"No compliment to me at all!" cried the girl, indignantly. "He little understands me who seeks my favor by coming home at a time like this.
The Connecticut women are up in arms at the way our men are coming home. No offence to you, Mr. Stokes. You"re sick, and should come; but I"d like to go myself to show some of the strong young fellows what we think of them."
"Coming home was worse than rheumatism to me, and I"m going back soon"s I kin walk without a cane. Wouldn"t "a" come as "tis, if that Zeb Jarvis hadn"t jes" packed me off. By Jocks! I thought you and he was acquainted, but you don"t seem to ask arter him."
"I felt sure he would try--I heard he was doing his duty," she replied with averted face.
"Zeke Watkins says he"s no soldier at all--nothing but a dirt-digger."
For a moment, as the cobbler had hoped, Susie forgot her blushes and secret in her indignation. "Zeke Watkins indeed!" she exclaimed. "He"d better not tell ME any such story. I don"t believe there"s a braver, truer man in the--Well," she added in sudden confusion, "he hasn"t run away and left others to dig their way into Boston, if that"s the best way of getting there."
"Ah, I"m going to get even with him yet," chuckled Stokes to himself.
"Digging is only the first step, Miss Susie. When Old Put gets good and ready, you"ll hear the thunder of the guns a"most in Opinquake."
"Well, Mr. Stokes," stammered Susie, resolving desperately on a short cut to the knowledge she craved, "you"ve seen Mr. Jarvis a-soldiering.
What do you think about it?"
"Well, now, that Zeb Jarvis is the sneakin"ist fellow---"
"What?" cried the girl, her face aflame.
"Wait till I get in a few more pegs," continued Stokes, coolly. "The other night he sneaked right into the enemy"s lines and carried off a British officer as a hawk takes a chicken. The Britisher fired his pistol right under Zeb"s nose; but, law! he didn"t mind that any more"n a "sketer-bite. I call that soldiering, don"t you? Anyhow, Old Put thought it was, and sent for him "fore daylight, and made a sergeant of him. If I had as good a chance of gettin" rid of the rheumatiz as he has of bein" captain in six months, I"d thank the Lord."
Susie sat up very straight, and tried to look severely judicial; but her lip was quivering and her whole plump little form trembling with excitement and emotion. Suddenly she dropped her face in her hands and cried in a gust of tears and laughter: "He"s just like grandfather; he"d face anything!"
"Anything in the "tarnal universe, I guess, "cept you, Miss Susie. I seed a cannon-ball smash a shovel in his hands, and he got another, and went on with his work cool as a cuc.u.mber. Then I seed him writin" a letter to you, and his hand trembled---"
"A letter to me!" cried the girl, springing up.
"Yes; "ere it is. I was kind of pegging around till I got to that; and you know---"
But Susie was reading, her hands trembling so she could scarcely hold the paper. "It"s about you," she faltered, making one more desperate effort at self-preservation. "He says you"d stay if you could; that they almost drove you home. And he asks that I be kind to you, because there are not many to care for you--and--and---"
"Oh, Lord! never can get even with that Zeb Jarvis," groaned Ezra. "But you needn"t tell me that"s all the letter"s about."
Her eyes were full of tears, yet not so full but that she saw the plain, closing words in all their significance. Swiftly the letter went to her lips, then was thrust into her bosom, and she seized the cobbler"s hand, exclaiming: "Yes, I will! I will! You shall stay with us, and be one of us!" and in her excitement she put her left hand caressingly on his shoulder.
"SUSAN!" exclaimed Mr. Rolliffe, who entered at that moment, and looked aghast at the scene.
"Yes, I WILL!" exclaimed Susie, too wrought up now for restraint.
"Will what?" gasped the mother.
"Be Zebulon Jarvis"s wife. He"s asked me plump and square like a soldier; and I"ll answer as grandma did, and like grandma I"ll face anything for his sake."
"WELL, this IS suddent!" exclaimed Mrs. Rolliffe, dropping into a chair. "Susan, do you think it is becoming and seemly for a young woman---"
"Oh, mother dear, there"s no use of your trying to make a prim Puritan maiden of me. Zeb doesn"t fight like a deacon, and I can"t love like one. Ha! ha! ha! to think that great soldier is afraid of little me, and nothing else! It"s too funny and heavenly---"
"Susan, I am dumfounded at your behavior!"
At this moment Mr. Rolliffe came in from the wood-lot, and he was dazed by the wonderful news also. In his eagerness to get even with Zeb, the cobbler enlarged and expatiated till he was hoa.r.s.e. When he saw that the parents were almost as proud as the daughter over their prospective son-in-law, he relapsed into his old taciturnity, declaring he had talked enough for a month.
Susie, the only child, who apparently had inherited all the fire and spirit of her fighting ancestors, darted out, and soon returned with her rosebud of a face enveloped in a great calyx of a woollen hood.
"Where are you going?" exclaimed her parents.
"You"ve had the news. I guess Mother Jarvis has the next right." And she was off over the hills with almost the lightness and swiftness of a s...o...b..rd.
In due time Zeke appeared, and smiled encouragingly on Mrs. Rolliffe, who sat knitting by the kitchen fire. The matron did not rise, and gave him but a cool salutation. He discussed the coldness of the weather awkwardly for a few moments, and then ventured: "Is Miss Susan at home?"
"No, sir," replied Mrs. Rolliffe; "she"s gone to make a visit to her mother-in-law that is to be, the Widow Jarvis. Ezra Stokes is sittin"
in the next room, sent home sick. Perhaps you"d like to talk over camp-life with him."
Not even the cider now sustained Zeke. He looked as if a cannon-ball had wrecked all his hopes and plans instead of a shovel. "Good-evening, Mrs. Rolliffe," he stammered; "I guess I"ll--I"ll--go home."
Poor Mrs. Jarvis had a spiritual conflict that day which she never forgot. Susie"s face had flashed at the window near which she had sat spinning, and sighing perhaps that Nature had not provided feathers or fur for a brood like hers; then the girl"s arms were about her neck, the news was stammered out--for the letter could never be shown to any one--in a way that tore primness to tatters. The widow tried to act as if it were a dispensation of Providence which should be received in solemn grat.i.tude; but before she knew it she was laughing and crying, kissing her sweet-faced daughter, or telling how good and brave Zeb had been when his heart was almost breaking.
Compunction had already seized upon the widow. "Susan," she began, "I fear we are not mortifyin" the flesh as we ought---"
"No mortifying just yet, if you please," cried Susie. "The most important thing of all is yet to be done. Zeb hasn"t heard the news; just think of it! You must write and tell him that I"ll help you spin the children"s clothes and work the farm; that we"ll face everything in Opinquake as long as Old Put needs men. Where is the ink-horn? I"ll sharpen a pen for you and one for me, and SUCH news as he"ll get! Wish I could tell him, though, and see the great fellow tremble once more.
Afraid of me! Ha! ha! ha! that"s the funniest thing--Why, Mother Jarvis, this is Christmas Day!"
"So it is," said the widow, in an awed tone. "Susie, my heart misgives me that all this should have happened on a day of which Popery has made so much."
"No, no," cried the girl. "Thank G.o.d it IS Christmas! and hereafter I shall keep Christmas as long as love is love and G.o.d is good."
JEFF"S TREASURE
CHAPTER I
ITS DISCOVERY
Jeff, the hero of my tale, was as truly a part of the Southern Confederacy as the greater Jeff at Richmond. Indeed, were it not for the humbler Jeff and the cla.s.s he represented, the other Jeff would never have attained his eminence.
Jeff"s prospects were as dark as himself. He owned nothing, not even himself, yet his dream of riches is the motive of my tale. Regarded as a chattel, for whom a bill of sale would have been made as readily as for a bullock, he proved himself a man and brother by a prompt exhibition of traits too common to human nature when chance and some heroism on his part gave into his hands the semblance of a fortune.
Jeff was a native Virginian and belonged to an F.F.V. in a certain practical, legal sense which thus far had not greatly disturbed his equanimity. His solid physique and full shining face showed that slavery had brought no horrors into his experience. He had indulged, it is true, in vague yearnings for freedom, but these had been checked by hearing that liberty meant "working for Yankees"--appalling news to an indolent soul. He was house-servant and man-of-all-work in a family whose means had always been limited, and whose men were in the Confederate army. His "missus" evinced a sort of weary content when he had been scolded or threatened into the completion of his tasks by nightfall. He then gave her and her daughters some compensation for their trials with him by producing his fiddle and making the warm summer evening resonant with a kind of music which the negro only can evoke. Jeff was an artist, and had a complacent consciousness of the fact. He was a living instance of the truth that artists are born, not made. No knowledge of this gifted cla.s.s had ever suggested kinship; he did not even know what the word meant, but when his cheek rested lovingly against his violin he felt that he was made of different clay from other "n.i.g.g.ahs." During the day he indulged in moods by the divine right and impulse of genius, imitating his gifted brothers unconsciously. In waiting on the table, washing dishes, and hoeing the garden, he was as great a laggard as Pegasus would have been if compelled to the labors of a cart-horse; but when night came, and uncongenial toil was over, his soul expanded. His corrugated brow unwrinkled itself; his great black fingers flew back and forth over the strings as if driven by electricity; and electric in effect were the sounds produced by his swiftly-glancing bow.
While the spirit of music so filled his heart that he could play to the moon and silent stars, an audience inspired him with tenfold power, especially if the floor was cleared or a smooth sward selected for a dance. Rarely did he play long before all who could trip a measure were on their feet, while even the superannuated nodded and kept time, sighing that they were old. His services naturally came into great demand, and he was catholic in granting them--his mistress in good-natured tolerance acceding to requests which promised many forgetful hours at a time when the land was shadowed by war. So it happened that Jeff was often at the more pretending residences of the neighborhood, sometimes fiddling in the detached kitchen of a Southern mansion to the shuffle of heavy feet, again in the lighted parlor, especially when Confederate troops were quartered near. It was then that his strains took on their most inspiring and elevated character.
He gave wings to the dark-eyed Southern girls; their feet scarcely touched the floor as they whirled with their cavaliers in gray, or threaded the mazes of the cotillon then and there in vogue.
Nor did he disdain an invitation to a crossroads tavern, frequented by poor whites and enlisted men, or when the nights were warm, to a moonlit sward, on which he would invite his audience to a reel which left all breathless. While there was a rollicking element in the strains of his fiddle which a deacon could not resist, he, with the intuition of genius, adapted himself to the cla.s.s before him. In the parlor, he called off the figures of a quadrille with a "by-yer-leave-sah" air, selecting, as a rule, the highest cla.s.s of music that had blessed his ears, for he was ear-taught only. He would hold a half-washed dish suspended minutes at a time while listening to one "ob de young missys at de pianny. Dat"s de way I"se pick up my most scrumptious pieces. Dey cyant play nuffin in de daytime dat I cyant "prove on in de ebenin";" and his vanity did not lead him much astray.