Tony Marshall was one of the Negroes of the younger class who had left the country district and had come to R—— as a result of the imbroglio between Lemuel Dalton and Harry Dalton. He had come to the city with the untried innocence of country life, sober, industrious and frugal, acceptable as a wholesome infusion into Negro life in the city, which, so far as the masses were concerned, stood sadly in need thereof. Without much difficulty he had secured work as a porter in a hardware store. After a few years' sojourn in the city, he had fallen in love and married.
Among the Negroes of R—— Mrs. Tony Marshall was variously designated as "a good looking woman," "a fine looking woman," and among the older ones as "a likely gal;" and she richly deserved these encomiums passed on her personal appearance. She was not a small woman, nor yet could you call her large. Her form, while not delicately chiseled, presented an appearance that seemed to be a satisfactory compromise between beauty and strength, each struggling to be noted in this one form. Her face was well featured, her hazle colored eyes making it very attractive. As to complexion,she was dark, quite dark, and of a hue so soft and attractive therewith that her complexion made her an object of envy.
Tony Marshall adored his wife, and it was his one ambition to see her happy. Everything that he did was with a view to her comfort and happiness. On the meagre wages which he received he had not been able to provide for her as he had desired.
Noticing that young white men who had entered the employ of the hardware company after his coming and knew no more of the requirements of the business than he did—noticing that these had several times been promoted, Tony Marshall made an application for an increase in his wages. The head of the firm looked at him in astonishment. It was an unwritten and inexorable rule in that and in many other establishments that the wages of Negro employes were to remain the same forever, however efficient the labor and however long the term of service.
Failing of promotion where he was, and noting that the rate of one dollar per day prevailed almost universally, Tony Marshall saw no relief in changing employment, and decided to increase his own wages at his employers' expense. He made a comparison between the salary which he was receiving and that being received by the white employees who did work similar in character to his. He began, therefore, to purloin the wares of the companyand dispose of them at various pawn shops. As a "sop" to his conscience he stole only so much as sufficed to bring his wages to the level of others who did work like his. His thefts were the more easily committed because he had won the unlimited confidence of his employers.
Tony has just rented a more commodious house for the pleasure of his wife, and as his rent is to be increased, he is pondering how to further increase his income. On this particular morning when our story finds him, he is debating this question as he walks to his work. At last he concluded to steal that day a very fine pistol from the stock under his care, which theft he hoped would net him such a nice sum that he could suspend pilfering for a while. When he returned home that evening he carried the pistol with him, and hid it under the front doorstep, it being his rule to not allow his wife to know anything of his misdoings; for he could not bear the thought of forfeiting her respect.
"I am going to my lodge meeting now; I may not return until very late," said Tony that night, as he kissed his wife good-bye. Instead of going to the lodge meeting, however, Tony Marshall went to the section of the city where were congregated practically all of the vicious Negroes of R——. Entering a house, the front room of which was the abode of an aged couple, he passed to the rear through a hall way. Giving the proper rap at adoor, he was admitted. He was now in a long room well crowded with Negro men and many women, who sat at tables engaged in various kinds of gaming.
The occupants of the room gazed up at the newcomer, quickly, enquiringly, but seeing that it was the well known Tony, their attention returned to the matters before them. The flapping of cards, the rolling of dice, outbursts of profanity, the clinking of glasses as liquor drinking progressed, were the sounds that filled the room.
Tony found room at a dice table and was soon deeply engaged in the game. At a late hour the accustomed rap was heard at the door and it was opened. Great was the consternation of all when the newcomers were discovered to be a half dozen policemen.
The inmates of the gambling house saw at once that some frequenter of the place had proven traitor and furnished the officers with information. They were all placed under arrest and formed into a line to be marched to the city jail. The Negroes had submitted with such good grace that the officers felt able to dispense with the patrol wagon, the jail being near.
Tony Marshall's thoughts were of his wife, Lula. She was of a highly respectable family and her mortification would be boundless should she know of his arrest in the gambling den and hear of hisbeing in the chain gang working out his fine on the public highways.
Tony Marshall decided to escape at the risk of his life. The gambling fraternity had a code of signals that could give the cue to the proper course to be pursued under any given circumstances. The leader of the gang now gave three coughs, which meant, "Raise a row among yourselves." The idea was to get up a fight among the prisoners and while the officers were attempting to quell the fight, as many as could were to make their escape. It was the rule that all who made their escape were to employ lawyers and raise money to help out those left behind.
A group began quarreling among themselves, and a fight soon followed. The officers interposed to quell the disturbance and prisoners broke and ran in all directions. The officers found that they had a larger number than they could well manage under the circumstances, and they gave their attention to corralling a few, letting the others escape in the hope of tracing them out and re-arresting them on the morrow.
