He caught sight of the waiting Maria.
"He caught sight of the waiting Maria."
The attendants faced him toward the door, and he started slowly away; but before he had taken half a dozen steps he caught sight of the waiting Maria. His face changed. Once more he turned to the interpreter and muttered something hoarsely beneath his breath.
"He says," translated the interpreter, turning to the court, "that he would like to have his pistol."
Five feet high, in a suit of clothes three sizes too large for him, he stood in the doorway of my office impassively examining a card which he held in his hand and looking doubtfully about the room.
"I want to see the assistant district attorney," he said.
"Well, this is the right place," I answered in as encouraging a tone as I could assume.
"I want to see you—to speak with you. That lawyer company——"
"Oh, the Legal Aid? What do you want to see me about?"
"The little feller," he replied, taking a step forward and grasping his flat Derby hat firmly before him with both hands.
"What's the trouble?"
"It's the little feller—Isaac—they have arrested him for larceny." He spoke the words in a matter-of-fact—rather hopeful—altogether engaging manner.
"Larceny, eh! How old is he?"
"Eight. But he didn't do nothin'. He was out with some bad boys, but he didn't do nothin' and the cop arrested him with the others. That's all. I came down to get him off, if I could." He smiled frankly.
"What's your name?" I inquired, for ingenuousness of that sort is uncommon among the Jews.
"Abraham Aselovitch—my father is Isidore and my mother she is Rachael Aselovitch."
"And this little fellow—is he your brother?"
"Sure."
"When does his case come up?"
"Next Monday in the Children's Court." He shifted his position.
"Well, even if he is found guilty they will probably only send him to the Juvenile Asylum."
"That's it—Juvenile Asylum. It's a bad place. I don't want him to go there," replied the boy with determination.
"Why not, Abraham?" I inquired.
"It is a bad place. He will meet bad boys there—like the ones that got him into trouble," he responded with an eager look.
"It's not such a bad place," I ventured.
"I know what it is!" he retorted fiercely. "They make criminals there. Good boys are put in with the bad. It makes no difference. One makes the other bad. Isaac is agoodboy."
"How about the evidence?"
"I think they will convict him," remarked Abraham conclusively. "Those cops will swear to anything."
"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," I answered with a smile. "Still, I'm afraid I can't get him off, particularly if the evidence would warrant his conviction. After all, perhaps the Juvenile is the best place for him, or maybe" (the thought struck me) "they will parole him in the custody of his mother."
"No, they won't!" he cried with harsh vindictiveness. "Shewantshim to go there. The little feller, he makes too much trouble for her. She don't want that she should have to clean up after him. She don't want to have to cook for him." His eyes filled. "My mother, she has no use for the little feller—but he's all I've got."
"Do you work?"
"Sure, every morning I go with my father at six o'clock, and I work all day until seven. Then I come home, and the little feller is lying in my bed and I put my arms around him and go to sleep."
"Six until seven!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, that is the time my father works, and I work for him—on the pants."
"My God! A sweatshop!" I murmured. "Don't you ever have any fun?"
"Sure I do. Saturdays we don't do no work an' I take the little feller down to Coney, an' sit on the sand all day with him. Do we have fun? Well, say, I guess!"
"What does your father give you a week?"
"Sometimes a dollar. Sometimes a dollar and a half. Sometimes nothin'."
"What does your father say about putting Isaac in the asylum?"
"My father!" answered Abraham, his eyes flashing. "Hedon't want him. Isaac won't work. He's anAmericanboy. He's only eight. He just hangs around the house and musses things up and won't do nothin' they tell him. My father would be glad to get rid of him."
"Well, if he makes all this trouble, why do you want to keep him?" I asked.
"Because I love him!" responded Abraham with a sob. "He's all I've got—that little feller. I want himto grow up a good boy. If they don't want to take care of him,I will. I'll earn the money. I'll send him to school, maybe, by and by, and make alawyerof him." Abraham spoke eagerly. "The old folks, my father and mother, they ain't like me and you, they ain't real Americans, they don't understand these things. All they think about is work and the synagogue. I'm up against it, I know. I've got to work. But the little feller—I want that little feller to come out on top and have a chance."
"McCarthy," said I to the county detective assigned to the office, "kindly step into the next room. I want to speak to this boy alone.
"Abraham, you are up against it, I guess. Don't you think you can go without the little feller for a year? I'll do what I can, but even if he goes up they won't keep him longer than that at the asylum, and probably when he comes out he'll be more of a help to your father and mother."
The big tears stood in his eyes and he twisted his hands together as he answered:
"I guess—maybe—maybe, I could give up going down to Coney for a year, if it was going to do him any good. Don't you think the asylum's so bad?"
