Part 7 (1/2)

”I ought not to have told you this, ma'am,” said Blount, rising. ”But then, maybe it's just as well that I did. You never can tell what will come out of these things. We live over a black volcano in this country all the time. Now, I didn't bring in either one of my prisoners. I hoped that maybe they would take this fence rail argument as a sort of temporary equivalent to a term in jail. But to- morrow I'm going down in there and bring that Sands boy in. We never dare give an inch in a matter of this kind.”

”Do you think they will make any trouble?” said Mrs. Ellison.

”Never you mind about the _trouble_ part of it,” said Blount, quietly.

”I reckon he'll come in. I'm going to take a _wagon_ this time. So that's the kind of luck we had on this b'ah hunt.”

He arose to go, and left Mrs. Ellison sitting still in the shaded room, her fan now at rest, her eyes bent down thoughtfully, but her foot tapping at the floor. The incidents just related pa.s.sed quickly from her mind. She remembered only that, as they talked, this man's eye had wandered from her own. He was occupied with problems of politics, of business, of sport, and was letting go that great game for a strong man, the game of love! She could scarce tell at the moment whether she most felt for him contempt or hatred--or something far different from either.

At length she arose and paced the room, swiftly as the press of strange events which were hurrying her along. Indeed, she might, without any great shrewdness, have found warning in certain things happening of late in and around the Big House; but Alice Ellison ever most loved her own fancy as counsel. The blacks might rise if they liked; Miss Lady might do as she listed, after all. Delphine and young Decherd might go their several ways; but as for her, and as for this man Calvin Blount--ah, well!

She yawned and stretched out her arms, feline, easy, graceful, and so at length sank into her easy chair, half purring as she s.h.i.+fted now and again to a more comfortable position.

CHAPTER VI

THE DRUM

John Eddring, the heat of his late encounter past, sat moodily staring out from the platform of the little station to which he had returned. He was angry with all the world, and angry with himself most of all. It had been his duty to deal amicably with a man of the position of Colonel Calvin Blount, yet how had he comported himself?

Like a school-boy! But for that he might have been the accepted guest now, there at the Big House, instead of being the only man ever known to turn back upon its door. But for his sudden choler, he reflected, he might perhaps at this very moment be within seeing and speaking distance of this tall girl of the scarlet ribbons, the very same whose presence he had vaguely felt about the place all that morning, in the occasional sound of a distant song, or the rush of feet upon the gallery, or the whisk of skirts frequently heard. The memory of that picture clung fast and would not vanish. She was so very beautiful, he reflected. It had been pleasanter to sit at table in such company than thus here alone, hungry, like an outcast.

He felt his gaze, like that of a love-sick boy, turning again and again toward the spot where he had seen her last. The realization of this angered him. He rebuked himself sternly, as having been unworthy of himself, as having been light, as having been unmanly, in thus allowing himself to be influenced by a mere irrational fancy. He summoned his strength to banish this chimera, and then with sudden horror which sent his brow half-moist, he realized that his faculties did not obey, that he was thinking of the same picture, that his eyes were still coveting it, his heart--ah, could there be truth in these stories of sudden and uncontrollable impulses of the heart? The very whisper of it gave him terror. His brow grew moister. For him, John Eddring--what could the world hold for him but this one thing of duty?

Duty! He laughed at the thought. These two iron bands before his eyes irked his soul, binding him, as they did, hard and fast to another world full of unwelcome things. There came again and again to his mind this picture of the maid with the bright ribbons. He gazed at the distant spot beneath the evergreens where he had seen her. He could picture so distinctly her high-headed carriage, the straight gaze of her eyes, the glow on her cheeks; could restore so clearly the very sweep of the dark hair tumbled about her brow. Smitten of this sight, he would fain have had view again. Alas! it was as when, upon a crowded street, one gazes at the pa.s.sing figure of him whose presence smites with the swift call of friends.h.i.+p--and turns, only to see this unknown friend swallowed up in the crowd for ever. Thus had pa.s.sed the view of this young girl of the Big House; and there remained no sort of footing upon which he could base a hope of a better fortune. Henceforth he must count himself apart from all Big House affairs. He was an outcast, a pariah. Disgusted, he rose from his rude seat at the window ledge and walked up the platform. He found it too sunny, and returned to take a seat again upon a broken truck near by.