Among those that escaped was Tony Marshall. Running by his home, he secured the stolen pistol from beneath the doorstep, got his bicycle from the woodhouse and was soon speeding out of the city. He chose the road that led to the settlement whence he had come to the city. It was his intention fromthat point to write to his wife, telling her that he had received a most urgent call to see his aged mother who was represented to him to be dying.
Throughout the night Tony rode at a rapid rate, putting many miles between himself and the city. About daybreak, as he was speeding along on his bicycle, he glanced up into a tree and saw therein a squirrel. "Good luck!" said he, "there is my breakfast." Jumping from his bicycle, he got on the side of the road opposite to the tree that held the squirrel. Elevating his pistol, he took aim and was upon the eve of pulling the trigger when he heard the clatter of the hoofs of a horse galloping in his direction. He dropped the pistol to his side and peered around the bend of the road to catch sight of the newcomer on the scene. For a few minutes only we leave him standing thus that we may fully acquaint you with the newcomer, that the horror of the meeting between the two may not come as too great a shock to you.
"But how is the waiting, struggling, hoping Dorlan concerned in all of this?" the reader asks. That, too, in due time will be apparent.
We are at the Dalton house once more. It is the night on which we followed Tony Marshall to the gambling den, which we saw raided by the officers of the law. Under the window of Lemuel Dalton's bed room a dog had stationed himself, and throughout the night uttered long, loud and piteous howls.
Lemuel Dalton professed to be above superstition and detested that in the Negroes more than he did anything else, perhaps. While professing to the contrary, he was in reality superstitious to a marked degree, even against his own better sense. This semi-consciousness of the presence of a latent superstition in the crevices of his inner-self, no doubt served to intensify his antipathies against a people who had thus in spite of himself injected superstition into him; for he blamed the Negroes for the prevalence of superstition in the Southern States. So the howling of this homeless dog bothered Lemuel, although he sought to assure himself, over and over again, that it did not. He had arisen more than once and fired his pistol out of the window in order to stop the noise of the dog. The dog would quiet down for a brief period and thenresume his canine lamentations. The howling of the dog, coupled with its persistence, produced in Lemuel Dalton a state of mind bordering on terror. The Negroes held that the howling of a dog beneath a window was a sure sign that an inmate of the house was soon to die.
Arising very early the next morning, Lemuel Dalton entered his library and took a seat. He wheeled his chair until it faced the east window and, tilting back in it, mechanically twirled his mustache, a look of deep meditation coming over his face. "Confound the people who first brought the Negroes to this country," he said. He was worried that he could not shake off the superstition as to death following the howling of a dog.
In the midst of his broodings Lemuel Dalton's pretty little wife (for he is married now) came dashing into the room attired in a riding habit. Lemuel Dalton wheeled around to meet her and her quick eye caught the cloud that was just vanishing from his face.
"Lemuel, my dear, what on earth are you allowing to trouble you?" she said, shaking her riding whip at him, playfully, while her eyes were shining with the love that she cherished for him.
"I may tell you when you return from your morning ride," he said, opening his arms to receive his wife.
"You naughty lad," she cried, looking into his eyes with mock earnestness. "When did you everhear of a woman consenting to wait a moment to obtain a secret? Tell menowon pain of being doomed to bear this burden, my humble self, in your arms for ever."
"The very penalty that you affix as a menace is an inducement for me to disobey. I resist the temptation, however, and tell you the subject of my thoughts. I was thinking of the Negroes."
A shiver ran over the frame of Mrs. Dalton and the cheerful smile died out of her face. "Lemuel, will you people of the South ever be rid of this eternal nightmare?" queried Mrs. Dalton, looking up into Lemuel's face.
Lemuel tenderly stroked her beautiful hair, but did not essay to answer her question. The fact of the matter was, he regarded the Negro problem as growing graver and more complicated as time wore on. The strenuous efforts of the Negro to rise and the decrease of the distance between the two races he viewed with alarm. He did not care to communicate his real feelings to his wife, so he said nothing.
Mrs. Dalton's nature was of a light and volatile kind and she thought of the Negroes only for an instant. Wresting herself out of her husband's arms, she skipped out of the room. She immediately reappeared at the door of the library and threw a kiss at Lemuel in girlish fashion and was soon mounted and riding out to get the benefit of the brisk morning air. As she saunters along, we may learn a fewpoints in her history that bear upon the case unto which events are leading. She was born and reared in a section of the State of Maine where no Negroes whatever live. It was here that Lemuel Dalton found, wooed, and wedded her. She had read from time to time of the crimes of brutal Negroes and the summary punishments administered to them, and she had rather imperceptibly grown to regard the prevailing race type of the Negroes as being criminal. This opinion was not an unnatural outgrowth of the newspaper habit of giving unlimited space and flaming headlines to the vicious Negro, the exotic, while the many millions who day by day went uncomplainingly to their daily tasks and wrought worthily for the country's welfare, received but scant attention.