"No, indeed," said I. "It's fine. He can learn to play in the band. He'll have a good time. Let him go."
For an instant I thought my words had made an impression. Then the two tears welled over.
"You don't know—" the voice was low and passionate—"you don't know what it is to have nothin' but a little feller like that. And way off there—he would wake up in the night maybe—all alone—a little feller——"
"Abraham!" I exclaimed, "the Juvenile be hanged! I'll see the judge and do my best to have the little fellowremanded in the custody of his brother. And Abraham——"
"Yes, sir."
"Where is the little feller? Out on bail?"
"Yessir."
I fumbled in my pocket for a dollar bill.
"Will you be paid for to-day?" I asked.
"No, there's nothin' doin' to-day," he answered.
"Had any work this week?"
"Nothin' much this week. There ain't much doin' at the shop. I won't get paid this week."
"Well," I continued, "the little feller is free till Monday, anyhow. Take him down to Coney to-morrow. And see here, Abraham, justspendthat dollar. Be a good sport." He grinned. "Take the little feller along and sit on the sand, and if there is anything you want to see, no matter if it costs five cents or ten cents, you go in and see it. Have a real good time. Something for the little fellow to remember."
He smiled out of his eyes a heaven-born smile.
"Thank you."
"Never mind that, just do as I say. And Monday you go to court with him. I'll see what I can do."
"You bet I will. I'll take the little feller down there to-morrow. You ought to see him, Mister. Some time I'll bring him in here."
He shook hands and turned to open the door. As it closed behind him, there echoed faintly through the transom:
"Just wait till you see that little feller!"
"For the good and the great, in their beautiful prime,Through thy precincts have musingly trod—"
"For the good and the great, in their beautiful prime,Through thy precincts have musingly trod—"
The roll of the national anthem died away and the veterans stood with bowed heads while the chaplain pronounced the benediction. Then the color bearer elevated the regimental flags, the drums tapped, and the gray-haired soldier boys, in straggling twos, marched slowly out of Saunders's Theater, through the flower-bedecked transept, and into the broad sunshine of Memorial Day. Ralph and I lingered in our seats until the crowd had thinned. In the flag-draped balcony above the platform the members of the band were hurriedly departing with their impedimenta; here and there little old ladies dressed in gray, were making their way with tardy steps toward the side exit; while all around the theater the open windows poured in a battery of mote-filled sunshine upon the deserted benches. The air was heavy with the soft fragrance of the elms outside, the faint odor of starched linen, of pine dust, and of flowers.
"There's a pair for you!" whispered Ralph, as an erect old gentleman accompanied by a white-haired negro came up the aisle. "I wish I knew who they were." He offered to wager large sums, based upon his alleged capacity for divination, that they were an "old grad,"a Southerner, probably, and his body servant—"Old Marse" and "Uncle Ned." He instantly saw visions of them as characters in a story he was writing for one of the college papers. He is an imaginative boy.
We followed them out into the transept, and waited in the jog by the entrance while they made the round of the tablets, the white man reading the various inscriptions to his companion, who now and then would nod as if in recollection, and once furtively wiped his eyes with a frayed red-bordered silk handkerchief. The last we saw of them, they were picking their way across the car tracks of Cambridge Street in the direction of the Yard.
All the long spring afternoon, as we lay on the grass with our backs against the tree trunks, pretending to study, but really only watching the little gray denizens of the Yard intent upon their squirrel business, Ralph was making up stories about "Old Marse" and "Uncle Ned." I don't believe the chap read a line of his Stubbs on "Mediæval Architecture," and he was very loath to join me when I dragged him to his feet and said that it was time for supper.
Darkness had fallen when, two hours later, we joined the group of men gathered under the elms around the main entrance of Holworthy, where the Glee Club had assembled for one of its evening concerts. Everywhere the old buildings gleamed with light, for the examinations were on, and each window had its cluster of coatless occupants, who from time to time vociferously participated in mournful, lingering calls for "M-o-r-e." The odor of pipe smoke mingled with the sweet, humid breath of the grass and the subtle perfume of professors' gardens from distant Quincy Street; in the western sky a crescent moon, just peeping from behind the tower of Massachusetts Hall, shyly nestled in the tree tops; while between the great elms we could look, as we lay flat upon our backs, into an infinity of faintly twinkling worlds. Between songs you could hear the creaking of the pump in front of Hollis Hall, and the tinkle of the cup upon its chain as it was tossed heedlessly away by the thirsty wayfarer after he had availed himself of its humble services. Ralph and I, joyously entangled in the anatomy of a dozen classmates, drank in with rapture the never cloying melodies of "Johnnie Harvard," "The Miller's Daughter," "The Independent Cadets," and "A Health to King Charles," none of which old favorites escaped without a second rendition, and it was well on to nine o'clock when with a last
Here's a health to King Charles,Fill him upto the brim!
