CHAPTER XII.Themorning is misty and damp, as father, mother, Carlotta, Lulie and I stand under the great shed at the dépôt, waiting for the car doors to be unlocked. It is very early, and nobody seems stirring except those immediately connected with the train about to start. There are a dozen or more people standing in groups, waiting on the same event as ourselves. They all yawn a great deal, rub their eyes, wish they were back in bed, and wonder how long before the brakesman comes to open the car doors. The train itself lies on the track like a great headless serpent (for the engine has not yet been put on), whose red and yellow sides are full of latticed eyes. At last the brakesman, in a blue coat, striped shirt and glazed cap, comes along, whistling the last popular ballad, unlocks the door with a rattle, and shouts “Walk in, ladies and gentlemen.”We crowd in and select our seats on the side from the sun, if it should come out. Father turns over the seat in front, that it may face the other one, lays his shawl in the corner, hangs up the basket containing our lunch, sits down, pulls off his glove with his teeth, thrusts his hand under his duster, draws out and looks at his watch, shuts it with a snap, and says indistinctly, through the fingers of his glove:“It will be fifteen minutes before we start.”People continue to arrive and crowd in, singly and in parties. The individuals consist of a very fat old gentleman, with a broad hat soiled around the band, a duster too short by six inches for his long black coat, and a large red bandanna handkerchief, worn altogether in his hand; a fancy dressed young gentleman, who looks in the door a moment and concludes to finish his cigar upon the platform, with one foot lifted to the railing, where he can tap the heel of his boot with a leg-headed cane; a rather rough man with avery large moustache, who passes through the coach very often and slams the door very hard, gets between two seats to lean half way out of the window to tell some one, who is named Bill, “Hello!” and to ask “when will you be up?” lets down the window with a bang, and lolls across the seat with one foot hanging in the aisle; a middle aged maiden lady, dressed, of course, in black bombazine, with a green veil, a large basket with a scolloped top, a canary of yellow and black dignity in a white and green cage, furnished with seed, sand, and inconvenient water cups; an old lady under the care of the conductor, walking very slow, with a horn handled stick, a large flowered bandbox and a white cloth bag; she wears a dark fly bonnet, which she takes off when she sits down and displays a white cap, ruffled around her face, which is very much wrinkled, and has white, thin hairs about the chin; she shows a disposition to breathe hard, and to look around vacantly from the side seat at the end of the cars, where the conductor has placed her, and to talk to no one in particular with a voice like a cat-bird’s with a bad cold.The parties who enter are generally composed of tall, resigned looking gentlemen, burdened with innumerable boxes and bundles, patient and pale wives, in gray travelling dresses and lead colored veils, which they hold in one corner of their mouths, to show only one fourth of the face: sleepy looking, large boys, with badly fitting clothes, who stumble along the aisle behind their parents, as if they were still dreaming; smaller boys and girls following, holding each other by the hand, each in the fallacious belief that they are taking care of the other; and mulatto nurses, carrying in their arms very white headed babies, naturally lachrymose and nasally aqueous.Having seen all these and many more come in, I raise the window. Everything is dripping with fog, and the moisture is trickling in little crooked streams down the sides of thecoaches. The express wagon comes rattling down, and I can hear them unloading, with an occasional ejaculation bordering on the profane. Then I hear the bell of the engine as it comes out of the yard, and stews and hisses, backing down the track, nearer and nearer till it touches—then, with a loud clack-up of the coaches, everybody is jerked forward, the train glides back a foot or two, and it is coupled on. All is comparatively still now, and there is nothing to remind us of the immense power to which we are attached, except the odor of the smoke, which is rolling in black masses along the roof of the shed, and the faint singing of the steam.I take my head in and find everybody either dozing or staring stupidly out of the window. Father is reclining in his seat, mother is resting her cheek upon her hand, with closed eyes, and Carlotta and Lulie, finding it too damp to raise the window, have looked through the glass till their breath has dimmed it, and wiping it with their hands, have left the print of their fingers in circles on the pane.William now brings father the checks for the baggage, the whistle sounds, the bell rings, a few loud coughs from the great monster that draws us, and we glide from under the roof, creep under the bridge, jog along the suburbs, rattle into full speed, and roar out of sight of the town; the last sign of which is a little negro, standing in the door of a hut on the embankment above, waving his rag of a hat, as if to wish us good speed. Trees fly by, fences like long serpents wriggle past, and the whole country becomes a passing panorama!The sun rises, and, dispelling the fog, shines out bright and sultry. People, aroused by the stir, begin to talk. Children become thirsty. The lady opposite, with two little girls and a baby, tells the nurse to hand her the basket, and opening it to get out the silver mug, sends the nurse after water. The nurse totters down the coach, rocks backward and forward while drawing the water, and totters back,steadying herself by the arms of the seats, and spilling a little water at every step. The little camels gulp it down as if the cars were Sahara!The conductor staggers in and calls for tickets. Old gentlemen untie many-stringed pocket-books, old ladies open their reticules, and young gentlemen point to their hat bands. He passes out, and the whistle sounds. The brakes-man rushes to the wheel and gives a turn, then holds his cap on with one hand, and swings off by the railing to look ahead. Another whistle, another turn, and we grind into a small station, where we stop for a minute or two; then on and on we fly, faster for the short delay. The morning wears away, and we get out our luncheon. Broiled chicken and cold tongue! how they are associated with travelling! Their very odor is suggestive of the rattle of the train! We had scarce finished eating when the whistle sounded for Goldsboro’. We got off and found Aleck, one of the farm hands, waiting for us with the spring wagon, as Horace, he said, had not yet got up with the carriage. We all clambered up, and were soon rolling over a level, though dusty, road to our country place.As the rattling wagon was not a very pleasant place for conversation, I had leisure to observe Carlotta, and to mark the effects of diversion on her beautiful face. Many traces of sadness were gone, and there was even brightness in her eyes. Such eyes I have never seen. There was avelvetexpression about them, for to the soft rich effect of that fabric alone can I compare those orbs and their setting; and I thought, as I gazed at them, that the soul must be a rare one indeed that possessed such windows. She seemed trying to shake off reflections on her own misfortunes, and for others’ sake, if not her own, to be cheerful. She sat next to mother, to whom she was already fondly attached, and whose tender heart fully reciprocated her love. Lulie was all gaiety, and father was undignified enough to be droll; some of hisremarks even drawing a smile from Carlotta, though only such a smile a soul in serge can wear; a smile that seems begun in forgetfulness, and finished with repentance for its levity.The afternoon was far advanced when we drove up the long avenue of trees that led to the house.The place had been built by my great grandfather, and the house and all the premises were on the old style.The great-house, as it was termed by the negroes, was a large two-story one, with narrow green blinds, a large wing extending back, and piazzas running almost all the way round. The chimneys were very broad, and were built half up with rock, then finished off with brick. The front porch had an arched roof over it, and was furnished with two stiff benches on each side. There was a magnificent grove in front, in one corner of which was a large pond or lake, on which a flock of geese were swimming. To the left of the house stood a large capacious kitchen, painted red, and behind and around the house were ranged the dairy, smoke house, &c., all of the same ruddy hue. Back of the yard were the long rows of negro cabins, with their martin poles, and little gardens in front of them, and a few hundred yards off, in a small growth of trees, stood the house for the overseer, Mr. Bemby. As we drove up to the yard gate a large bull-dog, chained in his kennel, commenced barking furiously, and this brought yelping around the house half a dozen curs and hounds belonging to the negroes. These were followed in turn by a troop of little negroes, who ran to the gate, shouting in great glee:“Yon’s marster and mistis.”Then ensued a scuffle for the honor of opening the gate, and a shrill chorus of “How dye’s” as we entered the yard. Mrs. Bemby came down the steps to meet us, and took us into the cool, large front room, where she aided mother and the girls to take off their bonnets and hats, then conductedthem to their chambers. She soon returned to father and myself, with waiter and goblets of ice water.“Col. Smith,” she said, as she placed the water on the table, “Mrs. Smith said you’ve got her keys; and, Mister John, your room is ready whenever you wish to go up.”“Thank you, Mrs. Bemby,” I replied, as father arose and went to mother’s chamber, “I will wait here awhile, as it is the coolest place I have seen to-day.” “I must go see about supper,” she said, taking up the key basket and holding it against herself while she searched for a key; “don’t, the niggers will get every thing wrong. I ‘spected to move over to-day to our house, but Mr. Bemby, he was so busy a plowing, I couldn’t get all the things away; so, if you find any of Ben’s things in your room, let ’em stay till in the morning. It ingenerly takes me a fortnit to get straight when I come from home to the great’us, or from the great’us to home.”I surveyed her and the room while she was speaking, and found her impress on every article. The room was always used as a sitting room, and had so many doors and windows that it was a perfect breeze generator. The chairs were ranged two and two under every window, as if to let the wind cool them. Father’s lounge was drawn in the middle of the room, with its bright chintz covering tucked in so tightly that it seemed to say to me, “Come and lie down, I will not let you sink in and be hot, but will bear you up, that you may get the breeze.” The floor was so clean and shining that I longed to get down and sleep with my face on the cool boards. Even the old fashioned piano, with its yellow keys and little straight legs, had such a tight, scant cover, that it seemed to have taken off its trousers for the summer. The broad fireplace was clayed as white as snow, and stuffed full of feathery fennel, and on the high, quaintly carved mantel, were plaster images, sheep with very red eyes, a studious boy with a slate, and his nose knocked off, andvery erect Napoleon Bonaparte, with very large legs, one of which had grown to a stump, in a way that would have held him faster than St. Helena. Between these mementoes of itinerant Italians were ranged double rows of red and green apples, with Hardee precision. There were several old portraits in the room, and these had the gauze looped up around them, as if to give them air. A tall old clock, with a dignified face, and a lazy second-hand, that waited every time for the clock to tick before it would jump, stood in its corner—the long pendulum passing to and fro by the little glass door near the bottom, as if it didn’t care if I did see it, and would as lief stop as not. And then its drowsy tick! Argus would have closed all his eyes if he could have heard it for five minutes! A large yellow and white cat, with both ears cropped, lay asleep in Mrs. Bemby’s work basket, which sat near the door, and a frisky gray kitten on the hearth was catching at the flies in the fennel. And I thought, as I looked around, if Mrs. Bemby could impart such a cool, clean look to every thing by her short residence in the house, what must her little home be up on the hill, under those great shady poplars.Mrs. B. having found her key, came to her work basket, shook the cat out of it (the cat coming down slowly on her fore feet, and bringing her hind feet down a second or two afterwards, as if half inclined to let them stay up in the air), and gathering up her work, left the room. I rose and went up stairs, where I found everything equally antique, and as clean and cool. I ordered up my trunk, and having made my toilet I went down, feeling very much refreshed. The girls soon appeared, and we spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the old house. In the old parlor, in the library—with long high shelves of books—up in the old dusty garrets, down in the basement, everywhere that there was anything to show, I carried Carlotta and Lulie, listening to Lulie’s bright laugh and admiring Carlotta’s brighteningbeauty. From the house we walked out into the grove, down to the orchard, and, with our hats full of apples and peaches, at last took our seats on the green mossy rocks at the spring. As Lulie and Carlotta took their seats together, and seemed so absorbed in each other, I found that the first little cloud in this country trip was beginning to gather; that cloud was—and I blushed for shame at the thought—Carlotta’s presence. I knew that she and Lulie would be inseparable, when I wanted Lulie all to myself. I felt that I must give up all hopes of private chats; that I would have no opportunity to tell my love; that all my courtship must be carried on by looks, and that, I knew, would be unsatisfactory, as Lulie never returned my tender glances; yet I could not help admiring Carlotta, and loving to be with her. She was so exquisitely beautiful that I could sit and watch her for hours and never weary; but she was too sad and serious yet to be congenial, and I felt that she was a bar to my intercourse with Lulie, and could scarcely refrain from wishing we had never found her. All the better part of my nature would rise up indignantly at the unkindness of such thoughts, but still I would have them. Youth, in love, is excusable for many follies.While the girls were talking in a low tone together I was leaning on my elbow, flipping the parings of the peaches into the water, and indulging a somewhat bitter train of reflection over my disappointment, when the tea bell rang. We hastened to the house, and met father at the door, who said:“Come in to tea. Mrs. Bemby has not had time to prepare supper at her house, so I have invited her and Mr. Bemby, and Ben, their son, to eat with us to-night. Ben is rather a queer case, but you mustn’t laugh when you meet him, as it would hurt Mrs. Bemby’s feelings very much.”We went down stairs to the dining room, where we were introduced to Mr. B. and son. Mr. Bemby was a large darkman, with a kind, pleasant face, but rough and sun-burnt in his appearance. He seemed very much at his ease, as he knew father and mother so well, and greeted us cordially, remarking to me, as he shook my hand:“You’ve growed a’most outen my knowledge, Mr. Smith, but I hain’t seen you sence you was a mighty little chap.”As soon as I looked at Ben I knew I had found a rare case, and I felt that he would contribute no small amount to my enjoyment. He was very tall and stout, being nearly six feet high, though he was apparently not done growing. He had a clear gray eye, full of intelligence, but that always looked as if it was laughing to itself; his nose was prominent between his eyes, but flattened at the end by an unskilful operation for hair-lip, when he was a child; his upper lip, from the same cause, had a deep scar in it, and was tucked in his under lip, as if he was sucking something from a spoon. When he laughed he showed only his under teeth, which were well set, but stained yellow from the use of tobacco; his laugh itself was a very singular one for a young person, though I have sometimes heard very old and sedate people laugh so. When he was amused his face assumed a broad grin two or three seconds before a sound was heard, and then from deep within came a series of short or long grunts, according to the intensity of his feelings; if he was very much amused the grunts were lengthened almost to groans—one beginning as the other left off; if he was only laughing slightly they were short enough to be a kind of chuckle. The best illustration of his laugh I can find is a thunder cloud—first the lightning on his face, after awhile the thunder rumbling up from within. Very often his face, in ordinary converse, would, like sheet lightning, flash out a laugh, while no sound at all would be heard.Mother was suffering with headache from the day’s fatigue and sent in her excuse, and the request that Mrs. Bemby would take the head of the table, and make the tea and coffee.Mrs. B—— accordingly took her seat, and while she is arranging the cups, let me introduce her more thoroughly by a brief description. A very stout old lady, with thin gray hairs, tucked into a small knot by a large horn comb, small blue eyes, with the under lid much nearer the pupil than the upper, giving her always a very pleasant but surprised look; a fat face, with scarcely a wrinkle, a loose under lip, and a tongue that threatened with every word to come out, so that all her words seemed to have been fattening before she spoke them. Her form was very large, so that she looked like a tierce of good nature. Her whole appearance was of that kind, that if you had seen her at the door of a house, as you were travelling, you would have stopped for refreshment, knowing that everything would be clean, and in that agreeable profusion that one always enjoys after a journey.Mrs. Bemby was free and unembarrassed in her manner; Mr. Bemby unconcerned; but Ben evidently felt awkward, and was depending upon observation of the conduct of others for his table deportment.