of the shop.
"Look here, Bugg," said the shoemaker, "I can't do anything with that old boot. It's beyond all repair. Take it out somewhere and throw it away."
"Fur mercy sake, Joe, don't talk like that," protested the notorious one, dropping upon a bench and humping over as if his upper muscles had given away. "Don't snatch all the hope right out of a feller's hand. That boot belongs to my youngest son-in-law, and unless he gets it mended to-day he can't come to town to-morrow. Joe, you've just got to fix it. Say, got about as fine a chunk of a boy down at my house as you ever see'd in your life. Nan's."
"Nan's? How many does that make?" the shoemaker asked.
"Let me see. Why, it makes somewhere in the neighborhood of six for Nan. And her old man is settin' right there by the fireplace now a-shakin' fitten to kill himself. He ain't no account at all except in the fall of the year, and then I take him out in the woods and let him shake down persimmons. Mister (speaking to me), they tell me you are goin' to start a show here, and I'll fetch my folks to see it if I can raise a few chickens and sell 'em. Thought I'd get some aigs to-day. Got three old hens and I thought I'd put 'em to work. But, look here, Joe, you ain't in earnest about not bein' able to do nothin' with that boot?"
"Yes, I am, Bugg. Throw it away."
"Now, when did you expect a man to get so rich as to fling away his property? Doesn't the Scripture say, 'Waste not, for to-morrow you may die?' Grab a-hold of her, Joe, and patch her up. All you've got to do is to put leather where there ain't none."
"Yes, all I've got to do is to build a boot in the air."
"Well, but ain't that your business, hah?"
"Yes, if I'm paid for it; but you haven't paid for the last pair of shoes I half-soled. And you said you'd pay on the following Wednesday."
"Did I say that? But I didn't tell you pointedly. You can always count on me when I tell you pointedly. A man that won't pay when he tells you pointedly is a liar. Whose boots are them right there—them old ones? They'd just about fit my son-in-law. Yes, Sir; and he can put 'em on and come up to town and enjoy himself. What will you take for 'em, Joe?"
"Two dollars, Bugg."
"Cheap enough, and I'll take 'em. Pass 'em over."
"But when will you pay for them?"
"Let me see. I'll pay for 'em Thursday."
"Pointedly?" the shoemaker inquired, with a wink at me.
"Well, now, if it's to be pointedly I'd better make it Thursday week. How does that hit you?"
"Take them along, but I'll never get the money."
He tumbled forward from his seat, grabbed up the boots, and, holding them close to his bosom, he said:
"Joe, don't—don't insult me by sayin' that you'll never get your money. It's a sad thing to give your word pointedly and I've give you mine."
He took out a string, tied the boots together at the straps and threw them across his shoulder. Then he sat down. "Yes, Sir," he said, "when a man gives me his word pointedly and fails to keep it, I put him down in my liar book. Say, Mister, I hear 'em say you are goin' to give your show in a house. Don't see how you can give much of a show unless you've got room to gallop around in, but I reckon you'll do the best you can. Joe, let me take a few of them books along with me," he added, nodding toward the shelf. And the shoemaker's hand, with a movement as quick as the frisk of a squirrel's tail, flew upon the bench at his side and rattled the tools, as if grabbing for a hammer to throw at the head of the outrageous customer. His face was hard and his eyes were set with anger, and if for a moment there was not murder in his heart, he gave me a bit of fine acting. But his epileptic resentment passed away with a jerk, and looking up at the dumfounded Peters, he said, "Bugg, I guess you'd better go."
"Why, what's the matter, Joe?"
"Guess you'd better go. I can stand to be robbed of leather, but when you try to extend your theft to the things that make me superior to you ignorant yaps, I feel like mashing your head."
"Your driftwood is comin' so swift that I can't ketch it, Joe."
"He means that you must not touch his books," I put in.
"Oh, that's all right," Peters replied. "I'm not hankerin' after 'em. Just thought I'd take a few of 'em along to get 'em out of the way. Joe, if you happen down in my range drap in and see Nan's boy. Tickle you mighty nigh to death."
