Ido believe,” said Mrs. Pelham, stooping to look through the oblong window of the milk-and-butter cellar toward the great barn across the farmyard, “I do believe Cobb an’ Uncle Henry are fussin’ ag’in.”
“Shorely not,” answered her old-maid sister, Miss Molly Meyers. She left her butter bowl and paddles, and bent her angular figure beside Mrs. Pelham, to see the white man and the black man who were gesticulating in each other’s faces under the low wagon-shed that leaned against the barn.
The old women strained their ears to overhear what was said, but the stiff breeze from across the white-and-brown fields of cotton stretching toward the west bore the angry words away. Mrs. Pelham turned and drew the white cloths over her milkpans.
“Cobb will never manage them niggers in the world,” she sighed. “Henry has had Old Nick in ’im as big as a house ever since Mr. Pelham went off an’ left Cobb in charge. Uncle Henry hain’t minded one word Cobb has said, nur he won’t. The whole crop is goin’ to rack an’ ruin. Thar’s jest one thing to be done. Mr. Pelham has jest got to come home an’ whip Henry. Nobody else could do it, an’ he never will behave till it’s done. Cobb tried to whip ’im t’other day when you was over the mountain, but Henry laid hold of a ax helve an’ jest dared Cobb to tech ‘im. That ended it. Cobb was afeard of ‘im. Moreover, he’s afeard Uncle Henry will put p’ison in his victuals, or do ’im or his family some bodily damage on the sly.”
“It would be a powerful pity,” returned Miss Molly, “fer Mr. Pelham to have to lay down his business in North Carolina, whar he’s got so awful much to do, an’ ride all that three hundred miles jest fer to whip one nigger. It looks like some other way mought be thought of. Couldn’t you use your influence—”
“I’ve talked till I’m tired out,” Mrs. Pelham interrupted. “Uncle Henry promises an’ forms good resolutions, it seems like, but the very minute Cobb wants ’im to do some ’n a little different from Mr. Pelham’s way, Henry won’t stir a peg. He jest hates the ground Cobb walks on. Well, I reckon Cobb ain’t much of a man. He never would work a lick, an’ if he couldn’t git a job overseein’ somebody’s niggers he’d let his family starve to death. Nobody kin hate a lazy, good-for-nothin’ white man like a nigger kin. Thar Cobb comes now, to complain to me, I reckon,” added Mrs. Pelham, going back to the window. “An’ bless your soul, Henry has took his seat out in the sun on the wagon-tongue, as big as life. I reckon the whole crop will go to rack an’ ruin.”
The next moment a tall, thin-visaged man with gray hair and beard stood in the cellar door.
“I’m jest about to the end o’ my tether, Sister Pelham.” (He always called her “Sister,” because they were members of the same church.) “I can’t get that black rascal to stir a step. I ordered Alf an’ Jake to hold ‘im, so I could give ’im a sound lashin’, but they was afeard to tech ‘im.”
Mrs. Pelham looked at him over her glasses as she wiped her damp hands on her apron.
“You don’t know how to manage niggers, Brother Cobb; I didn’t much ‘low you did the day Mr. Pelham left you in charge. The fust mornin’, you went to the field with that hosswhip in your hand, an’ you’ve toted it about ever since. You mought know that would give offense. Mr. Pelham never toted one, an’ yore doin’ of it looks like you ‘lowed you’d have a use fer it.”
“I acknowledge I don’t know what to do,” said Cobb, frowning down her reference to his whip. “I’ve been paid fer three months’ work in advance, in the white mare an’ colt Mr. Pelham give me, an’ I’ve done sold ’em an’ used the money. I’m free to confess that Brother Pelham’s intrusts are bein’ badly protected as things are goin’; but I’ve done my best.”
“I reckon you have,” answered Mrs. Pelham, with some scorn in her tone. “I reckon you have, accordin’ to your ability an’ judgment, an’ we can’t afford to lose your services after you’ve been paid. Thar is jest one thing left to do, an’ that is fer Mr. Pelham to come home an’ whip Henry. He’s sowin’ discord an’ rebellion, an’ needs a good, sound lashin’. The sooner it’s done the better. Nobody can do it but Mr. Pelham, an’ I’m goin’ in now an’ write the letter an’ send it off. In the mean time, you’d better go on to work with the others, an’ leave Henry alone till his master comes.”
“Brother Pelham is the only man alive that could whip ‘im,” replied Cobb; “but it looks like a great pity an’ expense for Brother Pel—” But the planter’s wife had passed him and gone up the steps into the sitting-room. Cobb walked across the barnyard without looking at the stalwart negro sitting on the wagon-tongue. He threw his whip down at the barn, and he and half a dozen negroes went to the hayfields over the knoll toward the creek.
In half an hour Mrs. Pelham, wearing her gingham bonnet, came out to where Uncle Henry still sat sulking in the sun. As she approached him, she pushed back her bonnet till her gray hair and glasses showed beneath it.
“Henry,” she said, sternly, “I’ve jest done a thing that I hated mightily to do.”
“What’s that, Mis’ Liza?” He looked up as he asked the question, and then hung his head shamefacedly. He was about forty-five years of age. For one of his race he had a strong, intelligent face. Indeed, he possessed far more intelligence than the average negro. He was considered the most influential slave on any of the half-dozen plantations lying along that side of the river. He had learned to read, and by listening to the conversation of white people had (if he had acquired the colloquial speech of the middle-class whites) dropped almost every trace of the dialect current among his people. And on this he prided himself no little. He often led in prayer at the colored meeting-house on an adjoining plantation, and some of his prayers were more widely quoted and discussed than many of the sermons preached in the same church.
“I have wrote to yore master, Henry,” answered Mrs. Pelham, “an’ I’ve tol’ ’im all yore doin’s, an’ tol’ him to come home an’ whip you fer disobeyin’ Brother Cobb. I hated to do it, as I’ve jest said; but I couldn’t see no other way out of the difficulty. Don’t you think you deserve a whippin’, Uncle Henry?”
“I don’t know, Mis’ Liza.” He did not look up from the grass over which he swung his rag-covered leg and gaping brogan. “I don’t know myself, Mis’ Liza. I want to help Marse Jasper out all I can while he is off, but it seems like I jest can’t work fer that man. Huh, overseer! I say overseer! Why, Mis’ Liza, he ain’t as good as a nigger! Thar ain’t no pore white trash in all this valley country as low down as all his lay-out. He ain’t fittin’ fer a overseer of nothin’. He don’t do anything like master did, nohow. He’s too lazy to git in out of a rain. He—”
“That will do, Henry. Mr. Pelham put him over you, an’ you’ve disobeyed. He ’ll be home in a few days, an’ you an’ him can settle it between you. He will surely give you a good whippin’ when he gits here. Are you goin’ to sit thar without layin’ yore hand to a thing till he comes?”
“Now, you know me better ’n that, Mis’ Liza. I’ve done said I won’t mind that man, an’ I reckon I won’t; but the meadow-piece has obliged to be broke an’ sowed in wheat. I’m goin’ to do that jest as soon as the blacksmith fetches my bull-tongue plow.”
Mrs. Pelham turned away silently. She had heard some talk of the government buying the negroes from their owners and setting them free. She ardently hoped this would be done, for she was sure they could then be hired cheaper than they could be owned and provided for. She disliked to see a negro whipped; but occasionally she could see no other way to make them do their duty.
From the dairy window, a few minutes later, she saw Uncle Henry put the gear on a mule, and, with a heavy plow-stock on his shoulder, start for the wheat-field beyond the meadow.
“He ’ll do two men’s work over thar, jest to show what he kin do when he’s let alone,” she said to Miss Molly. “I hate to see ’im whipped. He’s too old an’ sensible in most things, an’ it would jest break Lucinda’s heart. Mr. Pelham had ruther cut off his right arm, too; but he ’ll do it, an’ do it good, after havin’ to come so far.”
Mr. Pelham was a week in reaching the plantation. He wrote that it would take several days to arrange his affairs so that he could leave. He admitted that there was nothing left to do except to whip Uncle Henry soundly, and that they were right in thinking that Henry would not let any one do it but himself. After the whipping he was sure that the negro would obey Cobb, and that matters would then move along smoothly.
When Mr. Pelham arrived, he left the stage at the cross-roads, half a mile from his house, and carpet-bag in hand, walked home through his own fields. He was a short, thick-set man of about sixty, round-faced, blue-eyed, and gray-haired. He wore a sack-coat, top-boots, and baggy trousers. He had a good-natured, kindly face, and walked with the quick step and general air of a busy man.
He had traveled three hundred miles, slept on the hard seat of a jolting train, eaten railroad pies and peanuts, and was covered with the grime of a dusty journey, all to whip one disobedient negro. Still, he was not out of humor, and after the whipping and lecture to his old servant he would travel back over the tiresome route and resume his business where he had left it.
His wife and sister-in-law were in the kitchen when they heard his step in the long hall. They went into the sitting-room, where he had put down his carpet-bag, and in the center of the floor stood swinging his hat and mopping his brow with his red handkerchief. He shook hands with the two women, and then sat down in his old seat in the chimney-corner.
“You want a bite to eat, an’ a cup of coffee, I reckon,” said Mrs. Pelham, solicitously.
“No, I kin wait till dinner. Whar’s Cobb?”
“I seed ’im at the wagon-shed a minute ago,” spoke up Miss Molly; “he was expectin’ you, an’ didn’t go to the field with the balance.”
“Tell ’im I want to see ‘im.”
Both of the women went out, and the overseer came in.
“Bad state of affairs, Brother Cobb,” said the planter, as he shook hands. They both sat down with their knees to the embers.
“That it is, Brother Pelham, an’ I take it you didn’t count on it any more ’n I did.”
“Never dreamt of it. Has he been doin’ any better since he heerd I was comin’ to—whip ‘im?”
“Not fer me, Brother Pelham. He hain’t done a lick fer me; but all of his own accord, in the last week, he has broke and sowed all that meadow-piece in wheat, an’ is now harrowin’ it down to hide it from the birds. To do ’im jestice, I hain’t seed so much work done in six days by any human bein’ alive. He ’ll work for hisse’f, but he won’t budge fer me.”
Mr. Pelham broke into a soft, impulsive laugh, as if at the memory of something.
“They all had a big joke on me out in North Carolina,” he said. “I tol’ ’em I was comin’ home to whip a nigger, an’ they wouldn’t believe a word of it. I reckon it is the fust time a body ever went so fur on sech business. They ‘lowed I was jest homesick an’ wanted a’ excuse to come back.”
“They don’t know what a difficult subject we got to handle,” Cobb replied. “You are, without doubt, the only man in seven states that could whip ‘im, Brother Pelham. I believe on my soul he’d kill anybody else that’d tech ‘im. He’s got the strangest notions about the rights of niggers I ever heerd from one of his kind. He’s jest simply dangerous.”
“You ‘re afeard of ‘im, Brother Cobb, an’ he’s sharp enough to see it; that’s all.”
The overseer winced. “I don’t reckon I’m any more so than any other white man would be under the same circumstances. Henry mought not strike back lick fer lick on the spot—I say he mought not; an’ then ag’in he mought—but he’d git even by some hook or crook, or I’m no judge o’ niggers.”
Mr. Pelham rose. “Whar is he?”
“Over in the wheat-field.”
“Well, you go over thar n’ tell ’im I’m here, an’ to come right away down in the woods by the gum spring. I ’ll go down an’ cut some hickory withes an’ wait fer ‘im. The quicker it’s done an’ over, the deeper the impression will be made on ‘im. You see, I want ’im to realize that all this trip is jest solely on his account. I ’ll start back early in the mornin’. That will have its weight on his future conduct. An’, Brother Cobb, I can’t—I jestcan’tafford to be bothered ag’in. My business out thar at the lumber-camp won’t admit of it. This whippin’ has got to do fer the rest of the year. I think he ’ll mind you when I git through with ‘im. I like ’im better ’n any slave I ever owned, an’ I’d a thousand times ruther take the whippin’ myself; but it’s got to be done.”
Cobb took himself to Henry in the wheat-field, and the planter went down into the edge of the woods near the spring. With his pocket-knife he cut two slender hickory switches about five feet in length. He trimmed off the out-shooting twigs and knots, and rounded the butts smoothly.
From where he sat on a fallen log, he could see, across the boggy swamp of bulrushes, the slight rise on which Henry was at work. He could hear Henry’s mellow, resonant “Haw” and “Gee,” as he drove his mule and harrow from end to end of the field, and saw Cobb slowly making his way toward him.
Mr. Pelham laid the switches down beside him, put his knife in his pocket, and stroked his chin thoughtfully. Suddenly he felt a tight sensation in his throat. The solitary figure of the negro as he trudged along by the harrow seemed vaguely pathetic. Henry had always been such a noble fellow, so reliable and trustworthy. They had really been, in one way, more like brothers than master and slave. He had told Henry secrets that he had confided to no other human being, and they had laughed and cried together over certain adventures and sorrows. About ten years before, Mr. Pelham’s horse had run away and thrown him against a tree and broken his leg. Henry had heard his cries and run to him. They were two miles from the farmhouse, and it was a bitterly cold day, but the stalwart negro had taken him in his arms and carried him home and laid him down on his bed. There had been a great deal of excitement about the house, and it was not until after the doctor had come and dressed the broken limb that it was learned that Henry had fallen in a swoon in his cabin and lain there unconscious for an hour, his wife and children being away. Indeed, he had been almost as long recovering as had been his master.
Henry had stopped his mule. Cobb had called to him, and was approaching. Then Mr. Pelham knew that the overseer was delivering his message, for the negro had turned his head and was looking toward the woods which hid his master from view. Mr. Pelham felt himself flush all over. Could he be going to whip Henry—really to lash his bare back with those switches? How strange it seemed all at once! And that this should be their first meeting after a two months’ separation!
In his home-comings before, Uncle Henry had always been the first to meet him with outstretched hand. But the negro had to be whipped. Mr. Pelham had said it in North Carolina; he had said it to Cobb, and he had written it to his wife. Yes, it must be done; and if done at all, of course it must be done right.
He saw Henry hitch his mule to a chestnut-tree in the field and Cobb turn to make his way back to the farm-house. Then he watched Henry approaching till the bushes which skirted the field hid him from view. There was no sound for several minutes except the rustling of the fallen leaves in the woods behind him, and then Uncle Henry’s head and shoulders appeared above the broom-sedge near by.
