I was up and abroad upon the plantation early the next morning, Old Master having sent me to look for a colt that had been missing for several days. In a wild bit of thicket-land I found the colt in a sink hole and was rejoiced to discover that it was not hurt. But it was weak and when I had helped it out, it trotted off with its knees knocking together. I followed along to drive it to the stable and was putting up the bars after seeing the hungry creature stumble into the lot, when someone accosted me. I looked up, pausing with a bar in my hand, and there stood the doctor muffled to the ears. "I want you to drive me to town," he said.
I finished my work of putting up the bars before I answered him, and this apparent sullenness smote upon his sense of resentment, for when I turned toward him he was gazing hard at me. "Did my Master say that I was to drive you?" I asked. I was looking down and I saw the frozen ground grinding under his heel; I glanced at his face and his countenance was aflame with wrath. With both hands he tore themuffler from about his neck; he looked about and appeared to stand harder on the ground—all this before he spoke again, and when he did speak his voice had a hissing sound. "You yellow dog, I ought to cut your liver out."
"But I am sure that my master did not tell you to do that," I was bold enough to reply. He leaped toward me. I was strong enough and skillful enough to have given him an unmerciful beating, and my blood burned to knock his teeth down his throat, but judgment had not deserted me, and putting one hand upon the top bar, I leaped lightly over, leaving him swearing on the other side. Had he made a motion to pursue me I would have run away, but I saw Old Master coming, so I stood my ground. The doctor saw him, too, and turned away, muffling his throat as he went. Breakfast was over and I hastened straightway to my Master's room. He was writing as I entered, but he looked up pleasantly and asked if I had eaten, and when I told him no, bade me go at once to the servants' hall.
"I had better not go now," I replied. "I met the doctor out in the lot and he ordered me to drive him to town, and—"
"That's enough," he broke in, and putting down hispen, went to the front window and looked out. "I wonder if he is gone yet," he said, speaking more to himself than to me. "I repented of my action of last night, but now I wish I had kicked him down stairs. I wonder how long God wants me to put up with that fellow."
"If I am allowed an opinion, sir," I replied, "I don't think that God takes him into account."
He looked at me with a smile. "You are allowed that opinion and I will help you entertain it," he said, and a moment later he added: "Come down with me and get something to eat."
The front hall door stood open and as we turned the bend in the stairs we saw the doctor driving off from the gate. Old Master came up the steps from the hall. "I see he's gone," said the young man.
"Yes, thank God," Old Master replied. "There's only one way that Bates has given me pleasure and that is to see him driving away. But I don't think he's as bad as he used to be. He used to worry the life out of me with trying to buy Dan when he might have known that it was against my principles to sell a slave."
"It's not against my principles to sell anything that annoys me," said Old Miss, coming out with her keysjangling. "As for you, General, you are always willing enough to get rid of white men but you stick close enough to your negroes. Dan," she added, "I want you to take up the sitting-room carpet and beat it."
"Mother," Young Master interposed, "he has had no breakfast. And besides, that is not his work."
"Any work that I tell him to do is his," Old Miss replied, drawing her thin lips together. I gave her a bow of most humble obedience, not that I felt any reverence for her, but that I would protect Young Master against all spiteful upbraiding. "Dan," she said, "tell Tilly to give you something to eat, and then I want you to beat that carpet."
I looked at Bob and he nodded assent, gracefully enough, but I could see that he was not at all pleased. I was turning away when his voice arrested me, though his words were addressed to his mother. "At times I have an odd fancy," said he. "When I am making a speech in my mind and a coldness chills my words, I imagine that the chill is an inheritance from you, mother."
Old Master laughed, and pressed his bony fingers till his knuckles cracked. But Old Miss did not make a laughing matter of it; perhaps she felt the sting of its truth. "It's a singular thing," she replied, "that socold a mother should bring up so warm a son. General, I wish you wouldn't grin at me that way!"
"Which way shall I grin?" he asked. "If you know of any better way, just show me, and I'll adopt it. But come, madam, don't be put out. You must remember that an old man's humor dries with his advancing years."
"Humor!" she said. "You haven't a vestige of it, and even if you had, you—" Her lips trembled and the corners of her mouth went down. "I have seen trouble enough—"
"There, now," said the old man, his voice soft with tenderness. "Robert, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for speaking that way. Your mother is not cold, sir," he almost stormed, "and if ever I hear you intimate it again, I'll thrash you, I don't care how old you are. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir."
"I am," said Bob, and swiftly crossing the floor he kissed his mother. She put her arm about his neck and said that she knew he did not mean it; and then Old Master turned upon me. "Go on, sir," he cried, "and don't stand there gaping like a fool. Confound it, you think you ought to hear every word that's spoken on the place."
I hastened away, wondering what she meant bysaying that she had seen trouble enough. Surely she would permit no conversation to be wholly agreeable, certain it was that her manner invited no affection.
The news of Miss May's engagement had spread among the negroes, and many a nappy head was thrust forth seeking a look at the man as he walked about the grounds. I learned from Bob that the wedding was soon to take place. The journey was long, and the man had said that he would not return home without his bride. I had passed him many times in the hall, in the woods, in the road leading to town, but not until one evening when I was summoned to mend the parlor fire did I get an estimating look at him. I had put on a log and had turned about to go when he asked my name. I told him, and he asked laughingly if I were a descendant of the Daniel who was cast into the lion's den? I told him that I was a Daniel who had come to many a judgment and been found wanting.
"Dan belongs to brother," said Miss May, "and they read the same books. Brother thinks a great deal of him."
"Evidently," Mr. Marston replied. He was a trim looking man of medium size and with black whiskers. His teeth were very white and his brow was broad and smooth. He was easy in manner and was quick toperceive, for noticing my almost instantaneous measurement of him, he looked at me sharply and said: "Well, I suppose you have no objection to my marrying your young mistress?"
"No one could object to her choice," I replied, pleased with myself, and Miss May, smiling sweetly, said: "Thank you, Dan. Shut the door as you go out."
I took this as a dismissal, whether she meant it or not, and it cut me. But my mind was soon made to feel at rest for as I was going up the stairs she came out and called me softly: "Dan," she said, "I didn't want you to talk very much to Mr. Marston. He is from the far South and thinks that a negro that can read is a great danger to the community, and after I had indiscreetly told him that you and brother read the same books, I thought that it was time for you to go—I didn't want him to say anything to hurt your feelings. I want you to like him."
This simple act of kindness brought the tears to my eyes. Ah, through the misty years I can see her now, standing in the hall with upturned face, sweet and beautiful.
Preparations for the wedding were hastened forward, and one day the negroes peeped through theparlor door, as we had peeped, long ago, at an array of flowers, Miss Lou lying among them. But now there was no black man to lift his faltering voice in grief—he was gone long years ago and lay sleeping under a dead apple tree; there were soft words of love; and at night there was feasting, the sounds of quick feet, and the spirit of the fiddle was borne upon the air.