“Colonel Smith,” said Mrs. B—— to father, after grace had been said, “will you take some tea or coffee?”“I’ll take a cup of each,” said he. “I am a little peculiar about that, and generally ice my tea while I drink my coffee.”“If I had a’ known that I could a’ had some friz for you, sir.”“No matter, Mrs. Bemby. I can soon cool it here.”“Miss Lulie, which will you have?”“I will thank you for a glass of milk.”“Well, Miss Carlotta?”“A cup of tea, if you please.”“Mr. John, tea or coffee?”“Coffee, I believe, madam.”“Old man, you’ll have coffee, I know,” she said, puttingthe sugar in Mr. B—— ‘s cup.Poor Ben had been watching carefully, but could not possibly decide what wasau faitunder the circumstances, so that when his turn came he resolved, as the safest course, to follow father’s example, and, in response to his mother’s inquiry, replied that he would take some of both, and “sorter cool the tea while he was getting down the coffee.”Mrs. Bemby’s eyes certainly looked natural in their surprise at his answer. Lulie, whose face had been red with restrained laughter since she had seen him, now broke into an irresistible titter, to which Ben replied by a grin, without a sound.“Ben,” said his mother, still looking at him through her specs, “you must be a fool; give him some buttermilk, Harriet.”There was silence for some time, and then father said:“Ben, do you ever catch any fish, now?”“Yes, sir; I ketched a cat ‘tother day, big as a bucket.”“Caught a cat, eh,” said father, setting aside his coffee, and drawing the tea to him. “You must have baited with a mouse.”“Nor, sir, I baited with a worrum. Cats bites at worrums fine.”Lulie could restrain her curiosity no longer, but asked, with all earnestness, if it was a real cat, with tail, claws and all.Ben gave a great many long grunts as he said, “Sho’, its got a tail, but tain’t got no claws, ‘cause its a fish.”“Oh!” said Lulie, with her hand to her mouth, and a glance at me.I ventured to ask if there were many squirrels on the plantation.Ben bit a large semicircle out of a biscuit, and said through the crumbs:“The trees is just a breakin’ with ’em. I went to a mulberry this mornin’, and th’was sixty odd on one limb!”“Why, Ben,” said father, looking up, “that couldn’t have been so.”“Well, they mightn’t a’ been; but three hundred and over ran outen the tree when I shot.”Ben is not the only one I have met whose stories grew bigger as they repeated them.Mrs. Bemby now interrupted him.“Ben, you talked mighty nigh enough. Let somebody else have a mouth.”Ben, thus rebuked, was silent, and father and Mr. B—— talked about the farm, while Carlotta and Lulie occasionally whispered, and I ate in silence.After the meal the Bembys left for their house, Ben having promised to take me hunting and fishing in all the best places; and we went out to the front porch to talk over our plans for pleasure. Father went to the library to read, mother was resting in her room, nobody in the porch but Carlotta, Lulie and I; and again I felt that Carlotta was in the way.CHAPTER XIII.Thesky was just reddening when I came down next morning and commenced to get my gun and accoutrements, to try my hand at hunting. Father called me as I was about to leave the house, and told me to come to the back door. There I found a negro boy, thirteen or fourteen years of age, in his shirt sleeves, a clean white shirt, and copperas checked pants, held up by suspenders of the same cloth, fastened on them by little sticks; one hand resting up against the house, and one bare foot scratching the top of the other.“John,” said father, as I came out in the porch, gun inhand, “this is Reuben, one of Hannah’s children. You may take him for your valet. He knows all the best hunting and fishing places around here. When you go to Goldsboro’ you can get him some more suitable livery.”“Thank you, sir; he will suit me exactly. How do you like it, Reuben?”Reuben could only snicker and rub his hand on the weather boarding, as an acknowledgment of his favor.“I am about to start hunting now; can you carry me to a place where I can kill some squirrels?”“Yes, sir; ef I c’n git Unker Jack’s Trip, and go over ‘gin the big spring field, you kin find a sight on ’em.”“Well, run and get Trip, and come on.”He ran down to the quarters, and soon came back with a little blue-spotted, curl-tailed dog, which he declared could “find ’em eben ef dey wan’t dere!”After getting over fences, jumping ditches, tramping through dewy grass, and breaking through wet corn till my feet were drenched and my clothes saturated, we at last struck the woods. What splendid woods they were for hunting. Dignified, patriarchal oaks, matronly cedars, young dandy hickories, love-sick maiden-pines, that sighed in the breeze, and families of saplings! Reuben here thought we would find the game, and told Trip to “look about.” The little canine obeyed, and was soon out of sight.We moved cautiously about, listening; nor did we have to wait very long before Reuben recognized his short, quick bark, and, with the ejaculation, “dat’s him,” ran rapidly towards the place. I followed as fast as the nature of the undergrowth would permit, and we soon found Trip sitting on his tail, under a large oak, whose thick leaves concealed all but the lowest branches. I looked long and vainly towards the top; nothing could I see but the deep green leaves. Reuben, however, got off some distance from the tree, and, walking backwards, and looking with hand-shadedeyes, soon cried out, “Yon he is; cum year, marse John; you c’n see ‘im.” I ran eagerly to him, and gazed intently to where he pointed, and by his continued indications of the exact limb and fork, I was at last persuaded that I did see a small gray knot near the body of the tree. I levelled my gun and fired; all was still for awhile, and then the shot came pattering back on the trees a little way off. Another shot, and the gray knot ran out to the end of the limb.“Dat’s him; I know’d it was,” shouted Reuben, while I was so much excited I could hardly load. Before I could get the shot down the squirrel sprang from the tree to another, the slender twigs bending under him, and the wet leaves showering down the dew. But Reuben and Trip were watching, and soon found him in a fairer place. I now aim more carefully, and fire; he falls several feet, then catches and recovers himself; another barrel, and he turns under limb, holding on by his feet. Before I can load again he slowly releases, foot by foot, his hold upon the limb, and comes tumbling headlong down, striking the ground with a heavy sound. Reuben and Trip are in great glee over it, while I look on with assumed indifference, for it is my first squirrel, though I had played great destruction among the rice birds near town.I was just putting the caps on my gun when I was startled by the report of another gun close at hand. I soon heard the thumping of the ramrod, and a little while after the bushes parted, and the long figure of Ben Bemby emerged, his gray eyes gleaming under a broad wool hat without any band, and his scarred lip drawn into a smile. A large bunch of squirrels hung in his hand, and a long single-barrel gun rested on his shoulder.“Mornin’. What luck?” he said, resting his gun on the ground, and throwing back his hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with his forefinger.“One fine fellow,” I said, holding my trophy up.Ben chuckled a little, and said:“Four shots to one; that’s sorter bad. I got seven outer nine. That ere little pop-stick of yourn won’t reach these trees.”I did not fancy any slur on the shooting qualities of my gun, which was a very handsome Wesley Richards, a present from father the winter before, and I offered to prove that it would shoot as far as his.“Jumerlacky! Why, I can fetch a squrl when he is outer sight with this old gun.”“How do you aim at him?” I inquired, smiling at his earnestness.“I just git me a hicker nut hull, with the print where a squrl’s been a cuttin’, and rub it in the shot, and when I fire, don’t keer which way I takes sight, the shot goes right arter the squrl what cut the nut, and all I got to do is to look roun’ and see what tree he’s a gwine to fall from.”I expressed a great desire to see his gun perform, and asked if he had killed any that morning without seeing them.“Not ‘zactly,” he replied, changing his squirrels from one hand to the other; “but one run up such a high tree he got t’other side of a cloud.”“How did you get at him?”“Jus’ shot wher he went thew; when he drapped he was right smarten wet, an’ it rained purtty peart thew the shot holes in the cloud.”“Which one of those was it?” I asked, pointing to the bunch in his hand.“This here biggest un,” he said, holding him up by the tail.“Why, he doesn’t seem to be wet now?”“Nor; he dried, like, comin’ thew the air.”I was uncertain whether he was a little flighty or was trying to quiz me, thinking I was city-green, and a look intohis laughing grey eye rather confirming this last supposition, I was about to change the conversation, when Trip’s bark a little way off in the woods called our attention to him. We found the squirrel in the very top of a tree that did almost seem in the clouds.“Lemme see you knock him out wi’ your little double-bar’l toot-a-poo.”With the steadiest aim I could command, I gave him both barrels, one after the other, with no result whatever, my piece being a short bird gun, and the tree top an immense distance from the ground.Ben said, “Now, let the old gal speak,” and sighting the old brown barrel a second, he fired. The squirrel made a frantic leap into the air, and fell right into Trip’s mouth. Reuben was in a dance of excitement, but felt that he must take my gun’s part.“Marse John’s gun’s new; ‘taint got used to shootin’ yet.”“What d’you know ‘bout guns, you little devil’s ink ball?” said Ben, turning to Reuben; “why d’nt you open your mouth when Satan was a paintin’ you, and git some black on your teeth. Well, Mr. Smith, less knock along todes home; its mos’ your breakfus time.”“Won’t you go and take breakfast with me?”“Nor, siree. Th’ old man said I was fool ‘nough last night to last a seas’n; but I’ll come in short to see them ladies agin, for sho’ they’re fine ‘uns.”“You must be sure to come. You think they are pretty, do you?”“Well, I do exactly that thing. I’ve got a gal nigh here I thought was some on purtty, but she ain’t a pint cup to these here.”“Which do you think is the best looking?”“That’s ‘bout as hard to tell as buyin’ knives. That ere curly head un is five mules and a bunch er bells, and ef‘twant for t’other would beat the world; but that black-eyed un, wh’sh! She c’n jus’ look at you, and make you set still forever. Why, you c’n run er fishin’ pole in her eyes up to the hand’l and never tech bott’m.”“Polyphemus would be a mole to her, if her eyes were as deep as that,” I replied, laughing at his extravagance.“I never heerd of Polly Whatchoucallem, but ef she looked like this ere wun, I’d trade Viney Dodge for her, and giv ’em boot.”“I expect Miss Viney will soon have cause for jealousy?”“Nor, siree. Miss Kerlotter, I think the old lady sed her name was, is a darned sight too fine for me. You can’t sew silk truck on to homespun; and Viney suits my cloth the bes’, for she’s three treddle sarge, and a thread to spare.”There was a fork here in the path, and we separated. I reached home just as the family were sitting down to breakfast. I exhibited my game, and was complimented for my skill.After breakfast I went to the library, while the girls busied themselves aiding mother in her domestic arrangements. Before leaving the table they made me promise to take them fishing in the evening, or rather Lulie did, for Carlotta expressed her preference for remaining at home with mother, and I saw in her face that her intuitive tact had taught her that I preferred to be alone with Lulie. She was tenderly devoted to mother, and would often leave gay, frolicsome Lulie to sit by her, and talk on “grown up” subjects, as Lulie would call them. With father she was reserved, though respectful and grateful, and studied to please him in every way. Toward me she was gentle and kind, but shy, as if she was afraid of being teased about me.I cannot describe my feelings for her. There was a thrill every time I met those great black eyes that I had never felt before, but I could not call it love, for Lulie engrossed all there was of that in my nature.There was a magnetism about her that affected me strongly, and made me feel that, were we at all intimate, she would possess an unbounded influence over me, and that its exercise would constitute my supreme happiness.The tender pity and brotherly love I had expected to feel were all gone, for she did not need them; the vast resources of her own deep soul, and the sympathy and love of mother, seemed to be enough for her. In all my thoughts I could only long for her friendship, and I felt that if I could awaken in her an interest in me as a friend, so that I could go to her ear and tell my troubles or joys, I would be the happier. In the common converse of our family circle I always looked to her first after my remarks, and her smile was a far greater reward to me than Lulie’s, perhaps because it meant more. And if I had done wrong I would rather ten times Lulie should know it than Carlotta; yet, with all these feelings, resembling so much indices of love, there was no spark of it in my heart. Her very beauty seemed to fix a great gulf between us, and down in my soul I felt that she would never love me, except as a member of the same family. With these thoughts came the image of Lulie—bright, laughing Lulie—whose heart I could get so near to, if I could not call it mine; who was something human, like myself, and whom I loved so tenderly without the slightest shade of awe. And I longed for the time when I could tell her of it.CHAPTER XIV.Theafternoon was still and sultry, as I gazed out of my window, leaning on the sill, and waiting for Reuben to bring my fishing poles and bait.From the corn fields in the distance a trembling haze was continually rising, and I could hear the occasional song ofthe negroes, as they moved behind their plows slowly up and down the long green rows. In the yard all was still; the chickens, with palpitating throats, were lying under the bushes, flirting the cool dark earth up into their feathers; and the ducks were gathered around the cool trough at the well, bubbling the water with their bills, and shaking their wings as if they wished to dive in it, if the trough were just wide enough; the bull-dog, at the door of his kennel, was lying on his side, with his head stretched out on the earth, from which he would raise it constantly to snap at the flies biting his flanks. A solitary peacock, with his tail all pulled out for the feathers, was sitting on the fence, with his blue neck and coroneted head reverted, as if gazing at the absence of his plumage. Down at the quarters I could catch the changing hum of the spinning wheel, making echo to the nasal minor strains of a negro woman at the wash tub. Everything was calculated to inspire reverie, and I leaned there, thinking of the cool shady bank of the creek, and of Lulie and myself sitting there alone; and musing on the pleasure of the evening, and wondering if anything would occur to mar it, I drew my eyes from the scenes in the yard, and gazed down the side of the house, noticing every little dent in the planking and the dark rain marks under the nails; and dropping bits of paper at a lazy red wasp that was crawling slowly up the weather-boarding. Reuben, passing under my window with the poles and a gourd full of worms, broke my reverie, and taking my hat and gloves I went down stairs, where Lulie was already awaiting me, looking sweeter than ever in a pink gingham sun-bonnet. Holding an umbrella carefully over her, Reuben leading the way with the poles, I went down the avenue through a long lane, down a wooded hill, and stopped at “de bes’ fishin’ hole on de creek,” as Reuben called it. ‘Twas a steep grassy bank under a large sycamore, at a sudden curve in the stream, where the water, running down heedlessly, struckthe bank, and hurried off with many a curling dimple of confusion for its carelessness. After Reuben had undone and baited our lines, I dismissed him, and we both took our seats, pole in hand.The thick branches overhead made an impervious shade, except where they opened here and there to let a little ray of sunlight dance upon the water. The lines, serpent-like, curled down from the poles, and the painted float circled up and down the eddy, but with no other motion but what the water gave. Presently Lulie’s stood still, then bobbed under and up, while the water rings retreated from it as if afraid; again it goes down, and Lulie—like all lady fishers—gave the pole such a jerk that the line and its hooked victim were lodged in the branches above. All my efforts to disengage it were unavailing till, at last, I broke off the line, and threw pieces of stick at the little fish till I battered it down, its mouth torn out by the hook, and its shining scales all beaten off. Lulie took her little victim in her hand very tenderly, and almost shed tears over it. She declared she would never come fishing again; that it was mean and cruel to catch the poor little creatures out of the water when they were so happy.“And, John,” she continued, “I am so sorry I broke your hook and line, when you had fixed it up so nicely for me; I know you are really mad with me about it.”I did not notice her remark about the hook and line, but said (winding the broken line around the pole, and laying it behind us on the grass):“Your compassion and pity for the little fish are so sweet, Lulie, that I wish I could be transformed into one, like another Indur.”The old roguish twinkle came back to her eyes as she said:“You can have my compassion now if you will be caught like this fish.”“You know how quickly I would be, Lulie, but all your lines are occupied.”