“Howdy do, Marse Jasper?” he cried; and the next instant he broke through the yellow sedge and stood before his master.
“Purty well, Henry.” Mr. Pelham could not refuse the black hand which was extended, and which caught his with a hearty grasp. “I hope you are as well as common, Henry?”
“Never better in my life, Marse Jasper.”
The planter had risen, but he now sat down beside his switches. For a moment nothing was said. Uncle Henry awkwardly bent his body and his neck to see if his mule were standing where he had left him, and his master looked steadfastly at the ground.
“Sit down, Henry,” he said, presently; and the negro took a seat on the extreme end of the log and folded his black, seamed hands over his knee. “I want to talk to you first of all. Something of a very unpleasant, unavoidable nature has got to take place betwixt us, an’ I want to give you a sound talkin’ to beforehan’.”
“All right, Marse Jasper; I’m a-listenin’.” Henry looked again toward his mule. “I did want to harrow that wheat down ‘fore them birds eat it up; but I got time, I reckon.”
The planter coughed and cleared his throat. He tried to cross his short, fat legs by sliding the right one up to the knee of the left, but owing to the lowness of the log, he was unable to do this, so he left his legs to themselves, and with a hand on either side of him, leaned back.
“Do you remember, Uncle Henry, twenty years ago, when you belonged to old Heaton Pelzer an’ got to hankerin’ after that yellow girl of mine jest after I bought her in South Carolina?”
“Mighty plain, Master Jasper, mighty plain.” Henry’s face showed a tendency to smile at the absurdity of the question.
“Lucinda was jest as much set after you, it seemed,” went on the planter. “Old Pelzer was workin’ you purty nigh to death on his pore, wore-out land, an’ pointedly refused to buy Lucinda so you could marry her, nur he wouldn’t consent to you marryin’ a slave of mine. Ain’t that so?”
“Yes, Marse Jasper, that’s so, sir.”
“I had jest as many niggers as I could afford to keep, an’ a sight more. I was already up to my neck in debt, an’ to buy you I knowed I’d have to borrow money an’ mortgage the last thing I had. But you come to me night after night, when you could sneak off, an’ begged an’ begged to be bought, so that I jest didn’t have the heart to refuse. So, jest to accommodate you, I got up the money an’ bought you, payin’ fully a third more fer you than men of yore age was goin’ at. You are married now, an’ got three as likely children as ever come into the world, an’ a big buxom wife that loves you, an’ if I haven’t treated you an’ them right I never heerd of it.”
“Never was a better master on earth, Marse Jasper. If thar is, I hain’t never seed ‘im.” Henry’s face was full of emotion. He picked up his slouch hat from the grass and folded it awkwardly on the log beside him.
“From that day till this,” the planter went on, “I’ve been over my head in debt, an’ I can really trace it to that transaction. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as the feller said. Well, now, Henry, six months ago, when I saw that openin’ to deal in lumber in North Carolina, it seemed to me to be my chance to work out of debt, if I could jest find somebody to look after my farm. I found a man, Henry—a good, clever, honest man, as everybody Said, an’ a member of Big Bethel Church. For a certain consideration he agreed to take charge. That consideration I’ve paid in advance, an’ it’s gone; I couldn’t git it back.
“Now, how has it turned out? I had hardly got started out thar before one of my niggers—the very one I relied on the most—has played smash with all my plans. You begun by turnin’ up yore nose at Brother Cobb, an’ then by openly disobeyin’ ‘im. Then he tried to punish you—the right that the law gives a overseer—an’ you up an’ dared him to tech you, an’—”
“Marse Jasper—”
“Hold yore tongue till I’m through.”
“All right, Marse Jasper, but—”
“You openly defied ‘im, that’s enough; you broke up the order of the whole thing, an’ yore mistress was so upset that she had to send fer me. Now, Henry, I hain’t never laid the lash on you in my life, an’ I’d ruther take it myself than to have to do it, but I hain’t come three hundred miles jest to talk to you. I’m goin’ to whip you, Henry, an’ I’m goin’ to do it right, if thar’s enough strength in my arm. You needn’t shake yore head an’ sulk. No matter what you refused to let Cobb an’ the rest of ’em do, you are a-goin’ to take what I’m goin’ to give you without a word, because you know it’s just an’ right.”
Henry’s face was downcast, and his master could not see his eyes, but a strange, rebellious fire had suddenly kindled in them, and he was stubbornly silent. Mr. Pelham could not have dreamed of what was passing in his mind.
“Henry, you an’ me are both religious men,” said the planter, after he had waited for a moment. “Let’s kneel right down here by this log an’ commune with the Lord on this matter.”
Without a word the negro rose and knelt, his face in his hands, his elbows on the log. There never had been a moment when Uncle Henry was not ready to pray or listen to a prayer. He prided himself on his own powers in that line, and had unbounded respect even for the less skillful efforts of others. Mr. Pelham knelt very deliberately and began to pray:
“Our heavenly Father, it is with extreme sadness an’ sorrow that we come to Thee this bright, sunny day. Our sins have been many, an’ we hardly know when our deeds are acceptable in Thy sight; but bless all our efforts, we pray Thee, for the sake of Him that died for us, an’ let us not walk into error in our zeal to do Thy holy will.
“Lord, Thou knowest the hearts of Thy humble supplicant an’ this man beside him. Thou, through the existin’ laws of this land, hast put him into my care an’ keepin’ an’ made me responsible to a human law for his good or bad behavior. Lord, on this occasion it seems my duty to punish him for disobedience, an’ we pray Thee to sanction what is about to take place with Thy grace. Let no anger or malice rest in our hearts during the performance of this disagreeable task, an’ let the whole redound to Thy glory, for ever an’ ever, through the mercy of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Mr. Pelham rose to his feet stiffly, for he had touches of rheumatism, and the ground was cold. He brushed his trousers, and laid hold of his switches. But to his surprise, Henry had not risen. If it had not been for the stiffness of his elbows, and the upright position of his long feet, which stood on their toes erect as gate-posts, Mr. Pelham might have thought that he had dropped asleep.
For a moment the planter stood silent, glancing first at the mass of ill-clothed humanity at his feet, and then sweeping his eyes over the quiet, rolling land which lay between him and the farmhouse. How awfully still everything was! He saw Henry’s cabin near the farmhouse. Lucinda was out in the yard picking up chips, and one of Uncle Henry’s children was clinging to her skirts. The planter was very fond of Lucinda, and he wondered what she would do if she knew he was about to whip her husband. But why did the fellow not get up? Surely that was an unusual way to act. In some doubt as to what he ought to do, Mr. Pelham sat down again. It should not be said of him that he had ever interrupted any man’s prayers to whip him. As he sat down, the log rolled slightly, the elbows of the negro slid off the bark, and Henry’s head almost came in contact with the log. But he took little notice of the accident, and glancing at his master from the corner of his eye, he deliberately replaced his elbows, pressed his hands together, and began to pray aloud:
“Our heavenly Father.” These words were spoken in a deep, sonorous tone, and as Uncle Henry paused for an instant the echoes groaned and murmured and died against the hill behind him. Mr. Pelham bowed his head to his hand. He had heard Henry pray before, and now he dreaded hearing him, he hardly knew why. He felt a strange creeping sensation in his spine.
