"Thomas," said his mother, "you will find nothing of the sort; but I"ll tell you what you may expect from the right sort of a wife--contempt for a coa.r.s.e, low-bred fellow, should you insist upon holding him as your closest companion."
"Mother," Louise spoke up, "I think you are too severe. Mr. Batts is hemmed in with faults, but he has many good points. And I can understand why he is necessary to father. I am fond of him, and I am almost ready to declare that at times he is almost necessary to me. No, I won"t make it as strong as that, but I must say that at times it is a keen pleasure to jower with him."
"To do what?" Mrs. Cranceford asked. "Jower with him? Where did you get that word?"
"It"s one of his, picked up from among the negroes, I think, and it means more than dispute or wrangle. We jower at times--quarrel a little more than half in earnest."
"Well," said the mother, "perhaps I ought not to say anything, but I can"t help it when I am so often hurt by that man"s influence. Why, last Sunday afternoon your father left the rector sitting here and went away with that old sinner, and we heard them haw-hawing over in the woods.
But I won"t say any more."
"You never do, Margaret," the Major replied, winking at Louise. "But let us drop him. So you saw Mayo, eh?" he added, turning to Tom.
"Yes, sir, and I understand that he is coming back down here to prove to the negroes that we are cheating them out of their earnings."
The Major tossed a cigar to Tom, lighted one, and had begun to talk with a rhetorical and sententious balancing of periods--which, to his mind, full of the oratory of Prentiss, was the essence of impressiveness--when a negro woman entered the room. And hereupon he changed the subject.
When bedtime came the old gentleman stood on a rug in front of a large fire-place, meditatively winding his watch. His wife sat on a straight-back chair, glancing over the harmless advertis.e.m.e.nts in a religious newspaper. In the parlor they had spent an agreeable evening, with music and with never an allusion to an unpleasant subject, but there was something finer than an allusion, and it had pa.s.sed from husband to wife and back again--a look at each other and a glance toward Louise. But they had laughed at the girl"s imitation of a cakewalk, and yet in the minds of the father and the mother was the low echo of a hollow cough. Affectionately she had kissed them good night, and had started off down the hall in mimicry of a negro belle"s walk, but they had heard her door shut with a quick slam as if she were at last impelled to be truthful with herself, to close herself in with her own meditations.
The Major hung his watch on a nail above the mantel-piece. From a far-off nook of the sprawling old house came the pling-plang of the boy"s banjo.
"Margaret?"
"Yes, dear."
"What did you say to her?"
She began to fold the newspaper. "I didn"t say anything. She wouldn"t permit me."
"What do you think?"
"That she will do as she pleases."
"Consoling, by the--consoling, I must say. But I tell you she won"t. I will shame her out of it."
CHAPTER VI.
The top of the cotton stalk glimmered with a purple bloom, but down between the rows, among the dying leaves, the first bolls were opening.
The air was still hot, for at noontime the glare in the sandy road was fierce, but the evening was cool, and from out in the gleaming dew came a sweetly, lonesome chirrup, an alarm in the gra.s.s, the picket of the insect army, crying the approach of frost. In the atmosphere was felt the influence of a reviving activity; new cotton pens were built along the borders of the fields, and the sounds of hammer and saw were heard in the neighborhood of the gin-house. With the dusk of Sat.u.r.day evening "new" negroes came. In the city they had idled the summer away, gambling, and had now come with nimble fingers to pick cotton during the day and with tricky hands to throw dice at night. Gaunt, long-legged birds flew from the North and awkwardly capered on a sand-bar. Afar off there appeared to hover over the landscape a pall of thin, pale smoke; but, like the end of the rainbow, it stole back from closer view, was always afar off, lying low to the earth. The autumn rains had not yet set in, and the water in the bayou was low and yellow. The summer grapes were ripe, and in the cool, shaded coves at the base of the hills the muscadine was growing purple. The mules, so over-worked during plow-time, now stumbled down the lane, biting at one another. The stiffening wind, fore-whistle of the season"s change of tune, was shrill amid the rushes at the edge of the swamp.
It was a time to work, but also to muse and dream while working. In the air was something that invited, almost demanded reverie. Upon the fields there might lie many a mortgage, but who at such a time could worry over the harsh exactions of debt?
Nearly three weeks had pa.s.sed, and not again in the Major"s household had Pennington"s name been mentioned. But once, alone with his wife, the Major was leading up to it when she held up her hands and besought him to stop. "I can"t bear to think of it," she said. "It stuns and stupefies me. But it is of no use to say anything to her. She is of age and she is head-strong."
There was a dry rasp in the Major"s throat. "Don"t you think that to say she is a crank would be hitting nearer the mark?"
"No, I don"t," his wife answered. "She is not a crank. She is a remarkably bright woman."
"Yes, she shows it. When a man does a fool thing he is weak, off, as they say; but when a woman jumps out of the enclosure of common sense we must say that she is bright."
"I thought you were going to shame her out of it?"
"I will, but she hasn"t given me a chance. But we"ll let it go. I believe she has repented of her folly and is too much humiliated to make a confession."
His wife smiled sadly. "Don"t you think so?" he asked.
"No, I don"t."
"Well, I must say that you are very calm over the situation."
"Didn"t I tell you that I was stunned and stupefied by it?"
"Yes, that"s all right, and there"s no use in worrying with it. Common sense says that when you can"t help a thing the best plan is to let it go until a new phase is presented."
And so they ceased to discuss the subject, but like a heavy weight it lay upon them, and under it they may have sighed their worry, but they spoke it not. From Tom this sentimental flurry had remained securely hidden. Sometimes the grave tone of his father"s words, overheard at night, and his mother"s distressful air, during the day, struck him with a vague apprehension, but his mind was not keen enough to cut into the cause of what he might have supposed to be a trouble; and so, he gave it none of his time, so taken up with his banjo, his dogs, his sporting newspaper, and his own sly love affair. In Louise"s manner no change was observed.
One afternoon the Major, old Gid, and an Englishman named Anthony Low were sitting on the porch overlooking the river when the Catholic priest from Maryland, Father Brennon, stopped to get a drink of water. And he was slowly making his way across the yard to the well when the Major called him, urging him to come upon the porch and rest himself. "Wait,"
the Major added, "and I"ll have some water drawn for you."
"I thank you," the priest replied, bowing, "but I prefer to draw it."
When he had drunk out of the bucket, he took a seat on the porch. He was a man of middle age, grave, and st.u.r.dy. His eyes were thoughtful and his smile was benevolent; his brow was high and broad, his nose large and strong, and a determined conviction seemed to have molded the shape of his mouth. His speech was slow, resonant, dignified; his accent of common words was Southern, but in some of his phrases was a slight burr, the subdued echo of a foreign tongue.
The Englishman was a stocky young fellow, with light hair and reddish side whiskers, a man of the world, doggedly careful in his use of superlatives, but with a habit of saying, "most extraordinary." He had rented an old plantation and lived alone in a dilapidated log house, with his briar pipe, Scotch whisky, sole leather hatbox, and tin bathtub. He had thought that it would be a sort of lark to grow a crop of cotton, and had hired three sets of negroes, discharging them in turn upon finding that they laughed at his ways and took advantage of his inexperience. He had made his first appearance by calling one morning at the Major"s house and asking to be shown about the place. The Major gladly consented to do this, and together they set out on horseback.
The planter knew much of English hospitality, gathered from old romances, and now was come the time to show a Britain what an American gentleman could do. They rode down a lane, crossed a small field, and halted under a tree; and there was a negro with whisky, mint and sugar.
They crossed a bayou, pa.s.sed the "quarters," turned into the woods; and there was another negro with whisky, mint and sugar. They rode across a large field, and went through a gate, came to a spring; and there waiting for them was a negro with liquor for a julep. They turned into the "big" road, trotted along until they came to another spring, at least three miles from the starting point; and there was a negro with whisky, sugar and mint. But the Englishman"s only comment was, "Ah, most extraordinary, how that fellow can keep ahead of us, you know."
Several months had elapsed, and the Major had called on Mr. Low, had shouted at the yard-gate, had supposed that no one was at home, had stalked into the wide open house and there had found the Englishman sitting in his bathtub, reading Huxley. And to-day Mr. Low had come to acknowledge the receipt of that visit.
"You are on the verge of your busy season," said the priest.
"Yes," the Major replied, "we begin picking to-morrow."
"A beautiful view across the whitening fields," said the priest.
"You ought to see my bayou field," old Gid spoke up. "It would make you open your eyes--best in the state. Don"t you think so, John?"
"Well," the Major answered, "it is as good as any, I suppose."
"I tell you it"s the best," Gid insisted. "And as a man of varied experience I ought to know what best is. Know all about cotton. I gad, I can look at a boll and make it open."
"Tell me," said the Englishman, "have you had any trouble with your labor?"
"With the negroes?" Gid asked. "Oh, no; they know what they"ve got to do and they do it. But let a cog slip and you can have all the trouble you want. I gad, you can"t temporize with a negro. He"s either your servant or your boss."