One morning at breakfast there came an unexpected interruption, the arrival of Old Master's half brother. I knew that he existed, for on occasions at least a year apart, I had posted letters addressed to him and directed to some town away off in Illinois; but a sense of his unreality was so strong with me that I often smiled to think that Old Master would send a letter to find a shadow. But in came the man that morning at breakfast, strikingly real, brown-bearded, tall, loud of voice, and I thought rather roughly dressed for a gentleman. He was much younger than Old Master. Some one, I don't know who, had told me that years ago he had wandered away in consequence of a disappointment in love, though to look at him now I could not believe that he had ever given entertainment to so tender a sentiment. No part of the landed estate fell to him, so, with a small settlement of ready money, he set forth, swearing that never again would he put foot upon that accursed blue-grass spot. He had never been a drag upon Old Master; indeed, he hadbeen a man of exceeding thrift, had made fortunes but had lost them. I well recall his first words upon stepping into the room. Amid the surprise and the bustle caused by his sudden appearance, his loud voice arose:
"Don't want anybody to get scared. Sit down, Guilford, and you, too, Hanna, (nodding at Old Miss). Ah, and this is the one you call Bob? All right, got no objections to that, either. Dropped my baggage out there on the porch. Have someone take it up. Not now, plenty of time. Don't want anybody to get scared; I'm not a pauper. Shall insist upon paying my way. Here, girl, bring another plate; I'm as hungry as a prairie wolf. Look here! (and now he turned to me). Don't want you to call me master. Won't have it; call me Mr. Clem. Long time since I went away, but nothing has changed. Hurry up, there, with that plate. Confound it, don't be put out so, everybody. How are you getting along, Guilford?"
All this was rattled off before anyone else had a chance to say a word. Old Master was glad to see him and the tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks. He tried to tell him much but could tell him nothing except that he was welcome to make his home there.
"What's board worth?" Mr. Clem asked, and OldMaster cried out, "Good Lord! Did I ever hear anything like that? Clem, is it possible that you—"
"Mean to pay my board as long as I stay here. You'll have to take the money, Hanna. If you don't agree, I'll grab my saddle-bags and put out. I'm from a place where every man is expected to pay his way. Wish you'd all quit your everlasting sniffling. What are you doing, Bob?" Old Master was now helping his plate. "Another slab of that meat, Guilford. What are you doing, young feller?"
"Preparing myself for the law," Young Master answered proudly.
"All right, no particular harm in it. Good job for a lazy man. Hanna, you hold your own pretty well. Not as old as I expected to find you; and Guilford is a marvel of youthfulness. Don't know how I happened to come back—Just took the notion one night and I was on the road before daylight the next morning. That's the way we do things in Illinois. Pass me some more of that egg-bread. Hanged, if that ain't Kentucky up and down. Old aristocracy still on its mouldering throne, eh? Good thing for some people while it lasts, but it will tumble over pretty soon."
"Clem, you musn't talk that way," Old Miss interposed.
"All right, I'll shut it off; thousands of things to talk about. What's board worth in this neighborhood?"
"Clem," said Old Master, leaning upon the table and looking at him, "I don't know that I ever heard of a gentleman paying board in this neighborhood."
"Hah! By the hoofs, I never heard of a gentleman refusing to pay board in any neighborhood," Mr. Clem replied. "Come, how much am I expected to pay? Can't get board here, board somewhere else."
"Oh, that would be a scandal," Old Miss cried.
"Then let us avoid scandal. Find out what is customary and let me know. Guilford, devilish glad to see you. Wish I had come before. Bob, got a horse you want to trade for a better one? I've got a nag out there that's a beauty. Let's go and look at him?" he added, throwing down his knife and fork and shoving his chair back.
"Not now, uncle Clem," the young man replied, laughing.
"Uncle! That's good—like to hear it; gives me a sort of anchor. I think you and I will get along all right. Guilford told me, I don't know how long ago—got the letter somewhere—that it was your ambition to become an orator. And I can give you a few points, for I have lived for years in a hot bed of free speech,and without free speech, there is no real oratory. Round here they think that Marshall and Clay were great orators, and they were in a way, but you ought to hear Abe Lincoln."
"I never heard of him," Old Master spoke up.
"Oh, no; but you will. He can squeeze mirth and tears out of the heart all at once. When he arises to speak, and even before he has uttered a word, every man in the audience says to himself, 'there is my brother.' Guilford, your polished Kentuckians speak out of the book, by note, and they may work themselves into a fine heat, but this man Lincoln cries from the fullness of a soul that the Lord has given him."
"Clem," said Old Master, bending a hard look upon his brother and rolling his pill of bread, "you tempt me to say that you are a blasphemer against the majestic voice of my State, sir. Never was the voice of man truer than among these graceful hills, and never did the heart of man beat warmer for freedom and justice."
"Ah," Mr. Clem cried, "for freedom, did you say? For slavery, you mean."
"Sir," said Old Master, "Henry Clay has spoken for the bondman."
"But was he honored for it?" Mr. Clem asked. "Do you honor him for it?"
"Clem, if you have come to sow the seeds of abolition, to disgrace my household with the mud brought from your free soil—your sink hole of iniquity—I must request you to go away."
"It is easier to drop a subject than to ride a long distance," Mr. Clem replied with a broad smile. "Got any good horses?"
"Horses native to this land and therefore the best," said Old Master.
"Got one you can't manage? If you have, I'll make him get down on his knees and beg for mercy."
Old Master looked at Bob and laughed. "We've got a great black horse we call Zeb, and our sick quarter is sometimes filled with his victims. Dan here, can break almost any piece of horse-flesh, but he's afraid of Zeb. The negroes don't call him Zeb—they call him the Devil, sir."
"And I would advise you not to have anything to do with him, Uncle Clem," said Young Master. "He cut a great gash on Andrew's head, broke Tony's arm not long ago, and laid Dan up for a week. We keep him merely for show, for he is the most graceful thing you ever saw."
"And I will drive him to town this morning," Mr. Clem declared. And getting up, he added: "Come, show him to me?"
We could but laugh at the self-confidence shown by this rugged man from the West; we felt that he had brought with him the breezy brag so characteristic of his boundless territory. But I felt a pinch of regret, for I had conceived a liking for the man and did not wish to see him humbled.
"Come on," said Old Master, leading the way, but Old Miss interposed. "You must not go near that vicious creature," she said to Mr. Clem. "Nothing would delight him more than to plant a hoof between your eyes, and I declare, General, it's a shame that you encourage such a thing."
"Come out and take a drive with me," Mr. Clem cried, gently putting Old Miss out of the way. But she shuddered at the thought and closed the door upon us as we passed out. "In one respect I am not a true Kentuckian," said my Young Master to Mr. Clem as we walked along toward the stable. "I could never find it in my heart to worship a horse."
Mr. Clem stepped in front of the young man, halted and looked at him and then at Old Master."Guilford," said he, "can it be possible that this is your son?"
"Wait until you see the Devil, and you will deny that you are my brother," Old Master laughed, rubbing his thin hands in a sort of mischievous glee. Bob took Mr. Clem by the arm and as they walked along I heard him say: "If I had known you, I should have wished for your coming. There is something so unexpected about you that I must call you the new man—you are the very opposite of the books I have been reading."
"Yes, Bub, I am the opposite of all your teaching."
"I don't know that I like the word Bub."
"But you'll have to stand it; I'm going to pay my way, and the world, the flesh and the devil are willing to put up with much from that sort of a man."
We had now come to the stable. Through a small window we saw the fiery horse's black eyes shining. "Bring him out," Mr. Clem commanded.
"That is easy enough," Old Master replied. "It is only when you attempt to put leather on him that he shows his mettle."
"Bring him out," said Mr. Clem. "Here, boy, bring me a bridle and a set of buggy harness."
There was a great commotion in the barn-yard, and the negroes went running to and fro, amid whisperingsand the suppressed excitement of expected sport. The horse was led out by the halter, a picture of devilish majesty, head high in contempt, nostrils broad, eyes afire. The harness lay in a heap upon the ground. Mr. Clem took up the bridle. In an instant the horse had jerked the halter from the negro's grasp, was standing almost erect on his hind feet, and he came toward Mr. Clem, cutting the air with his fore hoofs. The rest of us fell back, one over the other, but Mr. Clem did not move. Old Master shouted at him, but paying no heed he stood, with his eyes fixed upon the advancing beast. I was off to one side and could see his face, hard-set and with steady eyes. "Ho!" he said, low in his breast, and the horse's feet fell to the ground. I don't think I ever saw so complete a picture of astonishment. The horse, cowed by that one low word, stood there trembling, with the coming sweat glistening upon his flanks. Mr. Clem stepped forward and touched his neck and he squatted and trembled. A loud murmur arose among the negroes. The Devil had been conquered with a word. He took the bit and suffered the harness to be put upon him; he was put between the shafts and with but one protest he was driven about the grounds. That one protest was a convulsive kick. Mr. Clem got out of the buggy,walked round, caught him in the nostrils, and with a violent torsion cried, "Ho!"
That was a great day on the plantation, and before nightfall the news had spread about the neighborhood, and at evening a number of people came to welcome Mr. Clem's return to the home of his youth. The degree of fawning shown on that occasion was of great amusement to my Young Master, for he knew that had his uncle come back a great scholar, an authority upon some scientific discovery, he would have been suffered to poke about almost unobserved; but appearing as the conqueror of a vicious horse, he laid a strong hold upon the admiration of his fellows.
The coming of Mr. Clem had a great effect upon our household. It was like a new breeze, blowing in from afar off where the woods are fresh. With his foot he was ever ready to press upon a tradition, and to leave off if the annoyance was too great; he experimented constantly with the sentiments and prejudices of anyone who happened to be near him. He joked with Old Miss, something ever dangerous to undertake, and at times he wrought sorely upon Old Master by arguing abolition with him. But no matter how hot might be the discussion, it was always pleasantly tempered, in the end, by some joke borrowed from the sturdy men who were busy with the building of a new political empire in the West. Lincoln was his hero. He had lived in Springfield, and had seen the great stump-speaker striding across a pasture land with a naked youngster on his back, and with the Galilean's smile upon his face. From his saddle-bags he brought forth newspapers with abstracts of the backwoodsman's speeches, words that rang like an axe on a frostymorning, and he never was weary of declaring that the man was inspired. "He is Peter come back to the earth," I remember hearing him say, "and upon a rock he is going to build a great church not for caste, but for man."
"If you are going to worship a man, let him be a hero," Old Master cried. We were in the library and the elder brother was walking up and down in the fire-light. I was hunting a book for Young Master and purposely made a lag of my errand.
"I don't know what you mean by a hero," said Mr. Clem, looking up from his pipe in the corner.
"A man who does something for his country," Old Master retorted, still walking with his hands behind him.
Mr. Clem smiled. "Yes, that is a hero," said he. "But what would you have a man do? Overcome a band of Mexicans and win a new territory, or save his entire country?"
Old Master halted, posing to make an impressive reply, but at that moment Mr. Clem sprang to his feet, threw open the window and thrusting forth his head shouted: "Hi, there, don't you want to swap that horse for a better one?"
He had heard the sounds of hoofs and had seen aman riding past the gate. The man reined up and looked round. "I don't know but I might," he answered. "Well, just wait a minute," Mr. Clem shouted and turned about to leave the room. Old Master frowned. "You are not going to swap horses here on a Sunday morning," he said. "It will bring a scandal upon us."
"Now, Guilford, that's nonsense," Mr. Clem protested. And then he shouted again from the window: "Ride on down to the end of the lane and I'll meet you there."
He hastened away, and just before dinner he came back leading a trim horse, so much better than his old nag that his brother racked himself with a loud laugh. His shrewdness was indeed remarkable. He came to us on a woolly-looking plow horse, and before he was in the neighborhood two months, he was the owner of three as fine mares as I have ever seen. The negroes looked upon him in the light of a vastly superior being, and about the fire at night they told tales of his marvelous power. He would permit none of them to call him master, and at first this told against him, bespeaking as they thought a very humble station; but their prejudice was overturned when they perceived that among the high-born he could hold hishead with a lofty pride. Sometimes he talked in a way almost to chill my blood. I have often mused upon his meeting me one evening as I strolled along the shores of the little creek, listening to the music bursting with more boldness as the twilight settled down. Spring was come and I smelt the smoke of the dead grass burning in the fields. I had halted and was standing on a rock when he came up to me.
"Fishing?" he asked.
"No, sir; listening to the water."
"And yet they tell us that the negro has no soul," he said.
"No gentleman has ever told me that," I ventured to reply.
"No," he rejoined, stepping upon the rock. "The gentlemen acknowledge your soul so that the pulpit may continue to hold you in slavery. I know that you and Bob are great friends, know all that, but if I were in your place I would leave."
"Mr. Clem!" I cried.
"Yes, I would. Here, you are a young fellow of parts waiting for what? Nothing. Why, you could go North and make a man of yourself."
"I am going to make a man of myself as it is," I replied, actually trembling.
