"You"re right about that, Judge," broke in the voice of Calvin Blount. "But it"s just as he says, we"ve got to begin. We"ve got to have some kind of law to begin under."
The judge sighed. "It is humiliating to have to resort to any sort of subterfuge," said he. "Of course, in law, the rule must apply to black and white alike. I see that one of our sister states has pa.s.sed a law allowing no one to vote who can not read, or who can not write on dictation any section of the Const.i.tution; or who has not paid state and county taxes for two preceding years. This test is not applied to any one who was ent.i.tled to vote in any one of the states of the Union on January first, 1867, or at some time prior thereto.
It does not apply to any legitimate lineal descendant of persons ent.i.tled to vote prior to that time. That is an evasion. Yet, as this young gentleman said, we can not submit to the burglarizing of the house of our society. Until we may legally repel, we must legally evade."
"Why, see here, men," broke in Blount, again, "if you"ll let me say so, Judge, there ain"t no law higher than the law of poker. Now we"ve let Mr. n.i.g.g.e.r into the game with us; or, anyhow, he"s here, and somebody gives him a few chips. He don"t buy "em for himself, and he don"t know the value of "em. His chips ought to be good as far as they last. The trouble with Mr. n.i.g.g.e.r is, he"s wanting to get into every jack-pot with less"n a pair of deuces, and wanting to play on the ground that his white chips are as good as the other fellow"s blue ones. Now, that ain"t _poker!_"
"It Shirley ain"t," said the tall foreman, wagging a scraggly beard.
The judge smiled softly and gravely. "No," said he. "There should be justice to the white man as well as the black. You will notice the order in which I place those terms."
Calvin Blount hitched his chair closer up to the table. "But now you were saying, Judge, that we ought to do something for this young fellow, Eddring. I have known him a long time, from the time he was claim agent on the railroad. I want to say he"s a man and a gentleman, not afraid of anything, and he wants to do what"s right. I don"t think he puts money ahead of everything else in the world. For my part, if he was my representative in the Legislature, or in Congress either, I"d feel right sure he"d represent me strictly according to the legitimate rules of _poker;_ and that"s a blamed sight more than a whole lot of politicians are doing to-day, _North_ or South."
"It Shirley is!" again said the foreman, wagging his scraggly beard.
CHAPTER XVIII
MISS LADY AT THE BIG HOUSE
The days wore on not ungentle at the Big House, until the mild southern winter had taken the place of mellow fall, and until presently all the land was again full of the warm, sweet smell of spring. Softness and gentleness rested on all the world, and upon every side were tokens that calm had come again to a land late distraught. Slowly the signs of wreck and ruin disappeared about the plantation. The track of the receding waters was covered with a swift verdure. The cabins, late half-submerged and deserted, again found, at least in part, a tenantry. Songs were heard once more as the plowmen resumed their labors in the fields. Green and white and pink colors appeared, and gracious odors, and kindly sights filled now all the horizon. Peace, and content, and hope seemed now at hand once more. The master of the Big House saw about him his accustomed kingdom, and once more his subjects felt the hand of a master, if as firm, perhaps more kindly than ever before.
As for Miss Lady, she dropped back into the life of the place as though she had been gone but for a day. Care and responsibility sat upon the brow of Madame Delcha.s.se, but Miss Lady, not less useful in the household economy, went about her employment as if she had never been away. Of those who welcomed her back to the Big House there was none more thankful and adoring than the old bear-dog, Hec. At the first sight of his divinity, not forgotten in all these long months, Hec, himself grown very old and gray, well-nigh wriggled his rheumatic frame apart, and lifted up his voice in a very wail of thanksgiving. From that time on he rarely allowed Miss Lady out of his sight, but pursued her about the place, hobbling and whimpering when her feet grew too swift; nor did his homage know any change save when Miss Lady deserted him to bestow her attentions elsewhere, whether upon little yellow chickens, or upon some of the toddling puppies which filled the yard about the Big House.
Of all little helpless things, Miss Lady could not find too many for her attention. Upon one certain morning in the spring, some time after the late trial at the Clarksville court, Miss Lady was sitting out on the board-pile beneath the evergreen trees in the front yard of the Big House. Her wide hat, confined loosely by its strings, had fallen back on her shoulders, so that the sun and the warm wind had their way of the brown hair, and the cheeks now flushed with tender solicitude for the three puppies she held in her lap. Yet other puppies scrambled at a pan of milk close by her feet, while at a distance old Hec, too dignified to engage in such procedures, lay in the shade and gazed at her with reproachful eyes. Calvin Blount, coming about the corner of the house, stood for a while and gazed at this picture in silence before he approached and interrupted.
"Miss Lady," said he, "you never did know how glad I am to have you back here again. Why, a while ago I didn"t care what became of me, or of anything else. I wasn"t even half-training my pack of dogs. Now I have got more"n fifty of the best hounds that ever run a trail, and with you to take care of the cripples and the puppies, it certainly looks like the old pack is going to last a while yet. Yes, you surely are right useful on the place."
"You are not any gladder than I am," said Miss Lady. "I"ve every reason in the world to be glad."
"Well," said Blount, seating himself apart on the end of the board- pile, "I"ve got a few, myself. This here is a heap better than being in jail, or maybe getting hung."
"Don"t talk about it," said Miss Lady, shuddering.
"I don"t want to think--"
"Well, it was Jack Eddring got us out of it all, I reckon," said Blount, breaking off a splinter from the board. "Did you ever stop to think, Miss Lady, that he"s a powerful fine young man?"
"Why do you always talk about him?" said Miss Lady, turning, to the sudden discomfort of one of the puppies. "Every time anything comes up--"
"Now, hold on," said Blount, "you don"t say a word against that young man while I"m around. I want to tell you that fellow has showed me a heap. He"s a square, hard-working man, as honest as the day is long, straight as a string, square as they make "em, and not afraid of nothing on earth. I ask him to come down here and go b"ah hunting. He always says he has to work--works harder than any n.i.g.g.e.r I ever had on the place. Now that"s what he done showed me. I reckon he"d be a good sort of model for this whole southern country to-day. He"s proof enough to my mind that a man can work, and do his own work, and still be a gentleman. I"ve been right lazy in my time, I reckon, b"ah hunting and that sort of thing, but now I come to think it all over, I don"t know but what Jack Eddring is as near right as anybody I know of. He allows he"s got something to _do_ in this world, and he"s starting out to do it. He sort of showed me that maybe that"s about the best thing a man can do with himself--just work.
"Besides, Miss Lady,"--and here Blount turned upon her suddenly, "that man"s done a heap for you."
"Oh, well--" began Miss Lady.
"And he thinks a heap of you. That is,"--and here Blount undertook to save himself from what he swiftly fancied might be indiscretion-- "he"s like all of us people down in here, you know. Now they tell me that up North, in the big cities where I"ve never been at, there"s so many women that folks think they"re right common. I don"t believe that, nohow, for it don"t stand to reason. Now we-all know that a woman is something a good ways off, and high up and hard to reach.
That"s the way we-all feel. But now even if we allow it that way, I want to say that Jack Eddring has done a heap for you, Miss Lady, that maybe you don"t know about. He didn"t have to do it, either."
"I never asked him to do anything--I never told him."
"No, you didn"t," said Cal Blount, gravely. "You sort of allowed that he was a meddling sneak-thief, Miss Lady. I want to say right here that I allow a lot different from that. Now, if I know that man at all, he ain"t going to come around you and make any sort of talk.
You"ll have to go to _him_."
"I"ll not!" said Miss Lady, again eliciting a yelp from one of the puppies in her lap.
"There, there, now," said Blount, gently. "Just you hold on a minute.
Don"t say you will or you won"t. I just want to ask you one thing, Miss Lady. Who do you reckon you are? _I_ know you"re Miss Lady, and that"s all I want to know. But who do _you_ think you are?"
The kindness of the keen gray eye disarmed Miss Lady. In the sheer instinct of youth and vitality she spread out her arms wide, her face turned up halfway toward the sky, her lips half-parted: "Oh, don"t ask me, Colonel Cal," said she. "I"m alive, and it"s spring. I danced in the big room this morning, Colonel Cal! Isn"t it enough, just to be alive?" Thus she evaded that question, which she had so long shunned as impossible of answer.
"Yes, it"s enough, Miss Lady," said the old planter, gravely. "It"s enough for you. But now, we men who are your friends have got to take _care_ of you. We"ve got to do the thinking. Now, I"m saying that Jack Eddring has done a heap of thinking for you that you don"t know anything about."
"Oh, I know he sort of took charge of things down there at New Orleans. He told me a lot. And then--about Mr. Decherd--"
"Yes, about Mr. Decherd. I"ve never talked much to you about that, because the time hadn"t come. Now I want to say that Jack Eddring had more right to throw that man Decherd off the boat than ever you understood. I"d have done it the same way, only maybe rougher. We"re friends of yours. You"re ours, you know. You haven"t got any mother.
Thank G.o.d, you haven"t got any husband. You haven"t got any father.
Now tell me, Miss Lady, who do you reckon Henry Decherd is, and what do you think he wanted to do?"
Miss Lady, suddenly sober, turned toward him a face grave and thoughtful. A certain portion of the old morbidness returned to her.
"It"s not kind of you, Colonel Cal," said she, "to remind me that I"m n.o.body. I"m worse than an orphan. I"m worse than a foundling. How I endure staying here is more than I can tell. Shall I go away again?"
"There, there, none of that," said Blount, sharply. "I"ll have none of that; and you"ll understand that right away. You"re here, and you belong here. You don"t go out beyond the edge of this yard and get tangled up with any more Henry Decherds, I"ll tell you _that_.
Now, there"s certain things people are fitted for. There"s Mrs.
Delcha.s.se, a-stewing and a-kicking all the time because she wants to go back to New Orleans. I tell her she can"t go, because she"s got to stay here and take care of you. Now I"m fit to hunt b"ah. I can tell by looking at a b"ah"s track which way he"s going to run. Same way with Mrs. Delcha.s.se. She can just look at a cook stove and tell what it"s going to do. You can run the rest of this house, and do it easy.
We"re all right, just the way we are. Now it"s going to be that way for a while, and no other way, and I don"t want no orphan talk from you. For the time being I"m your daddy--and nothing else.
"But now," he went on, presently, "Jack Eddring is fit to do other things. He"s been digging around, like he maybe told you part way, for all I know, and he"s found out a heap of things about you that you didn"t know, and I didn"t know. Miss Lady, as far as I know, you may be richer than I am before long. If you think I"ve missed the corn-bread you"ve done eat at my place, why, maybe some day we can negotiate for you to pay for it. Now I ask you once more, _who_ are you? and you can"t tell. How ought you to feel toward the man who _can_ tell you what you are, and who you are? And him a man who can do that, not for pay, but just because you are Miss Lady. How ought you to feel in a case like that?"
Miss Lady said nothing. She only looked anxious and ill at ease.
"Now listen. I"m going to tell you what we know about you, or think we know.
"We think your real name is Louise Loisson, just the name you picked out for yourself. We think that was the name of your mother, and of your grandmother, too, for that matter. If all that is so, then you"re rich, if you can prove your t.i.tle; and we think you can. Tell me, what do you know about Mrs. Ellison? And what do you know about Henry Decherd? Were they ever married?"
A deep flush of shame sprang to Miss Lady"s face as she turned about at this. "Colonel Cal," she began, and her voice trembled; "you hurt.
All this hurts me so."
"Now hold on, child," said Blount, quickly. "None of that, either.
This is strictly business. I know you are not the child of Mrs.
Ellison. You are somebody else"s daughter. You were in her company or her possession for a long time; just why, we can"t prove yet a while.
But there was something right mysterious between that fellow Decherd and Mrs. Ellison. Did you ever see them much together, as long as you were living with Mrs. Ellison?"
"No," said Miss Lady, "never, except as they met occasionally here or there. Mrs. Ellison traveled a great deal from time to time, when I was little, before we went to New Orleans, where I went to school with the Sisters. She, my mother--that is, Mrs. Ellison--had money from somewhere, not always very much. Mr. Decherd told me often that he simply was an old friend of hers. I always thought he was a lawyer somewhere in this state. Sometimes he went to St. Louis. We went to New Orleans; and that was the last I saw of him for some years until we came here to the Big House."
"That"s all you know?" asked Blount. "You don"t remember any mother of your own?"