Part 8 (1/2)
”Well, politics, then. Don't you ever try to make a convert even in that?”
”I talk politics for fun only.” She toyed with her whip. ”I'd tell you something if I thought you'd never tell. It's this: Women have no conscience in their intellects. No, and the young gentlemen you bring to see me take after their mothers.”
”I'll try to bring some other kind.”
”Oh, no! They suit me. They're so easily pleased. I tell them they have a great insight into female character. Don't you tell them I told you!”
”Do you remember having told me the same thing?”
She dropped two wicked eyes and said, with sweet gravity, ”I wish it were not so true of you. How did you like the sermon last evening?”
”The cunning flirt!” thought he that night, as his kneeling black boy drew off his boots.
Not so thought John that same hour. Servants' delinquencies had kept him from Sunday-school that morning and made him late at church. His mother had stayed at home with her headache and her husband. Her son was hesitating at the church-yard gate, alone and heavy-hearted, when suddenly he saw a thing that brought his heart into his throat and made a certain old mortification start from its long sleep with a great inward cry. Two shabby black men pa.s.sed by on plough-mules, and between them, on a poor, smart horse, all store clothes, watch-chain, and shoe-blacking, rode the president of the Zion Freedom Homestead League, Mr. Cornelius Leggett, of Leggettstown. John went in. Fannie, seemingly fresh from heaven, stood behind the melodeon and sang the repentant prodigal's resolve; and he, in raging shame for the stripes once dealt him, the lie they had scared from him at the time, and the many he had told since to cover that one, shed such tears that he had to steal out, and, behind a tree in the rear of the church, being again without a handkerchief, dry his cheeks on his sleeves.
And now, in his lowly bed, his eyes swam once more as the girl's voice returned to his remembrance: ”Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”
He left his bed and stood beside the higher one. But the father slept.
Even if he should waken him, he felt that he could only weep and tell nothing, and so he went back and lay down again. With the morning, confession was impossible. He thought rather of revenge, and was hot with the ferocious plans of a boy's helplessness.
XI.
A BLEEDING HEART
One night early in November, when nearly all Rosemont's lights were out and a wet brisk wind was flirting and tearing the yellowed leaves of the oaks, the windows of Mrs. Garnet's room were still bright. She sat by a small fire with Barbara at her knee. It had been election-day and the college was silent with chagrin.
”Is pop-a going to get elected, mom-a?”
”I don't think he is, my child.”
”But you hope he is, don't you?”
”Listen,” murmured the mother.
Barbara heard a horse's feet. Presently her father's step was in the hall and on the stairs. He entered, kissed wife and child, and sat down with a look first of care and fatigue, and then a proud smile.
”Well, Launcelot's elected.”
A solemn defiance came about his mouth, but on his brow was dejection and distress.
”You know, Rose,” he said, ”that for myself, I don't care.”
She made no reply.
He leaned on the mantlepiece. ”My heart bleeds for our people! All they ask is the G.o.d-given right to a pure government. Their pet.i.tion is spurned! Rose,”--tears shone in his eyes--”I this day saw the sabres and bayonets of the government of which Was.h.i.+ngton was once the head, s.h.i.+elding the sc.u.m of the earth while it swarmed up and voted honor and virtue out of office!” The handkerchief he s.n.a.t.c.hed from his pocket brought out three or four written papers. He cast them upon the fire.
One, under a chair, he overlooked. Barbara got it later--just the thing to carry in her reticule when she went calling on herself. She could not read its bad writing, but it served all the better for that.