Northern Georgia sketches / by Will N. Harden

Northern Georgia Sketches

Northern Georgia Sketches)
BY
WILL N. H* ARBEN
CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1900
uvis a 48

("*"
COPYRIGHT BY A. C. McCLURG & CO.
A. D. igoo

DEDICATION
TO JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE KINDLY
ENCOURAGEMENT WHICH MADE THIS BOOK POSSIBLE.
THE AUTHOR

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE
A HUMBLE ABOLITIONIST . . -13

THE WHIPPING OF UNCLE HENRY .

47

A FILIAL IMPULSE . . . -77 THE SALE OF UNCLE RUSTUS . . in

THE CONVICTS RETURN . . -133

A RURAL VISITOR

. . . 167

JIM TRUNDLES CRISIS . . . 199 THE COURAGE OF ERICSON . . 229

THE HERESY OF ABNER CALIHAN

. 255

THE TENDER LINK . . . 283

A HUMBLE ABOLITIONIST

A HUMBLE ABOLITIONIST
Andrew Duncan and his wife trudged along the unshaded road in the beating sunshine, and paused to rest under the gnarled whitetrunked sycamore trees. She wore a drooping gown of checked homespun, a sun-bonnet of the same material, the hood of which was stiffened with invisible strips of cardboard, and a pair of coarse shoes just from the shop. Her husband was barefooted, his shirt was soiled, and he wore no coat to hide the fact. His trousers were worn to shreds about the ankles, but their knees were patched with new cloth.
"I never was as thirsty in all my born days," he panted, as he looked down into the bluish depths of a road-side spring. "Geewhilikins! aint it hot?"
"An some fool or others run off with the drinkin-gourd," chimed in his wife. "Now aint that jest our luck?"
"Well have to lap it up dog-fashion, I 13

14

OEreorgta

reckon," Andrew replied, ruefully, "an this is the hardest spring to git down to I ever seed. Hold on, Ann; Ill fix you."
As he spoke he knelt on the moss by the spring, turned his broad-brimmed felt hat outside in, and tightly folded it in the shape of a big dipper. He filled it with water, and still kneeling, held it up to his wife. When their thirst was satisfied, they turned off from the road into a path leading up a gradual slope, on the top of which stood a threeroomed log cabin.
"They are waitin fer us," remarked Duncan. "I see em out in the passage. My Lord, I wonder what under the sun theyll do with Big Joe. Ever time I think of the whole business I mighty nigh bust with laughin."
Mrs. Duncan smiled under her bonnet. "I think its powerful funny myself," she said, as she followed after him, her new shoes creaking and crunching on the gravel. To this observation Duncan made no response, for they were now in front of the cabin. An old man and an old woman sat in the passage, fanning their faces with turkey-wing fans. They were Peter Gill and his wife, Lucretia. The latter rose from her chair, which had been tilted back against the wall, and

with clattering heels, shambled into the room on the right.
"I reckon youd ruther set out heer whar you kin ketch a breath o air from what littles afloat," she said, cordially, as she emerged, a chair in either hand. Placing the chairs against the wall opposite her husband, she took a pair of turkey-wings from a nail on the wall and handed them to her guests, and with a grunt of relief resumed her seat. For a moment no one spoke, but Duncan presently broke the silence.
"Well, I went an seed Colonel Whitney fer you," he began, his blue eyes twinkling with inward amusement. "An 1 , Pete Gill, Im powerfully afeerd you are in fer it. As much as youve spoke agin slave-holdin as a prac tice, youve got to make a start at it. The Colonel said that you held a mortgage on Big Joe, an ef you dont take im right off you wont get a red cent fer yore debt."
"Im prepared fer it," burst from Mrs. Gill. "I tried my level best to keep Mr. Gill from lendin the money, but nothin I could say would have the least influence on im. The Lord only knows what well do. We are purty-lookin folks to own a high-priced, stuck-up quality nigger."

16 jiottfrgcn

5feetcf)ea

The two visitors exchanged covert glances of amusement.
"How did you manage to git caught?" An drew asked, crushing a subtle smile out of his face with his broad red hand.
Peter Gill had grown quite red in the face and down his wrinkled, muscular neck. As he took off his brogans to cool his feet, and began to scratch his toes through his woolen socks, it was evident to his questioner that he was not only embarrassed but angry.
"The thousand dollars was all the money we was ever able to save up," he said. "I was laying off to buy the fust piece o good land that was on the market, so men the ol oman would have a support in old age. But I didnt see no suitable farm just then, an as my money was lyin idle in the bank, Law yer Martin advised me to put it out at intrust, an I kinder tuck to the notion. Then Colonel Whitney got wind o the matter an rid over an said, to accommodate me, hed take the loan. He fust give me a mortgage on some swampy land over in Murray, that Martin said was wuth ten thousand, an it run on that way fur two yeer. The fust hint I had of the plight I was in was when the Colonel couldnt pay the intrust. Then I went to another law-

yer, fer it looked like Martin an the Colonel was kinder in cahoot, an* my man diskivered that the lan had been sold long before it was mortgaged to me for taxes. My lawyer wasnt no fool, so he got Whitney in fer a game o open-an-shut swindle. He up an notified im that ef my claim wasnt put in good shape in double-quick time, he was goin to put the clamps on somebody. Well, the final upshot was that I tuck Big Joe as security, an now that the Colonels entire estate has gone to flinders, Ive got the nigger an my moneys gone."
Duncan waited for the speaker to resume, but the aspect of the case was so dishearten ing that Gill declined to say more about it. He simply hitched one of his heels up on the last rung of his chair and began to fan him self vigorously.
"I did as you wanted me to," said Duncan, wiping his brow and combing his long, damp hair with his fingers. "I went round an axed the opinion o several good citizens, an it is the general belief ef you dont take the nigger you wont never git back a cent o yore loan. But the funniest part o the busi ness is the way Big Joe acts about it." Dun can met his wifes glance and laughed out

i8 jaortftetn a&eorgia
impulsively. "You see, Gill, in the Whitney break-up, all the other niggers has been sold to rich families, an the truth is, Big Joe feels his dignity tuck down a good many pegs by bein put off on you-uns, that never owned a slave to yore name. The other darkies has been a-teasin of im all day, an hes sick an tired of it. The Whitneys has spiled im bad. They 1arnt im to read an always let im stan dressed up in his long coat in the big front hall to invite quality folks in the house. They say he had his eye on a yaller gal, an that hes been obliged to give her up, fer shes gone with one of the Staffords in Fannin County."
Gills knee, which was thrust out in front of him by the sharp bend of his leg, was quivering.
"Big Joe might do a sight wussn to belong to me," he said, warmly. "I dont know as we-unsll have any big hall for im to cavort about in, nur anybody any wussn yore sort to come to see us, but we pay our debts an have a plenty feat."
Mrs. Gill was listening to this ebullition, her red nose slightly elevated, and she made no effort to suppress a chuckle of satisfaction over her husbands subtle allusion to the status of their guests.

"I want you two jest to come heer one minute," she burst out suddenly, and with a dignity that seemed to cool the air about her, she rose and moved toward the little shed room at the end of the cabin. Duncan and his wife followed, an expression of half-fearful curiosity in their tawny visages. Reaching the door of the room, Mrs. Gill pushed it open and coolly signaled them to enter, and when they had done so, and stood mutely looking about them, she followed.
"When I made up my mind wed be obliged to take Big Joe," she explained, "I fixed up fer im a little. Look at that bed stead!" (Her hand was extended toward it as steadily as the limb of an oak.) "Ann Duncan, you are at liberty to try to find a bet ter one in this neighborhood. Youn Andrew sleep on one made outn poles with the bark on em. Then jest feel o" them thar feathers in this new tick an pillows, an thems brannew store-bought sheets."
This second open allusion to her own pov erty had a subduing effect on Mrs. Duncans risibilities. The ever-present twinkle of amusement went out of her eyes, and she had an attitude of vast consideration for the words of her hostess as she put her perspir-

20

5feetcf)ea

ing hand on the mattress and pressed it ten tatively.
"Its saft a plenty fer a king," she ob served, conciliation enough for any one in her tone; "hell never complain, I bound you!"
"Big Joe wont have to tech his bare feet to the floor while hes puttin on his clothes, nuther," reminded Mrs. Gill. She raised her eyebrows as an admiral might after seeing a well-directed shot from one of his guns blow up a ship, and pointed at a piece of rag carpet laid at the side of the bed. "An* you see Ive fixed im a washstand with a new pan thar in the corner, an a roller towel, an bein as they say hes so fixy, Im a-goin to fetch in the lookin-glass, an Ive cut some picturs outn newspapers that I intend to paste up on the walls, so as "
Mrs. Gill paused. Experienced as she was in the tricks of Ann Duncans facial expres sion, she at once divined that her words were meeting with amused opposition.
"Why, Mis Gill," was Anns rebuff, "shorely you aint a-goin to let im sleep in the same house with you-uns!"
"Of course I am, Ann Duncan; what in the name o common sense do you mean?"
"Oh, nuthin." Mrs. Duncan glanced at

21
her husband and wiped a cowardly smile from her broad mouth with her hand. "You see, Mis Gill, Im afeerd you are goin* to overdo it. Youve heerd me say I have good stock in me, ef I am poor. Ive got own second cousins that dont know ther own slaves when they meet em in the big road. Ive heerd how they treat their niggers, an Im afeerd all this extra fixin up will make folks poke fun at you. To-day in town the niggers started the laugh on Big Joe theirselves, an the white folks all jined in. It looked like they thought it was a good joke for the Gill lay-out to own a quality slave. Men Andrew dont mean no harm, but now it is funny; you know it is!"
"I dont see a thing thats the least bit funny in it." Mrs. Gill bristled and turned almost white in helpless fury. "We never set ourselves up as wantin to own slaves, but when this one is saddled on us through no fault o ourn, I see no harm in our holdin onto im till we kin see our way out without loss. As to im not sleepin in the same cabin we do, whar in the Lords creation would we put im? The corn-crib is the only thing with a roof on it, an its full to the door."
"Oh, I reckon you are doin the best you

22
kin," granted Mrs. Duncan, as she passed out of the door and went back to where Peter Gill sat fanning himself. He had overheard part of the conversation.
"I told Lucretia she oughtnt to fix up so almighty much," he observed. "A nigger aint like no other livin creture. A pore man jest caynt please em."
Ann Duncan was driven to the very verge of laughter again.
"What you goin to call *im?" she snick ered, her strong effort at keeping a serious face bringing tears into her eyes. "Are you goin to make "im say Marse Gill, an Mis Lucretia?"
"I dont care a picayune what he calls us," answered Gill, testily. "I reckon we wont start a new language on his account."
Through this colloquy Mrs. Duncan had been holding her sun-bonnet in a tight roll in her hands. She now unfurled it like the flag of a switchman and whisked it on her head.
"Well, I wish you luck with yore slave," she was heard to say, crisply, "but I hope youll not think me meddlin ef I say that youll have trouble. Folks like you-uns, an we-uns fer that matter, dont know no more

gttoUtfonfst

23

about managin slaves raised by high-falutin* white folks than doodle-bugs does." And having risen to that climax, Ann Duncan, followed by her splay-footed, admiring hus band, departed.
The next morning, accompanied by Big Joe and the man who had been overseer on his plantation, Colonel Whitney drove over in a spring wagon.
"I decided to bring Joe over myself, so as to have no misunderstanding," he announced. "The other negroes have been picking at him a good deal, and he is a little out of sorts, but hell get all right."
The Gills were standing in the passage, a look of stupid embarrassment on their hon
est faces. Despite their rugged strength of character, they were not a little awed by the presence of such a prominent member of the aristocracy, notwithstanding the fact that their dealings with the Colonel had not, in a financial way, been just to their fancy.
"Im much obliged to you, sir," Peter found himself able to enunciate.
The Colonel lighted a cigar and began to smoke. A sad, careworn expression lay in his big blue eyes. He had the appearance of a man who had not slept for a week. His

24 iHoctfiettt Georgia
tired glance swept from the Gills to the negro in the wagon, and he said, huskily:
"Bounce out, Joe, and do the very best you can. I hate to part with you, but you know my condition weve talked that over enough."
Slowly the tall black man crawled out at the end of the wagon and stood alone on the ground. The expression of his face was at once so full of despair and fiendishness that Mrs. Gill shuddered and looked away from him.
"Well, Gill," said the planter, "I reckon me and you are even at last Im going down to Savannah, where I hope to get a fresh start and amount to more in the world. Good bye to you good-bye, Joe."
He had only nodded to the pair in the pas sage, but he reached over the wagon-wheel for the hand of the negro, and as he took it a tender expression of regret stamped itself on his strong features.
"Be a good boy, Joe," he half-whispered. "As God is my heavenly judge, I hate this more than anything else in the world. If I could possibly raise the money Id take you with me or free you."
The thick, stubborn lip of the slave relaxed and fell to quivering.

25
"Good-bye, Marse Whit," he said, simply. The Colonel took a firmer grasp of the black hand. "No ill-will, Joe?" he questioned, anxiously. "No, suh, Marse Whit, I haint got no hard feelins gin you." "Well, then good-bye, Joe. If I ever get my head above water, Ill keep my promise about you and Liza. She looked on you as her favorite, but dont raise your hopes too high. Im an old man now, and it may be uphill work down there." The negro lowered his head and the over seer drove on. As the wagon rumbled down the rocky slope a wisp of blue smoke from the Colonels cigar followed it like a banner unfurled to the breeze. For several minutes after the wagon had disappeared Big Joe stood where he had alighted, his eyes upon the ground. "Whats the matter?" asked Gill, stepping down to him. "Nothin, Marse " Big Joe seemed to bite into the word as it rose to his tongue, then he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously and looked down again. The Gills exchanged ominous glaces, and there was a pause.

26 Jiottfjern (HUotgia
"Have you had anything to eat this morn ing?" Gill bethought himself to ask.
The black man shook his head. "I aint teched a bite sence dey soP me; dey offered it to me, but I didnt want it."
Once more the glances of the husband and wife traveled slowly back and forth, center ing finally on the face of the negro.
"I reckon its cause yore sick at heart," observed Gill, at first sympathetically, and then with growing firmness as he continued. "I know how you feel; most o yore sort has a way o thinkin yoreseves a sight bettern pore white folks, an right now the truth is you cant bear the idee o belongin to men my wife. Now, men you an her ought to come to some sort of agreement that we kin all live under. You wont find nuther one of us the overbearin sort. We was forced to take you to secure ourseves agin the loss of our little all, an we want to do whats fair in every respect. Im told you are a fust-rate shoemaker. Now, ef you want to, you kin set up a shop in yore room thar, an have the last cent you kin make. Youll git plenty o work, too, fer this neighborhood is badly in need of a shoemaker. Now, my wife will

27
fry you some fresh eggs an bacon an make you a good cup o coffee."
But all that Peter Gill had managed to say with satisfaction to himself seemed to have gone into one of the negros ears and to have met with not the slightest obstruction on its way out at the other. To the hospitable invitation which closed Peters speech, the negro simply said:
"I dont feel like eatin* a bite." "Oh, you dont," said Gill, at the end of his resources; "maybe youd feel different about it ef you was to smell the bacon a-fryinV "I dont want to eat," reiterated the slave. "Well, you neednt unless you want to," went on Gill, still pacifically. "That thar room on the right is fer you; jest go in it whenever you feel like it an* try to make yoresef at home; you wont find us hard to git along with." The Gills left their human property seated on a big rock in front of the cabin and with drew to the rear. There they sat till near noon. Now and then Gill would peer around the corner to satisfy himself that his slave was still seated on the rock. Gill chewed nearly a weeks allowance of tobacco that morning;

28

(BJeorgfa

it seemed to have a sedative effect on his nerves. Finally, Ann Duncan loomed up in the distance and strode toward the cabin. She wore a gown of less brilliant tints than the one she had worn the day before. It had the dun color of clay washed into rather than out of its texture, and it hung from her nar row hips as if it were damp.
"Well, he did come," she remarked, introductively.
Mrs. Gill nodded. "Yes; the Colonel fetched im over this mornin."
"So I heerd, an I jest lowed Id step over an see how you made out." Mrs. Duncans rippling laugh recalled the whole of her allu sions of the day previous. "Thars more talk goin round than you could shake a stick at, an considerable spite an envy. Some lows that the havin o this slave is agoin to make you stuck up, an that youll move yore membership to Big Bethel meetin-house; but law me! I can see that you are bothered. How did he take to his room?"
"He aint so much as looked in yit," replied Mrs. Gill, with a frown.
Thereupon Ann Duncan ventured up into the passage and peered cautiously round the corner at Big Joe.

fumble Efioltttontgt

29

"Hesa-wipin* of his eyes," she announced, as she came back. "It looks like hes a-cryin about somen."
At this juncture, a motley cluster of men, women, and children, led by Andrew Duncan, came out of the woods which fringed the red, freshly plowed field below, and began to steer itself, like a school of fish, toward the cabin. About fifty yards away they halted, as animals do when they scent danger. Heads up and open-mouthed, they stood gazing, first at the Gills, and then at their slave. Peter Gill grew angry. He stood up and strode as far in their direction as the ash-hop per under the apple-tree, and raised both his hands, as if he were frightening away a flock of crows.
"Be off, the last one of you!" he shouted; "and dont you dare show yoreseves round heer unless youve got business. This aint no side-show I want you to understand that!"
They might have defied their old neighbor Gill, but the owner of a slave so big and well dressed as the human monument on the rock was too important a personage to displease with impunity; so, followed by the apologetic Mrs. Duncan, who blamed herself for having

3Q

(feeorgia

set a bad example to her curious neighbors, they slowly dispersed.
At noon Mrs. Gill went into the cabin and began to prepare dinner. She came back to her husband in a moment, and in a low voice, and one that held much significance, she said:
"I need some firewood. " As she spoke she allowed her glance to rest on Big Joe. Gill looked at the sullen negro for half a minute, and then he shrugged his shoulders as if inde cision were a burden to be shaken off, and mumbling something inaudible he went out to the woodpile and brought in an armful of fuel.
"A pore beginning," his wife said, as he put it down on the hearth.
"I know it," retorted Gill, angrily. "You neednt begin that sort o" talk, fer I wont stand it. Im a-doin all I can." And Gill went back to his chair.
The good housewife fried some slices of dark red ham. She boiled a pot of sweet potatoes, peeled off their jackets, and made a pulp of them in a pan; into the mass she stirred sweet milk, butter, eggs, sugar, and grated nutmeg. Then she rolled out a sheet of dough and cut out some open-top pies.

"I never knowed a nigger that could keep his teeth out of em," she chuckled.
Half an hour later she called out to Gill to come in. He paused in the doorway, staring in astonishment.
."Well, I never!" he ejaculated. She had laid the best white cloth, got out her new knives and forks with the bone han dles, and some dishes that were never used except on rare occasions. She had placed Gills plate at the head of the table, hers at the foot, and was wiping a third the com pany plate with the blue decorations. "Whars he goin to set an eat?" she asked. "Blast me ef I know any morenarat," Gill told her, with alarmed frankness. "I haint thought about it a bit, but it never will do fer im to set down with me an you. Folks might see it, an it would give em more room for fun." Mrs. Gill laid the plate down and sighed. "I declare, Im afeered this nigger is a-goin to stick us up, whether or no. I wont feel much Christian humility with him at one table an us at another, but of course I know it aint common fer folks to eat with their slaves."

jjiortijern
Gills glance was sweeping the table and its tempting dishes with an indescribable air of disapproval.
"You area-fixin* up powerful," was his slow comment; "a body would think, to look at all this, that it was the fourth Sunday an you was expectin the preacher. Youd bet ter begin right; we caynt keep this up an make a crop."
Her eyes flashed angrily. You had no business to bring Big Joe heer, then," she fumed. "You know well enough hes used to fine doins, an* Im not a-goin to have im make light of us, ef we are pore. I was jest a-thinkin; the Whitneys always tied napkins round ther necks to ketch the gravy they drap, an Big Joes bound to notice that we aint used to sech." It was finally agreed that for that day at least the slave was to have his dinner served to him where he sat; so Mrs. Gill arranged it temptingly on a piece of plank, over which a piece of cloth had been spread, and took it out to him. She found him almost asleep, but he opened his e3res as she drew near. Drowsily he surveyed the contents of the cups and dishes, his eyes kindling at the sight of the two whole custards. But his pride it

EfcoWfontet

33

was evidently that enabled him to manifest a sneer of irreconcilability.
"I aint a-goin teat a bite," was the way he put it, stubbornly.
For a moment Mrs. Gill was nonplussed; but she believed in getting at the core of things.
"Are you a-complainin?" she questioned. The big negros sneer grew more pro nounced, but that was all the answer he gave. "Dont you think you could stomach a bit o* this heer custard pie?" Big Joes eyes gleamed against his will, but he shook his head. "I tol um all ef dey sol me to you, I wouldnt eat a bite. Im gwine ter starve ter death." "Oh, thats yore intention!" Mrs. Gill caught her breath. A sort of superstitious terror seized upon her as she slowly hitched back to the cabin. "He wont tech a bite," she informed Gills expectant visage; "an whats a sight more, he says hes vowed he wont eat our victuals, an that hes laid out to starve. Peter Gill, Im afeerd this has been sent on us!"

34
"Sent on us!" echoed Gill, who also had his quota of superstition.
"Yes, its a visitation of the Almighty fer our hoardin up that money when so many of our neighbors is in need. I wish now we never had seed it. Ef Big Joe dies on our hands, Ill always feel like we have committed the unpardonable sin. Weve talked agin slave-holdin all our lives tell we had the bag to hold, an now weve set up reglar in the business."
Gill ate his dinner on the new cloth in morose silence. A heavy air of general dis content had settled on him.
"Well," he commented, as he went to the water-shelf in the passage to take his afterdinner drink from the old cedar pail, "ef he refused tater custards like them thar he cer tainly is in a bad plight. If he persists, Ill have to send fer a doctor."
The afternoon passed slowly. The later conduct of the slave was uneventful, beyond the fact that he rose to his full height once, stretched and yawned, without looking to ward the cabin, and then reclined at full length on the grass. Another batch of curi ous neighbors came as near the cabin as the spring. Those who had been ordered away

35
in the forenoon had set afloat a report that Gill had said that, now he was a slave-holder, he would not submit to familiar visits from the poor white trash of the community. And Sid Ruford, the ringleader of the group at the spring, had the boldness to shout out some hints about the one-nigger, log-cabin aristoc racy which drove the hot blood to Gills tanned face. He sprang up and took down his long-barreled "squirrel gun" from its hooks on the wall.
"Ill jest step down thar," he said, "an* see ef that gab is meant fer me."
"I wouldnt pay no tention to him," re plied Mrs. Gill, who was held back from the brink of an explosion only by the sight of the weapon and a knowledge of Gills marksman ship. However, Gill had scarcely taken half a dozen steps down the path when he wheeled and came back laughing.
"They run like a passle o skeerd sheep," he chuckled, as he restored his gun to its place.
This incident seemed to break the barrier of reserve between him and his human prop erty, for he stood over the prostrate form of the negro and eyed him with a dissatisfied look.

36

(fcgorgia

"See heer," he began, sullenly, "enough of a thing is a plenty. Im gettin sick an tired o this, an Ill be dadblasted ef Im a-goin to let a black, poutin scamp make me lose my natral sleep an peace o mind. Now, you git right up off n that damp ground an go in yore room an lie down, if you feel that-away. Folks is a-passin along an lookin at you like you was a stuffed monkey."
It may have been the sight of the gun, or it may have been a masterful quality in the Anglo-Saxon voice, that inspired the negro with a respect he had not hitherto entertained for his new owner, for he rose at once and went into his room.
At dusk Mrs. Gill waddled to the closed door of his apartment and rapped respectfully. She heard the bed creaking as if Big Joe were rising, and then he cautiously opened the door and with downcast eyes waited for her to make her wishes known.
"Supper is ready," she announced, in a voice which, despite her strength of charac ter, quivered a little, "an before settin down to it, I thought thar would be no harm in askin if thars anything that would strike yore fancy. When it gits a little darker I could blind a chicken on the roost an fry it,

fumble

37

or I could make you some thick flour soup with sliced dumplins."
She saw him wince as he tore himself from the temptation she had laid before him, but he spoke quite firmly.
"I aint a-goin teat any more in this worl," he said.
"Well, I reckon you wont gorge yoresef in the next," said Mrs. Gill, "but I want to say that what you are contemplatin is a sin." She turned back into the cabin and sat at the table and poured her husbands coffee in disturbed silence.
"I believe on my soul hes goin to make a die of it," she said, after a while, as she sat munching a piece of dry bread, having no appetite at all. And Gill, deeply troubled, could make no reply.
It was their habit to go to bed as soon as supper was over, so when they rose from the table Mrs. Gill turned down the covers of the high-posted bed and beat the pillows. Before barring the cabin door, she scrutinized the closed shutter directly opposite, but all was still as death in the room of the slave.
For the first night in many years the old pair found they could not sleep, their brains being still active with the first great problem

of their lives. The little clock struck ten. The silence of the night was disturbed by the shrilling of tree-frogs and the occasional cry of the whip-poor-will.
Suddenly Gill sprang up with a little grunt of alarm. "Whats that?" he asked.
"It sounded powerful like somebody a-groanin," whispered Mrs. Gill. "Oh, Lordy, Peter, I have a awful feelin!"
"Ill git up an see whats ailin im," said Gill, a little more calmly. "Mebby the idiot has done without food till hes took cramps.
Dressing himself hastily, he went outside. A pencil of yellow light was streaming through a crack beneath Big Joes door. Gill had not put on his shoes, and his feet fell softly on the grass. Putting his ear to the door of the negros room, he overheard low groans and words which sounded like a prayer, repeated over and over in a sing-song fashion. Later he heard something like the sobbing of a bigchested man.
"Open up!" cried Gill, shaking the door; "open up, I say!"
The vocal demonstration within ceased, and there was a clatter in the vicinity of the bed, as if Big Joe were rising to his feet. The

39
farmer repeated his firm command, and the shutter slowly opened. The negro looked like a giant in the dim light of the tallow-dip on a table behind him.
"Was that you a-makin all that noise?" asked Gill.
"I wus prayin, suh," answered Big Joe, his face in the shadow.
"Oh, that was it; I didnt know!" Gill was trying to master a most irritating awk wardness on his part; in questions of religious ceremony he always allowed for individual taste. Passing the negro, he went into the cabin and lifted the tallow-dip above his head and looked about the room suspiciously. "You was jest a-prayin, eh?"
"Yes, suh; I was a-prayin to de Gret Marster ter tek me off on a bed o ease, sence I hatter go anyway. Er death er starvation aint no easy job."
Gill sat down on the negros bed. He crossed his legs and swung a bare foot to and fro in a nervous, jerky manner.
"Looky* heer," he said finally to the black profile in the doorway, "you are a plagued mystery to me. What in the name o all pos sessed do you hanker after a box in the cold ground fer?"

4Q

Georgia

The slave seemed slightly taken aback by the blunt directness of this query; he left the door and sat down heavily in a chair at the fireplace. "Huh!" he grunted, "is you been all dis time en not fin out what my trouble is?"
"Ef I did know I wouldnt be settin heer at this time o night, losin my natral sleep to ask about it," was the tart reply.
The negro grunted again. "Do you know Marse Whits Liza?" he asked, almost eagerly.
"I believe Ive seed er once or twice," Gill told him. "A fine-lookin wench about the color of a sorghum ginger-cake. Is she the one you mean?"
The big man nodded. "Men her was gwine ter git married, but Marse Whit hatter gon trade er off ter Marse Stafford, en Marse Stafford is done give er er freedom yistiddy. "
"Ah, he set er free, did he?" Gill stared, and by habit awkwardly stroked that part of his face where a beard used to grow.
"Yes, suh; Marse Gill, he done set er free, en now a free nigger is flyin roun her. She wont marry no slave now, suh!"
Gill drew a full breath and stood up. "Then it wasnt becase you thought yoresef so much

bettern men my wife that you wanted to dump yoresef into eternity?"
"No, suh; dat wasnt in my min, suh." "Well, Im powerful glad o that, Joe," responded Gill, "becase neither me nor my wife ever harmed a kink in yore head. Now, the gospel truth is, I was drawed into this whole business agin my wishes, an me an" Lucretia would give a lots to be well out of it. Now, I dont want to be the cause o that free nigger walkin off with yore intrusts, so heers what Ill do. Ef youll ride in town with me in the mornin Ill git a lawyer to draw up as clean a set o freedom papers as you ever laid your peepers on. What do you say?" Big Joes eyes expanded until they seemed all white, with dark holes in the center. For a minute he sat like a statue, as silent as the wall behind him; then he said, with a deep breath: "Marse Gill, is you in earnest my Gawd! is you?" "As the Almighty is my judge, in whose presence I set at this minute." The negro covered his face with a pair of big, quivering hands. "Den I dont know what ter say, Marse Gill. I never expected to be a free man, en

Jiortijetn
I had give up hope er ever seein Liza agin. Oh, Marse Gill, you sho is one er His chosen flock!"
Gill was so deeply moved that when he ven tured on a reply he found difficulty in steady ing his speech. His voice had a quality that was new to it. He spoke as gently as if he were promising recovery to a suffering child.
"Now, Joe, you crawl back in bed an sleep," he said, "an in the mornin youll be free, as shore as the sun rises on us both."
Then he went back to bed and told his wife what he had done.
"Im powerful glad we can git out of it so easy," she commented. "Its funny I never thought o settin im free. It looked to me like he was a-goin to be a burden that we never could git rid of, an* now its a-goin* to end all right in the Lords sight."
They were just dozing off in peaceable slumber when they heard a gentle rap on the door.
"Its me, Marse Gill," came from the out side. "Im mighty sorry to wake you agin, but Im so hungry I dont think I kin wait till mornin."
"Well, I reckon you do feel kinder empty,"

43
laughed the farmer as he sprang out of bed. He lighted a candle, and following the spec ter-like signals of his wife, who sat up in bed, he soon found the meal she had arranged for the slave at noon. "Thar," he said, as he handed it through the doorway; "I had clean forgot yore fast was over."
The next morning the farmer and Big Joe drove to town, two miles distant. Gill was gone all day and did not return till dusk. His wife went out to meet him at the wagonshed.
"How did you make out?" she asked. "Tip-top," he said, with a laugh. "As we went to town, nothin would do the black scamp but we must go by after the gal. She happened to be dressed up, an went to town with us. I set in front an driv, while they done their courtin on the back seat. I soon got the papers in shape, an Squire Ridley spliced em right on the sidewalk in front o his office. A big crowd was thar, an you never heerd the like o yellin. Some o the boys, jest fer pure devilment, picked me up an carried me on their shoulders to the tav ern an made me set down to a hearty dinner. Joe borrowed a apron from the cook an insisted on waitin on me. La me, I wisht

44
youd a been thar. I felt like a blamed fool."
"I reckon you did have a lots o fun," said Mrs. Gill. "Well, Im glad he aint on our hands. I wouldnt pass another day like yistiddy fer all the slaves in Georgia."