“No, indeed, John, you are the one in fault; but, then, you are completely fastened by a hook baited with a pair of dark Cuban eyes.”“Of course, Lulie, you refer to Carlotta; you are entirely mistaken; she is only a sister, and a very reserved and distant sister at that. I admire her beauty, but cannot love her.”“Well, you look at her as if you did, any way, and I feel every time that we three are together, that you are wishing I had not come up here to spoil your pleasure, and be in the way.”“Lulie!” I said softly, as I sat down by her on the cool green moss, and as I said it a hot flush came over my face, for I felt there was no retreat after such a tone, and that I must now tell her what I had been hinting at by action and word through my life from a child. She, too, well knew what I meant, for she dropped her eyes from mine, and laying down the little fish, commenced to pick from her finger, with great earnestness and effort, a bright scale that adhered to it.“Let me get it off,” I said, taking her hand and flipping off the scale, but still keeping the hand in mine; “Lulie, I am holding the hand of the only girl in the world that I love. It is no jest now, but solemn earnest truth. Darling, your own heart tells you how I have idolized you from a child, and my heart tells me how I adore you now. Sometimes I have felt that you did not care for me, and my despair has been worse than eternal death; at other times I’ve thought, perhaps, you did return my love, and the happiness would have been supreme but for the dread uncertainty. But oh! Lulie, I can endure it no longer; tell me, dearest, if you——”She drew her hand suddenly from mine, and placing both hands over her eyes, she burst into convulsive sobbing. Iput my arm around her, and tried to take her hands from her eyes. She turned towards me, putting both arms around my neck, laid her face, streaming with tears, on my shoulder, and cried as if her little heart would break. I sat still, supporting her, and not knowing what to do or say. Gradually her hands relaxed their clasp, and she raised her head from my shoulder, and, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, which she tremblingly drew forth, said, with a tear-hoarse voice and a great sob:“Oh!—John!”“Lulie, darling,” I said, gazing at her tenderly, “have I distressed you so much, and is it painful to you to know that I love you?”“Yes, yes, dear John, the deepest pain, because—because I cannot love you in return.”“Not love me! Oh, Lulie! After all the years of fondest fidelity!”“John, I do love you as the dearest friend I have on earth; as the one of all others in whom I can confide most implicitly; and because I love and esteem you so dearly your avowal of love causes me such intense pain. I could tell another I did not love him without remorse, but I know your noble heart is so truly in earnest, and its love is so sincere, that it almost kills me to turn it away and to offer only in return that bitterest of all words—friendship. But, John, by all the magnanimity of your generous nature, I beseech you not to hate me now, but hold me still as the same little Lulie of the nursery, when our hearts knew love as only childhood’s friendship.”I sat as if in a dream, and only murmured:“Hate you, Lulie! Never! never!”After a long pause, I at length said:“Lulie, darling—for you will permit me to call you so this evening, at least—the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see so plainly what a blind, blind fool I have been to gropeon in vague belief that you loved me. The fault has not been yours, for your actions have told me a thousand times that my hopes were vain; but well, indeed, is Cupid always pictured blind. And, darling, before we dismiss this subject forever, I want to thank you for the grief, and I know ‘twas real, that you felt in rejecting my proffered love. Had you heartlessly cast it aside ‘twould have crushed me too deeply for fortitude. And for our friendship, I vow before high Heaven it shall be deepened; and truer than a brother, with the devotion of an unrequited yet undying love, will I prove myself your friend.”“Thank you. Oh! a thousand times thank you, John.”“But, dearest Lulie,” I continued, “while my heart is bleeding, let me tear it all it may be torn. Tell me, do you love Frank Paning? Does he hold what I would give my life to win? Do not fear to hurt me now.”“John, dear John, do not ask me;” and her frame commenced trembling violently again.“‘Tis as I expected,” I said, bitterly. “But, oh! this is the keenest pain of all. Frank Paning! To know that he may hold your hand, and feel it throb its love to his; that he may gaze into your eyes and read your love for him; that he may know that Lulie, my darling, my idol, is his alone; while I—— Oh, Lulie, I’d rather you’d love the veriest dog that laps the dust around your door than Frank Paning.”“Hush! hush! for the love of mercy hush!” she said, putting up her hand.“Lulie, I cannot, will not hush. We will never talk together again as we do now; and, as that dearest friend you have termed me, I wish to warn you. He is not worthy of your love.”She laid down the bonnet string, which she had been crimping in her fingers while I was talking, and looking straight at me, the least perceptible frown on her brow, and a flush on her cheek, said:“John, I know you too well to believe you capable of meanly trying to injure a rival simply because of his success. I do you the justice to believe you sincere in your opinions, but your judgment is warped by prejudice; you cannot know him as I do, or you would love and trust him.”“My dear Lulie, it is because I know him far better than you do that I warn you against him. I expect you to believe that all I say in regard to him is the fruit of my disappointment, but I must, ere we close this subject forever, tell you why he is unworthy, and why I warn you against him. And I trust, as you believe in my honor, you will not think I am influenced by any hope of thus supplanting him in your favor. I bow to your decision of this evening as final, nor would I cause you to revoke it, if I could, by maligning him.”“John, I believe you; and I thank you more than I can tell for your intended kindness, but ‘tis better that we speak no further on this subject. It might beget unpleasant feelings, and I would not feel, nor have you feel, one shade of anger, for the world. My heart is sad enough when I think what a change one hour has wrought. No more the same John and Lulie we have ever been; no more the same playful attentions you have always paid me, nor the same thoughtless encouragement I have given. Respectful courtesy now our only intercourse. Oh, how little did I think, when I lightly returned your looks and smiles of love, to what it all would lead!”“Lulie, darling, I cannot feel anger toward you, whatever you do; but, even if you hate me for it, I must tell you of Frank Paning. He is utterly destitute of principle. He does not love you, and if he did would only love you as his slave. He is tyrannical and overbearing, yet sycophantic in his nature, imposing on the weak and cringing to the strong. He is free and forward in the presence of ladies, and impure and slanderous in his remarks about them behind their backs.I have known him to leave a company of ladies, and then, for the mere applause of a vulgar throng, make witticisms on their appearance and manners that would have caused a blush in Cyprus. He does not bear a proper respect for you, for I have heard him publicly boast of your love, and make remarks that I have been forced to resent.”“John, do not revile him any more. You perhaps mean well, but ‘tis an utter waste of breath. For years I have loved and trusted him; and if an angel were to stand upon the rippling water there and warn me, I would not believe Frank false. When I gave him my heart I gave him my life, and, though you and all the world turn against him, I will cling to him and trust him, and when he spurns me I will die.”“May God protect you, Lulie, my own love, from all wrong,” and I kissed gently and respectfully her dear, soft cheek, henceforth to be for other lips. She did not reproach me, but sat gazing at the dancing sunlight on the water. I rose and took up the pole that we had left set in the bank. A fish had hung itself upon the hook, and, utterly exhausted by its unheeded efforts to disengage itself, came up from the water limp and motionless. Putting it on our string, and tying up our tackle, I assisted Lulie over the rail fence, and we ascended the hill and walked up the lane in silence.Reader! did you ever love earnestly and devotedly? Did you ever, after months, perhaps years, of doubt and hesitation, at last make up your mind to declare it? and did you ever have it rejected, perhaps kindly, perhaps cruelly? If so, you know what I felt then.So bitterly disappointed, so deeply humiliated to have confessed yourself so conceitedly mistaken, and such a wild despair in your heart as you think how she will greet another with her smiles, while you, poor fool, are forgotten; how another’s arms will fold her, another’s lips press hers!Oh! there’s a world of sad meaning in those exquisite lines of Tennyson’s:“And sweet as those by hopeless Fancy feigned,On lips that are for others.”Again, before we reached home, we assured each other of our kind feelings, and agreed to act as nearly as possible in the same old way.When we reached the house the others were at tea, the table being placed in the hall, without lamps, as the sun was hardly down. After being rallied for our solitary fish we took our seats, and father, taking from his pocket a bundle of letters, ran over them, and tossed one to me. I excused myself, and read it at the table. How my face burned and my hand shook as I found it was from Paning himself! His father and mother had gone to South Carolina, leaving him to devote the balance of his vacation to study. He had gotten lonely keeping house by himself, had written to Ned to join him, and they were coming up to spend a couple of weeks with me. They would not wait for my reply, as they knew I would be glad to see them, but would leave Wilmington by the next train.I sat looking at the bold handwriting till the letters danced on the page, and father said:“John, that is the longest letter I ever saw to be written on one page. We have nearly finished tea while you have been reading it. From whom can it be?”“It is from Frank Paning, sir. He and Ned Cheyleigh are coming up to spend a week or two with me.”I could not look at Lulie, as I said this, but I knew her face was bent over her tea, with the blood scarcely beneath the skin.“I am glad of that,” said mother, “for your sake, John; you will then have some company in your rambles.”I laughed as well as I could, and said “yes, indeed!”“And while I think of it,” said father, taking anotherpaper from his pocket, “here is a railroad receipt for a horse, shipped from Baltimore. He will be at Goldsboro’ to-morrow, and as you will go over for the boys, you can bring him home with you.”I assented, but asked what he wanted with another horse when he already had several he did not use.“But this is something extra, my son, and I did not buy him for myself, but for a friend of mine. You will find his name on the bill of shipment.”I looked at it again, and saw that the Bay line had received, in good order, but subject to a score of risks, one horse, to be sent to John Smith, Jr., at Goldsboro’, N. C. I thanked him with all the gratitude I could command under the conflict of feelings, and we all went out to the front porch, and sat there till the twilight darkened into night. Carlotta, with Lulie, took her seat on the steps, and I could hear her rich voice even laughing heartily at times as they talked together in low tones. I was glad that she was resuming her cheerfulness, and felt that I ought to join them, and not be so silent and moody in my own home. But I somehow wanted to be near mother to-night, and let her hand caress my head, because I was in trouble.
CHAPTER XII.Themorning is misty and damp, as father, mother, Carlotta, Lulie and I stand under the great shed at the dépôt, waiting for the car doors to be unlocked. It is very early, and nobody seems stirring except those immediately connected with the train about to start. There are a dozen or more people standing in groups, waiting on the same event as ourselves. They all yawn a great deal, rub their eyes, wish they were back in bed, and wonder how long before the brakesman comes to open the car doors. The train itself lies on the track like a great headless serpent (for the engine has not yet been put on), whose red and yellow sides are full of latticed eyes. At last the brakesman, in a blue coat, striped shirt and glazed cap, comes along, whistling the last popular ballad, unlocks the door with a rattle, and shouts “Walk in, ladies and gentlemen.”We crowd in and select our seats on the side from the sun, if it should come out. Father turns over the seat in front, that it may face the other one, lays his shawl in the corner, hangs up the basket containing our lunch, sits down, pulls off his glove with his teeth, thrusts his hand under his duster, draws out and looks at his watch, shuts it with a snap, and says indistinctly, through the fingers of his glove:“It will be fifteen minutes before we start.”People continue to arrive and crowd in, singly and in parties. The individuals consist of a very fat old gentleman, with a broad hat soiled around the band, a duster too short by six inches for his long black coat, and a large red bandanna handkerchief, worn altogether in his hand; a fancy dressed young gentleman, who looks in the door a moment and concludes to finish his cigar upon the platform, with one foot lifted to the railing, where he can tap the heel of his boot with a leg-headed cane; a rather rough man with avery large moustache, who passes through the coach very often and slams the door very hard, gets between two seats to lean half way out of the window to tell some one, who is named Bill, “Hello!” and to ask “when will you be up?” lets down the window with a bang, and lolls across the seat with one foot hanging in the aisle; a middle aged maiden lady, dressed, of course, in black bombazine, with a green veil, a large basket with a scolloped top, a canary of yellow and black dignity in a white and green cage, furnished with seed, sand, and inconvenient water cups; an old lady under the care of the conductor, walking very slow, with a horn handled stick, a large flowered bandbox and a white cloth bag; she wears a dark fly bonnet, which she takes off when she sits down and displays a white cap, ruffled around her face, which is very much wrinkled, and has white, thin hairs about the chin; she shows a disposition to breathe hard, and to look around vacantly from the side seat at the end of the cars, where the conductor has placed her, and to talk to no one in particular with a voice like a cat-bird’s with a bad cold.The parties who enter are generally composed of tall, resigned looking gentlemen, burdened with innumerable boxes and bundles, patient and pale wives, in gray travelling dresses and lead colored veils, which they hold in one corner of their mouths, to show only one fourth of the face: sleepy looking, large boys, with badly fitting clothes, who stumble along the aisle behind their parents, as if they were still dreaming; smaller boys and girls following, holding each other by the hand, each in the fallacious belief that they are taking care of the other; and mulatto nurses, carrying in their arms very white headed babies, naturally lachrymose and nasally aqueous.Having seen all these and many more come in, I raise the window. Everything is dripping with fog, and the moisture is trickling in little crooked streams down the sides of thecoaches. The express wagon comes rattling down, and I can hear them unloading, with an occasional ejaculation bordering on the profane. Then I hear the bell of the engine as it comes out of the yard, and stews and hisses, backing down the track, nearer and nearer till it touches—then, with a loud clack-up of the coaches, everybody is jerked forward, the train glides back a foot or two, and it is coupled on. All is comparatively still now, and there is nothing to remind us of the immense power to which we are attached, except the odor of the smoke, which is rolling in black masses along the roof of the shed, and the faint singing of the steam.I take my head in and find everybody either dozing or staring stupidly out of the window. Father is reclining in his seat, mother is resting her cheek upon her hand, with closed eyes, and Carlotta and Lulie, finding it too damp to raise the window, have looked through the glass till their breath has dimmed it, and wiping it with their hands, have left the print of their fingers in circles on the pane.William now brings father the checks for the baggage, the whistle sounds, the bell rings, a few loud coughs from the great monster that draws us, and we glide from under the roof, creep under the bridge, jog along the suburbs, rattle into full speed, and roar out of sight of the town; the last sign of which is a little negro, standing in the door of a hut on the embankment above, waving his rag of a hat, as if to wish us good speed. Trees fly by, fences like long serpents wriggle past, and the whole country becomes a passing panorama!The sun rises, and, dispelling the fog, shines out bright and sultry. People, aroused by the stir, begin to talk. Children become thirsty. The lady opposite, with two little girls and a baby, tells the nurse to hand her the basket, and opening it to get out the silver mug, sends the nurse after water. The nurse totters down the coach, rocks backward and forward while drawing the water, and totters back,steadying herself by the arms of the seats, and spilling a little water at every step. The little camels gulp it down as if the cars were Sahara!The conductor staggers in and calls for tickets. Old gentlemen untie many-stringed pocket-books, old ladies open their reticules, and young gentlemen point to their hat bands. He passes out, and the whistle sounds. The brakes-man rushes to the wheel and gives a turn, then holds his cap on with one hand, and swings off by the railing to look ahead. Another