“Our heavenly Father,” the slave repeated, in his mellow sing-song tone, “Thou knowest that I am Thy humble servant. Thou knowest that I have brought to Thee all my troubles since my change of heart—that I have left nothing hidden from Thee, who art my Maker, my Redeemer, an’ my Lord. Thou knowest that I have for a long time harbored the belief that the black man has some rights that he don’t git under existin’ laws, but which, Thy will be done, will come in due time, like the harvest follows the plantin’. Thou know-est, an’ I know, that Henry Pelham is nigher to Thee than a dumb brute, an’ that it ain’t no way to lift a nigger up to beat ’im like a horse or a ox. I have said this to Thee in secret prayer, time an’ ag’in, an’ Thou knowest how I stand on it, if my master don’t. Thou knowest that before Thee I have vowed that I would die before any man, white or black, kin beat the blood out ’n my back. I may have brought trouble an’ vexation to Marse Jasper, I don’t dispute that, but he had no business puttin’ me under that low-down, white-trash overseer an’ goin’ off so far. Heavenly Father, thou knowest I love Marse Jasper, an’ I would work fer ’im till I die; but he is ready to put the lash to me an’ disgrace me before my wife an’ children. Give my arms strength, Lord, to defend myself even against him—against him who has, up to now, won my respect an’ love by forbearance an’ kindness. He has said it, Lord—he has said that he will whip me; but I’ve said, also, that no man shall do it. Give me strength to battle fer the right, an’ if he is hurt—bad hurt—may the Lord have mercy on him! This I ask through the mercy an’ the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Henry rose awkwardly to his feet and looked down at his master, who sat silent on the log. Mr. Pelham’s face was pale. There was a look of indecision under the pallor. He held one of the switches by the butt in his hand, and with its tapering end tapped the brown leaves between his legs. He looked at the imperturbable countenance of the negro for fully a minute before he spoke.
“Do you mean to say, Henry,” he asked, “that you are a-goin’ to resist me by force?”
“I reckon I am, Marse Jasper, if nothin’ else won’t do you. That’s what I have promised the Lord time an’ ag’in since Cobb come to boss me. I wasn’t thinkin’ about you then, Marse Jasper, because I didn’t ’low you ever would try such a thing; but I saidanywhite man, an’ I can’t take it back.”
The planter looked up at the stalwart man towering over him. Henry could toss him about like a ball. In his imagination he had pictured the faithful fellow bowed before him, patiently submitting to his blows, but the present contingency had never entered his mind. He tried to be angry, but the goodnatured face of the slave he loved made it impossible.
“Sit down thar, Henry,” he said; and when the negro had obeyed, he continued, almost appealingly: “I have told the folks in North Carolina that I was comin’ home to whip you, you see. I have told yore mistress, an’ I have told Cobb. I ’ll look like a purty fool if I don’t do it.”
A regretful softness came into the face of the negro, and he hung his head, and for a moment picked at the bark of the log with his long thumbnail.
“I’m mighty sorry, Marse Jasper,” he answered, after remaining silent for a while. “But you see I’ve done promised the Lord; you wouldn’t have me—what do all them folks amount to beside the Lord? No; a body ought to be careful about what he’s promised the Almighty.”
Mr. Pelham had no reply forthcoming. He realized that he was simply not going to whip Uncle Henry, and he did not want to appear ridiculous in the eyes of his friends. The negro saw by his master’s silence that he was going to escape punishment, and that made him more humble and sympathetic than ever. He was genuinely sorry for his master.
“You have done told ’em all you was goin’ to whip me, I know, Marse Jasper; but why don’t you jest let ’em think you done it? I don’t keer, jest so I kin keep my word. Lucinda ain’t a-goin’ to believe I’d take it, nohow.”
At this loophole of escape the face of the planter brightened. For a moment he felt like grasping Henry’s hand: then a cloud came over his face.
“But,” he demurred, “what about yore future conduct? Will you mind what Cobb tells you?”
“I jest can’t do that, Marse Jasper. Me ’n him jest can’t git along together. He ain’t no man at all.”
“Well, what on earth am I to do? I’ve got to have an overseer, an’ I’ve got to go back to North Carolina.”
“You don’t have to have no overseer fer me, Marse Jasper. Have I ever failed to keep a promise to you, Marse Jasper?”
“No; but I can’t be here.”
“I ’ll tell you what I ’ll do, Marse Jasper. Would you be satisfied with my part of the work if I tend all the twenty-acre piece beyond my cabin, an’ make a good crop on it, an’ look after all the cattle an’ stock, an’ clear the woodland on the hill an’ cord up the firewood?”
“You couldn’t do it, Henry.”
“I ’ll come mighty nigh it, Marse Jasper, if you ’ll let me be my own boss an’ be responsible to you when you git back. Mr. Cobb kin boss the rest of ‘em. They don’t keer how much he swings his whip an’ struts around.”
“Henry, I ’ll do it. I can trust you a sight better than I can Cobb. I know you will keep yore word. But you will not say anything about—”
“Not a word, Marse Jasper. They all may ’low I’m half dead, if they want to.” Then the two men laughed together heartily and parted.
The overseer and the two white women were waiting for Mr. Pelham in the backyard as he emerged from the woods and came toward the house. Mrs. Pelham opened the gate for him, scanning his face anxiously.
“I was afeard you an’ Henry had had some difficulty,” she said, in a tone of relief; “he has been that hard to manage lately.”
Mr. Pelham grunted and laughed in disdain.
“I ’ll bet he was the hardest you ever tackled,” ventured Cobb.
“Anybody can manage him,” the planter replied—“anybody that has got enough determination. You see Henry knows me.”
“But do you think he ’ll obey my orders after you go back?” Cobb had followed Mr. Pelham into the sitting-room, and he anxiously waited for the reply to his question.
The planter stooped to spit into a corner of the chimney, and then slowly and thoughtfully stroked his chin with his hand. “That’s the only trouble, Brother Cobb,” he said, thrusting his fat hands into the pockets of his trousers and turning his back to the fire-place; “that’s the only drawback. To be plain with you, Brother Cobb, I’m afeard you don’t inspire respect; men that don’t own niggers seldom do. I believe on my soul that nigger would die fightin’ before he’d obey yore orders. To tell the truth, I had to arrange a plan, an’ that is one reason—one reason—why I was down thar so long. After what happened today” (Mr. Pelham spoke significantly and stroked his chin again) “he ’ll mind me jest as well at a distance as if I was here on the spot. He’d have a mortal dread of havin’ me come so fur ag’in.”
“I hope you wasn’t cruel, Mr. Pelham,” said Mrs. Pelham, who had just come in. “Henry’s so good-hearted—”
“Oh, he ’ll git over it,” replied the planter, ambiguously. “But, as I was goin’ on to say, I had to fix another plan. I have set him a sort o’ task to do while I’m away, an’ I believe he ’ll do it, Brother Cobb. So all you ’ll have to do will be to look after the other niggers.” The plan suited Cobb exactly; but when Mr. Pelham came home the following summer it was hard to hear him say that Uncle Henry had accomplished more than any three of the other negroes.