Here's a health to King Charles,Fill him upto the brim!
the assemblage broke up, in spite of savage disapproval from the windows.
Then only did we surrender to our miserable apprehension of the imminent, deadly "exam." in Fine Arts 4, and with the earnestly avowed purpose of really mastering the difference between a gargoyle and a lintel before we retired to rest, reluctantly mounted the stone steps recently vacated by our musical brethren. Our room was Number 10, the first as you go in on the right, and the flickering gaslight in the hall showed that the door, in accordance with inviolable custom, was still ajar.
"Wait a second while I light the lamp," I remarked to Ralph, and, feeling my way across the room to my desk, stood there fumbling for the matches. As I did so I was startled to hear a voice from the darkness in the direction of the fireplace.
"I beg your pardon," it said. "I'm afraid I have usurped your room, but the door was open and its invitation was too attractive to be refused."
The match flared up and I saw before me Ralph's "Old Marse."
"Oh—of course—certainly," I replied. He had arisen from the armchair in which evidently he had been listening to the singing. Then the wick caught, and by the increased light I saw that the man before me looked older than he had in the morning. His hair was almost white, and his face about the eyes finely wrinkled, but its expression was full of kindly humor, and I felt somehow that this stranger quite belonged there, and that it was I who was the intruder.
"You see," he continued with a smile, "I feel that I have a certain right to be here. This used to be my room. Let me introduce myself. Curtis is my name—Curtis, '64."
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Curtis," said I. "I'm Jarvis, 190—. Was this really your room? That seems an awfully long time ago."
He smiled again.
"I'm afraid it seems longer ago to you than to me. Would you mind if I should smoke a cigar with you? I'd like to ask you some things about the old building."
"Please do," said I. "And let me introduce my roommate, Ralph Hughes."
Ralph shook hands with Mr. Curtis, and we all sat down around the fireplace. It seemed rather inhospitable not to be able to offer him any refreshments, but there was only one bottle of beer in thepapier-machéfire pail in my bedroom, and it was warm at that. Hence we accepted our guest's cigars with some diffidence andawaited his first interrogation. I could see that Ralph was brimming over with eagerness to ask about "Uncle Ned" and a hundred other things which that romantic ostrich of a boy had invented during the afternoon, and I felt quite sure that before Mr. Curtis got away he would be obliged to pay heavily for the temerity of his visit by being offered up upon the altar as a sacrifice to Ralph's bump of acquisitiveness.
"Yes," said Mr. Curtis, "this was my room for four years. If you look over on the windowpane I think you'll find my name scratched on the glass in the lower left-hand corner. I wonder if that old picture of the Belvoir Fox Hunt, that I left, is still here?"
"Oh, was that yours?" exclaimed Ralph. He darted into the bedroom and unhooked a framed lithograph which had been the joy and pride of the occupants of the room for the past four decades. Mr. Curtis turned it round and pointed to his name in faded ink upon the back at the head of a long line of indorsements, each of which represented a temporary possessor.
"The old room seems about the same. The wall-paper has been changed, but that big crack over by the bedroom I remember well. And there ought to be a bullet hole in the frame of the door."
"A bullet hole!" exclaimed Ralph and I in unison.
"Yes," said Mr. Curtis quietly, "a bullet hole—a thirty-two caliber, I should judge."
Ralph seized the lamp and, holding it high above his head, carefully scrutinized the woodwork of the door.
"There it is!" he cried eagerly. "Right in the middle; and, by George, there's the bullet, too! There's a story about that, I bet—isn't there? Who fired it? How did it get there?"
He replaced the lamp, quivering with interest.
"A story if you like," responded Mr. Curtis, looking curiously out of his laughing brown eyes at my impetuous roommate. "Yes, quite a little story. I could hardly tell you about it unless I told you also something of the man who fired the shot. Did you ever hear of Randolph? Randolph, '64?"
The blank look which came into our faces rendered answer unnecessary.
"Never heard of Randolph, '64!Sic fama est!I suppose some Jones or Smith or Robinson now holds his place. Outside of Prex himself, there wasn't a better-known figure in my time. Why, he occupied this very room. He was my roommate."
"Did he, though!" ejaculated Ralph. "How did he come to be firing a pistol around? Didn't he fall foul of the Yard policeman?"
"There were no Yard policemen in those days," said Mr. Curtis.
"What luck!" ejaculated Ralph. "Do tell us about Randolph!" he pleaded in the same breath.
"Certainly. If you really wish it. I trust you fellows haven't any examinations to-morrow."
"Examinations be hanged!" exclaimed Ralph.
