"Scenes that are brightest,May charm awhile,Hearts which are lightestAnd eyes that smile.Yet o'er them above us,Though nature beam,With none to love us,How sad they seem!"
"Scenes that are brightest,May charm awhile,Hearts which are lightestAnd eyes that smile.Yet o'er them above us,Though nature beam,With none to love us,How sad they seem!"
Under her sympathetic touch a gentle stream of melody flowed from the old-time piano, scarcely stronger toned in its decrepitude, than the spinet of a former century. A few moments before, under Graciella's vigorous hands, it had seemed to protest at the dissonances it had been compelled to emit; now it seemed to breathe the notes of the old opera with an almost human love and tenderness. It, too, mused the colonel, had lived and loved and was recalling the memories of a brighter past.
The music died into silence. Mrs. Treadwell was awake.
"Laura!" she called.
Miss Treadwell went to the door.
"I must have been nodding for a minute. I hope Colonel French did not observe it—it would scarcely seem polite. He hasn't gone yet?"
"No, mother, he is in the parlour."
"I must be going," said the colonel, who came to the door. "I had almost forgotten Phil, and it is long past his bedtime."
Miss Laura went to wake up Phil, who had fallen asleep after supper. He was still rubbing his eyes when the lady led him out.
"Wake up, Phil," said the colonel. "It's time to be going. Tell the ladies good night."
Graciella came running up the walk.
"Why, Colonel French," she cried, "you are not going already? I made the others leave early so that I might talk to you."
"My dear young lady," smiled the colonel, "I have already risen to go, and if I stayed longer I might wear out my welcome, and Phil would surely go to sleep again. But I will come another time—I shall stay in town several days."
"Yes,docome, if youmustgo," rejoined Graciella with emphasis. "I want to hear more about the North, and about New York society and—oh, everything! Good night, Philip.Goodnight, Colonel French."
"Beware of the steps, Henry," said Miss Laura, "the bottom stone is loose."
They heard his footsteps in the quiet street, and Phil's light patter beside him.
"He's a lovely man, isn't he, Aunt Laura?" said Graciella.
"He is a gentleman," replied her aunt, with a pensive look at her young niece.
"Of the old school," piped Mrs. Treadwell.
"And Philip is a sweet child," said Miss Laura.
"A chip of the old block," added Mrs. Treadwell. "I remember——"
"Yes, mother, you can tell me when I've shut up the house," interrupted Miss Laura. "Put out the lamps, Graciella—there's not much oil—and when you go to bed hang up your gown carefully, for it takes me nearly half an hour to iron it."
"And you are right good to do it! Good night, dear Aunt Laura! Good night, grandma!"
Mr. French had left the hotel at noon that day as free as air, and he slept well that night, with no sense of the forces that were to constrain his life. And yet the events of the day had started the growth of a dozen tendrils, which were destined to grow, and reach out, and seize and hold him with ties that do not break.
The constable who had arrested old Peter led his prisoner away through alleys and quiet streets—though for that matter all the streets of Clarendon were quiet in midafternoon—to a guardhouse or calaboose, constructed of crumbling red brick, with a rusty, barred iron door secured by a heavy padlock. As they approached this structure, which was sufficiently forbidding in appearance to depress the most lighthearted, the strumming of a banjo became audible, accompanying a mellow Negro voice which was singing, to a very ragged ragtime air, words of which the burden was something like this:
"W'at's de use er my wo'kin' so hahd?I got a' 'oman in de white man's yahd.W'en she cook chicken, she save me a wing;W'en dey 'low I'm wo'kin', I ain' doin' a thing!"
"W'at's de use er my wo'kin' so hahd?I got a' 'oman in de white man's yahd.W'en she cook chicken, she save me a wing;W'en dey 'low I'm wo'kin', I ain' doin' a thing!"
The grating of the key in the rusty lock interrupted the song. The constable thrust his prisoner into the dimly lighted interior, and locked the door.
"Keep over to the right," he said curtly, "that's the niggers' side."
"But, Mistah Haines," asked Peter, excitedly, "is I got to stay here all night? I ain' done nuthin'."
"No, that's the trouble; you ain't done nuthin' fer a month, but loaf aroun'. You ain't got no visible means of suppo't, so you're took up for vagrancy."
"But I does wo'k we'n I kin git any wo'k ter do," the old man expostulated. "An' ef I kin jus' git wo'd ter de right w'ite folks, I'll be outer here in half a' hour; dey'll go my bail."
"They can't go yo' bail to-night, fer the squire's gone home. I'll bring you some bread and meat, an' some whiskey if you want it, and you'll be tried to-morrow mornin'."
Old Peter still protested.
"You niggers are always kickin'," said the constable, who was not without a certain grim sense of humour, and not above talking to a Negro when there were no white folks around to talk to, or to listen. "I never see people so hard to satisfy. You ain' got no home, an' here I've give' you a place to sleep, an' you're kickin'. You doan know from one day to another where you'll git yo' meals, an' I offer you bread and meat and whiskey—an' you're kickin'! You say you can't git nothin' to do, an' yit with the prospect of a reg'lar job befo' you to-morrer—you're kickin'! I never see the beat of it in all my bo'n days."
