[image]"HIS WHIP WAS DESCENDING AGAIN WHEN JOHN'S PISTOL FLASHED.""That was why my State lost John Hayward," the Senator continued after a pause. "It was seen at once that he must not come to trial. While the plea of self-defence can always be set up, the fact that John had killed the overseer in his own house and after being ordered out, would have made the law quite too risky. But beyond that it would have been necessary, in order that the jury's sympathy might override the law, to make such a presentation of the proper limitations, and the abuses and horrors, of slave management as would be clearly inimical, if not actually dangerous, to public order and safety."So the State lost John Hayward," the Senator rambled on. "He exiled himself less for his own safety than for the sake of a system for which he had no sympathy, but in which seemed to be bound up the peace and happiness, the very existence, of his people.... He went away, but the shadow of the Black Peril was upon his life to the end.... He went to Massachusetts, located in Boston, and began to practise law. He was successful from the beginning, though he always spent everything he made. He married a most lovable and beautiful woman of the finest family, and life again promised all he had once seemingly lost.... He had been in Congress two terms when I was first elected to the House. Mrs. Hayward was the most gracious lady I ever knew, and they made my first years here at Washington altogether enjoyable, for they knew everybody that was worth knowing and were great entertainers. I remember that as a young bachelor Congressman I used to think that if I only had John Hayward's constituency and a wife the equal of his in beauty, intelligence and diplomacy, I could be President without trouble.... We served together in Congress till the beginning of the Great War. It was just before the outbreak that that fateful shadow fell again upon him. His son—named for him: John Graham Hayward—a boy that I had watched grow up from a lad and loved as my own, was a student at Harvard and had acquired many ideas of which his father had no knowledge, and which would have startled him—with all his well-known anti-slavery sentiments. The boy's mother looked on the negro race purely from a missionary standpoint, and had never given a serious thought, I am sure, to the negro's social status."You perhaps may imagine the shock that came to John Hayward on going home late one afternoon to dinner to find already seated at his table his wife, his son, and a young negro about his son's age whom the boy had brought in to dine with him.... John told me about it a few months afterward, and even then, with all his heart-break, his eyes would blaze with an insane anger as he thought of that nigger at his table.... He looked at the three for a moment; and then he said things that blasted his home. He kicked the nigger incontinently out of his house, and was beside himself in the furious wrath he hurled upon his wife and son. The boy resented his outburst, especially because of its cruel effect upon the mother. The father in uncontrollable anger at his son's resentful opposition ordered him to leave his roof, and told him that he was unworthy of the name of Hayward and had disgraced it beyond repair. The boy replied with spirit that he would not carry the name of Hayward away from the house, but would renounce both the house and it then, there and for ever, and walked out of the door.... On his knees did John implore his wife's forgiveness, and receive it; but neither father nor mother ever saw the boy again.... John tried, I think, to learn his whereabouts, and was driven to desperation as he met failure at every point. The moment the call came for troops, he resigned his seat in Congress, volunteered in a Massachusetts regiment and was killed at Bull Run...."As he was lost to his native State, so he was lost to the nation—because the baleful shadow of the Black Peril seemed to be upon his life.... Heaven save my people—nine-tenths of whom, like him, would deal with the negro in justice and righteousness and helpfulness—from the stress and the blood of an open conflict against social equality with the negro race, and from the further unspeakable, unthinkable horror of defeat in such a conflict if it shall come upon them."CHAPTER XIThere can be no doubt Hayward found scant recompense for his first month's service as part of the White Houseménage. The money consideration of that service, as he told the gentleman from Pittsburg, he valued as nothing; and yet it was the money that held him over beyond the time limit he had set for his little adventure and his return to the army. He put his eyes on Helen but twice during the month, and that only for a moment, and he had taken his leave of Washington in less than a fortnight if his training in the service had not accustomed him to bear monotony with patience.Before his time was up, however, a letter from his mother told him that she was hardly able longer to bear the burden of her own support or even to supplement his contributions by any appreciable efforts of her own. Too long and too closely indeed had she striven in his behalf, and the overwork was demanding its pound of flesh in severe and relentless compensation. Hayward thought he saw the hand of a kindly Providence in having already provided him with a wage sufficient to keep both his mother and himself from want—which his soldier's pay would not have accomplished; and he postponed his military ambition and brought her to Washington, where he might look after her comfort more carefully and less expensively. Very grateful was he for an opportunity to care and provide for her whose devotion he had always known, but the heroism and stress of whose struggles and the wonders of whose money-working he was beginning to appreciate only since leaving the all-providing care with which she and the quartermaster had hedged him about from the morning of his birth till ninety days ago.While his intelligence, his spirit, his cultivated ideals would not let him rest in entire content as a menial—a footman to however high a personage—Hayward yet found his first real basis of self-respect in the consciousness of his responsibility for his mother's support and happiness, and in the feeling that he was equal to the duty so plainly laid upon him. However he had no thought but that his present work was temporary; and, to satisfy his taste for mental recreation and improvement as well as to have a definite purpose in his mental pursuits, he began in his spare hours to study the books that pertained to his proposed life-work as an officer of the army.His first summer in Washington added no little to his stock of that knowledge which men acquire not out of books but at first hand. He had seen as an onlooker something of life on both sides of the earth, and had acquired more of the spirit of a cosmopolite than nine-tenths of the statesmen who foregathered in the nation's capital to formulate world-policies: and yet of the actual conditions of life, of living, which affected him as a bread-winner, as a social unit, as one having a part in the Kingdom of the Spirit, he was at the very beginning of knowledge when he donned the White House livery. His effervescence of interest in Helen Phillips in great measure subsided, naturally, among the many new problems that came to meet him, and with his frequent commonplace beholding of her.He soon was brought to realize that rigid limitations were upon him not only by the colour-line which was drawn straight as a knife's edge from top to bottom of Washington, but by fences and barriers inside the confines of his own race against which he stumbled repeatedly and blindly before he dreamed they existed. On several occasions he had met with slight rebuffs in his friendly advances to persons of his own colour, and ascribed them to ill-temper or uncouth manners; but he finally received a jolt which waked him up—in this fashion:He dropped in at the most imposing negro church in the city one Sunday evening, and heard a young woman of comely face and person, dressed in perfect taste, sing a solo which, in the sentiment and the purity and pathos of the singer's voice, met his idea of all that is exquisite in song. When the service was finished he spoke to a well-groomed man past middle age who had sat beside him."The young lady who sang did it with marvellous taste and beauty. She knows both how to sing and what to sing; and since I'm at it I may as well say that she's no-end good-looking."The older man could not conceal his satisfaction and interest, for he had expended many dollars on the singer."I'm delighted you think so," he returned. "My daughter has had great advantages and she ought to sing well.""Your daughter?" said Hayward. "You should be very proud of her. Will you not introduce me to her? I'd like to thank her for my share. I am John Hayward"—and feeling some identification was necessary—"footman at the White House.""Excuse me, suh," said the other, with but a very slightly overdone manner; "we don't introduce strangers to our families—specially footmen."The father's manner was not intended to be offensive, but his answer verily exploded in Hayward's face. Thanks to the younger man's training he did not wince or change countenance, but he was so bursting full of wrath that he never knew whether any further word was spoken between them. He moved with the throng toward the door, but stepped into a vacant pew for fear he would run over some one in furious impatience. True it was that in his attempt to volunteer three years before, he had been roughly impressed with the idea that there was some recognized difference between a white man and a negro, and in his association with the rough troopers of the 10th Cavalry he had become in a measure converted to the correctness of the proposition generally: "but," he thought in infuriated scorn, "I'm as good as anyniggerthat ever drew breath! A footman, am I?"