There was a little country store close to the platform, so built that it almost adjoined the ware-room of the railway station; this being the place where the colored folk of the neighborhood purchased their supplies. At the present moment, this building seemed to lack much of its usual occupancy, yet there arose, now and again, sounds of low conversation partly audible through the open window. The voices were those of negroes, and they spoke guardedly, but eagerly, with some peculiar quality in their speech which caught the sixth sense of the Southerner, accustomed always to living upon the verge of a certain danger. The fact that they were speaking thus in so public a place, and at the mid-hour of the working day, was of itself enough to attract the attention of any white dweller of that region.

”I tell yuh,” said one, ”it's gone fah 'nough. Who runs de fahms, who makes de cotton, who does de wu'k for all dis heah lan'? Who used to run de gov'ment, and who orter now, if it ain't us black folks? Dey throw us out, an' dey won't let us vote, an' we-all know we gotter right to vote. Dey say a n.i.g.g.e.r ain't fitten ter do nothin' but wu'k, wu'k, wu'k. n.i.g.g.e.r got good a right to live de way he want ter as de white man is. Now it's time fer change. De Queen, you-all knows, she done say de time come fer a change.”

A low growl, as from the throats of feeding beasts, greeted this comment. Footfalls, shuffling, approached the speaker.

”Tom Sands is daid, dat's whut he is,” resumed the first speaker, ”leastways as good as daid, 'cause he's just a-layin' thah an' kain't move er speak. An' look at me, look at my haid. De ol' man hit him pow'ful hahd, an' ef he didn't hit me jest de same, it wasn't no fault o' his'n, I tell you. He jes' soon killed bof of us n.i.g.g.e.rs thah as not. Whaffor? He want we-all to come inter town an' git fined, git into jail ag'in.” More growls than one greeted this, and then there came silence for a while.

”My ol' daddy done tol' me twenty-five yeah ago,” said the first speaker, ”dat de time was a-goin' ter come. Dey wus onct a white man f'om up Norf come all over dis country, fifty yeah ago, an' he preached it ter de n.i.g.g.e.rs befo' de wah dat some day de time gwine come. We wus ter raise up all over the Souf an' kill all de white folks, an' den all de white women--

”We wus ter kill all de white men,” at length resumed the same voice.

”De white men f'om de Norf wus ter ride intoe de towns den an' rob all de banks an' divide de money wid we-all, an' dey wus to open de sto's and give ebery n.i.g.g.e.r all de goods he want wifout paying nuthin' fer 'em; and den n.i.g.g.e.r ain't gwine to wu'k no mo'.

”Dat white man and his folks, my ol' daddy said, fifty yeah ago, dey wu'k secret all over the Souf, from Tenn'ssee ter Louisian'. Dat was fifty yeah ago, but my ol' daddy say when he was a piccaninny, dis heah thing got out somehow an' de white folks down Souf dey cotch dis white man f'om de Norf, an' done hang him, an' dey done hang and burn a heap o' n.i.g.g.e.rs all over de Souf.

”Dat wus long time befo' de wah. Dey tol' us-all dat de time wuz sho'

comin' den; but den de preachers and de doctors dey tol' us-all it mightn't be come den, but it would come some day. Den 'long come de wah, an' de preachers an' de doctors an' de white folks up Norf dey done tol' us, n.i.g.g.e.r gwine ter be free, not to have ter wu'k no mo'.

Huh! Now look at us! We wu'k jest as hard as we ever did, an' we git no mo' fer it dan whut we eat an' weah. We kain't vote. Dey done robbed us outen dat. We kain't be n.o.body. We kain't git 'long. We hatter wu'k jest same, wu'k, wu'k, wu'k, all de time. n.i.g.g.e.r jest as well be daid as hatter wu'k all de time--got no vote, ner nuthin'.

Dat's whut de Queen she done tol' me right plain las' meetin' we had.

She say white folks up Norf gwine to help n.i.g.g.e.r now, right erlong.

Things gwine be different now, right soon.”

Murmurs, singularly stirring, peculiarly ominous, answered this extended speech. Encouraged, the orator went on. ”We ain't good as slaves, we-all ain't. We wu'k jest ez hahd. Dey gin us a taste o' de white bread, an' den dey done s.n.a.t.c.h it 'way f'om us. We want ter be like white folks. Up Norf dey tell us we gwine ter be, but down heah dey won't let us.”