When the constable, chuckling at his own humour, left the guardhouse, he found his way to a nearby barroom, kept by one Clay Jackson, a place with an evil reputation as the resort of white men of a low class. Most crimes of violence in the town could be traced to its influence, and more than one had been committed within its walls.
"Has Mr. Turner been in here?" demanded Haines of the man in charge.
The bartender, with a backward movement of his thumb, indicated a door opening into a room at the rear. Here the constable found his man—a burly, bearded giant, with a red face, a cunning eye and an overbearing manner. He had a bottle and a glass before him, and was unsociably drinking alone.
"Howdy, Haines," said Turner, "How's things? How many have you got this time?"
"I've got three rounded up, Mr. Turner, an' I'll take up another befo' night. That'll make fo'—fifty dollars fer me, an' the res' fer the squire."
"That's good," rejoined Turner. "Have a glass of liquor. How much do you s'pose the Squire'll fine Bud?"
"Well," replied Haines, drinking down the glass of whiskey at a gulp, "I reckon about twenty-five dollars."
"You can make it fifty just as easy," said Turner. "Niggers are all just a passell o' black fools. Bud would 'a' b'en out now, if it hadn't be'n for me. I bought him fer six months. I kept close watch of him for the first five, and then along to'ds the middle er the las' month I let on I'd got keerliss, an' he run away. Course I put the dawgs on 'im, an' followed 'im here, where his woman is, an' got you after 'im, and now he's good for six months more."
"The woman is a likely gal an' a good cook," said Haines. "She'dbe wuth a good 'eal to you out at the stockade."
"That's a shore fact," replied the other, "an' I need another good woman to help aroun'. If we'd 'a' thought about it, an' give' her a chance to hide Bud and feed him befo' you took 'im up, we could 'a' filed a charge ag'inst her for harborin' 'im."
"Well, I kin do it nex' time, fer he'll run away ag'in—they always do. Bud's got a vile temper."
"Yes, but he's a good field-hand, and I'll keep his temper down. Have somethin' mo'?"
"I've got to go back now and feed the pris'ners," said Haines, risingafter he had taken another drink; "an' I'll stir Bud up so he'll raise h—ll, an' to-morrow morning I'll make another charge against him that'll fetch his fine up to fifty and costs."
"Which will give 'im to me till the cotton crop is picked, and several months more to work on the Jackson Swamp ditch if Fetters gits the contract. You stand by us here, Haines, an' help me git all the han's I can out o' this county, and I'll give you a job at Sycamo' when yo'r time's up here as constable. Go on and feed the niggers, an' stir up Bud, and I'll be on hand in the mornin' when court opens."
When the lesser of these precious worthies left his superior to his cups, he stopped in the barroom and bought a pint of rotgut whiskey—a cheap brand of rectified spirits coloured and flavoured to resemble the real article, to which it bore about the relation of vitriol to lye. He then went into a cheap eating house, conducted by a Negro for people of his own kind, where he procured some slices of fried bacon, and some soggy corn bread, and with these various purchases, wrapped in a piece of brown paper, he betook himself to the guardhouse. He unlocked the door, closed it behind him, and called Peter. The old man came forward.
"Here, Peter," said Haines, "take what you want of this, and give some to them other fellows, and if there's anything left after you've got what you want, throw it to that sulky black hound over yonder in the corner."
He nodded toward a young Negro in the rear of the room, the Bud Johnson who had been the subject of the conversation with Turner. Johnson replied with a curse. The constable advanced menacingly, his hand moving toward his pocket. Quick as a flash the Negro threw himself upon him. The other prisoners, from instinct, or prudence, or hope of reward, caught him, pulled him away and held him off until Haines, pale with rage, rose to his feet and began kicking his assailant vigorously. With the aid of well-directed blows of his fists he forced the Negro down, who, unable to regain his feet, finally, whether fromfear or exhaustion, lay inert, until the constable, having worked off his worst anger, and not deeming it to his advantage seriously to disable the prisoner, in whom he had a pecuniary interest, desisted from further punishment.
"I might send you to the penitentiary for this," he said, panting for breath, "but I'll send you to h—ll instead. You'll be sold back to Mr. Fetters for a year or two tomorrow, and in three months I'll be down at Sycamore as an overseer, and then I'll learn you to strike a white man, you——"
The remainder of the objurgation need not be told, but there was no doubt, from the expression on Haines's face, that he meant what he said, and that he would take pleasure in repaying, in overflowing measure, any arrears of revenge against the offending prisoner which he might consider his due. He had stirred Bud up very successfully—much more so, indeed, than he had really intended. He had meant to procure evidence against Bud, but had hardly thought to carry it away in the shape of a black eye and a swollen nose.