"Make a man of yourself for someone else. Young man, the world is becoming too enlightened to permit of slavery much longer. They tell you that God made slaves. That's an insult to the Almighty. I don't really advise you to leave your master, for I can see that Bob makes your bed as easy as it could well be made; but it is an infamous shame that a young man as intelligent as you can have nothing but a life of bondage to look forward to. It is true that as compared with the others, you walk on rose-buds and sleep on feathered palm, but you are a slave for all that."
He moved up closer to me, put his hand on my shoulder and turned me about as if in the growing darkness he would study the expression of my face, the effect his words had wrought. I trembled under the light weight of his hand, for it was as if freedom from afar off had touched me; but I could give no ear to this bold man's suggestion. I had read many a book conceived by great minds that abhored servility, poets that had shaken their fists in the faces of the earth's annointed, orators whose last utterances were cried aloud for the freedom of man, not the white man alone, but man. All my life I had been tapping upon the head the ambitions that arose within me, killing them and seeing their skeletons bleach in the desert of myfancy; and with a stout and determined heart I could have turned my back upon Old Master, for his years were nearly spent; but I could not leave the young man, though the incense of freedom filled my nostrils. Not many miles away flowed the Ohio River. Beyond that stream were thousands of people who would be glad to help me, would regard it a duty which they owed to their religion; and farther away was a British domain, where all men were free—the way was clear, but in that direction I could not have stirred from that rock. My heart was my real master.
"Mr. Clem," said I, and I must have sobbed, for he turned away to hide his own face, "I may be a fool, but I cannot be a traitor to my affections. I wear a chain, but it is made of gold, and I would rather exchange it for one of iron than to know that Bob Gradley had lost confidence in me. I know that I could amount to something in the world—I feel it; I am convinced that I could go to the North and help free the wretched creatures in the far South, but I should have to speak against my Young Master and that I could not do." He caught my hand with a tight grip, and I continued: "I value your kindness; I know that it is genuine, but I must ask you not to tempt me again."
And still harder did he grip my hand as he replied: "There is a salt of the earth and it never loses its savor, and you are of that salt. If you had come to me and begged me to point out the road to freedom, I might have sent you to your Master; your fidelity and strength caused me to speak to you in your behalf. But I did not know the full measure of that strength and fidelity. I know now and I honor you. But keep to your books; the time will come."
Suddenly he broke away and turned on a trot toward the turn-pike, not far off. I heard the hoofs of a horse beating on the hard macadam, and soon I heard this queer man shout, "Hi, there; who ever you are. Hold on a minute. Believe I can give you a better horse for the one you are riding." The hoofs fell slower, and a voice replied: "That you, Clem Gradley? Don't want to transact that sort of business with you—Came in one of having to walk after the last swap. Another whet and I couldn't more than crawl."
The hoofs fell faster and Mr. Clem, chuckling mirthfully, returned to the rock. It was now quite dark and I could not see his face, but I knew that he was in favor with himself, for he had clapped his hat on the back part of his head (a good-humored bravadocharacteristic of him) and continued to shake with joviality.
"I think that was Lige Berry," he said. "They told me that he had nipped everybody in this county, but I guess I skinned him a little. That's the way to do, Dan. When they try to skin you, skin them. Suppose we go on toward the house? Yes, sir-ree," he continued as we walked along, "skin the skinners in a horse trade. And skin anybody else for that matter. Everything is fair in a horse trade—you've got to be slick and believe nothing. I remember starting out once on an old mule. I had owned a steamboat and it had burnt up without a copper of insurance. I thought I'd make my way to St. Louis and there get something to do. A captain offered me passage on his boat, but I told him no, that I would try the luck of going overland. Well, as I tell you, I set out on that old mule, bought on credit for twenty-three dollars. I was a long time on the road, months, I might say, but when I got to St. Louis I drove in about as fine a lot of horses as you ever saw. And three weeks afterward I steamed up the Illinois River on a boat of my own. I swapped it for a stock of goods in old Salem—always somebody in that town ready to swap off his store, knowing that he couldn't get the worst of it—and Istaid there until I went broke. I don't know why I never could hold on to anything. I am great up to a certain point, and then I go to pieces. Why, if I had owned this farm I would have made it three times as large and then lost it all. I've done most everything except to sponge on people, and I never could do that. Set up a drug store in a little place called 'Prophet's Town' on Rock River. Didn't know anything about drugs—helped a feller too liberally to something his prescription called for and poisoned him. He didn't die, but I thought it was time for me to get out of that sort of business. Yes, and I practiced law. Didn't know anything about law, but I could talk. Defended a feller and they hanged him. Of course that might have happened with anybody—with Lincoln himself, for that matter—but a prejudice was raised against me. It tickled Lincoln. Of course he didn't want to see the man hanged, but he had to laugh at me. 'Gradley,' he said to me shortly afterward, 'I want you to do me a favor. I have an enemy, a man that has always stood in my path, and I want him removed. You can do it. I will have it whispered about that he is a thief; you defend him and they'll send him to the penitentiary for life!'"
The supper bell was now ringing and I hastenedinto the house to take my place behind Young Master's chair. He had many a time commanded me to leave off this useless act of servitude, but such a favoritism would have inflamed Old Miss against me, so I insisted upon a continuance of the office.
Old Master and Old Miss were Hard-Shell Baptists and at supper there was present an old and honored exponent of that faith, Elija Brooks. He visited us often, but Bob and I had a stronger cause than this to call him to mind. Once we had taken his rubber overshoes and made a town-ball of them and had been severely whipped for our enterprise. The old gentleman refused to erase this, our act of meanness, from his mind, and whenever he looked at me I felt that my soul was surely lost. Upon this visit he was in higher spirits. Out in his neighborhood, we were soon informed, a man discovered to be an abolitionist had been tarred and feathered, an example of God's avenging wrath; and the old man's mouth appeared to water with the delicious recollection of the sight. "They came to my house," he said as he passed his plate for a Shanghai rooster's breast, "and asked my opinion in case the fellow was found guilty. I took down the good book and sought instruction, and I think that Imodified his punishment when I recommended tar and feathers. Ah, Brother Guilford, the ways of the devil are many and sly; we must keep a constant lookout for him."
"He is never idle a moment," said Old Miss with a sigh.
Old Master didn't say much. He wasn't a very strong believer in the devil, and but for his negroes and his blue-grass land, he had surely been turned out of the church for saying, in the midst of a God-loving assembly upon his own veranda, "the devil be damned!"
"What had the man done?" Mr. Clem asked, and I saw his face harden.
"Why, sir," returned Mr. Brooks, "he had openly set our institutions at defiance and proclaimed abolition. He said that no Christian could own human flesh and blood."
"Had he been in the community very long?" Mr. Clem asked.
"Several years," the preacher answered. "And there comes in a strange part of the affair," he continued. "He had lived among us for that length of time and had never been known to steal anything or to commit any sort of depredation."
"Marvelous," Mr. Clem cried, setting his cup violently upon the table. "Hadn't stolen anything! Why, sir, I expected you to tell me that he had murdered women and children."
The unsuspecting preacher was deeply moved by the earnestness of Mr. Clem, but Old Master slily shook his head as a warning not to go too far, and Old Miss cleared her throat. "It is a thousand wonders," Mr. Brooks went on, "that he had not committed murder; and now it comes to mind that certain little pilferings throughout our neighborhood may justly be laid to him."
"No doubt of it," Mr. Clem cried.
"It is at least a well-founded suspicion," said the preacher.
"He ought to be burned at the stake!" Mr. Clem shouted, and the preacher, his suspicions aroused at this outbreak of vehemence, looked searchingly at the man from the West. "I would not advise quite so stringent a measure," said he, turning his eyes upon Old Master and then directly his gaze again at Mr. Clem.
"Oh, yes," Mr. Clem insisted, "I would even go further than that. I would burn him at the stake and if he has any children I would skin them for the delightof the Sunday school. But I forget. Your denomination has no Sunday schools."
"Sir," said the preacher, "I will waive your sarcasm to refute your attack upon my church," and he had squared himself to deliver a harangue when Old Master struck the table with his fist. "I want an end of this right now," he snorted, shaking his head, and with his nose looking more than ever like an eagle's beak.
The preacher took no part of this reprimand to himself; indeed, he struck in with an approval of Old Master's violence. "You are scarcely expected to restrain yourself, Brother Guilford," said he. "The Lord has not asked us to put up with everything, and most of all with sentiments that seek the destruction of our country."
Is it not singular, I must stop to reflect, that only a few years ago a large part of our country believed that liberty and prosperity depended upon slavery? This old preacher I knew to be an honest man, a God-serving and a generous man. His plantation was large, his soil strong, his crops bountiful, and he gave nearly everything to the poor; but, viewing him in the broad light of to-day, his heart was narrow and his soul was blind. Such was the atmosphere in which we lived, beautiful and romantic, but filled with aninflammable gas; and one hot word would serve to set it off. I remember that at a store not far from our house a man sat on a box, reading the "New York Tribune." A deputy sheriff, standing near, discovered the name of the publication, tore it from the man's grasp, threw it upon the ground, spurned it with his foot and swore that he would shoot the person who attempted to take it up. The paper was not taken up, but the question was discussed at the polls, and the deputy was elected sheriff. Still the wise men in the East were at work quietly with the pen which soon should be supported by the sword.
Conversation that evening fell pleasantly enough, after Old Master's forceful veto, and out upon the veranda where the air was soft they sat until a late hour, Young Master with them, and I, seated on the steps. Mr. Clem sang a dolefully-comic song, "The State of Illinois," which moved the preacher to gracious laughter, and Old Master told many a humorous story. But in the height of this pleasantry Old Miss broke in with the trouble that was hers, one daughter dead and the other married and gone afar off. This I thought was to tell the preacher that it was time to pray and go to bed. And he must have accepted it as a hint, for shortly afterward he said: "Brother Guilford, let uspray!" Then came a solemn shuffle as they followed the preacher to his knees. I was included in the invitation to ask God to help me and I knelt upon the stone walk at the bottom of the steps. From a distance came the song of the ignorantly-happy negro; I heard the opening notes of a pack of hounds on a hill-side far away, and the creek lifted its voice in a sweeter prayer than man could utter. The preacher implored the Lord to bless Old Master's household, white and black; to hasten the day when the holy word of the Savior should be acknowledged throughout the earth. He prayed that all evil might be stricken from the sin-inclined mind of man; that the benighted politician who strove to prevent the admission into the union of more slave territory might be persuaded to see the error of interfering with the progress of the South, and closed with asking God to bless all mankind. The hanging lamp in the hall had been lighted, and as the old preacher passed under it I could see from where I now stood on the veranda that he tottered with emotion, so fervent had been his supplication; and I thought of the prayers in another part of our country; the gray men imploring our Father to hasten the time when the chain should drop from the slave. Ah, man, self-appointed keeper of the Maker's seal, you praythat your brother may be cleansed and then you shoot him. But I will not moralize against you, for I am earthly enough to believe that war is sometimes a blessing, that the world's greatest progress has been sprinkled with blood—blood, the emblem of the soul's salvation.
I went with my young master immediately to his room. He was beginning already to withdraw himself from other studies and to devote all his time to the law; so taking up a sheep-bound book, he began to read aloud. Suddenly he flung the book down and leaned back in his chair. "Law," he said, "is supposed to be common sense, but I have about reached the conclusion that there is no common sense in the human family."
"So soon?" I asked.
"So late, you mean," he replied. "A boy can sometimes see what an old man has failed to discover. Now take that preacher, as good an old fellow as you would find in a day's ride, and note how pinched his mind is."
"In what way, Bob?" I asked.
He stiffened up and looked hard at me, and standing near, I bowed until my head almost touched the table. I had called him Bob, a familiarity that I don't think I had ever before ventured upon, and it felllike a mallet. When I straightened up, he bowed to me and not a word was spoken on the subject of my neglect to put "Mars." before his name.
"You ask in what way is his mind pinched. I might answer by saying in every way, but I'll specify one. He believes that he's serving God when he puts tar and feathers on a man who has ventured to express his opinion."
"But in this respect is he more narrow than others I could mention?" I asked, for I could take issue with him, argue and even quarrel with him without treading upon ground too oozy with familiarity. "He believes that slavery is a God-ordained institution. Don't you?"
I shall never forget the look he gave me. I stood with my arms folded looking down upon his handsome face, his Greek head. A lock of hair had fallen upon his brow, and he slowly put it back, still looking at me, and there was a strange, thrilling music in his voice when he spoke: "Did I teach your mind to eat that it might gulp such food?"
"You gave me the bill of fare and were generous enough to invite me to help myself," was the answer I made.
"But I didn't tell you to eat filth."
"And filth I did not eat, but I swallowed many a mouthful of reason."
"But did any one of those mouthfuls tell you that I considered slavery a God-ordained institution?"
"Not you especially, but you belong to a caste."
"Still I am no fool. Who gave the slaves to Rome? Conquest. What led to conquest? Physical superiority. And wasn't there a grandeur in that? And is not a grandeur almost a sacred thing?"
Now here was an argument and it might have been prolonged, but at that moment there came a tap at the door. Master cried an invitation to come in, and Mr. Clem entered.
"What are you boys talking so loud about?" he inquired, taking a chair and putting his feet upon the table. "Didn't know but you might be trying to swap horses."
"An exchange of night mares," Bob replied, reaching over and moving his inkstand.
"That's all right, but do you make him stand up all the time?" Mr. Clem asked, nodding at me.
Bob laughed. "He can sit down if he wants to."
"Well, then, please do," Mr. Clem said, looking at a chair and motioning toward me. "It makes my legs hurt to see you standing there." I sat down and hecontinued: "I noticed that our old preacher rode pretty good stock over here."
"You didn't see him when he rode up," said Bob.
"No, but I took a lantern just now and went out to the stable and had one of the boys find his horse for me. Yes, sir, pretty good sorrel horse, fine shoulders, but nostrils rather small. Good bottom, though. I went to his room after I came back and found him in bed, but I got him interested in my nag, and if he ain't walking before three weeks pass he'll ride on a straight line out of my circuit. Does he hold prayers of a morning? Of course he does, though; wouldn't miss an opportunity, you know. Well, I'll join him, and afterwards put in a few petitions of my own. It's not right for a preacher to ride such a horse any way. Ought to walk; for don't the Bible say something about how beautiful are the feet of those that tread the path of righteousness? Strikes me that I've heard something of the sort. Tarred and feathered him, eh? Bob, do you know what would happen if they should dab any of their tar on me?"
"I don't believe you would submit very quietly, Uncle Clem."
"Well, I wot not. Wot's all right there, ain't it? Yes, I guess it is. They might put the stuff on me,but do you know what would happen after they got all through with their fun? There'd be more fun. I'd get one of these old fashioned blunder-busses, load it with nails and scraps of iron and scatter flesh all over this community. By the flint hoofs of the devil I wish they'd smear tar on me. But I musn't argue any more with that preacher. I want his horse."
"You wouldn't cheat him, would you, Uncle Clem?"
There was astonishment in the look Mr. Clem bent upon the young man. "Cheat him? I don't exactly understand. Bob, there's no such thing as cheating in a horse trade. Man tells me that his horse has good eyes. I look at the eyes and see that they are defective. Man is a liar, but hasn't deceived me, therefore I am not cheated. I tell a man that my horse has good eyes. He looks and fails to see a defect and swaps. Afterward finds out horse blind of an eye. Who's fault? His own—error in judgment."
"That is a very comfortable way to put it," said the young man. "But suppose you buy something and the dealer misrepresents it?"
"I hold him accountable," Mr. Clem replied. "Merchandising is one thing and trading horses another. The keeper of a store is a catch-penny figurer upon small or large margins of profit,whichever the case may be. Some little shrewdness is required, but above all, he must be a fawner and a man of dogged patience. He advertises that the world may, with perfect safety, take his word. On the other hand, the horse trader is a sort of adventurer, a knight with sharp judgment for a lance and with strong assertion for a battle-axe. He takes no advantage of man's necessity, but challenges him. He needn't enter the combat—he can say, 'no, thank you,' and ride on."
He took out a large plug of tobacco and with a Barlow knife, cut off a wedge-shaped piece, wiped the blade on his trousers, snapped it shut, returned both knife and tobacco to his pocket, put the wedge into his mouth and turned it about with exceeding satisfaction.
"Yes, sir," he went on, "the horse trader is a man of skill, going about sharpening the wits of society. He stirs the blood of cupidity and then teaches man a lesson, enforcing the moral that the glittering is not always the gold. He is an orator and his subject is horse. Through the horse he reads human nature. He is self-confident, never tells too long a story, and people like to hear him talk. Ladies sometimes sniff at him and say that he is horsey, but when they have been sufficiently bored by the empty prattle of the refined dolt, they return to the horseman to be entertained. Bob,"he added, after going to the fire-place to spit, and returning to put his feet upon the table, "there is one type of man that I should like to see hanged—the negro-trader."
"Nearly always a brute," Young Master replied.
"Always, Bob. And society, even in this State, holds him in contempt, yet recognizes the justice, or I should say, fails to recognize the injustice of the institution he serves. D— me if it ain't riling!" he cried, striking the table with his heel. Master moved the ink stand till further away and leaned back in his chair. Mr. Clem continued: "The South is an exotic, living under glass. But one day the glass will be smashed and the cold air will blow in. What could be more disease-breeding than our present state of affairs, one end of the republic heating with degenerate luxury, the other end cool with self-reliant industry?"
"Uncle Clem, they have turned you into a Yankee," said the young man.
"By the hoofs, they have opened my eyes and if to see is to be a Yankee, then I am one."
"But having seen, do you now come to sow eye-opening seeds, in fact, to scatter trouble?"
"I've got as much right in this State as any manthat lives in it; I carried a gun into Mexico and I wear the scar of a leaden missile."
"No one questions your right, and I, for one, am warm in welcome of you. But you turned your back upon Kentucky, shifted your citizenship to another State."
Mr. Clem jerked his feet off the table, went to the fire-place, spat out his tobacco, and began to walk up and down the room, with his hands behind him after the manner of Old Master.
"Bob," he said, pointing as he spoke, "there, at the north corner of the lane, where the steps go over the stone fence, I stood in my country's uniform and told a girl good-bye. She clung to me like a sweet vine, and with trembling fingers I loosened the tendrils of her love. Behind a gallant warrior I marched into the City of Mexico, thrilled not with the victory, but with the thought that my face should soon be homeward set. That night I received a letter telling me of her perfidy. She did not write—my brother's hand sent the news. I couldn't believe it—in my breast I called him a liar. But I came home with a quaking heart, to find that she had married a negro-trader. And then, in taking up my small belongings to leave the State, I swore that I would never return so long as she was init alive. Once that fellow came to Illinois to catch a run-away slave. He caught the fugitive at a town called Princeton. I chanced to be there. A noble-hearted man named Bryant, brother of the poet, heard the negro's pitiful story and then turned upon the trader. 'Sir,' said he, 'the shadow of a black and outrageous law may fall upon your case, but humanity which is above all law, cries out for the protection of this poor creature. Be gone from here.'
"'Not until I have had my say,' I cried. 'Bring a rope and I will hang him.' There was an uneasy stir among the men assembled in the little court-room. The trader looked at me sharply. A grim smile spread over his dastardly face. I had learned more than I have yet told you—He held a mortgage upon the negroes that belonged to the father of that girl and she had married him to save the negroes, to keep them from being taken South and sold to the heartless drivers. This she had written and given to a friend to send to me, but he was tardy in sending it. However, I could not have forgiven her, although there might have been some truth in what she said and some nobility in her act. The fellow leered at me, and turning to the justice of the peace, said to him: This man ought not to have a word to say. He hates me because Imarried the girl he loved.' This set the idlers to tittering, and I got out of the court-room, frothing at the mouth. Under protection of the law, the rascal was permitted to go away in peace, but he did not take the negro, not then, but got him afterward. Bob, I'm strong enough to confess a weakness, and the man that isn't, isn't game. I'm bold enough to defend a prejudice, for prejudices are sometimes our dearest inheritance."