"Well," began Mr. Curtis meditatively, "I remember as if it were only yesterday being awakened one bright September morning in '60 by the sound of a rich negro voice singing in time to the scuff-scuff of the blacking of a pair of shoes. The sound entered the open window through which the autumn sun was already pouring, and penetrated the stillness of my bedroom, over there. I sprang out of bed and, thrusting my head out of the window, beheld, seated comfortably upon the topmost step, acomically visaged darky, clad in a pair of brown overalls and battered felt hat, busily engaged in putting the finishing touches to a highly polished pair of russet riding boots. Piled indiscriminately upon the sidewalk, in front of the windows of the room opposite, lay several huge trunks, while at the foot of the steps reposed a long wicker basket, before which were ranged in order of height an astonishing collection of riding boots and shoes of all varieties, upon which the disturber of my dreams had evidently been hard at work, since they shone with a luster glorious to behold. The negro, having critically examined the boot upon his arm, and evidently satisfied with its condition, arose to place it by the side of its mate, and in so doing caught sight of me. Instantly he had doffed his old gray hat and was making a grave salutation.
"'Good mornin', suh.'
"For a moment this vision of darky courtesy deprived me of my ordinary self-possession. Then his grin became contagious.
"'I heard you singing and thought I'd look out to see who it was. Do you know who those trunks belong to?'
"'Dose? Why, dose is Marse Dick's. Oh, p'r'aps you ain't met Marse Dick—Marse Dick Randolph, ob Randolph Hall, Virginny, suh.' He drew himself up with conscious pride. 'We-uns jes' come las' night. Marse Dick's rooms is in dar'—nodding toward the window—'en I wuz jes' a-lookin' ober some ob his traps. Anyt'ing I kin do fo' you, suh? Glad to be of any service, suh. I'se Marse Dick's boy—Moses—Moses March, suh.'
"'Well, Moses,' I answered, 'I'm glad to make your acquaintance. You can tell Mr. Randolph that if he is going to be a neighbor of mine I shall call upon him at the earliest opportunity.'
"'Yah, suh. T'ank you, suh,' responded Moses.
"Just then the old bell on Harvard Hall began to clamor for the morning chapel service, and realizing that the master of my new acquaintance might be unfamiliar with college regulations, I called out:
"'You'd better wake Mr. Randolph or he'll be late for chapel.'
"'Call Marse Dick!' exclaimed the darky in apparent horror. 'Golly, I darsn't call Marse Dick 'fo' ten o'clock. Why, he'd skin me alive. 'Sides, he tole me to bring roun' Azam 'bout ten o'clock.'
"'Azam?' I queried.
"'Yah, suh; Azam's Marse Dick's hunter. Bes' Kentucky blood, suh. Sired by ole Marse's stallion Satan, out o' White Clover. Dar's a hunter fo' you, suh. You jes' ought ter see Marse Dick a-follerin' de hounds. 'Scuse me, suh, fo' keepin' you a-waitin'. No, suh, t'ank you, suh; I won't forgit de card, suh.'
"Hastily retiring to my bedroom I threw on my clothes and then hurried off to chapel. The shades of Number 9, the room across the hall, were still tightly drawn."
Mr. Curtis stopped and relit his cigar. The yellow sash curtains on their sagging wires softly bellied in the night breeze, and through the open windows came the distant chanting of the Institute march and the tinkle of the pump.
"This very room!" repeated the old gentleman half to himself. "And this very window!" His voice sank dreamily and he seemed for the moment to have forgotten our presence. "Those were happy times. As I look back over the forty years, the time I spent here seems one long vista of glorious autumn days. The same oldred-brick buildings; the same green velvet sward; that old tolling bell; the gravel walks; the pump—I remember there always used to be a damp place about ten feet square about the pump; the old creaking stairs outside this very door; the quiet evenings on the steps where those jolly chaps were singing; the long talks before this very fireplace under the lamplight with Dick; and then that fatal rupture with the South! How little it means to you! Why, it is isn't even a dream. It's just tradition. I suppose you feel it—you can't help feeling it. But if you had sat here, as I did, with the fellows going away, and the company drilling on the Delta over there—what do you call it now: the Delta?—and had shared the feverish enthusiasm which we all felt, tempered by the sorrow of losing our comrades; the little scenes when they went off one by one, and we gave each fellow a sword or some knickknack to carry with him; and the long, sad, anxious days when you waited breathless for news—and then, when it came, often as not, had felt a pang at your heartstrings because some fellow that you loved had got it at Bull Run, or Antietam, or Cold Harbor! No, you can never know what that meant, and thank God you can't. The rest is about the same. I see you have squirrels in the Yard now. We never had any squirrels. I suppose you sit in these windows and watch 'em by the hour. Busier than you, I guess.