whistle, another turn, and we grind into a small station, where we stop for a minute or two; then on and on we fly, faster for the short delay. The morning wears away, and we get out our luncheon. Broiled chicken and cold tongue! how they are associated with travelling! Their very odor is suggestive of the rattle of the train! We had scarce finished eating when the whistle sounded for Goldsboro’. We got off and found Aleck, one of the farm hands, waiting for us with the spring wagon, as Horace, he said, had not yet got up with the carriage. We all clambered up, and were soon rolling over a level, though dusty, road to our country place.As the rattling wagon was not a very pleasant place for conversation, I had leisure to observe Carlotta, and to mark the effects of diversion on her beautiful face. Many traces of sadness were gone, and there was even brightness in her eyes. Such eyes I have never seen. There was avelvetexpression about them, for to the soft rich effect of that fabric alone can I compare those orbs and their setting; and I thought, as I gazed at them, that the soul must be a rare one indeed that possessed such windows. She seemed trying to shake off reflections on her own misfortunes, and for others’ sake, if not her own, to be cheerful. She sat next to mother, to whom she was already fondly attached, and whose tender heart fully reciprocated her love. Lulie was all gaiety, and father was undignified enough to be droll; some of hisremarks even drawing a smile from Carlotta, though only such a smile a soul in serge can wear; a smile that seems begun in forgetfulness, and finished with repentance for its levity.The afternoon was far advanced when we drove up the long avenue of trees that led to the house.The place had been built by my great grandfather, and the house and all the premises were on the old style.The great-house, as it was termed by the negroes, was a large two-story one, with narrow green blinds, a large wing extending back, and piazzas running almost all the way round. The chimneys were very broad, and were built half up with rock, then finished off with brick. The front porch had an arched roof over it, and was furnished with two stiff benches on each side. There was a magnificent grove in front, in one corner of which was a large pond or lake, on which a flock of geese were swimming. To the left of the house stood a large capacious kitchen, painted red, and behind and around the house were ranged the dairy, smoke house, &c., all of the same ruddy hue. Back of the yard were the long rows of negro cabins, with their martin poles, and little gardens in front of them, and a few hundred yards off, in a small growth of trees, stood the house for the overseer, Mr. Bemby. As we drove up to the yard gate a large bull-dog, chained in his kennel, commenced barking furiously, and this brought yelping around the house half a dozen curs and hounds belonging to the negroes. These were followed in turn by a troop of little negroes, who ran to the gate, shouting in great glee:“Yon’s marster and mistis.”Then ensued a scuffle for the honor of opening the gate, and a shrill chorus of “How dye’s” as we entered the yard. Mrs. Bemby came down the steps to meet us, and took us into the cool, large front room, where she aided mother and the girls to take off their bonnets and hats, then conductedthem to their chambers. She soon returned to father and myself, with waiter and goblets of ice water.“Col. Smith,” she said, as she placed the water on the table, “Mrs. Smith said you’ve got her keys; and, Mister John, your room is ready whenever you wish to go up.”“Thank you, Mrs. Bemby,” I replied, as father arose and went to mother’s chamber, “I will wait here awhile, as it is the coolest place I have seen to-day.” “I must go see about supper,” she said, taking up the key basket and holding it against herself while she searched for a key; “don’t, the niggers will get every thing wrong. I ‘spected to move over to-day to our house, but Mr. Bemby, he was so busy a plowing, I couldn’t get all the things away; so, if you find any of Ben’s things in your room, let ’em stay till in the morning. It ingenerly takes me a fortnit to get straight when I come from home to the great’us, or from the great’us to home.”I surveyed her and the room while she was speaking, and found her impress on every article. The room was always used as a sitting room, and had so many doors and windows that it was a perfect breeze generator. The chairs were ranged two and two under every window, as if to let the wind cool them. Father’s lounge was drawn in the middle of the room, with its bright chintz covering tucked in so tightly that it seemed to say to me, “Come and lie down, I will not let you sink in and be hot, but will bear you up, that you may get the breeze.” The floor was so clean and shining that I longed to get down and sleep with my face on the cool boards. Even the old fashioned piano, with its yellow keys and little straight legs, had such a tight, scant cover, that it seemed to have taken off its trousers for the summer. The broad fireplace was clayed as white as snow, and stuffed full of feathery fennel, and on the high, quaintly carved mantel, were plaster images, sheep with very red eyes, a studious boy with a slate, and his nose knocked off, andvery erect Napoleon Bonaparte, with very large legs, one of which had grown to a stump, in a way that would have held him faster than St. Helena. Between these mementoes of itinerant Italians were ranged double rows of red and green apples, with Hardee precision. There were several old portraits in the room, and these had the gauze looped up around them, as if to give them air. A tall old clock, with a dignified face, and a lazy second-hand, that waited every time for the clock to tick before it would jump, stood in its corner—the long pendulum passing to and fro by the little glass door near the bottom, as if it didn’t care if I did see it, and would as lief stop as not. And then its drowsy tick! Argus would have closed all his eyes if he could have heard it for five minutes! A large yellow and white cat, with both ears cropped, lay asleep in Mrs. Bemby’s work basket, which sat near the door, and a frisky gray kitten on the hearth was catching at the flies in the fennel. And I thought, as I looked around, if Mrs. Bemby could impart such a cool, clean look to every thing by her short residence in the house, what must her little home be up on the hill, under those great shady poplars.Mrs. B. having found her key, came to her work basket, shook the cat out of it (the cat coming down slowly on her fore feet, and bringing her hind feet down a second or two afterwards, as if half inclined to let them stay up in the air), and gathering up her work, left the room. I rose and went up stairs, where I found everything equally antique, and as clean and cool. I ordered up my trunk, and having made my toilet I went down, feeling very much refreshed. The girls soon appeared, and we spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the old house. In the old parlor, in the library—with long high shelves of books—up in the old dusty garrets, down in the basement, everywhere that there was anything to show, I carried Carlotta and Lulie, listening to Lulie’s bright laugh and admiring Carlotta’s brighteningbeauty. From the house we walked out into the grove, down to the orchard, and, with our hats full of apples and peaches, at last took our seats on the green mossy rocks at the spring. As Lulie and Carlotta took their seats together, and seemed so absorbed in each other, I found that the first little cloud in this country trip was beginning to gather; that cloud was—and I blushed for shame at the thought—Carlotta’s presence. I knew that she and Lulie would be inseparable, when I wanted Lulie all to myself. I felt that I must give up all hopes of private chats; that I would have no opportunity to tell my love; that all my courtship must be carried on by looks, and that, I knew, would be unsatisfactory, as Lulie never returned my tender glances; yet I could not help admiring Carlotta, and loving to be with her. She was so exquisitely beautiful that I could sit and watch her for hours and never weary; but she was too sad and serious yet to be congenial, and I felt that she was a bar to my intercourse with Lulie, and could scarcely refrain from wishing we had never found her. All the better part of my nature would rise up indignantly at the unkindness of such thoughts, but still I would have them. Youth, in love, is excusable for many follies.While the girls were talking in a low tone together I was leaning on my elbow, flipping the parings of the peaches into the water, and indulging a somewhat bitter train of reflection over my disappointment, when the tea bell rang. We hastened to the house, and met father at the door, who said:“Come in to tea. Mrs. Bemby has not had time to prepare supper at her house, so I have invited her and Mr. Bemby, and Ben, their son, to eat with us to-night. Ben is rather a queer case, but you mustn’t laugh when you meet him, as it would hurt Mrs. Bemby’s feelings very much.”We went down stairs to the dining room, where we were introduced to Mr. B. and son. Mr. Bemby was a large darkman, with a kind, pleasant face, but rough and sun-burnt in his appearance. He seemed very much at his ease, as he knew father and mother so well, and greeted us cordially, remarking to me, as he shook my hand:“You’ve growed a’most outen my knowledge, Mr. Smith, but I hain’t seen you sence you was a mighty little chap.”As soon as I looked at Ben I knew I had found a rare case, and I felt that he would contribute no small amount to my enjoyment. He was very tall and stout, being nearly six feet high, though he was apparently not done growing. He had a clear gray eye, full of intelligence, but that always looked as if it was laughing to itself; his nose was prominent between his eyes, but flattened at the end by an unskilful operation for hair-lip, when he was a child; his upper lip, from the same cause, had a deep scar in it, and was tucked in his under lip, as if he was sucking something from a spoon. When he laughed he showed only his under teeth, which were well set, but stained yellow from the use of tobacco; his laugh itself was a very singular one for a young person, though I have sometimes heard very old and sedate people laugh so. When he was amused his face assumed a broad grin two or three seconds before a sound was heard, and then from deep within came a series of short or long grunts, according to the intensity of his feelings; if he was very much amused the grunts were lengthened almost to groans—one beginning as the other left off; if he was only laughing slightly they were short enough to be a kind of chuckle. The best illustration of his laugh I can find is a thunder cloud—first the lightning on his face, after awhile the thunder rumbling up from within. Very often his face, in ordinary converse, would, like sheet lightning, flash out a laugh, while no sound at all would be heard.Mother was suffering with headache from the day’s fatigue and sent in her excuse, and the request that Mrs. Bemby would take the head of the table, and make the tea and coffee.Mrs. B—— accordingly took her seat, and while she is arranging the cups, let me introduce her more thoroughly by a brief description. A very stout old lady, with thin gray hairs, tucked into a small knot by a large horn comb, small blue eyes, with the under lid much nearer the pupil than the upper, giving her always a very pleasant but surprised look; a fat face, with scarcely a wrinkle, a loose under lip, and a tongue that threatened with every word to come out, so that all her words seemed to have been fattening before she spoke them. Her form was very large, so that she looked like a tierce of good nature. Her whole appearance was of that kind, that if you had seen her at the door of a house, as you were travelling, you would have stopped for refreshment, knowing that everything would be clean, and in that agreeable profusion that one always enjoys after a journey.Mrs. Bemby was free and unembarrassed in her manner; Mr. Bemby unconcerned; but Ben evidently felt awkward, and was depending upon observation of the conduct of others for his table deportment.“Colonel Smith,” said Mrs. B—— to father, after grace had been said, “will you take some tea or coffee?”“I’ll take a cup of each,” said he. “I am a little peculiar about that, and generally ice my tea while I drink my coffee.”“If I had a’ known that I could a’ had some friz for you, sir.”“No matter, Mrs. Bemby. I can soon cool it here.”“Miss Lulie, which will you have?”“I will thank you for a glass of milk.”“Well, Miss Carlotta?”“A cup of tea, if you please.”“Mr. John, tea or coffee?”“Coffee, I believe, madam.”“Old man, you’ll have coffee, I know,” she said, puttingthe sugar in Mr. B—— ‘s cup.Poor Ben had been watching carefully, but could not possibly decide what wasau faitunder the circumstances, so that when his turn came he resolved, as the safest course, to follow father’s example, and, in response to his mother’s inquiry, replied that he would take some of both, and “sorter cool the tea while he was getting down the coffee.”Mrs. Bemby’s eyes certainly looked natural in their surprise at his answer. Lulie, whose face had been red with restrained laughter since she had seen him, now broke into an irresistible titter, to which Ben replied by a grin, without a sound.“Ben,” said his mother, still looking at him through her specs, “you must be a fool; give him some buttermilk, Harriet.”There was silence for some time, and then father said:“Ben, do you ever catch any fish, now?”“Yes, sir; I ketched a cat ‘tother day, big as a bucket.”“Caught a cat, eh,” said father, setting aside his coffee, and drawing the tea to him. “You must have baited with a mouse.”“Nor, sir, I baited with a worrum. Cats bites at worrums fine.”Lulie could restrain her curiosity no longer, but asked, with all earnestness, if it was a real cat, with tail, claws and all.Ben gave a great many long grunts as he said, “Sho’, its got a tail, but tain’t got no claws, ‘cause its a fish.”“Oh!” said Lulie, with her hand to her mouth, and a glance at me.I ventured to ask if there were many squirrels on the plantation.Ben bit a large semicircle out of a biscuit, and said through the crumbs:“The trees is just a breakin’ with ’em. I went to a mulberry this mornin’, and th’was sixty odd on one limb!”“Why, Ben,” said father, looking up, “that couldn’t have been so.”“Well, they mightn’t a’ been; but three hundred and over ran outen the tree when I shot.”Ben is not the only one I have met whose stories grew bigger as they repeated them.Mrs. Bemby now interrupted him.“Ben, you talked mighty nigh enough. Let somebody else have a mouth.”Ben, thus rebuked, was silent, and father and Mr. B—— talked about the farm, while Carlotta and Lulie occasionally whispered, and I ate in silence.After the meal the Bembys left for their house, Ben having promised to take me hunting and fishing in all the best places; and we went out to the front porch to talk over our plans for pleasure. Father went to the library to read, mother was resting in her room, nobody in the porch but Carlotta, Lulie and I; and again I felt that Carlotta was in the way.
Themorning is misty and damp, as father, mother, Carlotta, Lulie and I stand under the great shed at the dépôt, waiting for the car doors to be unlocked. It is very early, and nobody seems stirring except those immediately connected with the train about to start. There are a dozen or more people standing in groups, waiting on the same event as ourselves. They all yawn a great deal, rub their eyes, wish they were back in bed, and wonder how long before the brakesman comes to open the car doors. The train itself lies on the track like a great headless serpent (for the engine has not yet been put on), whose red and yellow sides are full of latticed eyes. At last the brakesman, in a blue coat, striped shirt and glazed cap, comes along, whistling the last popular ballad, unlocks the door with a rattle, and shouts “Walk in, ladies and gentlemen.”
We crowd in and select our seats on the side from the sun, if it should come out. Father turns over the seat in front, that it may face the other one, lays his shawl in the corner, hangs up the basket containing our lunch, sits down, pulls off his glove with his teeth, thrusts his hand under his duster, draws out and looks at his watch, shuts it with a snap, and says indistinctly, through the fingers of his glove:
“It will be fifteen minutes before we start.”
People continue to arrive and crowd in, singly and in parties. The individuals consist of a very fat old gentleman, with a broad hat soiled around the band, a duster too short by six inches for his long black coat, and a large red bandanna handkerchief, worn altogether in his hand; a fancy dressed young gentleman, who looks in the door a moment and concludes to finish his cigar upon the platform, with one foot lifted to the railing, where he can tap the heel of his boot with a leg-headed cane; a rather rough man with avery large moustache, who passes through the coach very often and slams the door very hard, gets between two seats to lean half way out of the window to tell some one, who is named Bill, “Hello!” and to ask “when will you be up?” lets down the window with a bang, and lolls across the seat with one foot hanging in the aisle; a middle aged maiden lady, dressed, of course, in black bombazine, with a green veil, a large basket with a scolloped top, a canary of yellow and black dignity in a white and green cage, furnished with seed, sand, and inconvenient water cups; an old lady under the care of the conductor, walking very slow, with a horn handled stick, a large flowered bandbox and a white cloth bag; she wears a dark fly bonnet, which she takes off when she sits down and displays a white cap, ruffled around her face, which is very much wrinkled, and has white, thin hairs about the chin; she shows a disposition to breathe hard, and to look around vacantly from the side seat at the end of the cars, where the conductor has placed her, and to talk to no one in particular with a voice like a cat-bird’s with a bad cold.