When the colonel set out next morning for a walk down the main street, he had just breakfasted on boiled brook trout, fresh laid eggs, hot muffins and coffee, and was feeling at peace with all mankind. He was alone, having left Phil in charge of the hotel housekeeper. He had gone only a short distance when he reached a door around which several men were lounging, and from which came the sound of voices and loud laughter. Stopping, he looked with some curiosity into the door, over which there was a faded sign to indicate that it was the office of a Justice of the Peace—a pleasing collocation of words, to those who could divorce it from any technical significance—Justice, Peace—the seed and the flower of civilisation.
An unwashed, dingy-faced young negro, clothed in rags unspeakably vile, which scarcely concealed his nakedness, was standing in the midst of a group of white men, toward whom he threw now and thena shallow and shifty glance. The air was heavy with the odour of stale tobacco, and the floor dotted with discarded portions of the weed. A white man stood beside a desk and was addressing the audience:
"Now, gentlemen, here's Lot Number Three, a likely young nigger who answers to the name of Sam Brown. Not much to look at, but will make a good field hand, if looked after right and kept away from liquor; used to workin', when in the chain gang, where he's been, off and on, since he was ten years old. Amount of fine an' costs thirty-seven dollars an' a half. A musical nigger, too, who plays the banjo, an' sings jus' like a—like a blackbird. What am I bid for this prime lot?"
The negro threw a dull glance around the crowd with an air of detachment which seemed to say that he was not at all interested in the proceedings. The colonel viewed the scene with something more than curious interest. The fellow looked like an habitual criminal, or at least like a confirmed loafer. This must be one of the idle and worthless blacks with so many of whom the South was afflicted. This was doubtless the method provided by law for dealing with them.
"One year," answered a voice.
"Nine months," said a second.
"Six months," came a third bid, from a tall man with a buggy whip under his arm.
"Are you all through, gentlemen? Six months' labour for thirty-seven fifty is mighty cheap, and you know the law allows you to keep the labourer up to the mark. Are you all done? Sold to Mr. Turner, for Mr. Fetters, for six months."
The prisoner's dull face showed some signs of apprehension when the name of his purchaser was pronounced, and he shambled away uneasily under the constable's vigilant eye.
"The case of the State against Bud Johnson is next in order. Bring in the prisoner."
The constable brought in the prisoner, handcuffed, and placed himin front of the Justice's desk, where he remained standing. He was a short, powerfully built negro, seemingly of pure blood, with a well-rounded head, not unduly low in the brow and quite broad between the ears. Under different circumstances his countenance might have been pleasing; at present it was set in an expression of angry defiance. He had walked with a slight limp, there were several contusions upon his face; and upon entering the room he had thrown a defiant glance around him, which had not quailed even before the stern eye of the tall man, Turner, who, as the agent of the absent Fetters, had bid on Sam Brown. His face then hardened into the blank expression of one who stands in a hostile presence.
"Bud Johnson," said the justice, "you are charged with escaping from the service into which you were sold to pay the fine and costs on a charge of vagrancy. What do you plead—guilty or not guilty?"
The prisoner maintained a sullen silence.
"I'll enter a plea of not guilty. The record of this court shows that you were convicted of vagrancy on December 26th, and sold to Mr. Fetters for four months to pay your fine and costs. The four months won't be up for a week. Mr. Turner may be sworn."
Turner swore to Bud's escape and his pursuit. Haines testified to his capture.
"Have you anything to say?" asked the justice.
"What's de use er my sayin' anything," muttered the Negro. "It won't make no diff'ence. I didn' do nothin', in de fus' place, ter be fine' fer, an' run away 'cause dey did n' have no right ter keep me dere."
"Guilty. Twenty-five dollars an' costs. You are also charged with resisting the officer who made the arrest. Guilty or not guilty? Since you don't speak, I'll enter a plea of not guilty. Mr. Haines may be sworn."
Haines swore that the prisoner had resisted arrest, and had onlybeen captured by the display of a loaded revolver. The prisoner was convicted and fined twenty-five dollars and costs for this second offense.
The third charge, for disorderly conduct in prison, was quickly disposed of, and a fine of twenty-five dollars and costs levied.
"You may consider yo'self lucky," said the magistrate, "that Mr. Haines didn't prefer a mo' serious charge against you. Many a nigger has gone to the gallows for less. And now, gentlemen, I want to clean this case up right here. How much time is offered for the fine and costs of the prisoner, Bud Johnson, amounting to seventy-five dollars fine and thirty-three dollars and fifty-fo' cents costs? You've heard the evidence an' you see the nigger. Ef there ain't much competition for his services and the time is a long one, he'll have his own stubbornness an' deviltry to thank for it. He's strong and healthy and able to do good work for any one that can manage him."
There was no immediate response. Turner walked forward and viewed the prisoner from head to foot with a coldly sneering look.