He resumed his walk, went to the door, halted and came back to the table. "I said that I would never come back to the State so long as that woman was in it alive, and I didn't. She died less than a year ago, and her husband is now a planter in Mississippi, and about all I ask of the Lord is that I may some time meet him—accidentally." He looked at his watch. "It's getting late and I guess you boys are sleepy. Believe I'll take another look at that horse and go to bed. Good night."
I went to bed, leaving master in his chair, settled in a deep consideration. The candle-wick fell into the socket, but the fire-light showed him still musing, his eyes wide open but dreaming. I fell asleep and awoke in the dark, aroused by the sound of the young man'svoice. He was making a speech, had sat with it running in his mind while the words of Mr. Clem had fallen upon me like burning coals.
"Don't make a fire," were the first words I heard at morning. I looked up and found the orator in bed, propped upon his elbow. He looked at me—his eyes were always fascinating—and I waited to attend upon his bidding.
"Do you know that what uncle said last night didn't strike me very hard until just a few moments ago?" said he. "A stream of nonsense was rippling through my mind at the time and I was too much taken up with it to feel what he said, but it hit me hard just now. He has seen trouble and I honor him for it. Know what I would have done? Shot that fellow. If we are taught to die for love we ought to kill for it." He lay back upon his pillow and after a moment's reflection, broke into a tittering laugh.
"I wonder," said he, "if Uncle Clem would cheat that preacher. But of course he would, since there is no such thing as cheating in a horse trade—By a self-soothing turn of argument his conscience legitimizes any advantage he may take over the judgment of hisadversary. We'll go out and see the preacher defend himself."
In the trade that followed, if indeed one did take place, the preacher may have lost his eye-teeth for ought I know. I went down stairs that morning with full determination to see the contest, but upon reaching the hall-way, a loud voice, in the dining room, told that something of graver moment had befallen—the return of Dr. Bates. Old Master sat looking at him, and the expression on his face was not one to bespeak a pleasurable emotion. The doctor glanced up as my Young Master entered, and with a broad smile which I could see was pumped up with great effort, he got out of his chair to shake hands. Bob took his hand, though not with any pretense of welcome, said that he was surprised at his quick return, and sat down without another word, the doctor evidently waiting for him to say something more. But he waited in vain, for the young man sat gazing hard at his plate, with his hands in his pockets.
"I am glad to find the weather so delightful," said the doctor. "I have just come from a place where icicles were hanging from the eaves."
"I should think that you would be likely to find places too warm," Bob spoke up.
The doctor glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "Well, that depends," he replied, casting about for something else to say but not finding it upon demand. "Some of us are influenced by one thing and some by another," he added, still skirmishing. "But youth is often too much lacking in judgment to estimate its surroundings—the dangers that lie about, I might say. Talk comes early but sense follows very slowly along." He had evidently found something to please him for he smiled at Old Master, who, without a word, still sat looking at him. "Yes," said Young Master, "sense not being so light of foot has a hard time trying to overtake wordiness and there are cases where it does not succeed."
The doctor gave Bob a mere glance and addressed himself to Old Master. "Since I have been traveling about," said he, "and particularly when I have gone East, I have been compelled to listen to sharp criticisms passed upon Southern society. They say our life is most unnatural, our society, feverish; and they laugh at our intellectual intercourse—say that our conversation is more observant of color than of sense, and that our young men are taught to stride on sophomoric stilts. Of course I was strong in my defense, but I couldn't hide an inward acknowledgement of apart of these strictures. Our young men do attempt to stand off the ground when they talk."
"It makes no difference to me what an envious person may find fit to say," Old Master replied. "We of the South have our way of thinking and talking and are willing to grant that privilege to other men. Why the deuce don't these people come on to breakfast?"
From the rear veranda came the voices of Old Miss, Mr. Clem and the preacher. "Dan," Old Master commanded, "tell them to come on here."
I hastened away, glancing back to see Young Master boring the doctor with a look. Mr. Clem and the preacher were warm in an argument and Old Miss was standing near, supporting the views of the preacher, but was, I could see, persistent with suggesting that they give over the contest and go to breakfast. And when I stepped forward with the announcement that Old Master had sent for them, Mr. Clem said, "All right, soon as I blow out my tobacco," and ducking his head over the "banister," he snorted out his quid and swore that he was as hungry as either of the she-bears that ate up the forty children. The minister would have stayed to rebuke him for this irreverence, but being himself pinched by appetite,gave him merely a look of reproof and struck a trot for the breakfast table.
The doctor had met Old Miss and the two men earlier in the morning. He smiled at Old Miss, nodded at the preacher and addressing Mr. Clem, said that he had ever wanted to meet him. Mr. Clem made no reply until he had spread a napkin upon his knees, and then he said: "Well, sir, you see me now, not quite as good a man as I have been, perhaps, but pretty spry and ready to whet the edge of my judgment against every gritty substance I come across. What do you know about a horse, sir?"
"Not a great deal, although I have owned several racers," the doctor answered. Mr. Clem looked at him, moving back a little so that he could measure him from head to foot. And when the survey was completed to the satisfaction of the surveyor, he blurted forth his estimate: "The case of a man who hasn't improved his time very much, I reckon. But you like a good horse, pretty well, I take it."
"Well, I can't say that I'm more interested in a horse than in anything else."
"You can't? Well, sir, I don't want to throw you off hard enough to bruise you, but I don't reckon you and I can trot together. Good-bye."
"Oh, you are not going away, are you?" the doctor asked. Everyone looked up, even the preacher, who had been exceedingly busy.
"No;" said Mr. Clem, "that is, I'm not going to leave here just now. But as I have decided not to trot with you, I'm gone, so far as you are concerned." And with that he turned from the doctor and I am almost positive that not within my hearing did he ever give him another word. It could not have been that the doctor's indifference toward the horse was the real cause of Mr. Clem's contempt; I am of the opinion that the old fellow had made up his mind not to like him and to tell him so should opportunity offer, and then brought forward the horse as a pretext. I have often speculated over what might have been the result, had the doctor professed an absorbing fondness for the horse. I imagine, though, that Mr. Clem would have tried one thing after another until he had found a vital objection to the man, for as I say, he was resolved not to like him, and I remember that on this very morning, after I had followed my master to his room, Mr. Clem came in with an oath directed at the doctor.
"I don't understand how you get along with him at all, Bob," said he.
"I don't," my young master replied, turning slowlythe leaves of his sheep-bound book. "We have come near having trouble, and, when we do, it will be red trouble, I tell you. He's got some sort of a hold on father, something other than an interest in the estate. I have no idea what it is, but I know it's something. However, I don't believe that the old gentleman will put up with him much longer."
"By the flint-hoofs, I wouldn't stand him a minute," Mr. Clem swore. And then looking at me he asked my opinion of the man. I looked at master.
"Tell him," said he.
"Exactly what I think, Mars. Bob?"