The opinion that this state of affairs caused Mrs. Dalton to imbibe, was the further fostered by the atmosphere of the Dalton house, which was so thoroughly hostile to the Negro. The whole of the Dalton place was now manned by white help, and Negroes would not so much as go there on errands of business. It was from such a home and under the conditions outlined that Mrs. Dalton went forth for her morning ride.
It was the noise of Mrs. Dalton's horse that caused Tony Marshall to pause in his attempt to kill the squirrel.
As Tony peered around the bend in the road, Mrs. Dalton caught sight of him and uttered a piercing scream. Tony knew the horse to be that of Lemuel Dalton and he perceived at once that the situation was full of danger for him, as the unintentional frightening of white women in the South had furnished more than one victim for the mob. Knowing so well the feelings of Lemuel Dalton toward Negroes, he reasoned that if the white woman who had become frightened at him, returned to the house and reported that she had come upon a Negro with a drawn pistol, public opinion among the whites would at once adjudge him guilty of harboring a purpose of committing a dastardly crime against woman's honor. He knew that a strong suspicion to this effect meant instant and violent death to the party suspected. He was determined to see to it that the woman did not leave him in a disturbed frame of mind. Rushing forward, he grasped the horse's bridle. This all the more frightened and excited Mrs. Dalton.
"Lady," said Tony, fear in every lineament ofhis face; "Lady," he repeated, in anxious tones, "don't be afraid. I am not going to harm you."
Mrs. Dalton instinctively looked down at the pistol, which seemed to be a contradiction to his words.
Seeing the look and interpreting it, Tony said, "There, I have thrown it away," accompanying his words with the casting of the pistol by the roadside.
Mrs. Dalton yet said nothing, her eye following the pistol. She noted that Tony had not thrown it very far away.
Tony, who was studying her countenance with a full knowledge of the fact that his life depended upon the outcome of the interview, read her impression that the casting aside of the pistol was but a ruse. "Lady," said Tony, "I have caught hold of your horse to keep you from going away from me frightened, for the white people will kill me on a mere suspicion of wrong intention on my part. I am harmless. I used to live out here."
This last remark increased Mrs. Dalton's agitation. She had heard of Harry Dalton, knew nothing of his death and feared that this was he, returning for vengeance.
"I got into trouble in the city and am running away. That's how I am out here so early."
"Oh, he is a criminal," said Mrs. Dalton, excitedly.
Tony saw that talking did not better his case, so he stopped. He bowed his head to meditate.
Mrs. Dalton thought that he was planning an attack, and her agitation was increasing every second.
"Plague on it!" said Tony. "I am in a pretty fix. I'll swear I wish those 'cops' had me safe in prison. I have swapped the witch for the devil."
Addressing Mrs. Dalton he said: "Well, lady, I'll let you go and take my chances."
As soon as Tony turned loose the bridle Mrs. Dalton gave whip to her horse, intending to flee as fast as the speed of the animal would permit. Tony saw that his action in turning the horse loose had not inspired confidence in the woman and that she was leaving him fully impressed that his purposes were evil. He now decided to take advantage of every circumstance that he could to save his life.
Seizing his pistol, he ran forward and fired, intending to kill the horse and thus have a better chance to escape before the woman could reach her home and start others in pursuit. At his second shot the horse reared and Mrs. Dalton fell off to the ground. The horse also fell, a part of his huge frame falling upon and crushing her prostrate form.
When Tony Marshall saw what he had done, he turned to flee. Proceeding a short distance, he halted. "I must go back to find out whether the woman is dead," he said. He therefore turned andwalked in a timorous manner toward the fallen woman. "Some one may have heard the shot and may be hurrying here," he thought, and halted again, casting furtive glances first up and then down the road. "What, oh, what have I done to be in such a fix!" he exclaimed in terror.
Continuing to look about him fearfully, Tony approached the spot where the horse and the woman lay. By dint of hard labor, he succeeded in removing that portion of the horse that lay upon her. He was overjoyed to find from her pulse that she was still alive. "What must I do next," he said. He sat down to meditate. "I haven't yet murdered anybody and I shall not let this woman die if I can help it," he said with determination.
Tony arose and, going to Mrs. Dalton, lifted her in his arms and proceeded in the direction of her home. After many pauses by the wayside for rest, he at last reached the Dalton estate. Through the window of his library, Lemuel Dalton saw his wife being brought home to him in an apparently lifeless condition. At once Morlene's prophecy came back to him. Raising the window and leaping out, he rushed to meet Tony and gathered his wife in his arms.
"Eulalie! Eulalie! Oh! Eulalie!" he cried. "Speak to me, beloved."
"Lemuel," she murmured, as she looked at him out of half opened eyes.