"But apart from the squirrels and the new buildings, the old place is about the same—bigger, more imposing, of course, with its modern equipment of museums and laboratories and all that, and best of all that splendid monument with its transept full of memories. But it's not the same to me. It's only when I turn toward the corner by Hollis and Stoughton, as I did this afternoon,with Holden Chapel just peeping in between, and the big elms swinging overhead, and, shutting my ears to the rattle of the electric cars, listen to the sound of the same old clanging bell, with the sun gilding the tree trunks and slanting along the gravel pathways, that I can call back those dear old days. Then, it seems as if I were back in '61."
In the pause which followed Ralph volunteered that we all did feel somewhat of the same thing, only in a minor degree. He had often imagined the fellows going off to the war and had wondered if it was anything like what he supposed. He pattered on in his own peculiar way trying to put our guest at ease and, as he expressed it later, to cheer him up. It would never have done, he averred later in his own defense, to let "Old Marse" get groggy over the "sunlit elms." However, Mr. Curtis changed the tone himself.
"And now to come to that first time that I ever saw Randolph. I had just come from tea and was sauntering along the Yard in front of Stoughton when I became conscious that my customary place upon the steps, out there, had been usurped. The trunks and paraphernalia of the morning had disappeared, and although Moses was absent, I knew somehow that this could be no other than 'Marse Dick.' He was tall, with muscular back and shoulders, and his clothes of dark-blue serge hung on him as if they had grown there. His feet were encased in long-toed vermilion morocco slippers, and the other elements of his costume which caught my eye were a yellow corduroy waistcoat, very faddish for those days, and a flowing red cravat. A broad-brimmed black slouch hat was well pulled down over his eyes, while from beneath protruded a long brierwood pipefrom which voluminous clouds of smoke rolled forth upon the evening air without causing any annoyance, so it seemed, to an enormous mastiff, who sat contentedly between his master's knees, blinking his eyes and thumping his tail in response to the caresses of the hand upon his head. As I drew near the dog stalked over to meet me, sniffing good-naturedly, and the stranger stepped down, removed his hat, and held out his hand with a smile of greeting.
"'Mr. Curtis, I believe, suh?' he said in a low but agreeable drawl. 'My boy Moses gave me the card you were kind enough to send by him this morning. We are neighbors, are we not?'
"I had rather expected to see the face of a dandy, but instead a pair of black eyes under almost beetling black brows burned steadily into mine. He looked nearer thirty than twenty, and this appearance of maturity was heightened by a tiny goatee. His smile was straightforward and honest, the forehead, under the curly black locks, low and broad, the nose aquiline and the skin dark and ruddy. Yes, he was a very pretty figure of a man—as handsome a lad as one would care to meet on a summer's day—part pirate, part Spanish grandee, part student, and every inch a gentleman. Later there were plenty of fellows who said that no man could dress like that (we were all soberly arrayed in those days) and be a gentleman; or that no one could come flaunting his horses and dogs and niggers into Cambridge, as Randolph undoubtedly did, and be one; or could parade around the Yard smoking real cigars and keep dueling pistols on his mantel and rum under the bed, as Dick did, and be one. But he was, boys, he was!
"Perhaps he did talk too much about his niggers andhis acres; too much about his old mansion and its flower gardens, about stables, fox-hunting and fiddlers—what of it? The point was that we were a lot of soul-starved, psalm-singing Yankees, talking through our noses and counting our pennies; while Randolph was a warm-hearted, hot-headed, fire-eating, cursing Virginian.
"We shook hands and I joined him on the steps. It was just such a night as this—calm and sweet, the stars peeping through the boughs, and the windows shining. And that's how I like to think of him.
"He'd never been away from home before except to go to Paris. He talked like a feudal baron, seeming to think that life was just one long holiday; that no one had to earn a living; that things in general were constructed by an amiable Deity solely for our delectation; and there was in his attitude a recklessness and disregard for established usages that left me totally at a loss. Imagine a fellow like myself taught to regard card playing, the theater, and dancing as mortal sins, with a father who believed in infant damnation and predestination; a fellow brought up to gaze in silent admiration at Charles Sumner; and who was allowed a silver half-dollar a week pocket money—imagine me, I say, sitting out there with this free-thinking, free-hating, free-handed slave owner! Why, I loved him with my whole heart inside of five minutes. God bless my soul, how my father used to frown when they told him about my new friend's latest escapade! But with all his freedom of ideas he was as simple as a child. I don't believe the fellow ever had a mean or an impure thought. I believe that as I believe in God.
"Well, I told him about my life—what there was to tell—and he told me about his; how his father had died threeyears before, leaving him the owner of very large estates and a great many hundred slaves—I forget how many. His mother was still living down on the plantation. They were Roman Catholics—'Papists,' my father called them. The doctrines of the Church, however, didn't seem to bother him at all, that I could see. His father had evidently been the big man of the county, and had shared all his sports and studies, cramming him with the most extraordinary amount of miscellaneous reading and curious Chesterfieldian ideas of honor and manners.
"I can remember, now, just how he described the old place to me, sitting out there on the steps. He thought it the finest home in all the land. Perhaps it was. I never had the heart to go there afterwards. One thing I remember was a grand old garden laid out in terraces, the walks bordered by box two hundred years old and as high as your head, where little red and green snakes curled up and sunned themselves—a garden full of old-fashioned flowers and fountains and sundials, and a water garden, too, with lilies of every sort; and there was a family graveyard right on the place where they had all been buried—where his father had been—with a ghost—a female ghost—named Shirley, I recall that, who flitted among the trees on misty mornings. Oh, it was a great picture! I'll never see that old place. Perhaps it's just as well. It couldn't have been as beautiful as he painted it. You see I'd been born in a twenty-one-foot red-brick house on Beacon Hill.
"Then as we were sitting there on the steps, I broad awake but in fairyland, out from under the trees shuffled Moses's quaint, crooked figure. Wanted to know if eb'ryt'ing was all right with young Marse. Azam andBhurtpore was fixed first-class, suh. An' he'd done got a little cubby-hole down in the stable to sleep in. Wuz dere any orders to-night, suh? An' what time should he bring Azam roun' in de mornin'?
"'Go 'long with Moses, Jim,' said Randolph. The dog obediently arose, stretched himself, and descended the steps.
"'Good night, Marse Dick,' said Moses.
"'Good night, Moses,' replied Dick. And the two, the darky and the dog, disappeared under the shadow of the elms."
Mr. Curtis knocked the ash from his extinct cigar and relit it at the top of the lamp chimney.
"I should just like to have seen him," remarked Ralph enthusiastically. "And to think that he really lived in this room. How did that happen? And which bedroom did he have?"
"The one on the left, nearest the door," replied Mr. Curtis.
Over in Stoughton some fool was strumming a banjo, singing "I'm a soldier now, Lizette"—rottenly. And some one else, of the same mind as myself apparently, leaned out of the window in the room above us and holloed:
"Oh, quit that! Try being a freshman a while! Lizette won't care."
Evidently the singer decided to follow the advice thus gratuitously given, for the banjo ceased. Then came one of those long silences when you felt instinctively that in a moment something might happen to spoil the excellent opportunity of it, throw us off the key as it were, or break its placid surface like an inconsequent pebble. But Ralph, in a singularly moderate tone, as if leading thetheme gently that it might not become startled and break away, continued:
"You said something about dueling pistols, you know."
Mr. Curtis looked at him with that same quizzical smile which my roommate had called forth before.
"That's it. All you want is gunpowder, treason, and plot. My feeble attempt at character sketching has been a failure. Well, now to your dessert."
"You are entirely wrong," said Ralph, rather mortified. "Randolph must have been a perfect corker. I wish we had some chaps like that in 19—. But the Southerners nowadays all seem to go to Chapel Hill, or William and Mary, or Tulane, or some of those God-forsaken places where I don't believe they even have a ball nine. Only, naturally, I wanted to make sure of the bullet hole. You see," he added cunningly, "that bullet hole is the thing that links us together. That's how we'll know when you've gone that it wasn't all a dream."
Mr. Curtis laughed outright.
"You're a funny boy," said he. "Well, two or three days later I asked Randolph to room with me. The matter was easily adjusted, and Moses spent nearly a week in fixing up this den here with what he called 'Marse Dick's contraptions.' Save the old picture there, there's not a thing in the place that suggests the room as it looked then. From extreme meagerness, if not poverty, of furniture it sprang into opulence—almost ornately magnificent it seemed to me with my conservative New England tastes and still more conservative New England pocketbook. I remember a silver-mounted revolver was always lying on one end of the mantelpiece, while in the center was a rosewood case of pistols, curious affairs,with long octagonal barrels, and stocks inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver.
"Randolph soon became a celebrity. He could no more avoid being the most conspicuous figure in Cambridge than he could help addressing his acquaintances as 'suh.' And in spite of his natural reserve, a quality which was curiously combined with entire ease in conversation, he soon acquired a large acquaintance and rather a following.
"Needless to say, I became his almost inseparable companion. Dick's second hunter, Bhurtpore, had been placed entirely at my service, and scarce a day passed that autumn without our scouring the country roads for miles around, followed by three or four of the hounds. Jim, the mastiff, while we were absent on these excursions, spent his time lying beneath the ebony table in 10 Holworthy awaiting our return.