—and he threw back his head with pride as he recalled his answer to the man from Pittsburg—but dropped it again with some humility at the thought that he was now a footman for the money it brought. At the door he spoke to an usher."Who was the young woman who sang?""Miss Porter—old Henry Porter's daughter.""So the old scoundrel is Washington's richest negro," he thought. "Well, his manners and his money are not well matched. I'll even the score with him yet."After the first heat of his resentment was off he admitted that his request to be presented to the negro magnate's daughter was abrupt, informal and unwarranted, perhaps, but he argued and insisted that old Porter ought to have seen that his unconventional request was an impulsive outcome of his admiration for the girl's singing, and at least have been a little more gracious in his refusal. No, he would not forgive the manner of it; and when he remembered the song and its delight to his senses he found it about as hard to forgive the refusal itself.Not in three years, except for an occasional moment of patriotic uplift, had his soul had a taste of something to drink—till he heard that song. His spiritual sense had virtually lain dormant those three years in the monotonous round of his world-circling outpost duty. In successive enlistments he might indeed altogether have stifled it, while perfecting his intelligence, courage, strength and skill as a soldier: for the only possibility—and there is only possibility, no certainty or even probability—of spiritual uplift incident to the profession of arms, is that of developing a surpassing, unselfish love of the flag. This sentiment in its pure fulness of bloom is of the spirit, and is an exalted virtue; but not all even of the heroes whose ashes the nations keep have appropriated to their souls, untainted with selfish or fleshly impulse, this the very flowering recompense of their travail and heroism.Hayward had enlisted at the bidding of the most admirable impulses and had made an excellent soldier; but the monotonous round of garrison duty after the brief war was ended had benumbed his purely patriotic motive, and left only a great desire for personal advancement. In the dull grind his very highest nature had become stagnated; and it was with the joy of one first awakened to unforeseen possibilities that he felt reawakened within him by that one song desires not of the flesh but of the spirit so long stupefied and unfed.As he became acutely conscious of his need in this behalf, he was more seriously regretful than before that an acquaintance with the singer who had revivified his finer sensibilities might not be had to satisfy in a measure the need which her singing had recreated. Under the impulse of such desires he set about seeking associates, friendships, wherefrom he might appropriate to himself his God-given share in the kingdom of the Mind. In his quiet and unobtrusive search for friends among his race who would be congenial and satisfy the craving of his higher nature for companionship, success came with starving sloth. Most of the negroes with whom he came at first in contact were of an order of intelligence so far below his own that they met not in any degree the demand from within him, and the few that possessed the intelligence were so unbearable in manner that he found little pleasure in them.He had held aloof from the troopers of the 10th with the certain feeling that they were below his type and below the type of the best negroes he knew must exist somewhere: but he came to doubt the correctness of his own estimate in his search for congenial spirits in Washington. Educated negroes? Yes, there were many that had seen as much of the schools as he, and more. Men of money? Yes, scores of negroes who could buy him ten times over with a month's income. And yet it seemed that he could not happen upon any in his limited and slowly growing acquaintance who did not in some way offend his tastes.CHAPTER XIIWhen the heat of summer came down upon Washington, President Phillips' wife and daughters fled to the shades of the family summer home, "Hill-Top," at Stag Inlet on Lake Ontario. There, in a roomy, rambling old house set back on the low wooded bluffs which enclose in more than half-circle the peaceful little bay, he and his wife and daughters, with a few congenial but not too closely situated neighbours, passed the hot days of summer, and stayed on usually into the red-splashed autumn, when the little cove put on its most inviting dress and brewed its most exhilarating air.It was Hayward's fortune to be carried to the Inlet with the family carriage and horses for the summer outing. He was happy enough to be quit of brick walls and asphalt pavements for a time, and to get into God's out-of-doors, for whose open air he had become so hungry in a few short months. His duties were not very onerous, and he had much time to employ himself with his own pleasures. One form which this took was in learning to handle the various kinds of diminutive water-craft with which his master's family and their neighbours helped to while away their summer vacations. Before the summer was over he was a fairly good fisherman, a safe skipper on any small sail-craft used in the inlet, and a devoted and skilful driver of the gasoline, naphtha and electric launches of which the cottagers had quite a number. He was quick and adept at any and everything that came to his hand, and so careful and entertaining of the children of the near-by families whom he met and amused when they came down to play by the water's edge, that he came to be quite in demand as one servant who "knew how" and could be depended upon in any circumstances.Helen Phillips was still a girl, natural, ingenuous, untouched by pride or affectation. She looked forward with some zest of anticipation to the time of her début two winters to come; but was well content to have that time approach without haste. She evinced much interest in the plans that her mother and Elise made and re-made, discarded and revised for the social campaign of the next winter, and many lively and original suggestions did she make offhand and unasked. But as for her own personal plans she gave them no thought a day's time ahead. She was quite willing to receive her pleasures in the order chance ordained."I am so glad to get away from Washington and back to Hill-Top," she wrote to her Cleveland chum. "It was awful dull down there. Five whole days in the week I had to spend trying to catch the style dispensed at a Finishing School for Young Ladies there, where it is possible to take lady-like sips and nibbles at literature and music and art and things like that, but where the real purpose seems to be to teach young women to descend from a carriage gracefully. Just think! Another whole year of finishing touches will have to be applied to me before Miss Eugenia can in good conscience certify that I may be depended upon properly to arrange myself upon a chair in case it ever becomes necessary for me to sit down."Helen's tastes were along lines widely different from the Finishing School's curriculum. She preferred above all things else a talk or a walk, a ride or a romp with her father. She had no brother to share her pranks and enthusiasms, her little sister Katherine was much too young to be companionable, and her father was her necessary and natural ally. Him did she not only love, but him did she glorify. Tall and straight, seemingly lacking in flesh but tough as whip-cord, with a patrician face, prematurely gray hair and moustache, Helen thought he was the model of all manly beauty. None in life or in fiction was to her thinking so brave or strong or good as he. Being in her esteem strong in body, unerring in wisdom, pure in purpose, fearless in spirit, he touched the periphery of her ideal of manhood at every point. Her mother and Elise often were amused at her headlong championship of him upon the slightest intimation of criticism, and rightfully were astonished at her information upon public questions as they affected or were connected with his political fortunes or good name. Helen devoured the newspapers (a limited number it is true) with no other purpose, seemingly, than to know what people said of him. Of those that favoured him and his policies she thought well, and mentally commended their good taste and excellent sense: but those that criticized! Woe to them had she had power to utter condemnation!* * * * *One morning in midsummer Hayward brought the saddle-horses to the door for the father and daughter to take a canter and prove Helen's new mount before the mother and Elise were up. They were about ready to be off when a telegram was brought out to Mr. Phillips by the operator who had an office in the house."I was ordered not to wake you, sir, but to give it to you at once when you were up."Mr. Phillips read it over slowly. Then he turned to Helen."Well, little girl, you must miss your ride again. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped.""Oh, no, papa! Let the country go play till we come back. You promised me this ride sure when we missed the last one.""Can't do it, little woman. Take the horses back, Hayward," he said, and turned to follow the telegraph man. But seeing the great disappointment in Helen's face, he called to the man."Here, Hayward. Get into a proper coat and on my horse and see that Miss Helen has her gallop round the Inlet and back without damage. Can you ride?""Yes, sir," answered Hayward."I thought so. You seem to be able to do everything else. Now you are fixed up, old girl," he said as he chucked Helen under the chin. "Don't let the mare all the way out. You don't know her yet,"—and he was gone.Most of Helen's pleasure in the ride was lost with her father's absence, and yet there was much enjoyment in it for her. She felt the liberty to choose her own road, and decided to do a little exploring. She set out at a good canter, with Hayward swinging along a protective distance in the rear; and with the exercise her spirits rose and she gave herself up to the full joy of it. She forgot her father's injunction and sent the mare along several stretches of road with little restraint.Hayward, on Mr. Phillips' favourite saddler, was having the time of his life, and for himself wished nothing better than that his young mistress would keep up the pace; though he did not altogether approve of her speeding down-hill. He did not like the way the mare managed her feet on the down grades. When Helen pulled up to ask him where a certain road led, he spoke, unconsciously