"Well, Bud," he said, "I reckon we'll hafter try it ag'in. I have never yet allowed a nigger to git the better o' me, an', moreover, I never will. I'll bid eighteen months, Squire; an' that's all he's worth, with his keep."
There was no competition, and the prisoner was knocked down to Turner, for Fetters, for eighteen months.
"Lock 'im up till I'm ready to go, Bill," said Turner to the constable, "an' just leave the irons on him. I'll fetch 'em back next time I come to town."
The unconscious brutality of the proceeding grated harshly upon the colonel's nerves. Delinquents of some kind these men must be, who were thus dealt with; but he had lived away from the South so long that so sudden an introduction to some of its customs came with something of a shock. He had remembered the pleasant things, and these but vaguely, since his thoughts and his interests had beenelsewhere; and in the sifting process of a healthy memory he had forgotten the disagreeable things altogether. He had found the pleasant things still in existence, faded but still fragrant. Fresh from a land of labour unions, and of struggle for wealth and power, of strivings first for equality with those above, and, this attained, for a point of vantage to look down upon former equals, he had found in old Peter, only the day before, a touching loyalty to a family from which he could no longer expect anything in return. Fresh from a land of women's clubs and women's claims, he had reveled last night in the charming domestic, life of the old South, so perfectly preserved in a quiet household. Things Southern, as he had already reflected, lived long and died hard, and these things which he saw now in the clear light of day, were also of the South, and singularly suggestive of other things Southern which he had supposed outlawed and discarded long ago.
"Now, Mr. Haines, bring in the next lot," said the Squire.
The constable led out an old coloured man, clad in a quaint assortment of tattered garments, whom the colonel did not for a moment recognise, not having, from where he stood, a full view of the prisoner's face.
"Gentlemen, I now call yo'r attention to Lot Number Fo', left over from befo' the wah; not much for looks, but respectful and obedient, and accustomed, for some time past, to eat very little. Can be made useful in many ways—can feed the chickens, take care of the children, or would make a good skeercrow. What I am bid, gentlemen, for ol' Peter French? The amount due the co't is twenty-fo' dollahs and a half."
There was some laughter at the Squire's facetiousness. Turner, who had bid on the young and strong men, turned away unconcernedly.
"You'd 'a' made a good auctioneer, Squire," said the one-armed man.
"Thank you, Mr. Pearsall. How much am I offered for this bargain?"
"He'd be dear at any price," said one.
"It's a great risk," observed a second.
"Ten yeahs," said a third.
"You're takin' big chances, Mr. Bennet," said another. "He'll die in five, and you'll have to bury him."
"I withdraw the bid," said Mr. Bennet promptly.
"Two yeahs," said another.
The colonel was boiling over with indignation. His interest in the fate of the other prisoners had been merely abstract; in old Peter's case it assumed a personal aspect. He forced himself into the room and to the front.
"May I ask the meaning of this proceeding?" he demanded.
"Well, suh," replied the Justice, "I don't know who you are, or what right you have to interfere, but this is the sale of a vagrant nigger, with no visible means of suppo't. Perhaps, since you're interested, you'd like to bid on 'im. Are you from the No'th, likely?"
"Yes."
"I thought, suh, that you looked like a No'the'n man. That bein' so, doubtless you'd like somethin' on the Uncle Tom order. Old Peter's fine is twenty dollars, and the costs fo' dollars and a half. The prisoner's time is sold to whoever pays his fine and allows him the shortest time to work it out. When his time's up, he goes free."
"And what has old Peter done to deserve a fine of twenty dollars—more money than he perhaps has ever had at any one time?"
"'Deed, it is, Mars Henry, 'deed it is!" exclaimed Peter, fervently.
"Peter has not been able," replied the magistrate, "to show this co't that he has reg'lar employment, or means of suppo't, and he was therefore tried and convicted yesterday evenin' of vagrancy, under our State law. The fine is intended to discourage laziness and to promote industry. Do you want to bid, suh? I'm offered two yeahs, gentlemen, for old Peter French? Does anybody wish to make it less?"
"I'll pay the fine," said the colonel, "let him go."
"I beg yo' pahdon, suh, but that wouldn't fulfil the requi'ments of the law. He'd be subject to arrest again immediately. Somebody must take the responsibility for his keep."
"I'll look after him," said the colonel shortly.
"In order to keep the docket straight," said the justice, "I should want to note yo' bid. How long shall I say?"
"Say what you like," said the colonel, drawing out his pocketbook.
"You don't care to bid, Mr. Turner?" asked the justice.
"Not by a damn sight," replied Turner, with native elegance. "I buy niggers to work, not to bury."
"I withdraw my bid in favour of the gentleman," said the two-year bidder.
"Thank you," said the colonel.
"Remember, suh," said the justice to the colonel, "that you are responsible for his keep as well as entitled to his labour, for the period of your bid. How long shall I make it?"
"As long as you please," said the colonel impatiently.
