Part 3 (2/2)

The cause I can't explain, and the effect was beyond description. I hesitated before making any reply, and when I did I tried to turn it off lightly. ”I never saw but one,” I answered, ”on whom I desired to make an impression.”

”And who was that?” the woman inquired with a bright smile of sympathy.

”You will think it a piece of foolishness,” I replied; ”but it was a lady riding in a top-buggy. I had never seen her before and never expect to see her again.”

The youngster clutched his paper in his hand and turned in his chair.

”The light is detestable,” he said. ”Please throw on a piece of pine, mother.”

”You can't read by such a light,” the woman replied. ”Put your paper in your pocket and read it to-morrow.” Then she turned to me. ”If you are in the army,” she said, ”why do you wear such clothes? They are not becoming at all.” She had such a kindly smile and betrayed such a friendly interest that it was not in human nature to suspect her--at least, it was not in my nature to do so.

”Why, mainly for comfort,” I answered; ”and while I am wearing them I am having my uniform, such as it is, furbished up and cleaned a bit. I have a few days' leave, and I am taking advantage of it in this way.”

”I wish my son here would take advantage of his short furlough to wear the clothes he used to wear,” she remarked, and her tone was so significant that I could but regard her with a look of inquiry. I suppose the puzzled expression of my face must have amused her, for she laughed heartily, while the son, as if resenting his mother's words, arose and swaggered to the other end of the room.

We had more conversation, and then I returned to the public room. Some of the guests had retired, but their places had been taken by others, and there was a goodly company gathered around the fire. I found the big arm-chair unoccupied, and, seating myself on its comfortable cus.h.i.+on, soon forgot the wonder I had felt that the woman in the next room had known me for a soldier. I had accomplished one thing--the identification of the prospective horse-thief--and I satisfied myself with that. As for Leroy, I knew I should have to trust to some stroke of good fortune.

The comfort of the rocker appealed to me, and, with my hands on its arms, I leaned back and, in spite of the talking all around me, was soon lost in reflection. Through long usage the upholstering on the arms of the chair had become worn, and in places the tufts of moss or horse-hair were showing. I fell to fingering these with the same impulse of thoughtlessness that induces people to bite their finger-nails. Suddenly I felt my finger in contact with a small roll of paper that had been carefully pushed under the leather, and then I remembered that the last occupant of the chair was the short-haired man--the man who had the general appearance of a prize-fighter.

Now, it had occurred to me in a dim way that this man might be identical with Leroy, and I suspected that he had left in the chair a communication for some of his accomplices. I determined to transfer the roll of paper to my pocket and examine it at my leisure. But no sooner had I come to this determination than I imagined that every person in the room had his eyes fixed on me. And then the problem, if you can call it so, was solved for me.

A stranger who had evidently arrived while I was in the next room appeared to be regarding Whistling Jim with some curiosity, and presently spoke to him, inquiring if he was the negro that played on the piano. Whistler replied that he could ”sorter” play. ”If you are Whistling Jim,” I said, ”play us a plantation tune. I heard a man say the other day that the finest tune he ever heard was one you played for him. It was something about 'My gal's sweet.'”

The negro looked at me hard, but something in my countenance must have conveyed a warning to him. ”I 'member de man, suh; he say he wuz fum Cincinnati, an' he gun me a fi'-dollar bill--a green one.”

Without more ado, he went to the piano and plunged into the heart-breaking melody of--

”_Yo' gal's a neat gal, but my gal's sweet-- Sweet-a-little, sweet-a-little, sweet, sweet, sweet!

Fum de crown er her head ter de soles er her feet-- Feet-a-little, feet-a-little, feet, feet, feet!_”

Naturally all eyes were turned on the performer, and I took advantage of that fact to rise from the rocking-chair with the roll of paper safe in my pocket, and saunter across the room in the direction of the piano. Leaning against a corner of the ramshackle old instrument, I drank in the melody with a new sense of its wild and melancholy beauty.

The room in which I stood seemed transformed into what it never could be, and the old piano shed its discord and was glorified by the marvellous playing of the negro.

The foolish little song runs along for several stanzas, simulating the sound of dancing feet. Alternately the negro sang the air and whistled the chorus, but whether he did one or the other, the effect was the same. The silly song struck the home note and sent it vibrating through my brain so invitingly that I was almost sorry that Whistling Jim had played it.

I returned to earth when he ceased playing. He looked hard at me when he had finished, but I did not glance at him. At the other end of the piano, leaning against it, and apparently lost in thought, was the young fellow I had seen in the other room. His cloak was thrown back from his throat, and the red lining gave a picturesque touch to his small, lithe figure. His face was partly in the shadow, but I could see that his expression was one of profound melancholy. He aroused himself at last, and, looking toward me, said with a smile that had no heart in it, ”If all the negroes in the South are so gifted you must have a happy time down there.”

”So it would seem,” I answered, ”but this negro is an exception. He tells me that he learned to play while his old mistress was away from home looking after her plantation interests. He can whistle better than he can play.”

”He has great gifts,” said the lad, ”and I trust he is treated accordingly; but I doubt it,” and with that he turned away from the piano with a snap of thumb and finger that sounded for all the world like a challenge. He turned and went swaggering across the room, and seated himself in the rocking-chair of which I have spoken. In a word, and with a snap of the finger, he had thrown mud at the whole South, and with no more excuse than I should have had had I made an attack on the North. Yet curiosity, and not irritation, was uppermost in my mind.

His conduct was so puzzling that I determined to have another taste of it if possible, and so discover what he would be at. So I went back to the fire and took a seat close to his elbow, while Whistling Jim pa.s.sed around his hat, as was his custom when he played for company. He held it out to all except the young fellow and myself, and then returned to the piano and played for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, but so softly that conversation could flow on undisturbed.

I had a good look at the lad, and liked him all the better. His face had in it that indescribable quality--a touch of suffering or of sorrow--that always draws me, and I thought how strange it was that he should sit there ignorant of the fact that a word or two would make me his friend for life. I had a great pity for him, and there arose in me the belief that I had met him before, but whether in reality or only in a dream I could not make out. It was a foolish and a romantic notion, but it nibbled around my mind so persistently that I turned my gaze on the fire and fell into reflections that were both teasing and pleasing.

While thus engaged I suddenly became aware of the fact that the young fellow was fingering at the worn place on the chair-arm. Conversation was going on very briskly. The genial landlord, who had joined the group at the fire, was relating to a listening and an eager guest another story of the almost superhuman performances of the Union scout, Leroy, when suddenly the lad arose from the rocker and began to search the floor with his eyes. He had had the color of youth in his cheeks, in spite of the swarthiness of his skin, and I had admired the combination--your light-haired man is for everything that has a touch of the brunette--but now he had gone white.

As he stooped to search under my chair, I jumped up and drew it back politely. ”Pardon me for disturbing you,” he said; ”I have lost a paper.”

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