He slouched away, and the shoemaker resumed his work. I had been sitting there in a strong draught of the town's atmosphere, with two characters for my play; and, taking my leave, I felt that I hugged a greater possession than Peters had found when he tied the boots together and threw them across his shoulder.
Like a boy in his yearning to have Santa Claus come, I went early to bed to force the dawning of another day. I resorted to the tricks that men have employed to induce drowsiness; I counted sheep bounding over a fence, a hundred, a thousand, until their number exceeded the Patriarch's fold, and yet I lay there wide awake, with my nerves starting at every noise, before it reached my ears. I strove to trace the filmy thread that lies between consciousness and sleep, and I fancied that it was a raveling from a rainbow, with one end in the sunset, the other in the sunrise. I reached a place where the thread was broken and now the world was dark, but, feeling about, I found the two ends of the silken line, and put them together, and when they touched, the world flashed up in a blaze of light—the sun was shining.
No exact hour had been fixed for the meet at the Senator's house, and I was beset by the fear that a desire not to be early might make me late. Common sense dictated a middle resort, but in my nervous anxiety I had no common sense. Why so sensitive and timorous now when I had been so bold a few days before? I had promised the negro preacher and myself that this day should see the end of a relationship.
I set out earlier than the time I had fixed, expecting to loiter along the road, to breathe sweet air beneath the roses that hung above the old garden walls; but, giving no heed to the roses, I passed them hurriedly, as a hasty reader skips a beautiful sentence in eagerness to snatch the excitement of a closing scene. I passed the lamp-post and thought of the negro's black hand, a knot on the iron; I came abreast of the old chimney and the thicket, the lair of the goblins at night. And here I halted to gaze at the Senator's house, the pillared portico, the cool yard, the martin box on a tall pole, the magnolia garden. And now my progress toward the gate was slow, with the minute and senseless observation of little things; a bit of sheep's wool on a brier bush; an old shoe half buried in the sandy drain beside the road; the heavy gate-latch, made by a clumsy blacksmith; the uneven bricks in the short walk between the gate and the portico; a stone and a shell on the step, where someone had cracked a nut.
I was admitted by the negress whose motto was "suspicion." She gave me a broad grin and nodded toward the parlor; and I heard strange voices and laughter. Just as I reached the door, Mrs. Estell stepped out into the hall. A magnolia bloom fell from her hand, and she laughed as she stooped to pick it up, and when she looked at me her face was red, though not with embarrassment, but with stooping, for she spoke and her voice was deep and clear and her eyes were not abashed.
"Oh, you are just in time, Mr. Belford. I want you to meet some friends of mine, and my aunt is here, too. I know you'll like her, she's so queer."
I would have staid to ask her why she supposed me to be attracted by queer persons, but she touched my arm, and as an automaton I turned toward the parlor and stepped into the room, to meet Mr. Elkin, a frail and timid-looking young fellow with plastered hair; Miss Rodney, a pinkish creature of uncertain age, the "splendid catch" which Mrs. Estell had set aside for me; and Mrs. Braxon, the aunt. She looked queer, and I could not have denied that she interested me. She was very tall, straight and stiff, with eyes that suggested a savage. Into her aged mouth the artifice of the dentist had put the teeth of youth, and, not yet accustomed to them, she imposed upon her lips the double exertion of talking with her jaws shut.
"Well," she said, looking hard at me, "and you are the man that Giles has been telling me so much about? But, conscience alive, he ought to have something to talk of besides politics."
"You are his favorite sister, I believe," I replied, with the giggle of Miss Rodney in my ears.
"Do you? Well, I married his brother, if that's what you mean."
"Is he living?" I inquired.
"Florence," she said, "it's strange that you haven't told Mr. What's-his-name anything about me. Every time I come here I come as a stranger, a rank stranger."
"Why, Aunt Patsey, I told him—"
"She told me a great deal about you, Mrs. Braxon," I put in, "but my memory is, you might say, not good."
"Oh, yes, and I suppose Giles Talcom told you all about me, too; told you that I was his favorite sister, didn't he? Well, it's all right. Miss Rodney, whatareyou giggling about?"
"Why, nothing at all, Mrs. Braxon," the young woman declared, growing pinker. The old lady looked at Elkin, and he started and slammed his knees together. I glanced at Mrs. Estell, and she hid her eyes from me, afraid to laugh.
"Where do you live?" I inquired of the old lady.
"Up in the Tennessee hills, and every time I come down in this low ground I want to get back. The laziest folks I ever saw in my life, and the niggers ain't worth their salt. And the way Giles pets that black preacher makes me sick, a-buying of his church bells to keep folks awake at night. I'd make him chop down them good-for-nothing trees out there and plant onions. That's what I'd do with him. Florence, where did Giles go?"
"Why, he sent word over to the plantation to have his hounds brought last night, but, somehow, the message wasn't delivered, and so he has gone after them himself. We want to start from here—"
"After the hounds? Start where?"
"Fox-hunting."
The old woman cleared her throat with an ach, ach. "Fox-hunting? Is it possible that he keeps up that foolishness? Chasing a fox, when there's so much to be done in this world? I read in a paper yesterday that a woman had starved to death in New Orleans, and here you all are, going to chase a fox."
"Why, Mrs. Braxon," the young man spoke up, "we can't help that. If we let the fox go it won't bring the woman back to life."
She looked at him and his knees flew together. "But you could be raising something for folks to eat."
"Yes, ma'am, but we raise more now than we can sell."
She looked at him with a bow and a smirk of contempt. "More than you can sell. Yes, of course. More than you can sell to a woman that's starving. Yes, of course."
"But nobody starves to death in Bolanyo, Aunt Patsey," Mrs. Estell remarked. "We take care of our poor; and it was a mere accident that the woman starved in New Orleans."
"Oh, you do? A mere accident. Of course. Are you going to chase a fox?" the old woman asked, with her eyes on Miss Rodney.
"I have been invited to go, and—"
"Of course. But, go on, and don't let anything I say prevent you. I staid at home, year in and year out, and never went anywhere, while my husband was a-galloping over the country, a-blowing of his horn and a-chasing of foxes; and folks in a town not more than twenty miles away were as hungry as they could be. But, after he died, I didn't stay at home, I tell you. I went out and looked for hungry folks, and I fed 'em, too. Talk to me about chasing a fox."
"Auntie," said Mrs. Estell, smiling upon the old lady, indeed, approaching her and bending with graceful tenderness over her chair, "you try to make people believe that you are hard to get along with, but you are the sweetest thing. She snaps and snarls to hide the tenderness of her heart, Mr. Belford."
"I do nothing of the sort. For goodness' sake, child, take your hands off me. Stop fussing with me. Go over there and sit down. A body would think that I'm so old that you are standing here ready to catch me when I start to fall over. Go along with you!"
Mrs. Estell, laughing, pressed her radiant cheek against the widow's whitening hair. "I like to have half tearful fun with you, Aunt Patsey," she said.
"Oh, you do. Well, get away and don't pretend that you think anything of me. I have no money to leave you."
Elkin laughed. The old woman looked at him and he clapped his knees together. "I—I—beg your pardon," he stammered.
"She's so delightful," said Miss Rodney, leaning toward me. "Quite a character for the stage, papa says. And when does your house open?"
"Not before October," I answered.
"And not until he can get a good company," said Mrs. Estell, standing in front of us. "I have enough interest in the house to demand that much. Oh, there comes father with the hounds and I'm not ready yet."
She ran away, and though the sun was in the window, the room was darker now, and a shadow seemed to lie where she had stood. We heard the Senator's horn and the impatient cry of the hounds.
"I'd rather hunt a bear than a fox," said the young man. "I went with a party of fellows down in the canebrake last fall and a bear killed four dogs. Just grabbed 'em up like this (hugging himself) and crushed 'em. Just broke their bones. Just grabbed 'em up this way and mashed 'em. Didn't look like it was any trouble at all. Just—just squeezed the life out of 'em. I had—I had a dog named Ring—great big dog—and he grabbed him up this way, the bear did, and old Ring just gave one howl and that was the end of it. Bear didn't appear to mind it. Just seemed like he was enjoying himself, but we hadn't agreed to keep him in all the dogs he wanted to kill, so we shot him."
"You did?" said the old lady, smirking at him. "Do tell. And you'd rather stand there and see him kill those poor dogs than to chase a fox."