THE WHIPPING OF UNCLE HENRY

THE WHIPPING OF UNCLE HENRY
"I do believe," said Mrs. Pelham, stooping to look through the oblong window of the milkand-butter cellar toward the great barn across the farmyard, "I do believe Cobb an Uncle Henry are fussin agin."
"Shorely not," answered her old-maid sis ter, Miss Molly Meyers.. She left her butter bowl and paddles, and bent her angular figure beside Mrs. Pelham, to see the white man and the black man who were gesticulating in each others faces under the low wagon-shed that leaned against the barn.
The old women strained their ears to over hear what was said, but the stiff breeze from across the white-and-brown fields of cotton stretching toward the west bore the angry words away. Mrs. Pelham turned and drew the white cloths over her milkpans.
"Cobb will never manage them niggers in the world," she sighed. "Henry has had Old
47

48

eorgfa

Nick in im as big as a house ever since Mr. Pelham went off an left Cobb in charge. Uncle Henry haint minded one word Cobb has said, nur he wont. The whole crop is goin to rack an ruin. Thars jest one thing to be done. Mr. Pelham has jest got to come home an whip Henry. Nobody else could do it, an he never will behave till its done. Cobb tried to whip im tother day when you was over the mountain, but Henry laid hold of a axhelve an jest dared Cobb to tech im. That ended it. Cobb was afeard of im. Moreover, hes afeard Uncle Henry will put p"ison in his victuals, or do im or his family some bodily damage on the sly."
"It would be a powerful pity," returned Miss Molly, "fer Mr. Pelham to have to lay down his business in North Carolina, whar hes got so awful much to do, an ride all that three hundred miles jest fer to whip one nigger. It looks like some other way mought be thought of. Couldnt you use your influence "
"Ive talked till Im tired out," Mrs. Pelham interrupted. "Uncle Henry promises an forms good resolutions, it seems like, but the very minute Cobb wants im to do somen a little different from Mr. Pelhams way, Henry wont stir a peg. He jest hates the

TOfrtpptng of Stole ffienrg 49
ground Cobb walks on. Well, I reckon Cobb aint much of a man. He never would work a lick, an* if he couldnt git a job overseein somebodys niggers hed let his family starve to death. Nobody kin hate a lazy, good-f ornothin* white man like a nigger kin. Thar Cobb comes now, to complain to me, I reckon, added Mrs. Pelham, going back to the window. "An" bless your soul, Henry has took his seat out in the sun on the wagon-tongue, as big as life. I reckon the whole crop will go to rack an ruin.
The next moment a tall, thin-visaged man with gray hair and beard stood in the cellar door.
"Im jest about to the end o my tether, Sister Pelham." (He always called her "Sis ter," because they were members of the same church.) "I cant get that black rascal to stir a step. I ordered Alf an Jake to hold im, so I could give im a sound lashin, but they was afeard to tech im. "
Mrs. Pelham looked at him over her glasses as she wiped her damp hands on her apron.
"You dont know how to manage niggers, Brother Cobb; I didnt much low you did the day Mr. Pelham left you in charge. The fust mornin, you went to the field with that boss-

5Q
whip in your hand, an youve toted it about ever since. You mought know that would give offense. Mr. Pelham never toted one, an yore doin of it looks like you lowed youd have a use fer it."
"I acknowledge I dont know what to do," said Cobb, frowning down her reference to his whip. "Ive been paid fer three months work in advance, in the white mare an colt Mr. Pelham give me, an Ive done sold em an used the money. Im free to confess that Brother Pelham s intrusts are bein badly pro tected as things are goin; but Ive done my best."
"I reckon you have," answered Mrs. Pelham, with some scorn in her tone. "I reckon you have, accordin to your ability an judg ment, an we cant afford to lose your services after youve been paid. Thar is jest one thing left to do, an that is fer Mr. Pelham to come home an whip Henry. Hes sowin discord an rebellion, an needs a good, sound lashin*. The .sooner its done the better. Nobody can do it but Mr. Pelham, an Im goin in now an write the letter an send it off. In the mean time, youd better go on to work with the others, an* leave Henry alone till his master comes."

ffienrg 51
"Brother Pelham is the only man alive that could whip "im," replied Cobb; "but it looks like a great pity an expense for Brother Pel " But the planters wife had passed him and gone up the steps into the sitting-room. Cobb walked across the barnyard without looking at the stalwart negro sitting on the wagontongue. He threw his whip down at the barn, and he and half a dozen negroes went to the hayfields over the knoll toward the creek.
In half an hour Mrs. Pelham, wearing her gingham bonnet, came out to where Uncle Henry still sat sulking in the sun. As she approached him, she pushed back her bonnet till her gray hair and glasses showed be neath it.
"Henry," she said, sternly, "Ive jest done a thing that I hated mightily to do."
"Whats that, Mis Liza?" He looked up as he asked the question, and then hung his head shamefacedly. He was about forty-five years of age. For one of his race he had a strong, intelligent face. Indeed, he possessed far more intelligence than the average negro. He was considered the most influential slave on any of the half-dozen plantations lying along that side of the river. He had learned to read, and by listening to the conversation of

52 jaortfrent OErgorgia &feetcf)ea______
white people had (if he had acquired the col loquial speech of the middle-class whites) dropped almost every trace of the dialect cur rent among his people. And on this he prided himself no little. He often led in prayer at the colored meeting-house on an adjoining plantation, and some of his prayers were more widely quoted and discussed than many of the sermons preached in the same church.
"I have wrote to yore master, Henry," an swered Mrs. Pelham, "an* Ive tol* im all yore doins, an tol him to come home an whip, you fer disobeyin Brother Cobb. I hated to do it, as Ive jest said; but I couldnt see no other way out of the difficulty. Dont you think you deserve a whipping Uncle Henry?"
"I dont know, Mis Liza." He did not look up from the grass over which he swung his rag-covered leg and gaping brogan. "I dont know myself, Mis Liza. I want to help Marse Jasper out all I can while he is off, but it seems like I jest cant work fer that man. Huh, overseer! I say overseer! Why, Mis Liza, he aint as good as a nigger! Thar aint no pore white trash in all this valley country as low down as all his lay-out. He aint fittin fer a overseer of nothin. He dont do any-

of

53

thing like master did, nohow. Hes too lazy to git in out of a rain. He "
"That will do, Henry. Mr. Pelham put him over you, an youve disobeyed. Hell be home in a few days, an you an him can settle it between you. He will surely give you a good whippin when he gits here. Are you goin to sit thar without layiri yore hand to a thing till he comes?"
"Now, you know me bettern that, Mis Liza. Ive done said I wont mind that man, an I reckon I wont; but the meadow-piece has obliged to be broke an sowed in wheat. Im goin to do that jest as soon as the black smith fetches my bull-tongue plow."
Mrs. Pelham turned away silently. She had heard some talk of the government buying the negroes from their owners and setting them free. She ardently hoped this would be done, for she was sure they could then be hired cheaper than they could be owned and provided for. She disliked to see a negro whipped; but occasionally she could see no other way to make them do their duty.
From the dairy window, a few minutes later, she saw Uncle Henry put the gear on a mule, and, with a heavy plow-stock on his shoulder, start for the wheat-field beyond the meadow.

54
"Hell do two mens work over thar, jest to show what he kin do when hes let alone," she said to Miss Molly. "I hate to see im whipped. Hes too old an sensible in most things, an it would jest break Lucindas heart. Mr. Pelham had ruther cut off his right arm, too; but hell do it, an do it good, after havin to come so far."
Mr. Pelham was a week in reaching the plantation. He wrote that it would take sev eral days to arrange his affairs so that he could leave. He admitted that there was nothing left to do except to whip Uncle Henry soundly, and that they were right in thinking that Henry would not let any one do it but himself. After the whipping he was sure that the negro would obey Cobb, and that matters would then move along smoothly.
When Mr. Pelham arrived, he left the stage at the cross-roads, half a mile from his house, and carpet-bag in hand, walked home through his own fields. He was a short, thick-set man of about sixty, round-faced, blue-eyed, and gray-haired. He wore a sack-coat, topboots, and baggy trousers. He had a goodnatured, kindly face, and walked with the quick step and general air of a busy man.
He had traveled three hundred miles, slept

of gitnclg ffienrg 55
on the hard seat of a jolting train, eaten rail road pies and peanuts, and was covered with the grime of a dusty journey, all to whip one disobedient negro. Still, he was not out of humor, and after the whipping and lecture to his old servant he would travel back over the tiresome route and resume his business where he had left it.
His wife and sister-in-law were in the kitchen when they heard his step in the long hall. They went into the sitting-room, where he had put down his carpet-bag, and in the center of the floor stood swinging his hat and mopping his brow with his red handkerchief. He shook hands with the two women, and then sat down in his old seat in the chimneycorner.
"You want a bite to eat, an a cup of coffee, I reckon," said Mrs. Pelham, solicitously.
"No, I kin wait till dinner. Whars Cobb?" "I seed im at the wagon-shed a minute ago," spoke up Miss Molly; "he was expectin you, an didnt go to the field with the bal ance. " "Tell im I want to see im." Both of the women went out, and the over seer came in. "Bad state of affairs, Brother Cobb," said

the planter, as he shook hands. They both sat down with their knees to the embers.
"That it is, Brother Pelham, an I take it you didnt count on it any moren I did."
"Never dreamt of it. Has he been doin any better since he heerd I was comin to whip im?"
"Not fer me, Brother Pelham. He haint done a lick fer me; but all of his own accord, in the last week, hehas broke and sowed all that meadow-piece in wheat, an is now harrowin it down to hide it from the birds. To do im jestice, I haint seed so much work done in six days by any human bein alive. Hell work for hissef, but he wont budge fer me."
Mr. Pelham broke into a soft, impulsive laugh, as if at the memory of something.
"They all had a big joke on me out in North Carolina," he said. "I tol em I was comin home to whip a nigger, an they wouldnt believe a word of it. I reckon it is the fust time a body ever went so fur on sech business. They lowed I was jest homesick an wanted a excuse to come back."
"They dont know what a difficult subject we got to handle," Cobb replied. "You are, without doubt, the only man in seven states

Mapping of gUncIe ffienrg 57
that could whip im, Brother Pelham. I be lieve on my soul hed kill anybody else thatd tech im. Hes got the strangest notions about the rights of niggers I ever heerd from one of his kind. Hes jest simply danger ous."
"Youre afeard of im, Brother Cobb, an hes sharp enough to see it; thats all."
The overseer winced. "I dont reckon Im any more so than any other white man would be under the same circumstances. Henry mought not strike back lick fer lick on the spot I say he mought not; an then agin he mought but hed git even by some hook or crook, or Im no judge o niggers."
Mr. Pelham rose. "Whar is he?" "Over in the wheat-field." "Well, you go^ over thar n tell im Im here, an to come right away down in the woods by the gum spring. Ill go down an cut some hickory withes an wait fer im. The quicker its done an over, the deeper the impression will be made on im. You see, I want im to realize that all this trip is jest solely on his account. Ill start back early in the mornin. That will have its weight on his future conduct. An, Brother Cobb, I cant I jest cant afford to be bothered agin.

Jiottfjem
My business out thar at the lumber-camp wont admit of it. This whippin has got to do fer the rest of the year. I think hell mind you when I git through with im. I like im bettern any slave I ever owned, an Id a thousand times ruther take the whippin my self; but its got to be done."
Cobb took himself to Henry in the wheatfield, and the planter went down into the edge of the woods near the spring. With his pocketknife he cut two slender hickory switches about five feet in length. He trimmed off the outshooting twigs and knots, and rounded the butts smoothly.
From where he sat on a fallen log, he could see, across the boggy swamp of bulrushes, the slight rise on which Henry was at work. He could hear Henrys mellow, resonant "Haw" and "Gee," as he drove his mule and harrow from end to end of the field, and saw Cobb slowly making his way toward him.
Mr. Pelham laid the switches down beside him, put his knife in his pocket, and stroked his chin thoughtfully. Suddenly he felt a tight sensation in his throat. The solitary figure of the negro as he trudged along by the harrow seemed vaguely pathetic. Henry had always been such a noble fellow, so reliable

of gUttcle

59

and trustworthy. They had really been, in one way, more like brothers than master and slave. He had told Henry secrets that he had confided to no other human being, and they had laughed and cried together over cer tain adventures and sorrows. About ten years before, Mr. Pelhams horse had run away and thrown him against a tree and broken his leg. Henry had heard his cries and run to him. They were two miles from the farmhouse, and it was a bitterly cold day, but the stalwart negro had taken him in his arms and carried him home and laid him down on his bed. There had been a great deal of excitement about the house, and it was not until after the doctor had come and dressed the broken limb that it was learned that Henry had fallen in a swoon in his cabin and lain there uncon scious for an hour, his wife and children being away. Indeed, he had been almost as long recovering as had been his master.
Henry had stopped his mule. Cobb had called to him, and was approaching. Then Mr. Pelham knew that the overseer was deliv ering his message, for the negro had turned his head and was looking toward the woods which hid his master from view. Mr. Pelham felt himself flush all over. Could he be going

60 jaortfjetn (fceorgia
to whip Henry really to lash his bare back with those switches? How strange it seemed all at once ! And that this should be their first meeting after a two months separation!
In his home-comings before, Uncle Henry had always been the first to meet him with outstretched hand. But the negro had to be whipped. Mr. Pelham had said it in North Carolina; he had said it to Cobb, and he had written it to his wife. Yes, it must be done; and if done at all, of course it must be done right. /
He saw Henry hitch his mule to a chestnuttree in the field and Cobb turn to make his way back to the farm-house. Then he watched Henry approaching till the bushes which skirted the field hid him from view. There was no sound for several minutes except the rustling of the fallen leaves in the woods behind him, and then Uncle Henrys head and shoul ders appeared above the broom-sedge near by.
"Howdy do, Marse Jasper?" he cried; and the next instant he broke through the yellow sedge and stood before his master.
"Purty well, Henry." Mr. Pelham could not refuse the black hand which was extended, and which caught his with a hearty grasp. "I hope you are as well as common, Henry?"

of
"Never better in my life, Marse Jasper." The planter had risen, but he nowjsat down beside his switches. For a moment nothing was said. Uncle Henry awkwardly bent his body and his neck to see if his mule were standing where he had left him, and his master looked steadfastly at the ground. "Sit down, Henry," he said, presently; and the negro took a seat on the extreme end of the log and folded his black, seamed hands over his knee. "I want to talk to you first of all. Something of a very unpleasant, unavoid able nature has got to take place betwixt us, an I want to give you a sound talkin to beforehan." "All right, Marse Jasper; Im a-listenin." Henry looked again toward his mule. "I did want to harrow that wheat down fore them birds eat it up; but I got time, I reckon." The planter coughed and cleared his throat. He tried to cross his short, fat legs by sliding the right one up to the knee of the left, but owing to the lowness of the log, he was unable to do this, so he left his legs to themselves, and with a hand on either side of him, leaned back. "Do you remember, Uncle Henry, twenty years ago, when you belonged to old Heaton

62
Pelzer an* got to hankerin after that yellow girl of mine jest after I bought her in South Carolina?"
"Mighty plain, Master Jasper, mighty plain." Henrys face showed a tendency to smile at the absurdity of the question.
"Lucinda was jest as much set after you, it seemed," went on the planter. "Old Pelzer was workin you purty nigh to death on his pore, wore-out land, an pointedly refused to buy Lucinda so you could marry her, nur he wouldnt consent to you marryin a slave of mine. Aint that so?"
"Yes, Marse Jasper, thats so, sir." "I had jest as many niggers as I could afford to keep, an a sight more. I was already up to my neck in debt, an to buy you I knowed Id have to borrow money an mort gage the last thing I had. But you come to me night after night, when you could sneak off, an begged an begged to be bought, so that I jest didnt have the heart to refuse. So, jest to accommodate you, I got up the money an bought you, payin fully a third more fer you than men of yore age was.goin at. You are married now, an got three as likely chil dren as ever come into the world, an a big buxom wife that loves you, an if I havent

agftftfpptng of pintle fftentg 63
treated you an them right I never heerd of it."
"Never was a better master on earth, Marse Jasper. If thar is, I haint never seed im. " Henrys face was full of emotion. He picked up his slouch hat from the grass and folded it awkwardly on the log beside him.
"From that day till this," the planter went on, "Ive been over my head in debt, an I can really trace it to that transaction. It was the straw that broke the camels back, as the feller said. Well, now, Henry, six months ago, when I saw that openin to deal in lumber in North Carolina, it seemed to me to be my chance to work out of debt, if I could jest find somebody to look after my farm. I found a man, Henry a good, clever, honest man, as everybody said, an a member of Big Bethel Church. For a certain consideration he agreed to take charge. That consideration Ive paid in advance, an its gone; I couldnt git it back.
"Now, how has it turned out? I had hardly got started out thar before one of my nig gers the very one I relied on the most has played smash with all my plans. You be gun by turnin up yore nose at Brother Cobb, an then by openly disobeyin im. Then he

64 jaortjjgrn dfceorgfa
tried to punish you the right that the law gives a overseer an you up an dared him to tech you, an "
"Marse Jasper " "Hold yore tongue till Im through." "All right, Marse Jasper, but " "You openly defied im, thats enough; you broke up the order of the whole thing, an yore mistress was so upset that she had to send fer me. Now, Henry, I haint never laid the lash on you in my life, an Id ruther take it myself than to have to do it, but I haint come three hundred miles jest to talk to you. Im goin to whip you, Henry, an Im goin to do it right, if thars enough strength in my arm. You neednt shake yore head an sulk. No matter what you refused to let Cobb an* the rest of em do, you are a-goin to take what Im goin to give you without a word, because you know its just an right." Henrys face was downcast, and his master could not see his eyes, but a strange, rebel lious fire had suddenly kindled in them, and he was stubbornly silent. Mr. Pelham could not have dreamed of what was passing in his mind. "Henry, you an me are both religious men," said the planter, after he had waited for a moment. "Lets kneel right down here

^tfjtpptng of 3EncIe Jijeitrg 65
by this log an commune with the Lord on this matter."
Without a word the negro rose and knelt, his face in his hands, his elbows on the log. There never had been a moment when Uncle Henry was not ready to pray or listen to a prayer. He prided himself on his own powers in that line, and had unbounded respect even for the less skillful efforts of others. Mr. Pelham knelt very deliberately and began to pray:
"Our heavenly Father, it is with, extreme sadness an sorrow that we come to Thee this bright, sunny day. Our sins have been many, an we hardly know when our deeds are accept able in Thy sight; but bless all our efforts, we pray Thee, for the sake of Him that died for us, an let us not walk into error in our zeal to do Thy holy will.
"Lord, Thou knowest the hearts of Thy humble supplicant an this man beside him. Thou, through the existin laws of this land, hast put him into my care an keepin an made me responsible to a human law for his good or bad behavior. Lord, on this occasion it seems my duty to punish him for disobedi ence, an we pray Thee to sanction what is about to take place with Thy grace. Let no

66

Georgia

anger or malice rest in our hearts during the performance of this disagreeable task, an let the whole redound to Thy glory, for ever an ever, through the mercy of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
Mr. Pelham rose to his feet stiffly, for he had touches of rheumatism, and the ground was cold. He brushed his trousers, and laid hold of his switches. But to his; surprise, Henry had not risen. If it had not been for the stiffness of his elbows, and the upright position of his long feet, which stood on their toes erect as gate-posts, Mr. Pelham might have thought that he had dropped asleep.
For a moment the planter stood silent, glancing first at the mass of ill-clothed human ity at his feet, and then sweeping his eyes over the quiet, rolling land which lay between him and the farmhouse. How awfully still everything was! He saw Henrys cabin near the farmhouse. Lucinda was out in the yard picking up chips, and one of Uncle Henrys children was clinging to her skirts. The planter was very fond of Lucinda, and he wondered what she would do if she knew he was about to whip her husband. But why did the fellow not get up? Surely that was an unusual way to act. In some doubt as to what

of 3Inclg

67

he ought to do, Mr. Pelham sat down again. It should not be said of him that he had ever interrupted any mans prayers to whip him. As he sat down, the log rolled slightly, the elbows of the negro slid off the bark, and Henrys head almost came in contact with the log. But he took little notice of the accident, and glancing at his master from the corner of his eye, he deliberately replaced his elbows, pressed his hands together, and began to pray aloud :
"Our heavenly Father." These words were spoken in a deep, sonorous tone, and as Uncle Henry paused for an instant the echoes groaned and murmured and died against the hill behind him. Mr. Pelham bowed his head to his hand. He had heard Henry pray before, and now he dreaded hearing him, he hardly knew why. He felt a strange creeping sensa tion in his spine.
"Our heavenly Father, " the slave repeated, in his mellow sing-song tone, "Thou knowest that I am Thy humble servant. Thou know est that I have brought to Thee all my troubles since my change of heart that I have left nothing hidden from Thee, who art my Maker, my Redeemer, an my Lord. Thou knowest that I have for a long time harbored the belief

68 jjiottfjent eorgfa
that the black man has some rights that he dont git under existin laws, but which, Thy will be done, will come in due time, like the harvest follows the plantin. Thou knowest, an I know, that Henry Pelham is nigher to Thee than a dumb brute, an that it aint no way to lift a nigger up to beat im like a horse or a ox. I have said this to Thee in secret prayer, time an agin, an Thou knowest how I stand on it, if my master dont. Thou knowest that before Thee I have vowed that I would die before any man, white or black, kin beat the blood outn my back. I may have brought trouble an vexation to Marse Jasper, I dont dispute that, but he had no business puttin me under that low-down, white-trash overseer an* goin off so far. Heavenly Father, thou knowest I love Marse Jasper, an I would work fer im till I die; but he is ready to put the lash to me an disgrace me before my wife an children. Give my arms strength, Lord, to defend myself even against him against him who has, up to now, won my respect an love by forbearance an kindness. He has said it, Lord he has said that he will whip me; but Ive said, also, that no man shall do it. Give me strength to bat tle fer the right, an if he is hurt bad hurt

of gftnclg ffientg 69
may the Lord have mercy on him ! This I ask through the mercy an the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
Henry rose awkwardly to his feet and looked down at his master, who sat silent on the log. Mr. Pelhams face was pale. There was a look of indecision under the pallor. He held one of the switches by the butt in his hand, and with its tapering end tapped the brown leaves between his legs. He looked at the imperturbable countenance of the negro for fully a minute before he spoke.
"Do you mean to say, Henry," he asked, "that you are a-goin to resist me by force?"
"I reckon I am, Marse Jasper, if nothin else wont do you. Thats what I have prom ised the Lord time an" agin since Cobb come to boss me. I wasnt thinkin about you then, Marse Jasper, because I didnt low you ever would try such a thing; but I said any white man, an I cant take it back."
The planter looked up at the stalwart man towering over him. Henry could toss him about like a ball. In his imagination he had pictured the faithful fellow bowed before him, patiently submitting to his blows, but the present contingency had never entered his mind. He tried to be angry, but the good-

Jjortfjern gEreorgta
natured face of the slave he loved made it impossible.
"Sit down thar, Henry," he said; and when the negro had obeyed, he continued, almost appealingly: "I have told the folks in North Carolina that I was comin home to whip you, you see. I have told yore mistress, an I have told Cobb. Ill look like a purty fool if I dont do it."
A regretful softness came into the face of the negro, and he hung his head, and for a moment picked at the bark of the log with his long thumbnail.
"Im mighty sorry, Marse Jasper," he an swered, after remaining silent for a while. "But you see Ive done promised the Lord; you wouldnt have me what do all them folks amount to beside the Lord? No ; a body ought to be careful about what hes promised the Almighty."
Mr. Pelham had no reply forthcoming. He realized that he was simply not going to whip Uncle Henry, and he did not want to appear ridiculous in the eyes of his friends. The negro saw by his masters silence that he was going to escape punishment, and that made him more humble and sympathetic than ever. He was genuinely sorry for his master.

Efrr TOfrtppfng of gincle ffienrg 71
"You have done told em all you was goin to whip me, I know, Marse Jasper; but why dont you jest let em think you done it? I dont keer, jest so I kin keep my word. Lucinda aint a-goin to believe Id take it, no how.
At thisloophole of escape the face of the planter brightened. For a moment he felt like grasping Henrys hand: then a cloud came over his face.
"But," he demurred, "what about yore future conduct? Will you mind what Cobb tells you?";
"I jest cant do that, Marse Jasper. Me n him jest cant git along together. He aint no man at all."
"Well, what on earth am I to do? Ive got to have ,ari overseer, an Ive got to go back to NortlgCarolina."
"You dont have to have no overseer fer me, Marse, Jasper. Have I ever failed to keep a promise to you, Marse Jasper?"
"No; but I cant be here." "Ill tell you what Ill do, Marse Jasper. Would yqu; be satisfied with my part of the work if jl tend all the twenty-acre piece beyond my cabin, an make a good crop on it, an look after all the cattle an stock, an clear

(Keorgfa &feetcf)i
the woodland on the hill an cord up the fire wood?"
"You couldnt do it, Henry." "Ill come mighty nigh it, Marse Jasper, if youll let me be my own boss an be responsible to you when you git back. Mr. Cobb kin boss the rest of em. They dont keer how much he swings his whip an struts around." "Henry, Ill do it. I can trust you a sight better than I can Cobb. I know you will keep yore word. But you will not say anything about "
"Not a word, Marse Jasper. They all may low Im half dead, if they want to." Then the two men laughed together heartily and parted.
The overseer and the two white women were waiting for Mr. Pelham in the backyard as he emerged from the woods and came toward the house. Mrs. Pelham opened the gate for him, scanning his face anxiously.
"I was afeard you an Henry had had some difficulty," she said, in a tone of relief; "he has been that hard to manage lately.
Mr. Pelham grunted and laughed in disdain. "Ill bet he was the hardest you ever tackled," ventured Cobb. "Anybody can manage him," the planter

Hffltjlfppfag of

ffiinrg 73

replied "anybody that has got enough deter mination. You see Henry knows me."
"But do you think hell obey my orders after you go back?" Cobb had followed Mr. Pelham into the sitting-room, and he anxiously waited for the reply to his question.
The planter stooped to spit into a corner of the chimney, and then slowly and thoughtfully stroked his chin with his hand. "Thats the only trouble, Brother Cobb," he said, thrutttng his fat hands into the pockets of his trousers and turning his back to the fire-place; "thats the only drawback. To be plain with you, Brother Cobb, Im afeard you dont inspire respect; men that dont own niggers seldom do. I believe on my soul that nigger would die fightin before hed obey yore orders. To tell the truth, I had to arrange a plan, an that is one reason one reason why I was down thar so long. After what happened to day" (Mr. Pelham spoke significantly and stroked his chin again) "hell mind me jest as well at a distance as if I was here on the spot. Hed have a mortal dread of havin me come so fur agin."
"I hope you wasnt cruel, Mr. Pelham," said Mrs. Pelham, who had just come in. "Henrys so good-hearted "

74 iEortfjern (ffieorgta
"Oh, hell git over it," replied the planter, ambiguously. "But, as I was goin on to say, I had to fix another plan. I have set him a sort o task to do while Im away, an I believe hell do it, Brother Cobb. So all youll have to do will be ,to look after the other niggers."
The plan suited Cobb exactly; but when Mr. Pelham came home the following summer it was hard to hear him say that Uncle Henry had accomplished more than any three of the other negroes.

A FILIAL IMPULSE

A FILIAL IMPULSE
"Yo re purty well fixed, Jim; I wish I had yore business."
Big Jim Bradley glanced slowly around his store. The heaps of flour-sacks, coffee-bags, sugar-barrels, piles of bacon, crates of hams, kits of mackerel, and the long rows of well-filled shelves brought a flush of satisfaction into his rugged face.
"Haint no reason to complain, Bob," he said; "youve been in Georgia, an you know how blamed hard it is fer a feller to make his salt back thar."
"Now yo re a-talkin yo" re a-sayin
somen now!" Bob Lash was sitting on the head of a potato-barrel, eating cheese and crackers, and his spirited words were inter spersed with little snowy puffs from the cor ners of his mouth. "Jim," he continued, in a muffled tone, as he eased his feet down to the floor, "Im a-goin to wash this dry truck down with a glass o yore cider; Im about to
77

78
choke. Thars yore nickel. You neednt rise; I can wait on mysef."
"Id keep my eye open while he was behind the counter, Jim," put in Henry Webb, jest ingly. "Bobs got a swallow like a mill-race.. He may take a notion to drink out of yore half-gallon measure."
"Had to drink outn a thimble, or somen bout the size of it, at yore place when you kept a bar," gurgled Bob in the cider-glass. "But I haint nothin aginyou; the small doses of the stuff you sold was all that saved my life."
The flashily dressed young man sitting at Webbs side laughed and slapped him famil iarly on the knee. His name was Thornton. He used to "mix drinks" for Webb, and had been out of employment ever since his em ployers establishment had been closed by the sheriff, a few months before. "One on you, Harry," he said, laughing again at the comical expression on his friends face; "you have to get up before day to get the best o these Georgia mossbacks."
Webb said nothing; and Bob, blushing tri umphantly under Thorntons compliment, and chewing a chip of dried beef that he had found on the counter, came back to his seat on the barrel.

filial

79

"Well, I reckon I have done middlin well," said Jim, bringing the conversation back to his own affairs with as much adroitness as he was capable of exercising. "I didnt have a dollar to my name when I struck this town, ten year back. I started as a waiter in a restau rant nigh the railroad shops, then run a lemonade-stand at the park, an by makin every lick count, I gradually worked up to this shebang."
Henry Webb seemed to grow serious. He glanced stealthily at Thornton when Jim was not looking, crossed his legs nervously, and said: "Jim, me an you have been dickerin long enough; all this roundabout talk dont bring us an inch nearer a trade. Now Im goin to make you my last proposition about this stock o goods. My wife got her money out of her minin interest to-day, an wants to put it in some regular business o this sort. Im goin to make you a round bid on the whole thing, lock, stock, an barrel, an, on my honor, its my last offer. Ill give you ten thousand dollars in cash fer the key to the door."
Everybody in the group was fully conscious of the vital importance of the words which had just been spoken. Webb, who was a

I

80

famous poker-player, had never controlled his

face and tone better. No one spoke for a

moment, but all eyes were fixed expectantly

on Bradley. "Huh," he answered, half under

his breath, "I reckon you would!" He tossed

his shaggy, iron-gray head and smiled artifi

cially. His face was pale, and his eyes shone

with suppressed excitement. It was a better

offer than he had expected; in fact, he had

not realized before that his stock was con

vertible into quite so much ready money, and

it was hard for him, simple and honest as he

was, to keep from showing surprise. "Harry

Webb," he went on, evasively, "do you have

any idee what I cleared last year, not countin

bad debts an expenses? Im over three

thousand ahead, an prospects fer trade never

was better. My books will show you that I

am a-givin it to you straight."

Webb made no reply. If he had been as

sure of his own moral worth as he was of

Jims he would have been a better man. As

it was, he only looked significantly at Thorn-

ton, who had evidently come prepared to play

a part.

"It aint no business o mine, fellers, one

way or the other," began Thornton, slightly

confused. He cleared his throat and spat on

ial Impute*

81

the floor. "But Ill admit Im kinder anxious to see Harry get into some settled business. You know hes mighty changeable, one day runnin* some fortune-wheel or card-table, an the next got charge of a side-show, bar, or skating-rink, and never makes much stake at anything. I told his wife to-day that Id do my best to get you fellers to come to a under standing. Thats all the interest Ive got in the matter; but Id bet my last chip youd have to look a long ways before you could find another buyer with that much ready cash such times as these.
"Huh, you dont say!" sneered Jim, a cold gleam of indecision and excitement in the glance that he accidentally threw to Bob Lash, who erroneously fancied that his friend wanted him to say something to offset the remarks made by Webbs ally. But diplomacy was not one of the few gifts with which frugal nature had blessed Bob, and when the idea struck him that he ought to speak, he grew very agi tated, and almost stabbed a hole in one of his cheeks with the long splinter with which he was picking his teeth.
"The man that gits it has a purty deadshore thing fer a comfortable income," he blurted out, incautiously. "I wish I had the

82

ta S>fe*tcf)e0

money to secure it; Id plank it down so quick it ud make yore head swim."
Jim flushed. "Nobody haint said nothin bout the shebang bein on the market," he said, quickly.
Bob saw his mistake too late to rectify it, so he said nothing.
Webb smiled, and rose with an easy assump tion of indifference and lighted a fresh cigar over the lamp-chimney. "Tibbs wants to rent me the new store-room joining you, Jim," he said, rolling his cigar into the corner of his mouth and half closing the eye which was in direct line with the rising smoke. "I kinder thought Id like them big plate-glass showwindows. Ten thousand dollars in bran-new groceries wouldnt be bad, would they?"
Jim was taken slightly aback, but he recov ered himself in an instant. "Not ef they was bought jest right, Harry," he said, signifi cantly. "A man mought have a purty fair start that way, ef he was experienced; but law me! Id hate awful to start to lay in a stock frum these cussed drummers; they are wholesale bunco-sharks. An then, you see, Ive been here sence this town fust started, an* I know who will do to credit an who wont. My blacklist is wuth five thousand to

any man in this line. Thars men in this town thatll pay a gamblin debt thout a bobble, an cuss like rips at the sight of a grocery bill. But thar aint no use talkin; I reckon my business aint fer sale."
Webb turned to Thornton and coolly asked for a match; then the entire group was silent till Bob Lash spoke.
"How in the world did you ever happen to come way out here, anyway, Jim?" he asked, obtusely believing that Bradley meant exactly what he had said in regard to Webbs proposi tion, and that for all concerned it would be more agreeable and profitable to talk about something else.
"Got tired an wanted a change," grunted Bradley. "I never was treated exactly right by my folks, an was itchin awful to make money."
"What county did you say you was from?" "Gilmer." Webb yawned aloud, puffed at his cigar, and swept the store from end to end with a rather critical, would-be dissatisfied glance. "I passed through thar goin from Dalton to Canton," went on Bob, warming up. "Its a purty country through them mountains. What was you a-follerin back thar?"