Yo’ ‘re purty well fixed, Jim; I wish I had yore business.”
Big Jim Bradley glanced slowly around his store. The heaps of flour-sacks, coffee-bags, sugar-barrels, piles of bacon, crates of hams, kits of mackerel, and the long rows of well-filled shelves brought a flush of satisfaction into his rugged face.
“Hain’t no reason to complain, Bob,” he said; “you’ve been in Georgia, an’ you know how blamed hard it is fer a feller to make his salt back thar.”
“Now yo’ ‘re a-talkin’—yo’ ‘re a-sayin’ some ‘n’ now!” Bob Lash was sitting on the head of a potato-barrel, eating cheese and crackers, and his spirited words were interspersed with little snowy puffs from the corners of his mouth. “Jim,” he continued, in a muffled tone, as he eased his feet down to the floor, “I’m a-goin’ to wash this dry truck down with a glass o’ yore cider; I’m about to choke. Thar’s yore nickel. You needn’t rise; I can wait on myse’f.”
“I’d keep my eye open while he was behind the counter, Jim,” put in Henry Webb, jestingly. “Bob’s got a swallow like a mill-race. He may take a notion to drink out of yore half-gallon measure.”
“Had to drink out ’n a thimble, or some ‘n’ ’bout the size of it, at yore place when you kept a bar,” gurgled Bob in the cider-glass. “But I hain’t nothin’ ag’in you; the small doses of the stuff you sold was all that saved my life.”
The flashily dressed young man sitting at Webb’s side laughed and slapped him familiarly on the knee. His name was Thornton. He used to “mix drinks” for Webb, and had been out of employment ever since his employer’s establishment had been closed by the sheriff, a few months before. “One on you, Harry,” he said, laughing again at the comical expression on his friend’s face; “you have to get up before day to get the best o’ these Georgia mossbacks.”
Webb said nothing; and Bob, blushing triumphantly under Thornton’s compliment, and chewing a chip of dried beef that he had found on the counter, came back to his seat on the barrel.
“Well, I reckon Ihavedone middlin’ well,” said Jim, bringing the conversation back to his own affairs with as much adroitness as he was capable of exercising. “I didn’t have a dollar to my name when I struck this town, ten year back. I started as a waiter in a restaurant nigh the railroad shops, then run a lemonade-stand at the park, an’ by makin’ every lick count, I gradually worked up to this shebang.”
Henry Webb seemed to grow serious. He glanced stealthily at Thornton when Jim was not looking, crossed his legs nervously, and said: “Jim, me an’ you have been dickerin’ long enough; all this roundabout talk don’t bring us an inch nearer a trade. Now I’m goin’ to make you my last proposition about this stock o’ goods. My wife got her money out of her minin’ interest to-day, an’ wants to put it in some regular business o’ this sort. I’m goin’ to make you a round bid on the whole thing, lock, stock, an’ barrel, an’, on my honor, it’s my last offer. I ’ll give you ten thousand dollars in cash fer the key to the door.”
Everybody in the group was fully conscious of the vital importance of the words which had just been spoken. Webb, who was a famous poker-player, had never controlled his face and tone better. No one spoke for a moment, but all eyes were fixed expectantly on Bradley. “Huh,” he answered, half under his breath, “I reckon you would!” He tossed his shaggy, iron-gray head and smiled artificially. His face was pale, and his eyes shone with suppressed excitement. It was a better offer than he had expected; in fact, he had not realized before that his stock was convertible into quite so much ready money, and it was hard for him, simple and honest as he was, to keep from showing surprise. “Harry Webb,” he went on, evasively, “do you have any idee what I cleared last year, not countin’ bad debts an’ expenses? I’m over three thousand ahead, an’ prospects fer trade never was better. My books will show you that I am a-givin’ it to you straight.”
Webb made no reply. If he had been as sure of his own moral worth as he was of Jim’s he would have been a better man. As it was, he only looked significantly at Thornton, who had evidently come prepared to play a part.
“It ain’t no business o’ mine, fellers, one way or the other,” began Thornton, slightly confused. He cleared his throat and spat on the floor. “But I ’ll admit I’m kinder anxious to see Harry get into some settled business. You know he’s mighty changeable, one day runnin’ some fortune-wheel or card-table, an’ the next got charge of a side-show, bar, or skating-rink, and never makes much stake at anything. I told his wife to-day that I’d do my best to get you fellers to come to a understanding. That’s all the interest I’ve got in the matter; but I’d bet my last chip you’d have to look a long ways before you could find another buyer with that much ready cash such times as these.”
“Huh, you don’t say!” sneered Jim, a cold gleam of indecision and excitement in the glance that he accidentally threw to Bob Lash, who erroneously fancied that his friend wanted him to say something to offset the remarks made by Webb’s ally. But diplomacy was not one of the few gifts with which frugal nature had blessed Bob, and when the idea struck him that he ought to speak, he grew very agitated, and almost stabbed a hole in one of his cheeks with the long splinter with which he was picking his teeth.
“The man that gits it has a purty dead-shore thing fer a comfortable income,” he blurted out, incautiously. “I wish I had the money to secure it; I’d plank it down so quick it ‘u’d make yore head swim.”
Jim flushed. “Nobody hain’t said nothin’ ’bout the shebang bein’ on the market,” he said, quickly.
Bob saw his mistake too late to rectify it, so he said nothing.
Webb smiled, and rose with an easy assumption of indifference and lighted a fresh cigar over the lamp-chimney. “Tibbs wants to rent me the new store-room joining you, Jim,” he said, rolling his cigar into the corner of his mouth and half closing the eye which was in direct line with the rising smoke. “I kinder thought I’d like them big plate-glass show-windows. Ten thousand dollars in bran-new groceries wouldn’t be bad, would they?”
Jim was taken slightly aback, but he recovered himself in an instant. “Not ef they was bought jest right, Harry,” he said, significantly. “A manmoughthave a purty fair start that way, ef he was experienced; but law me! I’d hate awful to start to lay in a stock frum these cussed drummers; they are wholesale bunco-sharks. An’ then, you see, I’ve been here sence this town fust started, an’ I know who will do to credit an’ who won’t. My blacklist is wuth five thousand to any man in this line. Thar’s men in this town that ’ll pay a gamblin’ debt ‘thout a bobble, an’ cuss like rips at the sight of a grocery bill. But thar ain’t no use talkin’; I reckon my business ain’t fer sale.”
Webb turned to Thornton and coolly asked for a match; then the entire group was silent till Bob Lash spoke.
“How in the world did you ever happen to come ’way out here, anyway, Jim?” he asked, obtusely believing that Bradley meant exactly what he had said in regard to Webb’s proposition, and that for all concerned it would be more agreeable and profitable to talk about something else.
“Got tired an’ wanted a change,” grunted Bradley. “I never was treated exactly right by my folks, an’ was itchin’ awful to make money.”
“What county did you say you was from?”
“Gilmer.”
Webb yawned aloud, puffed at his cigar, and swept the store from end to end with a rather critical, would-be dissatisfied glance.
“I passed through thar goin’ from Dalton to Canton,” went on Bob, warming up. “It’s a purty country through them mountains. What was you a-follerin’ back thar?”
“Farmin’ it. Thar was jest three uv us—me an’ brother Joe an’ mother; but we couldn’t git along together.”