"Randolph tried unsuccessfully to organize a hunt. It soon appeared that Azam and Bhurtpore were the only hunters in Cambridge, and polo had not yet been introduced into this country. Frequently we would take a circle of twenty miles in the course of an afternoon, galloping up quiet old Brattle Street, out around Fresh Pond, until we struck the Concord turnpike, which we followed over Belmont Hill, down past an old yellow farmhouse with blue blinds, at the juncture of the highway to Lexington and what we called the 'Willow Road,' and then under the overarching boughs, through soggy fields full of bright clumps of alders, until the fading light of the afternoon warned us that it was time to turn our horses' heads in the direction of Cambridge."
"We have a Polo Club," said Ralph, "but we haven't any horses."
"Well, now, to get down to your bullet hole," continued Mr. Curtis. "Hazing, of course, was an ordinary affair, and it was not uncommon to see a pitched battle of fisticuffs going on behind some college building.
"Now, mind you, the hazing was not done by the best men, but by the worst, and it was always the tougher elements in the sophomore class that availed themselves of this method of showing that they were feeling their oats. Every one of us looked forward, sooner or later, to getting his dose, and any freshman who smoked cigars and kept a nigger might have expected it as a matter of course. But Dick was a chap that did just as he pleased, and did it with such a confounded air—the 'bel air,' you know—that you'd have thought we were all a parcel of cavaliers walking in a palace garden. I don't blame them for feeling that he ought to be taken down a peg, when you take everything into consideration.
"For example, imagine his kissing old Mrs. Podridge's hand at a faculty tea! Of course the antiquated thing liked it, but it was so conspicuous. And worse than all, inviting Prex into his room to have a cigar and a glass of Madeira! Think of that! The queer part of it was that Prex nearly accepted the invitation.
"'Why not?' said Dick, in answer to my expostulation. 'Do you mean that in the North one gentleman cannot, without criticism, extend to another the hospitality of his own room?'
"It was all in the point of view. What could you say?
"Some carping fellows spread a canard that Randolph was trying to introduce slavery into Cambridge. Dick did not even notice it sufficiently to direct Moses to display his manumission papers. Of course there wasa deal of talking about him, mostly good-natured chaff, and had it not been for Watkins I doubt if anything would have happened. This person was an ill-conditioned, dissatisfied fellow who had come from a small town in Rhode Island with a considerable amount of the initial velocity arising out of local prestige, which, wearing off, left him in a miserable state of doubt as to what to do to rehabilitate himself in the garments of distinction. As you would say, he 'had it in' for Randolph for no reason in the world. Dick was just too good-looking, too prosperous, too independent—that was all. He had an idea, I suppose, that if he could knock the statue off its pedestal he might perhaps occupy the vacant situation.
"One evening I inquired carelessly of Randolph what he should do if the sophomores tried to haze him. He replied, nonchalantly, that he should exercise the sacred right of self-defense as circumstances might require. If anyone tried to interfere with him he must take the consequences. In certain situations the only thing to do was to shoot your aggressor. I looked up to see if he were joking, but his face was entirely serious.
"Another chap who was sitting there laughed and slapped his knee. I can see now that it was just this kind of thing that gave Randolph's enemies some color for saying that he was a sort of crazy fool. Perhaps I was playing Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote, after all.
"Presently a lot of other fellows joined us, and by the time Moses appeared we had disposed of a couple of bottles of old Port, from under Dick's bed, and were loudly declaiming our loyalty to the Old Dominion and consigning the class of '63 to eternal torment. In themidst of the uproar some one grabbed Moses and shoved him upon the steps, shouting 'Speech! Speech!' What put the idea into his head I can't imagine—probably antislavery speeches in the square which he had overheard.
"'Gem'men,' he began, 'I'se not 'customed ter makin' speeches outa meetin', 'specially ter gem'men like you-all, but I'se got suthin' I'se been a-studyin' ober an' what's a-worryin' me, what I'd like ter say. It's des' 'bout Marse Dick. I des' come from down de street whar I done hear some gem'men a-speechifyin' 'bout him an' me. Dey says' (his voice rose indignantly) 'dat Marse Dick didn't hab no business fo' ter hab me here. Dat he didn't hab no right ter hab me work fo' him nohow, or Old Marse; an' dey calls Marse Dick some mighty mean names. Now I des' 'ud like ter know ef I ain't Marse Dick's boy an' why he ain't got no right fo' ter hab me work fo' him. Didn't I work fo' Old Marse 'fo' he died, an' didn' my ole man work fo' him, an' ain't I allus been a-workin' fo' Ole Miss and Missy Dorothy? Him an' me's been bred up togedder; I'se been a-totin' with him eber since he wuz born, ain't I, Marse Dick?'