84

iHottf)eai

"Farmin 1 it. Thar was jest three uv us me an brother Joe an mother; but we couldnt git along together."
"What a pity!" said Bob. "I alays wanted to make money," went on Jim, "an attertheold man died I was anxious fer me an Joe to save up enough to git a farm uv our own; but he tuk to drinkin an spreein round generally, an was alays off jest when the crop needed the most attention. I alays was easy irritated, an never could be satisfied onless I was goin ahead. Me an Joe was eternally a-fussin, an mother alays tuk his part. One night she got rippin mad, an lowed that she could git along better with im ef I wasnt thar to make trouble, an so I made up my mind to come West. I tol em they was welcome to my intrust in the crap, an that I had had all I could stand up under, an was goin off. Mother never even said fare well, an Joe sorter turned up his nose, an lowed Id be writin back an beggin fer money to git home on fore a month was out. I told mother ef she ever needed help to write, but she never looked up from her spinninwheel, an from that day to this I haint had a scratch of a pen.

Impulse
"Shorely you didnt leave a old woman in sech hands as that," ventured Bob.
The expression on Jim Bradleys face changed. "What was I to do? Ef Id a stayed thar Id a been a beggar to-day," he said, argumentatively. "I lowed ef I was sech a bother Id leave em; but Ill admit thar are times when I think I may a been a leetle hasty. An I do hanker atter home folks mighty bad at times, especially when Im locked up in this lonely store at night, with nothin but my cat fer company. Ive been intendin to write to mother every day, but somen alays interferes. I heerd four year ago, accidentally, that they was gittin long tolerable well."
"Its mighty tough on fellers of our age, Jim, to grow old alone in the world," sighed Bob, reaching out to the crate for another splinter. "Id ruther have less money an* more rale home comforts. Kin is a great thing. Brother Sam sent me a pictur uv his little gal. I wish I had it to show you; shes mighty purty an smart-lookin. It made me mighty homesick.
"I reckon it did," said Bradley. "Ive seed dogs that lived better than I do. D you fellers ever see whar I bunk?"

86 Jtottijent (ffieorgfa
"No," joined in Thornton and Webb, see ing that they were addressed.
"Come into my parlor, then"; and Jim grinned, broadly. He lifted the lamp, and holding it over his head, he led them through some curtains made of cotton bagging into the back room. Empty boxes, hogsheads, crates, bales of hay, heaps of old iron, and every sort of rubbish imaginable covered the floor. A narrow bed stood by a window be tween a row of dripping syrup-barrels and the greasy wall. "Thars whar I sleep," said Jim, pointing to the bed. "It haint been made up in a coons age. Sometimes old Injun Mary changes the sheets an turns the mattress when she happens along, but it haint often. At home I used to sleep in a big sweet-smellin bed that was like lyin down in a pile o roses."
"Id think youd git tired o this; I would, by hooky!" declared Bob. "Whardo you git yore grub?"
"Fust one place an* then another; I dont bother much about my eatin. I have to light out o bed to wait on the fust one that rattles the doorknob in the mornin, an am so busy from then on that I caynt find a minute to git a bite o breakfast. See my kettle thar? I

dFtltal

87

can make as good a cup o coffee as the next one. Half a cup o ground Javy in my coffee pot, with bilin water poured on, an then put on the stove to bile agin, does the business. Thars my skillet; a cowboy give it to me. Sometimes I fry a slice o streak-o-leanstreak-o-fat, ur a few cracked eggs, but it haint half livin."
They walked back and sat down in the store again. Bob had a strange, perplexed look on his face. Webb was about to make some reference to his offer, when Bob forestalled him in a rather excited tone.
"Jim, did yore mother live nigh Ellijay?" "Bout three miles from town. What in the thunder is the matter? What are yon starin at me that way fer?" Bob looked down and moved uneasily on the barrel. "I was jest a-wonderin my Lord, Jim! thar was a feller shot the day I passed through Ellijay. I caynt be shore, but it seems to me his name was Joe Bradley. He was a troublesome, rowdyish sort of a fel ler, an* a man had to shoot im in self-de fense. " Jim stared at the speaker helplessly, and then glanced around at Webb and Thornton. His great brown eyes began to dilate, and a

88

Qfreorgta

sickly pallor came into his face. His breath ing fell distinct and harsh on the profound stillness of the room. His mouth dropped open, but he was unable to utter a word.
"He may not a been yore brother," added Bob, quickly, and with sympathy. "Im not plumb shore o the name, nuther. I was helpin a man drive a drove of Kentucky hosses through to Gainesville, an* we got thar jest atter the shootin. I heerd the shots mysef. The coroner held a inquest, an the dead mans mother was thar. She looked pitiful; she was mighty gray an old an bent over. I was standin in the edge o the crowd when some neighbor fetch er up in his wagon, an we all made room for er. She had the pity of every blessed man thar. She jest stood mongst the rest, lookin down at the corpse fer some time thout sayin a word to anybody, nur sheddin a tear. Then she seemed to come to ersef, an said, jest as ef nothin oncommon had occurred: Well, gentlemen, why dont you move im under a shelter? an with that she squatted down at his head, an breshed the hair offn his forehead mighty gentle-like. We are a-holdin uv a inquest, accordin to law, a big feller said who was the coroner of the town. Law ur no law,

Jfilial
she said, lookin up at im, her eyes flashin like a tiger-cats, he shant lie here in the brilin sun with no roof over im. Thar wasnt no law to keep im from bein murdered right in yore midst. An she had her way, you kin bet on that. The men jest lifted im up an toted im into the nighest store an* put im on a cot. The coroner objected, but them men jest cussed im to his face an pushed him away as ef he was so much trash."
"Did you take notice o the body?" gasped Bradley, finding voice finally. "What kind of a lookin man was he?"
"Ef I remember right, he had sorter reddish hair an blue eyes, an was bout yore build. He was a good-lookin man."
"It was brother Joe," said Bradley. He was trembling from head to foot and was deathly pale. "Well, go on," he said, making a mighty effort to appear calm; "what about mother?"
"I dont know anything more," said Bob. "I left that same day. I heerd some talk about her bein left destitute, an ef I aint mistaken, some said her other son had gone off West an died out thar, as nobody had heerd from him. Thats what made me "
But Bradley interrupted him, He rose, with

9
a dazed look on his face, and went to his desk, a few feet away. He sat on the high stool and leaned his shaggy head on a pile of ac count-books. An inkstand rolled down to the floor, and a penholder rattled after it, but he did not pick them up. Then everything was still. Thornton reached over and took Webbs cigar to light his own, instead of strik ing the match he had taken from his pocket. The two men exchanged significant glances, and then looked curiously, almost breathlessly, at the mute figure bowed over the desk. Bradley raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, and a tangled wisp of his long hair lay across his haggard face.
"How long ago was it, Bob?" he asked, in a deep, husky voice.
"Two year last May." "My Lord! she may be dead an gone by this time, an I kin never make up fer my neglect!" He left the desk and came back slowly. "Kin you git that money to-night?" he asked, looking down at Webb. "Yes; by walkin up home." Webb tried to subdue the eager light in his eyes, which threatened to betray his intense satisfaction at the sudden change of affairs. "Well, go git it. Ill pack my satchel while

jFHfal Impute*
yo re gone. Im goin to leave you fellers fer good, I reckon. I want to git back home. I wish you luck with the business, Webb. Its a good investment; we mought never have traded ef this hadnt a come up.
Jim Bradley was worn out with the fatigue of his long journey when he alighted from the train in the little town that he had once known so well. The place had changed so much that he hardly knew which way to turn. He went into a store. The merchant was at his desk behind a railing in the rear, and a boy sat in the middle of the floor filling a patent egg-case with fresh eggs. "Come in," he said, without looking up, and went on with his work. Jim put his oilcloth valise on the floor and sat down in a chair.
"Somen* I kin do fer you to-day?" asked the boy, rising, and putting the lid on the eggcase.
"No, I blieve not to-day, bub," replied Bradley. "Ive jest got offn the train an* stopped in to ax a few questions. The used to be a woman livin on the Starks place ten year ago a widder woman, Mis Jason Brad ley; kin you tell me whar Id be likely to find er now 5 "

(Keorgfa
"I dont know no sech er person," said the boy; "mebby Mr. Summers kin tell."
"You mean Joe Bradleys mother," said the storekeeper, approaching "the feller that was shot over at Hollands bar?"
"Shes the one," said Jim, breathlessly; "is she still alive?"
"I haint heerd nothin to the contrary, but I dont know jest whar she is now. She was powerful hard up last winter, an somebody tuk er to live with em seems to me it was one o the Sanders boys."
A woman entered the door and set her bas ket on the counter.
"Mis Wade11 be able to tell you," contin ued the merchant, turning to her; "she lives over in that direction."
"Whats that, Mr. Summers?" she asked, carefully untying the cloth that covered some yellow rolls of butter.
"This gentleman was askin about the widow Bradley, Joes mother; do you know whar she is?"
"Shes livin with Alf Sanders," replied the woman; "I seed er thar soap-bilin as I driv by last Tuesday was a week. Are you any kin o hern?" and she eyed Bradley curiously from head to foot.

iltal Impulse

93

He made no reply to her question, though a warm color had suddenly come into his face at the words she had spoken. He took up his valise and looked out at the setting sun.
"How fer is it outthar?" he asked, a tremor in his voice. "I want to see er to-night."
"Three mile, I reckon," the woman said. "Keep to the big road tel you cross the creek, an then turn off to the right. You caynt miss it."
He thanked her, and trudged on past the other stores and the little white church on the hill, and on into the road that led toward the mountain. Just before entering the woods, he turned and looked back at the village.
"O Lord, Im glad I aint too late entirely," he said; and he took a soiled red handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. "I dont know what I would a done ef theyd a said she was gone. But Ill never see Joe agin, an that seems quar. Poor boy! me an him used to be mighty thick when we was little bits o fellers. I kin remember when hed a fit a wildcat to help me, an I got mad at him fer drinkin when he wasnt able to hep hissef. Id hold my peace ef it was to do over agin."

94

(Georgia

Sanders house was a low, four-roomed log cabin which sat back under some large beechtrees about a hundred yards from the road. Sanders himself sat smoking in the front yard, surrounded by four or five half-clad children and several gaunt hunting-dogs. He was a thin, wiry man, with long brown hair and beard, and dark, suspicious eyes set close together. He did not move or show much concern as Jim Bradley, just at dusk, came wearily up the narrow path from the bars to the door.
"Down, Ski! Down, Brutus!" he called out savagely to his barking dogs, and he silenced their uproar by hurling an ax-helve among them.
"This is whar Alf Sanders lives, I reckon," said Bradley.
"Im the feller," replied Sanders. "Take a cheer; thars one handy," and he indicated it with a lazy wave of his pipe.
Jim sat down mutely. Through the open door in one of the rooms he could see the form of a woman moving about in the firelight. He fell to trembling, and forgot that he was under the curious inspection of Sanders and his children. A moment later, however, when the fire blazed up more brightly, he saw that

95
it was not his mother whom he had seen, but a younger woman.
44 Yo re a stranger about here?" interro gated Sanders, catching his eye.
"Haint been in this country fer ten year," was the laconic reply. "My names Bradley Jim Bradley; Ive come back to see my mother."
"My stars! We all lowed you was dead an buried long go!" and Sanders dropped his pipe in sheer astonishment. "Well, ef that dont take the rag offn the bush! Mary! Oh, Mary!"
"What ails you, Alf?" asked a slatternly woman, emerging from the firelight.
4 Come out here a minute. This is the old womans son Jim, back from the West."
44 Yo re a-jokin," she ejaculated, as she came slowly in open-eyed wonder toward the visitor. "Why, whod a thought "
"Whar is she?" interrupted Bradley, uncere moniously. "Ive come a long ways to see er."
Shes out thar at the cow-lot a-milkin. She tuk er bucket an the feed fer Brindle jest now."
His eyes followed hers. Beyond a row of alder-bushes and a little patch of corn he saw

96

&ftetcfje0

the dim outlines of a log stable and lean-to shed surrounded by a snake fence. Away out toward the red-skied west lay green fields and meadows under a canopy of blue smoke, and beyond their limits rose the frowning moun tains, upon the sides of which long, sinuous fires were burning.
"I reckon I ort not to run upon her too sudden," he said, awkwardly, "bein" as she aint expectin me, an haint no idee Im alive. Is she well?"
"Tolerble," replied Mrs. Sanders, hesitat ingly. "Shes been complainin some o head aches lately, an her appetite aint overly good, but shes up an about, an will be pow erful glad to see you. She talks about you a good deal of late. Jest atter yore brother Joes death she had im on her mind purty constant, but now she alays has somen to say about Jim thats yore name, I believe?"
He nodded silently, not taking his eyes from the cow-lot. His valise rolled from his knees down on to the grass, and one of the children restored it to him.
"Yes, that is a fact," put in Sanders. "She was talkin last Sunday about her two boys. She alays calls you the steady one. You ort to be sorter cautious. Old folks like her some-

Hi&l $mpul0*

97

times caynt stand good news any bettern bad."
"Ill be keerful." His voice sounded husky and deep. "Does she " he went on hesitat ingly "does she work fer you around the place?"
Sanders crossed his legs and cleared his throat. "That was the understandin when we agreed to take er," he said, rather conse quentially. "She was to make ersef handy whenever she was able. My wife has had a risin on er arm an couldnt cook, an weve had five ur six field hands here to ther meals. The old critter was willin to do any thing to git a place to stay. The wasnt anywhar else fer er to go. Shes too old to do much, but shes willin to put er hands to anything. We caynt complain. She gits peevish now an then, though, an er eyesight an memorys a-failin, so that she makes mis takes in the cookin. Tother day she salted the dough twice an clean furgot to put in sody."
"Shes gittin into er second childhood," added Mrs. Sanders, "an she aint got our ways in church notions, nuther. Shes a Bap tist, you know, an blieves in emersion of the entire body an in close communion an sech-

98 Jiottfjern
like, while the last one of us, down to little Sally thar, is Methodists. She goes whar we do to meetin case her church is too fer off an* we use the hosses Sundays."
Bradleys face was hidden by the dusk and the brim of his slouch hat, and they failed to notice the hot flush that rose into his cheeks. He got up suddenly and put his valise on a chair. "I reckon I mought as well walk out to whar she is," he said. "She wont be apt to know me. Ive turned out a beard an* got gray sence she seed me."
"Ill golong with you." But Mrs. San ders touched her husband on the arm as he was rising. "It ud look more decent ef youd leave em to therselves, Alf," she whis pered. He sat down without a word, and Bradley walked away in the dusk to meet his mother. There was a blur before the strong mans eyes, and a strange weakness came over him as he leaned against the cow-lot fence and tried to think how he would make himself known to her. Beneath the low shed, a part of the crude stable, he saw the figure of a woman crouched down under a cow. "So, so, Brin!" she was saying softly. "Caynt you stan still a minute? That aint no way to do. So, so!"

His heart sank. It was her voice, but it was shrill and quivering, and he recognized it only as one does a familiar face under a mask of age. Just then, with a sudden exclamation, she sprang up quickly and placed her pail on the ground out of the cows reach. He com prehended the situation at a glance. The calf had got through the bars and was sucking its mother.
"Lord, whatll I do?" cried the old woman, in dismay; and catching the calf around the neck, she exerted all her strength to separate it from the cow.
Bradley sprang over the fence and ran to her assistance.
"Le* me git a hold o the little scamp," he said, and the next instant he had the sleek little animal up in his strong arms. "Whar do you want im put?" he asked, drily, turn ing to her.
"Outside the lot," she gasped, so astonished that she could hardly utter a word.
He carried his struggling burden to the fence and dropped it over, and fastened up the bars to keep it out.
"Well, ef that dont beat all!" she laughed, in great relief, when he turned back to her. "I am very much obleeged. I lowed at fust

ioo Jlottfjetn (Georgia
you was one o the field hands." He looked into her wrinkled face closely, but saw no sign of recognition there. She put the corner of her little breakfast-shawl to her poor wrinkled mouth and broke out into a low, childlike laugh. "I caynt help from being amused at the way you tuk up that calf; I dont know" (and the smile left her face) "what Id a done ef you hadnt a come along. I never could a turned it out, an Alfs wife never kin be pacified when sech a thing happens. We dont git enough milk, anyway."
"Le 1 me finish milkin," he said, keeping his face half averted.
She laughed again. "Yo* re a-jokin now; I never seed a man milk a cow."
"I never did nuther tel I went out West," he replied. "The Yankees out thar showed me how. Im a old bach, an used to keep a cow o my own, an thar wasnt nobody but me to tend er. "
She stood by his side and laughed like a child amused with a new toy when he took her place at the cow, and with the pail between his knees and using both hands, began to milk rapidly.
"I never seed the like," he heard her mut-

dffital Impulse

101

tering over and over to herself. Then he rose and showed her the pail nearly filled. "I reckon that calf Vd have a surprise-party ef he was to try on his suckin business now," he said. "It serves im right fer bein so rampacious."
"Law me! I never could git that much," she said, and she held out her hand for the pail, but he swung it down at his side. "Ill tote it," he said; "Im a-goin back to the house. I reckon Ill put up thar fer the night that is, ef theyll take me in."
"Ive jest been lookin at you an wonderin," she said, reflectively, after they had passed through the bars. "My hearin an eyesight is bad, an so is my memory of faces, but it seems like Ive seed somebody somers that favors you mightily."
He walked on silently. Only the little corn-patch was between them and the group in the yard. He could hear Sanderss drawling voice, and caught a gleam of the kitchen fire through the alder-bushes.
"You better le me take the bucket," she said, stopping abruptly and showing some em barrassment. "Yo re mighty gentlemanly; but Alfs wife alays gits mad when I make at all free with company. The whole family

102 jgtortfjern ^
pokes fun at me, an lows I am childish, an" too fond o talkin. They expect me jest to keep my mouth shet an never have a word to say. It caynt be helped, I reckon, but its a awful way fer a old body to live."
"Thats a fact!" he blurted out, impul sively, still holding to the pail, on which she had put her hand. "Its the last place on earth fer you."
"I haint had one single day o enjoyment sence I came here," she continued, encour aged to talk by his manifest sympathy. "I reckon I ort to be thankful, an* beggars mustnt be choosers, as the feller said; fer no other family in the county would take me in. But it haint no place fer a old woman that likes peace an rest at my time o life. I work hard all day, an at night I need sound sleep; but they put the children in my bed, an they keep up a kickin an a squirmin all night. Then, the aint no other old women round here, an I git mighty lonesome. Sometimes I come as nigh as pease givin up entirely."
"Thank the Lord, you wont have to stand it any longer!" he exclaimed, hotly.
She started from him in astonishment, and began to study his features. At that juncture two pf Slanderss little girls drew near inquisi-

Impute*

103

tively. "Here!" and he held the pail out to them. "Take this milk to yore mammy." One of them, half frightened, took the pail, and both scampered back to the house.
"Yo 1 re a curis sort of a man," she said, with a serious kind of chuckle, as she drew her shawl up over her white head. "I wouldnt a done that fer a dollar. You skeered Sally outn a years growth. I used to have a boy, that went away West ten year ago, who used to fly up like you do, an you sorter put me in mind of him, you do. He was the best one I had. I could allus count on him fer help. He was as steady-goin as a clock. He never was heerd from, an the gen eral belief is that he died out thar."
There was a moments pause. He seemed trying to think of some way to reveal his iden tity. "You ortnt to pay attention to every thing you hear," he ventured, awkwardly. "Who knows? Mebby hes still alive sech things aint so almighty oncommon. Seems like Ive heerd tell o a feller named Bradley out thar."
"I reckon it wasnt Jim," she sighed. "It was my daily prayer fer a long time that he mought come back, but thar aint no sech luck fer me. Ive done give up. I am a destitute,

104 iHortfjmt eorgfa
lonely woman, an I caynt stan all this com motion an wrangle much longer. Ef I had him to work fer now, I wouldnt keer; Id wear my fingers to the bone ; but fer people that aint no speck o kin an haint no appre ciation fer what a body does its different."
The corners of her mouth were drawn down, and she put her thin hand up to her eyes,
"I dont blieve youd know im ef you was to see im," he said, laughing artificially and taking her hand in his.
She started. A shiver ran through her frame, and her fingers clutched his convul sively. "What do you mean?" she gasped. "Oh, my Lord, what does the man mean?"
"The* aint much doubt in my mind that hes alive an* ort to have a thousand lashes on his bare back fer neglectin* his old mammy," he said, trying to hide the tremor in his voice.
A startled light of recognition dawned in her eyes and illumined her whole visage. She stared at him with dilating eyes for an instant, and then fell into his arms, "Oh, Jim, I de clare I caynt stan it! It will kill me! It will kill me!" she cried, putting her arms about his neck and drawing his head down to her.
"Im as glad as you are, mother," he replied,

^Filial Impulse

I0 5

tenderly stroking her white hair with his rough hand; "no feller livin ever wanted to see his mammy wuss."
Then there seemed nothing further for either of them to say, and so he led her on to the house and to the chair he had left a few moments before.
"Ive let the cat outn the bag," he said, shamefacedly, answering their glances of inquiry. "I had to mighty nigh tell her pointblank who I was."
"I never lowed Id see Mm agin," Mrs. Bradley faltered, in a low, tearful tone. "I am that thankful my heavenly Father let me live to this day. Id suffer it all over an over agin fer th*is joy."
Sanders was silent, and his wife; and the children, barelegged and dirty-faced, sat on the grass and mutely watched the bearded stranger and his mother in childish wonder. Bradley said nothing, but he moved his chair nearer to his mothers and put his strong arm around her. Sanders broke the silence.
"What have you been follerin, Bradley?" he asked.
"Sellin goods." "Clerkin fer somebody?" "No; had a stablishment o f my own."

106 jaortfjern (SUorgia
"You dont say!" and Sanders looked at Bradleys seedy attire and then at his wife sig nificantly.
"Yes; I made some money out thar. The night fore I left, a feller offered me ten thou sand dollars in cash fer my stock o goods, an I tuk im up. I didnt wait to put on my Sunday clothes; these is the things I worked in, handlin dirty groceries. I haint the perticlar sort. Ive got some bonds an rale estate that kin remain jest as well whar they are at present. Ive come back here to stay with mother. I couldnt stand it to be alone much longer, an I wouldnt ax er to move to a new country at er age."
Sanders and his wife stared at him in aston ishment. Mrs. Bradley leaned forward and looked intently into his face. She was very pale and quivered with new excitement, but she said nothing.
"My Lord, youve had luck!" exclaimed Sanders, thinking of something to say finally. "What on earth are you gwine to invest in here, ef it haint no harm to ax?"
"I lowed Id buy a big plantation. They are a-goin cheap these times, I reckon. I want a place whar a livin will come easy, an whar I kin make mother comfortable. Shes

dFtltal Impute*

107

too old to have to lay er hand to a thing, ur be bothered in the least. I want to be nigh some meetin-house of her persuasion, an whar she kin sociate with other women o her age. I dont expect to atone fer my neglect, but I intend to try my hand at it fer a change."
Mrs. Bradley lowered her head to her sons knee, and began to sob softly. Then Mrs. Sanders got up quickly. "I smell my bread a-burnin," she said. "Ill call y all in to supper directly. We haint pretendin folks, Mr. Bradley, but yo re welcome to what we got. You neednt rise, Mrs. Bradley; I kin fix the table."

THE SALE OF UNCLE RASTUS

THE SALE OF UNCLE RASTUS
AuntMillys cabin was brightly illuminated. Crude tallow dips in the necks of cracked jugs and bottles spangled a dark clothless table, a slanting heap of blazing logs filled the wide rock-and-mud chimney, and a bonfire of pine knots at the "wash-place" near the door out side threw a red light far down the road which led past a row of cabins to the residence of Aunt Millys owner, Mr. Herbert Putnam.
The seasons crop of corn had been hauled up from the fields to the cribs. Frost had come; persimmons were ripe, and Aunt Milly was going to give the first opossum supper of the fall. Her two boys, Len and Caesar, had caught two fat opossums the night before, and she had dressed the game and left it in a couple of pans out on the roof "ter let de fros bite de wil taste outn it en tender it up fo bilin en bakin." She had given this ex planation to her husband, Uncle Rastus, who had been irritated by her rising two or three

times in the night "ter see ef dem cats wuznt atter clat meat."
Uncle Rastus was sick; he had taken a severe cold, which had settled on his lungs and given him a cough. Hearing the negroes singing as they came through the fields from the neighboring plantations, he left his bed in the lean-to shed and hobbled slowly into the glare of candlelight. He sniffed the aroma of coffee and baked meat and intently surveyed the preparations his wife had made.
"I heer um dat Nelses tenor en Mon tagues bass; dey all comin. I never heer sech er racket!" As he spoke he put a quilt down on the floor in the chimney-corner and lay down and pushed out his long bare feet to the fire.
"I reckon I got my heerin," she replied, eying him reprovingly. "Look a-heer, Ras tus, who seh you might git up? You know you gwine hat er wuss achin dan ever in yo ches ef you lie dar over dem cracks des atter you got outn dat warm bed."
"Lemme "lone," he said, in an offhand tone; "you reckon I aint gwine be at yo possum supper, en mebby it de las night on dis yer plantation huh?"
His words evoked no reply, for the guests

of gnclc itotus
were now near the door, and she had advanced to meet them. Nelse and Montague, two tall, lank negroes, slouched in and dropped their hats on the floor. They were followed by Aunt Winnie and her husband and a crowd of negroes of all ages and sizes. As the guests filed in at the door and huddled round the fire and Rastuss perpendicular feet, each put a silver quarter into a bowl on the end of the table.
"I dont grudge you mine, Aunt Milly, " said Aunt Winnie, feelingly. "My goodness, you is hat ernough trouble, wid yo marster bein so po en Unc Rastus so sickly en yall gwine be put up on de auction-block ter-morrer en no idee whar you gwine nex. How much y reckin you gwine ter fetch, Aunt Milly?"
For reply Aunt Milly simply shrugged her fat shoulders as she went round among her guests and took their bonnets and shawls, which she piled promiscuously on a chest in the corner.
"Shes wuff all shell bring, I boun yer," said Nelse, who was standing almost astride of Rastuss head. "As for me, Aunt Milly, Id er sight ruther be put up on de auctionblock at de court-house dan ter be sol in er slave-mart. Dey hat me on sale in New

Orleans fur two weeks hanrunnin, settin bolt up in er long room wid er passel er niggers dey call Cre-owls, en people constant er-lookin at me en axin my price. Dey feed you on de fat er de lan en keep you dressed up, but you never know is yer gwine ter be er ditch-digger ur somebody s cage-driver. On de block it soon over en you know whar you gwine, en ef er nigger is sharp he kin manage er lil en git on de good side er some white man he likes."
"Marse Geoge Putnamll buy yall, you know he will," remarked Aunt Winnie to Rastus, who had sat up on his quilt and been listening eagerly to Nelse. "Hell be ony too glad er de chance ter spite Marse Herbert en rake in some mo uv his paws old slaves. He already bought up all de lan cep de lil patch Marse Herberts house stan on, en now de house en dis yer fambly er niggers is all dat is lef fer im ter want. My white folks seh ten yeer ergo dat Marse Geoge never will res satisfied till his po brother is flat on his back destitute. Seem lak he in his glory when he hear dat suppen o Marse Herberts is up fer sale, so he kin buy it in. I haint never seed two sech brothers; dey haint change one word in ten yeer; en all kase ole Marse Put-

&ale of glncle Mastug 115
nam lef Marse Herbert de ol* home place en want im ter hoi on ter it."
Uncle Rastus looked up suddenly. His face was full of angles, and his dark eyes flashed in the firelight. "I hope he wont buy me," he grunted; "ef I caynt stay wid Marse Herbert, de younges en poes er ol marsters chillun, I want ter go clean off mongst strangers. Dis me er-talkin !"
The pathos of this remark struck most of the listeners; but Montague, who, for reasons of his own, disliked old Rastus, was unmoved by it. "You neednt trouble bout vrharyou gwine, " he said, with contemptuous emphasis on the "you," and he pushed a little black girl to one side that he might watch the effect of his words on Rastus. "De wont be any big scramblin atter you; who want ter buy er nigger des ter git ter bury im dese hard times?"
"Be ershamed, Montague," remonstrated Aunt Winnie; "be ershamed er yosef !"
"He aint got no raisin !" blurted out Aunt Milly. "Unc* Rastus aint gwine ter listen ter dat black fool."
"I des know what white folks seh, dats all," insinuated Montague, sullenly. "Marse Herbert come over ter see my marster ter-day,

jaottfjecn dReotflfa
en I heerd um talkin in de stable-yard. Marse Herbert low hed been countin on payin off his pressin debt wid whut dis fambly er niggers would fetch, en d laid his plans ter hoi on ter his house en go Wes en mek money ter pay de infrust en lif de mortgage, but des den Unc* Rastus, de mos valuables one, tuk sick, en now Aunt Milly an de chillun wont fetch ernough ter do much good."
This announcement produced an impression. Aunt Milly was plainly too much astonished even to protest against the brutality of the revelation. Rastus took a fresh hold on his thin knees with his arms, coughed deeply and painfully, and looked Montague straight in the eyes.
"Is you tellin de trufe?" he asked. "/* you?"
"I haint no reason to tell you er lie, Unc Rastus."
From that moment Montague had the con tempt of the whole room. Aunt Milly was evidently recompensed by this, for she simply looked into the sympathetic faces around her and made no sound. Rastus lay back on his quilt silently, and languidly thrust his feet back to the fire.
Aunt Millys voice sounded cold and equiv-

of Pintle 3&a0tu0 117
ocal in her effort to smother her emotions when she said, "Well, come on, yall, an git yo possum an biscuit fo dey git co." The last words of her invitation were drowned in the scrambling and shuffling of feet as the crowd surged toward the table. A whole opossum embedded in a great heap of fried sweet potatoes was placed by Len and Caesar on each end of the long table, and Aunt Milly followed them with a great bucket of coffee and pans of smoking biscuits.
They were all seated and had begun the feast, when, to their astonishment, Rastus rose and staggered to a vacant place at the end of the table.
"Whar my possum, Aunt Milly?" he de manded, with pretended pique. "On my soul, I blieve you tryin ter lef me out."
"Go back teryo bed, Rastus," she scolded, gently. "What kin got in you? you aint eat nothin in er mont cep er lil soup en gravy, en now you want ter founder yosef on pos sum meat."
He shoved his plate impatiently toward her. "Gimme some er dem taters en dat possum. You heer me?"
"You too sick, Rastus," protested Aunt Milly, with maternal persuasiveness. "Go

jaortfwn itocflfa
lie down, en Ill fix you some er yo good soup."
"I know I wuz sick," he replied; "but I want ter tell yall, I aint now; Im cuored well en soun." As he spoke these words, accom panied by a heroic attempt to hold himself erect in his chair, Aunt Milly recalled the strange look of desperate determination that had possessed his face when Montague had finished speaking, and she kept silent. Both sides of the long table were curiously looking at the invalid. "Im er lil weak yit, but I aint sick," he went on, bracing himself with a thin hand on each side of the table. "You know dat conjure doctor on de river plantation? Well, he come by here dis mawnin* fo day, he did des ez I wuz gittin up ter git er arm ful er firewood, en "
"Why, you know dat aint so, Unc* Rastus, " broke in Aunt Milly, "kase I got up fus dis mawnin, en you wuz soun ersleep. "
" Twuz long fo you got up, Aunt Milly," added the old man, glibly, as he warmed up to his fiction. "Well, dat conjure doctor rode by de do on er white hoss, he did, en seh to me, Rastus, you sick, en you mus git well fo yo marster puts you up for sale, so you kin bring what you is wuff ter hep him outn

of 3%ncl?