"Yes, say what you please."
This was indeed a rare occasion. I was to have an unfettered say—was to talk as a man. The image of the doctor arose before me; I saw his hateful grin, his eyes full of evil and deceit—and the insults that he had put upon me freshened in my mind. Something in my manner must have foretold the temper of my speech, for they looked at me with an interest that never before had I beheld in an eye bent upon me. "Speak out!" Bob cried, and I found my tongue and found it hot:
"I hate him deeper than any man was ever hated!" I almost shouted, for my first free speechrose high. "He has done all he could to make my life miserable. It burnt his skin to see that I was not sent to the corn-field—bled him to know that I could be fitted for something better; and his enmity passes through me and touches my master. If I could choke his tongue out and see it covered with the vilest dust—if I could see his eyes mashed into the ground—" I hesitated. The flight of freedom held a threat to be too wild, and love for the man who sat staring at me told me to drive it back to mean and humble earth.
"Go ahead," Mr. Clem cried, but master was silent, looking down. "Gentlemen, I am a slave and you are American citizens," said I. "For me, there are no privileges except those granted by individual kindness. The law which I have studied page by page with my Master, scarcely touches me, except so far as I am a piece of property. If I run away, the law that I have studied will follow me and bring me back with handcuffs on my wrists. If my master chooses, he can put me on the auctioneer's block and sell me. I—"
"Don't, Dan," Master pleaded, lifting his hand. "Don't draw such a picture as that. You are better off than many a white man; you can think, you have been taught to reason; and you know that I would rather starve than to sell you. I am not responsiblefor the melancholy fact that you are a slave. You—"
"Who is?" I broke in.
"God," he answered.
"Oh, H—!" Mr. Clem shouted, leaping off the floor. "Bob, I think a great deal of you, would do anything for you—fight for you—but let me beg of you never again to give echo to that sounding rot. The greedcant of a pandering pulpit gives us enough of such answers to flatter the soul. Bob," he said, stepping forward and laying a hand on Master's shoulder, "look at me. You have a heart," he went on, looking into the young man's eyes. "The God you say made this boy a slave, made you an uncommon man. Even as young as you are, you have the brains almost of a philosopher—surely the power and the expression of an orator. You are going to make a deep mark on the page of your country's history. I believe it, I swear I do. Then, why do you care to own a man? Bob, set this boy free."
Master got out of his chair and went to the window before a word of reply came from him; he looked out upon the broad spread of green sward, flooded with sun-light, he turned back toward his uncle and then he said: "I can't. I want him, and he must stay with me. I don't want him so much as a servant as I do asa companion. Other men may be liars, but he tells me the truth. My thoughts are his and I hope that his are mine. At midnight, when the world is still and my mind is in an uproar, I do not struggle alone, but awake him and he steps gladly into the whirl-wind. Uncle Clem, I have a real affection for him, so strong that it is selfish. If I should set him free, he couldn't stay here, and besides, not yet being of age, I cannot give him freedom."
"An argument," said a voice at the door, and looking up, we saw the doctor stand there. No one spoke a word bidding him to enter, but he stepped into the room. "Well," said Mr. Clem, speaking to Master, "I must go."
"Won't you stay longer, Uncle?"
"No, I've got to go down the creek and kill a snake."
"I'll go with you," said master. "Come with us, Dan."
"May I have a few moments with this boy?" the doctor asked, looking at Master and then leering at me.
Mr. Clem had reached the door but he turned back. Master wanted to know of the doctor what business hecould have with me, whereupon he said: "Oh, just a little private matter."
"But, sir, Dan keeps none of his affairs private from me."
"Indeed! A very close relationship, I must say."
"Must you? I didn't know that you felt an obligation."
"An obligation? What do you mean by that?"
"Oh, you said you must say, and must moves us to discharge an obligation."
"If a barber were as much given to the splitting of hairs, we'd never be more than half shaved."
"And if the instinct of the wolf prompted bristles to grow continuously, and if no barber cut them off, I could pick out a man whose beard would soon drag the ground."
Mr. Clem laid his hands upon the door-facing and snorted. "What ails you, sir?" the doctor asked, turning toward him, and Mr. Clem, without looking round, said: "Bob, they've got a fish over in Illinois they call the doctor. Hook one of them and you think you've got something, but pull him out and you find he's all bill. Come on and let's go after that snake."
We strode away without another word, the doctor tramping hard down the stairs just behind me. Hefollowed us to the yard, and seeing Old Master standing near the garden gate, sheered off from our course. We strolled along the grass-fringed margin of the creek, and when we came to the rock whereon I had stood, listening to Mr. Clem's persuasive tongue, urging me to run away, the kindness and the life-long protection of my Master arose and smote me, for on that rock I had almost rebelled against him. I did not want to stop when the others halted, but Mr. Clem called me back. "Bob," said he, "I didn't always know the feeling you have for Dan, and it was here, not long ago, that I told him to run away—offered to furnish him money; but with a fidelity that I had forgotten existed among men, he refused."
Bob turned his face from us, but I saw his neck stiffen with resentment. There was something noble in his aspect, his head high, his hat off; and his hair, lying in waves, looked like the leaves of a wreath. But in a moment this was all gone and he looked as if a grief had fallen upon him. "Uncle Clem," said he, turning slowly toward the old man, "I wish you wouldn't give advice against the interest of one who is very near to me. If he were to run away, he would lose confidence in himself and his memory of the sunnydays along this stream would but serve as a reproach to him."
"My dear boy," Mr. Clem replied, "if I had intended to give him further advice along the same line, I would not have mentioned it to you—would not have hinted that I had said anything. So, now, as far as that is concerned, you may rest at ease."
"All right, we'll say nothing more about it. Uncle Clem, do you think that I'm stilted in my talk?"
"Why, not any more so than the average boy in this part of the country. You know the Kentuckian is taught to talk with a flourish; it is in keeping with the pretense of his surroundings; he must be gallant with woman and lordly with man. No, you are not particularly stilted, but there is one branch of information that you are stubbornly overlooking—the horse. You have studied the orator, but I want to tell you that the horse has done quite as much to make Kentucky known as the orator. After all, oratory is nothing but talk, while there's action in a horse. And, by the way, who's that riding along the pike? Too far off or I'd yell at him. Good horse; no, little lame in the left hind foot. See, he don't move evenly."
"I can't tell from here," said master.
"Ah, hah, and that goes to prove what I say, thatyou haven't given enough study to that important subject. It isn't right for a man to cultivate one lobe of his mind and neglect the other. Man's mind, you know, has two lobes—one embracing the horse, and the other covering the human family and other little things. I wonder how much longer things are going to be as dull as they are now. Why, out in Illinois we had something every day to interest us, up hill and down, but here everything is on a dead level. There's not enough ginger in the air."