“What a pity!” said Bob.
“I al’ays wanted to make money,” went on Jim, “an’ atter the old man died I was anxious fer me an’ Joe to save up enough to git a farm uv our own; but he tuk to drinkin’ an’ spreein’ round generally, an’ was al’ays off jest when the crop needed the most attention. I al’ays was easy irritated, an’ never could be satisfied onless I was goin’ ahead. Me an’ Joe was eternally a-fussin’, an’ mother al’ays tuk his part. One night she got rippin’ mad, an’ ‘lowed that she could git along better with ’im ef I wasn’t thar to make trouble, an’ so I made up my mind to come West. I tol’ ’em they was welcome to my intrust in the crap, an that I had had all I could stand up under, an’ was goin’ off. Mother never even said farewell, an’ Joe sorter turned up his nose, an’ ‘lowed I’d be writin’ back an’ beggin’ fer money to git home on ‘fore a month was out. I told mother ef she ever needed help to write, but she never looked up from her spinnin’-wheel, an’ from that day to this I hain’t had a scratch of a pen.”
“Shorely you didn’t leave a old woman in sech hands as that,” ventured Bob.
The expression on Jim Bradley’s face changed. “What was I to do? Ef I’d ‘a’ stayed thar I’d ‘a’ been a beggar to-day,” he said, argumentatively. “I ‘lowed ef I was sech a bother I’d leave ‘em; but I ’ll admit thar are times when I think I may ‘a’ been a leetle hasty. An’ I do hanker atter home folks mighty bad at times, especially when I’m locked up in this lonely store at night, with nothin’ but my cat fer company. I’ve been intendin’ to write to mother every day, but some ‘n’ al’ays interferes. I heerd four year ago, accidentally, that they was gittin’ ’long tolerable well.”
“It’s mighty tough on fellers of our age, Jim, to grow old alone in the world,” sighed Bob, reaching out to the crate for another splinter. “I’d ruther have less money an’ more rale home comforts. Kin is a great thing. Brother Sam sent me a pictur’ uv his little gal. I wish I had it to show you; she’s mighty purty an’ smart-lookin’. It made me mighty homesick.’
“I reckon it did,” said Bradley. “I’ve seed dogs that lived better than I do. D’ you fellers ever see whar I bunk?”
“No,” joined in Thornton and Webb, seeing that they were addressed.
“Come into my parlor, then;” and Jim grinned, broadly. He lifted the lamp, and holding it over his head, he led them through some curtains made of cotton bagging into the back room. Empty boxes, hogsheads, crates, bales of hay, heaps of old iron, and every sort of rubbish imaginable covered the floor. A narrow bed stood by a window between a row of dripping syrup-barrels and the greasy wall. “Thar’s whar I sleep,” said Jim, pointing to the bed. “It hain’t been made up in a coon’s age. Sometimes old Injun Mary changes the sheets an’ turns the mattress when she happens along, but it hain’t often. At home I used to sleep in a big sweet-smellin’ bed that was like lyin’ down in a pile o’ roses.”
“I’d think you’d git tired o’ this; I would, by hooky!” declared Bob. “Whar do you git yore grub?”
“Fust one place an’ then another; I don’t bother much about my eatin’. I have to light out o’ bed to wait on the fust one that rattles the doorknob in the mornin’, an’ am so busy from then on that I cayn’t find a minute to git a bite o’ breakfast. See my kettle thar? I can make as good a cup o’ coffee as the next one. Half a cup o’ ground Javy in my coffeepot, with bilin’ water poured on, an’ then put on the stove to bile ag’in, does the business. Thar’s my skillet; a cowboy give it to me. Sometimes I fry a slice o’ streak-o’-lean-streak-o’-fat, ur a few cracked eggs, but it hain’t half livin’.”
They walked back and sat down in the store again. Bob had a strange, perplexed look on his face. Webb was about to make some reference to his offer, when Bob forestalled him in a rather excited tone.
“Jim, did yore mother live nigh Ellijay?”
“‘Bout three miles from town. What in the thunder is the matter? What are you starin’ at me that way fer?”
Bob looked down and moved uneasily on the barrel. “I was jest a-wonderin’—my Lord, Jim! thar was a feller shot the day I passed through Ellijay. I cayn’t be shore, but it seems to me his name was Joe Bradley. He was a troublesome, rowdyish sort of a feller, an’ a man had to shoot ’im in self-defense.”
Jim stared at the speaker helplessly, and then glanced around at Webb and Thornton. His great brown eyes began to dilate, and a sickly pallor came into his face. His breathing fell distinct and harsh on the profound stillness of the room. His mouth dropped open, but he was unable to utter a word.
“He may not ‘a’ been yore brother,” added Bob, quickly, and with sympathy. “I’m not plumb shore o’ the name, nuther. I was helpin a man drive a drove of Kentucky hosses through to Gainesville, an’ we got thar jest atter the shootin’. I heerd the shots myse’f. The coroner held a inquest, an’ the dead man’s mother was thar. She looked pitiful; she was mighty gray an’ old an’ bent over. I was standin’ in the edge o’ the crowd when some neighbor fotch’ ’er up in his wagon, an’ we all made room for ‘er. She had the pity of every blessed man thar. She jest stood ’mongst the rest, lookin’ down at the corpse fer some time ‘thout sayin’ a word to anybody, nur sheddin’ a tear. Then she seemed to come to ‘erse’f, an’ said, jest as ef nothin’ oncommon had occurred: ‘Well, gentlemen, why don’t you move ‘im under a shelter?’ an’ with that she squatted down at his head, an’ breshed the hair off ’n his forehead mighty gentle-like. ‘We are a-holdin’ uv a inquest, accordin’ to law,’ a big feller said who was the coroner of the town. ‘Law ur no law,’ she said, lookin’ up at ‘im, her eyes flashin’ like a tiger-cat’s, ‘he sha ‘n’t lie here in the br’ilin’ sun with no roof over ‘im. Thar wasn’t no law to keep ’im from bein’ murdered right in yore midst.’ An’ she had her way, you kin bet on that. The men jest lifted ‘im up an’ toted ’im into the nighest store an’ put ’im on a cot. The coroner objected, but them men jest cussed ’im to his face an’ pushed him away as ef he was so much trash.”
“Did you take notice o’ the body?” gasped Bradley, finding voice finally. “What kind of a lookin’ man was he?”
“Ef I remember right, he had sorter reddish hair an’ blue eyes, an’ was ’bout yore build. He was a good-lookin’ man.”
“It was brother Joe,” said Bradley. He was trembling from head to foot and was deathly pale. “Well, go on,” he said, making a mighty effort to appear calm; “what about mother?”
“I don’t know anything more,” said Bob. “I left that same day. I heerd some talk about her bein’ left destitute, an’ ef I ain’t mistaken, some said her other son had gone off West an’ died out thar, as nobody had heerd from him. That’s what made me—” But Bradley interrupted him. He rose, with a dazed look on his face, and went to his desk, a few feet away. He sat on the high stool and leaned his shaggy head on a pile of account-books. An inkstand rolled down to the floor, and a penholder rattled after it, but he did not pick them up. Then everything was still. Thornton reached over and took Webb’s cigar to light his own, instead of striking the match he had taken from his pocket. The two men exchanged significant glances, and then looked curiously, almost breathlessly, at the mute figure bowed over the desk. Bradley raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, and a tangled wisp of his long hair lay across his haggard face.