"Thank God! Oh! Thank God, she lives," he exclaimed, bearing his wife rapidly yet tenderly to her bedroom.
The family physician was summoned and he hastened to the bedside with all possible speed. Only a slight examination, however, was needed to disclose the fact that human skill would be of no avail.
Dorlan had just drawn down the curtains to the windows of his room, thus bringing to a close the contest that the artificial light of the room was waging with the fading twilight, the last feeble protest of the sun, for that day deposed. He was standing before his desk which was strewn with books, pamphlets and newspaper clippings, bearing on the subject engaging his attention, when suddenly his door was thrust open.
Quickly turning to learn who his unceremonious visitor was, Dorlan saw the Hon. Hezekiah T. Bloodworth standing in the doorway pointing a pistol toward him. The pistol hand swayed to and fro, signifying the unsteadiness of a drunken man, while Bloodworth's bloated face and reddened eyes emphasized the fact of his debauchery.
"Oh—hic—yes—hic—I've got—hic-hic-hic you—hic. I'll—hic—kill—hic—hic—you—hic," stammered Bloodworth, attempting to impart force enough to his unsteady fingers to pull the trigger of the pistol.
Dorlan started in the direction of the drunken man intending to disarm him. Just then some oneimplanted a blow upon the base of Bloodworth's skull, which sent that gentleman to the floor in a sprawling attitude. The pistol which was in Bloodworth's hand exploded upon striking the floor, but no serious damage resulted.
A tall, somewhat slender white man had delivered the blow. This stranger now forced Bloodworth to rise and accompany him down the stairs. Bloodworth whined after the manner of a child, as he staggered along. The stranger hailed a passing policeman and handed Bloodworth over to him. He then returned to Dorlan's room. As he entered, Dorlan was struck with the look of sorrow so legibly written in the face of the man. Such utter woe Dorlan had never before seen depicted in a human countenance. The man, though invited to sit down, declined to do so.
Looking Dorlan in the face, the stranger said, "My name is Lemuel Dalton. I perceive that you glean from my countenance that fate has hurled its harpoon into my soul." Lemuel Dalton's frame shook as a tempest of emotions swept through him. "My wife," he continued, "the most beautiful, the most angelic, the most beloved woman of earth, has been needlessly slain."
Dorlan was listening with absorbing interest and evident sympathy.
"Circumstances killed my wife, sir. Circumstances—cold, cruel, circumstances." Lemuel Daltonpaused as though desiring to give his words ample opportunity to convey their awful message. "It was on this wise," he resumed. "She met a Negro who was fleeing from justice. She had heard so much of late of the crimes of Negroes against white women that she was terribly frightened by the mere fact of seeing this Negro. The Negro was frightened over the consequences likely to ensue as a result of her fright. He sought to reassure her. She mistrusted him the more. To keep her from reaching me in time to institute a successful pursuit, the Negro killed the horse that she was riding. The horse in falling caught my wife partially under his huge frame. She was fatally injured."
Lemuel Dalton now turned away from Dorlan to hide the tears that had gathered in his eyes. "She died," said he, in broken tones. "On her dying bed she begged me to not prosecute the Negro on the charge of murder. In her last moments she said to me, 'Lemuel, good bye. Save other homes from a like fate. Dispel this atmosphere of suspicion in which I have been stifled unto my death.' I have obeyed her request with regard to the Negro. A careful investigation demonstrated that he had told my wife and me the truth in every detail. He is now in prison serving his sentence for the offenses committed prior to his chance meeting with my wife."
Pointing his finger at Dorlan he raised his tremulous voice and said in ringing tones, "Do you realize, sir, that the social fabric of which you are a part, furnished the viper that has stung me in a vital spot? Where, sir, are your churches, your school rooms, all of your influences that are supposed to produce worthy beings?" Lemuel Dalton's manner was so frantic that Dorlan began to feel that he was dangerously near insanity.
Lemuel Dalton divined the thought that was passing through Dorlan's mind and answered it, lowering his voice as he did so. "Oh, no! I am not at all unbalanced. To show you that I am not I shall answer my own question. You Negroes need more from us Southern whites than a feeling of indifference, or a spirit of 'make it if you can.' I have come to learn at so sad a cost that the safety and happiness of my race is inexorably bound up with the virtue and well-being of your race." The look of intensity now faded from his face; a sort of vacant expression appeared.
As though listlessly looking at something in the distance, he said, half musingly, "Morlene Dalton sent me to you. I went to her because she told me years ago that I would come to this. I am here to-night to offer my help to your race, and to ask what you all desire of me." He spoke slowly and in solemn tones.
"But, hold! before you speak, let me tell youthat about me which is subject to no compromise," he burst forth excitedly. Said he: "I am an exclusive; I want no mixture of blood, thought or activities with the Negro race. I want this white race to keep on manifesting its true inwardness to the world. I wish our whole civilization to be permeated with our own peculiar fragrance and that only. Whatever I can do for your people without jeopardy to this conception I stand ready to do. True, this means that I desire you to be an alien in our midst. But my present position is an improvement on my former, in that I am now willing to do all that can be done to make this alien, happy, prosperous and virtuous; but an alien ever, remember. Will you kindly point out to a white man standing on this platform whathemay consistently do for the Negro?"
Lemuel Dalton ceased speaking and now sat in the chair which he had previously refused.
"I am grieved, profoundly grieved that your wife, who may be the prototype of hundreds, has been drawn into the awful vortex of this race trouble."
Lemuel Dalton arose from his seat and with glaring eyes looked down upon Dorlan intently.
Again the impression came to Dorlan that he was dealing with a mad man, and he began to ponder a line of action based on that thought.
"Tut, tut, you persist in thinking I am crazy,"said Lemuel Dalton, again guessing Dorlan's thoughts and bringing his will to bear to cause a more calm expression to appear on his (Lemuel's) face.
Drawing near to Dorlan, he said: "I came to discuss the race question with you, but I am in no mood for that." He paused for an instant. Resuming in a lower tone of voice, he said, slowly, "You colored folks believe in God. I don't." Again he paused. "That is, I didn't. But the morning Eulalie, my wife, was brought home wounded, I called God's name for the first time since my early childhood." Here he paused again.
"Eulalie was a Christian," he said, looking into Dorlan's face piercingly. "Tell me the truth. Do you, do you," he asked falteringly. "Do you think that—" here a pause—"I shall meet—Eulalie again?" The last words were uttered in a loud screeching voice. Without waiting for an answer Lemuel Dalton turned away to hide his fast falling tears. Out of the room he walked, out into the darkness he went, alternately imploring and cursing the great force, whatever it might be, that was operating through all creation, and had suffered so terrible a load to fall upon his shoulders.
As for Dorlan, he sat far into the night musing on the occurrences of the evening. "To-night I have been confronted with an epitome of the situationof the Negro in this country," he said. "One white man comes who is angry because I will not be his tool. Then follows the exclusive, who feels that my touch is contaminating. Truly the Negro is between the upper and the nether millstones.
"Ah, Morlene what a task you have assigned unto this pilot, called by you to guide the bark of the Negro over this perilous sea. As I take my post, happy am I, that in my love of humanity I find my chart; in my love for my race I have a compass; and in my love for you I have a lighthouse on the shore.
"Shine on, sweet soul, that I may pilot this vessel through the breakers, above whose hidden heads the waves are ever chanting the solemn song of death."
Happy was Dorlan in this hour that his inherited riches would enable him to conquer ills which the poverty of the race had hitherto rendered insurmountable.
At last the day came on which Dorlan was to submit his plan to Morlene.
He arose early that morning, packed his trunk, boxed up his most important papers and wrote out instructions as to the disposition to be made of his other possessions. These preparations completed, he walked down town to the post office and sent his plan to Morlene as registered matter. Having done this, Dorlan returned to his boarding place and bade all a sorrowful good-bye, stating that a great deal of uncertainty was attendant upon his journey, and that he knew not whether he would ever return to R——. Going down to the depot, he was soon aboard a train speeding away.
In the meanwhile Morlene had received the documents sent to her. In addition to the plan, Dorlan had sent a personal letter, on the envelope of which were written these words, "Please do not read the enclosed letter until you have read and passed upon the plan." Morlene lifted the envelope to her lips, kissed it, and laid it away, intendingto read the letter after her study of the plan, in keeping with Dorlan's wishes.
Morlene was deeply conscious as to how much depended upon her verdict on Dorlan's plan. Her own and the happiness of Dorlan were involved. The suffering, restless Negroes were to be offered a panacea and she was their representative to accept or reject the proffered medicine. The welfare of the South and the peace of the nation were at stake. Upon the outcome of the race question in America the hopes of the darker races of the world depended. Even the cause of popular government was involved, she felt, for it was to be seen whether a republic could deal with a race problem of so virulent a type. Thus, with the eyes of the world upon her, Morlene unfolded the manuscript and began its study.
As the document was somewhat voluminous, and as the issues involved were of such grave import to the cause of humanity, Morlene decided that she would proceed about her task with much deliberation. Had she known the contents of Dorlan's personal letter she would have proceeded with more dispatch. This Dorlan knew, and not desiring the personal element to appear in her study of the plan enjoined that she should pursue her work without being influenced by what was contained in his letter.
So, after reading a while, Morlene laid the manuscript aside and spent the remainder of the day inmeditating on what she had read. The second day she did likewise. Morlene began to be much elated, for, as the paper progressed, she saw that Dorlan was treating the subject in a most comprehensive way. Thus, from day to day, she read and pondered, her hopes rising higher and higher.
Sometimes when Dorlan would enter upon the discussion of some particularly difficult question, her old feeling of fear would return, but when in a most masterly manner he would sweep away the seeming difficulties just as though they were so many cobwebs, her heart would leap joyfully. By and by, after the lapse of many days Morlene drew near to the close of the document. When, on the last day of her perusal, she read the last words of the last page, and her mind flashed back to the beginning and surveyed in general outline the whole, her enthusiasm knew no bounds. In quavering tones the sweet voice of this girl, charged and surcharged with love and patriotism, murmured the words, "Columbia is saved. Let all mankind henceforth honor the name of Dorlan, the hero of humanity." She now secured Dorlan's letter, broke the seal and read as follows, a look of pain deepening on her beautiful face as she read.
THE LETTER."Dear Morlene:"As best I could, heaven knows, I have wrestled with the problem assigned to me by you,the queen of my heart. Some one has said that the mostsublimeincident in all of human history was Martin Luther's standing alone before the Diet of Worms. Side by side with that statement let all men now write that my situation is the most excruciatinglypainfulone that a human being has ever been called upon to endure. When I first met you, circumstances forced me to stifle the love that was ready to burst into a flame. Subsequently, fate decreed that you should be free, and my heart ran riot."But fate was determined that one so beautiful and so worthy as yourself should not be won until the wooer appeared in some degree worthy of the lady whose hand was desired."Now, dear Morlene, tell me by what process, human or divine, I could be made in any measure worthy of you? If this plan is supposed to achieve that result, is supposed to mark me as worthy of your hand, it has failure written on its face. This conclusion would seem to be beyond the realm of debate. And yet my reason tells me that the plan must of necessity succeed; that, being based upon incontrovertible laws there is no way for it to fail."Now, Morlene, my darling, with my powers of intuition telling me that I must fail of winning your hand and with my reason telling me I have successfully performed the task assigned me, what must I do? Hope and Fear have come to terms inmy bosom, and one occupies the throne one minute and the other the next. They alternate thus by day and by night. In my dreams I am sometimes as happy as the angels are reputed to be—happier than they, I should say. But the joy is short-lived, and in my dreams I find myself tumbling over precipices and wading through miry swamps."I could not stay in R——, and in quietness await your verdict. I have had to travel, to lessen, if possible, the strain of anxiety upon my mind. So, when you find yourself reading this letter, I shall be hundreds of miles away at Galveston, Texas, on the beach of the great Gulf. I am here awaiting your verdict. If it is favorable, I shall return to you forthwith. If unfavorable, I am at a port where ships are daily leaving for all parts of the world. Enough for that."Finally, dear one, if the scheme which I submitted to you affords the necessary assurance that the problem will be solved, telegraph to me the one word, 'Unfettered.' If it does not afford such assurance, let your message be 'Fettered still.'"Am I yours,Forever or Never?"Dorlan Warthell."
"Dear Morlene:
"As best I could, heaven knows, I have wrestled with the problem assigned to me by you,the queen of my heart. Some one has said that the mostsublimeincident in all of human history was Martin Luther's standing alone before the Diet of Worms. Side by side with that statement let all men now write that my situation is the most excruciatinglypainfulone that a human being has ever been called upon to endure. When I first met you, circumstances forced me to stifle the love that was ready to burst into a flame. Subsequently, fate decreed that you should be free, and my heart ran riot.
"But fate was determined that one so beautiful and so worthy as yourself should not be won until the wooer appeared in some degree worthy of the lady whose hand was desired.
"Now, dear Morlene, tell me by what process, human or divine, I could be made in any measure worthy of you? If this plan is supposed to achieve that result, is supposed to mark me as worthy of your hand, it has failure written on its face. This conclusion would seem to be beyond the realm of debate. And yet my reason tells me that the plan must of necessity succeed; that, being based upon incontrovertible laws there is no way for it to fail.
"Now, Morlene, my darling, with my powers of intuition telling me that I must fail of winning your hand and with my reason telling me I have successfully performed the task assigned me, what must I do? Hope and Fear have come to terms inmy bosom, and one occupies the throne one minute and the other the next. They alternate thus by day and by night. In my dreams I am sometimes as happy as the angels are reputed to be—happier than they, I should say. But the joy is short-lived, and in my dreams I find myself tumbling over precipices and wading through miry swamps.
"I could not stay in R——, and in quietness await your verdict. I have had to travel, to lessen, if possible, the strain of anxiety upon my mind. So, when you find yourself reading this letter, I shall be hundreds of miles away at Galveston, Texas, on the beach of the great Gulf. I am here awaiting your verdict. If it is favorable, I shall return to you forthwith. If unfavorable, I am at a port where ships are daily leaving for all parts of the world. Enough for that.
"Finally, dear one, if the scheme which I submitted to you affords the necessary assurance that the problem will be solved, telegraph to me the one word, 'Unfettered.' If it does not afford such assurance, let your message be 'Fettered still.'
"Am I yours,Forever or Never?"Dorlan Warthell."
When Morlene finished reading the letter it was covered with the tears that had sped down her cheeks. "Dear, dear boy! how much he must have suffered, if he loves me thus!" So saying,she arose and hastened toward the telegraph office for the purpose of sending a message to Dorlan.
"Suppose my delay has begotten in Dorlan the recklessness of despair," thought Morlene, and fear born of the terrible thought seemed to lend her wings.
Arriving in the city of Galveston, Dorlan, anxious to receive the expected message from Morlene at the earliest possible moment, took up his abode in an establishment just opposite the telegraph office.
Day after day Dorlan took his seat at the window of his room and watched the messenger boys as they hurried to an fro delivering messages. He thought of how much anxiety the countless messages represented, but concluded that his was equal to all the other anxieties combined. Each night, when he regarded the hour as too late to reasonably expect a message from Morlene, he would go down to the beach and gaze out upon the great expanse of waters. The tossing waves and the heaving billows reminded him of his own heart. The tides would roll in to the shore and the waves would lap his feet with their spray, as much as to say, "Come with us. We are like you. We are restless. Come with us." Dorlan would look up at the watching stars and out into the depths of the silent dark. Then he would whisper to the pleading waves: "Not yet. Perhaps some day."
Dorlan'slove, in keeping with the well earned reputation of that master passion, had led him to hope for an early answer from Morlene, in spite of the extreme gravity and manifold complexity of the question that she was now trying to decide. Hisreasontold him better than to expect so early a reply. Thus, when love gave evidence of disappointment, reason would say, "Much love hath made thee mad, my boy. Give the dear girl a chance, will you?" At the close of each day this colloquy between love and reason would take place.
But Morlene's delay began to extend beyond the utmost limits that Dorlan had set. Thereupon love's tone became more insistent and the voice of reason grew correspondingly feeble.
Dorlan at last concluded that Morlene's decision was unfavorable to him, and that she hesitated to deliver the final blow. Every vestige of hope had fled and he now kept up his daily vigil purely out of respect for Morlene, not that he longer expected a favorable answer.
Unwilling for Morlene's sake to listen in the nights' solitude to the wooing of the restless waves, Dorlan changed his nightly course and moved about in the city. As he was listlessly wandering through the city one night, he came upon a crowd standing in a vacant lot listening to a man detail the reputed virtues of medicines which he was trying to sell.
The medicine man's face was handsome, hishead covered with a profusion of flaxen hair which fell in curls over his shoulders. His voice had a pleasing ring and his whole personality was alluring. On the platform with the man was a group of Negro boys who provided entertainment for the crowd in the intervals between the introduction of the various medicines. Dorlan stood on the outer edge of the throng and thought on the spectacle presented.
The white people of the South, as evidenced by their pleasure in Negro minstrelsy, were prone to regard the Negro as a joke. And the unthinking youths were now employed to dance and sing and laugh away the aspirations of a people.
Dorlan's veins began to pulsate with indignation as he reflected on the fact that the ludicrous in the race was the only feature that had free access to the public gaze. He was longing for an opportunity to show to the audience that there was something in the Negro that could make their bosoms thrill with admiration. In a most unexpected manner the opportunity was to come.
The medicine man near the hour of closing addressed the audience, saying: "Gentlemen, it pains me to state that our aeronaut is confined to his bed and will be unable to-night to make his customary balloon ascension and descent in the parachute. That part of our evening's entertainment must thereforebe omitted, unless some one of you will volunteer to act in his stead."
The last remark was accompanied with a smile, the speaker taking it for granted that no one would be willing to take the risk.
"Two birds with one stone," said Dorlan. "The boys have taught this audience how to laugh. I can show them an act of bravery. One bird!
"There must be a great force somewhere directing the affairs of the universe. His plannings puzzle me. Men have accidentally gone from balloons to solve the great mystery of all things. Bird number two! Morlene evidently does not care."
Elbowing his way through the crowd, Dorlan clambered upon the platform and said: "Gentlemen, the phases of Negro character are as varied as those of other men. There is in us the sense of the humorous and the possibilities of the tragic. We can partake of life to satiety, we can die of grief. These boys have made you laugh. Allow me to awaken in you higher emotions. I will make the ascension and descent and thus prevent the marring of our evening's entertainment."
The medicine man looked at Dorlan in astonishment, approached him and talked with him a short while. Concluding that Dorlan was sane, knew what he was about, and would not undertake the feat if incapable of successfully performing it, the man now had the balloon prepared. The audience,glad that they were not to be robbed of their expected pleasure, cheered lustily when it was found that Dorlan was to make the trip into the air.
Dorlan stepped into the balloon and was soon being whirled upward. His soul felt a measure of relief as he rose above the staring crowd, above the tall buildings, as he entered the regions of floating clouds, as he passed upward toward the brightly shining moon and the quiet light of the stars. On and on he swept.
The pure air into which he had now come refreshed his spirit and he could look at matters with a clearer vision. "Think," said Dorlan, as he stood in the balloon and gazed into the stellar depths, "how long it took this universe to evolve unto its present state. Think of the seemingly slow process of world formation now going on in the Nebulae scattered through those realms yonder." His mind reverting to his attitude toward Morlene, he said:
"And here I am impatient because that dear girl on whose heart the woes of the world now rest has not hastened in deciding that I had harnessed the forces that will solve one of the most difficult problems that ever perplexed mankind."
The utter unreasonableness of expecting so early an answer upon a question that demanded such earnest thought, now appeared to him as almostcriminal. He saw that the time allowed Morlene, in what he regarded as his saner moods, was thoroughly inadequate. These moments of elevation and reflection restored hope to his bosom.
Stimulated by the thought that Morlene was not necessarily lost to him as yet, Dorlan now caused the balloon to start toward the earth. He would have liked to come down all the way in the balloon since he was no longer yearning for death, but he remembered his brave speech and the expectations of the crowd below. So, in spite or his keen desire to live, he decided to maintain his honor in the eyes of the waiting audience and descend in the parachute at whatever cost. Not knowing what would be his fate, Dorlan sprang out of the balloon, trusting to the parachute. At a terrific speed he shot downward toward the earth. For a few seconds the parachute seemed that it was not going to bear him safely to earth, but, happily for the innocent Morlene, soon readjusted itself. Down, down, down, it came bringing to the murky atmosphere, to the crowded streets, to the regions of jarring ambitions, the troubled spirit that sought in an hour of despair to fly its ills.
Dorlan reached the ground in safety and received the congratulations of the spectators, who, guided by the light attached to the balloon, had succeeded in locating the possible point of descent.
Dorlan now went home, fully resolved to await in calmer spirit the expected answer.
One day as Dorlan was sitting before his window, he saw a messenger boy come out of the telegraph office, pause and look up at the number on the house in which he was stopping.
The boy then started across the street in Dorlan's direction. Dorlan ran out of his room and down the steps, reaching the door before the boy. Sure enough the telegram was for Dorlan. He snatched it from the boy and handed him a dollar.
Dorlan turned to go upstairs. "Wait for your change, Mister. We don't get but ten cents extra."
"Keep the dollar, lad," said Dorlan, hurrying up the stairway. Entering his room he gently laid the telegram upon the center table and stood back to gaze upon it. Dorlan could not conceive how he could endure the excess of grief if the message was unfavorable, or the excess of joy if it was favorable. Cautiously he approached the table, then seized the telegram and tore it open.
The next instant the lady of the house verily thought that a Comanche Indian had broken into her establishment, so loud was Dorlan's shout of joy when his eyes fell on the one word, "Unfettered." Her astonishment was even greater when Dorlan so suddenly departed, leaving in her hands a roll of money far in excess of her charges.
Dorlan had no time for explanations. The soul that had come into the world to mate with his wascalling for him and all other considerations had to fade away.
As the train rolled into the shed adjacent to the great depot at R——, Dorlan, who was standing on the platform of a coach, caught sight of Morlene, who had come down to the station to meet him. He seemed to feel that he could cover the remaining distance between himself and Morlene quicker than the train, for he leapt upon the platform before the train stopped and urged his way through the throng to the spot where she stood.
Then, half forgetting and half remembering the multitude present, Dorlan grasped the outstretched hands of Morlene drew her to him, and planted on her lips a kiss—just one, mark you. The ladies who were standing near looked searchingly at Dorlan, and rendered a silent verdict that Morlene could be excused for not resenting the salutation from so handsome and so noble looking a man.
The men looked at Morlene and wondered how Dorlan could be content with just that one. Those men always thereafter gave Dorlan the credit of being a man of marvelous self-control. You see, they did not consult Morlene on that point, who and who alone knew how frequent and how fervent were those manifestations of regard after the properauthorities had said that she was to be Mrs. Morlene Warthell thenceforth until death.
Over the hillsides of life, through its many valleys, alongside its babbling brooks, in the splendor of the noonday, in the gloaming, in deepest shades of evening, on and on, Dorlan and Morlene go, happy that they are freed from the narrow and narrowing problems of race; happy that at last they, in common with the rest of mankind, may labor for the solution of those larger humanistic problems that have so long vexed the heart of earth.
We now bid this loving and laboring couple a fond adieu, well knowing that wherever in this broad world these true souls may wander they will be gladly received and housed as the benefactors of mankind.