with decision, out of his experience, but with all deference, and said:"Pardon me, Miss Helen, but it is a little dangerous the speed with which you ride down-hill. I'm afraid your mount is not so sure-footed as she might be.... This road you speak of leads out by Mr. Radwine's cottage into the Lake Drive. It is worse riding than those you have tried."Helen thought Hayward's apprehensions were creatures of his discomfort in keeping pace with her, and she was nothing more than amused at his attempts to limit the speed to his abilities under pretence of care for her safety. She thought she would give him one more shaking-up to tell her father about—and plunged off down the Radwine road, leaving him to follow as best he might.Hayward had passed over that cross-road but a few days earlier and he knew its present condition. Helen heard him call to her, but her spirit of mischief was fully aroused at the thought of his bumping along after her, and she gave the mare free rein.They were going down a longer and steeper hill than any they had passed, near the foot of which the summer rains had washed out the roadway. Hayward, knowing of this dangerous place ahead, and seeing that it was impossible to stop the young woman in his front before she reached it, sent Prince William after the mare under pressure of the spur and with the hope to come up with her in time. He arrived on the very moment of fate. The thundering horse tore alongside the flying mare just as she reached the washed-out road. Either through feminine excitability at being overtaken or because of the defective foot action Hayward had noted, the mare, when she struck the rough road, stumbled and went down. In that instant the open-eyed Prince William cleared the washout with a magnificent stride, and the ex-cavalryman swept his right arm about Helen and lifted her out of the saddle.Slowly reining in his horse, Hayward brought him to a standstill and gently lowered his astonished young mistress to the ground. She was almost too overcome to stand, and walked unsteadily a few steps before she recovered herself. Hayward had thrown himself off Prince William and was leading him back down the road to where the mare had fallen. She had already picked herself up, minus a saddle and plus a few bruises, and was standing in the road comparatively unhurt but shaking as with an ague.Hayward approached her quietly and she came eagerly up to him as if to escape from her fears. He looked her over carefully, and finding no serious damage done, set himself about brushing the dust from her with wisps of weeds and grass. Helen came down while he worked with the mare, and watched him some minutes without speaking. She hardly could think of anything civil to say. She knew that she had disobeyed orders and that he had warned her—and that made her angry. The very silence of the man became irritating to her.When he had done all he could to put the mare in order he picked up Helen's saddle and started to put it on, but stopped to ask whether he should exchange mounts with her."No," his young mistress replied. "I've ridden her here and I will ride her home."The negro put her saddle on the mare while the girl looked on. When he came to buckle the girth he found that the leather tongue was torn off. He lengthened the girth on the other side and proceeded to bore with his pocket-knife a new hole in the short broken tab. Helen's eyes fell at length on the knife. She looked at it uncertainly a few moments, and then lost interest in everything else. Finally she could keep quiet no longer."Where did you get that knife, Hayward?" she asked with something like accusation in her voice."Miss Helen, I got this knife in—that is, this knife belongs to—""Wait a moment," interrupted Helen. "Let me see it.... Yes, it's the same. I gave my father this knife on his birthday four years ago. I had the carving done at Vantine's. How long have you had it?""Miss Helen, I have had it long before I entered your father's service. I—""Yes, I know; but just how long have you had it, Hayward?""Well, Miss Helen, to be accurate, I've had it three years and—four months.""Hayward, were you ever in the army—the cavalry—the 10th Cavalry?""Yes, Miss Helen.""You were in the battle of Valencia?""Yes, Miss Helen.""You took this knife from an officer whose life you had saved, didn't you?""Yes, Miss Helen.""Papa says the negro trooper saved his life and stole his knife.""But I did not steal the knife, Miss Helen—I did not know I had it till two months after the battle, when they gave me back my clothes in the hospital. There was—""That stealing part is one of papa's jokes, Hayward. But you didn't know it was papa, did you?""Yes, Miss Helen. I knew him when I saw him fall.""What? And you've never let him know? Why have you kept it secret?"Hayward did not answer. She continued."He would be very grateful. He does not know who it was, for I've heard him say so. All that he knows is that it was a trooper of the 10th."She stopped and waited for an answer, but he stood in silent indecision as to what he should say to her. If he should now disclose himself the President would doubtless weaken the force of his obligation by giving him in token of his gratitude some appointment which not only would fall far short of the lieutenant's commission to which he aspired, but also would remove him from the young woman who in the last minute had become so simply and earnestly sympathetic in her manner. He weighed the pros and cons quickly."Why haven't you told him?" persisted Helen."I have preferred not, Miss Helen. In fact there are reasons why I cannot—must not—now.""What reasons?" demanded Helen."Please, Miss Helen, I cannot tell you—nor him.""You are not ashamed of it, surely?""No, Miss Helen. I would do it again this morning—willingly—at any cost to myself. But do not ask me to tell of it."Helen regarded him narrowly for a minute in silence."And you kept me from—death—also. Am I not to tell him of that either?""Please no, Miss Helen. If I have done you a service and you think it worth reward, I ask that you repay me by telling no one that I am either your father's rescuer or your own."Mystery always annoyed Helen unbearably, and she looked at Hayward as if uncertain whether to peremptorily demand his secret or to inform him she herself would acquaint her father with the facts he sought to conceal. Hayward saw something of her purpose in her eyes, and pleaded with her."Miss Helen, I beg you. My reasons are imperative—and honourable. When the time comes that I may I will gladly tell your father, but if now you would do me the greatest favour you will say nothing of it."While Hayward was speaking it occurred to Helen that she willingly would have her father remain in ignorance of her disobedience and reckless riding and its consequent narrowly averted disaster. This consideration, together with Hayward's earnestness in his mystifying request, finally prevailed upon her."Very well, Hayward, if you insist. You only will be the loser. It is puzzling to me.... But tell me about your rescue of papa."Hayward, glad to buy her silence, gave her a modest account of his very creditable bit of heroism, and in response to Helen's interested questioning he was still recounting incidents of the battle and his hospital experiences when they reached the Lake Drive and quickened their pace into a fast canter for home. They arrived and alighted and Hayward got the horses away to the stable without any one's seeing the dust-splashed mare.Helen could hardly contain herself with her knowledge, but she was as scrupulously honest as she was impulsive, and stood by her promise not to divulge the footman's secret. She vainly tried to imagine some satisfactory explanation of his strange request, but could conceive none that seemed plausible. She finally came to believe that he was a heroic soul whom some implacable misfortune had denied the right to the fruits of his heroism, and in her heart she pitied him.Hayward was not certain just how far his young mistress credited him with good and honest reasons for wishing his identity to remain undisclosed to her father. He feared that she must think any reason inadequate. He was very much afraid that in all her interested inquiries she would discover that he was not using his real name. If she became possessed of that knowledge she doubtless would think the circumstance sufficiently suspicious to warrant her laying all the facts before her father. This matter of his name perplexed him no little. He gladly would have Helen acquainted with the facts relating to the crimson pennant, and yet he must guard against it. That would reveal his masquerade, as she certainly would remember the name of the Harvard man who had saved his college from defeat. He heartily regretted the excess of caution which had made him place himself in this dilemma.* * * * *In the long and lazy summer days that came after that morning's ride Helen was given without seeking it some little opportunity to question the footman about the ever interesting matter of her father's rescue and allied incidents of battle and campaign. Her father insisted, on a few occasions when he could not accompany her, on her riding alone, with Hayward as a guard. In her sailing parties, also, in which Hayward was usually skipper of sailboat or launch, she was thrown occasionally with him alone before she had picked up, or after she had dropped off, her guests at the several landings around the Inlet.She had a child's interest in listening to the ex-trooper's reminiscences of the battle of Valencia, the Venezuelan campaign, and of his world's-end following of the flag. The footman, never for a moment lacking in deference or presuming upon the liberty of speech allowed him, was an entertaining talker. He had used his eyes and his ears in his journeyings through the earth, and the lively imagination characteristic of his race and his negro knack of mimicry, together with his intelligence and his ability to use the English language with precision and skill, made him a raconteur of fascinating charm. Helen quite often wished to acquaint her father and mother and Elise with some of the things he recounted to her, but the tales were always so mixed in with his experiences as a soldier that she could not re-relate them without breaking her promise to respect his secret....And thus the summer days dragged slowly to an end, with Helen and her footman becoming at odd times better acquainted with the thoughts and personal views each of the other on a wider and ever wider range of subjects. Helen was too unsophisticated in her thought to notice anything unusual in a lackey's being possessed of Hayward's intelligence and ease of manner. The ever present mystery of his refusal to exploit his heroic deeds dwarfed or overshadowed all other questions that might have arisen in her mind as to anything out of the ordinary in him. She did believe that he was suffering some sort of martyrdom in silence, and her womanly sympathy grew stronger as she knew more of him. Not for a moment was the relation of mistress and man lost sight of by either; but the revelation of the real woman and man, each to other, went steadily on.CHAPTER XIIIThe era of good feeling seemed to have been ushered in along with Mr. Phillips' inauguration. The country was prosperous to a degree. Labour was receiving steady employment and a fair wage and uttered no complaint. Capital was adding surplus to per cent., and was content. The Cuban skirmish with Spain and the trial-by-battle with Germany had cemented again in blood the sections divided by the Great War—so closely indeed that nobody, not even Presidents on hand-shaking junkets, thought to mention it. Any sporadic "waver of the bloody shirt" was considered an anachronism and laughed at as a harmless idiot. It was true that the negro question, being present in the flesh and incapable of banishment, was yet a momentous problem: but it was considered in cooler temper as being either a national or a local question—not sectional in any sense.President Phillips in his first message to Congress, as in his inaugural address, felicitated his countrymen upon the unity of the American people and the American spirit, and on both occasions gave a new rhetorical turn and oratorical flourish to the statement that his father was from Massachusetts and his mother a South Carolinian. In sections of the South where his party was admittedly effete or undoubtedly odorous he hesitated not to appoint to office men of political faith radically differing from his own—and all good citizens applauded. Partisanry was settling itself down for a good long sleep, and strife had ceased. The lion and the lamb were lain down together, and there was none that made afraid in all the holy mountain of American good-will and fair prospect.Into this sectionally serene and peaceful situation, which Mr. Phillips deemed largely the result of his personal effort as a non-sectional American executive, he deliberately or impulsively pitched an issue which set one-third of his admiring countrymen by the ears.The good commonwealth of Mississippi was in a state of upheaval. A peaceable revolution was being attempted there which would have changed the essential nature and purpose of the State government. Incited by the wordy eloquence of a provincial governor, with a few scraps of statistics gone mad, good men, honest men, men of intelligence were seriously considering the proposition to so amend the State constitution as to put upon the negro in his ignorance and poverty the whole burden of his own education—by a division of the school fund between the races in proportion to the taxes each paid to the State.This reactionary and truly astonishing proposition of Governor Wordyfellow was commonly known as the Wordyfellow Idea. It was giving great concern to the sober statesmanship of the entire nation, North and South—indeed greater concern to the thoughtful men of the South who realized its momentous import, its far-reaching effect upon Southern white people, than to the thoughtful outsiders who viewed it philosophically as having a speculative interest but no actual part in its settlement or effects.The proposition to so divide the school funds indeed found its most violent and active opposition, as it found its strongest advocates, not only among the men of the South but even in the very State of Mississippi itself. The fact soon developed that this was to be the greatest political battle that was to be fought concerning the negro. All prior conflicts had been white man against negro. This was white man against white man, with the negro as an interested onlooker.The lines were drawn roughly with the church, the schools and the independent press allied against the politicians, the political press and the less intelligent citizenship. Notable individual exceptions there were to this alignment—which all men remember—but the line of cleavage, taking it by and large, was as stated. Though the matter of an actual constitutional revision was presented as yet only to the people of Mississippi, the battle was being waged in serious purpose to a no less actual finish in every State from the Potomac to the Rio Grande.It was into this situation, fraught with dire possibilities of course, but full of promise to the negro's friends, that the new President projected his impulsive and forceful personality. Anxious as always to be in the fight and leader in the fight, he set about to devise some plan for helping along the black man's cause. That he might do this more intelligently he conferred often with his most trusted advisers.It was on the occasion of the memorable Home-Coming Week at Cleveland in 191- that he held the famous conference which gave that great civic celebration a fixed place in history. He stood loyally by his home city in its effort to enjoy and advertise itself, for he betook himself and family and several friends, including two members of his cabinet, away from busiest Washington for two days, and opened up his Cleveland home at great expense for that brief stay.Doctor Woods, a negro of national reputation, also claimed Cleveland as his birthplace, and he had journeyed thither from afar to swell the throng of loyal sons of the city, and had brought with him Doctor Martin, now a bishop of the A.M.E. Zion Church, to add dignity and strength to the negro end of the programme. Meeting officially with these two dignitaries of colour suggested to Mr. Phillips a discussion of the Wordyfellow disturbance, and he called an impromptu consultation.In between the review of a morning parade and luncheon, therefore, on the second day of his stay, he sandwiched this hurried conference. At it, beside Martin and Woods, were Secretary of the Navy Mackenzie, whose wisdom seemed to cover all politics and statecraft, and the Secretary of Agriculture, Baxter—himself a Mississippian, but thoroughly opposed to the Mississippi governor's policy.The conference, which was held at Mr. Phillips' home, rejoiced his heart. He was pleased at the favourable reports which Bishop Martin and Doctor Woods gave of the situation in the several Southern States. He accepted with approval the suggestions of the sapient Mackenzie; and when he saw with what earnestness and vigour and assured personal knowledge of the situation Baxter was putting his energies into the fight and predicting victory even in Mississippi, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. The conference was of such interest that luncheon was announced before a definite plan of action was threshed out."By George, I'm hungry as a wolf!" exclaimed Mr. Phillips. "Come along to the dining-room, gentlemen, and we'll wind this thing up while we replenish our stores."While this invitation was quite unexpected by the bishop and Doctor Woods, it completely confounded Secretary Baxter who was right in the middle of a little speech when the interruption and invitation came. He looked confused for a moment, and began mumbling some excuse as Mr. Phillips held open the door and his other guests passed out into the hall."Oh, you don't have to go," said Mr. Phillips. "Come on and finish up your idea. I know you have no other engagement, for you were to lunch with me to-day to discuss that Williams matter."The Secretary of Agriculture saw he was caught, and his manner changed in a moment as he decided to meet the issue squarely."You will please excuse me, Mr. President," he said formally and finally."Why, Baxter, surely I do not have to explain to you that—""You certainly do not, Mr. President," interrupted the Secretary. "Good morning, gentlemen,"—and he bowed himself out.President Phillips turned in ill-restrained anger and followed his guests to the dining-room. They found Mrs. Phillips and Helen awaiting them. With these Mr. Mackenzie shook hands, and to them the President introduced Doctor Woods. The bishop was already acquainted, and spoke of the dinner at the Saratoga restaurant.Mrs. Phillips had long been accustomed to the surprises her husband made for her, and had too good control of her faculties to show any annoyance on beholding her unexpected and unwelcome guests.Any possible shade of restraint in her manner would not have been noticed, however, in the general feeling of constraint which Mr. Baxter's abrupt departure had left on Mr. Phillips and his other guests. The host set himself to the task of throwing off this feeling by plunging volubly into a résumé of the discussion they had been having. His vigour and enthusiasm were such that by their very physical force he was bringing a wholesome situation to pass, when Elise came humming down the hall with Lola DeVale, stopped short in the doorway—and turned quickly back.[image]"ELISE ... STOPPED SHORT IN THE DOORWAY—AND TURNED QUICKLY BACK."While there was nothing unusual or pointed in Elise's manoeuvre her father felt and resented her protest. He talked away for a few minutes in nervous hope that his supposition was wrong and that she would come and bring Lola in to lunch. When she did not his choler rose at this open mutiny in his own household, and he awkwardly tossed the ball of conversation to Mackenzie and busied himself keeping his indignation within bounds.From this point the meal progressed uncertainly. In the midst of the embarrassment of it all there was brought to the President a note, upon opening which he read:
[image]"HIS WHIP WAS DESCENDING AGAIN WHEN JOHN'S PISTOL FLASHED."
[image]
[image]
"HIS WHIP WAS DESCENDING AGAIN WHEN JOHN'S PISTOL FLASHED."