“How long ago was it, Bob?” he asked, in a deep, husky voice.
“Two year last May.”
“My Lord! she may be dead an’ gone by this time, an’ I kin never make up fer my neglect!” He left the desk and came back slowly. “Kin you git that money to-night?” he asked, looking down at Webb.
“Yes; by walkin’ up home.” Webb tried to subdue the eager light in his eyes, which threatened to betray his intense satisfaction at the sudden change of affairs.
“Well, go git it. I ’ll pack my satchel while yo’ ‘re gone. I’m goin’ to leave you fellers fer good, I reckon. I want to git back home. I wish you luck with the business, Webb. It’s a good investment; we mought never have traded ef this hadn’t ‘a’ come up.”
Jim Bradley was worn out with the fatigue of his long journey when he alighted from the train in the little town that he had once known so well. The place had changed so much that he hardly knew which way to turn. He went into a store. The merchant was at his desk behind a railing in the rear, and a boy sat in the middle of the floor filling a patent egg-case with fresh eggs. “Come in,” he said, without looking up, and went on with his work. Jim put his oilcloth valise on the floor and sat down in a chair.
“Some ‘n’ I kin do fer you to-day?” asked the boy, rising, and putting the lid on the egg-case.
“No, I b’lieve not to-day, bub,” replied Bradley. “I’ve jest got off ‘n the train an’ stopped in to ax a few questions. The’ used to be a woman livin’ on the Starks place ten year ago—a widder woman, Mis’ Jason Bradley; kin you tell me whar I’d be likely to find ’er now?”
“I don’t know no sech er person,” said the boy; “mebby Mr. Summers kin tell.”
“You mean Joe Bradley’s mother,” said the storekeeper, approaching—“the feller that was shot over at Holland’s bar?”
“She’s the one,” said Jim, breathlessly; “is she still alive?”
“I hain’t heerd nothin’ to the contrary, but I don’t know jest whar she is now. She was powerful hard up last winter, an’ somebody tuk ’er to live with ‘em—seems to me it was one o’ the Sanders boys.”
A woman entered the door and set her basket on the counter.
“Mis’ Wade ’ll be able to tell you,” continued the merchant, turning to her; “she lives over in that direction.”
“What’s that, Mr. Summers?” she asked, carefully untying the cloth that covered some yellow rolls of butter.
“This gentleman was askin’ about the widow Bradley, Joe’s mother; do you know whar she is?”
“She’s livin’ with Alf Sanders,” replied the woman; “I seed ’er thar soap-bilin’ as I driv by last Tuesday was a week. Are you any kin o’ hern?” and she eyed Bradley curiously from head to foot.
He made no reply to her question, though a warm color had suddenly come into his face at the words she had spoken. He took up his valise and looked out at the setting sun.
“How fer is it out thar?” he asked, a tremor in his voice. “I want to see ’er to-night.”
“Three mile, I reckon,” the woman said. “Keep to the big road tel you cross the creek, an’ then turn off to the right. You cayn’t miss it.”
He thanked her, and trudged on past the other stores and the little white church on the hill, and on into the road that led toward the mountain. Just before entering the woods, he turned and looked back at the village.
“O Lord, I’m glad I ain’t too late entirely,” he said; and he took a soiled red handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “I don’t know what I would ‘a’ done ef they’d ‘a’ said she was gone. But I ’ll never see Joe ag’in, an’ that seems quar. Poor boy! me an’ him used to be mighty thick when we was little bits o’ fellers. I kin remember when he’d ‘a’ fit a wildcat to help me, an’ I got mad at him fer drinkin’ when he wasn’t able to he’p hisse’f. I’d hold my peace ef it was to do over ag’in.”
Sanders’ house was a low, four-roomed log cabin which sat back under some large beech-trees about a hundred yards from the road. Sanders himself sat smoking in the front yard, surrounded by four or five half-clad children and several gaunt hunting-dogs. He was a thin, wiry man, with long brown hair and beard, and dark, suspicious eyes set close together. He did not move or show much concern as Jim Bradley, just at dusk, came wearily up the narrow path from the bars to the door.
“Down, Ski! Down, Brutus!” he called out savagely to his barking dogs, and he silenced their uproar by hurling an ax-helve among them.
“This is whar Alf Sanders lives, I reckon,” said Bradley.
“I’m the feller,” replied Sanders. “Take a cheer; thar’s one handy,” and he indicated it with a lazy wave of his pipe.
Jim sat down mutely. Through the open door in one of the rooms he could see the form of a woman moving about in the firelight. He fell to trembling, and forgot that he was under the curious inspection of Sanders and his children. A moment later, however, when the fire blazed up more brightly, he saw that it was not his mother whom he had seen, but a younger woman.
“Yo’ ‘re a stranger about here?” interrogated Sanders, catching his eye.
“Hain’t been in this country fer ten year,” was the laconic reply. “My name’s Bradley—Jim Bradley; I’ve come back to see my mother.”
“My stars! We all ‘lowed you was dead an’ buried long ‘go!” and Sanders dropped his pipe in sheer astonishment. “Well, ef that don’t take the rag off ’n the bush! Mary! Oh, Mary!”
“What ails you, Alf?” asked a slatternly woman, emerging from the firelight.
“Come out here a minute. This is the old woman’s son Jim, back from the West.”
“Yo’ ‘re a-jokin’,” she ejaculated, as she came slowly in open-eyed wonder toward the visitor. “Why, who’d ‘a’ thought—”
“Whar is she?” interrupted Bradley, unceremoniously. “I’ve come a long ways to see ‘er.”
“She’s out thar at the cow-lot a-milkin’. She tuk ’er bucket an’ the feed fer Brindle jest now.”
His eyes followed hers. Beyond a row of alder-bushes and a little patch of corn he saw the dim outlines of a log stable and lean-to shed surrounded by a snake fence. Away out toward the red-skied west lay green fields and meadows under a canopy of blue smoke, and beyond their limits rose the frowning mountains, upon the sides of which long, sinuous fires were burning.
“I reckon I ort not to run upon her too sudden,” he said, awkwardly, “bein’ as she ain’t expectin’ me, an’ hain’t no idee I’m alive. Is she well?”
“Toler’ble,” replied Mrs. Sanders, hesitatingly. “She’s been complainin’ some o’ headaches lately, an’ her appetite ain’t overly good, but she’s up an’ about, an’ will be powerful glad to see you. She talks about you a good deal of late. Jest atter yore brother Joe’s death she had ’im on her mind purty constant, but now she al’ays has some ‘n’ to say about Jim—that’s yore name, I believe?”
He nodded silently, not taking his eyes from the cow-lot. His valise rolled from his knees down on to the grass, and one of the children restored it to him.
“Yes, that is a fact,” put in Sanders. “She was talkin’ last Sunday about her two boys. She al’ays calls you the steady one. You ort to be sorter cautious. Old folks like her sometimes cayn’t stand good news any better ’n bad.”
“I ’ll be keerful.” His voice sounded husky and deep. “Does she—” he went on hesitatingly—“does she work fer you around the place?”
