_Thirty-eight_
It was a few weeks later. Old Ralph Dudley and Viney had been buried.Ben Dudley had ridden in from Mink Run, had hitched his horse in theback yard as usual, and was seated on the top step of the piazzabeside Graciella. His elbows rested on his knees, and his chin uponhis hand. Graciella had unconsciously imitated his drooping attitude.Both were enshrouded in the deepest gloom, and had been sunk, forseveral minutes, in a silence equally profound. Graciella was thefirst to speak.
"Well, then," she said with a deep sigh, "there is absolutely nothingleft?"
"Not a thing," he groaned hopelessly, "except my horse and my clothes,and a few odds and ends which belong to me. Fetters will have theland--there's not enough to pay the mortgages against it, and I'm indebt for the funeral expenses."
"And what are you going to do?"
"Gracious knows--I wish I did! I came over to consult the family. Ihave no trade, no profession, no land and no money. I can get a job atbraking on the railroad--or may be at clerking in a store. I'd haveasked the colonel for something in the mill--but that chance is gone."
"Gone," echoed Graciella, gloomily. "I see my fate! I shall marry you,because I can't help loving you, and couldn't live without you; and Ishall never get to New York, but be, all my life, a poor man's wife--apoor white man's wife."
"No, Graciella, we might be poor, but not poor-white! Our blood willstill be of the best."
"It will be all the same. Blood without money may count for onegeneration, but it won't hold out for two."
They relapsed into a gloom so profound, so rayless, that they mightalmost be said to have reveled in it. It was lightened, or at least adiversion was created by Miss Laura's opening the garden gate andcoming up the walk. Ben rose as she approached, and Graciella lookedup.
"I have been to the post-office," said Miss Laura. "Here is a letterfor you, Ben, addressed in my care. It has the New York postmark."
"Thank you, Miss Laura."
Eagerly Ben's hand tore the envelope and drew out the enclosure.Swiftly his eyes devoured the lines; they were typewritten and easy tofollow.
"Glory!" he shouted, "glory hallelujah! Listen!"
He read the letter aloud, while Graciella leaned against his shoulderand feasted her eyes upon the words. The letter was from ColonelFrench:
_"My dear Ben_:
_I was very much impressed with the model of a cotton gin and press which I saw you exhibit one day at Mrs. Treadwells'. You have a fine genius for mechanics, and the model embodies, I think, a clever idea, which is worth working up. If your uncle's death has left you free to dispose of your time, I should like to have you come on to New York with the model, and we will take steps to have the invention patented at once, and form a company for its manufacture. As an evidence of good faith, I enclose my draft for five hundred dollars, which can be properly accounted for in our future arrangements._"
"O Ben!" gasped Graciella, in one long drawn out, ecstatic sigh.
"O Graciella!" exclaimed Ben, as he threw his arms around her andkissed her rapturously, regardless of Miss Laura's presence. "Now youcan go to New York as soon as you like!"
_Thirty-nine_
Colonel French took his dead to the North, and buried both the littleboy and the old servant in the same lot with his young wife, and inthe shadow of the stately mausoleum which marked her resting-place.There, surrounded by the monuments of the rich and the great, in abeautiful cemetery, which overlooks a noble harbour where the ships ofall nations move in endless procession, the body of the faithfulservant rests beside that of the dear little child whom he unwittinglylured to his death and then died in the effort to save. And in all thegreat company of those who have laid their dead there in love or inhonour, there is none to question old Peter's presence or thecolonel's right to lay him there. Sometimes, at night, a ray of lightfrom the uplifted torch of the Statue of Liberty, the gift of a freepeople to a free people, falls athwart the white stone which marks hisresting place--fit prophecy and omen of the day when the sun ofliberty shall shine alike upon all men.
When the colonel went away from Clarendon, he left his affairs inCaxton's hands, with instructions to settle them up as expeditiouslyas possible. The cotton mill project was dropped, and existingcontracts closed on the best terms available. Fetters paid the oldnote--even he would not have escaped odium for so bare-faced arobbery--and Mrs. Treadwell's last days could be spent in comfort andMiss Laura saved from any fear for her future, and enabled to givemore freely to the poor and needy. Barclay Fetters recovered the useof one eye, and embittered against the whole Negro race by hisdisfigurement, went into public life and devoted his talents and hiseducation to their debasement. The colonel had relented sufficientlyto contemplate making over to Miss Laura the old family residence intrust for use as a hospital, with a suitable fund for its maintenance,but it unfortunately caught fire and burned down--and he was hardlysorry. He sent Catherine, Bud Johnson's wife, a considerable sum ofmoney, and she bought a gorgeous suit of mourning, and after a decentinterval consoled herself with a new husband. And he sent word to thecommittee of coloured men to whom he had made a definite promise, thathe would be ready to fulfil his obligation in regard to their schoolwhenever they should have met the conditions.
