The Sins of the Father.
by Thomas Dixon.
CHAPTER I
THE WOMAN IN YELLOW
The young editor of _The Daily Eagle and Phoenix_ straightened his tall figure from the pile of papers that smothered his desk, glanced at his foreman who stood waiting, and spoke in the quiet drawl he always used when excited:
"Just a moment--"til I read this over----"
The foreman nodded.
He scanned the scrawled pencil ma.n.u.script twice and handed it up without changing a letter:
"Set the t.i.tle in heavy black-faced caps--_black_--the blackest you"ve got."
He read the t.i.tle over again musingly, his strong mouth closing with a snap at its finish:
THE BLACK LEAGUE AND THE KU KLUX KLAN DOWN WITH ALL SECRET SOCIETIES
The foreman took the ma.n.u.script with a laugh:
"You"ve certainly got "em guessing, major----"
"Who?"
"Everybody. We"ve all been thinking until these editorials began that you were a leader of the Klan."
A smile played about the corners of the deep-set brown eyes as he swung carelessly back to his desk and waved the printer to his task with a friendly sweep of his long arm:
"Let "em think again!"
A shout in the Court House Square across the narrow street caused him to lift his head with a frown:
"Salesday--of course--the first Monday--doomsday for the conquered South--G.o.d, the horror of it all!"
He laid his pencil down, walked to the window and looked out on the crowd of slouching loafers as they gathered around the auctioneer"s block. The negroes outnumbered the whites two to one.
A greasy, loud-mouthed negro, as black as ink, was the auctioneer.
"Well, gemmen an" feller citizens," he began pompously, "de fust piece er property I got ter sell hain"t no property "tall--hit"s dese po" folks fum de County Po" House. Fetch "em up agin de wall so de bidders can see "em----"
He paused and a black court attendant led out and placed in line against the weatherbeaten walls fifty or sixty inmates of the County Poor House--all of them white men and women. Most of them were over seventy years old, and one with the quickest step and brightest eye, a little man of eighty-four with snow-white hair and beard, was the son of a hero of the American Revolution. The women were bareheaded and the blazing Southern sun of August beat down piteously on their pinched faces.
The young editor"s fists slowly clinched and his breath came in a deep quivering draught. He watched as in a trance. He had seen four years"
service in the bloodiest war in history--seen thousands swept into eternity from a single battlefield without a tear. He had witnessed the sufferings of the wounded and dying until it became the routine of a day"s work. Yet no event of all that fierce and terrible struggle had stirred his soul as the scene he was now witnessing--not even the tragic end of his father, the editor of the _Daily Eagle_--who had been burned to death in the building when Sherman"s army swept the land with fire and sword. The younger man had never referred to this except in a brief, hopeful editorial in the newly christened _Eagle and Phoenix_, which he literally built on the ashes of the old paper. He had no unkind word for General Sherman or his army. It was war, and a soldier knew what that meant. He would have done the same thing under similar conditions.
Now he was brushing a tear from his cheek. A reporter at work in the adjoining room watched him curiously. He had never before thought him capable of such an emotion. A brilliant and powerful editor, he had made his paper the one authoritative organ of the white race. In the midst of riot, revolution and counter revolution his voice had the clear ring of a bugle call to battle. There was never a note of hesitation, of uncertainty or of compromise. In the fierce white heat of an unconquered spirit, he had fused the souls of his people as one. At this moment he was the one man hated and feared most by the negroid government in power, the one man most admired and trusted by the white race.
And he was young--very young--yet he had lived a life so packed with tragic events no one ever guessed his real age, twenty-four. People took him to be more than thirty and the few threads of gray about his temples, added to the impression of age and dignity. He was not handsome in the conventional sense. His figure was too tall, his cheek bones too high, the nostrils too large and his eyebrows too heavy. His great height, six feet three, invariably made him appear gaunt and serious. Though he had served the entire four years in the Confederate army, entering a private in the ranks at eighteen, emerging a major in command of a shattered regiment at twenty-two, his figure did not convey the impression of military training.