Sanders crossed his legs and cleared his throat. “That was the understandin’ when we agreed to take ‘er,” he said, rather consequentially. “She was to make ‘erse’f handy whenever she was able. My wife has had a risin’ on ’er arm an’ couldn’t cook, an’ we’ve had five ur six field hands here to the’r meals. The old critter was willin’ to do anything to git a place to stay. The’ wasn’t any-whar else fer ’er to go. She’s too old to do much, but she’s willin’ to put ’er hands to anything. We cayn’t complain. She gits peevish now an’ then, though, an’ ‘er eyesight an’ memory’s a-failin’, so that she makes mistakes in the cookin’. T’other day she salted the dough twice an’ clean furgot to put in sody.”
“She’s gittin’ into ’er second childhood,” added Mrs. Sanders, “an’ she ain’t got our ways in church notions, nuther. She’s a Baptist, you know, an’ b’lieves in emersion of the entire body an’ in close communion an’ sechlike, while the last one of us, down to little Sally thar, is Methodists. She goes whar we do to meetin’ ‘ca’se her church is too fer off an’ we use the hosses Sundays.”
Bradley’s face was hidden by the dusk and the brim of his slouch hat, and they failed to notice the hot flush that rose into his cheeks. He got up suddenly and put his valise on a chair. “I reckon I mought as well walk out to whar she is,” he said. “She won’t be apt to know me. I’ve turned out a beard an’ got gray sence she seed me.”
“I ’ll go’long with you.” But Mrs. Sanders touched her husband on the arm as he was rising. “It ‘u’d look more decent ef you’d leave ’em to the’rselves, Alf,” she whispered. He sat down without a word, and Bradley walked away in the dusk to meet his mother. There was a blur before the strong man’s eyes, and a strange weakness came over him as he leaned against the cow-lot fence and tried to think how he would make himself known to her. Beneath the low shed, a part of the crude stable, he saw the figure of a woman crouched down under a cow. “So, so, Brin’!” she was saying softly. “Cayn’t you stan’ still a minute? That ain’t no way to do. So, so!”
His heart sank. It was her voice, but it was shrill and quivering, and he recognized it only as one does a familiar face under a mask of age. Just then, with a sudden exclamation, she sprang up quickly and placed her pail on the ground out of the cow’s reach. He comprehended the situation at a glance. The calf had got through the bars and was sucking its mother.
“Lord, what ’ll I do?” cried the old woman, in dismay; and catching the calf around the neck, she exerted all her strength to separate it from the cow.
Bradley sprang over the fence and ran to her assistance.
“Le’ me git a hold o’ the little scamp,” he said, and the next instant he had the sleek little animal up in his strong arms. “Whar do you want ‘im put?” he asked, drily, turning to her.
“Outside the lot,” she gasped, so astonished that she could hardly utter a word.
He carried his struggling burden to the fence and dropped it over, and fastened up the bars to keep it out.
“Well, ef that don’t beat all!” she laughed, in great relief, when he turned back to her. “I am very much obleeged. I ‘lowed at fust you was one o’ the field hands.” He looked into her wrinkled face closely, but saw no sign of recognition there. She put the corner of her little breakfast-shawl to her poor wrinkled mouth and broke out into a low, childlike laugh. “I cayn’t help from being amused at the way you tuk up that calf; I don’t know” (and the smile left her face) “what I’d ‘a’ done ef you hadn’t ‘a’ come along. I never could ‘a’ turned it out, an’ Alf’s wife never kin be pacified when sech a thing happens. We don’t git enough milk, anyway.”
“Le’ me finish milkin’,” he said, keeping his face half averted.
She laughed again. “Yo’ ‘re a-jokin’ now; I never seed amanmilk a cow.”
“I never did nuther tel I went out West,” he replied. “The Yankees out thar showed me how. I’m a old bach’, an’ used to keep a cow o’ my own, an’ thar wasn’t nobody but me to tend ‘er.”
She stood by his side and laughed like a child amused with a new toy when he took her place at the cow, and with the pail between his knees and using both hands, began to milk rapidly.
“I never seed the like,” he heard her muttering over and over to herself. Then he rose and showed her the pail nearly filled. “I reckon that calf ‘u’d have a surprise-party ef he was to try on his suckin’ business now,” he said. “It serves ’im right fer bein’ so rampacious.”
“Law me! I never could git that much,” she said, and she held out her hand for the pail, but he swung it down at his side. “I ’ll tote it,” he said; “I’m a-goin’ back to the house. I reckon I ’ll put up thar fer the night—that is, ef they ’ll take me in.”
“I’ve jest been lookin’ at you an’ wonderin’,” she said, reflectively, after they had passed through the bars. “My hearin’ an’ eyesight is bad, an’ so is my memory of faces, but it seems like I’ve seed somebody some’r’s that favors you mightily.”
He walked on silently. Only the little corn-patch was between them and the group in the yard. He could hear Sanders’s drawling voice, and caught a gleam of the kitchen fire through the alder-bushes.
“You better le’ me take the bucket,” she said, stopping abruptly and showing some embarrassment. “Yo’ ‘re mighty gentlemanly; but Alf’s wife al’ays gits mad when I make at all free with company. The whole family pokes fun at me, an’ ‘lows I am childish, an’ too fond o’ talkin’. They expect me jest to keep my mouth shet an’ never have a word to say. It cayn’t be helped, I reckon, but it’s a awful way fer a old body to live.”
“That’s a fact!” he blurted out, impulsively, still holding to the pail, on which she had put her hand. “It’s the last place on earth fer you.”
“I hain’t had one single day o’ enjoyment sence I came here,” she continued, encouraged to talk by his manifest sympathy. “I reckon I ort to be thankful, an’ beggars mustn’t be choosers, as the feller said; fer no other family in the county would take me in. But it hain’t no place fer a old woman that likes peace an’ rest at my time o’ life. I work hard all day, an’ at night I need sound sleep; but they put the children in my bed, an’ they keep up a kickin’ an’ a squirmin’ all night. Then, the’ ain’t no other old women round here, an’ I git mighty lonesome. Sometimes I come as nigh as pease givin’ up entirely.”
“Thank the Lord, you won’t have to stand it any longer!” he exclaimed, hotly.
She started from him in astonishment, and began to study his features. At that juncture two of Sanders’s little girls drew near inquisitively. “Here!” and he held the pail out to them. “Take this milk to yore mammy.” One of them, half frightened, took the pail, and both scampered back to the house.
“Yo’ ‘re a curi’s sort of a man,” she said, with a serious kind of chuckle, as she drew her shawl up over her white head. “I wouldn’t ‘a’ done that fer a dollar. You skeered Sally out ’n a year’s growth. I used to have a boy, that went away West ten year ago, who used to fly up like you do, an’ you sorter put me in mind of him, you do. He was the best one I had. I could allus count on him fer help. He was as steady-goin’ as a clock. He never was heerd from, an’ the general belief is that he died out thar.”
There was a moment’s pause. He seemed trying to think of some way to reveal his identity. “You ortn’t to pay attention to everything you hear,” he ventured, awkwardly. “Who knows? Mebby he’s still alive—sech things ain’t so almighty oncommon. Seems like I’ve heerd tell o’ a feller named Bradley out thar.”