The parties who enter are generally composed of tall, resigned looking gentlemen, burdened with innumerable boxes and bundles, patient and pale wives, in gray travelling dresses and lead colored veils, which they hold in one corner of their mouths, to show only one fourth of the face: sleepy looking, large boys, with badly fitting clothes, who stumble along the aisle behind their parents, as if they were still dreaming; smaller boys and girls following, holding each other by the hand, each in the fallacious belief that they are taking care of the other; and mulatto nurses, carrying in their arms very white headed babies, naturally lachrymose and nasally aqueous.
Having seen all these and many more come in, I raise the window. Everything is dripping with fog, and the moisture is trickling in little crooked streams down the sides of thecoaches. The express wagon comes rattling down, and I can hear them unloading, with an occasional ejaculation bordering on the profane. Then I hear the bell of the engine as it comes out of the yard, and stews and hisses, backing down the track, nearer and nearer till it touches—then, with a loud clack-up of the coaches, everybody is jerked forward, the train glides back a foot or two, and it is coupled on. All is comparatively still now, and there is nothing to remind us of the immense power to which we are attached, except the odor of the smoke, which is rolling in black masses along the roof of the shed, and the faint singing of the steam.
I take my head in and find everybody either dozing or staring stupidly out of the window. Father is reclining in his seat, mother is resting her cheek upon her hand, with closed eyes, and Carlotta and Lulie, finding it too damp to raise the window, have looked through the glass till their breath has dimmed it, and wiping it with their hands, have left the print of their fingers in circles on the pane.
William now brings father the checks for the baggage, the whistle sounds, the bell rings, a few loud coughs from the great monster that draws us, and we glide from under the roof, creep under the bridge, jog along the suburbs, rattle into full speed, and roar out of sight of the town; the last sign of which is a little negro, standing in the door of a hut on the embankment above, waving his rag of a hat, as if to wish us good speed. Trees fly by, fences like long serpents wriggle past, and the whole country becomes a passing panorama!
The sun rises, and, dispelling the fog, shines out bright and sultry. People, aroused by the stir, begin to talk. Children become thirsty. The lady opposite, with two little girls and a baby, tells the nurse to hand her the basket, and opening it to get out the silver mug, sends the nurse after water. The nurse totters down the coach, rocks backward and forward while drawing the water, and totters back,steadying herself by the arms of the seats, and spilling a little water at every step. The little camels gulp it down as if the cars were Sahara!
The conductor staggers in and calls for tickets. Old gentlemen untie many-stringed pocket-books, old ladies open their reticules, and young gentlemen point to their hat bands. He passes out, and the whistle sounds. The brakes-man rushes to the wheel and gives a turn, then holds his cap on with one hand, and swings off by the railing to look ahead. Another whistle, another turn, and we grind into a small station, where we stop for a minute or two; then on and on we fly, faster for the short delay. The morning wears away, and we get out our luncheon. Broiled chicken and cold tongue! how they are associated with travelling! Their very odor is suggestive of the rattle of the train! We had scarce finished eating when the whistle sounded for Goldsboro’. We got off and found Aleck, one of the farm hands, waiting for us with the spring wagon, as Horace, he said, had not yet got up with the carriage. We all clambered up, and were soon rolling over a level, though dusty, road to our country place.
As the rattling wagon was not a very pleasant place for conversation, I had leisure to observe Carlotta, and to mark the effects of diversion on her beautiful face. Many traces of sadness were gone, and there was even brightness in her eyes. Such eyes I have never seen. There was avelvetexpression about them, for to the soft rich effect of that fabric alone can I compare those orbs and their setting; and I thought, as I gazed at them, that the soul must be a rare one indeed that possessed such windows. She seemed trying to shake off reflections on her own misfortunes, and for others’ sake, if not her own, to be cheerful. She sat next to mother, to whom she was already fondly attached, and whose tender heart fully reciprocated her love. Lulie was all gaiety, and father was undignified enough to be droll; some of hisremarks even drawing a smile from Carlotta, though only such a smile a soul in serge can wear; a smile that seems begun in forgetfulness, and finished with repentance for its levity.
The afternoon was far advanced when we drove up the long avenue of trees that led to the house.
The place had been built by my great grandfather, and the house and all the premises were on the old style.
The great-house, as it was termed by the negroes, was a large two-story one, with narrow green blinds, a large wing extending back, and piazzas running almost all the way round. The chimneys were very broad, and were built half up with rock, then finished off with brick. The front porch had an arched roof over it, and was furnished with two stiff benches on each side. There was a magnificent grove in front, in one corner of which was a large pond or lake, on which a flock of geese were swimming. To the left of the house stood a large capacious kitchen, painted red, and behind and around the house were ranged the dairy, smoke house, &c., all of the same ruddy hue. Back of the yard were the long rows of negro cabins, with their martin poles, and little gardens in front of them, and a few hundred yards off, in a small growth of trees, stood the house for the overseer, Mr. Bemby. As we drove up to the yard gate a large bull-dog, chained in his kennel, commenced barking furiously, and this brought yelping around the house half a dozen curs and hounds belonging to the negroes. These were followed in turn by a troop of little negroes, who ran to the gate, shouting in great glee:
“Yon’s marster and mistis.”
Then ensued a scuffle for the honor of opening the gate, and a shrill chorus of “How dye’s” as we entered the yard. Mrs. Bemby came down the steps to meet us, and took us into the cool, large front room, where she aided mother and the girls to take off their bonnets and hats, then conductedthem to their chambers. She soon returned to father and myself, with waiter and goblets of ice water.
“Col. Smith,” she said, as she placed the water on the table, “Mrs. Smith said you’ve got her keys; and, Mister John, your room is ready whenever you wish to go up.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bemby,” I replied, as father arose and went to mother’s chamber, “I will wait here awhile, as it is the coolest place I have seen to-day.” “I must go see about supper,” she said, taking up the key basket and holding it against herself while she searched for a key; “don’t, the niggers will get every thing wrong. I ‘spected to move over to-day to our house, but Mr. Bemby, he was so busy a plowing, I couldn’t get all the things away; so, if you find any of Ben’s things in your room, let ’em stay till in the morning. It ingenerly takes me a fortnit to get straight when I come from home to the great’us, or from the great’us to home.”
I surveyed her and the room while she was speaking, and found her impress on every article. The room was always used as a sitting room, and had so many doors and windows that it was a perfect breeze generator. The chairs were ranged two and two under every window, as if to let the wind cool them. Father’s lounge was drawn in the middle of the room, with its bright chintz covering tucked in so tightly that it seemed to say to me, “Come and lie down, I will not let you sink in and be hot, but will bear you up, that you may get the breeze.” The floor was so clean and shining that I longed to get down and sleep with my face on the cool boards. Even the old fashioned piano, with its yellow keys and little straight legs, had such a tight, scant cover, that it seemed to have taken off its trousers for the summer. The broad fireplace was clayed as white as snow, and stuffed full of feathery fennel, and on the high, quaintly carved mantel, were plaster images, sheep with very red eyes, a studious boy with a slate, and his nose knocked off, andvery erect Napoleon Bonaparte, with very large legs, one of which had grown to a stump, in a way that would have held him faster than St. Helena. Between these mementoes of itinerant Italians were ranged double rows of red and green apples, with Hardee precision. There were several old portraits in the room, and these had the gauze looped up around them, as if to give them air. A tall old clock, with a dignified face, and a lazy second-hand, that waited every time for the clock to tick before it would jump, stood in its corner—the long pendulum passing to and fro by the little glass door near the bottom, as if it didn’t care if I did see it, and would as lief stop as not. And then its drowsy tick! Argus would have closed all his eyes if he could have heard it for five minutes! A large yellow and white cat, with both ears cropped, lay asleep in Mrs. Bemby’s work basket, which sat near the door, and a frisky gray kitten on the hearth was catching at the flies in the fennel. And I thought, as I looked around, if Mrs. Bemby could impart such a cool, clean look to every thing by her short residence in the house, what must her little home be up on the hill, under those great shady poplars.
Mrs. B. having found her key, came to her work basket, shook the cat out of it (the cat coming down slowly on her fore feet, and bringing her hind feet down a second or two afterwards, as if half inclined to let them stay up in the air), and gathering up her work, left the room. I rose and went up stairs, where I found everything equally antique, and as clean and cool. I ordered up my trunk, and having made my toilet I went down, feeling very much refreshed. The girls soon appeared, and we spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the old house. In the old parlor, in the library—with long high shelves of books—up in the old dusty garrets, down in the basement, everywhere that there was anything to show, I carried Carlotta and Lulie, listening to Lulie’s bright laugh and admiring Carlotta’s brighteningbeauty. From the house we walked out into the grove, down to the orchard, and, with our hats full of apples and peaches, at last took our seats on the green mossy rocks at the spring. As Lulie and Carlotta took their seats together, and seemed so absorbed in each other, I found that the first little cloud in this country trip was beginning to gather; that cloud was—and I blushed for shame at the thought—Carlotta’s presence. I knew that she and Lulie would be inseparable, when I wanted Lulie all to myself. I felt that I must give up all hopes of private chats; that I would have no opportunity to tell my love; that all my courtship must be carried on by looks, and that, I knew, would be unsatisfactory, as Lulie never returned my tender glances; yet I could not help admiring Carlotta, and loving to be with her. She was so exquisitely beautiful that I could sit and watch her for hours and never weary; but she was too sad and serious yet to be congenial, and I felt that she was a bar to my intercourse with Lulie, and could scarcely refrain from wishing we had never found her. All the better part of my nature would rise up indignantly at the unkindness of such thoughts, but still I would have them. Youth, in love, is excusable for many follies.
While the girls were talking in a low tone together I was leaning on my elbow, flipping the parings of the peaches into the water, and indulging a somewhat bitter train of reflection over my disappointment, when the tea bell rang. We hastened to the house, and met father at the door, who said:
“Come in to tea. Mrs. Bemby has not had time to prepare supper at her house, so I have invited her and Mr. Bemby, and Ben, their son, to eat with us to-night. Ben is rather a queer case, but you mustn’t laugh when you meet him, as it would hurt Mrs. Bemby’s feelings very much.”
We went down stairs to the dining room, where we were introduced to Mr. B. and son. Mr. Bemby was a large darkman, with a kind, pleasant face, but rough and sun-burnt in his appearance. He seemed very much at his ease, as he knew father and mother so well, and greeted us cordially, remarking to me, as he shook my hand:
“You’ve growed a’most outen my knowledge, Mr. Smith, but I hain’t seen you sence you was a mighty little chap.”
As soon as I looked at Ben I knew I had found a rare case, and I felt that he would contribute no small amount to my enjoyment. He was very tall and stout, being nearly six feet high, though he was apparently not done growing. He had a clear gray eye, full of intelligence, but that always looked as if it was laughing to itself; his nose was prominent between his eyes, but flattened at the end by an unskilful operation for hair-lip, when he was a child; his upper lip, from the same cause, had a deep scar in it, and was tucked in his under lip, as if he was sucking something from a spoon. When he laughed he showed only his under teeth, which were well set, but stained yellow from the use of tobacco; his laugh itself was a very singular one for a young person, though I have sometimes heard very old and sedate people laugh so. When he was amused his face assumed a broad grin two or three seconds before a sound was heard, and then from deep within came a series of short or long grunts, according to the intensity of his feelings; if he was very much amused the grunts were lengthened almost to groans—one beginning as the other left off; if he was only laughing slightly they were short enough to be a kind of chuckle. The best illustration of his laugh I can find is a thunder cloud—first the lightning on his face, after awhile the thunder rumbling up from within. Very often his face, in ordinary converse, would, like sheet lightning, flash out a laugh, while no sound at all would be heard.
Mother was suffering with headache from the day’s fatigue and sent in her excuse, and the request that Mrs. Bemby would take the head of the table, and make the tea and coffee.Mrs. B—— accordingly took her seat, and while she is arranging the cups, let me introduce her more thoroughly by a brief description. A very stout old lady, with thin gray hairs, tucked into a small knot by a large horn comb, small blue eyes, with the under lid much nearer the pupil than the upper, giving her always a very pleasant but surprised look; a fat face, with scarcely a wrinkle, a loose under lip, and a tongue that threatened with every word to come out, so that all her words seemed to have been fattening before she spoke them. Her form was very large, so that she looked like a tierce of good nature. Her whole appearance was of that kind, that if you had seen her at the door of a house, as you were travelling, you would have stopped for refreshment, knowing that everything would be clean, and in that agreeable profusion that one always enjoys after a journey.
Mrs. Bemby was free and unembarrassed in her manner; Mr. Bemby unconcerned; but Ben evidently felt awkward, and was depending upon observation of the conduct of others for his table deportment.
“Colonel Smith,” said Mrs. B—— to father, after grace had been said, “will you take some tea or coffee?”
“I’ll take a cup of each,” said he. “I am a little peculiar about that, and generally ice my tea while I drink my coffee.”
“If I had a’ known that I could a’ had some friz for you, sir.”
“No matter, Mrs. Bemby. I can soon cool it here.”
“Miss Lulie, which will you have?”
“I will thank you for a glass of milk.”
“Well, Miss Carlotta?”
“A cup of tea, if you please.”
“Mr. John, tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, I believe, madam.”
“Old man, you’ll have coffee, I know,” she said, puttingthe sugar in Mr. B—— ‘s cup.
Poor Ben had been watching carefully, but could not possibly decide what wasau faitunder the circumstances, so that when his turn came he resolved, as the safest course, to follow father’s example, and, in response to his mother’s inquiry, replied that he would take some of both, and “sorter cool the tea while he was getting down the coffee.”
Mrs. Bemby’s eyes certainly looked natural in their surprise at his answer. Lulie, whose face had been red with restrained laughter since she had seen him, now broke into an irresistible titter, to which Ben replied by a grin, without a sound.
“Ben,” said his mother, still looking at him through her specs, “you must be a fool; give him some buttermilk, Harriet.”
There was silence for some time, and then father said:
“Ben, do you ever catch any fish, now?”
“Yes, sir; I ketched a cat ‘tother day, big as a bucket.”
“Caught a cat, eh,” said father, setting aside his coffee, and drawing the tea to him. “You must have baited with a mouse.”
“Nor, sir, I baited with a worrum. Cats bites at worrums fine.”
Lulie could restrain her curiosity no longer, but asked, with all earnestness, if it was a real cat, with tail, claws and all.
Ben gave a great many long grunts as he said, “Sho’, its got a tail, but tain’t got no claws, ‘cause its a fish.”
“Oh!” said Lulie, with her hand to her mouth, and a glance at me.
I ventured to ask if there were many squirrels on the plantation.
Ben bit a large semicircle out of a biscuit, and said through the crumbs:
“The trees is just a breakin’ with ’em. I went to a mulberry this mornin’, and th’was sixty odd on one limb!”
“Why, Ben,” said father, looking up, “that couldn’t have been so.”
“Well, they mightn’t a’ been; but three hundred and over ran outen the tree when I shot.”
Ben is not the only one I have met whose stories grew bigger as they repeated them.
Mrs. Bemby now interrupted him.
“Ben, you talked mighty nigh enough. Let somebody else have a mouth.”
Ben, thus rebuked, was silent, and father and Mr. B—— talked about the farm, while Carlotta and Lulie occasionally whispered, and I ate in silence.
After the meal the Bembys left for their house, Ben having promised to take me hunting and fishing in all the best places; and we went out to the front porch to talk over our plans for pleasure. Father went to the library to read, mother was resting in her room, nobody in the porch but Carlotta, Lulie and I; and again I felt that Carlotta was in the way.
CHAPTER XIII.Thesky was just reddening when I came down next morning and commenced to get my gun and accoutrements, to try my hand at hunting. Father called me as I was about to leave the house, and told me to come to the back door. There I found a negro boy, thirteen or fourteen years of age, in his shirt sleeves, a clean white shirt, and copperas checked pants, held up by suspenders of the same cloth, fastened on them by little sticks; one hand resting up against the house, and one bare foot scratching the top of the other.“John,” said father, as I came out in the porch, gun inhand, “this is Reuben, one of Hannah’s children. You may take him for your valet. He knows all the best hunting and fishing places around here. When you go to Goldsboro’ you can get him some more suitable livery.”“Thank you, sir; he will suit me exactly. How do you like it, Reuben?”Reuben could only snicker and rub his hand on the weather boarding, as an acknowledgment of his favor.“I am about to start hunting now; can you carry me to a place where I can kill some squirrels?”“Yes, sir; ef I c’n git Unker Jack’s Trip, and go over ‘gin the big spring field, you kin find a sight on ’em.”“Well, run and get Trip, and come on.”He ran down to the quarters, and soon came back with a little blue-spotted, curl-tailed dog, which he declared could “find ’em eben ef dey wan’t dere!”After getting over fences, jumping ditches, tramping through dewy grass, and breaking through wet corn till my feet were drenched and my clothes saturated, we at last struck the woods. What splendid woods they were for hunting. Dignified, patriarchal oaks, matronly cedars, young dandy hickories, love-sick maiden-pines, that sighed in the breeze, and families of saplings! Reuben here thought we would find the game, and told Trip to “look about.” The little canine obeyed, and was soon out of sight.We moved cautiously about, listening; nor did we have to wait very long before Reuben recognized his short, quick bark, and, with the ejaculation, “dat’s him,” ran rapidly towards the place. I followed as fast as the nature of the undergrowth would permit, and we soon found Trip sitting on his tail, under a large oak, whose thick leaves concealed all but the lowest branches. I looked long and vainly towards the top; nothing could I see but the deep green leaves. Reuben, however, got off some distance from the tree, and, walking backwards, and looking with hand-shadedeyes, soon cried out, “Yon he is; cum year, marse John; you c’n see ‘im.” I ran eagerly to him, and gazed intently to where he pointed, and by his continued indications of the exact limb and fork, I was at last persuaded that I did see a small gray knot near the body of the tree. I levelled my gun and fired; all was still for awhile, and then the shot came pattering back on the trees a little way off. Another shot, and the gray knot ran out to the end of the limb.“Dat’s him; I know’d it was,” shouted Reuben, while I was so much excited I could hardly load. Before I could get the shot down the squirrel sprang from the tree to another, the slender twigs bending under him, and the wet leaves showering down the dew. But Reuben and Trip were watching, and soon found him in a fairer place. I now aim more carefully, and fire; he falls several feet, then catches and recovers himself; another barrel, and he turns under limb, holding on by his feet. Before I can load again he slowly releases, foot by foot, his hold upon the limb, and comes tumbling headlong down, striking the ground with a heavy sound. Reuben and Trip are in great glee over it, while I look on with assumed indifference, for it is my first squirrel, though I had played great destruction among the rice birds near town.I was just putting the caps on my gun when I was startled by the report of another gun close at hand. I soon heard the thumping of the ramrod, and a little while after the bushes parted, and the long figure of Ben Bemby emerged, his gray eyes gleaming under a broad wool hat without any band, and his scarred lip drawn into a smile. A large bunch of squirrels hung in his hand, and a long single-barrel gun rested on his shoulder.“Mornin’. What luck?” he said, resting his gun on the ground, and throwing back his hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with his forefinger.“One fine fellow,” I said, holding my trophy up.Ben chuckled a little, and said:“Four shots to one; that’s sorter bad. I got seven outer nine. That ere little pop-stick of yourn won’t reach these trees.”I did not fancy any slur on the shooting qualities of my gun, which was a very handsome Wesley Richards, a present from father the winter before, and I offered to prove that it would shoot as far as his.“Jumerlacky! Why, I can fetch a squrl when he is outer sight with this old gun.”“How do you aim at him?” I inquired, smiling at his earnestness.“I just git me a hicker nut hull, with the print where a squrl’s been a cuttin’, and rub it in the shot, and when I fire, don’t keer which way I takes sight, the shot goes right arter the squrl what cut the nut, and all I got to do is to look roun’ and see what tree he’s a gwine to fall from.”I expressed a great desire to see his gun perform, and asked if he had killed any that morning without seeing them.“Not ‘zactly,” he replied, changing his squirrels from one hand to the other; “but one run up such a high tree he got t’other side of a cloud.”“How did you get at him?”“Jus’ shot wher he went thew; when he drapped he was right smarten wet, an’ it rained purtty peart thew the shot holes in the cloud.”“Which one of those was it?” I asked, pointing to the bunch in his hand.“This here biggest un,” he said, holding him up by the tail.“Why, he doesn’t seem to be wet now?”“Nor; he dried, like, comin’ thew the air.”I was uncertain whether he was a little flighty or was trying to quiz me, thinking I was city-green, and a look intohis laughing grey eye rather confirming this last supposition, I was about to change the conversation, when Trip’s bark a little way off in the woods called our attention to him. We found the squirrel in the very top of a tree that did almost seem in the clouds.“Lemme see you knock him out wi’ your little double-bar’l toot-a-poo.”With the steadiest aim I could command, I gave him both barrels, one after the other, with no result whatever, my piece being a short bird gun, and the tree top an immense distance from the ground.Ben said, “Now, let the old gal speak,” and sighting the old brown barrel a second, he fired. The squirrel made a frantic leap into the air, and fell right into Trip’s mouth. Reuben was in a dance of excitement, but felt that he must take my gun’s part.“Marse John’s gun’s new; ‘taint got used to shootin’ yet.”“What d’you know ‘bout guns, you little devil’s ink ball?” said Ben, turning to Reuben; “why d’nt you open your mouth when Satan was a paintin’ you, and git some black on your teeth. Well, Mr. Smith, less knock along todes home; its mos’ your breakfus time.”“Won’t you go and take breakfast with me?”“Nor, siree. Th’ old man said I was fool ‘nough last night to last a seas’n; but I’ll come in short to see them ladies agin, for sho’ they’re fine ‘uns.”“You must be sure to come. You think they are pretty, do you?”“Well, I do exactly that thing. I’ve got a gal nigh here I thought was some on purtty, but she ain’t a pint cup to these here.”“Which do you think is the best looking?”“That’s ‘bout as hard to tell as buyin’ knives. That ere curly head un is five mules and a bunch er bells, and ef‘twant for t’other would beat the world; but that black-eyed un, wh’sh! She c’n jus’ look at you, and make you set still forever. Why, you c’n run er fishin’ pole in her eyes up to the hand’l and never tech bott’m.”“Polyphemus would be a mole to her, if her eyes were as deep as that,” I replied, laughing at his extravagance.“I never heerd of Polly Whatchoucallem, but ef she looked like this ere wun, I’d trade Viney Dodge for her, and giv ’em boot.”“I expect Miss Viney will soon have cause for jealousy?”“Nor, siree. Miss Kerlotter, I think the old lady sed her name was, is a darned sight too fine for me. You can’t sew silk truck on to homespun; and Viney suits my cloth the bes’, for she’s three treddle sarge, and a thread to spare.”There was a fork here in the path, and we separated. I reached home just as the family were sitting down to breakfast. I exhibited my game, and was complimented for my skill.After breakfast I went to the library, while the girls busied themselves aiding mother in her domestic arrangements. Before leaving the table they made me promise to take them fishing in the evening, or rather Lulie did, for Carlotta expressed her preference for remaining at home with mother, and I saw in her face that her intuitive tact had taught her that I preferred to be alone with Lulie. She was tenderly devoted to mother, and would often leave gay, frolicsome Lulie to sit by her, and talk on “grown up” subjects, as Lulie would call them. With father she was reserved, though respectful and grateful, and studied to please him in every way. Toward me she was gentle and kind, but shy, as if she was afraid of being teased about me.I cannot describe my feelings for her. There was a thrill every time I met those great black eyes that I had never felt before, but I could not call it love, for Lulie engrossed all there was of that in my nature.There was a magnetism about her that affected me strongly, and made me feel that, were we at all intimate, she would possess an unbounded influence over me, and that its exercise would constitute my supreme happiness.The tender pity and brotherly love I had expected to feel were all gone, for she did not need them; the vast resources of her own deep soul, and the sympathy and love of mother, seemed to be enough for her. In all my thoughts I could only long for her friendship, and I felt that if I could awaken in her an interest in me as a friend, so that I could go to her ear and tell my troubles or joys, I would be the happier. In the common converse of our family circle I always looked to her first after my remarks, and her smile was a far greater reward to me than Lulie’s, perhaps because it meant more. And if I had done wrong I would rather ten times Lulie should know it than Carlotta; yet, with all these feelings, resembling so much indices of love, there was no spark of it in my heart. Her very beauty seemed to fix a great gulf between us, and down in my soul I felt that she would never love me, except as a member of the same family. With these thoughts came the image of Lulie—bright, laughing Lulie—whose heart I could get so near to, if I could not call it mine; who was something human, like myself, and whom I loved so tenderly without the slightest shade of awe. And I longed for the time when I could tell her of it.
Thesky was just reddening when I came down next morning and commenced to get my gun and accoutrements, to try my hand at hunting. Father called me as I was about to leave the house, and told me to come to the back door. There I found a negro boy, thirteen or fourteen years of age, in his shirt sleeves, a clean white shirt, and copperas checked pants, held up by suspenders of the same cloth, fastened on them by little sticks; one hand resting up against the house, and one bare foot scratching the top of the other.
“John,” said father, as I came out in the porch, gun inhand, “this is Reuben, one of Hannah’s children. You may take him for your valet. He knows all the best hunting and fishing places around here. When you go to Goldsboro’ you can get him some more suitable livery.”
“Thank you, sir; he will suit me exactly. How do you like it, Reuben?”
Reuben could only snicker and rub his hand on the weather boarding, as an acknowledgment of his favor.
“I am about to start hunting now; can you carry me to a place where I can kill some squirrels?”
“Yes, sir; ef I c’n git Unker Jack’s Trip, and go over ‘gin the big spring field, you kin find a sight on ’em.”
“Well, run and get Trip, and come on.”
He ran down to the quarters, and soon came back with a little blue-spotted, curl-tailed dog, which he declared could “find ’em eben ef dey wan’t dere!”
After getting over fences, jumping ditches, tramping through dewy grass, and breaking through wet corn till my feet were drenched and my clothes saturated, we at last struck the woods. What splendid woods they were for hunting. Dignified, patriarchal oaks, matronly cedars, young dandy hickories, love-sick maiden-pines, that sighed in the breeze, and families of saplings! Reuben here thought we would find the game, and told Trip to “look about.” The little canine obeyed, and was soon out of sight.
We moved cautiously about, listening; nor did we have to wait very long before Reuben recognized his short, quick bark, and, with the ejaculation, “dat’s him,” ran rapidly towards the place. I followed as fast as the nature of the undergrowth would permit, and we soon found Trip sitting on his tail, under a large oak, whose thick leaves concealed all but the lowest branches. I looked long and vainly towards the top; nothing could I see but the deep green leaves. Reuben, however, got off some distance from the tree, and, walking backwards, and looking with hand-shadedeyes, soon cried out, “Yon he is; cum year, marse John; you c’n see ‘im.” I ran eagerly to him, and gazed intently to where he pointed, and by his continued indications of the exact limb and fork, I was at last persuaded that I did see a small gray knot near the body of the tree. I levelled my gun and fired; all was still for awhile, and then the shot came pattering back on the trees a little way off. Another shot, and the gray knot ran out to the end of the limb.
“Dat’s him; I know’d it was,” shouted Reuben, while I was so much excited I could hardly load. Before I could get the shot down the squirrel sprang from the tree to another, the slender twigs bending under him, and the wet leaves showering down the dew. But Reuben and Trip were watching, and soon found him in a fairer place. I now aim more carefully, and fire; he falls several feet, then catches and recovers himself; another barrel, and he turns under limb, holding on by his feet. Before I can load again he slowly releases, foot by foot, his hold upon the limb, and comes tumbling headlong down, striking the ground with a heavy sound. Reuben and Trip are in great glee over it, while I look on with assumed indifference, for it is my first squirrel, though I had played great destruction among the rice birds near town.
I was just putting the caps on my gun when I was startled by the report of another gun close at hand. I soon heard the thumping of the ramrod, and a little while after the bushes parted, and the long figure of Ben Bemby emerged, his gray eyes gleaming under a broad wool hat without any band, and his scarred lip drawn into a smile. A large bunch of squirrels hung in his hand, and a long single-barrel gun rested on his shoulder.
“Mornin’. What luck?” he said, resting his gun on the ground, and throwing back his hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with his forefinger.
“One fine fellow,” I said, holding my trophy up.
Ben chuckled a little, and said:
“Four shots to one; that’s sorter bad. I got seven outer nine. That ere little pop-stick of yourn won’t reach these trees.”
I did not fancy any slur on the shooting qualities of my gun, which was a very handsome Wesley Richards, a present from father the winter before, and I offered to prove that it would shoot as far as his.
“Jumerlacky! Why, I can fetch a squrl when he is outer sight with this old gun.”
“How do you aim at him?” I inquired, smiling at his earnestness.
“I just git me a hicker nut hull, with the print where a squrl’s been a cuttin’, and rub it in the shot, and when I fire, don’t keer which way I takes sight, the shot goes right arter the squrl what cut the nut, and all I got to do is to look roun’ and see what tree he’s a gwine to fall from.”
I expressed a great desire to see his gun perform, and asked if he had killed any that morning without seeing them.
“Not ‘zactly,” he replied, changing his squirrels from one hand to the other; “but one run up such a high tree he got t’other side of a cloud.”
“How did you get at him?”
“Jus’ shot wher he went thew; when he drapped he was right smarten wet, an’ it rained purtty peart thew the shot holes in the cloud.”
“Which one of those was it?” I asked, pointing to the bunch in his hand.
“This here biggest un,” he said, holding him up by the tail.
“Why, he doesn’t seem to be wet now?”
“Nor; he dried, like, comin’ thew the air.”
I was uncertain whether he was a little flighty or was trying to quiz me, thinking I was city-green, and a look intohis laughing grey eye rather confirming this last supposition, I was about to change the conversation, when Trip’s bark a little way off in the woods called our attention to him. We found the squirrel in the very top of a tree that did almost seem in the clouds.
“Lemme see you knock him out wi’ your little double-bar’l toot-a-poo.”
With the steadiest aim I could command, I gave him both barrels, one after the other, with no result whatever, my piece being a short bird gun, and the tree top an immense distance from the ground.
Ben said, “Now, let the old gal speak,” and sighting the old brown barrel a second, he fired. The squirrel made a frantic leap into the air, and fell right into Trip’s mouth. Reuben was in a dance of excitement, but felt that he must take my gun’s part.
“Marse John’s gun’s new; ‘taint got used to shootin’ yet.”
“What d’you know ‘bout guns, you little devil’s ink ball?” said Ben, turning to Reuben; “why d’nt you open your mouth when Satan was a paintin’ you, and git some black on your teeth. Well, Mr. Smith, less knock along todes home; its mos’ your breakfus time.”
“Won’t you go and take breakfast with me?”
“Nor, siree. Th’ old man said I was fool ‘nough last night to last a seas’n; but I’ll come in short to see them ladies agin, for sho’ they’re fine ‘uns.”
“You must be sure to come. You think they are pretty, do you?”
“Well, I do exactly that thing. I’ve got a gal nigh here I thought was some on purtty, but she ain’t a pint cup to these here.”
“Which do you think is the best looking?”
“That’s ‘bout as hard to tell as buyin’ knives. That ere curly head un is five mules and a bunch er bells, and ef‘twant for t’other would beat the world; but that black-eyed un, wh’sh! She c’n jus’ look at you, and make you set still forever. Why, you c’n run er fishin’ pole in her eyes up to the hand’l and never tech bott’m.”
“Polyphemus would be a mole to her, if her eyes were as deep as that,” I replied, laughing at his extravagance.
“I never heerd of Polly Whatchoucallem, but ef she looked like this ere wun, I’d trade Viney Dodge for her, and giv ’em boot.”
“I expect Miss Viney will soon have cause for jealousy?”
“Nor, siree. Miss Kerlotter, I think the old lady sed her name was, is a darned sight too fine for me. You can’t sew silk truck on to homespun; and Viney suits my cloth the bes’, for she’s three treddle sarge, and a thread to spare.”
There was a fork here in the path, and we separated. I reached home just as the family were sitting down to breakfast. I exhibited my game, and was complimented for my skill.
After breakfast I went to the library, while the girls busied themselves aiding mother in her domestic arrangements. Before leaving the table they made me promise to take them fishing in the evening, or rather Lulie did, for Carlotta expressed her preference for remaining at home with mother, and I saw in her face that her intuitive tact had taught her that I preferred to be alone with Lulie. She was tenderly devoted to mother, and would often leave gay, frolicsome Lulie to sit by her, and talk on “grown up” subjects, as Lulie would call them. With father she was reserved, though respectful and grateful, and studied to please him in every way. Toward me she was gentle and kind, but shy, as if she was afraid of being teased about me.
I cannot describe my feelings for her. There was a thrill every time I met those great black eyes that I had never felt before, but I could not call it love, for Lulie engrossed all there was of that in my nature.
There was a magnetism about her that affected me strongly, and made me feel that, were we at all intimate, she would possess an unbounded influence over me, and that its exercise would constitute my supreme happiness.
The tender pity and brotherly love I had expected to feel were all gone, for she did not need them; the vast resources of her own deep soul, and the sympathy and love of mother, seemed to be enough for her. In all my thoughts I could only long for her friendship, and I felt that if I could awaken in her an interest in me as a friend, so that I could go to her ear and tell my troubles or joys, I would be the happier. In the common converse of our family circle I always looked to her first after my remarks, and her smile was a far greater reward to me than Lulie’s, perhaps because it meant more. And if I had done wrong I would rather ten times Lulie should know it than Carlotta; yet, with all these feelings, resembling so much indices of love, there was no spark of it in my heart. Her very beauty seemed to fix a great gulf between us, and down in my soul I felt that she would never love me, except as a member of the same family. With these thoughts came the image of Lulie—bright, laughing Lulie—whose heart I could get so near to, if I could not call it mine; who was something human, like myself, and whom I loved so tenderly without the slightest shade of awe. And I longed for the time when I could tell her of it.
CHAPTER XIV.Theafternoon was still and sultry, as I gazed out of my window, leaning on the sill, and waiting for Reuben to bring my fishing poles and bait.From the corn fields in the distance a trembling haze was continually rising, and I could hear the occasional song ofthe negroes, as they moved behind their plows slowly up and down the long green rows. In the yard all was still; the chickens, with palpitating throats, were lying under the bushes, flirting the cool dark earth up into their feathers; and the ducks were gathered around the cool trough at the well, bubbling the water with their bills, and shaking their wings as if they wished to dive in it, if the trough were just wide enough; the bull-dog, at the door of his kennel, was lying on his side, with his head stretched out on the earth, from which he would raise it constantly to snap at the flies biting his flanks. A solitary peacock, with his tail all pulled out for the feathers, was sitting on the fence, with his blue neck and coroneted head reverted, as if gazing at the absence of his plumage. Down at the quarters I could catch the changing hum of the spinning wheel, making echo to the nasal minor strains of a negro woman at the wash tub. Everything was calculated to inspire reverie, and I leaned there, thinking of the cool shady bank of the creek, and of Lulie and myself sitting there alone; and musing on the pleasure of the evening, and wondering if anything would occur to mar it, I drew my eyes from the scenes in the yard, and gazed down the side of the house, noticing every little dent in the planking and the dark rain marks under the nails; and dropping bits of paper at a lazy red wasp that was crawling slowly up the weather-boarding. Reuben, passing under my window with the poles and a gourd full of worms, broke my reverie, and taking my hat and gloves I went down stairs, where Lulie was already awaiting me, looking sweeter than ever in a pink gingham sun-bonnet. Holding an umbrella carefully over her, Reuben leading the way with the poles, I went down the avenue through a long lane, down a wooded hill, and stopped at “de bes’ fishin’ hole on de creek,” as Reuben called it. ‘Twas a steep grassy bank under a large sycamore, at a sudden curve in the stream, where the water, running down heedlessly, struckthe bank, and hurried off with many a curling dimple of confusion for its carelessness. After Reuben had undone and baited our lines, I dismissed him, and we both took our seats, pole in hand.The thick branches overhead made an impervious shade, except where they opened here and there to let a little ray of sunlight dance upon the water. The lines, serpent-like, curled down from the poles, and the painted float circled up and down the eddy, but with no other motion but what the water gave. Presently Lulie’s stood still, then bobbed under and up, while the water rings retreated from it as if afraid; again it goes down, and Lulie—like all lady fishers—gave the pole such a jerk that the line and its hooked victim were lodged in the branches above. All my efforts to disengage it were unavailing till, at last, I broke off the line, and threw pieces of stick at the little fish till I battered it down, its mouth torn out by the hook, and its shining scales all beaten off. Lulie took her little victim in her hand very tenderly, and almost shed tears over it. She declared she would never come fishing again; that it was mean and cruel to catch the poor little creatures out of the water when they were so happy.“And, John,” she continued, “I am so sorry I broke your hook and line, when you had fixed it up so nicely for me; I know you are really mad with me about it.”I did not notice her remark about the hook and line, but said (winding the broken line around the pole, and laying it behind us on the grass):“Your compassion and pity for the little fish are so sweet, Lulie, that I wish I could be transformed into one, like another Indur.”The old roguish twinkle came back to her eyes as she said:“You can have my compassion now if you will be caught like this fish.”“You know how quickly I would be, Lulie, but all your lines are occupied.”“No, indeed, John, you are the one in fault; but, then, you are completely fastened by a hook baited with a pair of dark Cuban eyes.”“Of course, Lulie, you refer to Carlotta; you are entirely mistaken; she is only a sister, and a very reserved and distant sister at that. I admire her beauty, but cannot love her.”“Well, you look at her as if you did, any way, and I feel every time that we three are together, that you are wishing I had not come up here to spoil your pleasure, and be in the way.”“Lulie!” I said softly, as I sat down by her on the cool green moss, and as I said it a hot flush came over my face, for I felt there was no retreat after such a tone, and that I must now tell her what I had been hinting at by action and word through my life from a child. She, too, well knew what I meant, for she dropped her eyes from mine, and laying down the little fish, commenced to pick from her finger, with great earnestness and effort, a bright scale that adhered to it.“Let me get it off,” I said, taking her hand and flipping off the scale, but still keeping the hand in mine; “Lulie, I am holding the hand of the only girl in the world that I love. It is no jest now, but solemn earnest truth. Darling, your own heart tells you how I have idolized you from a child, and my heart tells me how I adore you now. Sometimes I have felt that you did not care for me, and my despair has been worse than eternal death; at other times I’ve thought, perhaps, you did return my love, and the happiness would have been supreme but for the dread uncertainty. But oh! Lulie, I can endure it no longer; tell me, dearest, if you——”She drew her hand suddenly from mine, and placing both hands over her eyes, she burst into convulsive sobbing. Iput my arm around her, and tried to take her hands from her eyes. She turned towards me, putting both arms around my neck, laid her face, streaming with tears, on my shoulder, and cried as if her little heart would break. I sat still, supporting her, and not knowing what to do or say. Gradually her hands relaxed their clasp, and she raised her head from my shoulder, and, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, which she tremblingly drew forth, said, with a tear-hoarse voice and a great sob:“Oh!—John!”“Lulie, darling,” I said, gazing at her tenderly, “have I distressed you so much, and is it painful to you to know that I love you?”“Yes, yes, dear John, the deepest pain, because—because I cannot love you in return.”“Not love me! Oh, Lulie! After all the years of fondest fidelity!”“John, I do love you as the dearest friend I have on earth; as the one of all others in whom I can confide most implicitly; and because I love and esteem you so dearly your avowal of love causes me such intense pain. I could tell another I did not love him without remorse, but I know your noble heart is so truly in earnest, and its love is so sincere, that it almost kills me to turn it away and to offer only in return that bitterest of all words—friendship. But, John, by all the magnanimity of your generous nature, I beseech you not to hate me now, but hold me still as the same little Lulie of the nursery, when our hearts knew love as only childhood’s friendship.”I sat as if in a dream, and only murmured:“Hate you, Lulie! Never! never!”After a long pause, I at length said:“Lulie, darling—for you will permit me to call you so this evening, at least—the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see so plainly what a blind, blind fool I have been to gropeon in vague belief that you loved me. The fault has not been yours, for your actions have told me a thousand times that my hopes were vain; but well, indeed, is Cupid always pictured blind. And, darling, before we dismiss this subject forever, I want to thank you for the grief, and I know ‘twas real, that you felt in rejecting my proffered love. Had you heartlessly cast it aside ‘twould have crushed me too deeply for fortitude. And for our friendship, I vow before high Heaven it shall be deepened; and truer than a brother, with the devotion of an unrequited yet undying love, will I prove myself your friend.”“Thank you. Oh! a thousand times thank you, John.”“But, dearest Lulie,” I continued, “while my heart is bleeding, let me tear it all it may be torn. Tell me, do you love Frank Paning? Does he hold what I would give my life to win? Do not fear to hurt me now.”“John, dear John, do not ask me;” and her frame commenced trembling violently again.“‘Tis as I expected,” I said, bitterly. “But, oh! this is the keenest pain of all. Frank Paning! To know that he may hold your hand, and feel it throb its love to his; that he may gaze into your eyes and read your love for him; that he may know that Lulie, my darling, my idol, is his alone; while I—— Oh, Lulie, I’d rather you’d love the veriest dog that laps the dust around your door than Frank Paning.”“Hush! hush! for the love of mercy hush!” she said, putting up her hand.“Lulie, I cannot, will not hush. We will never talk together again as we do now; and, as that dearest friend you have termed me, I wish to warn you. He is not worthy of your love.”She laid down the bonnet string, which she had been crimping in her fingers while I was talking, and looking straight at me, the least perceptible frown on her brow, and a flush on her cheek, said:“John, I know you too well to believe you capable of meanly trying to injure a rival simply because of his success. I do you the justice to believe you sincere in your opinions, but your judgment is warped by prejudice; you cannot know him as I do, or you would love and trust him.”“My dear Lulie, it is because I know him far better than you do that I warn you against him. I expect you to believe that all I say in regard to him is the fruit of my disappointment, but I must, ere we close this subject forever, tell you why he is unworthy, and why I warn you against him. And I trust, as you believe in my honor, you will not think I am influenced by any hope of thus supplanting him in your favor. I bow to your decision of this evening as final, nor would I cause you to revoke it, if I could, by maligning him.”“John, I believe you; and I thank you more than I can tell for your intended kindness, but ‘tis better that we speak no further on this subject. It might beget unpleasant feelings, and I would not feel, nor have you feel, one shade of anger, for the world. My heart is sad enough when I think what a change one hour has wrought. No more the same John and Lulie we have ever been; no more the same playful attentions you have always paid me, nor the same thoughtless encouragement I have given. Respectful courtesy now our only intercourse. Oh, how little did I think, when I lightly returned your looks and smiles of love, to what it all would lead!”“Lulie, darling, I cannot feel anger toward you, whatever you do; but, even if you hate me for it, I must tell you of Frank Paning. He is utterly destitute of principle. He does not love you, and if he did would only love you as his slave. He is tyrannical and overbearing, yet sycophantic in his nature, imposing on the weak and cringing to the strong. He is free and forward in the presence of ladies, and impure and slanderous in his remarks about them behind their backs.I have known him to leave a company of ladies, and then, for the mere applause of a vulgar throng, make witticisms on their appearance and manners that would have caused a blush in Cyprus. He does not bear a proper respect for you, for I have heard him publicly boast of your love, and make remarks that I have been forced to resent.”“John, do not revile him any more. You perhaps mean well, but ‘tis an utter waste of breath. For years I have loved and trusted him; and if an angel were to stand upon the rippling water there and warn me, I would not believe Frank false. When I gave him my heart I gave him my life, and, though you and all the world turn against him, I will cling to him and trust him, and when he spurns me I will die.”“May God protect you, Lulie, my own love, from all wrong,” and I kissed gently and respectfully her dear, soft cheek, henceforth to be for other lips. She did not reproach me, but sat gazing at the dancing sunlight on the water. I rose and took up the pole that we had left set in the bank. A fish had hung itself upon the hook, and, utterly exhausted by its unheeded efforts to disengage itself, came up from the water limp and motionless. Putting it on our string, and tying up our tackle, I assisted Lulie over the rail fence, and we ascended the hill and walked up the lane in silence.Reader! did you ever love earnestly and devotedly? Did you ever, after months, perhaps years, of doubt and hesitation, at last make up your mind to declare it? and did you ever have it rejected, perhaps kindly, perhaps cruelly? If so, you know what I felt then.So bitterly disappointed, so deeply humiliated to have confessed yourself so conceitedly mistaken, and such a wild despair in your heart as you think how she will greet another with her smiles, while you, poor fool, are forgotten; how another’s arms will fold her, another’s lips press hers!Oh! there’s a world of sad meaning in those exquisite lines of Tennyson’s:“And sweet as those by hopeless Fancy feigned,On lips that are for others.”Again, before we reached home, we assured each other of our kind feelings, and agreed to act as nearly as possible in the same old way.When we reached the house the others were at tea, the table being placed in the hall, without lamps, as the sun was hardly down. After being rallied for our solitary fish we took our seats, and father, taking from his pocket a bundle of letters, ran over them, and tossed one to me. I excused myself, and read it at the table. How my face burned and my hand shook as I found it was from Paning himself! His father and mother had gone to South Carolina, leaving him to devote the balance of his vacation to study. He had gotten lonely keeping house by himself, had written to Ned to join him, and they were coming up to spend a couple of weeks with me. They would not wait for my reply, as they knew I would be glad to see them, but would leave Wilmington by the next train.I sat looking at the bold handwriting till the letters danced on the page, and father said:“John, that is the longest letter I ever saw to be written on one page. We have nearly finished tea while you have been reading it. From whom can it be?”“It is from Frank Paning, sir. He and Ned Cheyleigh are coming up to spend a week or two with me.”I could not look at Lulie, as I said this, but I knew her face was bent over her tea, with the blood scarcely beneath the skin.“I am glad of that,” said mother, “for your sake, John; you will then have some company in your rambles.”I laughed as well as I could, and said “yes, indeed!”“And while I think of it,” said father, taking anotherpaper from his pocket, “here is a railroad receipt for a horse, shipped from Baltimore. He will be at Goldsboro’ to-morrow, and as you will go over for the boys, you can bring him home with you.”I assented, but asked what he wanted with another horse when he already had several he did not use.“But this is something extra, my son, and I did not buy him for myself, but for a friend of mine. You will find his name on the bill of shipment.”I looked at it again, and saw that the Bay line had received, in good order, but subject to a score of risks, one horse, to be sent to John Smith, Jr., at Goldsboro’, N. C. I thanked him with all the gratitude I could command under the conflict of feelings, and we all went out to the front porch, and sat there till the twilight darkened into night. Carlotta, with Lulie, took her seat on the steps, and I could hear her rich voice even laughing heartily at times as they talked together in low tones. I was glad that she was resuming her cheerfulness, and felt that I ought to join them, and not be so silent and moody in my own home. But I somehow wanted to be near mother to-night, and let her hand caress my head, because I was in trouble.
Theafternoon was still and sultry, as I gazed out of my window, leaning on the sill, and waiting for Reuben to bring my fishing poles and bait.
From the corn fields in the distance a trembling haze was continually rising, and I could hear the occasional song ofthe negroes, as they moved behind their plows slowly up and down the long green rows. In the yard all was still; the chickens, with palpitating throats, were lying under the bushes, flirting the cool dark earth up into their feathers; and the ducks were gathered around the cool trough at the well, bubbling the water with their bills, and shaking their wings as if they wished to dive in it, if the trough were just wide enough; the bull-dog, at the door of his kennel, was lying on his side, with his head stretched out on the earth, from which he would raise it constantly to snap at the flies biting his flanks. A solitary peacock, with his tail all pulled out for the feathers, was sitting on the fence, with his blue neck and coroneted head reverted, as if gazing at the absence of his plumage. Down at the quarters I could catch the changing hum of the spinning wheel, making echo to the nasal minor strains of a negro woman at the wash tub. Everything was calculated to inspire reverie, and I leaned there, thinking of the cool shady bank of the creek, and of Lulie and myself sitting there alone; and musing on the pleasure of the evening, and wondering if anything would occur to mar it, I drew my eyes from the scenes in the yard, and gazed down the side of the house, noticing every little dent in the planking and the dark rain marks under the nails; and dropping bits of paper at a lazy red wasp that was crawling slowly up the weather-boarding. Reuben, passing under my window with the poles and a gourd full of worms, broke my reverie, and taking my hat and gloves I went down stairs, where Lulie was already awaiting me, looking sweeter than ever in a pink gingham sun-bonnet. Holding an umbrella carefully over her, Reuben leading the way with the poles, I went down the avenue through a long lane, down a wooded hill, and stopped at “de bes’ fishin’ hole on de creek,” as Reuben called it. ‘Twas a steep grassy bank under a large sycamore, at a sudden curve in the stream, where the water, running down heedlessly, struckthe bank, and hurried off with many a curling dimple of confusion for its carelessness. After Reuben had undone and baited our lines, I dismissed him, and we both took our seats, pole in hand.
The thick branches overhead made an impervious shade, except where they opened here and there to let a little ray of sunlight dance upon the water. The lines, serpent-like, curled down from the poles, and the painted float circled up and down the eddy, but with no other motion but what the water gave. Presently Lulie’s stood still, then bobbed under and up, while the water rings retreated from it as if afraid; again it goes down, and Lulie—like all lady fishers—gave the pole such a jerk that the line and its hooked victim were lodged in the branches above. All my efforts to disengage it were unavailing till, at last, I broke off the line, and threw pieces of stick at the little fish till I battered it down, its mouth torn out by the hook, and its shining scales all beaten off. Lulie took her little victim in her hand very tenderly, and almost shed tears over it. She declared she would never come fishing again; that it was mean and cruel to catch the poor little creatures out of the water when they were so happy.
“And, John,” she continued, “I am so sorry I broke your hook and line, when you had fixed it up so nicely for me; I know you are really mad with me about it.”
I did not notice her remark about the hook and line, but said (winding the broken line around the pole, and laying it behind us on the grass):
“Your compassion and pity for the little fish are so sweet, Lulie, that I wish I could be transformed into one, like another Indur.”
The old roguish twinkle came back to her eyes as she said:
“You can have my compassion now if you will be caught like this fish.”
“You know how quickly I would be, Lulie, but all your lines are occupied.”
“No, indeed, John, you are the one in fault; but, then, you are completely fastened by a hook baited with a pair of dark Cuban eyes.”
“Of course, Lulie, you refer to Carlotta; you are entirely mistaken; she is only a sister, and a very reserved and distant sister at that. I admire her beauty, but cannot love her.”
“Well, you look at her as if you did, any way, and I feel every time that we three are together, that you are wishing I had not come up here to spoil your pleasure, and be in the way.”
“Lulie!” I said softly, as I sat down by her on the cool green moss, and as I said it a hot flush came over my face, for I felt there was no retreat after such a tone, and that I must now tell her what I had been hinting at by action and word through my life from a child. She, too, well knew what I meant, for she dropped her eyes from mine, and laying down the little fish, commenced to pick from her finger, with great earnestness and effort, a bright scale that adhered to it.
“Let me get it off,” I said, taking her hand and flipping off the scale, but still keeping the hand in mine; “Lulie, I am holding the hand of the only girl in the world that I love. It is no jest now, but solemn earnest truth. Darling, your own heart tells you how I have idolized you from a child, and my heart tells me how I adore you now. Sometimes I have felt that you did not care for me, and my despair has been worse than eternal death; at other times I’ve thought, perhaps, you did return my love, and the happiness would have been supreme but for the dread uncertainty. But oh! Lulie, I can endure it no longer; tell me, dearest, if you——”
She drew her hand suddenly from mine, and placing both hands over her eyes, she burst into convulsive sobbing. Iput my arm around her, and tried to take her hands from her eyes. She turned towards me, putting both arms around my neck, laid her face, streaming with tears, on my shoulder, and cried as if her little heart would break. I sat still, supporting her, and not knowing what to do or say. Gradually her hands relaxed their clasp, and she raised her head from my shoulder, and, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, which she tremblingly drew forth, said, with a tear-hoarse voice and a great sob:
“Oh!—John!”
“Lulie, darling,” I said, gazing at her tenderly, “have I distressed you so much, and is it painful to you to know that I love you?”
“Yes, yes, dear John, the deepest pain, because—because I cannot love you in return.”
“Not love me! Oh, Lulie! After all the years of fondest fidelity!”
“John, I do love you as the dearest friend I have on earth; as the one of all others in whom I can confide most implicitly; and because I love and esteem you so dearly your avowal of love causes me such intense pain. I could tell another I did not love him without remorse, but I know your noble heart is so truly in earnest, and its love is so sincere, that it almost kills me to turn it away and to offer only in return that bitterest of all words—friendship. But, John, by all the magnanimity of your generous nature, I beseech you not to hate me now, but hold me still as the same little Lulie of the nursery, when our hearts knew love as only childhood’s friendship.”
I sat as if in a dream, and only murmured:
“Hate you, Lulie! Never! never!”
After a long pause, I at length said:
“Lulie, darling—for you will permit me to call you so this evening, at least—the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see so plainly what a blind, blind fool I have been to gropeon in vague belief that you loved me. The fault has not been yours, for your actions have told me a thousand times that my hopes were vain; but well, indeed, is Cupid always pictured blind. And, darling, before we dismiss this subject forever, I want to thank you for the grief, and I know ‘twas real, that you felt in rejecting my proffered love. Had you heartlessly cast it aside ‘twould have crushed me too deeply for fortitude. And for our friendship, I vow before high Heaven it shall be deepened; and truer than a brother, with the devotion of an unrequited yet undying love, will I prove myself your friend.”
“Thank you. Oh! a thousand times thank you, John.”
“But, dearest Lulie,” I continued, “while my heart is bleeding, let me tear it all it may be torn. Tell me, do you love Frank Paning? Does he hold what I would give my life to win? Do not fear to hurt me now.”
“John, dear John, do not ask me;” and her frame commenced trembling violently again.
“‘Tis as I expected,” I said, bitterly. “But, oh! this is the keenest pain of all. Frank Paning! To know that he may hold your hand, and feel it throb its love to his; that he may gaze into your eyes and read your love for him; that he may know that Lulie, my darling, my idol, is his alone; while I—— Oh, Lulie, I’d rather you’d love the veriest dog that laps the dust around your door than Frank Paning.”
“Hush! hush! for the love of mercy hush!” she said, putting up her hand.
“Lulie, I cannot, will not hush. We will never talk together again as we do now; and, as that dearest friend you have termed me, I wish to warn you. He is not worthy of your love.”
She laid down the bonnet string, which she had been crimping in her fingers while I was talking, and looking straight at me, the least perceptible frown on her brow, and a flush on her cheek, said:
“John, I know you too well to believe you capable of meanly trying to injure a rival simply because of his success. I do you the justice to believe you sincere in your opinions, but your judgment is warped by prejudice; you cannot know him as I do, or you would love and trust him.”
“My dear Lulie, it is because I know him far better than you do that I warn you against him. I expect you to believe that all I say in regard to him is the fruit of my disappointment, but I must, ere we close this subject forever, tell you why he is unworthy, and why I warn you against him. And I trust, as you believe in my honor, you will not think I am influenced by any hope of thus supplanting him in your favor. I bow to your decision of this evening as final, nor would I cause you to revoke it, if I could, by maligning him.”
“John, I believe you; and I thank you more than I can tell for your intended kindness, but ‘tis better that we speak no further on this subject. It might beget unpleasant feelings, and I would not feel, nor have you feel, one shade of anger, for the world. My heart is sad enough when I think what a change one hour has wrought. No more the same John and Lulie we have ever been; no more the same playful attentions you have always paid me, nor the same thoughtless encouragement I have given. Respectful courtesy now our only intercourse. Oh, how little did I think, when I lightly returned your looks and smiles of love, to what it all would lead!”
“Lulie, darling, I cannot feel anger toward you, whatever you do; but, even if you hate me for it, I must tell you of Frank Paning. He is utterly destitute of principle. He does not love you, and if he did would only love you as his slave. He is tyrannical and overbearing, yet sycophantic in his nature, imposing on the weak and cringing to the strong. He is free and forward in the presence of ladies, and impure and slanderous in his remarks about them behind their backs.I have known him to leave a company of ladies, and then, for the mere applause of a vulgar throng, make witticisms on their appearance and manners that would have caused a blush in Cyprus. He does not bear a proper respect for you, for I have heard him publicly boast of your love, and make remarks that I have been forced to resent.”
“John, do not revile him any more. You perhaps mean well, but ‘tis an utter waste of breath. For years I have loved and trusted him; and if an angel were to stand upon the rippling water there and warn me, I would not believe Frank false. When I gave him my heart I gave him my life, and, though you and all the world turn against him, I will cling to him and trust him, and when he spurns me I will die.”
“May God protect you, Lulie, my own love, from all wrong,” and I kissed gently and respectfully her dear, soft cheek, henceforth to be for other lips. She did not reproach me, but sat gazing at the dancing sunlight on the water. I rose and took up the pole that we had left set in the bank. A fish had hung itself upon the hook, and, utterly exhausted by its unheeded efforts to disengage itself, came up from the water limp and motionless. Putting it on our string, and tying up our tackle, I assisted Lulie over the rail fence, and we ascended the hill and walked up the lane in silence.
Reader! did you ever love earnestly and devotedly? Did you ever, after months, perhaps years, of doubt and hesitation, at last make up your mind to declare it? and did you ever have it rejected, perhaps kindly, perhaps cruelly? If so, you know what I felt then.
So bitterly disappointed, so deeply humiliated to have confessed yourself so conceitedly mistaken, and such a wild despair in your heart as you think how she will greet another with her smiles, while you, poor fool, are forgotten; how another’s arms will fold her, another’s lips press hers!Oh! there’s a world of sad meaning in those exquisite lines of Tennyson’s:
“And sweet as those by hopeless Fancy feigned,On lips that are for others.”
Again, before we reached home, we assured each other of our kind feelings, and agreed to act as nearly as possible in the same old way.
When we reached the house the others were at tea, the table being placed in the hall, without lamps, as the sun was hardly down. After being rallied for our solitary fish we took our seats, and father, taking from his pocket a bundle of letters, ran over them, and tossed one to me. I excused myself, and read it at the table. How my face burned and my hand shook as I found it was from Paning himself! His father and mother had gone to South Carolina, leaving him to devote the balance of his vacation to study. He had gotten lonely keeping house by himself, had written to Ned to join him, and they were coming up to spend a couple of weeks with me. They would not wait for my reply, as they knew I would be glad to see them, but would leave Wilmington by the next train.
I sat looking at the bold handwriting till the letters danced on the page, and father said:
“John, that is the longest letter I ever saw to be written on one page. We have nearly finished tea while you have been reading it. From whom can it be?”
“It is from Frank Paning, sir. He and Ned Cheyleigh are coming up to spend a week or two with me.”
I could not look at Lulie, as I said this, but I knew her face was bent over her tea, with the blood scarcely beneath the skin.
“I am glad of that,” said mother, “for your sake, John; you will then have some company in your rambles.”
I laughed as well as I could, and said “yes, indeed!”
“And while I think of it,” said father, taking anotherpaper from his pocket, “here is a railroad receipt for a horse, shipped from Baltimore. He will be at Goldsboro’ to-morrow, and as you will go over for the boys, you can bring him home with you.”
I assented, but asked what he wanted with another horse when he already had several he did not use.
“But this is something extra, my son, and I did not buy him for myself, but for a friend of mine. You will find his name on the bill of shipment.”
I looked at it again, and saw that the Bay line had received, in good order, but subject to a score of risks, one horse, to be sent to John Smith, Jr., at Goldsboro’, N. C. I thanked him with all the gratitude I could command under the conflict of feelings, and we all went out to the front porch, and sat there till the twilight darkened into night. Carlotta, with Lulie, took her seat on the steps, and I could hear her rich voice even laughing heartily at times as they talked together in low tones. I was glad that she was resuming her cheerfulness, and felt that I ought to join them, and not be so silent and moody in my own home. But I somehow wanted to be near mother to-night, and let her hand caress my head, because I was in trouble.