"Our baby was born here yesterday. I was on my way to New York to you, but was taken sick on the train at Baltimore and had to stop. I'm alone and have no money, but I'm proud and happy. I know that you will help me."Cleo."
"Our baby was born here yesterday. I was on my way to New York to you, but was taken sick on the train at Baltimore and had to stop. I'm alone and have no money, but I'm proud and happy. I know that you will help me.
"Cleo."
For hours he sat in a stupor of pain, holding this crumpled letter in his hand, staring into the fire.
It was all clear now, the mystery of Cleo's assurance, of her happiness, of her acceptance of his going without protest.
She had known the truth from the first and had reckoned on his strength and manliness to draw him to her in this hour.
"I'll show her!" he said in fierce rebellion. "I'll give her the money she needs—yes—but her shadow shall never again darken my life. I won't permit this shame to smirch the soul of my boy—I'll die first!"
He moved to the West side of town, permitted no one to learn his new address, sent her money from the general postoffice, and directed all his mail to a lock box he had secured.
He destroyed thus every trace by which she might discover his residence if she dared to venture into New York.
To his surprise it was more than three weeks before he received a reply from her. And the second letter made an appeal well-nigh resistless. The message was brief, but she had instinctively chosen the words that found him. How well she knew that side of his nature! He resented it with rage and tried to read all sorts of sinister guile into the lines. But as he scanned them a second time reason rejected all save the simplest and most obvious meaning the words implied.
The letter was evidently written in a cramped position. She had missed the lines many times and some words were so scrawled they were scarcely legible. But he read them all at last:
"I have been very sick since your letter came with the money. I tried to get up too soon. I have suffered awfully. You see, I didn't know how much I had gone through. Please don't be angry with me for what neither you nor I can help now. I want to see you just once, and then I won't trouble you any more. I am very weak to-day, but I'll soon be strong again."Cleo."
"I have been very sick since your letter came with the money. I tried to get up too soon. I have suffered awfully. You see, I didn't know how much I had gone through. Please don't be angry with me for what neither you nor I can help now. I want to see you just once, and then I won't trouble you any more. I am very weak to-day, but I'll soon be strong again.
"Cleo."
It made him furious, this subtle appeal to his keen sense of fatherhood. She knew how tenderly he loved his boy. She knew that while such obligations rest lightly on some men, the tie that bound him to his son was the biggest thing in his life. She had been near him long enough to learn the secret things of his inner life. She was using them now to break down the barriers of character and self-respect. He could see it plainly. He hated her for it and yet the appeal went straight to his heart.
Two things in this letter he couldn't get away from:
"You see, I didn't know how much I had gone through."
He kept reading this over. And the next line:
"Please don't be angry with me for what neither you nor I can help now."
The appeal was so human, so simple, so obviously sincere, no man with a soul could ignore it. How could she help it now? She too had been swept into the tragic situation by the blind forces of Nature. After all, hadit not been inevitable? Did not such a position of daily intimate physical contact—morning, noon and night—mean just this? Could she have helped it? Were they not both the victims, in a sense, of the follies of centuries? Had he the right to be angry with her?
His reason answered, no. And again came the deeper question—can any man ever escape the consequences of his deeds? Deeds are of the infinite and eternal and the smallest one disturbs the universe. It slowly began to dawn on him that nothing he could ever do or say could change one elemental fact. She was a mother—a fact bigger than all the forms and ceremonies of the ages. It was just this thing in his history that made his sin against the wife so poignant, both to her and to his imagination. A child was a child, and he had no right to sneak and play a coward in such an hour.
Step by step the woman's simple cry forced its way into the soul and slowly but surely the rags were stripped from pride, until he began to see himself naked and without sham.
The one thing that finally cut deepest was the single sentence: "You see, I didn't know how much I had gone through——"
He read it again with a feeling of awe. No matter what the shade of her olive cheek or the length of her curly hair, she was a mother with all that big word means in the language of men. Say what he might—of her art in leading him on, of her final offering herself in a hundred subtle ways in their daily life in his home—he was still responsible. He had accepted the challenge at last.
And he knew what it meant to any woman under the best conditions, with a mother's face hovering near andthe man she loved by her side. He saw again the scene of his boy's birth. And then another picture—a lonely girl in a strange city without a friend—a cot in the whitewashed ward of a city's hospital—a pair of startled eyes looking in vain for a loved, familiar face as her trembling feet stepped falteringly down into the valley that lies between Life and Death!
A pitiful thing, this hour of suffering and of waiting for the unknown.
His heart went out to her in sympathy, and he answered her letter with a promise to come. But on the day he was to start for Baltimore mammy was stricken with a cold which developed into pneumonia. Unaccustomed to the rigors of a Northern climate, she had been careless and the result from the first was doubtful. To leave her was, of course, impossible.
He sent for a doctor and two nurses and no care or expense was spared, but in spite of every effort she died. It was four weeks before he returned from the funeral in the South.
He reached Baltimore in a blinding snowstorm the week preceding Christmas. Cleo had left the hospital three weeks previous to his arrival, and for some unexplained reason had spent a week or ten days in Norfolk and returned in time to meet him.
He failed to find her at the address she had given him, but was directed to an obscure hotel in another quarter of the city.
He was surprised and puzzled at the attitude assumed at this meeting. She was nervous, irritable, insolent and apparently anxious for a fight.
"Well, why do you stare at me like that?" she asked angrily.
"Was I staring?" he said with an effort at self-control.
"After all I've been through the past weeks," she said bitterly, "I didn't care whether I lived or died."
"I meant to have come at once as I wrote you. But mammy's illness and death made it impossible to get here sooner."
"One excuse is as good as another," she retorted with a contemptuous toss of her head.
Norton looked at her in blank amazement. It was inconceivable that this was the same woman who wrote him the simple, sincere appeal a few weeks ago. It was possible, of course, that suffering had embittered her mind and reduced her temporarily to the nervous condition in which she appeared.
"Why do you keep staring at me?" she asked again, with insolent ill-temper.
He was so enraged at her evident attempt to bully him into an attitude of abject sympathy, he shot her a look of rage, seized his hat and without a word started for the door.
With a cry of despair she was by his side and grasped his arm:
"Please—please don't!"
"Change your tactics, then, if you have anything to say to me."
She flushed, stammered, looked at him queerly and then smiled:
"Yes, I will, major—please don't be mad at me! You see, I'm just a little crazy. I've been through so much since I came here I didn't know what I was saying to you. I'm awfully sorry—let me take your hat——"
She took his hat, laid it on the table and led him to a seat.
"Please sit down. I'm so glad you've come, and I thank you for coming. I'm just as humble and grateful as I can be. You must forget how foolish I've acted. I've been so miserable and scared and lonely, it's a wonder I haven't jumped into the bay. And I just thought at last that you were never coming."
Norton looked at her with new astonishment. Not because there was anything strange in what she said—he had expected some such words on his arrival, but because they didn't ring true. She seemed to be lying. There was an expression of furtive cunning in her greenish eyes that was uncanny. He couldn't make her out. In spite of the effort to be friendly she was repulsive.
"Well, I'm here," he said calmly. "You have something to say—what is it?"
"Of course," she answered smilingly. "I have a lot to say. I want you to tell me what to do."
"Anything you like," he answered bluntly.
"It's nothing to you?"
"I'll give you an allowance."
"Is that all?"
"What else do you expect?"
"You don't want to see her?"
"No."
"I thought you were coming for that?"
"I've changed my mind. And the less we see of each other the better. I'll go with you to-morrow and verify the records——"
Cleo laughed:
"You don't think I'm joking about her birth?"
"No. But I'm not going to take your word for it."
"All right, I'll go with you to-morrow."
He started again to the door. He felt that he must leave—that he was smothering. Something about the girl's manner got on his nerves. Not only was there no sort of sympathy or attraction between them but the longer he stayed in her presence the more he felt the desire to choke her. He began to look into her eyes with growing suspicion and hate, and behind their smiling plausibility he felt the power of a secret deadly hostility.
"You don't want me to go back home with the child, do you?" Cleo asked with a furtive glance.
"No, I do not," he replied, emphatically.
"I'm going back—but I'll give her up and let you educate her in a convent on one condition——"
"What?" he asked sharply.
"That you let me nurse the boy again and give me the protection and shelter of your home——"
"Never!" he cried.
"Please be reasonable. It will be best for you and best for me and best for her that her life shall never be blackened by the stain of my blood. I've thought it all out. It's the only way——"
"No," he replied sternly. "I'll educate her in my own way, if placed in my hands without condition. But you shall never enter my house again——"
"Is it fair," she pleaded, "to take everything from me and turn me out in the world alone? I'll give your boy all the love of a hungry heart. He loves me."
"He has forgotten your existence——"
"You know that he hasn't!"
"I know that he has," Norton persisted with risingwrath. "It's a waste of breath for you to talk to me about this thing"—he turned on her fiercely:
"Why do you wish to go back there? To grin and hint the truth to your friends?"
"You know that I'd cut my tongue out sooner than betray you. I'd like to scream it from every housetop—yes. But I won't. I won't, because you smile or frown means too much to me. I'm asking this that I may live and work for you and be your slave without money and without price——"
"I understand," he broke in bitterly, "because you think that thus you can again drag me down—well, you can't do it! The power you once had is gone—gone forever—never to return——"
"Then why be afraid? No one there knows except my mother. You hate me. All right. I can do you no harm. I'll never hate you. I'll just be happy to serve you, to love your boy and help you rear him to be a fine man. Let me go back with you and open the old house again——"
He lifted his hand with a gesture of angry impatience:
"Enough of this now—you go your way in life and I go mine."
"I'll not give her up except on my conditions——"
"Then you can keep her and go where you please. If you return home you'll not find me. I'll put the ocean between us if necessary——"
He stepped quickly to the door and she knew it was needless to argue further.
"Come to my hotel to-morrow morning at ten o'clock and I'll make you a settlement through a lawyer."
"I'll be there," she answered in a low tone, "but please, major, before you go let me ask you not to remember the foolish things I said and the way I acted when you came. I'm so sorry—forgive me. I made you terribly mad. I don't know what was the matter with me. Remember I'm just a foolish girl here without a friend——"
She stopped, her voice failing:
"Oh, my God, I'm so lonely, I don't want to live! You don't know what it means for me just to be near you—please let me go home with you!"
There was something genuine in this last cry. It reached his heart in spite of anger. He hesitated and spoke in kindly tones:
"Good night—I'll see you in the morning."
This plea of loneliness and homesickness found the weak spot in his armor. It was so clearly the echo of his own feelings. The old home, with its beautiful and sad memories, his people and his work had begun to pull resistlessly. Her suggestion was a subtle and dangerous one, doubly seductive because it was so safe a solution of difficulties. There was not the shadow of a doubt that her deeper purpose was to ultimately dominate his personal life. He was sure of his strength, yet he knew that the wise thing to do was to refuse to listen.
At ten o'clock next morning she came. He had called a lawyer and drawn up a settlement that only waited her signature.
She had not said she would sign—she had not positively refused. She was looking at him with dumb pleading eyes.
"He had heard the call of his people.""He had heard the call of his people."
Without a moment's warning the boy pushed his way into the room. Norton sprang before Cleo and shouted angrily to the nurse:
"I told you not to let him come into this room——"
"But you see I des tum!" the boy answered with a laugh as he darted to the corner.
The thing he dreaded had happened. In a moment the child saw Cleo. There was just an instant's hesitation and the father smiled that he had forgotten her. But the hesitation was only the moment of dazed surprise. With a scream of joy he crossed the room and sprang into her arms:
"Oh, Cleo—Cleo—my Cleo! You've tum—you've tum! Look, Daddy! She's tum—my Cleo!"
He hugged her, he kissed her, he patted her flushed cheeks, he ran his little fingers through her tangled hair, drew himself up and kissed her again.
She snatched him to her heart and burst into uncontrollable sobs, raised her eyes streaming with tears to Norton and said softly:
"Let me go home with you!"
He looked at her, hesitated and then slowly tore the legal document to pieces, threw it in the fire and nodded his consent.
But this time his act was not surrender. He had heard the call of his people and his country. It was the first step toward the execution of a new life purpose that had suddenly flamed in the depths of his darkened soul as he watched the picture of the olive cheek of the woman against the clear white of his child's.
Norton had been compelled to wait twenty years for the hour when he could strike the first decisive blow in the execution of his new life purpose.
But the aim he had set was so high, so utterly unselfish, so visionary, so impossible by the standards of modern materialism, he felt the thrill of the religious fanatic as he daily girded himself to his task.
He was far from being a religious enthusiast, although he had grown a religion of his own, inherited in part, dreamed in part from the depth of his own heart. The first article of this faith was a firm belief in the ever-brooding Divine Spirit and its guidance in the work of man if he but opened his mind to its illumination.
He believed, as in his own existence, that God's Spirit had revealed the vision he saw in the hour of his agony, twenty years before when he had watched his boy's tiny arms encircle the neck of Cleo, the tawny young animal who had wrecked his life, but won the heart of his child. He had tried to desert his people of the South and awaked with a shock. His mind in prophetic gaze had leaped the years and seen the gradual wearing down of every barrier between the white and black races by the sheer force of daily contact under the new conditions which Democracy had made inevitable.
Even under the iron laws of slavery it was impossible for an inferior and superior race to live side by side for centuries as master and slave without the breaking down of some of these barriers. But the moment the magic principle of equality in a Democracy became the law of life they must all melt or Democracy itself yield and die. He had squarely faced this big question and given his life to its solution.
When he returned to his old home and installed Cleo as his housekeeper and nurse she was the living incarnation before his eyes daily of the problem to be solved—the incarnation of its subtleties and its dangers. He studied her with the cold intellectual passion of a scientist. Nor was there ever a moment's uncertainty or halting in the grim purpose that fired his soul.
She had at first accepted his matter of fact treatment as the sign of ultimate surrender. And yet as the years passed she saw with increasing wonder and rage the gulf between them deepen and darken. She tried every art her mind could conceive and her effective body symbolize in vain. His eyes looked at her, but never saw the woman. They only saw the thing he hated—the mongrel breed of a degraded nation.
He had begun his work at the beginning. He had tried to do the things that were possible. The minds of the people were not yet ready to accept the idea of a complete separation of the races. He planned for the slow process of an epic movement. His paper, in season and out of season, presented the daily life of the black and white races in such a way that the dullest mind must be struck by the fact that their relations presented an insoluble problem. Every road of escape led at last through a blind alley against a blank wall.
In this policy he antagonized no one, but expressed always the doubts and fears that lurked in the minds of thoughtful men and women. His paper had steadily grown in circulation and in solid power. He meant to use this power at the right moment. He had waited patiently and the hour at last had struck.
The thunder of a torpedo under an American warship lying in Havana harbor shook the Nation and changed the alignment of political parties.
The war with Spain lasted but a few months, but it gave the South her chance. Her sons leaped to the front and proved their loyalty to the flag. The "Bloody Shirt" could never again be waved. The negro ceased to be a ward of the Nation and the Union of States our fathers dreamed was at last an accomplished fact. There could never again be a "North" or a "South."
Norton's first brilliant editorial reviewing the results of this war drew the fire of his enemies from exactly the quarter he expected.
A little college professor, who aspired to the leadership of Southern thought under Northern patronage, called at his office.
The editor's lips curled with contempt as he read the engraved card:
"Professor Alexander Magraw"
"Professor Alexander Magraw"
The man had long been one of his pet aversions. He occupied a chair in one of the state's leading colleges, and his effusions advocating peace at any price on the negro problem had grown so disgusting of late theEagle and Phoenixhad refused to print them.
Magraw was nothing daunted. He devoted his energiesto writing a book in fulsome eulogy of a notorious negro which had made him famous in the North. He wrote it to curry favor with the millionaires who were backing this African's work and succeeded in winning their boundless admiration. They hailed him the coming leader of "advanced thought." As a Southern white man the little professor had boldly declared that this negro, who had never done anything except to demonstrate his skill as a beggar in raising a million dollars from Northern sentimentalists, was the greatest human being ever born in America!
Outraged public opinion in the South had demanded his expulsion from the college for this idiotic effusion, but he was so entrenched behind the power of money he could not be disturbed. His loud protests for free speech following his acquittal had greatly increased the number of his henchmen.
Norton wondered at the meaning of his visit. It could only be a sinister one. In view of his many contemptuous references to the man, he was amazed at his audacity in venturing to invade his office.
He scowled a long while at the card and finally said to the boy:
"Show him in."
As the professor entered the office Norton was surprised at his height and weight. He had never met him personally, but had unconsciously formed the idea that he was a scrub physically.
He saw a man above the average height, weighing nearly two hundred, with cheeks flabby but inclined to fat. It was not until he spoke that he caught the unmistakable note of effeminacy in his voice and saw it clearly reflected in his features.
He was dressed with immaculate neatness and wore a tie of an extraordinary shade of lavender which matched the silk hose that showed above his stylish low-cut shoes.
"Major Norton, I believe?" he said with a smile.
The editor bowed without rising:
"At your service, Professor Magraw. Have a seat, sir."
"Thank you! Thank you!" the dainty voice murmured with so marked a resemblance to a woman's tones that Norton was torn between two impulses—one to lift his eyebrows and sigh, "Oh, splash!" and the other to kick him down the stairs. He was in no mood for the amenities of polite conversation, turned and asked bluntly:
"May I inquire, professor, why you have honoredme with this unexpected call—I confess I am very curious?"
"No doubt, no doubt," he replied glibly. "You have certainly not minced matters in your personal references to me in the paper of late, Major Norton, but I have simply taken it good-naturedly as a part of your day's work. Apparently we represent two irreconcilable ideals of Southern society——"
"There can be no doubt about that," Norton interrupted grimly.
"Yet I have dared to hope that our differences are only apparent and that we might come to a better understanding."
He paused, simpered and smiled.
"About what?" the editor asked with a frown.
"About the best policy for the leaders of public opinion to pursue to more rapidly advance the interests of the South——"
"And by 'interests of the South' you mean?"
"The best interest of all the people without regard to race or color!"
Norton smiled:
"You forgot part of the pass-word of your order, professor! The whole clause used to read, 'race, color or previous condition of servitude'——"
The sneer was lost on the professor. He was too intent on his mission.
"I have called, Major Norton," he went on glibly, "to inform you that my distinguished associates in the great Educational Movement in the South view with increasing alarm the tendency of your paper to continue the agitation of the so-called negro problem."
"And may I ask by whose authority your distinguishedassociates have been set up as the arbiters of the destiny of twenty millions of white citizens of the South?"
The professor flushed with amazement at the audacity of such a question:
"They have given millions to the cause of education, sir! These great Funds represent to-day a power that is becoming more and more resistless——"
Norton sprang to his feet and faced Magraw with eyes flashing:
"That's why I haven't minced matters in my references to you, professor. That's why I'm getting ready to strike a blow in the cause of racial purity for which my paper stands."
"But why continue to rouse the bitterness of racial feeling? The question will settle itself if let alone."
"How?"
"By the process of evolution——"
"Exactly!" Norton thundered. "And by that you mean the gradual breaking down of racial barriers and the degradation of our people to a mongrel negroid level or you mean nothing! No miracle of evolution can gloss over the meaning of such a tragedy. The Negro is the lowest of all human forms, four thousand years below the standard of the pioneer white Aryan who discovered this continent and peopled it with a race of empire builders. The gradual mixture of our blood with his can only result in the extinction of National character—a calamity so appalling the mind of every patriot refuses to accept for a moment its possibility."
"I am not advocating such a mixture!" the professor mildly protested.
"In so many words, no," retorted Norton; "yet youare setting in motion forces that make it inevitable, as certain as life, as remorseless as death. When you demand that the patriot of the South let the Negro alone to work out his own destiny, you know that the mere physical contact of two such races is a constant menace to white civilization——"
The professor raised the delicate, tapering hands:
"The old nightmare of negro domination is only a thing with which to frighten children, major, the danger is a myth——"
"Indeed!" Norton sneered. "When our people saw the menace of an emancipated slave suddenly clothed with the royal power of a ballot they met this threat against the foundations of law and order by a counter revolution and restored a government of the wealth, virtue and intelligence of the community. What they have not yet seen, is the more insidious danger that threatens the inner home life of a Democratic nation from the physical contact of two such races."
"And you propose to prevent that contact?" the piping voice asked.
"Yes."
"And may I ask how?"
"By an ultimate complete separation through a process covering perhaps two hundred years——"
The professor laughed:
"Visionary—impossible!"
"All right," Norton slowly replied. "I see the invisible and set myself to do the impossible. Because men have done such things the world moves forward not backward!"
The lavender hose moved stealthily:
"You will advocate this?" the professor asked.
"In due time. The Southern white man and woman still labor under the old delusion that the negro's lazy, slipshod ways are necessary and that we could not get along without him——"
"And if you dare to antagonize that faith?"
"When your work is done, professor, and the glorious results of Evolution are shown to mean the giving in marriage of our sons and daughters, my task will be easy. In the mean time I'll do the work at hand. The negro is still a voter. The devices by which he is prevented from using the power to which his numbers entitle him are but temporary. The first real work before the statesmen of the South is the disfranchisement of the African, the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment to our Constitution and the restoration of American citizenship to its original dignity and meaning."
"A large undertaking," the professor glibly observed. "And you will dare such a program?"
"I'll at least strike a blow for it. The first great crime against the purity of our racial stock was the mixture of blood which the physical contact of slavery made inevitable.
"But the second great crime, and by far the most tragic and disastrous, was the insane Act of Congress inspired by the passions of the Reconstruction period by which a million ignorant black men, but yesterday from the jungles of Africa, were clothed with the full powers of citizenship under the flag of Democracy and given the right by the ballot to rule a superior race.
"The Act of Emancipation was a war measure pure and simple. By that act Lincoln sought to strike the South as a political power a mortal blow. He did not free four million negroes for sentimental reasons. Hedestroyed four billion dollars' worth of property invested in slaves as an act of war to save the Union. Nothing was further from his mind or heart than the mad idea that these Africans could be assimilated into our National life. He intended to separate the races and give the Negro a nation of his own. But the hand of a madman struck the great leader down in the hour of his supreme usefulness.
"In the anarchy which followed the assassination of the President and the attempt of a daring coterie of fanatics in Washington to impeach his successor and create a dictatorship, the great crime against Democracy was committed. Millions of black men, with the intelligence of children and the instincts of savages, were given full and equal citizenship with the breed of men who created the Republic.
"Any plan to solve intelligently the problem of the races must first correct this blunder from which a stream of poison has been pouring into our life.
"The first step in the work of separating the races, therefore, must be to deprive the negro of this enormous power over Democratic society. It is not a solution of the problem, but as the great blunder was the giving of this symbol of American kingship, our first task is to take it from him and restore the ballot to its original sanctity."
"Your movement will encounter difficulties, I foresee!" observed the professor with a gracious smile.
He was finding his task with Norton easier than he anticipated. The editor's madness was evidently so hopeless he had only to deliver his ultimatum and close the interview.
"The difficulties are great," Norton went on withrenewed emphasis, "but less than they have been for the past twenty years. Until yesterday the negro was the ward of the Nation. Any movement by a Southern state to remove his menace was immediately met by a call to arms to defend the Union by Northern demagogues who had never smelled powder when the Union was in danger.
"A foolish preacher in Boston who enjoys a National reputation has been in the habit of rousing his hearers to a round of cheers by stamping his foot, lifting hands above his head and yelling:
"'The only way to save the Union now is for Northern mothers to rear more children than Southern mothers!'
"And the sad part of it is that thousands of otherwise sane people in New England and other sections of the North and West believed this idiotic statement to be literally true. It is no longer possible to fool them with such chaff——"
The professor rose and shook out his finely creased trousers until the lavender hose scarcely showed:
"I am afraid, Major Norton, that it is useless for us to continue this discussion. You are quite determined to maintain the policy of your paper on this point?"
"Quite."
"I am sorry. TheEagle and Phoenixis a very powerful influence in this state. The distinguished associates whom I represent sent me in the vain hope that I might persuade you to drop the agitation of this subject and join with us in developing the material and educational needs of the South——"
Norton laughed aloud:
"Really, professor?"
The visitor flushed at the marked sneer in his tones, and fumbled his lavender tie:
"I can only deliver to you our ultimatum, therefore——"
"You are clothed with sovereign powers, then?" the editor asked sarcastically.
"If you choose to designate them so—yes. Unless you agree to drop this dangerous and useless agitation of the negro question and give our people a hearing in the columns of your paper, I am authorized to begin at once the publication of a journal that will express the best sentiment of the South——"
"So?"
"And I have unlimited capital to back it."
Norton's eyes flashed as he squared himself before the professor:
"I've not a doubt of your backing. Start your paper to-morrow if you like. You'll find that it takes more than money to build a great organ of public opinion in the South. I've put my immortal soul into this plant. I'll watch your experiment with interest."
"Thank you! Thank you," the thin voice piped.
"And now that we understand each other," Norton went on, "you've given me the chance to say a few things to you and your associates I've been wanting to express for a long time——"
Norton paused and fixed his visitor with an angry stare:
"Not only is the Negro gaining in numbers, in wealth and in shallow 'culture,' and tightening his grip on the soil as the owner in fee simple of thousands of homes, churches, schools and farms, but a Negroid party has once more developed into a powerful and sinister influenceon the life of this state! You and your associates are loud in your claims to represent a new South. In reality you are the direct descendants of the Reconstruction Scalawag and Carpetbagger.
"The old Scalawag was the Judas Iscariot who sold his people for thirty pieces of silver which he got by licking the feet of his conqueror and fawning on his negro allies. The Carpetbagger was a Northern adventurer who came South to prey on the misfortunes of a ruined people. A new and far more dangerous order of Scalawags has arisen—the man who boldly preaches the omnipotence of the dollar and weighs every policy of state or society by one standard only, will it pay in dollars and cents? And so you frown on any discussion of the tragic problem the negro's continued pressure on Southern society involves because it disturbs business.
"The unparalleled growth of wealth in the North has created our enormous Poor Funds, organized by generous well-meaning men for the purpose of education in the South. As a matter of fact, this new educational movement had its origin in the same soil that established negro classical schools and attempted to turn the entire black race into preachers, lawyers, and doctors just after the war. Your methods, however, are wiser, although your policies are inspired, if not directed, by the fertile brain of a notorious negro of doubtful moral character.
"The directors of your Poor Funds profess to be the only true friends of the true white man of the South. By a 'true white man of the South' you mean a man who is willing to show his breadth of vision by fraternizing occasionally with negroes.
"An army of lickspittles have begun to hang on the coat-tails of your dispensers of alms. Their methods are always the same. They attempt to attract the notice of the Northern distributors by denouncing men of my type who are earnestly, fearlessly and reverently trying to face and solve the darkest problem the centuries have presented to America. These little beggars have begun to vie with one another not only in denouncing the leaders of public opinion in the South, but in fulsome and disgusting fawning at the feet of the individual negro whose personal influence dominates these Funds."
Again the lavender socks moved uneasily.
"In which category you place the author of a certain book, I suppose?" inquired the professor.
"I paused in the hope that you might not miss my meaning," Norton replied, smiling. "The astounding power for the debasement of public opinion developing through these vast corruption funds is one of the most sinister influences which now threatens Southern society. It is the most difficult of all to meet because its protestations are so plausible and philanthropic.
"The Carpetbagger has come back to the South. This time he is not a low adventurer seeking coin and public office. He is a philanthropist who carries hundreds of millions of dollars to be distributed to the 'right' men who will teach Southern boys and girls the 'right' ideas. So far as these 'right' ideas touch the negro, they mean the ultimate complete acceptance of the black man as a social equal.
"Your chief spokesman of this New Order of Carpetbag, for example, has declared on many occasions that the one thing in his life of which he is most proud isthe fact that he is the personal friend of the negro whose influence now dominates your dispensers of alms! This man positively grovels with joy when his distinguished black friend honors him by becoming his guest in New York.
"With growing rage and wonder I have watched the development of this modern phenomenon. I have fought you with sullen and unyielding fury from the first, and you have proven the most dangerous and insidious force I have encountered. You profess the loftiest motives and the highest altruism while the effects of your work can only be the degradation of the white race to an ultimate negroid level, to say nothing of the appalling results if you really succeed in pauperizing the educational system of the South!
"I expected to hear from your crowd when the movement for a white ballot was begun. Through you the society of Affiliated Black League Almoners of the South, under the direction of your inspired negro leader, have sounded the alarm. And now all the little pigs who are feeding on this swill, and all the hungry ones yet outside the fence and squealing to get in, will unite in a chorus that you hope can have but one result—the division of the white race on a vital issue affecting its purity, its integrity, and its future.
"The possible division of my race in its attitude toward the Negro is the one big danger that has always hung its ugly menace over the South. So long as her people stand united, our civilization can be protected against the pressure of the Negro's growing millions. But the moment a serious division of these forces occurs the black man's opportunity will be at hand. The question is, can you divide the white race on this issue?"
"We shall see, major, we shall see," piped the professor, fumbling his lavender tie and bowing himself out.
The strong jaw closed with a snap as Norton watched the silk hose disappear.
Norton knew from the first that there could be no hope of success in such a campaign as he had planned except in the single iron will of a leader who would lead and whose voice lifted in impassioned appeal direct to the white race in every county of the state could rouse them to resistless enthusiasm.
The man who undertook this work must burn the bridges behind him, ask nothing for himself and take his life daily in his hands. He knew the state from the sea to its farthest mountain peak and without the slightest vanity felt that God had called him to this task. There was no other man who could do it, no other man fitted for it. He had the training, bitter experience, and the confidence of the people. And he had no ambitions save a deathless desire to serve his country in the solution of its greatest and most insoluble problem. He edited the most powerful organ of public opinion in the South and he was an eloquent and forceful speaker. His paper had earned a comfortable fortune, he was independent, he had the training of a veteran soldier and physical fear was something he had long since ceased to know.
And his house was in order for the event. He could leave for months in confidence that the work would run with the smoothness of a clock.
He had sent Tom to a Northern university which had kept itself clean from the stain of negro associations. The boy had just graduated with honor, returned home and was at work in the office. He was a handsome, clean, manly, straight-limbed, wholesome boy, the pride of his father's heart, and had shown decided talent for newspaper work.
Andy had long since become his faithful henchman, butler and man of all work. Aunt Minerva, his fat, honest cook, was the best servant he had ever known, and Cleo kept his house.
The one point of doubt was Cleo. During the past year she had given unmistakable signs of a determination to fight. If she should see fit to strike in the midst of this campaign, her blow would be a crushing one. It would not only destroy him personally, it would confuse and crush his party in hopeless defeat. He weighed this probability from every point of view and the longer he thought it over the less likely it appeared that she would take such a step. She would destroy herself and her child as well. She knew him too well now to believe that he would ever yield in such a struggle. Helen was just graduating from a convent school in the Northwest, a beautiful and accomplished girl, and the last thing on earth she could suspect was that a drop of negro blood flowed in her veins. He knew Cleo too well, understood her hatred of negroes too well, to believe that she would deliberately push this child back into a negroid hell merely to wreak a useless revenge that would crush her own life as well. She was too wise, too cunning, too cautious.
And yet her steadily growing desperation caused him to hesitate. The thing he dreaded most was theloss of his boy's respect, which a last desperate fight with this woman would involve. The one thing he had taught Tom was racial cleanness. With a wisdom inspired and guided by the brooding spirit of his mother he had done this thoroughly. He had so instilled into this proud, sensitive boy's soul a hatred for all low association with women that it was inconceivable to him that any decent white man would stoop to an intrigue with a woman of negro blood. The withering scorn, the unmeasured contempt with which he had recently expressed himself to his father on this point had made the red blood slowly mount to the older man's face.
He had rather die than look into this boy's clean, manly eyes and confess the shame that would blacken his life. The boy loved him with a deep, tender, reverent love. His keen eyes had long ago seen the big traits in his father's character. The boy's genuine admiration was the sweetest thing in his lonely life.
He weighed every move with care and deliberately made up his mind to strike the blow and take the chances. No man had the right to weigh his personal career against the life of a people—certainly no man who dared to assume the leadership of a race. He rose from his desk, opened the door of the reporters' room and called Tom.
The manly young figure, in shirt sleeves, pad and pencil in hand, entered with quick, firm step.
"You want me to interview you, Governor?" he said with a laugh. "All right—now what do you think of that little scrimmage at the mouth of the harbor of Santiago yesterday? How's that for a Fourth of July celebration? I ask it of a veteran of the Confederate army?"
The father smiled proudly as the youngster pretended to be taking notes of his imaginary interview.
"You heard, sir," he went on eagerly, "that your old General, Joe Wheeler, was there and in a moment of excitement forgot himself and shouted to his aid:
"'There go the damned Yankees!—charge and give 'em hell!'"
A dreamy look came into the father's eyes as he interrupted:
"I shouldn't be surprised if Wheeler said it—anyhow, it's too good a joke to doubt"—he paused and the smile on his serious face slowly faded.
"Shut the door, Tom," he said with a gesture toward the reporters' room.
The boy rose, closed the door, and sat down near his father's chair:
"Well, Dad, why so serious? Am I to be fired without a chance? or is it just a cut in my wages? Don't prolong the agony!"
"I am going to put you in my chair in this office, my son," the father said in a slow drawl. The boy flushed scarlet and then turned pale.
"You don't mean it—now?" he gasped.
"To-morrow."
"You think I can make good?" The question came through trembling lips and he was looking at his father through a pair of dark blue eyes blurred by tears of excitement.
"You'll do better than I did at your age. You're better equipped."
"You think so?" Tom asked in quick boyish eagerness.
"I know it."
The boy sprang to his feet and grasped his father's hand:
"Your faith in me is glorious—it makes me feel like I can do anything——"
"You can—if you try."
"Well, if I can, it's because I've got good blood in me. I owe it all to you. You're the biggest man I ever met, Dad. I've wanted to say this to you for a long time, but I never somehow got up my courage to tell you what I thought of you."
The father slipped his arm tenderly about the boy and looked out the window at the bright Southern sky for a moment before he slowly answered:
"I'd rather hear that from you, Tom, than the shouts of the rest of the world."
"I'm going to do my level best to prove myself worthy of the big faith you've shown in me—but why have you done it? What does it mean?"
"Simply this, my boy, that the time has come in the history of the South for a leader to strike the first blow in the battle for racial purity by establishing a clean American citizenship. I am going to disfranchise the Negro in this state as the first step toward the ultimate complete separation of the races."
The boy's eyes flashed:
"It's a big undertaking, sir."
"Yes."
"Is it possible?"
"Many say not. That's why I'm going to do it. The real work must come after this first step. Just now the campaign which I'm going to inaugurate to-morrow in a speech at the mass meeting celebrating our victory at Santiago, is the thing in hand. This campaign willtake me away from home for several months. I must have a man here whom I can trust implicitly."
"I'll do my best, sir," the boy broke in.
"In case anything happens to me before it ends——"
Tom bent close:
"What do you mean?"
"You never can tell what may happen in such a revolution——"
"It will be a revolution?"
"Yes. That's what my enemies as yet do not understand. They will not be prepared for the weapons I shall use. And I'll win. I may lose my life, but I'll start a fire that can't be put out until it has swept the state—the South"—he paused—"and then the Nation!"
The editor prepared to launch his campaign with the utmost care. He invited the Executive Committee of his party to meet in his office. The leaders were excited. They knew Norton too well to doubt that he had something big to suggest. Some of them came from distant sections of the state, three hundred miles away, to hear his plans.
He faced the distinguished group of leaders calmly, but every man present felt the deep undercurrent of excitement beneath his words.
"With your coöperation, gentlemen," he began, "we are going to sweep the state this time by an overwhelming majority——"
"That's the way to talk!" the Chairman shouted.
"Four years ago," he went on, "we were defeated for the first time since the overthrow of the negro government under the Reconstruction régime. This defeat was brought about by a division of the whites under the Socialistic program of the Farmers' Alliance. Gradually the black man has forced himself into power under the new régime. Our farmers only wished his votes to accomplish their plans and have no use for him as an officeholder. The rank and file of the white wing, therefore, of the allied party in power, are ripe for revolt if the Negro is made an issue."
The Committee cheered.
"I propose to make the Negro the only issue of this campaign. There will be no half-way measures, no puling hesitation, no weakness, and it will be a fight to the death in the open. The day for secret organizations has gone in Southern history. There is no Black League to justify a reorganization of the Klan. But the new Black League has a far more powerful organization. Its mask is now philanthropy, not patriotism. Its weapon is the lure of gold, not the flash of Federal bayonets. They will fight to divide the white race on this vital issue.
"Here is our danger. It is real. It is serious. But we must meet it. There is but one way, and that is to conduct a campaign of such enthusiasm, of such daring and revolutionary violence if need be, that the little henchmen and sycophants of the Dispensers of the National Poor Funds will be awed into silence.
"The leadership of such a campaign will be a dangerous one. I offer you my services without conditions. I ask nothing for myself. I will accept no honors. I offer you my time, my money, my paper, my life if need be!"
The leaders rose as one man, grasped Norton's hand, and placed him in command.
No inkling of even the outlines of his radical program was allowed to leak out until the hour of the meeting of the party convention. The delegates were waiting anxiously for the voice of a leader who would sound the note of victory.
And when the platform was read to the convention declaring in simple, bold words that the time had come for the South to undo the crime of the Fifteenth Amendment,disfranchise the Negro and restore to the Nation the basis of white civilization, a sudden cheer like a peal of thunder swept the crowd, followed by the roar of a storm. It died away at last in waves of excited comment, rose again and swelled and rose higher and higher until the old wooden building trembled.
Again and again such assemblies had declared in vague terms for "White Supremacy." Campaign after campaign which followed the blight of negro rule twenty years before had been fought and won on this issue. But no man or party had dared to whisper what "White Supremacy" really meant. There was no fog about this platform. For the first time in the history of the party it said exactly what was meant in so many words.
Thoughtful men had long been weary of platitudes on this subject. The Negro had grown enormously in wealth, in numbers and in social power in the past two decades. As a full-fledged citizen in a Democracy he was a constant menace to society. Here, for the first time, was the announcement of a definite program. It was revolutionary. It meant the revision of the constitution of the Union and a challenge to the negro race, and all his sentimental allies in the Republic for a fight to a finish.
The effect of its bare reading was electric. The moment the Chairman tried to lift his voice the cheers were renewed. The hearts of the people had been suddenly thrilled by a great ideal. No matter whether it meant success or failure, no matter whether it meant fame or oblivion for the man who proposed it, every intelligent delegate in that hall knew instinctively that a great mind had spoken a bold principle that must win in the end if the Republic live.
Norton rose at last to advocate its adoption as the one issue of the campaign, and again pandemonium broke loose—now they knew that he had written it! They suspected it from the first. Instantly his name was on a thousand lips in a shout that rent the air.
He stood with his tall figure drawn to its full height, his face unearthly pale, wreathed in its heavy shock of iron-gray hair and waited, without recognizing the tumult, until the last shout had died away.
His speech was one of passionate and fierce appeal—the voice of the revolutionist who had boldly thrown off the mask and called his followers to battle.
Yet through it all, the big unspoken thing behind his words was the magic that really swayed his hearers. They felt that what he said was great, but that he could say something greater if he would. As he had matured in years he had developed this reserved power. All who came in personal touch with the man felt it instinctively with his first word. An audience, with its simpler collective intelligence, felt it overwhelmingly. Yet if he had dared reveal to this crowd the ideas seething in his brain behind the simple but bold political proposition, he could not have carried them with him. They were not ready for it. He knew that to merely take the ballot from the negro and allow him to remain in physical touch with the white race was no solution of the problem. But he was wise enough to know that but one step could be taken at a time in a great movement to separate millions of blacks from the entanglements of the life of two hundred years.
His platform expressed what he believed could be accomplished, and the convention at the conclusion ofhis eloquent speech adopted it by acclamation amid a scene of wild enthusiasm.
He refused all office, except the position of Chairman of the Executive Committee without pay, and left the hall the complete master of the politics of his party.
Little did he dream in this hour of triumph the grim tragedy the day's work had prepared in his own life.
As the time drew near for Norton to take the field in the campaign whose fierce passions would mark a new era in the state's history, his uneasiness over the attitude of Cleo increased.
She had received the announcement of his approaching long absence with sullen anger. And as the purpose of the campaign gradually became clear she had watched him with growing suspicion and hate. He felt it in every glance she flashed from the depth of her greenish eyes.
Though she had never said it in so many words, he was sure that the last hope of a resumption of their old relations was fast dying in her heart, and that the moment she realized that he was lost to her would be the signal for a desperate attack. What form the attack would take he could only guess. He was sure it would be as deadly as her ingenuity could invent. Yet in the wildest flight of his imagination he never dreamed the daring thing she had really decided to do.
On the night before his departure he was working late in his room at the house. The office he had placed in Tom's hands before the meeting of the convention. The boy's eager young face just in front of him when he made his speech that day had been an inspiration. It had beamed with pride and admiration, and whenhis father's name rang from every lip in the great shout that shook the building Tom's eyes had filled with tears.
Norton was seated at his typewriter, which he had moved to his room, writing his final instructions. The last lines he put in caps: