"No, nothing _new,_ only another one of them investigatin" parties from up North. They had a good fat new educator, half-n.i.g.g.e.r, half-white, this time--educated a heap more"n I am. He was the king bee in that lot of evangelizers and elevators. Well, I took them out over my farms and showed them the sa.s.safras shoots coming up where the cotton ought to be. "Gentlemen," said I, "here"s an instance of what an intelligent and industrious race can do. Here"s the best plantation in the Delta turned over to these people to make or break.
This is the richest soil in the world. They had half of all they could raise, and they had their living guaranteed them. n.o.body guarantees _me_ a living, not even G.o.d A"mighty. They didn"t put up a dollar, nor an ounce of brains, nor a bit of worry. Now, did they work, or did they sit in the shade and loaf? You look around and tell me."
"The big half-white man began to preach to me, and I says to him, "Before you go on, I just want to ask you two questions. First, how much of you is n.i.g.g.e.r, and how much is white? Second, do you want to quit running a college up North, and come down here and take hold of this plantation, and so help out three hundred fellow-citizens of yours who are a heap more interested in the n.i.g.g.e.r question than you are yourself?" I asked that fellow that. That"s when he shrunk some."
Eddring smiled, but it was a serious smile, for the South has small inclination to jest over questions such as these.
"Well, about all the fellow could do was to fall back on his old song about education uplifting the race. "That"s all right," I said to him. "I"ll pay my share of that. But we"ve got to wait until your millennium comes. It"s no use saying it has come, when it hasn"t.
It"s going to take a long time before you get the real useful educating done."
"I got riled, talking to him, and at last I called up one of my field hands--he had ruined twenty acres of the best cotton land I had--and I took him by the ear and pulled out a bunch of his hair. Said I to him, "Sam, is your hair like mine! Would it ever get like mine?"
"No, boss," said he, "not in a hundred yeahs." He laughed at me.
"Then I said to that white fellow from the North, "How hard do you work? I want to know that." He began to swell up a little at that.
Well, I put it to him this way. Says I, "There was a man came down through here a few years ago, and he got plumb rich. He told all these poor black people all around that for fifty cents he"d sell them a bottle of stuff that would make their hair straight like a white man"s, in less"n a month. He always put it about a month ahead, so that he"d have time to get away. Now, that hair tonic man was what I call a professional benefactor of the n.i.g.g.e.r race," said I. "He got paid for it, just the same as you do. And," says I, "he"ll straighten out their hair with his hair tonic just about as soon as you"ll straighten out their problem with your particular kind of ointment-- for which you are getting better paid than he did."
"That riled the fellow plenty, but I went on talking to him. "The only difference between you and him," says I to him, "is that he was whole white and was running a straight bluff, and you are part white, and are running a half-way sort of bluff. You pray to G.o.d A"mighty so much about this that you have just about got yourself half-persuaded that you"re honest. Do you reckon that you have got G.o.d A"mighty persuaded that way, too?" said I to him. That made an awful disturbance in the evangelizing and elevating outfit, and finally I got out of patience. Says I to them, "I don"t want to forget that you are visitors at my place. You white folks can come to my table, if you want to, or you can eat with the oppressed and downtrodden out in my kitchen, if you like that better. Your fellow-citizen, with the specialty of elevating the downtrodden, can"t eat at my table. After you get it fixed up the way that suits you best, and have had your dinner, I want you-all to go out and take one more look at the sa.s.safras that"s growing on as fine a cotton land as ever lay out of doors. If you can elevate my n.i.g.g.e.rs so that they"ll work, why go ahead and do it. G.o.d knows they need it. Learn "em geometry, learn "em to write poetry, send "em to Europe to learn painting, but please put somewhere in your college a department showing how to dig up stumps and chop sa.s.safras roots. "You"ll pardon _me_," says I, "for I"m a plain man; but I just want to say that that"s the kind of elevating that the black race in America needs most. But whatever you do, don"t be foolish. Don"t say to me that that"s done which you and I both know _ain"t_ done.""
Both Eddring and Blount were silent for a time. "Those folks stayed in around our country for quite a while," resumed Blount, "and they succeeded in stirring up the n.i.g.g.e.rs to thinking that they were not getting a square deal, but ought to break into politics once more.
A few of us planters got together, and _we_ were so stirred up about it that we thought we would do something right funny. Our county election was coming on, and you know we have got about ten black voters to one white down there. Under the Const.i.tution we couldn"t elect a white man down there in a hundred years--not if we followed the Const.i.tution. This time, just for a joke--but listen--do you know what we did?"
"Well, it"s pretty hard to tell just what Cal Blount would do, sometimes," said Eddring, "but I don"t doubt you did something foolish."
"No, we didn"t. We just had a joke. We let them elect a n.i.g.g.e.r sheriff for Tullahoma County! We just "lowed we"d give "em a touch of law as a sort of object lesson to the Northern elevators. Thought we"d take a shot at the educating business ourselves. The fellow"s name is Mose Taylor, and say! he"s the tickledest n.i.g.g.e.r you ever did see! He"s about half-white, too, and he always did want to break into politics one way or another. Now, he"s done broke in. We let him, just for a joke. Of course, when there"s any need for a _real_ sheriff, we white people allow that we"ll have to use the old one-- Jim Peters."
"Well, these things aren"t always just exactly the best kind of jokes," said Eddring. "You have been having nothing but trouble down there for a long time."
"Trouble!" said Blount, "I should say we have. We"ve tried to keep it a white man"s country, but it"s been a fight every day of the year.
n.i.g.g.e.rs stole and killed all the cattle of my neighbors down in there, and we hung two or three n.i.g.g.e.rs last month for stealing cows.
We put a sign on them, "You stole a cow, cow killed you." You"ve got to make things sort of plain, you know, to these people, so"s they can understand "em. Now, you know the trouble we had down there about that train wreck. It"s morally sure the n.i.g.g.e.rs were at the bottom of that, one way or another. That ain"t all. I told you we were having a big overflow now. Well, the fact is, we found out a day or so ago that this overflow is mostly hand-made. They"ve been cutting the levees--"
"Blount," said Eddring, quietly, "that"s just why I telegraphed you to come up here. I"ve got a boy here who knows about the whole proposition. They"re organizing, as sure as you"re born, and they"ve got a leader. They"ve got a Queen, they say."
"A Queen!" snorted Blount, jumping to his feet. "Queen, eh? Well, now! you look here, if we ever do get hold of that Queen, I want to tell you, she"ll have the uneasiest head that ever did wear any kind of crown. _Queen,_ eh!"
"And you"ve got a n.i.g.g.e.r sheriff now! Fine machinery for the law to have in that part of the Delta just at this time, isn"t it?"
"Sheriff! What do we need of a _sheriff,_ if we get down to the bottom of this devilment? We have got to put it _down_, and that"s all there is to it, as you know very well. There"s no two ways about it. These disturbances, most of them due to politics, have upset our whole country. Now, it is for us to set it right again.
We"ve got to cut politics out, and get down to common sense, down to business. The South can"t wait for ever on politics, Northern or Southern. This country"s _bigger_ than politics, and bigger than politicians. You know we can count on every white man in my part of the Delta. Can we count on you?"
Eddring hesitated, but finally looked his friend in the face. "I"m a white man," said he. Blount went on.
"What you tell me is not altogether news. We"re going after these people, and we"re going to put an end to this thing once for all.
We"re going to have a _country._ Now, we want as large a number of white gentlemen as possible. We will want you.
"Now, no matter what you are doing, or where you are, will you come when I send for you!"
Eddring repeated simply, "I am a white man, too."
"It"s for the law, Eddring--for the country."
"Yes. I think it"s for the law."
CHAPTER III
REGARDING LOUISE LOISSON
"Come out and eat with me, Cal," said Eddring. "I"ve some other matters to put before you. A great many things have been so confused in my mind that I have hardly known where to begin to straighten them out."
"I reckon you"ve got some new lawsuit or other on your hands," said Blount.
"You"re right. At least it may be a lawsuit, and it certainly bids fair to be a puzzling study, lawsuit or not."
After they were seated at table in an adjoining cafe, Eddring tossed over to his friend a late copy of a New Orleans newspaper. "You see that headline?" said he. "It"s all about a dancer, Miss Louise Loisson. You ever hear that name before?"
"Why, no, I don"t seem to remember it, if I ever did."
"Well, that name is bothering me mightily just now. You know something of the history of those old Y. V. damage judgments, after I left the road?"
"Yes, I reckon I heard something about it. Some one seems to have got hold of the list of claims, and pushed them for all they were worth.
Of course, I know you hadn"t anything to do with that."
"It was an odd sort of thing," said Eddring, "and it has led up to a number of other things still more strange. Now, no one knows how that information regarding the claims got out. I told you that I found that complete list of the claims in the valise of the mysterious man, Mr. Thompson, who was killed in the train wreck at your place. Of course I turned over all this material to the company at once. But there must have been a duplicate list out somewhere. I had my own suspicions. I knew, or thought I knew, why the dogs ran that trail right up to your house. Here"s one reason I had for that." He threw on the table before Blount a soiled and wrinkled bit of linen, the same mysterious handkerchief which he had put in his pocket at the train wreck long ago.
"Did you ever see that before?" asked he. Blount sat up straighter and looked closely at the object, but shook his head.
"It might be Delphine"s," said Eddring. At this the other man shut his mouth hard and his face grew suddenly serious.
"Now, I say I had suspicions," resumed Eddring. "That list of claims was never written out by that traveling man, Thompson. It might have been done by Henry Decherd, might it not?"
"What makes you think so?"
"Nothing, except that I believe those papers were in Henry Decherd"s valise. In fact, I know it. He did not want to claim the valise when he saw that I had it. This letter might very possibly have been written by Delphine to Decherd. See here." He placed before Blount the unsigned letter which he had preserved ever since the time of its discovery. Blount read it through in silence, flushing a bit to see his own name mentioned by a servant in such connection; but without comment he looked quietly at Eddring, now eager in the instinct of the chase.
"I"ll tell you frankly, Cal," said the latter, "I guessed all along that these two were concerned in all this business, but I couldn"t speak. I didn"t dare tell my suspicions when I had no better proof than was possible to get at that time. I didn"t want to tell the sheriff. I didn"t dare tell even you what I thought. Now there was something else in that valise which I did not turn over to the company, because I did not think it was their property."
He took from his pocket the mysterious little volume, the same which had so strangely appeared at different times and in the hands of different parties, not all of whom were at that time known to himself. Blount turned it over curiously in his hand.
"Funny sort of book for a traveling man to have in his valise," said he. "You reckon he was some sort of book collector?"
"Well, I don"t reckon that Thompson was. Upon the other hand, Henry Decherd might have been, for certain reasons. Let"s see.
"Now, here is this little French book. It tells about a certain journey made from America to France in the year 1825 by several Indian chieftains. They went with one Paul Loise, interpreter. With them was a young girl, Louise Loisson--don"t you see the name?--and she is carefully described as a descendant, not of Paul Loise, but of the Comte de Loisson, a n.o.bleman who came to St. Louis shortly before 1825."
Blount sat up still straighter in his chair. "This here is mighty strange," said he. "Names sound right near alike."