* * * * *
One day, a year or two after leaving Clarendon, as the colonel, incompany with Mrs. French, formerly a member of his firm, now hispartner in a double sense--was riding upon a fast train between NewYork and Chicago, upon a trip to visit a western mine in which thereorganised French and Company, Limited, were interested, he noticedthat the Pullman car porter, a tall and stalwart Negro, was watchinghim furtively from time to time. Upon one occasion, when the colonelwas alone in the smoking-room, the porter addressed him.
"Excuse me, suh," he said, "I've been wondering ever since we left NewYork, if you wa'n't Colonel French?"
"Yes, I'm Mr. French--Colonel French, if you want it so."
"I 'lowed it must be you, suh, though you've changed the cut of yourbeard, and are looking a little older, suh. I don't suppose youremember me?"
"I've seen you somewhere," said the colonel--no longer the colonel,but like the porter, let us have it so. "Where was it?"
"I'm Henry Taylor, suh, that used to teach school at Clarendon. Ireckon you remember me now."
"Yes," said the colonel sadly, "I remember you now, Taylor, to mysorrow. I didn't keep my word about Johnson, did I?"
"Oh, yes, suh," replied the porter, "I never doubted but what you'dkeep your word. But you see, suh, they were too many for you. Thereain't no one man can stop them folks down there when they once getstarted."
"And what are you doing here, Taylor?"
"Well, suh, the fact is that after you went away, it got out somehowthat I had told on Bud Johnson. I don't know how they learned it, andof course I knew you didn't tell it; but somebody must have seen megoing to your house, or else some of my enemies guessed it--andhappened to guess right--and after that the coloured folks wouldn'tsend their children to me, and I lost my job, and wasn't able to getanother anywhere in the State. The folks said I was an enemy of myrace, and, what was more important to me, I found that my race was anenemy to me. So I got out, suh, and I came No'th, hoping to findsomethin' better. This is the best job I've struck yet, but I'm hopingthat sometime or other I'll find something worth while."
"And what became of the industrial school project?" asked the colonel."I've stood ready to keep my promise, and more, but I never heard fromyou."
"Well, suh, after you went away the enthusiasm kind of died out, andsome of the white folks throwed cold water on it, and it fell through,suh."
When the porter came along, before the train reached Chicago, thecolonel offered Taylor a handsome tip.
"Thank you, suh," said the porter, "but I'd rather not take it. I'm aporter now, but I wa'n't always one, and hope I won't always be one.And during all the time I taught school in Cla
rendon, you was the onlywhite man that ever treated me quite like a man--and our folks justlike people--and if you won't think I'm presuming, I'd rather not takethe money."
The colonel shook hands with him, and took his address. Shortlyafterward he was able to find him something better than menialemployment, where his education would give him an opportunity foradvancement. Taylor is fully convinced that his people will never getvery far along in the world without the good will of the white people,but he is still wondering how they will secure it. For he regardsColonel French as an extremely fortunate accident.
* * * * *
And so the colonel faltered, and, having put his hand to the plow,turned back. But was not his, after all, the only way? For no more nowthan when the Man of Sorrows looked out over the Mount of Olives, canmen gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. The seed which thecolonel sowed seemed to fall by the wayside, it is true; but othereyes have seen with the same light, and while Fetters and his kindstill dominate their section, other hands have taken up the fightwhich the colonel dropped. In manufactures the South has gone forwardby leaps and bounds. The strong arm of the Government, guided by awise and just executive, has been reached out to crush the poisonousgrowth of peonage, and men hitherto silent have raised their voices tocommend. Here and there a brave judge has condemned the infamy of thechain-gang and convict lease systems. Good men, North and South, havebanded themselves together to promote the cause of popular education.Slowly, like all great social changes, but visibly, to the eye offaith, is growing up a new body of thought, favourable to just lawsand their orderly administration. In this changed attitude of mindlies the hope of the future, the hope of the Republic.
But Clarendon has had its chance, nor seems yet to have had another.Other towns, some not far from it, lying nearer the main lines oftravel, have been swept into the current of modern life, but not yetClarendon. There the grass grows thicker in the streets. Themeditative cows still graze in the vacant lot between the post-officeand the bank, where the public library was to stand. The old academyhas grown more dilapidated than ever, and a large section of plasterhas fallen from the wall, carrying with it the pencil drawing made inthe colonel's schooldays; and if Miss Laura Treadwell sees that thegraves of the old Frenches are not allowed to grow up in weeds andgrass, the colonel knows nothing of it. The pigs and theloafers--leaner pigs and lazier loafers--still sleep in the shade,when the pound keeper and the constable are not active. The limpidwater of the creek still murmurs down the slope and ripples over thestone foundation of what was to have been the new dam, while the birdshave nested for some years in the vines that soon overgrew theunfinished walls of the colonel's cotton mill. White men go their way,and black men theirs, and these ways grow wider apart, and no oneknows the outcome. But there are those who hope, and those who pray,that this condition will pass, that some day our whole land will betruly free, and the strong will cheerfully help to bear the burdens ofthe weak, and Justice, the seed, and Peace, the flower, of liberty,will prevail throughout all our borders.
* * * * *
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The Colonel's Dream Page 39