119

his scrape. En he up en ax me has I my rab bit-foot erbout me, en I tuk it outn my weskit pocket, en he seh, Well, put it in de hot ashes in de back er de chimbly tell you hear er dog bark, en den tek it out en wash it clean in spring-water, en den keep it by you night en day, en when I done ez he tol me I got well.
A chorus of wondering ejaculations rose from the superstitious listeners, and for a mo ment opossum meat and potatoes were for gotten. Aunt Milly looked at her husband tenderly. "Dat nigger would die fer Marse Herbert," she thought. "He dat sick now he caynt hoi his haid up; de sight er dat possum meat is gaggin im, but hell kill me ef I let on."
"I dont want yo* ol possum meat," said Rastus, rising and moving back to the fire. "Im gwine ter lie down an git rested up fer ter-morrer. Ef deyll let me, Ill dance er breakdown on dat auction-block en turn one er my han-springs. "
"He certny is cuored," said Aunt Winnie, gladly. "Dese conjure doctors beat de ol sort all ter pieces."
The supper over, Aunt Milly slowly counted out her earnings and put them away; the table was moved back against the wall; Nelse got

120

Georgia

out his bones and began to play, and Len and Caesar danced jigs till they sank to the floor in exhaustion. After this, plantation songs were sung, ghost-stories were told, and it was late when they went back to their homes.
The following day was a fine one. The air was bracing, and the sun shone brightly. The autumnal foliage had never appeared more beautiful; every color in nature seemed lav ished on the hills near by, and the mountains, twenty miles away, blue as the skies in spring and summer, had faded into a beauti ful pink.
The court-house and auction-block were in a village two miles from the plantations of the two Putnam brothers. Uncle Rastus and his family were sent over in the wagon of Herbert Putnams overseer, and Lawyer Sill came by in his buggy and drove Herbert to the sale.
"I thought I would stay away and let you attend to it for me," said Herbert Putnam; "but my daughter thinks I ought to go. Brother George will be there to bid them in. He wouldnt miss the opportunity to humili ate me again for anything."
"You ought to be on hand," replied Sill, as the other got into the buggy. "Your negroes worship you, and would feel hurt if you were

Sbale of Q&ntle JSagtug 121
not present. Your brother has acted very badly, and has made himself unpopular by it."
"It was my fathers wish that I hold the home place, but George never could forgive me for it. If he had advanced money to me, as he has to total strangers, I should have paid out all right. He has a better head for business than I have."
A hundred wagons, buggies, and carriages were scattered over the court-house common, the hitching-racks were hidden by mules and horses, and a considerable crowd of people, white and black, were clustered around the auction-block to the right of the court-house door, near the massive log jail. In the edge of the crowd an old darky was selling "groundpeas, " and his white-headed wife was thread ing her way through the crowd, retailing hot gingerbread from a basket and fresh cider from a capacious jug with a corncob stopper. In some of the carriages elegantly dressed ladies sat; young men, the gallants among the gentry of the county, with broad hats, and trousers in their bootlegs, conversed with them from the backs of restive mettlesome horses.
Colonel George Putnam sat in his carriage

Georgia
with his wife and son, but when his brother drove up with Lawyer Sill, he alighted and approached his own lawyer, who was talking with a group of planters.
"Burton," said he, in a low tone, "remem ber, you are to bid for me; I dont want to be conspicuous, but I will have those negroes. I dont want any of my fathers estate to go into the hands of strangers."
"All right," replied Burton; "we wont have much trouble. Old man Staley has thrown out some intimation that he intends to do some bidding, but hes afraid of his shadow, and when he sees you are in the fight hell draw in his horns."
"I dont think so. Staley is no friend of mine, and will try to run the price up on me out of spite. I looked over them a while ago as they came up," the colonel went on, glan cing at the wagon in which Uncle Rastus and his wife and sons were seated. "They all seem in pretty fair condition except Rastus. He says he has had a little spell of fever, but that he is all right now."
"He is thin, but as sound as a dollar," said Burton, lightly. "He jumped out of the wagon just now as nimbly as a kitten and un hitched the mules in a hurry. I told him I

of gilnclE iftastug 123
heard he had been sick, and he laughed and said he could do more work than ten ordinary darkies."
"Well, keep your eye on Staley. My brother has wasted everything my father left him, and I owe it to our name to retain as many of our old slaves as I can. You told me you would find out the amount of the mortgage on the old place."
"McPherson lent him five thousand on it." "And he expects to make that out West and keep the interest paid! Hell never do it in the world." Burton glanced across the crowd at the seedy-looking man with the pale face and iron-gray hair, and his reply was tinged with feeling: "Youre purty hard on im, colonel; its none o my business, but hes a powerful good fellow. Seems to me, as he was the only brother you have, you might have helped him a little." The planters eye fell, and an angry flush came into his dark face. "You dont know anything about it, Burton," said he, quickly. "I acknowledge we had some words about the will, but he set afloat the rumors about my treatment of him when I was a candidate for

124

(Sfeotflia

the legislature, and it was through him that I was beaten."
Burton wished to change the subject. "I see the auctioneer and the negroes going to the block," he said. "Look at old Rastus; he prances around like a two-year-old colt. I ^reckon you can fatten him up; a little sick ness does em good sometimes."
The crowd drew closer round the platform upon which the red-faced auctioneer had sprung and was placing chairs for Rastus and his family. All of them except Rastus him self seemed awed by the solemnity of the occa sion. "Who gwine buy me?" he laughed, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "I been er lil sick, but Im pickin up now, en kin hoi my own wid any nigger in dis county. Who want me? Speak up quick."
"Dry up, " laughed the auctioneer, and he playfully jerked off the old mans hat and laid it in the latters lap. "Dont you know ernough not to come fo company with yore hat on? Whos goin to sell this batch of niggers, you or me? Ef you are, Ill git down and bid on you. I want somebody to look after my thoroughbreds."
This sally evoked a wave of laughter from the crowd, and Rastus joined in with as much

&ale of Sitnctg tEUstug 125
enjoyment as if he had caused it. Herbert Putnam drew Sill aside.
"Rastus is shamming," he whispered; "he is as sick as he can be right now. Hes doing it in order to bring a better price, to help me out. Dr. Wilson said the other day that he might live to be an old man, but that hed never be able to work any more.
"Good gracious!" ejaculated Sill; "who ever heard the like? Hes a hero."
Herbert Putnams eyes glistened and his voice was unsteady as he spoke. "Id give my right arm rather than part with him. If I were able, he and his should be free to-day."
The auctioneer began to gesticulate and shout: "Six hundred has been bid on Rastus, by Mr. Burton over thar, to start the game. Only six hundred for one of the best buck negroes in the county. Seven hundred! Thats right, Mr. Staley; hes the very man you want. Seven hundred; eight do I hear it? Thank you; Mr. Burton dont intend to take a back seat. All right; nine hundred! Nine-fifty do I hear it, Mr. Burton? Ninefifty it is. Mr. Staley has got a thousand ready for him; a thousand has been bid; any body else in the fight? Old Rastus is thin, but he could throw a bull a rod by the tail.

jaortjjecn OErgorgta
One thousand only on a two-thousand-dollar negro. Do I hear more?"
George Putnams face darkened angrily as he watched the excited features of old man Staley. He drew Burtons ear down to his lips: "Bid twelve hundred, and knock him out and be done with it," he whispered; "it will scare him to death."
"Twelve hundred," said Burton, without a change of countenance, and silence fell on the chattering, speculating crowd; even the voluble auctioneer showed surprise by not at once echoing the bid. Old Rastus took ad vantage of the pause; he sprang up and clapped his hands and knocked his heels to gether. "I aint no thousand-dollar nigger," he cried. "I blongs ter Marse Herbert Putnam, I does; de aint no cheap nigger on dis yer block."
"Twelve hundred dollars!" repeated the auctioneer, impressively, and there was some thing vaguely respectful in the way he pushed Rastus back into his chair. "Twelve hun dred! Mr. Staley, dont back out; you need Mm wuss than anybody else. Is it twelvetwenty-five?"
Staley hesitated; his eyes fell before the concentrated stare of the silent crowd, and

JSale of

iUgtus 127

then he nodded. A murmur passed through the assembly, and Colonel Putnam grew white with anger. "Some one has put him up to this," he said in a low tone to his agent. "Make it thirteen hundred. And the next instant the auctioneer was flaunting the bid in the face of old Staley.
Herbert Putnam, unnoticed by any one, elbowed his way through the crowd to his brother and touched him on the arm. Their eyes met. "Pardon me," said Herbert, "but I must speak to you."
And George Putnam was drawn beyond the outskirts of the crowd. "I cannot keep quiet and see you cheated," faltered Herbert, with his eyes averted. "A long time ago, when you and I were boys, you stood up for me, and I cannot forget that we are brothers. Dont bid any more on Rastus; he is sham ming; he is as sick as he can be, and is only pretending to be well to bring a high price."
The two men gazed into each others eyes. George Putnam was quivering all over, and his face was softening. Impulsively he put out his hand, as if to apologize for his lack of words. "Lets not be enemies any longer," went on Herbert, as he pressed the extended

hand. "I am sick and tired of this estrange ment. I am going away, and I may never come back. I cant keep up the old place as father thought I would, and you are welcome to it. Take it and care for it; mothers and fathers graves are on it."
George Putnams face was working; he strove to reply, but his voice clogged. He looked toward his son and wife in his car riage, and then back into his brothers face. "God forgive me, Herb," he said; "Ive treated you like a dog. Old Rastus has been truer to you than your own brother. You shall not give up the old place; you must keep it. Wait!" And with those words he hurried to the platform.
The auctioneer had been proclaiming Staleys reckless bid of thirteen-twenty-five, and the crowd was eagerly taking in the unusual sight of the two Putnam brothers in close con versation. Colonel Putnam reached the plat form and signed the auctioneer to be quiet. Standing on the lower step, he was in the view of all.
"I want Rastus, and I am going to have him," he said to the upturned faces. "I want him to give him back to my brother, who has been forced by my neglect to offer him for

of

129

sale. Twenty thousand dollars is my bid and Rastus is worth every cent of it."
No one spoke as Colonel Putnam stepped back into the crowd. Old Rastus seemed the only one to thoroughly grasp the situation. "Bress de Lawd!" he exclaimed, and he slapped Aunt Milly on the back. "Dem boys done made up, en I fotch twenty thousand dollars! Whooee!"
"Twenty thousand dollars," said the auc tioneer, awkwardly. "Twenty thousand do I hear and sold to Colonel Putnam. I reckon the aint no use puttin up the others."
There was great activity in the crowd. Everybody was trying to see the two brothers as they went arm in arm to Colonel Putnam s carriage, and a moment later, when the vehicle with four occupants turned into the road lead ing toward George Putnams plantation, a unanimous cheer rose from the crowd.

THE CONVICTS RETURN

THE CONVICTS RETURN
The pedestrian trudged down the tortuous declivitous road of the mountain amidst the splendor of autumn-tinted leafage and occa sional dashes of rhododendron flowers. Now aad then he would stop and deeply breathe in the crisp air, as if it were a palpable substance which was pleasing to his palate. At such moments, when the interstices of trunks and bowlders would permit, his eyes, large with weariness, would rest on a certain farmhouse in the valley below.
"Its identical the same," he said, when he had completed the descent of the mountain and was drawing near to it. "As fer as I can make out, it haint altered one bit sence the day they tuk me away. Ef everthing seems purtier now, it may be becase its in the fall of the year an the maple-trees an the laurel look so fancy."
Approaching the barn, the only appurtenance to the four-roomed house, farther on by a

hundred yards, he leaned on the rail fence and looked over into the barnyard at the screw of blue smoke which was rising from a fire under a huge iron boiler.
"Martyskillin hogs," he said, reflectively. "I mought a picked a better day fer gittin" back; she never was knowed to be in a good humor durin hog-killin."
He half climbed, half vaulted over the fence, and approached the woman, who was bowed over an improvised table of undressed planks on which were heaped the dismembered sides, shoulders, and hams of pork. His heart was in his mouth, owing to the carking doubt as to his welcome which had been oozing into the joy of freedom ever since he began his homeward journey. But it was not his wife who looked up as his step rustled the corn-husks near her, but her unmarried sister, Lucinda Dykes.
"Well, I never!" she ejaculated. "Its Dick Wakeman, as I am alive!" She wiped her hand on her apron and gave it to him, limp and cold. "We all heerd you was pardoned out, but none of us lowed youd make so straight fer home."
His features shrank, as if battered by the blow she had unwittingly dealt him.
"I say!" he grunted. "Whar else in the

135
name o common sense would a feller go? A body thats been penned up in the penitentiary fer four years dont keer to be losin time monkeyin* round amongst plumb strangers, when his own folks when he haint laid eyes on his "
But, after all, good reasons for his haste in returning could not be found outside of a cer tain sentimentality which lay deep beneath Wakemans rugged exterior, and to which no one had ever heard him refer.
"Shorely," said the old maid, taking a wrong grasp of the situation "shorely you knowed, Dick, that Marty has got er divorce?"
"Oh, yes. Bad news takes a bee-line shoot fer its mark. I heerd the court had granted er a release, but that dont matter. A lawyer down thar told me that it all could be fixed up now Im out. Ef Id a been at home, Marty never would a made sech a goose of ersef. How much did the divorce set er back?"
"About a hundred dollars," answered Lucinda.
Money liter ly throwed away, said the con vict, with irrepressible indignation. "Marty never did quite sech a silly thing while I was at home."

i36 j&ortjjern
The old maid stared at him, a half-amused smile playing over her thin face.
"But it was her money," she said, argumentatively. "She owned the farm an every stick an head o stock on it when you an er got married."
"You neednt tell me that," said Wakeman, sharply. "I know that; but that aint no reason fer er to throw er money away gittin a divorce."
Lucinda filled her hand with salt and began to sprinkle it on a side of meat. "Law me," she tittered, "Ill bet you haint heerd about Marty an Jeff Goardley. "
"Yes, I have. Meddlin busybodies has writ me about that, too," said Wakeman, sit ting down on the hopper of a corn-sheller and idly swinging his foot.
"Hes a-courtin of er like a broom-sedge field afire," added the sister, tentatively.
"Shes got too much sense to marry im after er promises to me," said the convict, firmly.
"She lets Mm come reglar evry Tuesday night."
Wakeman was not ready with a reply, and Lucinda began to salt another piece of pork.

(Konbict0 Return
"Evry Tuesday night, rain or shine," she said.
The words released Wakemans tongue. "Huh, hes the most triflin fop in the county." "Looks like some o the neighbors is power ful bent on the match," continued Lucinda, her tone betraying her own lack of sympathy for the thing in question. "Marty was a-standin over thar at the fence jest fore you come an whirled all of a sudden an went up to the house. She said she was afeered her cracklins would burn, but Ill bet she seed you down the road. I never have been able to make er out. She aint once mentioned yore name sence you went off. Dick, Im one that dont, nur never did, believe you meant to steal Williamss hoss, kase you was too drunk to know what you was a-doin, but Marty never says whether she does ur doesnt. The day the news come back that you was sentenced I ketched er in the back room a-cryin as ef er heart would break, but that night Lonzo Spann come in an said that you had let it out in the court-room that youd be glad even to go to the penitentiary to git a rest from Martys tongue, an " "Lucinda, as thars a God on high, them

words never passed my lips," the convict interrupted.
"I lowed not," the old maid returned. "But it has got to be a sort of standin" joke agin Marty, an she heers it evry now an then. But Im yore friend, Dick. Ive had respect fer you ever sence I noticed how you suffered when Annie got sick an died. Thar aint many men that has sech feelin fer their dead children."
Wakemans face softened. "I was jest a-wonderin, comin on, ef ef anybody has been a-lookin after the grave sence I went off. The boys in the peniten tiary used to mention ther dead once in a while, an Id always tell em about my grave. Prisners, Lucinda, git to relyin on the com pany o ther dead about as much as ther livin folks. In the four years that I was in confinement not one friend o mine ever come to ax how I was gittin on." "Marty has been a-lookin after the grave," said Lucinda, in the suppressed tone peculiar to people who desire to disown deep emotion. She turned her face toward the house. "I wish you wouldnt talk about yore bein neg lected down thar, Dick. The Lord knows Ive laid awake many an many a cold night

Cfje (ttonbfeta
a-wonderin ef they give you-uns enough cover, an ef they tuk them cold chains offn you at night. An I reckon Marty did, too, fer she used to roll an tumble as ef er mind wasnt at ease."
Wakeman took off his coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeves.
"Im itchin to set in to farm-work agin," he said. "Let me salt fer you, an you run up thar an tell er Im back. Maybe shell come down heer."
Lucinda gave him her place at the table, a troubled expression taking hold of her features.
"The great drawback is Jeff Goardley," she said. "It really does look like him an Marty will come to a understandin. I dont know railly but what she may have promised him; he has seemed mighty confident heer lately."
Wakeman shrugged his sho,ulders and said nothing. He filled his hands with the salt from a pail and began to rub it on the pork.
Lingeringly the woman left him and turned up the slight incline toward the house. His eyes did not follow her. He was scrutinizing the pile of pork she had salted.
"Goodness gracious!" he grunted. "Lucindy has wasted fifteen pound o salt. Ef Id a done that Martyd a tuk the top o my

H Jlottfjetn gSeorgta gfeetcfreg___
head off. I wonder ef Marty could a got careless sence shes had all the work to look after.
He had salted the last piece of meat when, looking up, he saw Lucinda standing near him.
"She wouldnt come a step," she announced, with some awkwardness of delivery. "When I told er you wuz down heer she jest come to the door an looked down at you a-workin an grunted an went back to er cracklins. But thats Marty."
The convict dipped his hands into a tub of hot water and wiped them on an empty saltbag.
"I wonder," he began, "ef Id better " But he proceeded no further.
"I think I would," said the angular mindreader, sympathetically.
"Well, you come on up thar, too," Wakeman proposed. "Ive always noticed that when you are about handy she never has as much to say as she does commonly."
"Ill have to go," said Lucinda. "Ef Marty gits to talkin to you shell let the cracklins burn, an then then shed marry Goardley out o pure spite."
As the pair reached the steps of the back porch the convict caught a glimpse of a ging-

Cfje (ftonbtcts Hetutn

141

ham skirt within, and its stiff flounce as it vanished behind the half-closed door-shutter suddenly flung an aspect of seriousness into his countenance. He paused, his foot on the lowest step, and peered into the sitting-room. Seeing it empty, he smiled.
"Ill go in thar an take a cheer. Tell er I want to see er."
His air of returning self-confidence pro voked a faint laugh from his well-wisher.
"Yo 1 re a case," she said, nodding her con sent to his request. "You are different frum most anybody else. Somehow I cant think about you ever havin been jailed fer hossstealin."
"It all depends on a bodys feelins," the convict returned. "Down thar in the peniten tiary we had a little gang of us that knowed we wuz innocent of wrong intentions, an we kinder flocked together. All the rest sorter looked up to us an believed we wuz all right. It was a comfort. Ill step in an git it over."
He walked as erectly as an Indian up the steps and into the sitting-room. To his sur prise Mrs. Wakeman started to enter the room from the adjoining kitchen, and seeing him, turned and began to beat a hasty retreat.
"Hold on thar, Marty," he called out, in the

142
old tone which had formerly made strangers suppose that the farm and all pertaining to it had been his when he married her.
She paused in the doorway, white and sullen. "Aint you a-goin to tell a feller howdy an shake hands?" he asked, with considerable self-possession. "What ud I do that fur?" "Becase Im home agin," he said. "Huh, nobody haint missed you." The words followed a forced shrug. "I know a sight bettern that, Marty," he said. "I know a woman that ud take a duck fit jest when I was gone to drive the cows home an got delayed a little, would fret considerble durin four years of sech a a trip as Ive had. Set down here an lets have a talk." "Ive got my work to do," she returned, after half a minute of speechlessness, her helpless anger standing between her and satis factory expression. "Oh, all right!" he exclaimed. "I aint no hand to waste time durin work hours with dillydallyin. Any other timell do me jest as well. I lowed maybe it would suit you bet ter to have it over with. I must git out the hoss an wagon an haul that hog-meat up to

Ofrmbfcta UUturn
the smokehouse. Whars Cato? Ill bet that triflin nigger has give you the slip agin this hog-killin, like he always did."
Mrs. Wakeman stared at the speaker in a sort of thwarted, defiant way without deigning to reply; her sneer was the only thing about her bearing which seemed at all expressive of the vast contempt for him that she really did not feel. She felt that her silence was cow ardly, her failure to assert her rights as a divorced woman an admission that she was glad of his return.
At this critical juncture Lucinda Dykes sauntered into the room and leaned against the dingy, once sky-blue wall. Her air of in terested amusement over the matrimonial pre dicament had left her. It had dawned upon her, now that her sister had taken refuge in obstinate silence, that a vast responsibility rested on her as intermediary.
"Cato went with some more niggers to a shindig over at Squire Camps yesterday an haint showed up sence," she explained. "Ef I was you-uns ef I was Marty, I mean Id turn im off fer good an all. Dick, sence you went off me nur Marty haint been able to do a thing with Mm."
The convict grunted. It was as if he had

H4
succeeded in rolling the last four years from his memory as completely as if they had never passed.
"Jest wait till I see the black scamp," he growled. "I reckon Ill have to do every lick of the work myself." With that Wakeman turned into the entry and thence went to the stable-yard near by.
"He haint altered a smidgin," Lucinda commented. "It may be kase he has on the identical same clothes; hes been a-wearin striped ones down thar, you know, an* they laid away his old ones. To save me I cant realize that hes been off even a week." The old maid snickered softly. "Hes the only one that could ever manage you, Marty. Now Jeff Goardley would let you have yore own way, but Dicks a caution! Its always been a question with me as to whether a woman would ruther lead a man ur be led."
There was a white stare in Mrs Wakemans eyes which indicated that she was pondering the mans chief aggression rather than heed ing her sisters nagging remarks. The sudden appearance of the convicts head and shoul ders above a near-at-hand window-sill ren dered a reply unnecessary. His face was flushed.

js 3eturn
"Can you-uns tell me whar under the sun the halter is?" he broke forth, in a turbulent tone. "I tuk the trouble to put a iron hook up in the shed-room jest fer that halter, an now somebody has tore down the hook an I cant find hair nur hide o* the halter."
Mrs. Wakeman tried to sneer again as she turned aside, and the gaunt intermediary, spurred on to her duty, approached the win dow.
"The blacksmith tuk that hook to mend the harrow with," she said, with a warning glance at Marty. "Youll find the halter on the joist above the hoss-trough. Ef I was you, on this fust day, Id try to " But Wakeman had dropped out of sight, and mut tering unintelligible sounds indicative of dis comfiture, was striding toward the stable.
All the rest of that afternoon the convict toiled in the smoke-house, hanging the meat on hooks along the joists over a slow, partly smothered fire of chips and pieces of bark. When the work was finished his eyes were red from smoke and brine. He stabled the horse and fed him, and then, realizing that he had nothing more to do, he felt hungry. He wanted to go into the sitting-room and sit down in his old place in the chimney-corner,

(BUorflta g?fcgtct)es
but a growing appreciation of the extreme deli cacy of the situation had taken hold of him. He wandered about the stable-yard in a desultory way, going to the pig-pen, now empty and blood-stained, and to the well-filled corn-crib, but these objects had little claim on his inter est. The evening shadows had begun to stalk like dank amphibious monsters over the carpet of turf along the creek-banks, and pencils of light were streaming out of the windows of the family-room. Suddenly his eyes took in the woodpile; he went to it, and picking up the ax, began to cut wood. He was tired, bu he felt that he would rather be seen occupied than remaining outside without a visible excuse for so doing. In a few minutes he was joined by Lucinda.
"Dick," she intoned, "youve worked enough, the Lord Almighty knows. Come in the house an rest fore supper; its mighty nigh ready."
He avoided her glance, and shamefacedly touched a big log he had just cut into the proper length for the fireplace.
"Cato, the triflin scamp, haint cut you-uns a single backlog," he said, in a tone that she had never heard from him.
"We haint had a decent one sence you

<Eonbfct0 Heturn

147

went off, Brother Richard," she returned. "An* a fires no fire without a backlog."
Their eyes met. She saw that he was deeply stirred by her tenderness, and that opened the floodgates of her sympathy. She began to rub her eyes.
"Oh, Dick, Im so miserble; ef you an* Marty dont quit actin like you are I dont know what I will do."
She saw him make a motion as if he had swallowed something; then he stooped and shouldered the heavy backlog and some smaller sticks.
"Ill give you-uns one more backlog to set by, anyhow," he said, huskily.
She preceded him into the sitting-room and stood over him while he raked out the hot coals and deposited the log against the back part of the fireplace. Then she turned into the kitchen and approached her sister, who was frying meat in an iron pan on the coals.
"Marty," she said, unsteadily, "ef you begin on Dick Ill go off fer good. I cant stand that."
Mrs. Wakeman folded her stern lips, as if to keep them under check, and shrugged her shoulders. That was all the response she made.

148

Jfeeocgta

Lucinda turned back into the sitting-room, where the dining-table stood. To-night she put three plates on the white cloth; one of them had been Dicks for years. She put it at the end of the table where he had sat when he was the head of the house. As she did so she caught his shifting glance and smiled.
"I want to make you feel as ef nothin in the world had happened, Dick," she said. "Ive been a-fixin you a bed in the companyroom, but you jest must be sensible about that."
"Law! anything will suit me," he began. But the entrance of Marty interrupted his remark.
She put the bread, the coffee, the meat, and the gravy on the table, and sat down in her place without a word. Lucinda glanced at Wakeman.
"Come on, Dick," she called out. "Ill bet yo re hungry as a bear."
He drew out the chair that had been placed for him and sat down. Now an awkward situ ation presented itself. In the absence of a man Marty always asked the blessing. Lu cinda wondered what would take place; one thing she knew well, and that was that Marty was too punctilious in religious matters to

Efje (fttmbtcts iUtutn

149

touch a bite of food before grace had been said by some one. But just then she noticed something about Wakeman that sent a little thrill of horror through her. Evidently his long life in prison had caused him to retro grade into utter forgetfulness of the existence of table etiquette, for he had drawn the great dish of fried meat toward him and was critic ally eying the various parts as he slowly turned it round.
"What a fool I am," he said, the delightful savor of the meat rendering him momentarily oblivious of his former wifes forbidding aspect. "I laid aside the lights o that littlest shote an* firmly intended to ax you to fry em fer me, but "
Lucindas stare convinced him that some thing had gone wrong.
"Martys waitin fer somebody to ax the blessin," she explained.
"Blessin? Good gracious!" he grunted, his effusiveness dried up. "That went clean outn my mind. But a body thats tuk his meals on a tin plate in a row o fellers waitin fer ther turn four years hand-runnin, aint expected to "
He went no further, seeming to realize that the picture he was drawing was tending to

150 jEtortfjecn (fceorgfa &feetcj)eg_____
widen the distance between him and the un compromising figure opposite him. He folded his hands so that his arms formed a frame for his plate, and said in a mellow bass voice:
"Good Lord, make us duly thankful fer the bounteous repast that Thy angels has seed fit to spread before us to-night. Cause each of us to inculcate sech a frame of mind as will not let us harbor ill will agin our neighbors, an finally, when this shadowy abode is dis persed by the light of Thy glory, receive us all into Thy grace. This we beg in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
He ended in some confusion. A red spot hovered over each of his cheek-bones. "I clean forgot that part about good crops an fair weather," he said to Lucinda. "But you see its been four yeer sence I said it over, an a man o my age oughtnt to be expected to know a thing like a younger person."
"Help yoresef to the meat an* pass the dish to Marty." replied Miss Dykes. "Ef I was you, Id not be continually a-bringin up things about the last four yeer."
He made a hurried but bounteous choice of the parts of meat on the dish, and then gave it over into the outstretched hands of Lucinda. Marty was pouring out the coffee. She passed

* Return
the old-fashioned mustache-cup to her sister, and that lady transferred it to Wakeman. He sipped from it lingeringly.
"My Lord!" he cried, impulsively. "I tell you the Gods truth; sech good coffee as this haint been in a mile o my lips sence I went sence I was heer," he corrected, as Lucindas warning stare bore down on him.
After that the meal proceeded in silence. When he had finished, Dick went back to his chair in the chimney-corner near the battered woodbox. After putting away the dishes and removing the cloth from the table, Lucinda came and sat down near him. Mrs. Wake man, casting occasional furtive glances to ward the front door, appropriated her share of the general silence in a seat where the fire light faded. Richard wore an unsettled air, as if getting into old harness came as awkward as putting on the new had come when he mar ried, years before. After a few minutes he became a little drowsy, and began to act natu rally, as if by force of returning habit. He unlaced his shoes, took them off, rubbed the bottoms of his feet, thrust those members to ward the fire, and worked his toes. He also took a chew of tobacco. Profound silence was in the room; the thoughts of three minds

152 Jlortfrern (fceorgfa Bfeetcfres_____
percolated through it. Marty picked up the Christian Advocate and pretended to read, but she dropped it in her lap and cast another look toward the door.
The rustling of the paper attracted Richards gaze.
"Is she expectin is anybody a-comin?" He directed the question to Lucinda.
"I wouldnt be much surprised," was the answer. "Its Jeff Goardleys night."
"You dont say!" Each of the words had a separate little jerk, and the questioning stare of the convicts eyes pierced the space inter vening between him and his divorced wife. He spat into the fire, wiped his mouth with an unsteady hand, and caught his breath.
Silence again. Lucinda broke it. "You haint never told us how you happened to git yore pardon," she ventured. "By a streak o luck," Wakeman said, the languid largeness of his eyes showing that he was still struggling against the inclination to sleep. "Tother day the governor sent word to our superintendent that he was comin to see fer hissef how we wus treated. The minute I heerd it, I said to myself, I did, Wakeman, you must have a talk with that man. SQ the mornin he got thar we wus all

(Eonbicts Return
give a sort of vacation an stood up in rowslike fer inspection. When I seed im a-comin towards me I jest gazed at im with all my might an he got to lookin at me. When he got nigh me he stopped short an* said:
"Looky heer, my man, said he; yore face seems mighty familiar to me. Have I ever seed you before?
" Not unless you remember me a-throwin up my hat in front o the stan an yellin when you wus stump-speakin in Murray jest fore yore lection, said I.
"Then he laughed kinder good-natured like, an said: Im sorry to see a voter o mine in a fix like yorn. What can I do fer you?
" I want to have a talk with you, yore Honor, an that bad, said I.
" I am at yore disposal, said he. Thats what Im heer fer. Ill ax the superinten dent to call you in a moment. What is yore name?
" Richard Wakeman, yore Honor, said I. " An one o the best men we ever had, said the superintendent. "Well, they passed on, an* in a few minutes I was ordered to come to the superintendents office, an thar I found the governor tilted back smokin a fine cigar.