"He paused amid a dead silence. None of us spoke. I looked at Randolph and saw that he was gripping his pipe hard between his teeth.
"'Well, gem'men, I doesn't want leab Marse Dick, ef I is a free nigger, an' I doesn't want you ter let 'em tek me away from him, cuz he got no one else ter look out fo' him, an' Azam an' Bur'pore an' de dogs, an' Ole Miss say when I lef' de Hall how I was neber to leab Marse Dick—nohow. An', gem'men, you won't let 'em, will yer?'
"He waited for our assurance. Oh, the constraint ofgenerations of New England character! It was so difficult for us to say what we felt. Dick was staring out under the trees with glistening eyes. Some fellow made a few halting remarks and said we'd stick up for him and Moses to the last man, and then we all pounded Moses on the back, and Dick got out some more Port and we had another toast, but something had hit us hard."
Mr. Curtis closed his eyes and leaned back his head for a moment as if trying to recall some forgotten memory.
"The next evening," he continued presently, "we were both sitting before the fire. Jim lay as usual beneath the table, his head pointing toward the door. The lamps had not yet been lit and the windows, I remember, were open, for the day had been warm—one of those Cambridge Indian-summer days. From the lower end of the Yard came a confused murmur of voices, mingled with occasional shouts. The voices grew louder, and shortly there came a loud cheer, followed by the tramp of many feet. I stepped to the window and saw through the dusk a cluster of men moving slowly up the sidewalk by Massachusetts Hall. In a moment I realized that the time might be at hand for the application of my roommate's recently declared principles. With a distinct feeling of apprehension I drew in my head and was about hurriedly to suggest a walk, when there came the sound of flying feet, and Moses, with scared face and starting eyes, burst into the room.
"'Oh, Marse Dick,' he cried in a trembling voice, 'dey's a-comin' ter kill yer an' tek me away from yer. Dey's goin' ter hurt yer drefful! Doan' let 'em do it, Marse Curtis!'
"Dick had risen quietly and was now engaged inlighting the lamp upon the center table, while I shut and locked both door and windows. Jim got up from his place beneath the table and watched us uneasily. The noise of the crowd grew nearer. Then suddenly I heard a sharp click behind me and turned to see Randolph holding one of the silver-mounted pistols which he had taken from its case upon the mantel. He was calmly engaged in loading.
"'Look here, Dick!' I cried, 'for Heaven's sake put that back!'
"Before I could say another word our assailants entered the hallway of the building. There came a babel of voices, followed by a loud pounding upon the door. We returned no answer. Then there were shouts of:
"'Run him out!'
"'Liberty forever!'
"'No slaves in Harvard!'
"'Smash in the door!'
"This last suggestion was accompanied by a yell and a rush against the door, which swayed inward, and, the lock snapping, burst open. There was an instant's hesitation on the part of the men outside; then they began to surge through the narrow doorway. Randolph quickly raised his pistol.
"'Back!' he shouted. 'Leave the room!' Instinctively they retreated. I can see them now, crowding out through the doorway. Just here, where I am sitting, in the full light of the lamp, stood Randolph, the barrel of his pistol glistening wickedly. There was a cold gleam in his eyes and a drawn look about his mouth. Before him stood Jim, tail switching, and lips curled back in a snarl that showed all his sharp teeth, while in the background cowered Moses, fear pictured upon everyfeature, his eyeballs gleaming white in the shadowy doorway of the bedroom.
"'I warn you, gentlemen,' said Randolph haughtily. 'I order you to leave the room. I shall shoot the first man that crosses my threshold.'
"'Bosh!' cried a voice. 'Hear him!'
"'D——d slave owner!' shouted another.
"'Throw him out!'
"Watkins thrust himself forward.
"'Bah! I'm not afraid of any rum-drinking Southerner! He hasn't the nerve to shoot!'
"'Look out!' called some one.
"There was a sudden rush from outside and Watkins either sprang or was pushed, probably the latter, through the door. At the same instant there was a flash, a report, a snarl, a loud cry, a tumult of feet. The smoke cleared slowly away, showing the door empty. Across the threshold lay a sophomore, while over him stood Jim, motionless, with his feet on the man's chest and his teeth close to his face.
"Randolph laid the smoking pistol upon the table and pointed grimly to a splintered crack in the strip above the door.
"'Come here, Jim!' he called. The dog unwillingly drew away, still eying the man on the floor, who, finding himself unhurt, began to blubber loudly.
"'You are free, suh,' remarked Randolph scornfully. 'Don't let me detain you.'
"Watkins slowly and fearfully scrambled to his feet, and then, like a flash, vanished into the darkness.
"'Golly, Marse Dick,' exclaimed Moses in an awestruck voice, 'I thought you'd killed that gem'man, sho'!'