by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER XVIII
QUESTIONS
The thing that crushed the spirit of the man was not the shock of deathwith its thousand and one unanswerable questions torturing the soul, butthe possibility that his acts had been the cause of the tragedy. Dr.Williams had said to him over and over again:
"Make her will to live and she'll recover!"
He had fought this grim battle and won. She had willed to live and washappy. The world had never seemed so beautiful as the day she died. If thecause of her death lay further back in the curious accident which happenedat the birth of the child, his soul was clear of guilt.
He held none of the morbid fancies of the super-sensitive mind that wouldmake a father responsible for a fatal outcome in the birth of a babe. Godmade women to bear children. The only woman to be pitied was the one whocould not know the pain, the joy and the danger of this divine hour.
But the one persistent question to which his mind forever returned waswhether the shock of his sin had weakened her vitality and caused thereturn of this old trouble.
The moment he left the grave on the day of her burial, he turned to the olddoctor with this grim question. He told him the whole story. He told himevery word she had spoken since they left home. He recounted every hour ofreaction and depression, the good and the bad, just as the recording angelmight have written it. He ended his recital with the burning question:
"Tell me now, doctor, honestly before God, did I kill her?"
"Certainly not!" was the quick response.
"Don't try to shield me. I can stand the truth. I don't belong to a race ofcowards. After this no pain can ever come but that my soul shall laugh!"
"I'm honest with you, my boy. I've too much self-respect not to treat youas a man in such an hour. No, if she died as you say, you had nothing to dowith it. The seed of death was hiding there behind that slender, gracefulthroat. I was always afraid of it. And I've always known that if the painreturned she'd die----"
"You knew that before we left home?"
"Yes. I only hinted the truth. I thought the change might prolong her life,that's all."
"You're not saying this to cheer me? This is not one of your lies you givefor medicine sometimes?"
"No"--the old doctor smiled gravely. "No, shake off this nightmare and goback to your work. Your people are calling you."
* * * * *
He made a desperate effort to readjust himself to life, but somehow at themoment the task was hopeless. He had preached, with all the eloquence ofthe enthusiasm of youth, that life in itself is always beautiful and alwaysgood. He found it was easier to preach a thing than to live it.
The old house seemed to be empty, and, strange to say, the baby's voicedidn't fill it. He had said to himself that the patter of his little feetand the sound of his laughter would fill its halls, make it possible tolive, and get used to the change. But it wasn't so. Somehow the child'slaughter made him faint. The sound of his voice made the memory of hismother an intolerable pain. His voice in the morning was the first thing heheard and it drove him from the house. At night when he knelt to lisp hisprayers her name was a stab, and when he waved his little hands and said:"Good night, Papa!" he could remember nothing save the last picture thathad burned itself into his soul.
He tried to feed and care for a canary she had kept in her room, but whenhe cocked his little yellow head and gave the loving plaintive cry withwhich he used to greet her, the room became a blur and he staggered outunable to return for a day.
The silent sympathy of his dog, as he thrust his nose between his hands andwagged his shaggy tail, was the only thing that seemed to count foranything.
"I understand, Don, old boy," he cried, lifting his paw into his lap andslipping his arm around the woolly neck, "you're telling me that you loveme always, good or bad, right or wrong. I understand, and it's very sweetto know it. But I've somehow lost the way on life's field, old boy. Thenight is coming on and I can't find the road home. You remember thatfeeling when we were lost sometimes in strange countries hunting together,you and I?"
Don licked his hand and wagged his tail again.
He rose and walked through the lawn, radiant now with the glory of spring.But the flowers had become the emblems of Death not Life and their odorwas oppressive.
A little black boy, in a ragged shirt and torn trousers, barefooted andbareheaded, stopped at the gate, climbed up and looked over with idlecuriosity at his aimless wandering. He giggled and asked:
"Ye don't need no boy fer nothin, do ye?"
The man's sombre eyes suddenly lighted with a look of hate that faded in amoment and he made no reply. What had this poor little ragamuffin, his facesmeared with dirt and his eyes rolling with childish mirth, to do withtragic problems which his black skin symbolized! He was there because agreedy race of empire builders had need of his labor. He had remained totorment and puzzle and set at naught the wisdom of statesmen for the samereason. For the first time in his life he asked himself a startlingquestion:
"Do I really need him?"