T-54 jEortfrern Okeorgfa
44 You wanted to have somen to say to me, Wakeman? said he.
"I eased my ball an chain down on the skin of a big-eyed varmint o some sort, an stood up straight.
44 "I did, yore Honor, an that bad, said I. 44 What is it? said he. 44 I want to put my case before you, yore Honor, said I. An Im not a-goin to be gin, as every convict does, by sayin he aint guilty, fer I know youve heerd that tale tell yo re heartily sick of it. 4< 4 But are you guilty? said the governor. 4 1 have seed men sent up fer crimes they never committed. 44 4 Yore Honor, said I, 4 I didnt no more intend to steal that hoss o Pike Williamss than you did not a bit. Gittin on a spree about once a year is my main fault, an it was Christmas, an all of us was full o devilment. It was at the Springplace bar, an Alf Moreland struck me a whack across the face with his whip, an* bein astraddle of a fine nag he made off. Pikes nag was hitched at the rack nigh me, an, without hardly knowin what I was doin, I jumped on it an spurred off after Alf. I run im nip an tuck fer about seven mile, an then me an him rid on fer more

<onbfct0 Return

55

whisky down the valley. The next day I was arrested, so drunk they had to haul me to jail in a wagon. They tried me before a jury o men that never did like me, an I got five yeer.
"When I stopped thar to draw a fresh breath the governor axed, Is that what you wanted to say, Wakeman?
" Not a word of it, yore Honor, said I. I jest wanted to put a straight question to you about the law. Ef you knowed that a man was a-sufferin a sight more on account of imprisonment than his sentence called fer, would that be right?
"The governor studied a minute, then he kinder smiled at the superintendent, an said:
" Thats a question fer the conscience. Ef a man is imprisoned fer a crime, an jail life breaks his health down, an is killin im, then he ort to be pardoned out.
"Then I had im right whar I wanted im, an I up an told im that I had a wife that was all the world to me, an that durin my term mischievous folks had lied agin me an persuaded er to git a divorce, an that a oilytongued scamp was a-tryin to marry er fer what little land she had. I reminded im that I was put in fer stealin, an that I had worked

156 jEortfjern OBrgorflfa
four yeer o my sentence, an that it looked like a good deal o punishment fer jest one spree, but that I wouldnt complain, bein as I was cured of the liquor habit an never intended to put the neck of a bottle to my mouth agin, but that I did kinder want to hurry back home fore too much damage was done.
"Well, Im not lyin when I say the gover nors eyes was wet. All of a sudden he helt out his han to me an said:
" I feel shore you never intended to steal that hoss, Wakeman.
" My wife never has believed it fer one instant, said the superintendent. An it takes a woman to ferret out guilt.
"The governor tuk a sheet o paper an a pen an said:
" Wakeman, Im a-goin to pardon you, an whats more, I inten to send a statement to all the newspapers that Im convinced you are a wronged man. Ive done wuss than you was accused of in my young days, an had the cheek to run fer the office of governor.
"Then the superintendents wife come in an stood up thar an cried, an axed to be allowed to unlock my manacles. She got out my old suit this un heer an breshed it er-

OTonbicts Return
self, an kept on a-cryin an* a-laughin at the same time The last words that she said to me was:
" Wakeman, go home an make up with yore wife; she wont turn agin you when you git back to the old place whar you an her has lived together so long, an whar yore childs grave is. "
The speaker paused. For a man so coarse in appearance, his tone had grown remarkably tender. Lucinda was staring wide-eyed, with a fixed aspect of features, as if she were half frightened at the unwonted commotion within herself and the danger of its appearing on the surface. Finally she took refuge in the act of raising her apron to her eyes.
Mrs. Wakeman had excellent command over herself, drawing upon a vast fund of offended pride, the interest of which had com pounded within the last four years. Just at this crisis the steady beat of a horses hoofs broke into the hushed stillness of the room. Lucinda lowered her apron with wrists that seemed jointless bone, and stared at her sister.
"Are you a-goin to let that feller stick his head inside that door to-night?"
The question was ill-timed, for it produced

*5 8
only a haughty, contemptuous shrug in the woman from whom it rebounded. Wakeman did not take his eyes from the fire. They heard the gate-latch click, and then a heavybooted and spurred foot fell on the entry step. The next instant the door was unceremoni ously opened and a tall, lank mountaineer entered. He was at the fag-end of bachelor hood, had sharp, thin features, a small mus tache dyed black, and reddish locks which were long and curling. He wore a heavy gray shawl over his shoulders. At first he did not see Wakeman, for his eyes had found employ ment in trying to discover why Marty had not risen as he came in. He glanced inquiringly at Lucinda, and then he recognized Richard.
"My Lord!" he muttered. "I had no idee you I lowed you "
"I didnt nuther," Richard sneered, the red firelight revealing strange flashes in his eyes.
For some instants the visitor stood on the hearth awkwardly disrobing his sinewy hands. Finally, unheeding Lucindas admonitory glances toward the door, and the prayerful current from her eyes to his, he sat down near Marty. Ten minutes by the clock on the mantelpiece passed, in which time nothing was heard except the lowing of the cattle in

<onbict0 Return

59

the cow-lot and the sizzling of the coals when Richard spat. At last a portion of Wakemans wandering self-confidence resettled upon him, and it became him well. He crossed his legs easily, dropped his quid of tobacco into the fire, and with a determined gaze began to prod his squirming rival.
"Lookye heer," he said, suddenly. "What did you come heer fur, anyhow?"
Goardley leaned forward and spat between his linked hands. He accomplished it with no slight effort, for the inactivity of his mouth, which was not chewing anything, had pro duced a hot dryness.
"I dont know," he managed to say. "I jest thought Id come around."
"Ride?"
"Yes, hoss-back." "Do you know whar you hitched?" Goardley hesitated and glanced helplessly at Marty, who, stern-faced, inflexible, was look ing at the paper in her lap. "I hitched under the cherry-tree out thar," he answered, with scarcely a touch of selfconfidence in his tone. "Well, go unhitch an git astraddle of yore animal." Goardley blinked, but did not rise.

160

OEreorgta gfeetcftes

"I didnt have the least idee you had got free, Dick, an "
"Well, you know it now, so git out to that hoss, ur by all thats holy "
Mrs. Wakeman drew herself erect and crumpled the paper in her bony hand.
"This is my house," she said, "an I aint no married woman."
The white fixity of Goardleys countenance relaxed in a slow grin. An automatic affair it was, but as he took in the situation it was a recognition of the aid which had arrived at the last minute.
Wakeman stood up in his stockinged feet. He was still unruffled. "Thats a fact; the place is hern," he admitted. "But Ill tell you one article that aint. Its that thar shootin-iron on them deer-horns up thar, an ef you dont git outn heer forthwith itll make the fust hole in meat that its made in four yeer. Maybe men Marty aint man an wife, but when we wuz married the preacher said, What the Lord has jined together let no man put asunder, an I aint a-goin to set still an see a dirty, oily-tongued scamp like you try to undo the Lords work. You know the way out, an I was too late fer hog-killin*. I went into the penitentiary fer jest one

(Eonbicts Return

161

spree, but Ill go in fer manslaughter next time an serve my term more cheerful I mought say with Christian fortitude."
Cowardice produced the dominant expres sion in Goardleys face. He rose and backed from the room. The convict thumped across the resounding floor to the door and looked out after the departing man.
"Run like a skeered dog," he laughed, im pulsively, as he turned back into the room. And then he waxed serious as he entered the atmosphere circling about Marty, who, with a stormy brow, sat immovable, her eyes down
cast. "I couldnt help it, to save me," he began,
apologetically, to her profile. "But I reckon you an me can manage to git along like we used to, an I never would a had any respect fer myself ef I had a-let that scamp set heer an think he was a-courtin of you right before my eyes."
Marty made no reply. A flush of sup pressed emotion had risen in her cheeks and was taking on a deeper tinge. Richard grunted, stepped half-way back to his chim ney-corner, and looked at her again. Seeing her eyes still averted, he grunted aloud, and went to his chair and sat down. Several

(Brgotgfa
minutes passed. Then Lucindas prayerful eyes saw his hand, now quivering, reach be hind him and draw his shoes in front of him. He put them on, but did not tie the strings.
"Somehow," he said, rising, "somehow, now that I come to think of it, I dont feel exactly right exactly as I used to an I reckon, maybe, I ort to go somers else. I reckon, as you said jest now, that in the eyes o* some folks you aint no married woman, an* I have been makin purty free fer a jail-bird. Old Uncle Billy Hodkins wont set his dogs on me, an Ill go over thar to night. After that the Lord only knows whar I will head fer. Uncle Billy never did believe I was guilty; hes writ me that a dozen times."
As he moved toward the door, in a clatter ing, slipshod fashion, Lucinda fixed Marty with a fierce stare.
"Are you a-goin to set thar an let Dick leave us fer good?" she hurled at her fiercely.
Marty made no reply save that which was embodied in a would-be defiant shrug, but the flow of blood had receded from her face.
"Ef you do, you aint no Christian woman, thats all," was Lucindas half-sobbing, halfshrieked accusation. " Yo re a purty thing to set up an drink the sacrament with a heart

163
in you that the Old Nicks fire couldnt melt."
The convict smiled back at his defender from the threshold; then they heard him cross the entry and step down on the gravel walk. He had passed the bars and was turning up the side of a little hill, on the brow of which a few gravestones shimmered in the moonlight, when he heard his name called from the entry. It was Lucindas voice; she came tc him, her hair flying in the wind.
"I lowed," he said, sheepishly, as she paused to catch her breath, "I jest lowed Id go up thar an see ef the water had been washin out round Annies grave. The last time I looked at it the foot-rock was a little sagged to one side."
"Come back in the house, Dick," cried the old maid. "Marty has completely broke down. Shes cryin like a baby. She has been actin stubborn becase she was proud an afeerd folks would think she was a fool about you. As soon as I told er you didnt say that about bein willin to go to jail to git outn reach o er tongue, she axed me to run after you. Shes consented to make it up ef we will send over fer the justice an have the marryin* done to-night."

164 jEortfjern dkeorgfa
"Are you a-tellin me the truth, Lucinda?" "As the Lord is my witness." He stared at the farmhouse a moment; then he said : "Well, you an her git everything ready, an Ill git Squire Dow an the license. Ill be back as soon as I kin."

A RURAL VISITOR

A RURAL VISITOR
I
Lucinda Gibbs stood in the corner of the rail fence behind her cottage. Her face was damp with perspiration, and her heavy irongray hair had become disarranged and hung down her back below the skirt of her gingham sun-bonnet. She was raking the decayed leaves and dead weeds from her tender straw berry sprouts and mentally calculating on an abundant crop of the luscious fruit later in the spring.
"The trouble is I wont git to eat none of em," she sighed, as she looked up and ad dressed the woman on the other side of the fence.
"You dont mean that you are actually a-goin shore nough, Mis Gibbs?" exclaimed Betsey Lowry, as she leaned heavily on the top rail.
The widow reversed her rake and began to 167

1 68

g&eorgta

pull out the leaves which were packed between the metal teeth, her face reddening gradu ally, as if she were slightly irritated.
"Id like to know ef thars anything strange about my goin," she said, coldly. "You said youd feed my cat an chickens an attend to the cow fer what shed give."
"Oh, it aint because I have the least ob jection to keepin my word about them things," said the old maid, quickly. "Good ness knows, me an Joel needs the milk an butter bad enough, an it aint one speck o" trouble jest to throw scraps to the cat, an* meal-dough to the chickens, but somehow it skeers me to think of a lone woman like you a-goin all the way to New York by yoresef. "
Mrs. Gibbs leaned the rake against the fence. The flush died out of her face, giving place to a sweet, wistful expression.
"Betsey," she said, tremulously, "tell me the truth. Do you think I ought to stay at home?"
The old maid turned to look through the orchard of leafless trees to her own house not far away. She had reddened slightly.
"Ef you push me fer a answer, Mis Gibbs, Ill have to tell you I dont think you ought to go away up thar all alone."

Mural

169

"You feel that-a-way, Betsey, because you haint never had no child an been separated from it like I have. When Amos married up thar an went to housekeepin it mighty nigh killed me. An then I begun to live on the bare hope that hed come South on a visit, but he haint done it, an thar aint no prospect of the like. He says he caynt git away frum his business without dead loss, an they want me to come. Ive said many a time that Id never leave my home, but, Betsey, it seems to me that I caynt live another week without seein how Amos looks. The Lord only knows how lonely I am mighty nigh all the time. Ef Susie had lived, shed never a left me, married or not, but its different with a man. Sometimes I wonder why the Lord tuk em both frum me."
Betseys kindly face softened. The inter vening fence kept her from putting a consol ing arm around her neighbor.
"I haint been blind nur Brother Joel haint nuther to yore lonely way o livin," she said, sympathetically. "Thars hardly a night that me an him dont look out fore we go to bed to see ef you are still a-sittin up readin by yore lamp. I kin always tell when you are a-thinkin about Susie moren com-

170 jaottfwn O&eorgta J5fc*tcf)e0___
mon; its always when you git back frum er grave that you set up latest. I believe in layin on o flowers an plantin shrubs thatll keep sech a precious spot green, but when it seems to make a body brood-like, then I think it ought not to be indulged in to any great extent."
"Its rally a sort of comfort to go to the graveyard," faltered Mrs. Gibbs; and she raised her apron to her mouth.
"How long do you intend to stay with Amos an his wife?" asked Betsey, to divert the widows thoughts. She looked over her shoulder, and saw her brother Joel, a tall, strong-looking man about fifty-five years of age, approaching from the direction of his store, down at the cross-roads.
Three months, I reckon," replied the widow. "I know in reason that I wont want to leave Amos a bit sooner. You see, it may be a long time before I lay eyes on im again. They say the baby is doin fine, an I want to see it an nuss it."
"So you are raily goin?" cried Joel Lowry, as he leaned on the fence beside his sister.
"Yes, Im a-goin to make the trip, Joel." "Its a long ways," returned the store keeper, "an I dont see how you are a-goin

Fteftor

171

by yoresef. Ef it was jest a few weeks later, now, I might pull up an go along. Ive always believed ef I went to. New York to lay in stock that I could save enough on my goods to defray my expenses thar an back.
The eyes of the widow flashed eagerly. She took a long, trembling breath.
"I wisht to goodness you would," she said. "I dont know one thing about trains, an I am powerful afraid Ill make a bobble of the whole thing from start to finish. Ef I was to git on the wrong car but what is the use to cross a bridge fore you git to it? Mebby Ill git thar all right.
"I hate mightily to have you try it," replied Joel, reflectively, as he stroked his short gray beard. "I jest wish you would think better of it. Im a leetle grain oldern you, Mis Gibbs, an Ive been about some."
Mrs. Gibbs drew her rake after her as she turned toward her cottage. "I dont want to change my mind," she said, emphatically. "Im bent on seein Amos, an Im a-goin to do it. Id better go in now. Ive got a lot o 1 packin to do."
Joel went back toward his store across a field of decaying corn-stubble without looking

*72 jHottfjgrn (Georgia
round, and Betsey climbed over the fence and went into the cottage with her neighbor.
"I never hated to see a body go so in all my born days," she sighed.
Mrs. Gibbs opened the front door and pre ceded Betsey into the room on the right of the little hall.
"You mustnt mind how things looks in heer," she apologized. "I left my trunk open right spank in the middle of the room, so whenever I see a thing that ought to go in I kin jest fling it at the trunk an put it away when I have time."
Betsey stood over the little hair trunk and looked down dolefully.
"What on earth is that I smell?" she asked. "Sassafras, as Im alive!"
"Yes, I dug it yesterday. Amos likes sas safras-root tea; he used to drink a power of it to thin his blood in the spring; he writ that he haint had a taste of it sence he left heer. Shorely, its come to a purty pass if a body caynt get sech as that in a big city like New York."
"Seems to me," remarked the old maid, "that youve got a sight more truck here than youll have any need fer. Whats this greasy mess wrapped up?"

Hural >7f0ftot
"Thats mutton suet," was the enthusiastic reply. "Its the whitest cake I ever laid eyes on. Theyll need it fer chapped hands an lips. Amos says its a sight colder up than Thats ginger-cake in that paper box, an Ive made him an Sally some wool socks an stockins."
"Are you shore you are a-goin to be away three months?" asked Betsey, with a sigh.
"Mebby longer than that," answered the old woman. "I feel like I never will want to leave Amos again, but I couldnt be away from my home always, you know. La, itll seem powerful strange to wake up an* not look out o* that thar window towards the mountain."
"An* not to heer the hens a-cacklin, an the cow an calf a-bellowin," added Betsey. Then she put her handkerchief to her eyes and plunged hastily from the room. Mrs. Gibbs moved quickly to the window and looked out. She saw Betsey climb over the fence and go on through the orchard, her head hanging down.

Jiortfjent (BUotgia
II
The evening before the day appointed for Mrs. Gibbss departure, Betsey came in out of breath.
"What do you reckon?" she asked, as she stood over the hair trunk, which, roped and labeled, stood on end near the widows bed. "What you reckon? Joel has made up his mind to go."
The widow was putting a brightly polished tin coffee-pot into an old-fashioned carpetbag which stood on the white counterpane of her bed. She stood erect, her hands on her hips.
"Looky* heer, Betsey," she exclaimed, ex citedly, "dont you joke with me! Ive jest worried over this undertakin till Ive lost every speck of appetite fer my victuals. I tell you I aint in no frame o mind fer any light talk on the subject."
"Hes a-goin, I tell you!" declared the old maid. "I never dreamt he was in earnest the other day when he fust mentioned it, but all last night he literly rolled an tumbled an couldnt git a wink o sleep fer worrryin over you an yore wild-cat project. This mornin the fust thing he said was that hed made up

Ufeftot

75

his mind to go ef he could git a round-trip ticket thar an back. He told me not to say anything to you tell he had sent to town. Jest a minute ago Jeff Woods got back with the ticket. Joel seems mightily tickled over goin."
Mrs. Gibbs sat down. A serious expres sion had come over her face.
"Ef Id a knowed he raily meant to go Id a stopped im," she said. "I dont want to be a bother an a burden to my neighbors. Betsey, Im a-gittin to be a lots o trouble to other folks."
"Pshaw!" cried Betsey. . "Ef Joel hadnt a wanted to go hed not a bought the ticket. La me, now Ill have to go git him ready."
The next morning, arrayed in his best suit of clothes, new high top-boots, and a vener able silk hat, Joel drove to the widows cot tage in his spring wagon. While she was locking up the doors he and a negro farm hand placed the widows trunk into the back part of the wagon. The neighbors from the farmhouses down the red clay road and across the gray fields and meadows gathered at the gate. When Mrs. Gibbs emerged, their mental comment was that she looked ten years younger than before deciding on the journey.

i76 Jiortftern Georgia
"All that flushed face an shiny eyes is case shes goin to Amos," remarked a woman who held a little bare-footed boy by the hand. The woman addressed was an un married woman old enough to be a grand mother. She looked at the widows beaming visage, gave her head a significant toss, and said, contemptuously: "I say! That woman aint a-thinkin no more bout Amos an I am at this minute. It looks to me like some peo ple cant see a inch before their faces. My Lor, you make me laugh, Mis Ruggles. "
Arriving at the station, Joel turned the widows trunk over to the baggage-master, and with her carpet-bag and his own clutched in one hand, he stood on the platform pulling his beard nervously.
"Well have to spend one night on the train," he said. "I never thought to mention it, but they tell me that a body kin, by payin a fraction more, git a place to lie down and stretch out, an snooze a bit."
The widow seemed to have made up her mind that she would not show crude astonish ment at anything new to her experience, but her curiosity finally caused her to admit that she had never heard of such an arrangement. So, to the best of his ability, the storekeeper

tftural Visitor.

177

entered into a description of a sleeping-car, lowering the carpet-bags to the platform, and making signs and drawing imaginary lines with his hands.
"Men an women in the same car with jest curtains stretched betwixt?" she cried. "No, thank you! I wont make a fool o mysef if other women does. I kin set up fer one night easy enough, I reckon. Ive done the like many a time with the sick an the dead with out feeling the wuss fer it."
"I hardlylowed it would suit," stammered Joel, "but I thought thar would be no harm in givin* you yore choice."
"Not the least in the world, Joel" ; and then she paled, caught her breath, and grabbed her carpet-bag, for the people on the platform were hurrying about; the train was coming.

Ill
In the train they found a seat together, and when the locomotive shrieked and they dashed off through deep cuts and over high trestles, Mrs. Gibbs was unable to control her excitement. He saw that she was holding tightly to the arm of the seat.

78

(fceorgCa

"I have never been on sech a fast one be fore," she said, tremulously.
"She dont whiz nigh like some Ive rid on out West," replied Joel, with an air of con scious importance, even guardianship.
A few minutes later she grew calmer. Happening to catch her eye, he saw that her mind was far away.
"I was jest a-thinkin how awful it is to be leavin Susies grave so fur behind, " she said. "Im goin to Amos, but my other child is back thar."
"I was thinkin about Rachels grave jest a minute ago, " he returned. "You called er to my mind jest now. Somehow you have the same sort of a look about the eyes."
"Shucks! that aint so, I know!" "Its true as I live!" "Well, she was a good woman." "The best I ever run across, an* knowed rail well." The sun, seen first on one side of the car and then on the other, went down. The train porter laid a plank across the ends of the seats and climbed up on it and lighted the lamps overhead. This made the space out side look like a black curtain softly flapping against the car. The widow opened her car-

Ffeitot

179

pet-bag and took out something wrapped in a napkin.
"Betsey said you loved fried chicken an biscuits," she said.
"Its my favorite dish," he replied, stiltedly, readily cloaking himself in his best table man ners.
"Im dyin fer a cup o coffee," she said. "This dry food will clog in my throat without somen* to wash it down. I put in a package o ground coffee an my littlest coffee-pot, thinkin thar might be some way to boil water, but I dont see no chance. You say we dont stop long enough to git supper?"
"Thats what the conductor said." But at the next station, where they stopped for only a minute, he took the coffee-pot and hurried out. The train started on, and she was greatly alarmed, thinking that he was left, but he had entered the rear door and now approached with the coffee-pot steaming at the spout. "Now, ef youve jest got a cup about you well be all hunkydory," he laughed. Her face lighted up with combined pleasure and relief. "Well, I certainly lowed you was left back thar," she laughed. "An how on earth did you git the coffee?"

i8o jHotttern
"They sell it by the quart on the platform," he replied. "I drapped onto that trick once when I was on my way to Californy."
She got out a tin cup and filled it with the coffee. "I never was so downright grateful fer a thing in my life," she remarked. "Now, help yoresef, an Ill sip some along with my chicken an bread."
"I wont tech it tell youve had all you feel like takin," said he, gallantly.
The coffee and the lunch seemed to stimu late them both, for they sat and chatted and laughed together till past eleven oclock. Then he noticed that she was growing sleepy, so he took the vacant seat behind her.
"Itll give you more room," he said. By and by he saw her head fall forward. She was asleep. He rolled up his overcoat in the shape of a pillow and placed it on the end of the seat, and touching her gently, he told her to lie down and rest her head on the coat. She obeyed, with a drowsy smile of gratitude. He watched her all through the night. She slept soundly, like a tired child. "I never seed a body look so much like Rachel in all my life," he said several times to himself. "Pore woman! Im that glad I

T-rfeftot

181

come with er! Shes had er grief, an Ive had mine."
The stopping of the train a little after the break of day roused her. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. He did not wait to speak to her, but taking the coffee-pot, he ran out at the door behind her, so that her first glimpse of him was when he appeared before her with more hot coffee.
"You must take a cup to start you out fer the day," he smiled.
"You do beat the world, Joel!" she laughed. "I couldnt a done without you."
She made room for him beside her, and they ate breakfast together. The rest of the journey they sat watching the changing land scape, remarking upon the different methods of tilling the soil, and talking of home and their neighbors.
"Its strange how people can live as nigh to one another as me an you have an not git better acquainted," he said. "I declare, you aint a bit like I thought you was."
"I never railly knowed you, nuther, Joel," she laughed. "You was always sech a busy, say-nothin sort of a man."
"An right now you are off to stay a long

182 jHottfrern JBrgorgta &itetcf|eg___
time, and Ill have to go back to the back woods. I wonder ef "
He went no farther, and she did not help him out. She had suddenly grown reticent, and seemed occupied with the landscape, which was rushing southward like a swollen stream of level farming lands, in which floated houses, fences, twisting trees, and waltzing men and horses.
"I reckon youll stay up thar all the spring an summer," he said at last.
"I wouldnt like to leave Amos right away," she made answer. "You see, I haint seed the boy fer a long time, an* I haint thought o nothin but him fer many a day."
IV
They arrived in New York at six oclock that evening. Amos met them at the train. They hardly recognized him in his silk hat, long overcoat, stylish necktie, and kid gloves. Joel did not approve of what he considered a rather dudish dress, but he overlooked that when he saw how happy the young man was at the sight of his mother.
"I wish I could invite you to my house,

A iftural Ffeftor
Mr. Lowry," said Amos, cordially, "but the truth is, we have only a small flat, and there is hardly room for you.
"Oh, never mind me," said Joel. Im a-goin to a tavern nigh whar I do my tradin. Ill tell you good day now, but Ill run in an see ef Mis Gibbs has any word to send back when I start home."
He did not see her again for a week. He had concluded his purchases, and was ready to return South, when he decided to look her up. Finding her was more difficult than he had imagined. After several hours search on the east side of the city, she being on the west, he finally reached the big building which contained Amoss flat. Here he became involved in another mystery, for he found the front door, a glistening plate-glass affair, firmly locked, and no bell in sight. He stood in the tiled vestibule for several minutes de liberating on what was best to do. Fortu nately, he saw a policeman passing, and hailed him.
"Ive got a friend a-livin somewhar in this shebang," he said; "but you may hang me ef I know how to git at Mm."
"Is his name on one of the letter-boxes?" asked the policeman.

184

(BUorgta

"What letter-boxes?" questioned Joel. "I haint seed no names."
With an amused aspect of countenance the policeman mounted the steps and went into the vestibule. Here he opened some wooden doors in the wall, disclosing to view a long row of letter-boxes with the cards of their owners beneath them.
"Whos your friend?" he asked, kindly. "Amos Gibbs. Ive knowed im ever sence he was a little " "There," interrupted the policeman. "I pushed the button. That rang a bell inside, and they will open the door by electricity if anybody is at home. When you hear the latch clicking, push the door open and go in." He disappeared down the street, and then Joel was roused from apathetic helplessness by a rapid clicking in the lock. He opened the door and went in. It was fortunate that Amos lived on the first floor, or even then Joel would not have known how to proceed farther. As it was, another door at the end of the heavily carpeted hall opened and a servant girl in white cap and apron put out her head. "Yes," she said, in answer to his inquiry. Mrs. Gibbs was at home. He followed her

i&utal Visitor

185

into a little parlor facing the street, with a single window. It was furnished more neatly than any room Joel had ever been in. The polished hardwood floor was covered with rugs of various kinds and sizes, and the room contained a bookcase, an upright piano, pic tures, and pieces of bric-a-brac such as the store-keeper had never seen.
Mrs. Gibbs entered from the dining-room in the rear. Her hair was done up in a new style, which made her head appear larger than usual, and she wore a shining black silk gown that added height, dignity, and youth to her general aspect. She gave him her hand, and her whole attire rustled as she sat down.
"Well, you got heer at last," she said. "I lowed you never would come. Ive been lookin fer you every day. I haint hardly done anything else sence I got heer."
Joel stared, flushed, and tensely folded his hands anew. It seemed to him that he would not have suffered such a dire lack of words if she had not been looking so fine. It was as if his stalwart masculinity were a glaring misfit among the dainty gewgaws about him. He was mortally afraid the slender gilded chair he was sitting on would break under his two hun dred weight. He had never imagined that

1 86
dress could make such a change in the appear ance of any one. The only features about her which seemed natural were her voice and a triangular bit of her wrinkled face which showed through her low-parted hair.
"I come as soon as I got through," he heard himself say; and then he cleared his throat from a great depth as an apology for the frailty of his tone.
"I kin see you think Im a sight to behold," she laughed, merrily. "Sally fixed me up thisa-way. She fluted my hair with a hot curlin fork, an combed it like the New York womens. She haint done one thing sence I come but haul out dresses an fixins that used to belong to er dead mother, an try em on me, an theyve kept me on the move tell Id give a sight fer jest one little nap whar thar wasnt so much clatter. Last night they give me a old womans party. Joel, jest think of a person o my age a-settin* up tell leven oclock talkin to a gang o gray-haired women like a passel o hens jest off ther nests! An jest when I lowed they was all goin home, Sally passed around things to eat an drink."
"They wanted to make you have a good time," ventured the storekeeper.

iftutai Ffeftot

187

The widow lowered her voice, and threw a furtive glance toward the dining-room.
"But it aint the way to make a woman o* my raisin enjoy a visit," she said, cautiously. "I dont dare to say a word, fer Amos seems tickled to death over all that Sally gits up; but, Joel, Im mighty nigh dead. Like a born idiot, I told em in my last letter that Id stay three months, an now, as the Lord is my help an stay, I dont believe I can make out another week."
Her voice faltered. Moisture glistened in her eyes.
"I hope it aint as bad as that," remarked Joel, in a tone of vast sympathy.
"Its jest awful," whimpered the widow. "I make so many fool blunders. "Tother day they wanted me to go to Brooklyn with em, an I jest lied out o goin; an as they wanted to take the hired gal along to watch the baby, I agreed to stay at home an tend to the house. My Lord, Joel, ef youve never been alone in one o these contraptions, dont you ever try it. The hired gal showed me all the different arrangements, an what I was to do. When the bell in the back rings you must press the button in the kitchen, an when the bell in the front rings, its somebody

1 88 jaortftern (Brgorgfa
at the side door in the hall. An when you hear a shrill whistle outn the talkin-tube in the kitchen, you have to open the end an blow an then holler through an ax whats wanted. Then ef its groceries, ur milk, ur peddlers stuff, ur what not, you have to go to the dumb-waiter that fetches things up through a hole in the wall like a well-bucket an take the things off. I had a lots o" trouble. I was busy all the while the family was off at that dumb-waiter. Like a born fool, I didnt know it tuk stuff to other folks, too, an I thought it would save time to set at the dumb-waiter with the door open, an take off the things without waitin fer em to whistle. You never seed the like in all yore life! Before Id been thar a hour, the kitchen was literly filled with all manner o stuff, beer, bad-smellin cheese, and oodlins an oodlins o milk in bottles. After a while I heerd a fearful racket inside the dumb-waiter. People all the way to the top was a-yellin out that somebody had stole ther things, and the landlord was a-bouncin about like a rubber ball, an talkin of callin in the police. Finally he come in an axed me about it. He fixed it all right fer me, and delivered the goods to their rightful owners,

itural

189

an promised not to tell Amos nur Sally what Id done."
"You did sorter have a time of it," said Joel. "Im no hand mysef to understand new fixins. Its been chilly the last day or so, an when I went to my room in the tavern tother night I noticed that it was powerful warm after I went to bed. I got up an struck a light, but thar wasnt a sign of a fire place in the room, an it was so hot I lowed thar might be a conflagration a-smolderin sotners. So I put on my things an went down to the office. They explained to me that the heat comes frum a furnace below, an* runs into the rooms through holes in the floor. They come up an shet mine off so as I could sleep."
"Its a heap nicer our way," said the widow, without a smile at his misadventure. "I tell you, Joel, I jest cant stand it. I want to go back. When are you a-goin?"
"In the mornin." She fumbled in the pocket of her skirt and took out her handkerchief, placing it to her eyes. "Oh, Im heartily sick of it all!" she whim pered. "You are the fust rail natural thing Ive laid eyes on sence I come. Sally is

190 jBtortfrern (feeorgia
mighty cleanly, an Id ax you to clean the mud off n yore feet, but its the fust muddy feet Ive seen in so long I want to look at em."
Joel glanced down at his boots and flushed. "I never noticed "em," he stammered. "I had sech a time a-gittin in this shebang."
"Lord, it dont matter, Joel! Im jest a-thinkin about you a-goin* home. I simply caynt stand it; an yet Amos an* Sally would feel bad ef I went so soon. Amos was sayin last night that they would make me have sech a good time that Id never want to leave em; but la me! this is the fust rail work Ive done in many a day.
"Well, I must go, I reckon," Joel said, ris ing awkwardly and taking his hat from the floor by his chair. "Im sorry, too, to go back an leave you feelin* so miserable. I wish I could do somen to comfort you, but I cant, I reckon. Good-bye take keer of yoresef. "
When he arrived home two days later, Bet sey found him, as she thought, peculiarly ret icent about his trip, and all her efforts to get

Ffgftot

191

him to speak of how Mrs. Gibbs was pleased were fruitless. One afternoon two weeks after his return she ran into his store, where he was busy weighing smoked bacon which he was purchasing from a customer.
"What you reckon, Joel?" she asked. "What you reckon has happened?"
"I dont know," he said, looking up from the paper on which he was figuring.
"MisGibbss got back." "You caynt mean it, sister!" Betsey leaned against the counter, and the hardware in the showcase rattled. Joels face had paled. He called his clerk to him, and told him to settle with the customer, and walked to the door with Betsey. "Yes," she said. "She got home in Jeff Woodss hack about a hour ago. All the neighbors is over there now. She acts so quar! She haint seemed to keer a speck about the cow, nur the cat, nur the chickens. As soon as she got er things off, she jest sot down an drooped. She dont look well. The general opinion is that Amos an* his wife have sent er home, fer she wont talk about them. She acts mighty funny. Jest as I started out I happened to remark that youd be astonished to heer she was back, an I

never seed sech a quar look in a bodys face. But," she concluded after a pause, "they couldnt a treated er so awful bad, fer shes got dead loads o finery."
That night Joel closed up his store earlier than usual, and when he came into the sittingroom he brought an armful of big logs and put them in the chimney, Then before a roaring fire he sat reflectively, without reading the paper he had brought with him, as was his wont. Betsey sat in the chimney-corner knitting, and looking first at him and then peering through the window toward Mrs. Gibbss cottage.
"Brother Joel," she said, suddenly. "You are a-actin quar, too. You must know someV about what happened to Mis Gibbs, ur why dont you go over thar an see er like the rest o the neighbors? Theyve all been but you. Shell think strange of it."
"I dont see what good I could do," he answered; and he began to punch the fire, causing a stream of sparks to mount upward with a fusilade of tiny explosions.
Betsey knitted silently for a few minutes longer, then she rose and stood at the window.
"Shes got er lamp on the table an a paper in er lap, but she haint a-readin of it," said

3&utal
Betsey. "It looks jest like shes a-goin to commence er lonely broodin life over agin. Somen seems wrong with er, as good an sweet as she is. She kinder fancied shed be happy with Amos, an mebby when she got im with er she begun to pine fer her ole home. Now shes back, an I reckon she hardly knows what she does want. I say, perhaps that may be her fix."
"Mebby it is," admitted the storekeeper, briefly.
Betsey turned on him quickly. There was a peculiar aggressive sparkle in her eyes, a set look of determination on her face.
"Brother Joel," she said, "youve jest got to have a grain of common sense. Youve got to go over thar this minute an see er. Ef you dont she aint a-goin to sleep a wink. I know women, an Ive knowed Mis Gibbs a long time."
Joel drew his feet from the fire and wedged his heels under the rung of his chair. The muscles of his face were twitching. There was no mistaking Betseys tone. She sat down near him and laid her thin, tremulous hand on his knee.
"Do as I tell you, brother. Dont be backard. You cant hide nothin."

194 j&ottfretn
Joel rose. He tried to smile indifferently as he went to a little mirror on the wall and brushed his hair and beard.
"You must wish me good luck, then, sister," he said, huskily. "I aint no ways shore what she will do about me."
After he had gone out Betsey took up an album and opened it at a collection of tin type pictures. On one of these her eyes rested long and mistily. Then she kissed it, wiped her eyes, and went to bed. Two hours later she heard the front door close and her brother creeping to his room.
"Oh, Joel!" she called out. "Come to my door a minute."
His boots made a loud clatter in the dead stillness of the house, as he approached.
"Was it all right, brother?" "You bet it was, Betsey!" He stood in the doorway. The darkness hid his face, but there was a note of boundless joy in his tone. "I thought it would be, but I dont yet understand why she come back so quick." "She dont like city folks ways," answered the storekeeper; "an* then " "An* then what?" broke in Betsey, impa tiently.

Ffettot

95

"Well, you see, the the notion seemed to strike both of us when we was travelin to gether, an an she admitted that she was a leetle grain afeered that ef we didnt see one another agin fer three months that the notion might wear off. Railly, shes tickled to death, fur now she says she kin give Amos an Sally a sensible reason fer wan tin to git back home."
Betsey was silent so long that Joel began to wonder if she had fallen asleep. Finally she said:
"Go to bed now, Joel. Shes the very woman fer you. I haint never had no rail happiness in my life sence Jim died, but I want them I love to git all they kin."

JIM TRUNDLES CRISIS

JIM TRUNDLES CRISIS
They were expecting Jim Trundle at the Cross-Roads that spring morning. His coming had been looked for even more anxiously than that of Sid Wombley, the wag of the "Cove." Sid himself, when he dragged his long legs into the store, forgot to think of anything amusing to say as he looked the crowd over to see if Jim had preceded him.
It was on the end of his tongue to ask if Trundle had come and gone, but for once he said nothing. He seated himself on the head of a soda-keg and began to whittle the edge of the counter. Sid Wombley, quiet, suited the humor of the group better on this occa sion than the same voluble individual in his natural element, so no one spoke to him, and all continued to watch the road leading to Trundles cabin.
The silence and the delay were too much for the patience of Wade Sims, a bold, dash ing young man in tight-fitting trousers, sharp-
199

200 jg,orti)ertt (ffieorgfa gfeetcftes
heeled boots, and a sombrero like an unroped tent. He was, as he often expressed it, "afraid o nothin under a hide," and if "the boys" had seen fit to give Jim Trundle notifi cation, in the shape of a letter he would shortly receive, that he was a disgrace to the community, he saw no reason for so much secrecy. He wasnt afraid of the verdict of any jury that could be impaneled in the three counties over which he openly traded horses and secretly disposed of illicit whisky.
"I reckon thars no doubt about the letter bein ready fer im," he remarked to Alf Carden, who stood in the little pigeon-holed pen of upright palings which was known as "the postoffice."
"I reckon not," was the reply, "when its about the only letter I got on hand."
"I could make a mighty good guess who drapped it," said Sims, with a grin at a onearmed man who had once held the position of book-keeper at a cotton-gin, and who wrote letters and legal documents for half the illiter ate community, "but I wouldnt give im away if I was under oath."
"I have an idee whos goin* to drap it," spoke up Sid Wombley from his soda-keg, and his sudden return to his natural condition

gun

(ftrtefe

201

I

evoked the first laugh of the morning. At

that moment a little boy, the son of the store

keeper, who had been playing on the porch,

came in quickly. His words and manner

showed that he knew who was in request, if

his intellect could not grasp the reason for it.

"Mr. Trundle is comin acrost the cotton-

patch behind the store," he announced, out

of breath. Then silence fell on the group, a

silence so complete that Jim Trundles strides

over the plowed ground outside were dis

tinctly heard. The next moment Trundle had

crawled over the low rail fence at the side of

the store, and with clattering, untied brogans

was coming up the steps.

The doorway, as his tall, lank figure passed through it, framed a perfect picture of human poverty. His shirt, deeply dyed with the red

1 Ii

of the soil, was full of slits and patches worn

threadbare. The hems of his trousers had

worn away, revealing triangular glimpses of

his ankles, and a frayed piece of a suspender

hung from a stout peg in the waistband

1

behind.

He greeted no one as he entered. A silent

tongue was one of Jim Trundles peculiarities.

Few people had ever gotten a dozen consecu

tive words out of him. He strode to the end

202 ^aortfjecn eorgfa
of the store, thrust his hand into an open cracker-box, bit into a large square cracker, and sent his eyes foraging along both coun ters for something to eat with it cheese, butter, a bit of honey, or a pinch of dried beef. He was violating no rule of country store eti quette, for Alf Gardens customers all under stood that those things left on the counters were to be partaken of in moderation. I think the habitu6s of the place had gradually intro duced this custom themselves years before, when Garden was so anxious to draw people from the store across the river that he would willingly have given a customer bed and board for an indefinite time if by so doing he could have deprived his rival of the profit on a bag of salt.
Jim Trundle wasnt going to ask if there was any mail for him, that was plain to the curious onlookers; and their glances began to play back and forth between Garden and the cracker consumer, making demands on the former and condemning the latter for not more readily walking into the trap set for him.
Wade Sims winked when he caught the store, keepers eye, and nodded toward the gaunt robber, who had squatted at the faucet of a

203
syrup-barrel and was cautiously trailing a golden stream over an immaculate cracker.
"So you didnt git no letter fer me, Alf," said Sims, significantly. "Seems like no mail dont come this way here lately hardly at all. I hope all the restll have their ride fer nothin too."
Alf Garden understood, having given Sims a letter half an hour before, and he smiled. "No," he said, "thar haint nothin fer any of you except Jim Trundle; has he come along yet?"
Jim stood up quickly, and laid his besmeared cracker on the barrel. "Me?" he ejaculated, and a white puff shot from his crunching jaws; "I I reckon yore mistaken."
"I reckon I kin read," replied Garden, still acting his part nonchalantly, and glanc ing askance at Sims to see how that individual was taking it. "It is jest Jim Trundle in plain ABC letters. It is either from some body that caynt write shore nough writin ur is tryin to disguise his handwrite." .
Garden threw the letter on the counter. It lay there fully a minute, while Jim Trundle wiped his hands on his trousers, gulped down a mouthful of cracker, and stared helplessly round at the upturned faces. Then he

2Q4

(ffifgotgfa

reached for the letter, and with trembling fingers tore it open and read as follows:

"Jim Trundle. This is to give you due notic. We

the reglar organized band of Regulators of this set

tlement hav set on yore case an decided what we are

goin to do about it. Time and agin good citizens

have advised you to change yore way of livin, but you

jest went along as before, in the same old rut.

"You are no earthly account, an no amount of

talkin seems to do you any good. Yore childern are

in tatters an without food, an you jest wont do nothin

fer them. This might hav gone on longer without

our action, but last Wednesday you let yore sick wife

go to the field in the hot brilin sun, an she was seed

by a responsible citizen in a faintin condition, while

you was on the creek banks a fishin in the shade.

"To night exactly at eight oclock we are comin after

you in full force to give you a sound lickin. Yore wife

an childern would be better off without you, and we

advise you to leave the country before that time. If

we find you at home at eight oclock you may count

on a sore back.

Yours truly, the secretary."

The spectators observed that Jim Trundle had read every word of the communication. His eyes, in their sunken sockets, darted strange, hunted glances from face to face, as if seeking sympathy; then, as if realizing the futility of the hope, he looked down at the floor. He leaned back against the counter so heavily that Gardens thread-case rattled its

(ftrfete

205

contents and the beam of the scales wildly swung back and forth.
The group furtively feasted themselves on his visible agony, but they got nothing more, for Jim Trundle did not intend to talk. Talk ing was not in his line. He knew that at eight oclock that night he was going to be punished in a way that would be remembered against the third and fourth generation of his descendants that is, if he did not desert his family and leave the country.
"Kin I do anything fer you in the provision line, Jim?" asked Garden, for the entertain ment of his customers. "Ive got some fresh bulk pork. Seems to me you haint had none lately."
Trundle refused to answer. He only stared out into the golden sunshine that lay on the road to his home. He saw through Gardens remarks, and his heart felt heavier under the thought that before him were some of the faces which would be masked later on. He wondered if those men knew that a lazy, worthless vagabond could feel disgrace as keenly as they could.
There was nothing left for him to do except to go home. He wanted to turn his mindpictures of his wife and children into helpful

206 liottfjetn Georgia
realities. Somehow they had always com forted him in trouble. Oh, God! if only he could have foreseen the approach of this calamity! As he moved out of the store he felt vaguely as if his arms, legs, and body had nothing to do with his real, horrible self except to hinder it, to detain it near its spot of torture.
Outside he drew a long, deep, trembling breath. His breast rose and expanded under his ragged shirt and then sank like a collapsed balloon, and lay still while he thought of himself. He was a dead man alive, a mov ing, breathing horror in the sight of man kind.
He was sure that it was his strange nature that had brought him to it. Nature had, indeed, made him happy in rags, oblivious to material things. Had he been endowed with education he might have become a poet. He saw strange, transcendent possibilities in the blue skies; in the green growing things; in the dun heights of the mountains; in the depths of his childrens eyes; in the patient face of his wife.
What an awakening! A shudder ran over him. He felt the lash; he heard Wade Sims voice of command ; then his lower lip began

207

to quiver, and something rising within him

forced tears into his eyes. He had begun to

pity himself. If only those men really under

stood him they would pardon his shortcomings.

No human being could knowingly lash a man

feeling as he felt.

The road homeward led him into the depths

of a wood where mighty trees arched over

head and obscured the sky. He envied a

squirrel bounding unhindered to its sylvan

home. Nature seemed to hold out her vast

green arms to him; he wanted to sink into

them and sob away the awful load that lay

''I;

upon him. In the deepest part of the wood,

-;*!

where tall, rugged cliffs bordered the road,

there was a spring. He paused, looked

round him, and shuddered anew, for some

thing told him it was at this secluded spot

that he would receive his castigation.

He passed on. The trees grew less dense

along the way, and then on a rise ahead of

him he saw his cabin, a low, weather-beaten

structure that melted into the brown plowed

fields about it. He was anxious to see his

wife. Could it be true that she had almost

fainted while at work? If so, why had she

not mentioned it to him? He had noted

nothing unusual in her conduct of late; but

how could he? She was as uncommunica tive as he, and they seldom talked to each other.
As he passed the pig-sty in the fence-corner even the sight of the grunting inmate seemed to remind him that he was going to be whipped by his neighbors. He shuddered and felt his blood grow cold. He shuddered with the same thought again, as if he were encounter ing it for the first time, when he dragged open the sagging gate and looked about the bare yard. In one corner of it he had once started to grow some flowers, but his neighbors had laughed at his attempt so much that he allowed the bulbs to die and be uprooted by his chickens. His mind now reverted to that period, and he decided it was this and kin dred impulses that had always kept him from being a good husband, father, and citizen like his sturdy, more practical neighbors.
Well, to-morrow he was going to turn over a new leaf that is, if but he could not look beyond the torture set for eight oclock. He had imagination, but it could picture nothing but every possible detail of his approaching degradation the secluded spot, the masked circle of men, a muffled talk by Wade Sims, the baring of his back, the lash!

(ftrfefe

209

His wife was in the cabin. She held a wooden bowl in her lap and was shelling peas. As he towered up in front of her in the lowroofed room, for the first time in his life he noticed that she looked pale and thin, and as he continued to study the evidences against him in growing bewilderment he felt that even God had deserted him.
She looked up. "Whats the matter?" she asked, in slow surprise. "Nothin." But he continued to stare. How thin her hair seemed since she had recovered from the fever! Perhaps if he had insisted on having a doctor something might have been done for her then that was neglected. Poor Martha! how he had made her suffer! The whipping would not be so hard to bear now, except that if she were to know if she were to witness it. Ah, he had not thought of that! Yes, God had left him wholly at the mercy of Wade Sims and the rest of his neighbors. Her eyes held a look of deep concern. "What are you lookin at me that-a-way fer?" she asked. He made no answer, but turned to a stool in the chimney-corner and sat down. She

ZIP jEottfrecn (Keorgta
must not suspect what was going to happen. He would not escape it by deserting her, for he was going to be a better man, beginning; with the next day. He would stay with her; and protect her, but she must never hear of] the whipping. He understood her proud spirit well enough to know that she could; never get over such a disgrace.
Then out of the black flood of his despair a; plan rose and floated into possibility before his minds eye. Sims men would gather at the store, and just before the appointed hour would march along the road he had just traversed. He would make some ex cuse to his wife for being obliged to absent; himself for a little while and go to meet them. If he told them he had voluntarily! come to be whipped, they might agree tc keep the fact from his wife. Yes, would not let them refuse that, for even Wade Sims would not want to pain an un offending woman when he was told how Martha would take it. Then a sob broke from him, and he realized that his head had fallen between his knees, that tears were drip ping from his eyes to his hands, and, more-^ over, that Martha was looking at him as she* had never looked before. She wanted to ask

211
him what was the matter, but she could not have done it to save her life.
"Are you ready fer dinner?" she asked, still with that look in her eyes.
"Yes, I reckon, ef ef you are. Whars the children?"
"Behind the house, hoein the young corn. Do you want em?"
"No; jest thought Id ask." She emptied the peas from her apron into the bowl, and put it on a shelf. Then she walked across the swaying puncheon floor to a little cupboard, and began to busy her hands with some dishes, keeping furtive eyes the while on him. He evidently thought him self unobserved, for he allowed his head to fall dejectedly again, and stared fixedly at the hearth. Surely, thought Mrs. Trundle, Jim had never acted so peculiarly before. Wiping a plate with a dishcloth, she moved across the floor till she stood in front of him. He looked up. The gleaming orbs in their deep hollows frightened the woman into speech she might not have indulged in. "Look y heer, Jim, has anythin gone wrong?" "No." He drew himself up, and rubbed his eyes. "Did you say dinner was ready?"

212
"You know the table haint set. Look y heer, are you sick, Jim Trundle?"
"No." His eyes rested on her. There was much that he wanted to ask her, if only he could have found the words. She turned away unsatisfied. The next moment she fanned him with the cloth she was spreading for the meal, then she put a plate of fried bacon and a pan of corn bread on the table, went to the back door, and called the children from their work.
He studied them one by one with fresh hor ror as they filed in, wondering what this one or that one would think if they should learn that their father had been whipped for neglect ing them and their mother. At the table, how ever, he studied his wife chiefly. The chil dren were young and healthy, and devoured their food like famished animals, but she was only making feeble pretenses with the piece of bread she was daintily breaking and dipping into bacon-grease. The "Regulators," as they called themselves, were right; he had allowed a sick wife to go into the hot sun to do work he ought to have done. He thought now of the lash again, but not with a shudder. It could never pain him more than the agony at his heart.

CrunMes Otrfete

213

He spent that long afternoon under an apple-tree behind the cabin, mending a har row that was broken, stealing glances at his wife, longing to open his heart to her, watch ing the progress of the sun in its slow descent to the mountain-top, and feeling the threaten ing chill of the lengthening shadows. All nature seemed mutely to announce the com ing horror. At sundown he went to the shelf in the entry, filled a tin pan with fresh springwater, and washed his face and hands. Then he went in to supper, but he did not eat heartily.
"Dont you feel no better, Jim?" asked his wife, her manner softened by a vague uneasi ness his actions had roused. A suggestion of his mute suppressed agony seemed to have reached her and drawn her nearer to him.
"No, I haint sick; Ill be all right in the mornin."
Through the open door he watched the darkness thicken and heard the insects of the night begin to chirp and shrill. He had the curse of introspective analysis, and resolved that they were happy. He used to whistle and sing himself when his youth rendered it excusable. How very long ago that seemed!
All at once he rose, pretended to yawn, and

2H jHortfiern (Sreotgfa
said something to his wife about going over to Rawlstons a little while; he would be back by bedtime. She wondered in silence, and after he had passed through the gate she tiptoed to the door and looked after him uneasily.
The landscape darkened as he went along the road toward Gardens store. It was quite dark in the wooded vale. When he reached the spring he stopped to await the coming of Wade Sims and his followers. He wondered if the spot was far enough from the cabin to prevent Martha from hearing the blows that were to fall. He hoped it was, and, more than anything else, that "the regulators" would not be drinking. They would be more apt to listen to his request if they were perfectly sober. The rising moon in the direction of the store now made the arched roadway look like a long tunnel.
It would soon be eight oclock. He sat down on the root of a tree and tried to pray, but no prayer he had ever heard would come into the chaos of his mind, and he could not invent one to suit the occasion. By and by he heard voices down the road, then the tramp, tramp of footsteps. A dark blur appeared on the moonlit roadway at the

gim CrunWs Ofrfefe

2I 5

mouth of the tunnel, and grew gradually into a body of men.
Jim Trundle stood up. They should find him ready.
"Hello! what have we heer?" It was the undisguised voice of Wade Sims. The gang of twenty men or more paused abruptly. There was a hurried fitting on of white cloth masks.
"Whos thar?" called out the same voice, peremptorily, and the hammer of a revolver clicked.
"Me Jim Trundle." "Huh!" Wades grunt of surprise was echoed in various exclamations round the group. "On yore way outn the county, eh? Seems to me yore times up. Well have to put it to a vote. Its a little past eight oclock, an youve had the whole day to git a move on you. Whar you bound fer?" "I aint on my way nowhar. I come down heer a half-hour ago to meet you-uns, an Ive jest been a-waitin." "To meet we-uns? Huh! Jeewhilikins!" It sounded like Alf Gardens voice. "I I lowed you-uns would likely want to do it heer, bein as it was whar you-uns tuck Joe Rand last fall."

216

(Sreorgfa

Silence fell a silence so profound, so sus ceptible, that it seemed to retain Trundles words and hold them up to sight rather than to hearing for fully half a minute after they had ceased to stir the air. Even Wade Sims blustering equipose was shaken. His mask appealed helplessly to other masks, but their jagged eye-holes offered no helpful sugges tions.
"Well, we are much obleeged to you," said Wade, awkwardly; and he laughed a laugh that went little farther than his mask. "Boys, he looks like hes actuly itchin fer it; you neednt feel at all squeamish."
"Ive been studyin over it," said Trundle, furnishing more surprise, "and Ive concluded that I ort to be whipped, an that sound. In fact, neighbors, the sooner you do it an have it over the better Ill feel about it."
The silence that swallowed up this clear-cut assertion was deeper than the one which had followed Trundles other remark. Seeing that no one was ready to reply, he went on, "I did come down heer, though, to see ef I couldnt git you-uns to do me a sorter favor, ef you-uns jest would."
"Ah!" Wade Sims was feeling better. "I must say I was puzzled about yore conduct in

giro Crunks (Ertete

217

santerin out to meet us. Well, what do you want?"
"Im ready fer my whippin," said Trundle, "becase I think I deserve it. Ive been so lazy an careless that I never once noticed till I got yore letter that my wife was a sick woman. I did let her go to the field in the hot sun when I was a-fishin on the creekbank in the shade. I thought her an all of us would like some fresh fish, an I forgot that our corn-patch was sufferin fer the hoe. But she didnt. She tended to it. An now I come to the favor I want to ask. She haint done a speck o harm to you-uns, an, as foolish as it may seem, it would go hard with her in her weakly condition to heer about me a-goin through what Ill have to submit to. She has got a mighty sight of pride, an its my honest conviction that she would jest pine away an die ef she knowed about it. I aint a-beggin off from nothin, understand; its only a word fer her an the childern. You kin all take a turn an whip me jest as long as you want to, but when its over an done with I lowed you mought consent to say nothin to nobody about it. Besides, Ive made up my mind to lead a different sort of a life, friends, God bein my helper, an it

218 $lottf)*rn (ffieorgfa
would be easier to do it if I knowed Martha had respect fer me; an, neighbors, I am actuly afeered she wont have it if she diskivers what takes place to-night. I I think you-uns mought agree to that much."
Masks turned upon masks. Some of them fell from strangely set visages into hands that quivered and failed to replace them. It was plain to the crowd that they had not elected a leader who could possibly do justice to the infinite delicacy of the situation. In fact, something was struggling in Wade Sims that was humiliating him in his own eyes, making him feel decidedly unmanly.
"I think yore proposition is is purty rea sonable," he managed to blurt out, after an awkward hesitation. "We haint none of us got nothin agin yore wife; an 1 ef she is sick, an hearin about this "
But his inability to continue was evident to his most sincere admirers. Trundle sighed in relief. He knew that not one in the gang could possibly be harder of heart than their blustering leader. "I wish, then, gentlemen," he said, calmly, "that youd git it over with. I dont know how long its a-goin to take thats with you-uns; but Martha thinks Ive

219
gone over to Rawlstons to set till bedtime, an itll soon be time I was back."
"Thats a fact," admitted Wade Sims, slowly, as if his mind were on something be sides the business in hand, and he looked round him. The band stood like rugged, white-capped posts.
Then it was proved that Sid Wombley, the wag of the valley, had more courage of his convictions than had ever been accredited to him. It sounded strange to hear him speak without joking. His seriousness struck a sort of terror to the hearts of some of the most backward. There was a suspicion of a whim per in the tone he manfully tried to straighten as he spoke.
"Looky" heer, Jim," he said, and he stepped forward and tore off his mask, "Ive got a sorter feelin that I want you to see my face an* know who I am. Sence I heard yore pro posal, blame me ef I haint got more down right respect fer you than fer any man in this cove, an I want to kick myself. Youve got the sort o meat in you that aint in me, Im afeered, an I take off my hat to it. Im a member o this gang, an have agreed to abide by the vote of the majority, but theyll have to git a mighty move on theirselves an

220 jEortfrern g&eorgia
reverse ther decision in yore case, ur Ill be a deserter. Id every bit as soon whip my mammy as a body feelin like you do."
"Thats the talk." It was the voice of Alf Garden. All at once he remembered that Jim Trundle, after all that had been said against him, did not owe him a cent, while nearly every other man present had to be dunned systematically once a week. "Boys, let im go," he said; "Im a-thinkin we haint fully understood Jim Trundle."
"I haint the one that got up this move ment," said Wade Sims, in a tone of defense. Where sentiment was concerned he was out of his element. "Ef you was to let im off with a word of advice, it wouldnt be the fust time we conceded a pint. "
That settled it. With vague mutterings of various sheepish kinds the crowd began to filter away. Some went down the road, and others took paths that led from it.
Sid Wombley lingered with Jim a moment. Not being able to turn the matter into a jest, and yet being a thorough man, he felt very awkward.
"Go on home, Jim," he said, gently, his hand on Trundles arm. "Your wifell never know a thing about it ; theyll all keep it quiet,

221
an* the boysH never bother you agin. I Ill see to that."
They shook hands. Trundle started to speak, but simply choked and coughed. Sid turned away. An idea for a joke flitted through his mind, but he discarded it as unworthy of the occasion.
Jim went slowly up the hill to his cabin. The moon was now higher up, and as he neared the gate he saw his wife walking about in the entry. She was not alone. A woman sat on the step. It was old Mrs. Samuel, the aunt of Wade Sims, a neighbor, who sometimes dropped in to spend the evening. Was it an exclamation of glad surprise that he heard as he opened the gate, and did his wife stand still and stare at him excitedly, or was the sound the voice of one of the children turning in its sleep? Was her cast of countenance a trick of the moonlight and shadows?
The eyes of both women fell as he ap proached them.
"Good evenin, Jim," was Mrs. Samuels greeting.
He nodded and sat down on the steps, his back to his wife. They were all silent. Mrs. Trundle stepped to the water-shelf at one side, and peered at his profile through the

222 jaortfretn <&eotgia
shadows, her face full of vague misgivings. Then she sat down in a chair behind him, and studied his back, his neck, the way his shirt lay, her hands clinched on her knees, the fury of a tiger in her eyes.
Ten minutes passed. Then Trundle roused himself with a start. He must not be so -ab sent-minded; they must suspect nothing.
"Whars the children?" he asked, not look ing toward his wife.
"In bed a hour ago." Her tone struck him dumb with apprehen sion. He stared over his shoulder at her. Her face was hidden in her hands. He glanced at the visitor, and saw her avert her eyes. Could she have heard of the plan to whip him, and revealed it to his wife? He felt sure of it; Wade Sims could not keep a secret. His wife thought he had been pun ished. No matter; it was the same thing. His heart was ice. Mrs. Trundle bent nearer him. She was trying surreptitiously to see if there were any marks on his neck above his shirt-collar. Presently her pent-up emotions seemed to overwhelm her. She began to sob and rock back and forth. Then she glared at Mrs. Samuel.

CrutrtUa

223

"Id think youd have the decency to go home," she said, fiercely, "an not set thar an* an gloat over me an him like a crow. Its our bedtime."
"Why, Martha, whats the " Trundle stood up in bewilderment.
"I was jest gettin ready to go," stammered the visitor, humbly, and she hastened away. Trundle sank back on his seat. What was to be done now? He had never seen his wife that way, but he loved her more than ever in his life before. She watched Mrs. Samuels form vanish in the hazy moonlight; then she sat down on the step beside her husband.
"Jim," she faltered, "I want you to lay yore head in my lap." She had put her thin, quivering arm round his neck, and her voice had never before held such tender, motherly cadences.
"What do you want me to do that fer? "Jest becase I do. I haint never in all my life loved you like I do at this minute. Id fight fer you with my last breath; Id die fer you. Jim, poor, dear Jim! you neednt try to hide it from me. Mis Samuel had jest told me what the Regulators was goin to do when you turned the corner. I know you went down to the spring to meet em so me

224 JlortiKnt (Briotflia
an the childern wouldnt know it. Many a man would a gone away an left his family , ruther than suffer such disgrace. Oh, Jim,. Id a million times ruther theyd whipped mel. Ill never git over it. Ill feel that lash on my back every minute as long as I live. They haint none of em got sense enough to see what a good, lovin man you are at the bot tom. Id ruther have you jest like you are than like any one o that layout. We must move away somewhars an begin all over. I dont want the childern to grow up under sech disgrace."
Her hand passed gently round to the front of his shirt. She unfastened it, and began to sob as she turned the garment down at the neck. "Oh, Jim, did they hurt you? Does it "
"They didnt tetch me, Martha," he said, finally recovering his voice. "Sid Wombley kinder tuk pity on me an stood up fer me, an they all concluded to give me another trial. I haint lived right, Martha, I kin see it now, an to-morrow Im a-goin to begin different. These fellows have got good hearts in em, an after the way they talked an acted to-night I haint a-goin to harbor no ill-will agin "em."

gHm CtuntJle0 (ftrtete

225

Mrs. Trundle leaned toward him. She began to cry softly, and he drew her head over on his shoulder and stroked her thin hair with his coarse hands. Then they kissed each other, went into the cabin, and went to bed in the dark, so as not to wake the children.

THE COURAGE OF ERICSON

THE COURAGE OF ERICSON
In straggling, despondent lines the men in soiled gray leaned on their muskets and peered through the misty darkness at the enemy crawling across the field in front of them like a monster reptile. The colonel of the regiment nearest the coppice of pines strode restlessly back and forth in front of his men, on tenter-hooks of anxiety, the spas modic glow of his cigar showing features grim and tortured.
"I feel like were in fer it to-night," whis pered Private Ericson to a battle-stained comrade.
"Right you are," was the guarded reply; "an* we-uns aint a handful beside the army out thar. I tell you the blasted fellers have had reinforcements sence the sun went down. I know it, an our colonel is beginnin to sus picion it. Ef he had his way hed order a retreat while thars a chance."
Silence, punctuated by the clanking of the 229

230 Jiottfjew (Sfeorgta
colonels sword and the snoring of a private asleep standing, intervened. Then Private Huckaby resumed:
"So this is raily yore old stompin-ground, Ericson. I reckon you uster haul pine-knots outn them woods, and split rails on that mountain-side."
"I know every inch of it like a book," sighed Ericson.
"An I reckon that sweetheart o yorn dont live fur off, ef she didnt refugee."
"Her folks wuz Union," returned Ericson, sententiously. "Hern tuk one side, an me an mine tother. The cabin she used to live in is jest beyond them woods at the foot o the fust mountain, Old Crow. Shes thar yit. A feller that seed er a week ago told me. She lowed ef I jined the Confederacy I neednt ever look her way any more. Her father an only brother went to the Union side, an she blamed me fer wantin to go with my folks. She is as proud as Lucifer. I wisht wed parted friendlier. I haint been in a single fight without wantin that one thing off my mind."
Ericson leaned on the muzzle of his gun, and Huckaby saw his broad shoulders rise and quiver convulsively. He stared at the be-

(ftotirag* of rtcson
grimed face under the slouched hat, begin ning to think that what he had seen of his young mate had been only the surface the froth of a deeper nature. An excited grunt came from the mist which almost enveloped the colonel, and he was seen to dart to the end of the regiment and throw down his cigar.
"To arms!" he cried. The words were drowned in the clatter of muskets as they were snatched from the ground to horny palms. The sound died like the rustle of dead leaves in a forest after a gust of wind. A composite eye saw that the line which had been moving across the field in front had paused, steadied itself. The next instant it was a billow of flame half a mile in length, rolling up and dashing itself against the wall of damp darkness. The colonel, his blue steel blade raised against the sheet of piercing lead, sprang forward, a black silhouette against the enemys glare. He meant it as an objective command a prayer to his men to stand to their ground, but he tottered, leaned on his sword, and as its point sank into the earth he fell face downward. Drums, great and small, boomed and rattled on the Confederate side like a prolonged echo of the Federals salvo.

jEottjjgrn gEriorgte
The ranks of the Confederates wavered broke; the retreat began. Running back ward, his gun poised, Ericson felt a numb, tingling sensation in his right side. He turned and started after his comrades, but each step he put down seemed to meet the ground as it fell from him. Then he felt dizzy. There was a roaring in his ears, and his legs weakened. As he fell his gun tripped the feet of Huckaby, and that individual went to earth, and then on hands and knees, to avoid being shot, crept to his friends side.
"Whats wrong, Eric? Done fer?" he asked, his tone weighty with the tragedy of the moment.
"I believe so," said Ericson. "Go on; dont wait!"
"Good-by, my boy," Huckaby said. "Id tote ye, but somen is the matter with the calf o my right leg. Id give out, I know, an an I must remember my wife and the ba " He was gone.
Half an hour passed, during which time Ericson had experienced the delicious sensa tion of a man freezing to death, then a real ization of his condition permeated his con sciousness. He drew himself up on an elbow and glanced over the field. Black ambu-

Courage of

3 33

lances, like vultures stalking about with drooping wings, were picking their way among the dead and dying. Vaguely Ericsons numb fancy pictured himself being jostled like a human log of wood to hospital, or perhaps to prison, and grasping his musket, and trans forming it into a crutch, he rose and hobbled away from the groans and puddles of blood into the edge of the wood.
He had no sooner reached it than he felt the earth acting as if it were a mad sea again, and he sank headlong into the heather and underbrush. When he came to it was morn ing. The oblique rays of the sun were mak ing diamonds and pearls of the poised dewdrops. The field had been cleared. Only a shattered gun, a tattered cap, a battered can teen bore evidence of the recent carnage. Half a mile across the level valley Ericson saw a village of tents, blue-coated guards pacing to and fro, and the stars and stripes rippling from a tall staff.
The private rose cautiously to his trembling feet, and aided by his too weighty crutch he went slowly through the wood toward the cabin where dwelt Sally Tripp.
"Its the nighest house," he said to himI self. "Shorely she wont refuse to let me in."

234
However, when he had passed through the wood and saw the cabin not fifty yards from him in the open, a screw of blue smoke curl ing from the mud-and-stick chimney, misgiv ings which had depressed him ever since he had parted with her attacked him anew. He forgot that he had lost nearly every ounce of his life-blood, and stood almost erect, resting hardly the weight of his hand on the gun as his eyes drank in the familiar old scene.
Then he heard the massive bar of one of the doors squeak as it was lifted from its wooden sockets, and in the doorway stood a golden-haired vision.
"Thank God, its her!" Ericson muttered; and the sight of her standing there, looking afar off toward the camp of the Federals, gave him courage. He dropped his gun, determined not to exhibit weakness, and walked erectly, if slowly, toward her.
He saw the girl turn pale, stare at him steadily, and stifle a scream with her hand at her lips.
"Dont you know me, Sally?" he asked. She stared mutely, inwardly occupied with her outward appearance, fearing perhaps that a tithe of her gladness of heart at seeing him

outage of

2 35

might be detected by his supersensitive, pleading eye.
"Thar aint nothin to keep me from knowin of you," she said. "As fur as them clothes on yore back is concerned, they be come yore sort powerful well. A rebel is a rebel anywhar."
Again the qualms of physical weakness stirred within him. He hung his head, pray ing for strength to keep from falling at her feet. She smiled relentlessly and continued:
"I reckon when the Union men attackted you-uns last night you broke an ran like all the rest. I seed that fight, John Ericson. Me an grandpa scrouged down behind the chimney so as not to git struck an watched the trap the bluecoats was a-layin fer youuns. We seed the reinforcements slide in round Old Crow, an knowed most o youuns would play mumbly-peg fore mornin. I mought a lowed youd git off unteched, knowing them woods as well as you do."
His silence, his downcast attitude may have shamed the girl, for a change came over her. She cast a hurried glance at the far-off en campment, arid a touch of anxiety came into her tone as she added:

236 jBtortfrgrn Okeorgta
"Youd better git back into hidin, John Ericson. The Union soldiers have been sendin out searchin squads all day fer men that got aloose in the woods. They say they pulled Jake McLain right outn his bed. His wife had burnt his rebel uniform an said he was a Yank a-lyin up sick, but the powderstains on his face give him away, an they tuk him off."
It was plain to him that she did not suspect he was wounded unto death, and he for gave her sternness for the sake of his great love. Besides, she was showing qualities of patriotism to which he granted her the right, though he could not comprehend what influ ence had entered her life to harden it to such an extent. Just then the bent form of Grand father Tripp emerged from the other room of the cabin, crossed the entry, and stared at the soldier.
"Well, Ill be literly bumfuzzled!" he exclaimed. "Ef it aint John Ericson! I knowed yore company was in the fight last night, an I thought o you when I heerd the grape-shot a-plinkin out thar. But hang me, ef you dont look sick ur half starved! Sally, give im somen t eat. They dont feed the rebs much. Johnny, shes been a-pinin fer

of

2 37

you ever sence you enlisted, an last night durin the fight she mighty nigh went dis tracted. She "
"Grandpa, thats a lie!" cried the girl, fiercely; but there were pink spots in her cheeks as she retreated into the cabin and began to slam the pots and pans on the stone hearth.
The old man caught the arm of the soldier. "Go right in, my boy. Shes that glad to see you unhurt she dont know what to do. Shell give you a mouthful gladdern she ever fed a Yank."
Mounting the log steps to the cabin door seemed to deprive the soldier of the last ves tige of his strength. As if from a distance he heard the girls complaining voice, and a blur hung before his sight. Blindly he felt for a chair and sank into it. His head was sink ing to his breast, when the sharp voice of the girl sharper because of her grandfathers meddling revived him like the lash of a whip on the back of a succumbing beast of burden.
"Pas dead, John Ericson," she cried. "Shot down, fer all I know, by you. Hes gone. Now I reckon you see why I dont like the looks o yore clothes. Then jest see

23s Jioitijent eorfita
heer. " She flounced into a corner of the room, jerked a trunk open and brought to him the soiled uniform of a Federal soldier. "This was what Brother Jasper had on when he died. That hole in the breast is where the ball went in. He come home a week ago on a furlough to git over his wound, an died a-settin thar in that door. Do you wonder that I never want to lay eyes on a dirty gray coat again?"
Ericsons slouched hat hid the piteous glare in his eyes. He rested his two hands on the arms of the chair and tried to draw himself up, but that effort was the signal for his col lapse. The girl laid the uniform on the table and stared at him, the lines of her face soft ening and betraying vague disquietude.
"Look a heer," she blurted out, suddenly, "are are you wounded?"
He tried to speak, but his lips seemed paralyzed.
"My God! Grandpa, look!" the girl cried. "Hes wounded! Hes dying, an Ive jest been a-standin heer "
The old man bent over the soldier, and turned his face upward.
"Say, whar are you hit, Johnny?" Ericson tried to affect a careless smile, and

outage of tfcson 239
managed to place his hand on his wounded side. The old man unbuttoned his coat.
"Well, I should think so!" he muttered. "Hes lost enough of the life fluid to paint a barn. Quick, Sally, put down a quilt fer im to lie on in front o the fire!"
The girl obeyed as by clock-work, the whiteness of terror and regret in her face. She brought an armful of straw and some quilts and hastily patted out a crude bed for the soldier.
"Now," said the old man, "you must lie down, Johnny."
Ericson sat up erect. "I dont want to to be helpless heer," he stammered. "All through the war Ive never thought o one single thing except Sally, an now "
The girl cowered down on the hearth in front of him, and hid her face with her hands.
"I didnt dream you was wounded," she said. "Ef Id a knowed that, Id never a* said what I did. Grandpa told the truth jest now, he did. Lie down, please do!"
He raised his eyes to her with a grateful glance. At this juncture the small, remote blast of a bugle fell on their ears, and it

240
struck the tenderness from her great moist eyes. She rose and went to the door.
"Its a searchin squad," she cried, her voice vibrating with fear. "They are at Joe^ Frenchs house now. They are shore to come heer next. Ef they take John away hell die!"
The old man stared at her rigidly. "We must hide im," he said. "Sally, hes an old friend an a neighbor. We must hide im!" The wounded soldier stood up, grasped the edge of the mantel-piece and swayed back and forth. There was a sweet comfort in her startled concern that rendered him impervious to fear. "Thar aint no place to hide im, " said the girl, with an agonized glance through the doorway toward Frenchs house. Ericsons knees began to bend, and he sank into his chair again. "No use," he muttered. "I lowed I mought git to the woods, but Id hobble so slow theyd be shore to see me. When they git heer I 11 tell em you wasnt harborin of me."
The girl turned from the door. "They are a-comin," she said. Then her eyes fell on her brothers uniform. She

(^outage of

241

started, clutched it, and held it toward her grandfather, fired with a sudden hope.
"Dress im in it," she said. "Ill go out an meet em an tell em nobody aint heer except you an my wounded brother home on a furlough. The permit is in tother room. Ill show em that. Theyll never dream he aint brother when they read the furlough an see im in the blue uniform."
A sickly smile worked its way through the grimy surface of the soldiers face as he raised his hand to signify opposition to her suggestion.
"I couldnt do that, Sally," he said. "Not to save my life, I couldnt. Somehow I think the chances o my seein another sun rise is dead agin me, an I dont want to die in any other uniform except the one me an my comrades has fought in. Id as soon wear the clothes of a brother o yorn as any body else alive, but I cant put on blue even to escape arrest. I jest cant! It would be exactly the same as bein* a spy, an the Lord only knows how a fightin man hates that sort of a character.
"But you must," urged the girl, frantically. "Oh, you must!"
"I simply cant. Thats all. Id a sight

242
ruther be tuk as a wounded soldier unable to stir a single peg than to sneak into another mans clothes an deny the side I fit on. Huh, you are a woman! War makes men mighty indifferent to anything except duty."
A picture of baffled despair, the girl peered through the doorway at the approaching men.
"You once said youd do anything I asked ef Id consent to marry you. John, now will you let grandpa put it on you?"
A warm scarlet wave had passed over her. She had never looked so beautiful. He hesi tated for some time, and then shook his head.
"I cant put on blue clothes, Sally." The air was still as death. Above the beat of her strumming pulse she could hear the "hep! hep!" of the soldiers as they marched toward the cabin. Ericson staggered to his feet and stood swaying beside her. "I mought as well go out an meet em," he said, his face awry with pain and utter exhaustion. "Ef I dont theyll think you are harborin a reb, an it mought go agin you-uns. " Then he threw out his hands and clutched her shoulders, and sank to the floor. "He has fainted, grandpa," said the girl.

(ftourag* of

243

"Quick! Put the uniform on im. Ill try to detain em out thar till you are ready."
"I mought just as well take off his suit an kiver im with quilts," suggested the old man. "Itll save time."
"No, the uniform!" cried the girl. "Ef he has that on they wont ask no questions along with the furlough. You know Jake McLain tried that trick on em an failed. Put it on im, for the Lords sake. Dont stand thar idle!"
The steady tramp of feet was now audible, and the occasional command of the officer in charge. Darting from the back door the girl crossed the entry, went into the next room, and emerged with the permit of absence in her belt. Picking up a pail near the door, she went to the pig-pen in a corner of the zigzag rail fence, and with no eyes for the approaching men, slowly poured the food into the animals trough.
Stopping the squad a few yards from her, the captain doffed his cap and bowed.
"I have come to search your house for pos sible fugitives from the Confederate ranks last night," he said, politely. "A good many have been found hiding in farmhouses in the
vicinity."

244 ^tortfjern feorgta
The girl set her pail down at her feet. "We are Union," she said, simply. "I was told so," the captain answered. "Nevertheless, I have orders to search your premises. Is there any one within?" "Nobody but grandpa an my wounded brother, a Union soldier home on a furlough." She took the paper from her belt and un folded it very deliberately. "Thars his per mit. I fetched it out to show it sos you wouldnt have to wake im up ef you could help it. He couldnt sleep last nigh fer the shootin, an the truth is, he is as nigh dead as kin be. I wisht you would let im rest." The officer perused the furlough through his eyeglasses. "Thats all right, " he said, handing it back. "But you see I have to obey orders." There was a pause. The maiden felt the captains eyes resting on her admiringly. She could hear the hobnailed soles of her grandparents shoes grinding on the puncheon floor, and knew that the old man was still engaged in dressing or undressing the fugi tive. "Thats so," she said, in a tone which plainly intimated that the question was not positively settled. "But it looks like a

Courage of ticson 245
shame, for brother is powerful low, an any noise mought do im lots o harm."
"Ill leave my men here, and go in myself," compromised the officer. "Ill walk very lightly."
The heart of the girl sank. She could still hear the crunching of her grandfathers shoes in the cabin.
"Ill be much obleeged ef you will be care ful," she said. And as he started to the cabin she joined him. "Please go in here first," pointing to the room across the entry from the one containing the two men, "an Ill run in an see ef brother is fit to be seen.
He complied, with a bow, and went into the room indicated. Reappearing in a mo ment, he found her crouching down on the grass, a look of pain on her face.
"Whats the matter?" he asked, with con cern.
"Nothin," she winced. "I set my foot on that rock an it kinder twisted my ankle."
He gave her his hand and aided her to rise.
"Please wait jest one minute," she said, putting her foot down tentatively. "I was in sech a hurry jest now that I almost broke my ankle-bone."

jaottftern Georgia
He bowed assent. His eyes lit with admi ration for her physical charms, and she limped around to the rear of the cabin and went in. Just as she did so the noise of her grandfathers shoes on the floor ceased. The old man, thinking she was accompanied by the soldiers, was enacting his part. He had flung himself into a chair, and sat nodding as if asleep. On the bed of straw lay Ericson, still unconscious, completely clothed in blue uniform. The discarded gray suit lay in a bundle in a corner.
"Quick, that will never do!" she cried, causing the old man to look up with a start. Taking a case from a pillow on the bed, she filled it with the gray uniform and crushed it into the bottom of the old mans chair.
"Set on it," she said. "An dont git up, whatever you do." Then she wrung her hands despairfully as she surveyed the room. A twitching of Ericsons yellow face warned her that he was returning to consciousness, and a new terror pierced her heart.
"Ef he comes to," she thought, "hell deny being a Union soldier, an then theyll take im my God, have pity on the pore boy!"
She turned from the door and limped smil ingly toward the waiting officer.

(Courage of

247

"Ef brother wakes," she said, "I hope you wont git mad at nothin he says. Fer the last two days he has been clean outn his head.
Once he declared to us that he was actuly President Jeff Davis. Thars no tellin what idea may strike im next."
"Ill try not to wake him," said the cap tain. "Ill merely step inside very carefully. I wouldnt do that if if my men were not watching. You see theyd wonder "
"Come on, then." The rigidity of a crisis held her features. She entered first, and pushed the great cumbersome door open be fore her. The old man regarded them with sleepy looks and began to nod again.
The officer stood over the form in blue a moment, then peered under the bed, and even up the funnel-shaped chimney.
"Its all right," he whispered to Sally. Ericson opened his eyes and smiled faintly. The girl comprehended his frame of mind; he had not noticed that his clothes had been changed. "Youve run me in a hole," he said to the captain. "Im ready to go, but I dont want you to think that these folks are a-harborin

248

ifeeorgta

of me. I come heer uninvited. The truth is, that young lady ordered me off, an Id a gone, but I keeled over in the door."
He put a hand on either side of him, and with a strenuous effort managed to sit up. Then he noticed his change of uniform, and as he plucked distastefully at his coat-sleeve, he stared first at the girl and then at the cap tain.
"Why, whos done this heer?" he asked. "I aint no Yankee soldier. Im a rebel dyed in the wool."
The girl laid her hand on the officers arm.
"Come on, please, sir; hes gittin excited. Ef we dispute with im hell git to rantin awful."
Without a word the officer followed her from the cabin and down toward where his men stood. She walked rapidly, her steps quickened by the rising tones of Ericsons voice behind her. She put her handkerchief to her dry eyes, and said, plaintively:
"I hardly know what to do. Weve had no end of trouble. First the news come that pa had fell, an then brother come home like he is now."
"He looks like a very sick man," said the

Courage of

249

officer, with a bluntness peculiar to times of war. "Perhaps I ought to ask our surgeon to run over and take a look at him."
She started, her face fell. "Old Doctor Stone, nigh us, is a-Iookin after im," was the hasty product of her bewildered invention. "Hell do all that can be done an an I want to keep brother from thinkin about army folks as much as I can. Will you-uns camp nigh us long?" "We leave inside of an hour." He raised his cap, saluted his men, gave an order, and they whirled and tramped away. She went back into the cabin and sat down by the side of Ericsons pallet. There was something in his dumb glance and subdued air that quenched the warmth of her recent success. As he looked at her steadily his eyes became moist and his powder-stained lips began to quiver. "I didnt low youd play sech a dog-mean trick on me, Sally," he muttered. Id ruther a thousand times a been shot like a soldier than to hide in Yankee clothes." Under her warm rush of love and pity for him she com pletely lost the touch of hauteur that had clung to her since his return. She took his hand in hers and bent her body down till his fingers

25

JJRgorgta

lay against her cheek. He could feel that she was deeply moved.
"I couldnt stand to see em take you off," she sobbed. "Because you are all I got on earth to keer fer. It would a killed you, an me, too." Her voice took on the gentle cadences of a mother consoling a sick child. "Grandpa will take off the mean old blue suit an put you up in the big bed, and Ill make you some good chicken soup with boiled rice in it."
He pressed her hand. "Do you rally want me heer, Sally?" Her reply was a moments hesitation, a convulsive motion of the vocal cords, a failure of speech, and a final pressure of her lips on his fingers. "Becase ef I lowed you did, Sally, I wouldnt keer much which side beat. I wouldnt be able to think about any livin thing but you." "Well, you can, then," she said; and she rose quickly. "Grandpa, Im goin in tother room to fix im some chicken soup. Undress im an* put im to bed, an then go fetch Doc tor Stone." An hour later the old physician arrived and examined the patient.

outage of (Srfcson
"A flesh wound only," he said. "But he has lost mighty nigh every bit o blood in im. Nuss im good, Sally, an* hell be able to make plenty o corn and taters fer you the rest o yore life that is, if the war ever ends."
Ericson was convalescing when the news of Lees surrender came floating over the devastated land.
"Im awfully glad its all over," he said. "Im satisfied. I was shot by a Yankee ball an nussed back to life by a Union gal, so I reckon my account is even.

THE HERESY OF ABNER CALIHAN

THE HERESY OF ABNER CALIHAN
Neil Filmores store was at the crossing of the Big Cabin and Rock Valley roads. Before the advent of Sherman into the South it had been a grist-mill, to which the hardy moun taineers had regularly brought their grain to be ground, in wagons, on horseback, or on their shoulders, according to their conditions. But the Northern soldiers had appropriated the millers little stock of toll, had torn down the long wooden sluice which had conveyed the water from the race to the mill, had burnt the great wheel and crude wooden machinery, and rolled the massive grinding-stones into the deepest part of the creek.
After the war nobody saw any need for a mill at that point, and Neil Filmore had bought the property from its impoverished owner and turned the building into a store. It proved to be a fair location, for there was considerable travel along the two main roads,
255

and as Filmore was postmaster his store be came the general meeting-point for everybody living within ten miles of the spot. He kept for sale, as he expressed it, "a little of every thing, from shoe-eyes to a sack of guano." Indeed, a sight of his rough shelves and unplaned counters, filled with cakes of tallow, beeswax and butter, bolts of calico, sheeting and ginghams, and the floor and porch heaped with piles of skins, cases of eggs, coops of chickens, and cans of lard, was enough to make an orderly housewife shudder with horror.
But Mrs. Filmore had grown accustomed to this state of affairs in the front part of the house, for she confined her domestic busi ness, and whatever neatness and order were possible, to the room in the rear, where, as she often phrased it, she did the "eatin" an cookin, an never interfeer with paps part except to lend im my cheers when thar is moren common waitin fer the mail-carrier."
And her chairs were often in demand, for Filmore was a deacon in Big Cabin Church, which stood at the foot of the green-clad mountain a mile down the road, and it was at the store that his brother deacons frequently met to transact church business.

of

257

One summer afternoon they held an important meeting. Abner Calihan, a mem ber of the church and a good, industrious citizen, was to be tried for heresy.
"It has worried me moren anything that has happened sence them two Dutchmen over at Cove Spring swapped wives an couldnt be convinced of ther error," said long, lean Bill Odell, after he had come in and borrowed a candle-box to feed his mule in, and had given the animal eight ears of corn from the pockets of his long-tailed coat, and left the mule haltered at a hitching-post in front of the store.
"Ur sence the widder Dill swore she was gwine to sue Hank Dobbs wife fer witch craft," replied Filmore, in a hospitable tone. "Take a cheer; it must be as hot as a bakeoven out thar in the sun."
Bill Odell took off his coat and folded it carefully and laid it across the beam of the scales, and unbuttoned his vest and sat down, and proceeded to mop his perspiring face with a red bandanna. Toot Bailey came in next, a quiet little man of about fifty, with a dark face, straggling gray hair, and small, pene trating eyes. His blue jean trousers were carelessly stuck into the tops of his clay-

258

<&eorgta

stained boots, and he wore a sack-coat, a "hickory" shirt, and a leather belt. Mrs. Filmore put her red head and broad, freckled face out of the door of her apartment to see who had arrived, and the next moment came out dusting a "split-bottomed" chair with her apron.
"How are ye, Toot?" was her greeting as she placed the chair for him between a jar of fresh honey and a barrel of sorghum molasses. "How is the sore eyes over yore way?"
"Tolerble, " he answered, as he leaned back against the counter and fanned himself with his slouch hat. "Mine is about through it, but the Tye childern is a sight. Pizen-oak haint a circumstance."
"What did ye use?" "Copperas an sweet milk. It is the best thing Ive struck. I dont want any o that peppery eye-wash bout my place. Itd take the hide offn a mules hind leg." "Now yore a-talkin," and Bill Odell went to the water-bucket on the end of the counter. He threw his tobacco-quid away, noisily washed out his mouth, and took a long drink from the gourd dipper. Then Bart Callaway and Amos Sanders, who had arrived half an hour before and had walked down to

of

(Kalian 259

take a look at Filmores fish-pond, came in together. Both were whittling sticks and looking cool and comfortable,
"We are all heer, " said Odell, and he added his hat to his coat and the pile of weights on the scale-beam, and put his right foot on the rung of his chair. "I reckon we mought as well proceed." At these words the men who had arrived last carefully stowed their hats away under their chairs and leaned forward expectantly. Mrs. Filmore glided noiselessly to a corner behind the counter, and with folded arms stood ready to hear all that was to be said.
"Did anybody inform Ab of the object of this meeting?" asked Odell.
They all looked at Filmore, and he trans ferred their glances to his wife. She flushed under their scrutiny and awkwardly twisted her fat arms together.
"Sister Calihan wuz in here this mornin," she deposed in an uneven tone. "I lowed somebody amongst em ort to know what you-uns wuz up to, so I up an told er. "
"What did she have to say?" asked Odell, bending over the scales to spit at a crack in the floor, but not removing his eyes from the witness.

"Law, I hardly know what she didnt say! I never seed a woman take on so. Ef the last bit o kin she had on earth wuz suddenly wiped from the face o creation, she couldnt a tuk it more to heart. Sally wuz with er, an went on wuss an her mammy."
"What ailed Sally?"
Mrs. Filmore smiled irrepressibly. "I reckon you ort to know, Brother Odell," she said, under the hand she had raised to hide her smile. "Do you reckon she haint heerd o yore declaration that Eph caynt marry in no heretic family while yore above ground? It wuz goin" the round at singin-school two weeks ago, and thar haint been a thing talked sence."
"I haint got a ioty to retract," replied Odell, looking down into the upturned faces for approval. "Id as soon see a son o mine in his box. Misfortune an plague is boun* to foiler them that winks at infidelity in any disguise ur gyarb."
"Oh, shucks! dont fetch the young folks into it, Brother Odell," gently protested Bart Callaway. .Them two has been a-settin up to each other ever sence they wuz knee-high to a duck. They haint responsible fer the doins o the old folks."

Clje

of a&ner (Kalffjan 261

"I haint got nothin to take back, an Eph knows it," thundered the tall deacon, and his face flushed angrily. Ef the membership sees fit to excommunicate Ab Calihan, none o his stock 11 ever come into my family. But this is dilly-dally in over nothin. You fellers. 11 set thar cocked up, an chaw an spit, an* look knowin, an let the day pass thout doin* a single thing. Ab Calihan is either fitten or unfitten, one ur tother. Brother Filmore, youve seed im the most, now whats he let fall thats undoctrinal?"
Filmore got up and laid his clay pipe on the counter and kicked back his chair with his foot.
"The fust indications I noticed," he began, in a raised voice, as if he were speaking to some one outside, "wuz the day Liz Wambush died. Bud Thorn come in while I wuz weigh ing up a side o bacon fur Ab, an lowed that Liz couldnt live through the night. I axed im ef she had made her peace, and he lowed she had, entirely, that she wuz jest a-lyin thar shoutin Glory ever breath she drawed, an that they all wuz glad to see her reconciled, fer you know she wuz a hard case speritually. Well, it wuz right back thar at the fireplace while Ab wuz warmin hissef to start home that he lowed that he hadnt a word to say

262 Jlottfjern Georgia
agin Lizs marvelous faith, nur her sudden speritual spurt, but that in his opinion the doctrine o salvation through faith without actual deeds of the flesh to give it backbone wuz all shucks, an a dangerous doctrine to teach to a risin gineration. Them wuz his words as well as I can remember, an he cited a good many cases to demonstrate that the members o Big Cabin wuznt any more ready to help a needy neighbor than a equal number outside the church. He wuz mad kase last summer when his wheat wuz spilin everybody that come to hep wuz uv some other denomina tion, an the whole lot o Big Cabin folks made some excuse ur other. He lowed that you "
Filmore hesitated, and the tall man opposite him changed countenance.
"Neil, haint you got a bit o sense?" put in Mrs. Filmore, sharply.
"What did he say agin me the scamp?" asked Odell, firing up.
Filmore turned his back to his scowling wife, and took an egg from a basket on the counter and looked at it closely, as he rolled it over and over in his fingers.
"Lots that he ortnt to, I reckon," he said, evasively.

263
"Well, what wuz some of it? I haint a-keerin what he says about me."
"He lowed, fer one thing, that yore strict adheerance to doctrine had hardened you some, wharas religious conviction, ef thar wuz any divine intention in it, ort, in reason, to have a contrary effect. He lowed you wuz money-lovin an uncharitable an unfergivin an, a heap o times, un-Christian in yore per secution o the weak an helpless them that has no food an raiment when yore crib an smokehouse is always full. Ab is a powerful talker, an "
"Its the devil in im a-talkin," interrupted Odell, angrily, "an its plain enough that he ort to be churched. Brother Sanders, you intimated that youd have a word to say; let us have it."
Sanders, a heavy-set man, bald-headed and red-bearded, rose. He took a prodigious quid of tobacco from his mouth and dropped it on the floor at the side of his chair. His remarks were crisp and to the point.
"My opinion is that Ab Calihan haint a bit more right in our church than Bob Inglesel. Hes got plumb crooked."
"What have you heerd im say? Thats

264 jEortfrern g&gorgta
what we want to git at," said Odell, his leathery face brightening.
"Moren I keered to listen at. He has been readin stuff he ortnt to. He give up takin the Advocate, an wouldnt go in Mary Banks club when theyve been takin it in his family fer the last five year, an has been subscribin fer the True Light sence Christmas. The last time I met im at Big Cabin, I think it wuz the second Sunday, he couldnt talk o nothin else but what this great man an tother had writ somewhar up in Yankeedom, an that ef we all keep along in our little rut well soon be the laughin-stock of all the rest of the enlightened world. Ab is a slip pery sort of a feller, an its mighty hard to ketch im, but I nailed im on one vital pint."
Sanders paused for a moment, stroked his beard, and then continued: "He got excited sorter, an lowed that he had come to the conclusion that hell warnt no literal, burnin one nohow, that he had too high a regyard fer the Almighty to believe that He would amuse Hissef roastin an feedin melted lead to His creatures jest to see em squirm."
"He disputes the Bible, then," said Odell, conclusively, looking first into one face and then another. "He sets his puny self up agin*

of &tmei OEaltfian 265
the Almighty. The Book that has softened the jpillers o thousands; the Word that has been
consolation o millions an quintillions o icrtals of sense an" judgment in all ages an P&untries is a pack o lies from kiver to kiver. 1 dont see a bit o use goin" furder with this investigation. " Just then Mrs. Filmore stepped out from her corner. "I haint been axed to put in," she said, warmly; "but ef I wuz you-uns Id go slow with Abner Calihan. Hes nobodys fool. Hes too good a citizen to be hauled an drug about like a dog with a rope round his neck. He fit on the right side in the war, an" to my certain knowledge has done more tods keepin peace an harmony in this community than any other three men in it. He has set Up with the sick an toted medicine to em, an fed the pore an housed the homeless. Here only last week he got hissef stung all |:l over the face an neck helpin that lazy Joe | Sebastian hive his bees, an Joe an his triflin :* gang didnt git a scratch. You may see the "day youll regret it ef you run dry shod over that man." "We simply intend to do our duty, Sister ^Filmore," said Odell, slightly taken aback;

266 Jjorttecn OSeorgia
"but you kin see that church rules must obeyed. I move we go up thar in a body ai|| lay the case squar before im. Ef he is willii to take back his wild assertions an go lou quietly without tryin to play smash with religious order of the whole community, may stay in on probation. What do you-uji say?"
"Its all we kin do now," said Sanders; they all rose and reached for their hats.
"Youd better stay an look atter thri store," Filmore called back to his wife frori the outside; "somebody mought happe along." With a reluctant nod of her he she acquiesced, and came out on the littl<| porch and looked after them as they trudge along the hot road toward Abner CalihanJ farm. When they were out of sight she turned back into the store. "Well," she mutterec "Abner Calihan may put up with that triflinff layout a-interfeerin with im when he is bus a-savin his hay, but ef he dont set his dog on em he is a better Christian an I think is an hes a good un. They are a purtylookin set to be a-dictatin to a man like him."
A little wagon-way, which was not usedf enough to kill the stubbly grass that grew onl

(Ealtfran 267
it, ran from the main road out to Calihans house. The woods through which the little road had been cut were so thick and the foliage so dense that the overlapping branches often hid the sky.
Calihans house was a four-roomed log build ing which had been weather-boarded on the outside with upright unpainted planks. On the right side of the house was an orchard, and beneath some apple-trees near the door stood an old-fashioned cider-press, a pile of acid-stained rocks which had been used as weights in the press, and numerous tubs, bar rels, jugs, and jars, and piles of sour-smelling refuse, over which buzzed a dense swarm of honey-bees, wasps, and yellow-jackets. On the other side of the house, in a chip-strewn yard, stood cords upon cords of wood, and several piles of rich pine-knots and charred pine-logs, which the industrious farmer had on rainy days hauled down from the mountains for kindling-wood. Behind the house was a great log barn and a stable-yard, and beyond them lay the cornfields and the lush green meadow, where a sinuous line of willows and slender cane-brakes marked the course of a little
creek. The approach of the five visitors was an-

a68

Georgia

nounced to Mrs. Calihan and her daughter by a yelping rush toward the gate of half a dozen dogs which had been napping and snapping at flies on the porch. Mrs. Calihan ran out into the yard and vociferously called the dogs off, and with awed hospitality invited the men into the little sitting-room.
Those of them who cared to inspect their surroundings saw a rag carpet, walls of bare, hewn logs, the cracks of which had been filled with yellow mud, a little table in the center of the room, and a cottage organ against the wall near the small window. On the mantel stood a new clock and a glass lamp, the globe of which held a piece of red flannel and some oil. The flannel was to give the lamp color. Indeed, lamps with flannel in them were very much in vogue in that part of the country.
"Me an Sally wuz sorter expectin ye," said Mrs. Calihan, as she gave them seats and went around and took their hats from their knees and laid them on a bed in the next room. "I dont know what to make of Mr. Calihan," she continued, plaintively. "He never wuz this away before. When we wuz married he could offer up the best prayer of any young man in the settlement. The Mount Zion meetin -house couldnt hold protracted meet-

of

Olaliijan 269

;in* without ira. He fed more preachers an ther bosses than anybody else, an some lowed that he wuz jest too natcherly good to pass away like common folks, an that when his stimecome hed jest disappear body an all." She was now wiping her eyes on her apron, and her voice had the suggestion of withheld emotions. "I never calculated on him bringin sech disgrace as this on his family."
"Whar is he now?" asked Odell, prelim inarily.
"Down thar stackin hay. Sally begun on im agin at dinner about yore orders to Eph, an he went away thout finishin his dinner. Shes been a-cryin an a-poutin an takin on fer a week, an wont tech a bite to eat. I never seed a gal so bound up in anybody as she is in Eph. It has mighty nigh driv her pa distracted, kase he likes Eph, an Sallys his pet." Mrs. Calihan turned her head toward the adjoining room: "Sally, oh, Sally! are ye listenin? Come heer a minute!"
There was silence for a moment, then a sound of heavy shoes on the floor of the next room, and a tall rather good-looking girl entered. Her eyes and cheeks were red, and she hung her head awkwardly, and did not look at any one but her mother.