"Oh, I—I don't mean that I like to see the dogs killed, Mrs. Braxon, I mean I—"
"Would rather see a bear with his arms full of poor dogs than to chase a fox. Yes, I know what you mean."
In came the Senator. He bowed to the ladies, cried "Ha!" to the young man and seized my hand as if a year had elapsed since we parted. "Belford, I've got a horse for you that can clear any fence in the State."
"With me on his back?" I asked.
"Yes, I hope so. You can try, you know, and if you can't keep your seat why you must fall as easily as you can. Sister Patsey, you look as bright as a dollar."
"Go on with your blarney, Giles. I've got no dollar to leave to you."
"And bless your life, I'm glad of it. But it's time we were going. Where's Florence?"
"Gone to get ready for your nonsense," Mrs. Braxon answered. "Oh, you men! Not half of you are worth your salt."
"No," said the Senator. "And if there comes a time when men are worth their salt and women are worth their pepper, humanity will be well seasoned, eh, Belford? But we must be making a move. Elkin, help Miss Rodney to mount, please."
"Yes, and I guess I've got to buckle my girth tighter," said the young man. "Come, Miss Minnie, and let me help you up."
Just as they passed out there came a slow step down the hall. "Why, it's Estell!" cried the Senator. "Why, hello, Tom, we didn't expect you for a week. And, Sir, here's your Aunt Patsey."
Estell was carrying a cane in his right hand and he stuck out one finger for me to shake. But when in the same manner he presumed to greet the old lady, she stormed at him: "Look here, Tom Estell, don't give me no one finger to shake. Andrew Jackson gave me his whole hand when I was a child, and I want no one finger now. That's like it," she added, as he put his cane under his arm and gave her his hand.
Mrs. Estell entered the room. "Why, you old surprise party," she cried. He stepped forward, but, catching sight of her riding habit, he halted.
"What does all this mean?" he asked.
"Why, we were going fox-hunting, dear."
"You—you going?"
"Why, yes. You have never objected."
"But I do now."
"Very well," she replied, beginning to pull at her gloves.
"Tom," cried the Senator, "what the devil—I mean the deuce—is the matter with you?"
And then Aunt Patsey broke out, jumping from her chair and shaking her finger at Estell: "You are trying to smother the God-given spirit of that child, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You hate to see her run—you want to see her dodder about like an old man. What earthly harm can there be in her going fox-hunting? Better men than you ever dared be have chased foxes and have let their wives go, too. Don't you dare say a word to me—don't you dare!"
Estell turned about and strode with sullen step to the foot of the stairs, the Senator passing him without saying a word. I was standing at the door, and I stepped aside to let Mrs. Estell pass, but she lingered in the parlor, as if to speak to her aunt, as if, in truth, she would put her arms about the old woman's neck; and I turned my back, to face the State Treasurer, standing at the foot of the stairs. Our eyes met, but he was silent, and I had nothing to say. Mrs. Estell came out into the hall, but returned almost instantly to the old woman, and Estell trod wearily to the upper floor. His wife came out, and she looked up with duty's self-conscious smile.
"May I speak a word?" I asked. "Just one?"
"Two," she answered.
"I promised to read my play to you."
"Yes; and you will—"
"Not keep my promise."
We were walking slowly toward the stairway, she slightly in advance. But now her feet were quick, until she reached the stair, and then she halted, turned to me, and said:
"Mr. Belford, any man can make a promise, but sometimes it requires agentlemanto break one."
I had no reply to make; I was the interloper. I bowed to her, and, snatching my hat from the halltree, I passed out upon the portico.
"Yes, I am mighty sorry," the Senator was saying to Elkin and Miss Rodney, who sat upon their horses at the gate—"sorry as I ever was in my life, but my horse stuck a nail in his foot and can hardly walk. Of course I could get another horse, but take Felix out of the chase and the whole thing falls flat. And my best hound is sick, too. Sometimes it does seem that everything stands in the way. But we'll have it, now, very soon. Get down, and stay to dinner. Ah, Belford, you going? Well, I'll see you in a day or two."