"Sold," said the justice, bringing down his gavel, "for life, to—what name, suh?"
"French—Henry French."
There was some manifestation of interest in the crowd; and the colonel was stared at with undisguised curiosity as he paid the fine and costs, which included two dollars for two meals in the guardhouse, and walked away with his purchase—a purchase which his father had made, upon terms not very different, fifty years before.
"One of the old Frenches," I reckon, said a bystander, "come back on a visit."
"Yes," said another, "old 'ristocrats roun' here. Well, they ought to take keer of their old niggers. They got all the good out of 'em when they were young. But they're not runnin' things now."
An hour later the colonel, driving leisurely about the outskirts of the town and seeking to connect his memories more closely with the scenes around him, met a buggy in which sat the man Turner. After the buggy, tied behind one another to a rope, like a coffle of slaves, marched the three Negroes whose time he had bought at the constable's sale. Among them, of course, was the young man who had been called Bud Johnson. The colonel observed that this Negro's face, when turned toward the white man in front of him, expressed a fierce hatred, as of some wild thing of the woods, which finding itself trapped and betrayed, would go to any length to injure its captor.
Turner passed the colonel with no sign of recognition or greeting.
Bud Johnson evidently recognised the friendly gentleman who had interfered in Peter's case. He threw toward the colonel a look which resembled an appeal; but it was involuntary, and lasted but a moment, and, when the prisoner became conscious of it, and realised its uselessness, it faded into the former expression.
What the man's story was, the colonel did not know, nor what were his deserts. But the events of the day had furnished food for reflection. Evidently Clarendon needed new light and leading. Men, even black men, with something to live for, and with work at living wages, would scarcely prefer an enforced servitude in ropes and chains. And the punishment had scarcely seemed to fit the crime. He had observed no great zeal for work among the white people since he came to town; such work as he had seen done was mostly performed by Negroes. If idleness were a crime, the Negroes surely had no monopoly of it.
Furnished with money for his keep, Peter was ordered if again molested to say that he was in the colonel's service. The latter, since his own plans were for the present uncertain, had no very clear idea of what disposition he would ultimately make of the old man, but he meant to provide in some way for his declining years. He also bought Peter a neat suit of clothes at a clothing store, and directed him to present himself at the hotel on the following morning. The interval would give the colonel time to find something for Peter to do, so that he would be able to pay him a wage. To his contract with the county he attached little importance; he had already intended, since their meeting in the cemetery, to provide for Peter in some way, and the legal responsibility was no additional burden. To Peter himself, to whose homeless old age food was more than philosophy, the arrangement seemed entirely satisfactory.
Colonel French's presence in Clarendon had speedily become known to the public. Upon his return to the hotel, after leaving Peter to his own devices for the day, he found several cards in his letter box, left by gentlemen who had called, during his absence, to see him.
The daily mail had also come in, and the colonel sat down in the office to read it. There was a club notice, and several letters that had been readdressed and forwarded, and a long one from Kirby in reference to some detail of the recent transfer. Before he had finished reading these, a gentleman came up and introduced himself. He proved to be one John McLean, an old schoolmate of the colonel, and later a comrade-in-arms, though the colonel would never have recognised a rather natty major in his own regiment in this shabby middle-aged man, whose shoes were run down at the heel, whose linen was doubtful, and spotted with tobacco juice. The major talked about the weather, which was cool for the season; about the Civil War, about politics, and about the Negroes, who were very trifling, the major said. While they were talking upon this latter theme, there was some commotion in the street, in front of the hotel, and looking up they saw that a horse, attached to a loaded wagon, had fallen in the roadway, and having become entangled in the harness, was kicking furiously. Five or six Negroes were trying to quiet the animal, and release him from the shafts, while a dozen white men looked on and made suggestions.
"An illustration," said the major, pointing through the window toward the scene without, "of what we've got to contend with. Six niggers can't get one horse up without twice as many white men to tell them how. That's why the South is behind the No'th. The niggers, in one way or another, take up most of our time and energy. You folks up there have half your work done before we get our'n started."
The horse, pulled this way and that, in obedience to the conflicting advice of the bystanders, only became more and more intricately entangled. He had caught one foot in a manner that threatened, with each frantic jerk, to result in a broken leg, when the colonel, leaving hisvisitor without ceremony, ran out into the street, leaned down, and with a few well-directed movements, released the threatened limb.
"Now, boys," he said, laying hold of the prostrate animal, "give a hand here."
The Negroes, and, after some slight hesitation, one or two white men, came to the colonel's aid, and in a moment, the horse, trembling and blowing, was raised to its feet. The driver thanked the colonel and the others who had befriended him, and proceeded with his load.
When the flurry of excitement was over, the colonel went back to the hotel and resumed the conversation with his friend. If the new franchise amendment went through, said the major, the Negro would be eliminated from politics, and the people of the South, relieved of the fear of "nigger domination," could give their attention to better things, and their section would move forward along the path of progress by leaps and bounds. Of himself the major said little except that he had been an alternate delegate to the last Democratic National Nominating Convention, and that he expected to run for coroner at the next county election.
"If I can secure the suppo't of Mr. Fetters in the primaries," he said, "my nomination is assured, and a nomination is of co'se equivalent to an election. But I see there are some other gentlemen that would like to talk to you, and I won't take any mo' of yo' time at present."
"Mr. Blake," he said, addressing a gentleman with short side-whiskers who was approaching them, "have you had the pleasure of meeting Colonel French?"
"No, suh," said the stranger, "I shall be glad to have the honour of an introduction at your hands."
"Colonel French, Mr. Blake—Mr. Blake, Colonel French. You gentlemen will probably like to talk to one another, because you both belong to the same party, I reckon. Mr. Blake is a new man roun' heah—come down from the mountains not mo' than ten yeahs ago, an' fetched his politics with him; but since he was born that way wedon't entertain any malice against him. Mo'over, he's not a 'Black and Tan Republican,' but a 'Lily White.'"
"Yes, sir," said Mr. Blake, taking the colonel's hand, "I believe in white supremacy, and the elimination of the nigger vote. If the National Republican Party would only ignore the coloured politicians, and give all the offices to white men, we'll soon build up a strong white Republican party. If I had the post-office here at Clarendon, with the encouragement it would give, and the aid of my clerks and subo'dinates, I could double the white Republican vote in this county in six months."
The major had left them together, and the Lily White, ere he in turn made way for another caller, suggested delicately, that he would appreciate any good word that the colonel might be able to say for him in influential quarters—either personally or through friends who might have the ear of the executive or those close to him—in reference to the postmastership. Realising that the present administration was a business one, in which sentiment played small part, he had secured the endorsement of the leading business men of the county, even that of Mr. Fetters himself. Mr. Fetters was of course a Democrat, but preferred, since the office must go to a Republican, that it should go to a Lily White.
"I hope to see mo' of you, sir," he said, "and I take pleasure in introducing the Honourable Henry Clay Appleton, editor of our local newspaper, theAnglo-Saxon. He and I may not agree on free silver and the tariff, but we are entirely in harmony on the subject indicated by the title of his newspaper. Mr. Appleton not only furnishes all the news that's fit to read, but he represents this county in the Legislature, along with Mr. Fetters, and he will no doubt be the next candidate for Congress from this district. He can tell you all that's worth knowin' about Clarendon."
The colonel shook hands with the editor, who had come with a twofold intent—to make the visitor's acquaintance and to interview himupon his impressions of the South. Incidentally he gave the colonel a great deal of information about local conditions. These were not, he admitted, ideal. The town was backward. It needed capital to develop its resources, and it needed to be rid of the fear of Negro domination. The suffrage in the hands of the Negroes had proved a ghastly and expensive joke for all concerned, and the public welfare absolutely demanded that it be taken away. Even the white Republicans were coming around to the same point of view. The new franchise amendment to the State constitution was receiving their unqualified support.
"That was a fine, chivalrous deed of yours this morning, sir," he said, "at Squire Reddick's office. It was just what might have been expected from a Southern gentleman; for we claim you, colonel, in spite of your long absence."
"Yes," returned the colonel, "I don't know what I rescued old Peter from. It looked pretty dark for him there for a little while. I shouldn't have envied his fate had he been bought in by the tall fellow who represented your colleague in the Legislature. The law seems harsh."
"Well," admitted the editor, "I suppose it might seem harsh, in comparison with your milder penal systems up North. But you must consider the circumstances, and make allowances for us. We have so many idle, ignorant Negroes that something must be done to make them work, or else they'll steal, and to keep them in their place, or they would run over us. The law has been in operation only a year or two, and is already having its effect. I'll be glad to introduce a bill for its repeal, as soon as it is no longer needed.
"You must bear in mind, too, colonel, that niggers don't look at imprisonment and enforced labour in the same way white people do—they are not conscious of any disgrace attending stripes or the ball and chain. The State is poor; our white children are suffering for lack of education, and yet we have to spend a large amount of money on the Negro schools. These convict labour contracts are a source of considerable revenue to the State; they make up, in fact, for most of theoutlay for Negro education—which I approve of, though I'm frank to say that so far I don't see much good that's come from it. This convict labour is humanely treated; Mr. Fetters has the contract for several counties, and anybody who knows Mr. Fetters knows that there's no kinder-hearted man in the South."
The colonel disclaimed any intention of criticising. He had come back to his old home for a brief visit, to rest and to observe. He was willing to learn and anxious to please. The editor took copious notes of the interview, and upon his departure shook hands with the colonel cordially.
The colonel had tactfully let his visitors talk, while he listened, or dropped a word here and there to draw them out. One fact was driven home to him by every one to whom he had spoken. Fetters dominated the county and the town, and apparently the State. His name was on every lip. His influence was indispensable to every political aspirant. His acquaintance was something to boast of, and his good will held a promise of success. And the colonel had once kicked the Honourable Mr. Fetters, then plain Bill, in presence of an admiring audience, all the way down Main Street from the academy to the bank! Bill had been, to all intents and purposes, a poor white boy; who could not have named with certainty his own grandfather. The Honourable William was undoubtedly a man of great ability. Had the colonel remained in his native State, would he have been able, he wondered, to impress himself so deeply upon the community? Would blood have been of any advantage, under the changed conditions, or would it have been a drawback to one who sought political advancement?
When the colonel was left alone, he went to look for Phil, who was playing with the children of the landlord, in the hotel parlour. Commending him to the care of the Negro maid in charge of them, he left the hotel and called on several gentlemen whose cards he had found in his box at the clerk's desk. Their stores and offices were within a short radius of the hotel. They were all glad to see him, and if there was anyinitial stiffness or shyness in the attitude of any one, it soon became the warmest cordiality under the influence of the colonel's simple and unostentatious bearing. If he compared the cut of their clothes or their beards to his own, to their disadvantage, or if he found their views narrow and provincial, he gave no sign—their hearts were warm and their welcome hearty.
The colonel was not able to gather, from the conversation of his friends, that Clarendon, or any one in the town—always excepting Fetters, who did not live in the town, but merely overshadowed it—was especially prosperous. There were no mills or mines in the neighbourhood, except a few grist mills, and a sawmill. The bulk of the business consisted in supplying the needs of an agricultural population, and trading in their products. The cotton was baled and shipped to the North, and re-imported for domestic use, in the shape of sheeting and other stuffs. The corn was shipped to the North, and came back in the shape of corn meal and salt pork, the staple articles of diet. Beefsteak and butter were brought from the North, at twenty-five and fifty cents a pound respectively. There were cotton merchants, and corn and feed merchants; there were dry-goods and grocery stores, drug stores and saloons—and more saloons—and the usual proportion of professional men. Since Clarendon was the county seat, there were of course a court house and a jail. There were churches enough, if all filled at once, to hold the entire population of the town, and preachers in proportion. The merchants, of whom a number were Jewish, periodically went into bankruptcy; the majority of their customers did likewise, and thus a fellow-feeling was promoted, and the loss thrown back as far as possible. The lands of the large farmers were mostly mortgaged, either to Fetters, or to the bank of which he was the chief stockholder, for all that could be borrowed on them; while the small farmers, many of whom were coloured, were practically tied to the soil by ropes of debt and chains of contract.
Every one the colonel met during the afternoon had heard of SquireReddick's good joke of the morning. That he should have sold Peter to the colonel for life was regarded as extremely clever. Some of them knew old Peter, and none of them had ever known any harm of him, and they were unanimous in their recognition and applause of the colonel's goodheartedness. Moreover, it was an index of the colonel's views. He was one of them, by descent and early associations, but he had been away a long time, and they hadn't really known how much of a Yankee he might have become. By his whimsical and kindly purchase of old Peter's time—or of old Peter, as they smilingly put it, he had shown his appreciation of the helplessness of the Negroes, and of their proper relations to the whites.
"What'll you do with him, Colonel?" asked one gentleman. "An ole nigger like Peter couldn't live in the col' No'th. You'll have to buy a place down here to keep 'im. They wouldn' let you own a nigger at the No'th."
The remark, with the genial laugh accompanying it, was sounding in the colonel's ears, as, on the way back to the hotel, he stepped into the barber shop. The barber, who had also heard the story, was bursting with a desire to unbosom himself upon the subject. Knowing from experience that white gentlemen, in their intercourse with coloured people, were apt to be, in the local phrase; "sometimey," or uncertain in their moods, he first tested, with a few remarks about the weather, the colonel's amiability, and finding him approachable, proved quite talkative and confidential.
"You're Colonel French, ain't you, suh?" he asked as he began applying the lather.
"Yes."
"Yes, suh; I had heard you wuz in town, an' I wuz hopin' you would come in to get shaved. An' w'en I heard 'bout yo' noble conduc' this mawnin' at Squire Reddick's I wanted you to come in all de mo', suh. Ole Uncle Peter has had a lot er bad luck in his day, but he has fell on his feet dis time, suh, sho's you bawn. I'm right glad to see you, suh. Ifeels closer to you, suh, than I does to mos' white folks, because you know, colonel, I'm livin' in the same house you wuz bawn in."
"Oh, you are the Nichols, are you, who bought our old place?"
"Yes, suh, William Nichols, at yo' service, suh. I've own' de ole house fer twenty yeahs or mo' now, suh, an' we've b'en mighty comfo'table in it, suh. They is a spaciousness, an' a air of elegant sufficiency about the environs and the equipments of the ed'fice, suh, that does credit to the tas'e of the old aristocracy an' of you-all's family, an' teches me in a sof' spot. For I loves the aristocracy; an' I've often tol' my ol' lady, 'Liza,' says I, 'ef I'd be'n bawn white I sho' would 'a' be'n a 'ristocrat. I feels it in my bones.'"
While the barber babbled on with his shrewd flattery, which was sincere enough to carry a reasonable amount of conviction, the colonel listened with curiously mingled feelings. He recalled each plank, each pane of glass, every inch of wall, in the old house. No spot was without its associations. How many a brilliant scene of gaiety had taken place in the spacious parlour where bright eyes had sparkled, merry feet had twinkled, and young hearts beat high with love and hope and joy of living! And not only joy had passed that way, but sorrow. In the front upper chamber his mother had died. Vividly he recalled, as with closed eyes he lay back under the barber's skilful hand, their last parting and his own poignant grief; for she had been not only his mother, but a woman of character, who commanded respect and inspired affection; a beautiful woman whom he had loved with a devotion that bordered on reverence.
Romance, too, had waved her magic wand over the old homestead. His memory smiled indulgently as he recalled one scene. In a corner of the broad piazza, he had poured out his youthful heart, one summer evening, in strains of passionate devotion, to his first love, a beautiful woman of thirty who was visiting his mother, and who had told him between smiles and tears, to be a good boy and wait a little longer, until he was sure of his own mind. Even now, he breathed, in memory,the heavy odour of the magnolia blossoms which overhung the long wooden porch bench or "jogging board" on which the lady sat, while he knelt on the hard floor before her. He felt very young indeed after she had spoken, but her caressing touch upon his hair had so stirred his heart that his vanity had suffered no wound. Why, the family had owned the house since they had owned the cemetery lot! It was hallowed by a hundred memories, and now!——
"Will you have oil on yo' hair, suh, or bay rum?"
"Nichols," exclaimed the colonel, "I should like to buy back the old house. What do you want for it?"
"Why, colonel," stammered the barber, somewhat taken aback at the suddenness of the offer, "I hadn' r'ally thought 'bout sellin' it. You see, suh, I've had it now for twenty years, and it suits me, an' my child'en has growed up in it—an' it kind of has associations, suh."
In principle the colonel was an ardent democrat; he believed in the rights of man, and extended the doctrine to include all who bore the human form. But in feeling he was an equally pronounced aristocrat. A servant's rights he would have defended to the last ditch; familiarity he would have resented with equal positiveness. Something of this ancestral feeling stirred within him now. While Nichols's position in reference to the house was, in principle, equally as correct as the colonel's own, and superior in point of time—since impressions, like photographs, are apt to grow dim with age, and Nichols's were of much more recent date—the barber's display of sentiment only jarred the colonel's sensibilities and strengthened his desire.
"I should advise you to speak up, Nichols," said the colonel. "I had no notion of buying the place when I came in, and I may not be of the same mind to-morrow. Name your own price, but now's your time."
The barber caught his breath. Such dispatch was unheard-of in Clarendon. But Nichols, a keen-eyed mulatto, was a man of thrift and good sense. He would have liked to consult his wife and children about the sale, but to lose an opportunity to make a good profit was tofly in the face of Providence. The house was very old. It needed shingling and painting. The floors creaked; the plaster on the walls was loose; the chimneys needed pointing and the insurance was soon renewable. He owned a smaller house in which he could live. He had been told to name his price; it was as much better to make it too high than too low, as it was easier to come down than to go up. The would-be purchaser was a rich man; the diamond on the third finger of his left hand alone would buy a small house.
"I think, suh," he said, at a bold venture, "that fo' thousand dollars would be 'bout right."
"I'll take it," returned the colonel, taking out his pocket-book. "Here's fifty dollars to bind the bargain. I'll write a receipt for you to sign."
The barber brought pen, ink and paper, and restrained his excitement sufficiently to keep silent, while the colonel wrote a receipt embodying the terms of the contract, and signed it with a steady hand.
"Have the deed drawn up as soon as you like," said the colonel, as he left the shop, "and when it is done I'll give you a draft for the money."
"Yes, suh; thank you, suh, thank you, colonel."
The barber had bought the house at a tax sale at a time of great financial distress, twenty years before, for five hundred dollars. He had made a very good sale, and he lost no time in having the deed drawn up.
When the colonel reached the hotel, he found Phil seated on the doorstep with a little bow-legged black boy and a little white dog. Phil, who had a large heart, had fraternised with the boy and fallen in love with the dog.
"Papa," he said, "I want to buy this dog. His name is Rover; he can shake hands, and I like him very much. This little boy wants ten cents for him, and I did not have the money. I asked him to wait until you came. May I buy him?"
"Certainly, Phil. Here, boy!"
The colonel threw the black boy a silver dollar. Phil took the dog under his arm and followed his father into the house, while the other boy, his glistening eyes glued to the coin in his hand, scampered off as fast as his limbs would carry him. He was back next morning with a pretty white kitten, but the colonel discouraged any further purchases for the time being.