Before the shock that threw his life into ruins he would have answered asevery Southerner always answered at that time:
"Certainly I need him. His labor is indispensable to the South."
But to-day, back of the fire that flashed in his eyes, there had been borna new thought. He was destined to forget it in the stress of the life ofthe future, but it was there growing from day to day. The thought shapeditself into questions:
"Isn't the price we pay too great? Is his labor worth more than the purityof our racial stock? Shall we improve the breed of men or degrade it? Isany progress that degrades the breed of men progress at all? Is it notretrogression? Can we afford it?"
He threw off his train of thought with a gesture of weariness and a greatdesire suddenly possessed his heart to get rid of such a burden by acomplete break with every tie of life save one.
"Why not take the boy and go?" he exclaimed.
The more he turned the idea over in his mind the more clearly it seemed tobe the sensible thing to do.
But the fighting instinct within him was too strong for immediatesurrender. He went to his office determined to work and lose himself in areturn to its old habits.
He sat down at his desk, but his mind was a blank. There wasn't a questionon earth that seemed worth writing an editorial about. Nothing mattered.
For two hours he sat hopelessly staring at his exchanges. The same world,which he had left a few weeks before when he had gone down into the valleyof the shadows to fight for his life, still rolled on with its endlessstory of joy and sorrow, ambitions and struggle. It seemed now the recordof the buzzing of a lot of insects. It was a waste of time to record such astruggle or to worry one way or another about it. And this effort of adaily newspaper to write the day's history of these insects! It might beworth the while of a philosopher to pause a moment to record the blow thatwould wipe them out of existence, but to get excited again over theirlittle squabbles--it seemed funny now that he had ever been such a fool!
He rose at last in disgust and seized his hat to go home when the Chairmanof the Executive Committee of his party suddenly walked into his officeunannounced. His face was wreathed in smiles and his deep bass voice had ahearty, genuine ring:
"I've big news for you, major!"
The editor placed a chair beside his desk, motioned his visitor to beseated and quietly resumed his seat.
"It's been settled for some time," he went on enthusiastically, "but wethought best not to make the announcement so soon after your wife's death.I reckon you can guess my secret?"
"I give it up," was the listless answer.
"The Committee has voted unanimously to make you the next Governor. Yournomination with such backing is a mere formality. Your election is acertainty----"
The Chairman sprang to his feet and extended his big hand:
"I salute the Governor of the Commonwealth--the youngest man in the historyof the state to hold such h
igh office----"
"You mean it?" Norton asked in a stupor.
"Mean it? Of course I mean it! Why don't you give me your hand? What's thematter?"
"You see, I've sort of lost my bearings in politics lately."
The Chairman's voice was lowered:
"Of course, major, I understand. Well, this is the medicine you need now tobrace you up. For the first time in my memory a name will go before ourconvention without a rival. There'll be just one ballot and that will be asingle shout that'll raise the roof----"
Norton rose and walked to his window overlooking the Square, as he was inthe habit of doing often, turning his back for a moment on the enthusiasticpolitician.
He was trying to think. The first big dream of his life had come true andit didn't interest him.
He turned abruptly and faced his visitor:
"Tell your Committee for me," he said with slow emphatic voice, "that Iappreciate the high honor they would do me, but cannot accept----"
"What!"
"I cannot accept the responsibility."
"You don't mean it?"
"I was never more in earnest."
The Chairman slipped his arm around the editor with a movement of genuinesympathy:
"Come, my boy, this is nonsense. I'm a veteran politician. No man ever didsuch a thing as this in the history of the state! You can't decline such anhonor. You're only twenty-five years old."
"Time is not measured by the tick of a clock," Norton interrupted, "but bywhat we've lived."
"Yes, yes, we know you've had a great shock in the death of your wife, butyou must remember that the people--a million people--are calling you tolead them. It's a solemn duty. Don't say no now. Take a little time andyou'll see that it's the work sent to you at the moment you need it most. Iwon't take no for an answer----"
He put on his hat and started to the door:
"I'll just report to the Committee that I notified you and that you havethe matter under consideration."
Before Norton could enter a protest the politician had gone.
His decision was instantly made. This startling event revealed thehopelessness of life under its present conditions. He would leave theSouth. He would put a thousand miles between him and the scene of theevents of the past year. He would leave his home with its torturingmemories.
Above all, he would leave the negroid conditions that made his shamepossible and rear his boy in clean air.