270 jBiottfretn Georgia
"Did you call me, ma?" "Yes, honey; run an tell yore pa they are all heer, the last one of em, an fer him to hurry right on to the house an not keep em a-waitin."
"Yes-sum!" And without any covering for her head the visitors saw her dart across the back yard toward the meadow.
With his pitchfork on his shoulder, a few minutes later Abner Caliban came up to the back door of his house. He wore no coat, and but one frayed suspender supported his patched and baggy trousers. His broad, hairy breast showed through the opening in his shirt. His tanned cheeks and neck were corrugated, his hair and beard long and reddish brown. His brow was high and broad, and a pair of blue eyes shone serenely beneath his shaggy brows.
"Good evenin," he said, leaning his pitch fork against the door-jamb outside and enter ing. Without removing his hat he went around and gave a damp hand to each visitor. "It is hard work savin hay sech weather as this."
No one replied to this remark, though they all nodded and looked as if they wanted to give utterance to something struggling within

of

OtaUfian 271

them. Calihan swung a chair over near the door, and sat down and leaned back against the wall, and looked out at the chickens in the yard and the gorgeous peacock strutting about in the sun. No one seemed quite ready to speak, so, to cover his embarrassment, he looked farther over in the yard to his potatobank and pig-pens, and then up into the clear sky for indications of rain.
"I reckon you know our business, Brother Calihan," began Odell, in a voice that broke the silence harshly.
"I reckon I could make a purty good guess," and Calihan spit over his left shoul der into the yard. "I haint heerd nothin else fer a week. From all the talk, a bodyd low Id stole somebodys hawgs. "
"We jest had to take action," affirmed the self-constituted speaker for the others. "The opinions you have expressed," and Odell at onCe began to warm up to his task, "are so undoctrinal an so pint blank agin the arti cles of faith that, believin as you seem to be lieve, you are plumb out o jint with Big Cabin Church, an a resky man in any God-feerin community. God Almighty" and those who saw Odells twitching upper lip and indig nantly flashing eye knew that the noted

272

<&eorgta

"exhorter" was about to become mercilessly personal and vindictive "God Almighty is the present ruler of the universe, but sence you have set up to run agin Him it looks like youd need a wider scope of territory to transact business in than jest heer in this settlement."
The blood had left Calibans face. His eyes swept from one stern, unrelenting coun tenance to another till they rested on his wife and daughter, who sat side by side, their faces in their aprons, their shoulders quivering with soundless sobs. They had forsaken him. He was an alien in his own house, a criminal convicted beneath his own roof. His rugged breast rose and fell tumultuously as he strove to command his voice.
"I haint meant no harm not a speck," he faltered, as he wiped the perspiration from his quivering chin. "I haint no hand to stir up strife in a community. Ive tried to be law-abidin an honest, but it dont seem like a man kin hep thinkin. He "
"But he kin keep his thinkin to hissef," interrupted Odell, sharply; and a pause came after his words.
In a jerky fashion Calihan spit over his shoulder again. He looked at his wife and

of

273

daughter for an instant, and nodded several times as if acknowledging the force of Odells words. Bart Callaway took out his tobaccoquid and nervously shuffled it about in his palm as if he had half made up his mind that Odell ought not to do all the talking, but he remained mute, for Mrs. Calihan had sud denly looked up.
"Thats what I told him," she whimpered, bestowing a tearful glance on her husband. "He mought a kep his idees to hissef ef he had to have em, and not a fetched calumny an* disgrace down on me an Sally. When he used to set thar atter supper an pore over the True Light when everbody else wuz in bed, I knowed it d bring trouble, kase some o* the doctrine wuz scandlous. The next thing I knowed he had lost intrust in prayer-meetin, an lowed that Brother Washburns sermons wuz the same thing over an over, an that they mighty nigh put him to sleep. An then he give up axin the blessin at the table somethin that has been done in my famly as fur back as the oldest one kin remember. An he talked his views, too, fer it got out, an me nur Sally narry one never cheeped it, fer we wuz ashamed. An* then ever respectable woman in Big Cabin meetin-house begun to

sluff away from us as ef they wuz afeerd o takin some dreadful disease. It wuz hard enough on Sally at the start, but when Eph up an tol her that you had give him a good tongue-lashin, an had refused to deed him the land you promised him ef he went any further with her, it mighty nigh prostrated her. She haint done one thing lately but look out at the road an* pine an worry. The blame is all on her father. My folks has all been good church members as fur back as kin be traced, an narry one wuz ever turned out."
Mrs. Calihan broke down and wept. Cali ban was deeply touched; he could not bear to see a woman cry. He cleared his throat and tried to look unconcerned.
"What step do you-uns feel called on to take next to to what you are a-doin of now?" he stammered.
"We lowed," replied Odell, "ef we couldnt come to some sort o understandin with you now, wed fetch up the case before preachin to-morrow an let the membership vote on it. The verdict would go agin you, Ab, fer thar haint a soul in sympathy with you."
The sobbing of the two women broke out

%eregg of gltmer iffaHfran 275
in renewed volume at the mention of this dreadful ultimatum, which, despite their familiarity with the rigor of Big Cabin Church discipline, they had up to this moment regarded as a vague contingent rather than a tangible certainty.
Calihan s face grew paler. Whatever strug gle might have been going on in his mind was over. He was conquered.
"I am agin bringin reproach on my wife an child," he conceded, a lump in his throat and a tear in his eye. "You all know best. I reckon I have been too forward an too eager to heer myself talk. He got up and looked out toward the towering cliffy moun tains and into the blue indefiniteness above them, and without looking at the others he finished awkwardly: "Ef its jest the same to you-uns you may let the charge drap, an an in future Ill give no cause fer complaint."
"Thats the talk" said Odell, warmly, and he got up and gave his hand to Calihan. The others followed his example.
"Ill make a little speech before preachin in the mornin," confided Odell to Calihan after congratulations were over. "You neednt be thar unless you want to. Ill fix you up all right.

Calihan smiled faintly and looked shame facedly toward the meadow, and reached out side and took hold of the handle of his pitch fork.
"I want to try to git through that haystack fore dark," he said, awkwardly. "Ef youuns will be so kind as to excuse me now Ill run down and finish up. Id sorter set myself a task to do, an I dont like to fall short o my mark."
Down in the meadow Calihan worked like a tireless machine, not pausing for a moment to rest his tense muscles. He was trying to make up for the time he had lost with his guests. Higher and smaller grew the great haystack as it slowly tapered toward its apex. The red sun sank behind the mountain and began to draw in its long streamers of light. The gray of dusk, as if fleeing from its darker self, the monster night, crept up from the east, and with a thousand arms extended moved on after the receding light.
Calihan worked on till the crickets began to shrill and the frogs in the marshes to croak, and the hay beneath his feet felt damp with dew. The stack was finished. He leaned on his fork and inspected his work mechanically. It was a perfect cone. Every outside straw

Cf)g

of

(Kalian 277

and blade of grass lay smoothly downward, like the hair on a well-groomed horse. Then with his fork on his shoulder he trudged slowly up the narrow field-road toward the house. He was vaguely grateful for the dark ness; a strange, new, childish embarrassment was on him. For the first time in life he was averse to meeting his wife and child.
"Ive been spanked an told to behave ur it ud go wuss with me," he muttered. "I never wuz talked to that away before by nobody, but I jest had to take it. Sally an her mother never would a heerd the last of it ef I had let out jest once. No man, I reckon, has a moral right to act so as to make his family miser able. I crawfished, I know, an on short notice; but law me! I wouldnt have Bill Odells heart in me fer ever acre o bottomlan in this valley. I wouldnt a talked to a houn dog as he did to me right before Sally an her mother."
He was very weary when he leaned his fork against the house and turned to wash his face and hands in the tin basin on the bench at the side of the steps. Mrs. Calihan came to the door, her face beaming.
"I wuz afeerd you never would come," she said, in a sweet, winning tone. "I got yore

beans warmed over an some o yore brag yam taters cooked. Come on in fore the coffee an biscuits git cold."
"Ill be thar in a minute," he said; and he rolled up his sleeves and plunged his hot hands and face into the cold spring^water.
"Heres a clean towel, pa; somebody has broke the roller." It was Sally. She had put on her best white muslin gown and braided her rich, heavy hair into two long plaits which hung down her back. There was no trace of the former redness about her eyes, and her face was bright and full of happiness. He wiped his hands and face on the towel she held, and took a piece of a comb from his vest pocket and hurriedly raked his coarse hair backward. He looked at her tenderly and smiled in an abashed sort of way.
"Anybody comin* to-night?" "Yes, sir." "Eph Odell, Ill bet my hat!" The girl nodded, and blushed and hung her head. "How do you know?" "Mr. Odell lowed I mought look fer him." Abner Calihan laughed slowly and put his arm around his daughter, and together they went toward the steps of the kitchen door.

of

279

"You seed yore old daddy whipped clean out to-day," he said, tentatively. I reckon yore ashamed to see him sech a coward an have him sneak away like a dog with his tail tucked tween his legs. Bill Odell is a power in this community."
She laughed with him, but she did not understand his banter, and preceded him into the kitchen. It was lighted by a large tallowdip in the center of the table. There was much on the white cloth to tempt a hungry laborers appetite a great dish of greasy string-beans, with pieces of bacon, a plate of smoking biscuits, and a platter of fried ham in brown gravy. But he was not hungry. Slowly and clumsily he drew up his chair and sat down opposite his wife and daughter. He slid a quivering thumb under the edge of his inverted plate and turned it half over, but noticing that they had their hands in their laps and had reverently bowed their heads, he cautiously replaced it. In a flash he compre hended what was expected of him. The color surged into his homely face. He played with his knife for a moment, and then stared at them stubbornly, almost defiantly. They did not look up, but remained motionless and patiently expectant. The dread of the pro-

280 Jjortftecn (BUorflta
tracted silence, for which he was becoming more and more responsible, conquered him. He lowered his head and spoke in a low, halt ing tone:
"Good Lord, Father of us all, have mercy on our sins, and make us thankful fer these, Thy many blessings. Amen."

THE TENDER LINK

THE TENDER LINK
I
Several customers were gathered in Mark Wyndhams store at the cross-roads. They were rough farmers, wearing jean clothing, slouch hats, and coarse, dusty brogans.
A stranger, a man of quite a different type, came in and sat down near the side door. At first the crowd gazed at him curiously, but after a while he seemed to pass out of their minds. When he had waited on all his cus tomers, Mark approached the stranger.
"By hookey!" he exclaimed, pausing in astonishment, and then extending his hand, "as the Lord is my Maker, its Luke King! Whod ever expect to see you turn up?"
"Yes; Luke King it will have to be, since you, like all the rest, wont call me by my right name."
Mark laughed apologetically. "Oh, I for got you never could bear to be called by yore
283

284 Jjortfrern (Georgia
step-daddys name; but you wuz raised up with the King layout, an Laramore is not a easy word to handle. Well, I reckon you are follerin what you started writin books?"
"Yes."
"I lowed youd stick to it. I never seed a feller study harder an want to do a thing as bad."
Lucian Laramore smiled. "Did any one here ever find out that I had adopted that pro fession?"
"Not a soul, Luke. I never let on to any body that I knowed it, an the folks round heer dont read much. They mought a sus pected somen ef Luke King had been signed to yore books and stories, but nobody ever called you by yore right name. What on earth ever made you come home?"
"It was my mother that brought me here, Mark not the others," said Laramore. "If a man is a man, no sort of fame or prosperity can make him forget his mother. I planned to come back several times, but something always prevented it. However, when you wrote me that the last time you saw her she was not looking well, I decided to come at once."
Mark was critically surveying his old friend

285
from head to foot while he was speaking. Laramore smiled, and added, "You are won dering why I am so plainly dressed, Mark; you neednt deny it."
Mark flushed when he replied: "Well, I did low you fellers ud put on more style n weuns down here."
"Its an old suit I have worn out hunting in Canada. I put it on because I intended to do a good deal of walking; and then, to tell the truth, I thought it would look better for me to go back very simply dressed."
"Thats a fact, now I think of it; well, I wish you luck over than Goin ter foot it over?"
"Yes; it is only three miles, and I have plenty of time."
But the walk was longer than Laramore thought it would be, and he was hot, damp with perspiration, and covered with dust when he reached the four-roomed cabin among the stunted pines and wild cedars.
Old Sam King sat out in front of the door. He wore no shoes nor coat, and his hickory shirt and jean trousers had been patched many times. His hair was long, sun-burned, and tangled, and the corrugated skin of his cheek and neck was covered with straggling hairs.

286

(Sreorgia gfeetcfteg

As the stranger came in view from behind the pine-pole pig-pen, the old man uttered a grunt of surprise that brought to the door two young women in homespun dresses, and a tall, lank young man in his shirt-sleeves.
"I suppose you dont remember me," said Laramore, and he put his satchel on a washbench by a tub and a piggin of lye soap.
"Well, I reckon nobody in this shack is gwine to spute with you," rumbled the old man, as with his chin in his hand, he lazily looked at the face before him.
"I might not have known you either if I had not been told that you lived here. I am the fellow you used to call Luke King."
"By Jacks!" After that ejaculation the old man and the others stared speechlessly.
"Yes, thats who I am," continued Lara more. "How do you do, Jake?" (to the lank young man in the door). "We might as well shake hands. You girls have grown into women since I left. Ive stayed away a long time, and been nearly all over the world, but Ive always wanted to get back. Where is mother?"
Neither of the girls could summon up the courage to answer, and they seemed under stress of great embarrassment.

Center Hfnfc

287

"She is porely," said the old man, inhospi tably keeping his seat "Shes had a hurtin in er side from usin that thar battlin-stick too much on dirty clothes, an her cold has settled on er chest. Mary, go tell yore maw Lukes got back. Huh, we all lowed you wuz dead cept her. She alays contended you wuz alive somers. Hows times been a-servin uv you?"
"Pretty well." Laramore put his satchel on the ground and sat down wearily on the bench by the tub.
"Things is awful slow heer. Whar have you been hangin out?"
"Nowhere in particular that is, I have lived in a good many places."
"Huh! bout as I expected; an I reckon you haint got nothin at all ter show fer it cept what youve got on yore back."
"Thats about all." "What you been a-follerin?" Laramore colored sensitively. "Writing for papers and magazines." "I lowed you mought go at somen o that sort; you used to try mighty hard to write a good hand; you never would work. Mar ried?" "No."

288 Jlortftecn
"Haint able to support a woman I reckon. Well, you showed a great lot of good sense thar; a feller can sorter manage to shift fer hissef ef he haint hampered by a pack o*. children an er sick woman."
At that juncture Mary returned. She flushed as she caught Laramores expectant glance. She spoke to her father.
"Maw said tell im ter come in thar." Laramore went into the front room and turned into a small apartment adjoining. It was windowless and dark, the only light fil tering through the front room. On a low, narrow bed beneath a ladder leading to a trap-door above, lay a woman. "Here I am, Luke," she cried out, excit edly. "Dont stumble over that pan o water! Ive been taking a mustard footbath to try an git my blood warm. La, me! How you did take me by surprise! Ive prayed for lit tle else in many er yeer, an I was jest about ter give it up." His foot touched a three-legged stool, and he drew it to the head of her bed and sat down. He took one of her hard, thin hands and bent over her. Should he kiss her? She had not taught him to do so when he was a child, and he had never kissed her in his life,

but he had seen the world and grown wiser. He turned her face toward him and pressed nis lips to hers. She was much surprised, and ifffcw herself from him and wiped her mouth With a Corner of the sheet, but he knew she Was pleased
"Why, Luke, what on earth do you mean? Have you gone plumb crazy?" she said, quickly.
"I wanted to kiss you, thats all," he said, awkwardly. They were both silent for a moment, then she spoke, tremblingly: "You alays was womanish an tender-like; it dont do a body any harm; none o the rest aint that way. But, my stars! I caynt tell a bit how you look in this pitch dark. Mary! oh, Mary!"
Laramore released his mothers hand, and sat up erect as the girl came to the door.
"What you want, maw?" "I caynt see my hand fore me; I wish youd fetch a light heer. Youll find a piece d* caftdle in the clock; I hid it there to keep Jake from usin it in his lantern." The girl lit the bit of tallow-dip, and fas tened it in the neck of a bottle. She brought it in, stood it on a box filled with cotton-seed and ears of corn, and shambled out. Lara-

290 jaortfjern (fcgorgfa
mores heart sank as he looked around him. The room was nothing but a lean-to shed walled with upright slabs and floored with puncheons. The bedstead was a crude wooden frame supported by perpendicular saplings fastened to floor and rafters. The cracks in the wall were filled with mud, rags, and newspapers. Bunches of dried herbs hung above his head, and piles of old cloth ing and agricultural implements lay about indiscriminately. Disturbed by the light, a hen flew from her nest behind a dismantled loom, and with a loud cackling went out at the door.
The old woman gazed at him eagerly. "You haint altered so overly much," she ob served, "cept yore skin looks mighty white, and yore hands feel soft."
Then she lowered her voice into a whisper, and glanced furtively toward the door. "You favor yore father I dont mean Sam, but Mr. Laramore. Yore as like as two peas. He helt his head that away, an had yore way o bein gentle with womenfolks. Youve got his high temper, too. La, me! that last night you was at home, an Sam cussed you, an kicked yore books into the fire, I didnt sleep a wink. I thought youd gone off to borrow

Eentot ILfnfe

291

a gun. It was almost a relief to know youd left, kase I seed you an Sam couldnt git along. Yore father was a different sort of a man, Luke; he loved books an study, like you. He had good blood in im; his father was a teacher an a circuit-rider. I dont know why I married Sam, less it was kase I was young an helpless, an you was a baby."
There was a low whimper in her voice, and the lines about her mouth tightened. Laramores breast heaved, and he suddenly put out his hand and began to stroke her thin, gray hair. A strange, restful feeling stole over him. The spell was on her, too; she closed her eyes, and a blissful smile lighted her wan face. Then her lips began to quiver, and she turned her face from him.
"Im er simpleton," she sobbed, "but I caynt hep it. Nobody haint petted me nur tuk on over me a bit sence yore paw died. I never treated you right, nuther, Luke; I ort never to a let Sam run over you like he did."
"Never mind that," Laramore replied, tenderly; "but you must not lie here in this dingy hole; you need medicine and good food."
"Im gwine ter git up," she answered. "Im not sick; I jest laid down ter rest.

ffiottfrerti (ffieorgfa
I must git the house straight. Mary and Jane haint no hands at housework thout I stand over em, and Jake an his paw is con tinually a-fussin. I feel stronger already ; ef youll go in tother room Ill rise. Theyll never fix you nothin ter eat, nur nowhar to sleep. I reckon youll have to lie with Jake, like you useter, tel I can fix better. Things is in a awful mess sence I got porely. "
He went into the front room. The old man had brought his satchel in. He had opened it in a chair, and was coolly examin ing the contents in the firelight. Jake and the two girls stood looking on. Laramore stared at the old man, but the latter did not seem at all abashed. Finally he closed the satchel and put it on the floor.
In a few minutes Mrs. King came in. She blew out the candle, and as she crossed to the mantelpiece she carefully extinguished the smoking wick. The change in her was more noticeable to her son than it had been a few minutes before. She looked very frail and white in her faded black cotton gown. Her shoes were worn and her bare feet showed through the holes.
"Mary," she asked, "have you put on the supper?"

Cfl* Ccntiet iUnfc

293

"Yesm; but it haint tuk up yit." The girl went into the next room, which was used for kitchen and dining-room in one, and her mother followed her. In a few minutes the old woman came to the door.
"Walk out, all of you," she said, wearily. "Luke, youll have to put up with what is set before you; hog-meat is mighty scace this yeer. Just at fattenin time our hogs tuk the cholera an six was found dead in one day. Meat is fetchin* fifteen cents a pound in town."

II
After supper Laramore left his mother and sisters removing the dishes from the table and went out. He did not want to be left alone with his stepfather.
He crossed the little brook that ran behind the cabin, and leaned against the rail fence which surrounded the pine-pole corn-crib. He could easily leave them in their poverty and ignorance, and return to the great intellectual world from which he had come the world which understood and honored him; but, after all, could he do it now that he had seen his mother?

294
The cabin door shone out a square of red light against the blackness of the hill and the silent pines beyond. He heard Jake whistling a tune he had whistled long ago when they had worked in the fields together, and the creaking of the puncheon floor as the family moved about within.
A figure appeared in the door. It was his mother, and she was coming out to search for him.
"Here I am, mother," he said, as she ad vanced through the darkness; "look out and dont get your feet wet!"
She chuckled childishly as she stepped across the brook on the stones. When she reached him she put her hand on his arm and laughed: "La, me, boy, a little wet wont hurt me Im used to it; Ive milked the cows in that thar lot when the mire was shoe-mouth deep. I lowed Id find you heer somers. You used to be a mighty hand to sneak off from the rest, an you haint got over it. But you have changed. You dont talk our way exactly, an I reckon thats what aggravates Sam. He was goin on jest now about yore bein stuck up in yore talk an eatin."
He looked past her at the full moon which was rising above the trees.

Cfje Center

2 95

"Mother," said he, abruptly, and he put his arm around her neck, and his eyes filled "mother, I dont see how I can stay here long. Your health is bad and you are not comfortable; the others are strong and can stand it, but you cant. Come away with me, for a while anyway. Ill put you under a doctor and make you comfortable."
She looked up into his eyes steadily for a moment, then she slapped him playfully on the breast and drew away from him. "How foolish you talk!" she laughed; "why, you know I couldnt leave Sam an the children. Hed go stark crazy thout me round, an theyd be thout advice an counsel. La, me! What makes you think I aint comfort able? This house is a sight bettern the last one we had, an dryer, an a heap warmer inside. Hard times is likely to come anywhar an* any time. It strikes rich an* pore alike. Thars Squire Loften offerin his big riverbottom plantation an the best new house in the county at a awful sacrifice, kase he is obliged to raise money to pay outn debt. He offers it fer ten thousand dollars, an its wuth every dollar of twenty. Now, ef we-all jest had sech a place as that wed ax nobody any odds. Sam an* Jake are hard workers, but

theyve had nough bad luck to dishearten anybody."
"Ten thousand dollars!" Laramores heart bounded suddenly. It was exactly the amount he had in a Boston bank all that he had ever been able to save. He had calcu lated on investing it with some literary friends in a magazine of which he was to be the editor,
"Do you think they could manage the place successfully, mother?" he asked, after a mo-< ment.
"Why, you know they could," she returned. "A body could make a livin* on that land and never half try. Squire Loften spent his money like water, an let a gang o triflin darkies eat im up alive."
"I remember the farm and the old house very well," he said, reflectively.
"They turned that into a barn," she ran on, enthusiastically. "The new house is jest splendid green blinds to the winders, an cyarpets on the floors, a spring-house, an a windmill to keep the house an barn in water."
"Wed better go in," he said, abruptly; "youll catch cold out here in the dew."
She laughed childishly as she walked back to the cabin by his side. A thick smoke and an unpleasant odor met them at the door.

297
"Its Sam a-burnin rags to oust the mosquitoes, so he kin sleep," she explained; "they are wuss this yeer an I ever seed em. Jake an the gals grease ther faces with lamp-oil when they have any, but I jest kiver up my head with a rag an never know they are about. I reckon wed better go to bed. Jake has fixed him a bed up in the loft, so you kin sleep by yoresef. Hes been jowerin at his paw ever sence supper fer treatin you so bad."
The next morning, after breakfast, Jake threw a bag of shelled corn on the bare back of his old bay mare and started to mill down the valley, and his father shouldered an ax and went up on the hill to cut wood.
"Whar are you gwine?" asked Mrs. King, following Laramore to the door.
"I thought I would walk over tp the Loften place and see the improvements. I used to hunt over that land."
"Well, be shore to git back by dinner, whatever you do. Me an* Jane caught a hen on the roost last night, an* Im gwine to make you a chicken pie, kase you used to love em so much."
Half a mile up the road, which ran along the side of the hill, he came into view of the

298 Jiottfjetn Ceotgia
rich, level lands of the Loften plantation. He stood in the shade of a tall poplar and looked thoughtfully at the lush green meadows, the well-tilled fields of corn, cot ton, and sorghum, and the large two-storied house with its dormer windows, tall, fluted columns, and broad verandas at the numer ous outhouses, barns, and stables, and the white-graveled drives and walks from the house to the road. Then he turned and looked back at the cabin the home of his mother.
It was hardly discernible in the gray morn ing mist that hung over the little vale in which it stood. He saw Jake, far away, rid ing along, in and out among the sassafras and sumac bushes that bordered a worn-out wheatfield, his long legs dangling at the sides of the mare. There was a bent figure in the woodyard picking up chips; it was his mother or one of the girls.
"Poor souls!" he exclaimed; "they have been in a dreary treadmill all their lives, and have never known the joy of one gratified ambition. If only I could conquer my own selfish desires I could give them comforts they never dreamed of possessing a taste of hap piness. It would take my last dollar, and

Centiet Hmfe

299

Chamberlain and Gilraith would never under stand. They would look elsewhere for capital and for an editor, and it would be like them to say they could get along without my con tributions. "
It was dusk when he returned to the cabin. Jake sat on his bag of meal in the door. Old Sam had taken off his shoes, and sat out under a persimmon tree "coolin* off," and yelling angrily at his wife to "hurry up supper."
When she heard that Laramore had returned she came to the door. "We didnt know what had become of you," she said, as she emerged from the cabin.
"I got interested in the Loften farm, and before I realized it the sun was down; I am sorry.
"Oh, it dont matter; I saved yore piece o* pie, an Im just warmin it over. I bet you didnt get a single bite o dinner."
"Yes, I did; but I am ready for supper." As they were rising from the table Laramore said: "I have got something to say to you all." They dragged their chairs back to the front room and sat down with awkward ceremony. They stared at him in open-mouthed wonder as he placed his chair in front of them. Old

300 Jiortfjern
Sam seemed embarrassed by the formality of the proceedings, and endeavored to relieve himself by assuming indifference. He coughed conspicuously and hitched his chair back till it leaned against the door-jamb.
There was a tremor in Laramores voice, and all the time he was speaking he did not look up from the floor.
"Since I went away from you," he began, "I have studied hard and applied myself to a profession, and though I have wandered about a good deal I have managed to save a little money. I am not rich, but I am worth more than you think I am. You have never had any luck, and you have worked hard, and deserve more than has fallen to your lot. You never could make anything on this poor land. The Loften property is worth twice what he asked for it. I happened to have the money to spare and bought it. I have the deed for it."
There was a profound silence in the room. The occupants of the row of chairs stared at him with widened eyes, mute and motionless. A sudden breeze came in at the door and turned the flame of the candle on the mantel toward the wall, and caused black ropes of smoke from the pine-knots in the chimney to

Cf)e Centner fUttft

301

curl out into the room like pyrotechnic snakes. Mrs. King bent forward and looked into Laramores face and smiled and winked, then she glanced at the serious faces of the others and broke out into a childish laugh of genuine merriment.
"La, me! Ef you-uns aint settin thar and swallowin down every word that boy says jest ez ef it was so much law and gospel!"
But none of them entered into her mood; indeed, they gave her not so much as a glance. Without replying, Laramore arose and took the candle from the mantelpiece. He stood it on the table and laid a folded paper beside it. "Theres the deed," he said. "It is made out to my mother to hold as long as she lives, and to fall eventually to her daughters and her son Jake."
He left the paper on the table and went back to his chair. An awkward silence en sued. It was broken by old Sam. He coughed and threw his tobacco-quid out at the door, and smiling to hide his agitation he went to the table. His back was to them, and his face went out of view when he bent to hold the paper in the light.
"Thats what it is, by Jacks!" he blurted out. "Thars no shenanigan about it. The

3Q2
Loften place is Mariar Habersham Kings ef I kin read writin."
With a great clatter of shoes and chairs they rose and gathered around him, leaving their benefactor submerged in their shadow. Each took the paper and examined it silently, and then they slowly dispersed, leaving the document on the table. Sam King started aimlessly toward the kitchen, but finally turned to the front door, where he stood irresolute, staring out at the road. Mrs. King looked at Laramore helplessly and went out into the kitchen, and exchanging glances, the two girls followed her. Jake noticed that the wind was blowing the paper from the table, and he rescued it and silently offered it to his half-brother.
Laramore motioned it from him. "Give it to mother," he said. "Shell take care of it. By the way, Loften will get out at once. The price paid includes the crops, and they are in very good condition."
He had Jakes bed to himself again that night. For hours he lay awake listening to the drone of excited conversation from the family which had gathered under the trees in front of the cabin. About eleven oclock some one came softly into his room. The

Cf)e

lUnfc

303

moon had risen and its beams fell in at the open door. It was his mother, and she was moving toward his bed with cat-like caution.
"Is that you, mother?" he asked. For an instant she was so much startled at finding him awake that she could not reply. "Oh, I tried not to wake you," she stam mered. "I just wanted to make shore yore bed was comfortable." "It is all right. I wasnt asleep, anyway." He could feel her trembling as she sat down on the edge of his bed. "Seems like you couldnt sleep, nuther," she said. "Thar haint a shut eye in this cabin. Theyve all laid down, an laid down an* got up ergin, over an over." She laughed softly and twisted her hands nerv ously in her lap. "We are all that excited we dont know which way to turn. Why, Luke, itll be the talk o the county! Sech luck haint fell to any family as pore as we are sence I can remember. La, me! It ud make you split yore sides a-laughin jest to set out thar an listen to all the plans they are makin. But Sam has the least of all to say; an, Luke, Im sorter sorry fer im. He feels bad about the way he has alays treated you. Hes too backard an shamefaced to ax yore

304 Jjortfjmt iBrgorgfa
pardon, an he begged me jest now to do it fer im the fust time I got a chance. Hes a good man, Luke, but hes gittin old, an has been hounded to death by debt an ill-luck."
"I know it; he is all right," replied Laramore, tremulously. "Tell him I have not the slightest ill-will against him, and that I hope he will get along better now."
"You talk like you dont intend to stay. " "No; I shall have to return North pretty soon that is, after I see you moved into your new home. I can do better up there; you know I was not cut out for a farmer." "I reckon you know best bout your own arrangements, but I hate to have you go agin. Id like to have all my children with me ef I could." "Ill come back every now and then; I wont stay away so long next time." She went out to tell her husband what he had said and to let her son sleep, but Laramore slept little. All night, at intervals, the buzz of low voices and sudden outbursts of merriment reached him. His mother stole softly into his room. This time it was to bring a shawl, which she cautiously spread over him, for the air had grown cold. She thought him asleep, but as

ILtnfe

305

she was turning away he caught her hand, and drew her down and kissed her.
"Why, Luke!" she exclaimed; "dont be foolish. Why, whats got in ?" But her voice had grown husky and her words died away in an irrepressible sob of happiness. She did not stir for an instant; then impulsively she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. And he felt that her face was damp.

IMPORTANT BOOKS g5fS?SI,
FICTION
THE CARDINALS MUSKETEER. By M. Imlay Taylor, author of "On the Red Staircase," "An Imperial Lover," "A Yankee Volunteer," "The Cobbler of Nimes," etc. izmo, 1.25. A rousing tale of adventure and love, whose scenes are laid in France in the time of Richelieu. "From opening to close a strong interest imbues the pages. It is a tale of adventure told with spirit. A charming love-current runs through it, ending as it should. We commend it as a story, bright and clean, well written, and thoroughly engaging." The Independent,
THE HOUSE OF THE WIZARD. By M. Imlay Taylor. izmo,
, Miss Taylor shows the unerring instinct of the born story teller." Chicago Chronicle.
THE DREAD AND FEAR OF KINGS. ByJ. Breckenridge Ellis. izmo, $1.2$.
"So vivid are this novelists colors, so real his speech and actions,
pletely satisfactory." The Boston Times, OH, WHAT A PLAGUE IS LOVE 1 By Katharine
Tynan, author of "The Dear Irish Girl," "The Handsome Brandons," etc. izmo, 75 cents.
In this bright little story the author has told in a most entertain ing way how a too keen susceptibility to the tender passion on the part of a gallant though somewhat elderly gentleman is a constant source of anxiety to his grown-up children, who are devotedly attached to him. For sale by booksellers generally, or will be sent, postpaid,
on receipt of price, by the publishers,
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
CHICAGO

TRAVEL AND HISTORY
A WORLD PILGRIMAGE. By John Henry Barrows, D. D. Crown 8vo. Illustrated, $a.oo. "Although much of the field of the book has been covered a hundred times, it nevertheless is thoroughly readable. All in all, it is one of the best books of travel which we have seen." Congregationalist.
SPAIN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
By Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer. Crown 8vo. lllus., $2.50. "With regret one notes that this is to be the last of Mrs. Latimers excellent series of Nineteenth-Century Histories. We have come to look upon Mrs. Latimer as quite the most delight ful purveyor of historical gossip to be found anywhere." The Chicago Tribune.
MY SCRAP-BOOK OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer. Crown 8vo. Illustrated, $2.50. "The book is filled with exciting and thrilling reminiscences of those stirring times, generally from the accounts of eye witnesses, sometimes from their own pens, others translated from the accounts of French sufferers and actors in the great drama." Philadelphia Press.
McLOUGHLIN AND OLD OREGON; A
Chronicle. By Eva Emery Dye. xamo. Gilt Top, with frontispiece. $1.50.
A graphic account of the movement that added Oregon to our possessions. "Mrs. Dye had rare material at hand, and has used it with great skill and effectiveness. She has the historians gift for bring ing out significant events, the novelists gift for vivifying characters.5 The Buffalo Express.
For sale by booksellers generally, or will be sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the publishers,
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
CHICAGO