"That was why my State lost John Hayward," the Senator continued after a pause. "It was seen at once that he must not come to trial. While the plea of self-defence can always be set up, the fact that John had killed the overseer in his own house and after being ordered out, would have made the law quite too risky. But beyond that it would have been necessary, in order that the jury's sympathy might override the law, to make such a presentation of the proper limitations, and the abuses and horrors, of slave management as would be clearly inimical, if not actually dangerous, to public order and safety.
"So the State lost John Hayward," the Senator rambled on. "He exiled himself less for his own safety than for the sake of a system for which he had no sympathy, but in which seemed to be bound up the peace and happiness, the very existence, of his people.... He went away, but the shadow of the Black Peril was upon his life to the end.... He went to Massachusetts, located in Boston, and began to practise law. He was successful from the beginning, though he always spent everything he made. He married a most lovable and beautiful woman of the finest family, and life again promised all he had once seemingly lost.... He had been in Congress two terms when I was first elected to the House. Mrs. Hayward was the most gracious lady I ever knew, and they made my first years here at Washington altogether enjoyable, for they knew everybody that was worth knowing and were great entertainers. I remember that as a young bachelor Congressman I used to think that if I only had John Hayward's constituency and a wife the equal of his in beauty, intelligence and diplomacy, I could be President without trouble.... We served together in Congress till the beginning of the Great War. It was just before the outbreak that that fateful shadow fell again upon him. His son—named for him: John Graham Hayward—a boy that I had watched grow up from a lad and loved as my own, was a student at Harvard and had acquired many ideas of which his father had no knowledge, and which would have startled him—with all his well-known anti-slavery sentiments. The boy's mother looked on the negro race purely from a missionary standpoint, and had never given a serious thought, I am sure, to the negro's social status.
"You perhaps may imagine the shock that came to John Hayward on going home late one afternoon to dinner to find already seated at his table his wife, his son, and a young negro about his son's age whom the boy had brought in to dine with him.... John told me about it a few months afterward, and even then, with all his heart-break, his eyes would blaze with an insane anger as he thought of that nigger at his table.... He looked at the three for a moment; and then he said things that blasted his home. He kicked the nigger incontinently out of his house, and was beside himself in the furious wrath he hurled upon his wife and son. The boy resented his outburst, especially because of its cruel effect upon the mother. The father in uncontrollable anger at his son's resentful opposition ordered him to leave his roof, and told him that he was unworthy of the name of Hayward and had disgraced it beyond repair. The boy replied with spirit that he would not carry the name of Hayward away from the house, but would renounce both the house and it then, there and for ever, and walked out of the door.... On his knees did John implore his wife's forgiveness, and receive it; but neither father nor mother ever saw the boy again.... John tried, I think, to learn his whereabouts, and was driven to desperation as he met failure at every point. The moment the call came for troops, he resigned his seat in Congress, volunteered in a Massachusetts regiment and was killed at Bull Run....
"As he was lost to his native State, so he was lost to the nation—because the baleful shadow of the Black Peril seemed to be upon his life.... Heaven save my people—nine-tenths of whom, like him, would deal with the negro in justice and righteousness and helpfulness—from the stress and the blood of an open conflict against social equality with the negro race, and from the further unspeakable, unthinkable horror of defeat in such a conflict if it shall come upon them."
CHAPTER XI
There can be no doubt Hayward found scant recompense for his first month's service as part of the White Houseménage. The money consideration of that service, as he told the gentleman from Pittsburg, he valued as nothing; and yet it was the money that held him over beyond the time limit he had set for his little adventure and his return to the army. He put his eyes on Helen but twice during the month, and that only for a moment, and he had taken his leave of Washington in less than a fortnight if his training in the service had not accustomed him to bear monotony with patience.
Before his time was up, however, a letter from his mother told him that she was hardly able longer to bear the burden of her own support or even to supplement his contributions by any appreciable efforts of her own. Too long and too closely indeed had she striven in his behalf, and the overwork was demanding its pound of flesh in severe and relentless compensation. Hayward thought he saw the hand of a kindly Providence in having already provided him with a wage sufficient to keep both his mother and himself from want—which his soldier's pay would not have accomplished; and he postponed his military ambition and brought her to Washington, where he might look after her comfort more carefully and less expensively. Very grateful was he for an opportunity to care and provide for her whose devotion he had always known, but the heroism and stress of whose struggles and the wonders of whose money-working he was beginning to appreciate only since leaving the all-providing care with which she and the quartermaster had hedged him about from the morning of his birth till ninety days ago.
While his intelligence, his spirit, his cultivated ideals would not let him rest in entire content as a menial—a footman to however high a personage—Hayward yet found his first real basis of self-respect in the consciousness of his responsibility for his mother's support and happiness, and in the feeling that he was equal to the duty so plainly laid upon him. However he had no thought but that his present work was temporary; and, to satisfy his taste for mental recreation and improvement as well as to have a definite purpose in his mental pursuits, he began in his spare hours to study the books that pertained to his proposed life-work as an officer of the army.
His first summer in Washington added no little to his stock of that knowledge which men acquire not out of books but at first hand. He had seen as an onlooker something of life on both sides of the earth, and had acquired more of the spirit of a cosmopolite than nine-tenths of the statesmen who foregathered in the nation's capital to formulate world-policies: and yet of the actual conditions of life, of living, which affected him as a bread-winner, as a social unit, as one having a part in the Kingdom of the Spirit, he was at the very beginning of knowledge when he donned the White House livery. His effervescence of interest in Helen Phillips in great measure subsided, naturally, among the many new problems that came to meet him, and with his frequent commonplace beholding of her.
He soon was brought to realize that rigid limitations were upon him not only by the colour-line which was drawn straight as a knife's edge from top to bottom of Washington, but by fences and barriers inside the confines of his own race against which he stumbled repeatedly and blindly before he dreamed they existed. On several occasions he had met with slight rebuffs in his friendly advances to persons of his own colour, and ascribed them to ill-temper or uncouth manners; but he finally received a jolt which waked him up—in this fashion:
He dropped in at the most imposing negro church in the city one Sunday evening, and heard a young woman of comely face and person, dressed in perfect taste, sing a solo which, in the sentiment and the purity and pathos of the singer's voice, met his idea of all that is exquisite in song. When the service was finished he spoke to a well-groomed man past middle age who had sat beside him.
"The young lady who sang did it with marvellous taste and beauty. She knows both how to sing and what to sing; and since I'm at it I may as well say that she's no-end good-looking."
The older man could not conceal his satisfaction and interest, for he had expended many dollars on the singer.
"I'm delighted you think so," he returned. "My daughter has had great advantages and she ought to sing well."
"Your daughter?" said Hayward. "You should be very proud of her. Will you not introduce me to her? I'd like to thank her for my share. I am John Hayward"—and feeling some identification was necessary—"footman at the White House."
"Excuse me, suh," said the other, with but a very slightly overdone manner; "we don't introduce strangers to our families—specially footmen."
The father's manner was not intended to be offensive, but his answer verily exploded in Hayward's face. Thanks to the younger man's training he did not wince or change countenance, but he was so bursting full of wrath that he never knew whether any further word was spoken between them. He moved with the throng toward the door, but stepped into a vacant pew for fear he would run over some one in furious impatience. True it was that in his attempt to volunteer three years before, he had been roughly impressed with the idea that there was some recognized difference between a white man and a negro, and in his association with the rough troopers of the 10th Cavalry he had become in a measure converted to the correctness of the proposition generally: "but," he thought in infuriated scorn, "I'm as good as anyniggerthat ever drew breath! A footman, am I?"—and he threw back his head with pride as he recalled his answer to the man from Pittsburg—but dropped it again with some humility at the thought that he was now a footman for the money it brought. At the door he spoke to an usher.
"Who was the young woman who sang?"
"Miss Porter—old Henry Porter's daughter."
"So the old scoundrel is Washington's richest negro," he thought. "Well, his manners and his money are not well matched. I'll even the score with him yet."
After the first heat of his resentment was off he admitted that his request to be presented to the negro magnate's daughter was abrupt, informal and unwarranted, perhaps, but he argued and insisted that old Porter ought to have seen that his unconventional request was an impulsive outcome of his admiration for the girl's singing, and at least have been a little more gracious in his refusal. No, he would not forgive the manner of it; and when he remembered the song and its delight to his senses he found it about as hard to forgive the refusal itself.
Not in three years, except for an occasional moment of patriotic uplift, had his soul had a taste of something to drink—till he heard that song. His spiritual sense had virtually lain dormant those three years in the monotonous round of his world-circling outpost duty. In successive enlistments he might indeed altogether have stifled it, while perfecting his intelligence, courage, strength and skill as a soldier: for the only possibility—and there is only possibility, no certainty or even probability—of spiritual uplift incident to the profession of arms, is that of developing a surpassing, unselfish love of the flag. This sentiment in its pure fulness of bloom is of the spirit, and is an exalted virtue; but not all even of the heroes whose ashes the nations keep have appropriated to their souls, untainted with selfish or fleshly impulse, this the very flowering recompense of their travail and heroism.
Hayward had enlisted at the bidding of the most admirable impulses and had made an excellent soldier; but the monotonous round of garrison duty after the brief war was ended had benumbed his purely patriotic motive, and left only a great desire for personal advancement. In the dull grind his very highest nature had become stagnated; and it was with the joy of one first awakened to unforeseen possibilities that he felt reawakened within him by that one song desires not of the flesh but of the spirit so long stupefied and unfed.
As he became acutely conscious of his need in this behalf, he was more seriously regretful than before that an acquaintance with the singer who had revivified his finer sensibilities might not be had to satisfy in a measure the need which her singing had recreated. Under the impulse of such desires he set about seeking associates, friendships, wherefrom he might appropriate to himself his God-given share in the kingdom of the Mind. In his quiet and unobtrusive search for friends among his race who would be congenial and satisfy the craving of his higher nature for companionship, success came with starving sloth. Most of the negroes with whom he came at first in contact were of an order of intelligence so far below his own that they met not in any degree the demand from within him, and the few that possessed the intelligence were so unbearable in manner that he found little pleasure in them.
He had held aloof from the troopers of the 10th with the certain feeling that they were below his type and below the type of the best negroes he knew must exist somewhere: but he came to doubt the correctness of his own estimate in his search for congenial spirits in Washington. Educated negroes? Yes, there were many that had seen as much of the schools as he, and more. Men of money? Yes, scores of negroes who could buy him ten times over with a month's income. And yet it seemed that he could not happen upon any in his limited and slowly growing acquaintance who did not in some way offend his tastes.
CHAPTER XII
When the heat of summer came down upon Washington, President Phillips' wife and daughters fled to the shades of the family summer home, "Hill-Top," at Stag Inlet on Lake Ontario. There, in a roomy, rambling old house set back on the low wooded bluffs which enclose in more than half-circle the peaceful little bay, he and his wife and daughters, with a few congenial but not too closely situated neighbours, passed the hot days of summer, and stayed on usually into the red-splashed autumn, when the little cove put on its most inviting dress and brewed its most exhilarating air.
It was Hayward's fortune to be carried to the Inlet with the family carriage and horses for the summer outing. He was happy enough to be quit of brick walls and asphalt pavements for a time, and to get into God's out-of-doors, for whose open air he had become so hungry in a few short months. His duties were not very onerous, and he had much time to employ himself with his own pleasures. One form which this took was in learning to handle the various kinds of diminutive water-craft with which his master's family and their neighbours helped to while away their summer vacations. Before the summer was over he was a fairly good fisherman, a safe skipper on any small sail-craft used in the inlet, and a devoted and skilful driver of the gasoline, naphtha and electric launches of which the cottagers had quite a number. He was quick and adept at any and everything that came to his hand, and so careful and entertaining of the children of the near-by families whom he met and amused when they came down to play by the water's edge, that he came to be quite in demand as one servant who "knew how" and could be depended upon in any circumstances.
Helen Phillips was still a girl, natural, ingenuous, untouched by pride or affectation. She looked forward with some zest of anticipation to the time of her début two winters to come; but was well content to have that time approach without haste. She evinced much interest in the plans that her mother and Elise made and re-made, discarded and revised for the social campaign of the next winter, and many lively and original suggestions did she make offhand and unasked. But as for her own personal plans she gave them no thought a day's time ahead. She was quite willing to receive her pleasures in the order chance ordained.
"I am so glad to get away from Washington and back to Hill-Top," she wrote to her Cleveland chum. "It was awful dull down there. Five whole days in the week I had to spend trying to catch the style dispensed at a Finishing School for Young Ladies there, where it is possible to take lady-like sips and nibbles at literature and music and art and things like that, but where the real purpose seems to be to teach young women to descend from a carriage gracefully. Just think! Another whole year of finishing touches will have to be applied to me before Miss Eugenia can in good conscience certify that I may be depended upon properly to arrange myself upon a chair in case it ever becomes necessary for me to sit down."
Helen's tastes were along lines widely different from the Finishing School's curriculum. She preferred above all things else a talk or a walk, a ride or a romp with her father. She had no brother to share her pranks and enthusiasms, her little sister Katherine was much too young to be companionable, and her father was her necessary and natural ally. Him did she not only love, but him did she glorify. Tall and straight, seemingly lacking in flesh but tough as whip-cord, with a patrician face, prematurely gray hair and moustache, Helen thought he was the model of all manly beauty. None in life or in fiction was to her thinking so brave or strong or good as he. Being in her esteem strong in body, unerring in wisdom, pure in purpose, fearless in spirit, he touched the periphery of her ideal of manhood at every point. Her mother and Elise often were amused at her headlong championship of him upon the slightest intimation of criticism, and rightfully were astonished at her information upon public questions as they affected or were connected with his political fortunes or good name. Helen devoured the newspapers (a limited number it is true) with no other purpose, seemingly, than to know what people said of him. Of those that favoured him and his policies she thought well, and mentally commended their good taste and excellent sense: but those that criticized! Woe to them had she had power to utter condemnation!
* * * * *
One morning in midsummer Hayward brought the saddle-horses to the door for the father and daughter to take a canter and prove Helen's new mount before the mother and Elise were up. They were about ready to be off when a telegram was brought out to Mr. Phillips by the operator who had an office in the house.
"I was ordered not to wake you, sir, but to give it to you at once when you were up."
Mr. Phillips read it over slowly. Then he turned to Helen.
"Well, little girl, you must miss your ride again. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped."
"Oh, no, papa! Let the country go play till we come back. You promised me this ride sure when we missed the last one."
"Can't do it, little woman. Take the horses back, Hayward," he said, and turned to follow the telegraph man. But seeing the great disappointment in Helen's face, he called to the man.
"Here, Hayward. Get into a proper coat and on my horse and see that Miss Helen has her gallop round the Inlet and back without damage. Can you ride?"
"Yes, sir," answered Hayward.
"I thought so. You seem to be able to do everything else. Now you are fixed up, old girl," he said as he chucked Helen under the chin. "Don't let the mare all the way out. You don't know her yet,"—and he was gone.
Most of Helen's pleasure in the ride was lost with her father's absence, and yet there was much enjoyment in it for her. She felt the liberty to choose her own road, and decided to do a little exploring. She set out at a good canter, with Hayward swinging along a protective distance in the rear; and with the exercise her spirits rose and she gave herself up to the full joy of it. She forgot her father's injunction and sent the mare along several stretches of road with little restraint.
Hayward, on Mr. Phillips' favourite saddler, was having the time of his life, and for himself wished nothing better than that his young mistress would keep up the pace; though he did not altogether approve of her speeding down-hill. He did not like the way the mare managed her feet on the down grades. When Helen pulled up to ask him where a certain road led, he spoke, unconsciously with decision, out of his experience, but with all deference, and said:
"Pardon me, Miss Helen, but it is a little dangerous the speed with which you ride down-hill. I'm afraid your mount is not so sure-footed as she might be.... This road you speak of leads out by Mr. Radwine's cottage into the Lake Drive. It is worse riding than those you have tried."