I dreaded the embarrassment of meeting the Senator again; and it was with a sense of nervousness that I looked from my office window, the next morning, to see him getting out of his buggy. He came briskly up the stairs, spoke heartily to someone whom he met on the landing, halted at my open door, and, hat in hand, made me a sweeping bow.
"Ha, early to work is the thing," he said, stepping into the room and glancing about. "More pictures of famous players, I see. Well, we'll have them strutting about our stage the first thing they know. How do you feel?" he asked, drawing up a chair and sitting down.
"First rate—too well, I might say. This air makes me content to sit and dream."
"Good; it is better to find contentment even in a dream than to snap our nerves in two with chasing what we might regard substantial happiness. Why, confound it all, Belford, there is no such thing as substantial happiness. Anything substantial is too material, too gross; and happiness is a certain spiritual condition of the mind. Therefore, I say, let the old South dream if she feels like it. There used to be an old fellow that lived about here—Mose Parish. Well, the time came for Mose to die; but he wasn't scared, not a bit of it. A preacher came to talk to him, and old Mose listened for a while, and then he said: 'Oh, no, I never did much of anything—never built a steamboat nor a house, but I've had a good deal of fun, and I hold that when a man is having fun he can't have it all alone; he's helping some other fellow.'"
We talked about hundreds of things, and touched occasionally upon our business venture, but nothing led to a subject which I felt, and which he seemed to feel, was too delicate to be mentioned. He gossiped of young Elkin's affection for Miss Rodney; he said that Elkin's love put him in mind of an ass with gilded ears. He spoke of the coming election and the surety with which he and Tom Estell would win; but when he took his leave he did not invite me to call at the house. I met him day after day, in the office, in the street, in the rotunda of the hotel; and he always greeted me with a warm and earnest cordiality, but at parting he would say, "I'll see you again soon;" and never that I should come to see him.
I walked a great deal, musing over my play, and more than once in rebellion my feet wandered from their usual path to tread the sacred and forbidden ground that lay in the neighborhood of the Senator's home. Near the close of day, I sometimes saw him sitting on the portico, with his chair tipped back, his feet against a classic pillar, smoking his pipe—a vandalic American indulging a national posture to the shame of a Grecian memory. Once I saw his daughter standing near him, where the fading sunlight fell, gazing afar off, shading her eyes with her hand. And she might have seen me had I not bent behind a bush; had I been less a thief.
One hot afternoon the Senator came into the office, fanning himself with his hat.
"No dreaming now, Belford," said he. "It's too hot even to doze. What's all that you've got spread out there?"
"Our play," I answered.
"Oh, yes. And, by George, there seems to be enough of it. Let me hear a chapter or two. Isn't in chapters, though, is it? Fire away and let me hear what it sounds like. You look like a commissioner of deeds, with all this stuff scattered about you. But go ahead."
"I'd rather wait, Senator, until it's completed. In fact, I'd rather you'd wait and see it played," I replied, remembering what he had said about elevating the stage and fearing that he might object to some of my characters.
"All right. But just now you saidourplay. What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that a half interest belongs to you."
"Why, Lord bless you, my boy, I don't want to rob you."
"And I don't intend that you shall rob yourself. You have given me the opportunity to do the work, you have—"
"Hold on, Belford. We are partners in this house. You are doing your share. Why, Sir, haven't you secured the Lamptons to play here a whole week during our county fair? And doesn't that newspaper notice they sent along say that they are the finest representation of dramatic talent now on the road? Haven't you signed a contract with Sanderson Hicks to give us the Lady of Lyons? And I want to tell you that a man who saw such opportunities and seized them by the forelock is doing his duty all right. Oh, it's no laughing matter, Sir."
"That's all very well, Senator, but you are to own half the play. I want you to look after the business end of it."
"All right, Sir; all right. Yes, it would be better to have some man take hold of that part of it—some man, you understand, who isn't afraid to insist upon his rights. And Belford," he added, putting his hand on my shoulder, "if I hadn't insisted on mine, they would have trampled me under foot long ago. Yes, Sir (stepping back and shaking his hat), long ago. Have you decided as to who shall have it?"
"Well, it's easy enough for me to decide. But the decision of the other party might not be so easy to get."
"Oh, there won't be any trouble about that. No, Sir; that is, if they want to put on a good play. We have something here, Sir (slapping his hand upon the manuscript), that ought to stir the dramatic world from center to circumference. Oh, you may smile, but it will, for I want to tell you that I have never been associated with a failure. And there's a good deal in that; as sure as you live there is. Luck begets luck, and failure suckles a failure. Yes, Sir. Have you made any overtures?"
"Not exactly. I wrote to Copeland Maffet and sent him a scenario—"
"A what?"
"An outline of the piece. And he writes that he will be in Memphis on the 17th of next month, and that he would like to hear the play."
"Of course he would. We knew that all the time. We'll hop on a boat and go up there. Good man, is he?"
"One of the best; he doesn't do things by halves."
"All right, Sir, he's our man, that is, if he's willing to pay for a good thing. Well, I believe I'll go on out home. It's cooler there. By the way, come out with me. There's no one on the place except Sister Patsey, and I'm lonesome. Come on, we'll ride out."
I was afraid to look at him; I was afraid to hesitate, to frame an excuse, and without saying a word I went down stairs with him and got into the buggy.
He did not drive directly to his home; he halted at several places—in front of a lawyer's office, a butcher's shop, to ask advice concerning his political contest, a shrewd way to flatter and stimulate a lax supporter. We drove to a wagonmaker's shop, off in the edge of the town, and when the workman had been fed with big words, we set out at a brisk trot, with a gang of boys behind us, shouting in a cloud of dust. Ahead I could see nothing but the sun-dazzled roadway, sloping down into the open country, but we turned a corner thick with cherry trees and the Senator's house leaped into view.
It seemed a long time since I had heard the click of the gate-latch; since I had stood upon the stone steps to breathe the cool, sweet air of the hall.
"I think the library is about the coolest place in the house," said the Senator. "Step in, and I'll see if I can find some fans. There are some on the table. Take that big palm leaf. Pardon me if I unbutton my collar. I'm as hot as a dog in August with a tin pan tied to his tail. But you appear to be cool enough."
"I didn't expect to hear you Southerners complain of the heat. I thought you could stand it."
"We do stand it, but we complain. I doubt whether an Anglo-Saxon can ever learn to like real hot weather. Oh, we prate about the sunny South and we like sunshine, but, by George, Sir, we hug the shade. Have you got a pretty good plot for your play?"
"Yes, I think so."
"We must have a good plot, you know; we must have everything turn out all right. Any fighting in it?"
"Well, there are several spirited scenes."
"That's good. But it strikes me that there ought to be some sort of a fight. One fellow ought to call another fellow a liar, or something of the sort. It would be a good thing for a fellow to snatch out his pistol and have it grabbed and turned against him, don't you see? That sort of a thing always catches the people."
"But you advocated the elevation of the stage, don't you remember?"
He got out of his chair, and walked up and down the room, with his collar unbuttoned, his broad, black cravat hanging loose.
"That's the point, Belford; that's the very point. To elevate the stage is to make it natural. Why, last season an actor ruined a play for this town by drawing a pistol with his left hand."
"But that was not so very unnatural," I replied. "He might have been left-handed. Many a left-handed man has had a fight."
He paused in his walk, to stand before me, and thoughtfully to balance himself alternately upon his heels and toes.
"But, Belford, that's not the point. Of course there may be a left-handed man in a fight, but nine chances to one a man is right-handed, and the stage must take the course that is the most probable. No, Sir, you don't want to shock a critical sense of fitness by having a man pull a pistol with his left hand. Such breaks always tend to wound a sensitive nature. Any man in your drama pull a pistol that way, Belford?"
"No, if a pistol is drawn at all it shall be in the accepted form."
"All right," he said, resuming his walk. "Any ragged girl talk like a clodhopper until she is insulted and then talk like a princess? Anybody say 'stronger?' No human being except a fool on the stage ever said 'stronger' for stranger. Any fat woman in short skirts trying to be a girl? Any tramp with more ability than an ancient philosopher? Any female detective that doesn't know she loves a suspected thief until she has had him put in jail? Got any of those things?"
"I'll take an oath that I have none of those tantalizing features, Senator."
"Then, Sir, it will be a go. Yes, Sir, the world can't stop it. Why, come in, Patsey. Remember Mr. Belford, don't you?"
I shook hands with the old lady, placed a chair for her and gave her my fan, and she rewarded me with an old-time courtesy.
"Gracious me," she said, "it's so hot down here that I wonder everybody doesn't take to the hills. I wouldn't live in this flat country."
"Why, Sister Patsey," the Senator spoke up, "Bolanyo is on a hill."
"A hill? Giles, you don't know what a real hill looks like, it's been so long since you saw one. Why, where I live you can sometimes look down on a cloud."
"Yes, and it's a good deal better to live above a cloud than to be under one, Sister Patsey."
"Now, what does he mean? One of his sly tricks, I'll be bound. I never come down here that everybody ain't up to tricks or running for office, but I do reckon they are one and the same thing. Sakes alive, and the laziest folks that ever moped on the face of the earth. And that good-for-nothing wretch that calls himself the Notorious Bugg, a-talking about his sons-in-law a-shaking all the time. He came here yesterday and wanted meat, the lazy whelp. Well, I would have given him scalding water, and a heap of it."
"But you didn't, Sister Patsey," the Senator spoke up. "You called him back and gave him a bag of sweet cakes."
"I did, eh? I sent them to the poor little children, and if he takes a bite of one of them cakes I hope it will choke him to death. He says he doesn't want to go to the hills and catch a new-fangled disease. Why, plague take his picture, I've lived in the hills all my life. If he comes again while I'm on the place I'll scald him. I'll do it, Giles, as sure as he comes, and you'd better tell him to stay away."
"If he comes again, Sister Patsey, you'll give him hot cakes instead of hot water."
"Did you hear that, Mr. Belford?Didyou hear that?" the old lady snapped. "Ah, ah, I do think, Giles, you are the most aggravating man I ever saw, except your brother, and he almost worried the life out of me."
"But he is dead, Sister Patsey, and you are still enjoying pretty fair health. Yes, he went first."
The Senator glanced at me with a wink; the old lady caught his twinkle of mischief, and, throwing back her head, she laughed until the tears ran out of her eyes.
"Belford," said the Senator, "the evening breeze has sprung up. Suppose we sit out on the portico. And, by the way, I've got some tobacco raised from Havana seed. I'll get it."
"Bring me a pipe, too, Giles," the old lady called after him. "I'm not going to be left out, and you needn't think it, either."
When the Senator had strode off down the hall, she turned to me with a quick eagerness and said: "He is almost dying to apologize to you for Tom Estell's behavior, and he doesn't know how to get at it. I never saw a man so cut up. And he thought he could get at it better out here, but by the way he fidgets about I know he hasn't. Now, there, don't you say a word, Sir, but let me talk. I don't know what's the matter with Estell, I really don't. Now, what earthly harm could there have been in her going fox-hunting, and her father along, too? No, I don't understand him. Why, he must think that a woman is a fool to be willing to stay at home all the time just because he's old."
"Why did she marry him?" I could not help but ask.
She snapped her eyes and cleared her throat. "Ah, Lord, it distressed me nearly to death. Why did she, indeed? Giles was the cause of it. He picked out a nice old gentleman for his daughter's husband—a man of high family, a good politician. She cried over it, with her head in my lap, but Giles didn't see a tear, and she wouldn't let me say a word to him. And, to tell the truth, I didn't think it was so very bad; and itwasn'tuntil he got to be so cranky. She always was a peculiar child; and I reckon after all she made up her mind that she might as well marry one man as another, so far as love was concerned. But just look at me, a-sitting up here and telling of things that I oughtn't to say a word about. Here he comes. Giles, did you bring my pipe? Well, it's a good thing you did, Sir."
Out in the breeze that came stirring through the magnolia garden we sat and smoked, the Senator with his chair tipped back and his feet high up against a fluted column. We talked in pleasant and almost confidential freedom, of many a home interest, both solemn and humorous, but the name of the young woman lay under a silence that no one dared to disturb. When I arose to take my leave they urged me to stay to supper, but my heart had grown heavy with the approach of night, and, with a lie in self-defense, I pleaded an engagement in the town.