He walked easily, with the long, loose stride of the Southener, his shoulders slightly stooped from the habit of incessant reading.
He was lifting his broad shoulders now in an ominous way as he folded his clenched fists behind his back and listened to the negro auctioneer.
"Come now, gemmens," he went on; "what"s de lowes" offer ye gwine ter start me fer dese folks? "Member, now, de lowes" bid gets "em, not de highes"!
"Fore de war de black man wuz put on de block an" sole ter de _highes"_ bidder! Times is changed----"
"Yas, Lawd!" shouted a negro woman.
"Times is changed, I tells ye!--now I gwine ter sell dese po" white folks ter de lowes" bidder. Whosomever"ll take de Po" House and bode "em fer de least money gits de whole bunch. An" you has de right ter make "em all work de Po" farm. Dey kin work, too, an" don" ye fergit it. Dese here ones I fotch out here ter show ye is all soun" in wind and limb. De bedridden ones ain"t here. Dey ain"t but six er dem. What"s de lowes" bid now, gemmens, yer gwine ter gimme ter bode "em by de month? Look "em all over, gemmens, I warrants "em ter be sound in wind an" limb. Sound in wind an" limb."
The auctioneer"s sonorous voice lingered on this phrase and repeated it again and again.
The watcher at the window turned away in disgust, walked back to his desk, sat down, fidgeted in his seat, rose and returned to the window in time to hear the cry:
"An" sold to Mister Ab.u.m Russ fer fo" dollars a month!"
Could it be possible that he heard aright? Abe Russ the keeper to the poor!--a drunkard, wife beater, and midnight prowler. His father before him, "Devil Tom Russ," had been a notorious character, yet he had at least one redeeming quality that saved him from contempt--a keen sense of humor.
He had made his living on a ten-acre red hill farm and never used a horse or an ox. He hitched himself to the plow and made Abe seize the handles.
This strange team worked the fields. No matter how hard the day"s task the elder Russ never quite lost his humorous view of life. When the boy, tired and thirsty, would stop and go to the spring for water, a favorite trick of his was to place a piece of paper or a chunk of wood in the furrow a few yards ahead. When the boy returned and they approached this object, the old man would stop, lift his head and snort, back and fill, frisk and caper, plunge and kick, and finally break and run, tearing over the fields like a maniac, dragging the plow after him with the breathless boy clinging to the handles. He would then quietly unhitch himself and thrash Abe within an inch of his life for being so careless as to allow a horse to run away with him.
But Abe grew up without a trace of his father"s sense of humor, picked out the strongest girl he could find for a wife and hitched her to the plow!
And he permitted no pranks to enliven the tedium of work except the amus.e.m.e.nt he allowed himself of beating her at mealtimes after she had cooked his food.
He had now turned politician, joined the Loyal Black League and was the successful bidder for Keeper of the Poor. It was incredible!
The watcher was roused from his painful reverie by a reporter"s voice:
"I think there"s a man waiting in the hall to see you, sir."
"Who is it?"
The reporter smiled:
"Mr. Bob Peeler."
"What on earth can that old scoundrel want with me? All right--show him in."
The editor was busy writing when Mr. Peeler entered the room furtively. He was coa.r.s.e, heavy and fifty years old. His red hair hung in tangled locks below his ears and a bloated double chin lapped his collar. His legs were slightly bowed from his favorite mode of travel on horseback astride a huge stallion trapped with tin and bra.s.s bespangled saddle. His supposed business was farming and the raising of blooded horses. As a matter of fact, the farm was in the hands of tenants and gambling was his real work.
Of late he had been displaying a hankering for negro politics. A few weeks before he had created a sensation by applying to the clerk of the court for a license to marry his mulatto housekeeper. It was common report that this woman was the mother of a beautiful octoroon daughter with hair exactly the color of old Peeler"s. Few people had seen her. She had been away at school since her tenth year.
The young editor suddenly wheeled in his chair and spoke with quick emphasis:
"Mr. Peeler, I believe?"