Helen thought Hayward's apprehensions were creatures of his discomfort in keeping pace with her, and she was nothing more than amused at his attempts to limit the speed to his abilities under pretence of care for her safety. She thought she would give him one more shaking-up to tell her father about—and plunged off down the Radwine road, leaving him to follow as best he might.
Hayward had passed over that cross-road but a few days earlier and he knew its present condition. Helen heard him call to her, but her spirit of mischief was fully aroused at the thought of his bumping along after her, and she gave the mare free rein.
They were going down a longer and steeper hill than any they had passed, near the foot of which the summer rains had washed out the roadway. Hayward, knowing of this dangerous place ahead, and seeing that it was impossible to stop the young woman in his front before she reached it, sent Prince William after the mare under pressure of the spur and with the hope to come up with her in time. He arrived on the very moment of fate. The thundering horse tore alongside the flying mare just as she reached the washed-out road. Either through feminine excitability at being overtaken or because of the defective foot action Hayward had noted, the mare, when she struck the rough road, stumbled and went down. In that instant the open-eyed Prince William cleared the washout with a magnificent stride, and the ex-cavalryman swept his right arm about Helen and lifted her out of the saddle.
Slowly reining in his horse, Hayward brought him to a standstill and gently lowered his astonished young mistress to the ground. She was almost too overcome to stand, and walked unsteadily a few steps before she recovered herself. Hayward had thrown himself off Prince William and was leading him back down the road to where the mare had fallen. She had already picked herself up, minus a saddle and plus a few bruises, and was standing in the road comparatively unhurt but shaking as with an ague.
Hayward approached her quietly and she came eagerly up to him as if to escape from her fears. He looked her over carefully, and finding no serious damage done, set himself about brushing the dust from her with wisps of weeds and grass. Helen came down while he worked with the mare, and watched him some minutes without speaking. She hardly could think of anything civil to say. She knew that she had disobeyed orders and that he had warned her—and that made her angry. The very silence of the man became irritating to her.
When he had done all he could to put the mare in order he picked up Helen's saddle and started to put it on, but stopped to ask whether he should exchange mounts with her.
"No," his young mistress replied. "I've ridden her here and I will ride her home."
The negro put her saddle on the mare while the girl looked on. When he came to buckle the girth he found that the leather tongue was torn off. He lengthened the girth on the other side and proceeded to bore with his pocket-knife a new hole in the short broken tab. Helen's eyes fell at length on the knife. She looked at it uncertainly a few moments, and then lost interest in everything else. Finally she could keep quiet no longer.
"Where did you get that knife, Hayward?" she asked with something like accusation in her voice.
"Miss Helen, I got this knife in—that is, this knife belongs to—"
"Wait a moment," interrupted Helen. "Let me see it.... Yes, it's the same. I gave my father this knife on his birthday four years ago. I had the carving done at Vantine's. How long have you had it?"
"Miss Helen, I have had it long before I entered your father's service. I—"
"Yes, I know; but just how long have you had it, Hayward?"
"Well, Miss Helen, to be accurate, I've had it three years and—four months."
"Hayward, were you ever in the army—the cavalry—the 10th Cavalry?"
"Yes, Miss Helen."
"You were in the battle of Valencia?"
"Yes, Miss Helen."
"You took this knife from an officer whose life you had saved, didn't you?"
"Yes, Miss Helen."
"Papa says the negro trooper saved his life and stole his knife."
"But I did not steal the knife, Miss Helen—I did not know I had it till two months after the battle, when they gave me back my clothes in the hospital. There was—"
"That stealing part is one of papa's jokes, Hayward. But you didn't know it was papa, did you?"
"Yes, Miss Helen. I knew him when I saw him fall."
"What? And you've never let him know? Why have you kept it secret?"
Hayward did not answer. She continued.
"He would be very grateful. He does not know who it was, for I've heard him say so. All that he knows is that it was a trooper of the 10th."
She stopped and waited for an answer, but he stood in silent indecision as to what he should say to her. If he should now disclose himself the President would doubtless weaken the force of his obligation by giving him in token of his gratitude some appointment which not only would fall far short of the lieutenant's commission to which he aspired, but also would remove him from the young woman who in the last minute had become so simply and earnestly sympathetic in her manner. He weighed the pros and cons quickly.
"Why haven't you told him?" persisted Helen.
"I have preferred not, Miss Helen. In fact there are reasons why I cannot—must not—now."
"What reasons?" demanded Helen.
"Please, Miss Helen, I cannot tell you—nor him."
"You are not ashamed of it, surely?"
"No, Miss Helen. I would do it again this morning—willingly—at any cost to myself. But do not ask me to tell of it."
Helen regarded him narrowly for a minute in silence.
"And you kept me from—death—also. Am I not to tell him of that either?"
"Please no, Miss Helen. If I have done you a service and you think it worth reward, I ask that you repay me by telling no one that I am either your father's rescuer or your own."
Mystery always annoyed Helen unbearably, and she looked at Hayward as if uncertain whether to peremptorily demand his secret or to inform him she herself would acquaint her father with the facts he sought to conceal. Hayward saw something of her purpose in her eyes, and pleaded with her.
"Miss Helen, I beg you. My reasons are imperative—and honourable. When the time comes that I may I will gladly tell your father, but if now you would do me the greatest favour you will say nothing of it."
While Hayward was speaking it occurred to Helen that she willingly would have her father remain in ignorance of her disobedience and reckless riding and its consequent narrowly averted disaster. This consideration, together with Hayward's earnestness in his mystifying request, finally prevailed upon her.
"Very well, Hayward, if you insist. You only will be the loser. It is puzzling to me.... But tell me about your rescue of papa."
Hayward, glad to buy her silence, gave her a modest account of his very creditable bit of heroism, and in response to Helen's interested questioning he was still recounting incidents of the battle and his hospital experiences when they reached the Lake Drive and quickened their pace into a fast canter for home. They arrived and alighted and Hayward got the horses away to the stable without any one's seeing the dust-splashed mare.
Helen could hardly contain herself with her knowledge, but she was as scrupulously honest as she was impulsive, and stood by her promise not to divulge the footman's secret. She vainly tried to imagine some satisfactory explanation of his strange request, but could conceive none that seemed plausible. She finally came to believe that he was a heroic soul whom some implacable misfortune had denied the right to the fruits of his heroism, and in her heart she pitied him.
Hayward was not certain just how far his young mistress credited him with good and honest reasons for wishing his identity to remain undisclosed to her father. He feared that she must think any reason inadequate. He was very much afraid that in all her interested inquiries she would discover that he was not using his real name. If she became possessed of that knowledge she doubtless would think the circumstance sufficiently suspicious to warrant her laying all the facts before her father. This matter of his name perplexed him no little. He gladly would have Helen acquainted with the facts relating to the crimson pennant, and yet he must guard against it. That would reveal his masquerade, as she certainly would remember the name of the Harvard man who had saved his college from defeat. He heartily regretted the excess of caution which had made him place himself in this dilemma.
* * * * *
In the long and lazy summer days that came after that morning's ride Helen was given without seeking it some little opportunity to question the footman about the ever interesting matter of her father's rescue and allied incidents of battle and campaign. Her father insisted, on a few occasions when he could not accompany her, on her riding alone, with Hayward as a guard. In her sailing parties, also, in which Hayward was usually skipper of sailboat or launch, she was thrown occasionally with him alone before she had picked up, or after she had dropped off, her guests at the several landings around the Inlet.
She had a child's interest in listening to the ex-trooper's reminiscences of the battle of Valencia, the Venezuelan campaign, and of his world's-end following of the flag. The footman, never for a moment lacking in deference or presuming upon the liberty of speech allowed him, was an entertaining talker. He had used his eyes and his ears in his journeyings through the earth, and the lively imagination characteristic of his race and his negro knack of mimicry, together with his intelligence and his ability to use the English language with precision and skill, made him a raconteur of fascinating charm. Helen quite often wished to acquaint her father and mother and Elise with some of the things he recounted to her, but the tales were always so mixed in with his experiences as a soldier that she could not re-relate them without breaking her promise to respect his secret....
And thus the summer days dragged slowly to an end, with Helen and her footman becoming at odd times better acquainted with the thoughts and personal views each of the other on a wider and ever wider range of subjects. Helen was too unsophisticated in her thought to notice anything unusual in a lackey's being possessed of Hayward's intelligence and ease of manner. The ever present mystery of his refusal to exploit his heroic deeds dwarfed or overshadowed all other questions that might have arisen in her mind as to anything out of the ordinary in him. She did believe that he was suffering some sort of martyrdom in silence, and her womanly sympathy grew stronger as she knew more of him. Not for a moment was the relation of mistress and man lost sight of by either; but the revelation of the real woman and man, each to other, went steadily on.
CHAPTER XIII
The era of good feeling seemed to have been ushered in along with Mr. Phillips' inauguration. The country was prosperous to a degree. Labour was receiving steady employment and a fair wage and uttered no complaint. Capital was adding surplus to per cent., and was content. The Cuban skirmish with Spain and the trial-by-battle with Germany had cemented again in blood the sections divided by the Great War—so closely indeed that nobody, not even Presidents on hand-shaking junkets, thought to mention it. Any sporadic "waver of the bloody shirt" was considered an anachronism and laughed at as a harmless idiot. It was true that the negro question, being present in the flesh and incapable of banishment, was yet a momentous problem: but it was considered in cooler temper as being either a national or a local question—not sectional in any sense.
President Phillips in his first message to Congress, as in his inaugural address, felicitated his countrymen upon the unity of the American people and the American spirit, and on both occasions gave a new rhetorical turn and oratorical flourish to the statement that his father was from Massachusetts and his mother a South Carolinian. In sections of the South where his party was admittedly effete or undoubtedly odorous he hesitated not to appoint to office men of political faith radically differing from his own—and all good citizens applauded. Partisanry was settling itself down for a good long sleep, and strife had ceased. The lion and the lamb were lain down together, and there was none that made afraid in all the holy mountain of American good-will and fair prospect.
Into this sectionally serene and peaceful situation, which Mr. Phillips deemed largely the result of his personal effort as a non-sectional American executive, he deliberately or impulsively pitched an issue which set one-third of his admiring countrymen by the ears.
The good commonwealth of Mississippi was in a state of upheaval. A peaceable revolution was being attempted there which would have changed the essential nature and purpose of the State government. Incited by the wordy eloquence of a provincial governor, with a few scraps of statistics gone mad, good men, honest men, men of intelligence were seriously considering the proposition to so amend the State constitution as to put upon the negro in his ignorance and poverty the whole burden of his own education—by a division of the school fund between the races in proportion to the taxes each paid to the State.
This reactionary and truly astonishing proposition of Governor Wordyfellow was commonly known as the Wordyfellow Idea. It was giving great concern to the sober statesmanship of the entire nation, North and South—indeed greater concern to the thoughtful men of the South who realized its momentous import, its far-reaching effect upon Southern white people, than to the thoughtful outsiders who viewed it philosophically as having a speculative interest but no actual part in its settlement or effects.
The proposition to so divide the school funds indeed found its most violent and active opposition, as it found its strongest advocates, not only among the men of the South but even in the very State of Mississippi itself. The fact soon developed that this was to be the greatest political battle that was to be fought concerning the negro. All prior conflicts had been white man against negro. This was white man against white man, with the negro as an interested onlooker.
The lines were drawn roughly with the church, the schools and the independent press allied against the politicians, the political press and the less intelligent citizenship. Notable individual exceptions there were to this alignment—which all men remember—but the line of cleavage, taking it by and large, was as stated. Though the matter of an actual constitutional revision was presented as yet only to the people of Mississippi, the battle was being waged in serious purpose to a no less actual finish in every State from the Potomac to the Rio Grande.
It was into this situation, fraught with dire possibilities of course, but full of promise to the negro's friends, that the new President projected his impulsive and forceful personality. Anxious as always to be in the fight and leader in the fight, he set about to devise some plan for helping along the black man's cause. That he might do this more intelligently he conferred often with his most trusted advisers.
It was on the occasion of the memorable Home-Coming Week at Cleveland in 191- that he held the famous conference which gave that great civic celebration a fixed place in history. He stood loyally by his home city in its effort to enjoy and advertise itself, for he betook himself and family and several friends, including two members of his cabinet, away from busiest Washington for two days, and opened up his Cleveland home at great expense for that brief stay.
Doctor Woods, a negro of national reputation, also claimed Cleveland as his birthplace, and he had journeyed thither from afar to swell the throng of loyal sons of the city, and had brought with him Doctor Martin, now a bishop of the A.M.E. Zion Church, to add dignity and strength to the negro end of the programme. Meeting officially with these two dignitaries of colour suggested to Mr. Phillips a discussion of the Wordyfellow disturbance, and he called an impromptu consultation.
In between the review of a morning parade and luncheon, therefore, on the second day of his stay, he sandwiched this hurried conference. At it, beside Martin and Woods, were Secretary of the Navy Mackenzie, whose wisdom seemed to cover all politics and statecraft, and the Secretary of Agriculture, Baxter—himself a Mississippian, but thoroughly opposed to the Mississippi governor's policy.
The conference, which was held at Mr. Phillips' home, rejoiced his heart. He was pleased at the favourable reports which Bishop Martin and Doctor Woods gave of the situation in the several Southern States. He accepted with approval the suggestions of the sapient Mackenzie; and when he saw with what earnestness and vigour and assured personal knowledge of the situation Baxter was putting his energies into the fight and predicting victory even in Mississippi, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. The conference was of such interest that luncheon was announced before a definite plan of action was threshed out.
"By George, I'm hungry as a wolf!" exclaimed Mr. Phillips. "Come along to the dining-room, gentlemen, and we'll wind this thing up while we replenish our stores."
While this invitation was quite unexpected by the bishop and Doctor Woods, it completely confounded Secretary Baxter who was right in the middle of a little speech when the interruption and invitation came. He looked confused for a moment, and began mumbling some excuse as Mr. Phillips held open the door and his other guests passed out into the hall.
"Oh, you don't have to go," said Mr. Phillips. "Come on and finish up your idea. I know you have no other engagement, for you were to lunch with me to-day to discuss that Williams matter."
The Secretary of Agriculture saw he was caught, and his manner changed in a moment as he decided to meet the issue squarely.
"You will please excuse me, Mr. President," he said formally and finally.
"Why, Baxter, surely I do not have to explain to you that—"
"You certainly do not, Mr. President," interrupted the Secretary. "Good morning, gentlemen,"—and he bowed himself out.
President Phillips turned in ill-restrained anger and followed his guests to the dining-room. They found Mrs. Phillips and Helen awaiting them. With these Mr. Mackenzie shook hands, and to them the President introduced Doctor Woods. The bishop was already acquainted, and spoke of the dinner at the Saratoga restaurant.
Mrs. Phillips had long been accustomed to the surprises her husband made for her, and had too good control of her faculties to show any annoyance on beholding her unexpected and unwelcome guests.
Any possible shade of restraint in her manner would not have been noticed, however, in the general feeling of constraint which Mr. Baxter's abrupt departure had left on Mr. Phillips and his other guests. The host set himself to the task of throwing off this feeling by plunging volubly into a résumé of the discussion they had been having. His vigour and enthusiasm were such that by their very physical force he was bringing a wholesome situation to pass, when Elise came humming down the hall with Lola DeVale, stopped short in the doorway—and turned quickly back.
[image]"ELISE ... STOPPED SHORT IN THE DOORWAY—AND TURNED QUICKLY BACK."
[image]
[image]
"ELISE ... STOPPED SHORT IN THE DOORWAY—AND TURNED QUICKLY BACK."
While there was nothing unusual or pointed in Elise's manoeuvre her father felt and resented her protest. He talked away for a few minutes in nervous hope that his supposition was wrong and that she would come and bring Lola in to lunch. When she did not his choler rose at this open mutiny in his own household, and he awkwardly tossed the ball of conversation to Mackenzie and busied himself keeping his indignation within bounds.
From this point the meal progressed uncertainly. In the midst of the embarrassment of it all there was brought to the President a note, upon opening which he read: