BURRILL COLEMAN,

COLORED

 

A

TALE OF THE COTTON FIELDS

 

By Jeannette Downes Coltharp

 

FRANKLIN, OHIO

The Editor Publishing Company
Copyright 1896

 

Jeannette Downes Coltharp

 

Madison Coordinator’s note: Born in 1862, Jeannette Downes was the daughter of a prominent Madison Parish lawyer and Parish Judge who was murdered in 1870 when she was only eight years old. It is very probable that this murder had a great influence on her book. Jeannette Downes later married W. F. Coltharp and lived in Tallulah until she died in 1947.

 

The book, Burrill Coleman, Colored, has been out-of-print for many years and was recently copied from microfilm in the Cornell University Library by Dr. Cynthia Savaglio, a professor of Radio and TV at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. Many thanks are due Cynthia for allowing me to copy her copy of the 315 page book.

 

 Scanning the copies made from microfilm to a computer-sensible format was particularly troublesome because of the many scratches on the film and specks on the glass. Although every effort was made to honor the original transcript, it is inevitable that some mistakes have probably been made. Strangely for a publication of this type, typographical errors, misspellings and repeated words were abundant. Some of the more-obvious ones were corrected, but many were not.

 

Burrill Coleman, Colored, was written entirely about, and in fact is an outstanding history of, customs and events concerning the coexistence of the people — both black and white — in Madison Parish during the late 19^th century. Among other things it involves such things as robbery, murder, romance, intrigue, balls & tournaments, gambling, insurrection and, unfortunately, lynching. Many (maybe all) of these events actually occurred, but the names of people and places have been changed such that Tallulah becomes “Asola”, and Milliken’s Bend becomes “Sigma.” The lynching, for instance, occurred in 1894 — just two years before the book was published — and was widely publicized.

 

Anyone who has trouble with the so-called “N” word should read no further. During the period represented by this book it was commonly used without disparagement by both races and is used many times in this story — very seldom in a derogatory manner. Richard P. Sevier, August 2004.

 

CHAPTER I  — Guarding the Steamboat Landing

CHAPTER II — Appearance of Burrill Coleman

CHAPTER III — Robbery at the Steamboat Landing

CHAPTER IV — Perry is Accused of the Robbery

CHAPTER V — Appearance of Mr. Durieux

CHAPTER VI — Appearance of Dr. Allison

CHAPTER VII — Dr. Allison’s Background

CHAPTER VIII — The Dude Salesman

CHAPTER IX — The Gun Club

CHAPTER X — The Jousting Tournament

CHAPTER XI — The Ball

CHAPTER XII — Ride Home from the Ball with Durieux

CHAPTER XIII — Appearance of the Syrian, Omene Kirrch; — Burrill Coleman and Ella

CHAPTER XIV — Cotton Picking Time — Dice game — The Cutting of Allen Whitney’s Throat

CHAPTER XV  — Robbery and Kidnapping of Mr. Chaflin

CHAPTER XVI — The Arrest of Burrill Coleman and Trial for Murder in Mississippi

CHAPTER XVII — Christmas on the Plantation — Mr. Barrett’s Dislike of Dr. Allison

CHAPTER XVIII — Discussion of Dr. Allison and his “Roommates”

CHAPTER XIX — Aunt Parthenia’s [Daughter’s] Wedding

CHAPTER XX — Nellie’s Secret Meeting with Dr. Allison

CHAPTER XXI — Murder of Carroll and Minor

CHAPTER XXII — Dr. Allison Arrested for Murder

CHAPTER XXIII — The Death of Ella

CHAPTER XXIV — Nellie Sent to New Orleans

CHAPTER XXV — Nellie tells Durieux of her love for Dr. Allison

CHAPTER XXVI — Murder of Alvah Northcot

CHAPTER XXVII — The Lynch Mob

CHAPTER XXVIII — The Second Lynching

CHAPTER XXIX — Durieux tells Barrett of Nellie’s Secret Meeting with Dr. Allison

CHAPTER XXX — Nellie and Dr. Allison are Engaged

CHAPTER XXXI — Finale

It is a queer sight to see one of the Anchor Line's immense steamboats landed at a little platform entirely surrounded by water, and unloading freight as seri­ously as if the stage-plank rested upon solid rock.

 

There is something ludicrous in the comparison of the stately vessel with its gleaming white frame tower­ing high above, and the frail rough plank and rougher trestle-work of the place whereon the freight must be deposited. The line of levee a few hundred yards fur­ther inward looks more fitted to the purpose; even though it rises only a few inches above the water's bosom, but great steamboats, heavily laden, cannot wade through five feet of water, and if they could there would be vehement opposition raised by the inhabitants on the other side of the embankment, whose houses scarcely peep above the levee's crest.

 

On the opposite side of the platform from the pulsing steamer with its hurrying deck-hands and commanding mate, a skiff, a bateau and a flat are tied, giving the little wooden island an air of business importance both cheery and interesting. A small warehouse built of rough lumber stands to the north, its interior given up to the tawny waters that fill it almost to the tops of its doors, and lap with soothing monotony against its outer walls as the motion of the boat tosses the waves restlessly about. A long thicket of young willows and cottonwoods stretch to the right and to the left, mark^­ing by its abrupt discontinuance the point where the bank and river meet. Way over on the Mississippi shore, showing like a murky finger-mark on the horizon, the trees part the blue-grey of the heavens and the grey-blue of the reflecting water, dispelling the illusion that all is one illimitable element.

 

Across the levee from the landing, the southern land, with its level far-reaching acres, lies frank and open as a maiden's brow. Has our country no secrets to conceal, no thoughts to hide from the world's gaze, that it spreads like a smoothed-out scroll, open to the read­ing of any_, whose gaze may rest upon it, indifferent to his scrutiny? Not a hill nor a cliff, neither mountain nor ravine confronts the stranger, to hint of heart throbs and chastisements that left deep furrows to proclaim a past or suggest tales of experience that might enchain a listener long and unwearingly. Declaring candor by her youthful mein, who could accuse her of harkening to the subtle river's wooing, and meeting his advances with eager arms? Does she feel revenge­ful toward that arch plotter, man, and greet her lover all the more fondly for the barrier his love of gold has raised to keep her from her lord, who long ago had un­disputed right to her caresses at his majestic will? Who could guess what a passionate, courageous nature underlies so much seeming tranquility, as she basks in the most golden of sunlight beneath the bluest of all skies? Is she really nothing more than the child she looks, with her smooth rosy cheek, that she sings and laughs so innocently today, and weeps so pathetically tomorrow? Dealing absolute justice now, and raging vindictively anon, while through it all, we, her dolls, love her as yearningly, as fervently as her generosity and tenderness merit. Ambition or restlessness may lead us, her children, far away from her dark soil and vivid vegetation, but one by one we drift back again, homesick and weary, to the welcome that is ever here — more loyal, more trustful, than ever before. We fold our tents and boastfully go, but as surely as nature's grandest artery glides forever by to meet the waters of the gulf, we come again humbled by our folly, acknowledging that potent charm which is a tradition with us, yet one which no one has yet been able to analyze. By and by, perhaps, we may cease to defy the bond that holds us, and with folded wings avow what we can but know, that this is our Eden, and we, the gardeners, are here to train its immeasurable possibili­ties and obliterate its limitations.

 

The sun hung like a great illuminated orange just above the belt of wood in the western distance, put there ostensibly for the purpose of concealing where the sky and land meet. Its last rim, glowing softer and redder all the while, drops behind the dusky trees just as the last package is deposited upon the platform.

 

The boat-bell gives a series of deep-toned sounds, fol­lowed by the musical tinkling of the smaller signals, and then with a great "chouff" from her vitals, the majestic creature lifts her stage-plank tenderly. With a grace and dignity exceeded by no living thing, she glides backward and swinging around, seemingly reluctant to say farewell, is soon in the current Speeding upon her way.

 

"Ben."

 

"Yes sir."

 

"It is too late to boat this freight over to the shore tonight, yet I dislike exceedingly to leave it here un­til Monday."

 

"It sho' is too late to tote it over tonight, Boss. But what kin we do? It's mighty bad for them boats to fetch freight here this time of a Sat'day.”

 

Ben imitated Mr. Barrett's attitude and air of concern, and they stood there side by side, the black man and the white each with his hands thrust to the utmost depths of his trousers’ pockets, and each staring at the pile of freight as though the solution of the problem might be revealed by some hitherto undiscovered arrangement of the various boxes and barrels.

 

" Well," said Mr. Barrett in a voice that plainly showed his disappointment and perplexity, "It is growing late and I must return to the store. Give me the freight bills and I will go." He walked to the edge of the platform, and turning spoke to the landing-keeper again: “Ben, you must watch this freight, and not let anything happen to it."

 

"All right, sir. You reckon I ought to kiver it with the tarp'lins?"

 

"No, I hardly think that necessary; there is no pro­bability of its raining." Mr. Barrett seated himself in the skiff, and Ben Simpson, stepping in after, took up the oars and rowed swiftly across the submerged field between the landing and the levee. By and by where the waters now lie tranquil and glassy, luxuriant cotton will wave in the summer breeze, its roots nurtured by the new deposit left as toll for the river's trespassing. When the skiff landed at the levee both men got out; Mr. Barrett to mount his horse and ride to his place of business in the village, and the negro to go to his cabin standing a few yards from the road. Ben tied the skiff to a stake driven in the top of the levee and picked up the oars to carry them with him for safe keeping. As he threw these under his front gallery, two dogs rushed out of the house to greet him, upsetting as they came a little two-year old boy, Ben's baby, who was stand­ing in the doorway eating his supper. As the little fellow toppled over, his chubby feet pointing for a moment at the rafters, he clung to his tin plate with only a slight loss of molasses; but his piece of corn bread fell from his hand and it was not long before its absence was perceived.

 

" What's Buddy crying about? You, Jakey, you tend to your buddy! You know I got to finish i'nin' your pa's shirt!!"

 

Jakey, not many sizes larger than Buddy, harkened to his mother's voice and giving his suspenders a habitual readjustment by slipping first one thumb then the other beneath the osnaburg straps and lifting each successively with a swing of his whole body, came forward and assisted his little brother to his feet, inquiring what was the matter.

 

Buddy extended his sticky empty hand and com­plained, his big black eyes rolling, “B^'e'd, b'e'd!”

 

Jakey looked about, and finally found the missing substantial under the cupboard near the doorway. He brushed off the loose dirt and restored it to its owner, who contentedly resumed dipping it into his molasses and munching off the sweetened surface. Jakey went back to the corner of the fire-place and again occupied himself with a piece of soft drift wood which he was, with the aid of an old butcher knife, constructing into an "Anchor Line."

 

Ben had in the meanwhile come into the house and seated himself not far from the ironing board and begun playing with the dogs who followed him in, fawn­ing upon him.

 

"Ben, how us goin' to church tonight, — can't go, kin you ?" Elvira questioned, pausing in her ironing to test the heat of her implement.

 

"Oh, I don't know; why?"

 

"Nothin', I was just studyin' about the freight. Didn't the 'City of the South' put off a big lot? She staid a mighty long time."

 

" Yes, but that don't matter, I reckon. Perry Johnson's levee guard you know, and while he's got to keep awake anyhow, he can watch the landin' too, just as well. I'll ask him to do it."

 

"Well.” Elvira made her iron hiss again and went on with her work. "I wanted to know, not so much my 'count as Ella's. Ella Green come along here just 'while ago and, askt ef us was goin' to church, 'cause she said she wanted to go 'long with us ef we was. She said she didn't keer 'bout goin' thought you was going to 'zort, 'cause she said she pintedly wanted to hear you. She said she'd come along 'bout time for us to start, and she 'lowed she hoped you wouldn't disappoint her."

 

Ben felt considerably pleased with the compliment paid to his powers as an exhorter, and sat for a while in meditation; then he roused himself and exclaimed:

 

" Look here, Elviry, put your ir'nin' down; I wants my supper, 'pecially ef I got to go see Perry 'fore we starts to church. Ef we goin' we got to git there early on recount of its bein' my night to 'zort."

 

" Well, I reckon you wont go till I gets your shirt ir'ned, will you?" Elvira responded playfully. `Ef you wants your supper, help yourself; the meat's in the skillet on that side of the hearth, and the bread's in the oven over there. I spect you knows where the molasses is."

 

"Papa, there's some potatoes in de ashes," Jakey commented, indifferently.

 

"La, there sho is! I had plumb forgot." Elvira began poking in the ashes, and sure enough there they were, wrinkled and sticky, with the syrup_: that had simmered through cracks in the skins candied on the outside. Jakey had not forgotten the sweet potatoes if his mother had. He had been waiting for the time when she would announce that they were done; so he laid his knife and steamboat aside and moved nearer. Buddy came forward too, and eagerly watched Jakey trying to cool that hottest of hot things, an ash baked sweet potato. He no doubt thought the cooling process unnecessarily long, but it is not the little darkey’s habit to fret, and true to his class, he contented himself with petting the cat, and was at last rewarded for his patience with a nice potato soaking in spare-rib gravy.

 

" Honey who you reckon I seen on the `City of the South’?” Ben asked suddenly, looking up at his wife.

 

"La, Ben, how you spec I know. Who was it?"

 

Ben laid the bone he was picking in the plate upon his knee, and after deliberately wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, answered: " T'was Jeff Chesterfield."

 

" Well I never! When did he get out the peniten­chy?"

 

“He say he been out six months. Say he been up the river. He asked lots of questions about how us all was gitten’ ‘long, and told me to tell everybody `howdy' for him."

 

" How long he goin' to stay? "

 

" He never got off; he's a regular rouster now. Say he likes runnin' on the river mighty well."

 

" Well, sir! I must tell Mattie about Jeff so she can go to the boat to see him next time she passes. All them girls will want to see him 'cause Jeff, he used to have every last one of 'em stuck on him."

 

" They was that," laughed Ben, " and seems like to me there was somebody named `Elviry’ ‘mongst the lot  too." _'Ben winked and smiled broadly at Elvira, who giggled, somewhat confused.

 

"Oh, well," she said, "that was before you found out how to go down into your pockets at picnics and such like” She laughed and added: " What I got to leave wid you, too, is that the `stuck' wasn't all on one side, neither."

 

“Un-hoo, oh yes, I understan'," mumbled Ben mock­ingly, shaking his head. He put his empty plate on the table, gave a long yawn of satisfaction, and picked up his old hat. " Well, give us a kiss, and I’m off to see Perry." He put his arm around his wife’s plump shoulders and gave her a rousing smack, then stopped in the door-way to ask, "You goin' to leave the chillun with Aunt Nancy, ain't you?”

 

"Yes, I reckon so. Aunt Nancy's always willin' to look after 'em for me, and she's the nearest one to leave 'em with."

 

" All right then, you be sure to be ready ginst I git back."

 

Ben walked briskly out to the road that followed the base of the levee, and turning into it, he went only a short distance before he was accosted.

 

" Hello, Elder, is that you? "

 

"That's who it is," Simpson returned cheerily, "and you are the very man I'm hunting for. How's your health?" Without waiting for Perry to reply, Ben launched into the business that brought him to seek the interview.

 

" That's all right, I'll do it for you — certainly, cer­tainly," Perry assented readily. " You're right late gittin' started though, ain't you? "

 

" No, I reckon not. It don't take me long to go five miles after I put my foot into the road. You see, Perry, the particularest reason I'm so anxious to go is, that 'sides its bein' my night to 'zort, I ain't never missed a single night bein’ there in the whole three weeks the meetin' been goin' on, and it would look kind a odd for me top miss the very night I'm spected, don't you know."

 

"Exactly, of course, I understand."

 

"Well, so long! I'm a thousand times obliged to you, Perry, and I'll do you a good turn first chance I git."

 

"Oh, that's all right," again declared good-natured Perry, and as Ben turned and retraced his steps homeward, Perry ascended the path that slanted diagonally up the tall embankment, preparatory to beginning his silent vigil of the night.

CHAPTER II

 

When he reached the top of the levee, Perry turned his face toward the stream, and lifted his chest to inhale a deep delicious breath of the soft dreamy air. The moon was already up, and hung above the trees on the other side of the water, round and full; making the land, trees and river gleam white and radiant where there were no shadows, or deeply black where objects obstructed her rays. A mocking bird, anticipating sum­mer by the day's promise of spring, swayed upon a branch of a pecan tree and sang a glorious nocturne to the little maiden listening in the willows.

 

The pecan tree that harbored the noble lover stood some distance out from the levee, with the waters lapping its bark high up, and branding a collar about the trunk that would be a living record of their height after summer months sent the river, humbled, down within its banks. In its infancy this tree shaded a ditch bank and turn row, far back in the fields. It sprang from a pecan that dropped from a little boy's pocket, and had thrived in the untrodden spot. It be­gan its career fully three-quarters of a mile from the river's bank, and had stood its ground sturdily through storm and sunshine. It had seen the ruthless waters encroaching nearer and nearer each year, until now, when it reared its handsome head in seeming consciousness of its strength and completed height, it stood but a stone's throw from the creeping tyrant that asked but a few years more to claim it as this prey. Then the powerful roots will be undermined, the vigorous boughs will sway pathetically, and with a roar the tree will crash forward, a hopeless victim to an insat­iate greed.

 

Why the river selected this particular spot to vent his vindictiveness upon, we can never know. It may have been a particularly toothsome morsel, or there may have been a cause long years before the white man's foot touched the river shore, why this mile of front should be blotted from the earth's face, while across the stream, and a few miles further down, nature saw fit to donate the stolen soil where it never belonged. It reminds us of man's changes as well as nature's, for where one man's hoard is steadily increasing, another is as surely yielding up his store.

 

The tree will stand a few years still to tell us of the past, but the little boy, with grey streaks in his hair, bends over his desk in a city. The scant acres that time has left of his ancestral home are inadequate to justify him in trying to live upon them, and they have passed into another's hands.

 

Perry turned first to the right and looked down them levee, and then to the left, and shouldering his river again, he concluded to take the path to the left, as he could then begin to fulfill his promise to Ben at the outset of his watch. His beat extended half a mile on either side of the path where he ascended the levee; and it made no difference which direction he took first. It was his duty to walk from one end of his appointed position to the other, throughout the night, beginning whenever he chose.

 

He was a small man, slender, strong and wirey, with a pleasant black face and an agreeable manner. Like Ben Simpson, he was fond of good clothes, but unlike Ben, who was an elder in the church Perry wasn't a seeker after religion. The love of gambling had a strong hold upon his nature, and although he enjoyed going to church and funerals, he acknowledged that he liked balls better, so the Mississippi's cleansing waters had never submerged his person and his sins, except when he was thrown out of a dug-out one day, by the care­lessness of a companion.

 

No, Perry had never "got religion," notwithstanding the prayers for his conversion that had more than once been earnestly offered up by the congregation that num­bered his mother among its members.

 

Perry walked to the northern limit of his beat, met the guard of the next station, exchanged friendly greetings, and going to the other end, passing the landing twice, noticing that everything looked serene in the moonlight. As he again turned and was walking up the river, he passed the point where the road coming from Sigma merged into the road at the levee, and he paused to look about him. A man was riding leisureably from the village, toward him, and Johnson was quick to recognize him. As soon as the horseman drew near enough, he called out cordially: Hello, Burrill! Where you bound?"

 

“Why, hello, Johnson, that you, how do you do sir?"

 

" I'm tolerable, thank you, how's yourself?"

 

"Pretty fair, pretty fair. Fine night, ain't it?" Burrill Coleman clucked to his horse, and started on his way; then turning in his saddle, he faced. Perry, and asked: "Have you got any tobacco about you, Johnson? I clean forgot to get some before I left town, and I don't believe I can wait till I get home for a chew."

 

Johnson laid his rifle down on the levee, and felt in one after another of his pockets. Presently drawing out piece of tobacco, he started down the side of the embankment to take it to his friend, but Burrill checked him:

 

"Just wait," he said, "I'll come up after it. I ain't in no hurry, and you got a heap sight more walkin' to do tonight than I is."

 

Coleman dismounted and hitched his horse to a fence post on the other side of the road.

 

He was not much above medium height, but he bore himself with so much composure and dignity that he gave the impression of greater statue than he possessed. He was always well dressed and neat, and there was none of that loose-jointedness about him, nor slack fit in his clothes that is so characteristic of his race. He was unmistakably handsome, too, though so thoroughly negro in his type. His complexion was lust the color of the wrapper of a good mild cigar, and his eyes bright, and quick in their movements. His thick lips were partly hidden by his short jetty mous­tache, and his nose unusually high, though wide, for a darkey's, indicated strength and tenacity. Altogether, such an intelligent face for a negro is seldom seen, nor such command over people's respect as he possessed, is often felt. When his horse, as well kept and as handsome of its kind as Burrill was of his, was secured, he climbed up the levee, swinging a lantern in his hand as he came.

 

" Well, sir!" exclaimed Johnson, jocosely, eying the lantern, " Burrill, you must expect a change of weather 'fore you gits home; what is you carryin' a lantern for, this bright night?"

 

Coleman joined in his friend's laughter and answered: " Well you see, it's this a way: When anybody borrys something of mine, and keeps it a year, the first time they says somethin' about 'turnin' it back to me, I allays says, 'Yes sir, I'll take it along with me, bein' as I am goin' that a way.' That," he added, "is one of the finest lanterns you ever seen sir. It's a regular con­ductor's lantern. I bought just 'cause it was so pretty. You see the glass is red, and makes the prettiest kind of a light. Ever see a conductor's lantern lighted? Let me show you."

 

Coleman proceeded to light the lantern to show its beauties to the appreciative gaze of the country fellow who had never lived nearer than eight miles to a railroad. While he was striking a match and adjusting the wick, Johnson said, more by way of filling an awk­ward pause than anything else: " You 'pears to take mighty good care of it; it looks bran new."

 

"Oh, it ain't so new. It was second-hand when I bought it. You see its all nickel-plated, that's what makes it look so bright." Having succeeded in making the light burn brightly, Burrill held it high above his head and asked proudly: " Ain't she a beaut?"

 

" She sho is."

 

"Now, you see," went on Coleman, "when a con­ductor wants his train to go on, he holds it so the engineer can see it, and waves it this a way. Then, when he wants the train to stop, he does — "

 

" Halt ! " thundered a voice so close that Coleman and Johnson sprang back in dismay. Standing a few paces from them on the levee was a man with rifle at his shoulder, ready to fire. For a moment Perry's eyes, blinded by gazing at the colored light, failed to recog­nize the assailant; then he called excitedly:

 

"Hello, Jim. Hold up there, it's me — Perry — don’t, you know me, man. For God's sake, don't shoot!" Jim's rifle slowly sank to his side, and Burrill laughed in relief.

 

" By George! " said the new comer, "I didn't know what to make of you fellows there with that red light, — when I first seen you. I thought you all was some rascal tryin' to cut the levee."

 

" Hump," muttered Coleman, contemptuously, "you must have thought we was mighty showy in our way of doin' it."

 

Perry laughed, but Jim, putting his hand on his breast, wagged his head seriously.

 

" You all don't know what a turn you give me," he said. " My heart's just a beatin' — "

 

" Well, try some of this to steady your nerves," Coleman suggested, with a return of his equanimity, offer­ing a flask of whisky. Jim took a long pull at it, and handed it back to its owner with a smack of his lips. Burrill passed the bottle on to Perry, then taking a drink himself, he sat down on the edge of the levee with his feet hanging toward the road. His compan­ions followed his example as he asked:

 

" How's the water?"

 

" Oh she's fallin' fast now," answered Johnson. " Goin^’ down like the bottom had dropped out all of a sudden."

 

" She can't go down any too fast to suit me," said Burrill. " I tell you, sirs, I never feels easy till she's plumb back in her banks again."

 

" I don't know," drawled Jim, thoughtfully. " I don't never feel scared much, when the levee's as strong and big as it is here. Fact is, I don't see why they don't discharge us guards now, the water is fallin' so fast. What they want guards on good levees for, anyway, Burrill?"

 

" Why man, it's just this a way; sluffin' levees and crawfish holes ain't all we got to be afraid of."

 

" Hum! " interrupted. Perry, " I should say not. Why, Jim, you know well enough they give you that gun and stood you up on this levee to shoot anybody that tried to cut it.”

 

" Well, of course, Perry, I know that, but who they reckon would be fool enough to cut a levee? They'd know as well as anybody hit would ruin the country.

 

Burrill laughed. "Why, man, 'taint nobody livin' here that'd want to cut it, but just s'posin somebody had a weak levee in front of their house, fifteen or twenty miles above here, and they'd take a notion to come down here and make a little hole in our levee to let the water spread in here, and ease up the strain up their way, don't you reckon it would be a help to him? Or, s'posin somebody had two or three hundred fine cypress logs back there in the swamp that they'd like to float down to New Orleans, don't you reckon it would be money in their pocket if the levee would break somewhere close about, so the water would come and lift they raft and help 'em get it out into the river?"

 

"You don't say!" muttered Jim in amazement. "Do you know, I never thought of such a thing! Lord, Lord! You reckon anybody would be mean enough to 'stroy a whole country, and drown out every cow and hog like that?"

 

Burrill Coleman smiled grimly. "I have heard of such things bein' done," he said.

 

" Well, I just tell you what's a fact," began Perry, grasping his rifle nervously, "them kind of people ought to be shot down in they tracks like wild beas'es. I'd — I'd — if I'd catch a man on my beat, up to any such rascality, I wouldn't show him any more mercy than I would a mad dog."

 

"You mighty right," assented Jim, vehemently. " Well," he added, after a pause, "that bein' the case, I don't keer how long they keeps us men on the levee just so they pays me my two dollars a night. Sleepin' tas'es just as good to me in day time anyhow."

 

As Jim was saying this, Burrill began to hum a tune softly to himself. Perry heard him and said: "Sing that, Burrill, that's one of my favorites," and Burrill commenced with the chorus of that rousing song "I'll meet you in the City of the New Jerusalem.”

 

Jim, a regular church goer, and Perry, both joined in, although the latter did not know all the words, and the trio sounded superb, floating out upon the calm night with the Mississippi's mighty bosom for a sounding board. Burrill sang in his strong, rich bass, while Jim sang ordinarily, and Perry pitched his voice as high as a woman's, and hummed when he did not know the words.

 

With excellent voices, the rule among the negro race, it seems strange that the world has never produced either a remarkable tenor or prima donna from its ranks.

 

When the song was finished, Jim slapped his hand upon his knee and exclaimed: " That was splendid! It does me good all over to hear such a chime as that. Come, let's sing another."

 

Without hesitating, he began "Am I soldier of the Cross." This hymn, too, was sung, and was followed by several more, when Johnson jumped to his feet, exclaiming:

 

"Look here boys, I hates to tear myself away from good company, but I got to be goin'. Ef the captain of the guards was to happen along about now, he might think us all was havin' too good a time."

 

"I wonder who's the captain for tonight?" said Jim, getting on his feet. "It might be Mr. Barrett; he ain't been now for more'n a week."

 

" Well, 'tain't likely they'll be a captain out tonight. Everybody seems to feel satisfied ain't nothin' goin to happen now the water's fallin'," said Burrill, yawning.

 

“Well," said Perry, "captain or no captain, whoever he is or whenever he comes along, I'm thankful to say he ain't caught me nappin' yet. Whether he comes along at ten, twelve, four, or between times, Perry's always been on duty o. k.”

 

Burrill picked up his lantern from where he had put it behind him, as he sat down to talk, and extinguish­ed it; then the three darkeys started off in their several directions.

 

As the two levee guards resumed their marching, they would have been astonished if told that they had spent an hour and a half in singing, and conversation.

 

CHAPTER III.

 

"Virgil ask your father to please come to his breakfast. Tell him that the bell has been rung for him twice, and every thing is getting cold. " Mrs. Barrett spoke impatiently, but the little boy she addressed, as he dashed into the room, was too much excited to heed her manner, and scarcely caught the meaning of her words.

 

" Oh, mother, 'he can't come! He's out on the gal­lery talking to Mr. Henderson and Mr. McStea. The landing was robbed last night, and ever so many things stolen!"

 

" What, robbed! " cried Mrs. Barrett and Nellie in one voice, starting from the table in astonishment. Little Stella, apprehending that something dreadful had happened, lifted her troubled, inquiring face, not knowing what to say. Mrs. Barrett and Miss Barrett, preceded by Virgil, hurriedly left the room to hear the particulars of the robbery, leaving the little girl seated in her high-chair, close to the table. Stella did not know what robbery meant, but she understood what this implied thoroughly. She lifted her voice and shrieked: "Mama, sitter, brozzer! Oh, somebody, come and put me down! " They had all forgotten her helpless position, though, and the tiny maiden was abandoning herself to despair, when Allen came into the room to bring hot waffles and released her.

 

She, too, ran to the gallery then, but too late to hear any of the news, for her father's partner and clerk were already down the steps, and Mr. Barrett was saying, “If you won’t come in and take breakfast with us, then, I will eat as quickly as I can and join you at the office, where we can discuss this more fully and decide what can be done."

 

The callers left, and the family returned to the breakfast table.

 

" All we know," said Mr. Barrett, in answer to his children's inquiries, as he unfolded his napkin, “is that several boxes containing freight were broken open, and Mr. Henderson estimates the loss roughly between five and seven hundred dollars. It is the boldest and most unprecedented theft I ever knew to occur in this parish. The boxes were evidently opened with the aid of a crowbar, as one was found lying on the platform, and it is very remarkable that this, which necessitated more or less noise, could have been done without attracting the attention of the levee guards."

 

"Perhaps the robbers watched their chance, and opened the boxes while the guards were at the further ends of their beats," suggested Mrs. Barrett.

 

" Even granting that," said Mr. Barrett, " the water magnifies sound, and the trees echo so ringingly, I do not see how Perry and Jim could have failed to hear the noise."

 

Mr. Barrett ate as hurriedly as he could between his remarks to his wife and children, and was soon on his way to the store where he expected to find Mr. Hen­derson and Mr. McStea awaiting him.

 

The firm of Barrett & Henderson was one of several concerns of the kind in the parish, owning vast tracts of land and employing hundreds of colored people as laborers. Barrett & Henderson owned thousand acres of cultivated land, divided into numerous plantations and managed, including all ages, fully a thousand negroes. These negroes bought their necessities from the stores on the various plantations, paying for them at the end of the year, when cotton and cotton seed went to market. In this way, they, like the similar companies, did an immense system of credit business that left little for the small cash dealer to do. When there is no overflow, no cotton worms, no drouth and no deluge from the skies, the merchant-planter, and the darkey too, fairly coins money and rolls in wealth. On the other hand, when circum­stances agree to combine against him, the negro gets his food and wearing apparel throughout the year, just the same, and his only trouble is that he hasn't much if any money to spend for whisky and trifles at Christ­mas; but the merchant has an empty safe and a regi­ment of creditors to confront. If nothing runs through the little end of the horn, nothing can be expected to flow out of the big end. The planter can bridge over a year or two of such adversities well enough, and be fairly set upon hit feet again by one good crop, but the tide of successive failures is hard to stem.

 

Barrett & Henderson's most important plantation, Englehart, five miles from Sigma, was the largest of their places, and did the next biggest furnishing busi­ness to the house in the village, where the head office and the two chiefs of the firm were located. These two partners had many tastes in common, and were warm, congenial friends, although they possessed so many characteristics that were entirely different.

 

Mr. Henderson, ten years the younger, was married also, and like Mr. Barrett, was a keen-witted businessman. He was cool and calculating in his financial relations, with a belief that every man warranted a certain amount of watching, and having this perpetual doubt of his fellow beings in his mind, he reacted somewhat as a check upon the elder's more generous trustfulness. He read his daily papers with a religious exactness, at least those portions that treated of politics the markets or casualties, but he looked upon the rest of the printed matter as he did upon the blank margins of the sheet — something put there to fill up space, or perhaps, to cause women to waste valuable time, as he knew his wife did, who preferred reading Paris or New York fashions to keeping up with the price, of meat or flour. Mrs. Henderson was young, though, and her husband hoped with time and gentle reproof to correct this failing of his helpmeet

 

On the other band, Mr. Barrett was what would anywhere be called a cultured man. In 1864 he awoke to the realization that he was eighteen years old, his edu­cation hardly more than begun, and the fact staring him in the face that he must go to work for himself or starve. There were too many brothers and sisters younger than himself dependent upon the scant remains of his father's shattered estate for any of it to be devoted to further schooling for himself, so with the courage of youth, he picked up his oar, and began pad­dling in the direction of the success he now enjoyed. His way lay, at times, along rugged_, turbulent places, but hard manual labor never defeated him, and he looked back now upon his training as the best discipline that could have come to him. During his youthful struggles he acquired a love for knowledge, and never lost an opportunity of enlightening himself upon all topics, from then to the present time. He was what could be called a self-made man, but he had had good material handed down to him from a long line of an­cestors out of which to make himself.

 

In personal appearance he was decidedly handsome. He was much above medium height, and rather stout than otherwise. He wore a short dark beard that suited his dark hair and handsome grey eyes. His manners were deliberate and stately, with that elegance of style that once prevailed in Louisiana among ladies and gentlemen, but which has yielded to the careless good fellowship between the present day man and woman. Mr. Barrett with his leisurely composure and thoughtfulness of the minor comforts of others, made himself seem a little isolated from those contrasted with him. Not so much in what he did, however, as his way of doing it. Another man could open a door or a gate for a lady, or assist her into a carriage, and there would seem merely a duty done, but when Mr. Barrett performed these little courtesies, there seemed, at the same time, a favor having been craved and a special honor conferred.

 

When Mr. Barrett reached the office, the two gentlemen who had left him but a half hour before were sitting beside the stove waiting for him. He took his accustomed chair at his desk, and turned around in it to hear what Mr. Henderson was saying.

 

"In thinking over the matter," Mr. Barrett said "it seems so improbable that the goods could have been taken without Perry Johnson being aware of it, that I can hardly resist believing that he must know who the thieves are, even if he did not assist them in the rob­bery."

 

" That is exactly what I have believed from the first," said Mr. Henderson. " If Perry did not help to steal the goods, he knew how to keep mighty quiet while the others did. No, there is no doubt in my mind that both Perry and Ben got their share of the goods.

 

" Oh no, not Ben," protested Mr. Barrett. " Of course I blame Ben for not attending to his duty and watch­ing the freight himself as I told him to, but I believe him innocent of the theft."

 

" He certainly seems worried," began Mr. McStea, but Mr. Henderson cut him off shortly:

 

"Dudley, how can you tell anything about a nigger, and a half-way preacher at that. You can depend upon it, a darkey will always act his part well."

 

McStea said no more. He had been working for the firm of Barrett & Henderson long enough to have learned some of the peculiarities of the latter gentleman's disposition.

 

" But, Henderson, you must admit that until last night Ben has always attended to his landing business scrupulously and entirely satisfactorily. He has often had large sums of money, that the boats paid him for seed, in his possession; sums far exceeding the amount of the goods stolen last night."

 

Henderson was silent.

 

"If I may make a suggestion," put in McStea, " I would say that the goods were stolen by some stray craft — a flat-boat or a dago's lugger — that passed during the night."

 

" That is plausible," Mr. Barrett said thoughtfully, and Mr. Henderson inquired irritably:

 

" What if it was, Dudley, could those boxes have been ripped open and the boards split without the levee guards hearing it, especially when everything was in favor of the listeners? The night was perfectly calm, and the moon made almost as much light as day."

 

" Perry might have dozed off. You know a darkey can sleep any where or at any time," Mr. Barrett urged.

 

"But he swears he never closed his eyes from the time he went on duty till daylight. And he says 'he saw no one but the levee guards at either end of his beat, except a few people he knew, on their way to church," Mr. McStea said.

 

"Now look here," said Mr. Henderson; "who knew of the boat's landing, and putting off the freight besides Ben Simpson?

 

" Ah, that I do not know," said Mr. Barrett. " I went to the landing myself, as you are aware, because I was particularly anxious to see that the freight was properly stacked upon the platform, besides my wanting to see Captain Hill. There were a few women standing on the levee when the boat came in, but they went off, for they were not there when I crossed back get on my horse."

 

"Do you know who they were?" asked Henderson.'

 

" Well, old Mingo Green's granddaughter — what's her name? Ella, I believe — was one of them, and Sallie Jefferson was among the number, but I scarcely noticed the group as I passed."

 

The three men sat for some time in deep thought, then Mr. Henderson jumped to his feet.

 

"Here," he exclaimed, "this will never do; we must go at this thing if we expect to get back the stolen goods."

 

" What do you advise?" asked Mr. Barrett, slowly rising.

 

"Why, first of all, a thorough search of every house on Lilyditch plantation! I hate to have to do such a thing on Sunday, but if it is not done today, there will be no use doing it at all. Dudley, did you have the horses saddled?"

 

"Yes sir, they are ready."

 

The party started out, followed by the colored store porter, whose interest and curiosity prompted him to go along, and before they were fairly out of Sigma, they were joined by Mr. Chaflin, manager of a planta­tion some ten miles distant, and several other gentle-men, who had heard of the robbery, besides the usual contingent, several boys.

 

The village of Sigma has very little to recommend it either as a place of business or a place of residence. It is one of the many dozing old towns put back from the river bank as a mother puts her child back on the bed, to keep it from falling over the edge. There are a post-office, a few stores, and half dozen residences where white people live, because the breadwinner of the family is either a doctor, a merchant or a teacher. There is a Knights of Pythias lodge, which used also as the school house, and a church too, here sometimes a preacher comes and delivers a sermon. These preachers are usually divinity students out for practice, or hardworked religious men with regular appoint­ments at several other places, seldom finding a fifth Sunday or an extra day which can be devoted to Sigma. When a preacher does find an opportunity to come, the news is spread and a congregation is gathered from the surrounding plantations to supplement the one or two pew-fulls that the town can afford. People do not mind riding five or ten miles to church occasionally, even to hear an indifferent sermon.

 

Sigma has two merits: The first it possesses together with the other swamp towns of Louisiana, that is, the dearth of what the negro contemptuously calls "poor white trash." The poor white man and the poor red soil exist in the state, but their location is further westward and the river front is given up to the dark man, the dark soil, and the well-to-do whites. One of the strongest attractions of the extreme South, except, of course, in large towns and cities, is the distressing element, the pauper.

 

Sigma's other merit, or rather charm, is its long row of shade trees that grow on the sunny side of the one solitary street. The few residences, neat and comfortable, with their gardens of beautiful flowers and shrubs are at one end of the street and the business houses are along the other, with the row of trees reaching from the limit of the one portion to the last store in the line. These trees alternating, first a china tree with its dark glossy leaves, and then a shimmering, silver-leaf poplar, that at once throws into relief the beauty of the neighbor and enhances the flashing brightness of its own dainty foliage. Yet, as is so often the case, Sigma’s greatest beauty is for a time each year its greatest drawback. Just now when Spring days are beginning to grow warmer, only here and there the china tree's tiny lilac and purple blossoms have burst into perfection, tender and moist, and they suggest, rather than proclaim perfume; but by and by, when seventy or eighty trees all unite in distilling their wealth of sweets, the air will throb with the power of the odor, and sensitive nostrils will revolt at nature's extravagance. Then, later, weary ears will ache, when the combination of the small boy, the pop-gun and the green china berry is manifestly at large.

 

CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Barrett and his companions took no time to heed the bursting of leaf or blossom. They rode over the two miles of road, spreading between Sigma and Lilyditch Landing, without noticing any of the things along the way that were invisible because of inevitable presence. As they reached the path that lead from the levee to Simpson's house, that darkey joined them; his yellow face expressive of anxiety and distress. " Hello, Ben! Anything new?" called Mr. Hender­son, seeing him approach.

 

" No sir, nothin' at all. I ain't been back over there since you and Mr. McStea was there."

 

"Come, then," said Mr. Barrett, "we will go over now and look about." He spoke with his habitual cheeriness, and dismounting, gave his horse to the darkey, who hitched him to a little tree. Ben then took the other two horses from their riders, and hitched them also, and the three gentlemen from the office seated themselves in the skiff, and Ben sitting to the oars, they were soon lauded at the platform, leaving the crowd collected at the levee, to stand there waiting for something else to happen.

 

There was really nothing for him to see, when Mr. Barrett reached the platform. He took the freight bills from his pocket to assist him in making an inventory of what was lost, and scanned the list and remaining packages. There were the barrels of flour, meal and coal oil, just he had left them at dusk the day before and the boxes of meat were there too, but all that was left of the dry goods, consisting of a box each of calico, check, shoes, and men's clothing, were the empty boxes with their broken tops scattered about.

 

While the gentlemen were talking to one side in un­dertones, Ben idly picked up the crow-bar that was lying on the floor near the empty boxes. He had seen the implement when he was there earlier in the morn­ing, and had turned it over with his foot; but now he stooped and took it in his hands. He looked at it closely for a moment, and cried out in astonishment:

 

"Well sir! Mr. Barrett, take a good look at this here crow-bar. Where you reckon it come from?" As the darkey held it up for inspection, the gentlemen closed about him: Ben went on: " You ain't never seen that thing before, is you? "

 

" Well if that — Ben, who brought that crow-bar over from Lilyditch gin?

 

"God A'mighty knows Boss."

 

" Isn't this the one we had at the gin all winter?"

 

" It pintedly is," Ben asserted, emphatically. " I'd know it anywhere. Don't you see here? I cut this little mark on it myself one day while I was restin'. I picked up a file what was llyin' handy, and tried it on it while Pete an' me set a talking'."

 

Mr. Henderson looked at Mr. Barrett. "I suppose you agree with me then, that it was some one on Lilyditch, who committed the robbery," he said tersely.

 

Just as the gentlemen reached the levee on their return from investigating the platform, the manager and clerk from Englehart plantation rode up. The news of the robbery had reached the plantation before these gentlemen had left, and it was only necessary for Mr. Barrett to relate a few of the particulars to them; then the crowd divided into two searching parties, each start­ing forth in a different direction, Mr. Barrett leading one end Mr. Henderson, the other.

Mr. Barrett led the way immediately to Perry's house, and as he drew near, he saw that darkey sitting on his front step, the spring sun shining on his dejected figure. He arose to his feet, and taking his hat off, even more humbly than was his habit, if that were possible, he bowed first to Mr. Barrett and then to the other gentlemen of the party. Mr. Barrett got down from his horse and addressed him kindly: " Perry, it is my unpleasant duty to make an inves­tigation of your premises," he began, " and endeavor to discover traces of the stolen goods, and if, as I hope, we shall find nothing to convict you, we shall at least suc­ceed in clearing you of all suspicion.^"

 

Muffled sobs within the cabin breaking out afresh, made Perry look uneasily over his shoulder into the room; then he slowly turned his head back and looked up into Mr. Barrett's face.

 

"God knows, Boss," he began, his voice breaking slightly, "you welcome to search this place from top to bottom, and I'll be glad to have you do it. And, Mr. Barrett, ef taking it out on my back for not tendin' to my duty better, will make you know how I hates what happened last night, you can beat me like a dog, sir, an' I wont say a word. I know I is to blam, an' I ain't going 'spute anybody what says I is; 'cause ef I hadn't promised Ben I look after the landin', he'd a done it his self."

 

" Well, well, Perry, I hope your distress at this un­fortunate occurrence will teach you a lesson. I freely own that I do not suspect you in the least, of being implicated in the robbery, and when we have made such investigation as we deem necessary, I shall clear you of suspicion."

 

The gentlemen entered the house, and Perry seated himself upon the steps again, scarcely noticing the remarks made to him by the darkeys who having united themselves with the expedition, stood about holding the horses as an excuse for being there.

As Mr. Barrett entered the room, Perry's mother, who was sitting near the fire-place with her apron over her bead to stifle her moans, arose to her feet, and dumbly taking a key, tied to a dirty string, from her pocket, she extended it toward the gentlemen with an old-fashioned courtesy. Each of the three white men instinctively shrank from taking it, and Mr. McStea, seeing Mr. Barrett's embarrassment, came to his rescue, and said kindly: " Oh, come now, Aunt Nancy, brace up. No need of crying like this; uncover your head and open your trunks and things, and we will very soon satisfy ourselves that everything is all right."

 

The old woman did as she was told, and opened first one thing, then another. She voluntarily turned over the mattresses on the beds, showing that there was nothing concealed beneath them but a few unironed garments, left over from her last washing. There was nothing whatever to point suspicion upon the Johnsons, however, except one pair of new shoes; these were found in the trunk that was opened first of all, and caused Mr. Barrett's brow to pucker with added worry. He looked questioningly at McStea, and that gentleman hastened to reassure him. " This is all right, Mr. Barrett," he said looking closer at the shoes. " I sold these to her yesterday. You see," he added, handing a shoe to Mr. Barrett, this is last winter's stock. Our new shoes were ordered from Fellheim & Stein; this you see is a Newhouse & Son's make."

 

There were but the usual two rooms to the cabin, the front room, and the shed room in the rear, and with no ceiling overhead it was but the work of a few moments to pry into the most secret recesses of the little house. It had its share of newspaper, magazine and advertisement pictures pasted about the walls for ornament; its average of dirt in the corners and its dust and spider webs upon the rafters and other projections about the rough walls; its liberal sprinkling of dirt-dobber nests wherever those industrious little masons had seen fit to locate their residences, and withal the cabin was like all others, differing from them scarcely more than one egg differs from another in outer semblance. After the rooms were carefully examined, and delivered up noth­ing of a questionable nature, the gentlemen went outside and searched the chicken house, the pig pen, and the wood pile, but nothing indicated that it concealed anything justifying doubt of Johnson's honesty.

 

Every house and out building on the plantation, in­cluding the gin house and stables, was searched, but to no purpose. In most instances the inmates willingly submitted to the inquisition and only very few exceptions evidenced opposition. In one case, a belligerent woman muttered so vindictively at Mr. Henderson, not to him, however, that her husband gave her a slap on the mouth that made her stagger.

 

" You fool you," he cried wrathfully, "you ain't got the sense you was born wid! "

 

It took the infuriated woman but a moment to recover from his blow, and with a leap she attacked her assailant savagely. At the first of the encounter the searching party took refuge in ignominious flight, but as long as they were within ear shot they heard a woman's voice raised in protest, and the sound of a strap descending upon human flesh in response. Such little family interviews were not of sufficiently rare occurrence, to excite either much surprise or sympathy among the neighbors, so the searchers went on their way, and finally returned to the store, not one particle wiser than they were when they left it, except that it was evident that the boxes were opened with the aid of a crow-bar, and that the said crow-bar belonged to Lilyditch gin, a building situated four or five hundred yards from the levee where the crossing was usually made to the landing.

 

The robbery was talked of throughout the parish, and elicited no small amount of interest, for such a thing had never happened before, not even in the memory of the very oldest inhabitant.

 

The next day Mr. McStea, with Perry and Ben as oarsmen, rowed down as far as Vicksburg in a yawl, inquiring at every landing, if anything had been seen of persons carrying what might have been the stolen goods, but no one was able to give any information whatever upon the matter. When he reached town, Mr. McStea engaged the services of a detective, who promised to do all in his power to discover the stolen goods, but time went on, interest and curiosity wore themselves dull with nothing new to feed upon, but not a trace of the robber or his booty were found.

 

CHAPTER V

 

Dinner was kept waiting for Mr. Barrett until nearly five o'clock. When the hour for serving it arrived and he had not returned, Mrs. Barrett and Nellie, neither one being hungry, agreed to wait for him; and after the waiting was begun and every next ten minutes was ex­pected to bring him, it was easier to continue to wait than to take a decisive step in opposition to the hope that he would at any moment come. The March wind was blustering and scolding without, adding by its petulant gusts and peevish sighs to the perturbation of the ladies within.

 

"I wonder if they have discovered anything yet mother?" Nellie queried over and over again. I do wish father would come, or at least send us some mes­sage. Suspense is so awfully hard to endure."

 

Nellie tried earnestly to suppress her restlessness, but she found herself yielding to it in spite of all her efforts. Sunday in a little village where there is no religious service to attend is a tiresome day at best, and when there is anxious waiting united with the day's enforced inertia, it is a great trial to the patience of im­pulsive youth.

 

Had it been any other day in the week, Nellie would have cut out a dress or an apron for Stella, and in mak­ing the sewing machine wheels fly around merrily, drown out the sounds of the fretful wind or hold her thoughts in check. She was one of those energetic mortals who required employment to ensure repose of spirits, and she usually chose her work with reference to the mood she was in. That Sunday she was totally at a loss what to do.

 

She tried to read and kept her eyes steadfastly the page, but every now and then the words would dance into a heap and from their confusion the landing platform, surrounded by water and scattered over with empty boxes as Mr. McStea had described it, would stare at her and defy her to forget it. She tried the piano and played and sang for an hour or more. The children came to her and asked her to read to them and feeling sympathy for them in their loneliness, she did her best, that they at least would be entertained; but Virgil devoted so much attention toward catching an adventurous fly that had sallied from his winter quarters and was taking a view of the outside world from the window pane, and Stella occupied herself so assiduously in the equally fruitless task of making Virgil behave himself and let the stiff little pilgrim alone, that Nellie put the book down in disgust.

 

"Oh pshaw!" she cried, " you children are no more interested in listening than I am in reading! Come, let us make some candy."

 

Both children wheeled away from the window all interest and enthusiasm, and Nellie gave her commands.

 

" Brother," she began, "you go to the china closet, and get the pecans, and sister, you look in the sideboard drawer for the nutcrackers, while I get the cups and waiter. Come, mother, I know you want something to do, too."

 

The scheme was eminently successful. Every one cheered up and the children flitted about their pointed tasks gaily. Soon all were seated around the chair that was to serve as table ready to begin. Nellie picked up a nutcracker and held it up to give emphasis to her words.

 

"Now mind the rules," she began. " The first both cups full, will have to put a nickel in his charity‑bank."

 

" Now, sister," Virgil protested, " that isn't fair! Let's eat a few before we begin, because I haven't had a one to-day."

 

" No, he must keep the rules, mustn't he, mother? "

 

There followed much banter and innocent laughter. As Nellie had suspected when she reminded them of their self-imposed penalty, Mrs. Barrett was the first one to forget herself and put a tempting piece of nut into her mouth. Virgil was on the alert, and shouted: " Five cents for mother's bank, five cents for mother's bank!"

 

Mrs. Barrett laughed and promised to pay her dues, and not three minutes later, she had the fun of catch­ing Master Virgil. When the nuts were ready, the two little children followed Nellie into the kitchen and watched her melt the sugar, and stirring the pecans into it pour the whole upon a platter, a confection so delicious that they could scarcely wait for it to cool.

 

Just as Nellie bore the candy, ready to be eaten, through the dining room door into the hall, Mr. Barrett entered through the front door opposite. As Mrs. Bar­rett expected, several gentlemen came with him. Mr. Durieux and Mr. Wheeler from Englehart came as they usually did on Sunday, and Mr. Chaflin, the sometimes guest, was with him, too. Dinner was served immedi­ately, and while all were at the table the day's adven­tures were recounted to the ladies and commented upon.

 

The Barrett residence is one of the largest and handsomest homes in the parish. It stands somewhat removed from the other houses in Sigma, by its large orchard and lawn, and it is the last house on the wide, well shaded street. Its pretty furnishings were chosen with regard to comfort in the first place, and with beauty as essential but of secondary importance. Southern architecture provides consistencies for sum­mer, and for the most part leaves chance to the consid­eration of winter's necessities. The large open fire place is never omitted, but neither is the wide gallery across the front of the house, and frequently entirely surrounding the edifice, shading both sides and rear, while the hall through the centre, measuring from eight to twenty feet in width, according to other proportions of the building, is considered of as much importance as the bed-rooms or dining-room itself. Ventilation in summer is the chief result aimed at, and when the few days of each winter come, that are cold enough to send the mercury to within twenty or ten degrees of zero, and the icy blast whistles through every crack around the great full length windows, the wood is piled higher upon the andirons and the merry blazes laugh at old Boreas up the wide throated chimney.

 

When dinner was over and the family and guests had returned to the sitting-room, Mr. Durieux declined the cigar Mr. Barrett offered him, crossed the room and took a chair near Miss Barrett, where under cover of conversation about an absent friend, he dropped his voice a little lower and asked: "Have you an engagement for this evening, Miss Nellie?"

 

The girl looked up quickly and blushed guiltily. " No — a — that is, not till after dark."

 

" Will you ride with me, then?"

 

" Yes indeed I should enjoy it. I have felt like a caged bird, all day."

 

"Thank you," said the young man, rising. " Shall I tell Allen to saddle your horse? "

 

" Yes, tell him, and I will soon be ready."

 

The two young people left the room together, she to don her riding habit, and he, who was almost as much at home in the house as she, to go to the kitchen where he would most likely find the house-boy.

 

When Nellie re-entered the parlor ready for her saddle, she went up to Mrs. Barrett, as she sat talking to old Mr. Chaflin, and said: "Mother, I am going riding with Mr. Durieux; Mr. Chaflin will excuse me," she added, smiling upon that gentleman, and glancing at Mr. Wheeler, she said: "You will be here when I return." Both gentlemen arose as she spoke.

 

" No, thank you," said the younger. " I thought of calling on Miss Carrie, so will go there while Jules is riding."

 

" And I, too, must bid you adieu," said Mr. Chaflin. " It is a long ride to Willowburn for an old fellow like me, and I must be going."

 

Amid laughter and chat Nellie and Durieux withdrew from the rest, and were soon mounted and passing through the gate; then, as was his habit when alone with the girl, he took up his favorite language and asked: " Quelle route préférez vous pendre? "

 

Without speaking, Miss Barrett quickly turned her horse's head, and waved her hand to indicate the direc­tion she meant to take. They rode rapidly at first, for as the girl said, she had felt like a prisoner all day, and it was a relief to her to feel her freedom. When she was with the manager of Englehart, Nellie was entirely at her ease, and talked or remained silent as the humor struck her. She had known him since the first day he came from New Orleans to Sigma, five years before, to clerk in her father's store at Englehart, and she, little thirteen year old school girl that she was, laughed at his strong French accent and his nerveful French jestures. She had long since, however, become accustomed to all three; the man, his speech, and his manners, all of which had gradually modified with time and contact with the slower motioned North Louisianians.

 

When Jules Durieux first found himself amid stran­gers, his greatest longing for home was caused by his yearning for his beloved mother tongue.

 

There was only one French speaking man in the neighborhood, and he, a Parisian Jew, had been away from his native land so long that he could scarcely carry on the simplest conversation without recourse to an English word in almost every sentence. One day, however; Durieux coming to the house to see Mr. Barrett on business, chanced to hear Nellie's thoroughly Amer­ican governess trying to teach the little girl how to read French, and involuntarily he broke into a hearty laugh, followed by an humble apology. The governess was a sensible young woman, fortunately for her young charge, as well as herself; and one to whom self im­provement was a matter of constant consideration, so instead of feeling indignant at his laughter as Durieux feared she would, she joined in it, and asked him to tell her wherein lay her mistake.

 

" Simply in your pronunciation Miss," answered the young man, "which is really, if you will pardon me for saying so, ludicrous." Durieux spoke in his best French, and the lady simply stared at him for his pains. She understood the language thoroughly when it lay before her upon a printed page, or when haltingly spo­ken by her old teacher at college, but when it came to French from the tongue of a Frenchman, it was quite another thing, and Durieux disappointedly repeated what he had said, in English.

 

"Then, my dear sir," the quick-witted girl retorted, " in charity to me if not to Nellie, you must help me to rectify my pronunciation."

 

"Thanks," Durieux answered, "nothing could give me more pleasure than to assist you in every way in my power."

 

The enterprising governess lost no time in consulting Mrs. Barrett about, what seemed to her, a golden oppor­tunity, and it soon became an established rule that Mr. Durieux should come on certain evenings of each week to assist Miss Whitaker and Nellie with the language lesson, and from that time the three formed the habit of speaking French to each other that was retained by Nellie and Durieux after the governess was gone.

 

Today, neither Jules nor Nellie were in a talkative mood, and they swept on without conversation. Nellie had chosen the road toward Lilyditch, partly because she wanted to visit the scene of last night's robbery, but more because it was her favorite way. She loved the river in all its phases; when it was tremendous and powerful, as it was now, spreading a mile wide, or, when it sulked deep within its banks, cowed and submissive. There was a little strain of character, too, in Nellie Barrett that loved adventure, and she pointed out the path on the top of the levee as a delightful place to feel that creepy thrill of fear, subjected to her own strength and courage, that is so fascinating to youth.

 

As they rode to the top of the levee, Durieux allowed the girl to precede him, knowing very well that if left to her own will, she would choose the side next the water. Her horse was sure footed, and he knew that she was a fearless rider. As soon as they were well on top of the embankment, Nellie started her horse again into a brisk gait; regardless of the possibility that a false step might send her and her horse headlong down the levee into the water on the one side, or failing this, rolling down the other slope into the road that was dark and slushy from the effects of water that had seeped through the embankment, and lay across the roadway and edges of the freshly plowed fields.

 

The vicious wind of the morning had ceased chopping the river's surface into rough waves, and dashing white caps, that broke against each other madly, and now the flood of tawny water lay in its usual powerful silence. Where the water touched the levee's side in placid still­ness, reflecting every tree and cloud that bent above it, there was no hint of the wonderful energy that out in the midst, was hurrying huge prostrate logs down the current.

 

The tender leaflets that were swelling upon every willow and cottonwood were too young to relieve the sombre coloring of the view, yet here and there the levee's slope was rejuvenated by patches of clover and delicate grass that had sprung above the brown ghosts of a former summer, and the peach trees clustered about the cabins dotting the fields, glowed pinkly with their beautiful blossoms.

 

The exercise and crisp river breezes made Miss Bar­rett's eyes sparkle and her cheeks flush. She was not a beauty, this fair young Louisianian, although her features were regular, and her brune-blonde coloring soft and dainty; yet there were very few who did not think her strikingly pretty. She was tall, and as erect as one of the slender stalks in her native cane-brake. Her eyes were blue, with long black lashes to veil them in thoughtfulness or frame them in interest or inquiry. Her most charming feature was her mouth; it was del­icately moulded into flexible curves that could form into a smile as innocent as an infant's, and sometimes into lines as firm as chiseled marble. Her teeth were white and regular, and the whole, suggested a creation so pure, and so thoroughly wholesome as to strengthen one's faith in humanity involuntarily. It was just the mouth to receive tender reverent kisses, or to utter true womanly thoughts. With these attractions he pos­sessed two others, that proclaimed her a native of the South; these two, were her melodious voice, and her ease of movement that seemed as the grace of a water nymph.

 

Perhaps one who looked upon her would have said that she was spoiled, or vain; but if she was, she had a perfect right to be. For eleven years she was an only child and was loved and indulged as an only child is likely to be, and when Virgil came, and a year and a half later baby Stella, Mr. Barrett never allowed her to regret their share in parental affection. As the mother's time and sympathies were more and more absorbed in her babies, the father and Nellie seemed by mutual consent to drift all the closer to each other, and a congeniality developed that increased as the girl grew older, and became, with her bright intellect, daily more companionable. As to the latter charge, if it ever had been made, there was no reason why she should not be vain; and it rather added to her merits that she was so little so; for she had been flattered and praised since her earliest recollection, and now that she was a young lady, and a very interesting one at that, her share of compliments was in no wise decreased.

 

Jules Durieux came to Englehart to take the position of book-keeper and clerk, but his dislike for indoor employment, and his love for planting, gradually drew him from his desk out into the fields, where Mr. Barrett recognizing his talent, encouraged him to cultivate it, and the result was that in a year or two he had made his way from a subordinate clerk to manager of the plantation. He had a great deal to learn about his new work at first, for he had had to exchange his native fields of sugar cane for those of cotton, and the com­plicated sugar-house for the simple gin-house.

 

Durieux had lived all his life, except the years spent in a New Orleans university, at the old place on the shore of one of the many bays that cut the southern coast into generous scollops. His great-great-grandfather was one of the young men turned adrift, homeless, when Grand-Pré was laid in ashes. Perhaps he was a friend of Gabriel's, or perhaps even, one of Evangeline's lovers; of this Jules had no proof, but he did know personally the gentleman who had told Evan­geline's sad story to the poet and urged him to frame it fitly to be handed down to coming generations as a reminder of their pathetic coming to the land where "Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe flaunted." Durieux had often sat and thought of the unfortunate maiden beneath the branches of the same giant cedar that had spread in protection, high above the sleeping Evangeline as she lay dreaming of the lover she had come over such weary miles of land, and —" through net work of lakes and bayous to seek " — dreaming that her lover was near, when, in reality, he was drifting past her in the darkness, all unconscious of her presence.

 

Durieux' great-great-grandfather acquired wealth af­ter he found a new home, and married one of the great­est French belles then reigning in infant New Orleans, and it was from this union of gold and patrician beauty that old Jules Durieux was descended; but the arist­ocratic father, and grandfather before him had lived in a style that befitted the sons of old Pierre Durieux and Heloise de la Boissoneau, and by the time Jules was old enough to realize what it meant, he understood that the once beautiful home, now needing, repairs so badly, and the honored name he bore were very nearly all that he could rightfully call his own. Neither his great-great grandfather's money nor his great-great­ grandmother's beauty lasted until it reached his gener­ation. In appearance he was like his race; a small man, active, graceful and dark, with a quick tongue and a ready wit spiced with a keen sense of the humor in life's ironies; and withal, imbued with that strong pride which is the aristocratic Franco-Americans most marked common characteristic.

 

Nellie liked Durieux thoroughly, He was just twice her age when she saw him first, and that thirteen years difference between them always made her conscious of a barrier that separated them somehow, yet, too, gave her a right to look up to him as she might have done to a brother much older than herself; and he, in turn, accustomed to treating her like a child, as he did when he first became acquainted with her and heard her recite her French lesson, did so often, even yet, and alter­nately teased her almost to the verge of tears, or showed her the difference due her young ladyhood; and she, taking all his moods as they came, stormed at him in impotent rage one day, or appealed to him for his opinion of her plans the next, and through it all, ac­cepting his friendship as an assured fact and himself as a necessary family adjunct, she was as unconscious of her strong fondness for him as either Stella or Virgil were. Thirty-one always seems such a mature age to eighteen, too.

 

CHAPTER VI

 

By the time Nellie and her escort dismounted from their ride the short day had almost closed, and the round moon was disputing possession with the transient twilight. The lamps were burning in the parlor, and the fire which had been allowed to die down during the day to a few coals, had had fresh wood heaped upon it, and the flames vied with each other as to which should throw the ruddiest light upon the group seated about the hearth. Miss Barrett went immediately to her room to exchange her riding habit for more suitable attire, and returning soon, together, Jules Durieux and the Barrett family went into the dining-room and seated themselves around the table, where supper was spread in true Sunday style. There was not a servant on the place, and the family ate the repast of cold roast, cold biscuit, preserves and milk, supplemented by hot coffee that Mrs. Barrett made on a little oil stove, with the freedom of congenial friends fearing no listening ear or repeating tongue of another social station.

 

No one was hungry, for their late dinner did not admit of it; but they went through the form of eating while in reality talking with far more interest.

 

There is no time so favorable for a charming un­trammeled flow of reminiscences as the hour around the supper table, when the plates are pushed back, the napkins rolled away into their rings, and every one feeling at liberty to rest an elbow upon the board and lean forward to listen or explain. The hostess is en­tirely at her ease, knowing that no one is waiting to wash the used dishes or for the food that remains. The bright light in the centre of the board illumines every face and the positions are such that each partici­pant in the conversation is within hand clasp of every other one. The nearness of persons seems to engender the nearness of thought and makes the circle of wit more brilliant and complete.

 

While the Barretts' supper table was surrounded by its cheerful group, large and small, for Stella and Virgil took their part in what was being said and ventured an opinion or a narrative, here and there, there was a spectator without, watching the changing countenances of the happy group within. He could hear no word of what was being said, but the pantomime of bright faces and jestures was rhetorical with the enjoyment the words must be creating. The man stood on the front gallery and looked through the open hall door, on through the long hall and through the glass paneled door, with its curtains drawn aside, into the dining room itself. No detail escaped his quick attention; he noticed the interested faces turned toward Mr. Bar­rett, who, with his back to the door, seemed to be tell­ing one of the humorous stories of which he had an unending supply.

 

The man on the gallery saw that Jules Durieux was seated directly opposite Miss Barrett and that his eyes sought her pretty face oftener than they did any other object in the room. He saw Nellie look up and meet his glance with a frank smile and that little flash of her heavily fringed eyelids that was so charming, and unconsciously a frown puckered his handsome brow. He placed his hand upon the handle of the doorbell and almost lifted it high enough to cause the hammer to strike, then dropping his hand he muttered, half aloud: "Too bad to break up their merry-making! " Without hesitating again, he entered the hall, hung his hat upon one of the hooks of the handsome hat rack, and went on toward the dining-room door, the carpet making his footfalls noiseless. Softly turning the knob of the glass paneled door, he threw it open and silently enjoyed the surprise his sudden appearance produced. Mrs. Barrett, who sat directly opposite the door, was the first to see him, and she exclaimed warmly: " Dr. Allison! Come in, do. We are just finishing supper. Come and have something with us!"

 

Mr. Barrett arose and shook hands with the newcomer and invited him to take the seat that had been placed at the table for absent Mr. Wheeler, but before he ac­cepted it, Dr. Allison thanked him and went first to shake hands with Mrs. Barrett. He stooped and kissed the expectant little faces of his two adorers, Stella and Virgil, and at last obtained a clasp of the soft pink hand that had drawn him over fourteen miles of rough road as easily as a powerful magnet can draw a small needle across an inch of space.

 

" I am not hungry, thank you, Mr. Barrett," averred young Allison as that gentleman urged him to partake of the roast and other food upon the table. " I had supper before I left home, and really can eat nothing more." He took the cup of coffee that Mrs. Barrett poured out for him, however, and the general conversa­tion was resumed.

 

As Dr. Allison sipped his coffee and joined in the talking, he secretly wondered how long Mr. Durieux purposed staying beside the Barrett hearthstone. He saw no necessity for his lingering now that he had finished his supper, yet Durieux seemed to have a great deal to say and plenty of time in which to say it.

 

How long the group might have sat, oblivious of the flight of time, there is no knowing, if Stella had not unexpectedly lost consciousness and nodded her head almost into her plate. The little girl looked up in distress as the laugh went around and almost burst into tears, in her embarrassment, when she discerned that all eyes were mirthfully bent upon her. Mrs. Barrett helped her down from her chair, and led the two young folks off to bed, although she and Virgil both stoutly declared that they were not sleepy a bit.

 

As Mrs. Barrett, with a child at each side, passed by Nellie's chair she said in an undertone: " Leave the table as it is. I will come back and put everything away," but Nellie smiled and shook her head, and when Mr. Barrett led the way back to the parlor only Dr. Allison followed him. Durieux knew the ways of the house, and lingered to assist the girl in her duties. Gathering up the scraps, he fed the dog and cats, and returning, had the windows closed and the doors locked by the time Nellie finished putting away the dishes containing the remnants of the repast.

 

" Thank you, Mr. Durieux." she smiled, when all was done and Jules picked up the lamp. " Come now, we will join the others."

 

" No, I'm going."

 

" Why — " began Nellie, but Durieux' mischievous laugh and suggestive shrug stopped her.

 

" Ah! " he cried, flashing a teasing glance at her from his dark eyes. "No," he went on, more exasperatingly than ever, " I won't stay to bother him."

 

Nellie blushed hotly. Taking the lamp from his hand, she darted into her room, calling through her laughter as she slammed the door: " Well then, good bye!"

 

When she reached the security of her own room, she put the lamp down and listened until she heard her tormentor open the parlor door and tell her father and Dr. Allison goodnight, and waited until she heard him go down the front steps; then she straightened her blushes, and with no further excuse for remaining away, she opened the parlor door and went in.

 

Shortly after her entrance, Mr. Barrett reluctantly betook himself to his own room and his papers. The children had been put to bed and Mrs. Barrett sat beside the lamp table waiting for him to come, but when he entered, contrary to his habit, instead of sitting down to talk to her for a while, he picked up a paper, and apparently began reading.

 

Mrs. Barrett sighed softly as she watched her hus­band. In the twenty years of her married life, she had learned to read that handsome dignified face before her as readily as an open book; but strange, in all that time she had never learned to approach the reasoning power that lay behind it. Many a time desire had prompted her to assay persuasion or argument against her husband's inmost thoughts, but invariably his friendly smile disarmed her and her every idea that she had meant to issue upon his resolution deserted her ignominiously, leaving her helpless before the one intellect and will that she acknowledged overwhelm­ingly superior to her own. It had never surprised Mr. Barrett nor caused him to speculate upon the reason why his wife, who was an authority in her social circle and a quick and ready wit in debating with others, should never venture a second point of argument when conflicting with himself. He took her submission, always, as a foregone conclusion, and attributed her acquiescence to her habitual sweetness of temper. No doubt, too, there was a grain of old-fashioned vanity in his makeup which left no questioning of man's superior judgment.

 

Mrs. Barrett sighed again. There was absolutely nothing that she could say. She saw her husband’s dislike for Dr. Allison, and saw how hard it was for him to conceal it. That one who was innately so gentle, so charitable and so just, should take an aversion to another who seemed to possess these qualities marked a degree, was a matter of frequent reviewing on her part.  Mr. Barrett was always courteous to this guest, but he never extended the same cordiality to him that he did to other young men who visited the house. His politeness was never absent, but it was always discernibly perfunctory. They had never discussed the young man but once, and that was upon an occasion when Nellie had gone to a party with him. Miss Bar­rett had all the liberties of other girls in her choice of gentlemen friends and her father seldom thought anything of her coming going.

 

Mrs. Barrett was young and very pretty still, and liked to attend balls occasionally, for there she met friends from a distance who came for the same purpose as herself — to chat with acquaintances and perhaps dance a little; and whenever she intimated her inten­tion to go, Mr. Barrett cheerfully accompanied her. Nellie's plans were never effected by her mother's. She always had an escort to every entertainment, and Mr. Barrett often did not know who her favored friend would be until the young gentleman selected drove up in his buggy and asked for her.

 

The first time Dr. Allison escorted Nellie to a dance, Mr. Barrett expressed his displeasure; Mrs. Barrett was surprised, and asked what objection there was to the young physician.

 

 “Well, really, " Mr. Barrett laughingly said, “I have no objection to the young man, except that I prefer for Nellie to see him as little as possible."

 

Have you heard anything against his character?" next asked Mrs. Barrett.

 

"No, I have heard nothing against his character except that Sidney Carroll and Vincent Minor are his constant companions. “We know nothing,” went on Mr. Barrett, "of him further than that he is in the employ of the Lauren's Land Company."

 

"He seems to me to be a very entertaining young man," Mrs. Barrett urged tentatively, "quite above the average intellectually, judging him by the brief con­versations I have had with him. He is very handsome, too."

 

Mr. Barrett laughed shortly and frowned. "That last is his salient drawback to me," he said. "He is entirely too handsome and entertaining to an inexperi­enced girl like Nellie. Much too handsome — that is why I regret so much that he has ever been allowed to come to the house. We know absolutely nothing of him, and I do not consider him worthy of cultivation. These showy young men, brought up for the most part in college, usually have very little but their surface polish to recommend them. “Think, my dear," he went on, with real concern in his voice, "think what a com­plication would result should our daughter fancy that she wanted to marry him?"

 

Mrs. Barrett laughed, but deep in her heart there sprang a misgiving. She had scarcely thought of Nellie as anything but a child, and as Mr. Barrett spoke there flashed the thought that she could rightly no longer regard her as such.

 

" Oh well," said Mrs. Barrett, trying to be reassuring, "I think you can safely put aside all fears of Nellie's entertaining such sentiments regarding him. She has never shown a preference for any one yet."

 

" Ah, but there is another side to the picture. Young Allison's salary is good, I understand, but you must acknowledge that it would be something in a man's favor to marry our daughter. It is this thought that makes me doubtful of any lover who may come. I do not want the child married for her money nor her social prestage. We don't know what sort of fellow this Allison is."

 

If her father doubted his estimate of Dr. Allison's character and motives, Nellie did not doubt her own. In the ten months of her acquaintance with him she felt that she knew scarcely anyone better. True to that strange perversity that makes a child conceal the most important secret secrets of its life with a parent, Nellie had unconsciously begun to hide her in interest in him, and as this grew, her involuntary diplomacy made her dissemble all the more jealously. That Mr. Durieux guessed the true quality of her friendship with Dr. Allison was embarrassing enough, but if her mother or father were to detect it, she would feel indeed like a culprit. To Nellie it seemed reprehensible in a girl if she showed a preference for a man who was not her affianced lover.

 

Dr. Allison paid her unending compliments just as all the others did, but she scorned to attach any interpretation to his words than that they were the amusement of a friend, and because she found them the most gratifying to her of all she received, she laughed them away all the more assiduously.

 

As a society man, Dr. Allison was a genius. He was graceful and pleasing in figure as well as in face, and had an abundance of small talk ever ready at his command to fill any emptiness that might occur in a conversation, and, added to this, he was an excellent listener. This last mentioned attraction was no doubt to the fact that he was not a selfish man. He was willing that everyone as well as himself, should be happy in the little things of life that so often prove a burden to misunderstood humanity. No, he was not selfish, neither was he lazy; and he never begrudged doing a friend a favor, nor did he often neglect kindly attentions to a woman, whether she were handsome or homely, bewitching or a bore. Then united with these virtues which were so profitable to him as a man and as a physician, he had the talent of sympathy. If in social relations a tiresome old lady recounted the merits of her children or detailed her personal trials or triumphs, he never looked wearied, but gratified his persecutor with his apparent interest until he could escape honorably.

 

In his professional career, if it was his duty to cut a man's leg off and he felt no more compunction than in dividing so much beef, his patient never suspected him guilty of indifference, but ever afterwards regarded him with a tender gratitude as a man who could understand another's pain. A supersensitive conscience might declare such duplicity a sin, but there must be a clause somewhere in the Great Code making evasion of this nature, though seemingly against the ninth command­ment, not only pardonable, but worthy of the angels' recognition. Superfluous flattery is always sinful, but that flattery which is neither more nor less than an absence of barbarity, and that acts like balm upon a heart hungry for sympathy, is a blessed virtue; blessed to him who possesses the nature too gentle to wound a fellow being, and blessed to him upon whom the soothing influence rests.

 

Qualities like these, taken together, and supple­mented of course by the man's handsome face, with its peculiarly expressive yellowish eyes, were what made every woman who knew him love him. Whether the affection lavished upon him was maternal, fraternal, Platonic or erotic, it was there always to a greater or less degree.

 

CHAPTER VII

 

Miss Barrett never doubted in the least that the esti­mate she had formulated of Dr. Allison's character was a correct one. After the first few times of meeting, when their interviews had consisted of the usual light chat and an adroit passage at arms, wherein compli­ments were the foils used and laughing repartee the cushions that made the thrusts ineffectual, he drifted into the habit of talking sensibly to her, eliciting her quaint, self-formed methods of reasoning that revealed a rather well-balanced mixture of womanly sagacity and child-like confidence in humanity.

 

While Mr. and Mrs. Barrett sat by the fire in another room, each silently thinking of the two young persons in the parlor, those two were enjoying themselves in a manner seemingly so innocent that only one deeply versed in the subtle science of courtship would have detected signs that were portentous.

 

Wooing is and always will be the most interesting form of warfare in the world. Often it proceeds along the lines which Dr. Allison had chosen to pursue, where no guile is used and the highest, purest senti­ments are attacked. Often it is like a campaign in­volving a trio of countries; the besieging, the besieged and a disinterested spectator. The latter is generally the line of action pursued by the man who is not tak­ing his initial taste of Eros' shafts, and who furthermore knows that the besieged is a fortress not subjected to its first bombardment. The general of the besieging empire opens the maneuver in attracting the attention of the empire to be captured by discharging a volley of small ammunition upon the unsuspecting third kingdom, winning the esteem of the coveted empire by calling attention to the nobility and honesty of his purpose; showing forth unlimited reasons why the third party should capitulate. He calls upon the ob­ject of his cupidity for advice and arbitration, secretly sending out scouts in the meantime to discover every weak point in her citadel or to find where her strongest guns are pointed; then, suddenly wheeling his forces, with every power nerved to the attack bears down to upon the empire he designed capture, and behold, the day is won. The besieged empire pulls down her colors, and the conqueror's flag floats proudly aloft.

 

Dr. Allison had brought some photographs to show Nellie, and, as he had often done before, he was talking to her of his mother and sisters. He sat in a comfortable rocking chair opposite the one she was in, and these were placed so that when each leaned back, as one is supposed to do in such chairs, their two young heads were quite half the distance of the room apart; but when he brought his handsome head forward, as he often did, to point out some particular feature of one of the photographs that she held in her lap, and she, in interest, leaned forward to examine the peculiarity be was describing, his eyes, that were more like splendid topazes than anything they could be likened to, looked up through their dusky fringes into soft blue eyes near enough to make them droop their fluttering white wings and hide tell-tale lights from view.

 

Nellie took up a picture — the one that to her possessed most interest of all, and looked at it closely again. It was the photograph of a still handsome woman of perhaps fifty, and she noticed in it a strong resemblance to the living face before her. Allison was pleased that she turned oftenest to this one and looked at so intently.

 

"She was a great beauty in her youth," he said, "judging by the praises I hear from her friends who knew her then." He went on gaily: " And this reminds me of sister's and Mamie's constant source of annoyance. Both of the girls, as you can see by their pictures, are just as pretty as they need be, and they naturally like to have credit for what good looks they possess; so I suppose they have a right to feel indig­nant when some old friend of mother's meets them for the first time and exclaims in amazement: “Sybil Al­lison's daughter — can this be Sybil's daughter! Why you don't look a bit like your mother — she was a beautiful girl!"

 

Nellie laughed heartily at the inimitably funny way in which Allison mocked the voice and manner of his mother's tactless flatterers.

 

" The girls have heard this thing so often," he added, "that they almost run as soon as any one announces an old friend of mother's."

 

"Your sisters are pretty," Nellie commented, thoughtfully, taking up their likenesses again, but they really do not look like your mother at all. There is not the strong resemblance in theirs that there is in your face to the picture." Nellie had no sooner uttered the words than their purport flashed upon her. She looked up hurriedly and meeting her caller's merry glance, she colored hotly. " Thank you! " Allison said with sparkling eyes. " I shall write and tell the girls that one of us looks like mother, anyway."

 

Nellie laughed in spite of her vexation, and Allison, quick to see that she did not enjoy his joke, changed into seriousness, and said feelingly: " Her beauty is not mother's only charm. She is without doubt the dearest, sweetest mother that ever lived. No one ever was to a boy what she has been to me. She has sacrificed many a comfort that I might have an education and study father's profession." He was thoughtful for some moments, and then said: " That is why I am at Lauren's Station. It is a means to an end, and as such I must stick to it. I must help mother now, for she had to sell a good deal of her property to pay my university expenses."

 

" It is good of you to stay at Lauren's with that ob­ject in view," the girl said approvingly. " I often wonder if you are not dreadfully lonely out there."

 

Allison caught at Nellie's words delightedly. " She often wondered if he were not lonely." It would have been a dreary place, indeed, that would not have been made elysian by the knowledge that she often thought of him. His spirits rose, and he answered cheerily: " Oh, it isn't such a bad place after all. Carroll, you know, with all his faults, is such a jolly, good-natured fellow, that he could entertain a mummy, much less one who is anxious to be amused. All three of us are fond of reading, and then there is the hunting and fishing. We hunt almost every day in the winter and fish throughout the lazy summer time."

 

"But how do you manage that? The winter is their busiest time and the summer yours — how do you keep each other company then?"

 

"The days are long enough in summer for me to see all my patients and loaf too; and in cold weather, when there is scarcely any sickness, I help the boys in the store or on their books, and that lets one or both of them off for an hour or two with me. Then, one of my greatest pleasures is my regular letter from mother or one of the girls."

 

" `The girls’, " interposed Nellie, quick to take advan­tage of him and wreak her vengeance upon him for his teasing of a few moments before, "’the girls,' always being understood to mean your sisters, of course."

 

"Now, I didn't expressly say so," laughed Allison, blushing slightly. " You see, I have several pretty cousins."

 

Yes, I see," said Nellie demurely. " Tell me something of your cousins, too."

 

"Gladly," assented Allison, not to be outwitted, " and you will let me bring you their pictures to see also? There is one in particular whom I know you would like just the happiest, best-tempered girl you ever saw! "

 

Allison went on to describe the girl he was thinking of and to tell some of her bright sayings. He was in the midst of relating an account of one of the many pranks she delighted in playing, when the clock in the hall deliberately struck ten. Allison paused, glanced at Nellie with his head tilted to one side, and listened until the last stroke rang out; then, springing to his feet, he held out his hand and said dolefully: "Good night!"

 

Nellie arose too, and placing her hand in his, laughingly asked:" Won't you finish what you were saying?"

 

He shook his head solemnly. "No, this narrative is destined to be a serial."

 

Both laughed with the light-heartedness of well-poised youth when stimulated by intercourse with the opposite sex, and Dr. Allison took his departure.

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

"Mother, this is the last week in August, and you know you said we ought to put up some more preserves before the peaches are all gone."

 

"Yes," Mrs. Barrett answered, "I have been thinking about it, yet I really don't see what we are to do. All last week Lillie was sick, and now this is Tuesday, the tournament and ball are to take place one week from tomorrow; your dress is only just begun, and besides, there are the cakes to be made for the ball supper."

 

"Still," said Nellie, pausing for a moment to think, "the peaches cannot be put off any easier than the tournament. If we don't cook them within the next day or two, there will be none left to preserve. Couldn't you work on the dress by yourself today, and let me make the preserves?"

 

" Yes, I could, very well; but you must remember that you promised to go with Carrie and Ruth to see the Gun Club practice this evening."

 

"Yes, so I did," mused the girl, trying to map out a plan by which she could accomplish all that she wanted to do, within the limited space of time left to her. " Well," she finally concluded, "I will try to do it any way. I think I can be through with the fruit by five o'clock, and then can get ready quickly, and go with the girls to see the practice, too."

 

She arose from her place at the breakfast table, where she had lingered to talk to her mother after the other members of the family had gone, and went cheerily to her room to clean it up and put everything to rights, by the time Allen should have gathered the peaches. Virgil and Stella caught sight of the young darkey as he passed through the yard with step-ladder and bas­kets, and they ran to join him in the orchard to help him pick up the peaches, and meanwhile help themselves to all that they needed for individual purposes.

 

Virgil was under the impression that he was quite a man, himself. His seventh birthday had passed long ago, it seemed to him, and he was counting the months that must come before he would be eight. He was his fa­ther's only boy, and that knowledge carried great weight with it, united with the fact that he had been wearing trousers for almost four years. He and Stella were re­markably good children, and their devotion to each other was a sentiment that did one good to watch. No newly betrothed couple was ever so absorbed in each other's society, or more thoroughly soul-satisfying within itself than this little pair of individuals. When they were together the world was so filled that there was not room enough to admit of a third person comfortably. This oblivion of their contemporaries, leaving them solely to the companionship of each other, their parents and sister, made them unlike other children, inasmuch as their babyish ways were soon shed, and they assumed the thoughtful, reasoning habits of their elders. It was Vir­gil's delight to use the biggest words that his keen little memory could grasp, and Stella, making it her pride to do whatever " brozzer" did, the two had a command of the English language that would have done credit to a college youth. The parrotlike peculiarities of childhood had added a good deal of French, gleaned from Durieux and Nellie's conversation, to their vocabulary too, and this acquirement they never tired ventila­ting in Allen's and Lillie's presence for the servants' mystification. It was a source of annoyance to the children that the two household darkies spoke so incor­rectly, and often the latter would exaggerate their pronunciation and choice of words for the fun of hearing the rebuke and contemptuous correction that the young philologists were sure to administer.

 

By the time Nellie had her room adjusted into its accustomed neatness, Allen and the children returned from the orchard, bringing two large baskets full of fruit, which were deposited on the gallery extending along the dining-room and kitchen. As Nellie came out and inspected the peaches, Virgil graciously asked: “Sister, do you want Stella and me to help you peel?"

 

Nellie smile covertly. She had seen some of their fruit paring operations, and knew that the process as practiced by their small hands left very little more than the seed. " No, thank you, think I can manage with Lillie's assistance, but if I find that I need you, I shall call you."

 

" All right then. Come Stella, let's go see if my red cactus is open yet," and away the two little bundles of energy dashed, singing gaily as they went.

 

Nellie busied herself getting ready for her day's work. She was an expert preserve maker and took great pride in the fine quality and flavor of her product.

 

"Allen," she said as she turned her sleeves back from her wrists, " go into my room and get my small rocking chair, and Lillie, you bring me a waiter for the peelings, and also the preserve kettle. Mind now, that you have it perfectly clean."

 

Nellie went into the dining-room for a knife, and the two darkies hastened to do her bidding; when she returned, the chair and other things awaited her. She seated herself and directed Allen to place a basket of peaches on a low box beside her, that she could reach the fruit without trouble, and spreading her big check apron carefully over her pretty white morning dress, she began her monotonous cutting.

 

" Come Lillie," she called, " come and help me get the peaches ready, and Allen can finish washing up the breakfast things."

 

Lillie came, cheerful and smiling, always, and seated herself upon a box near one of the baskets. She was very little older than Miss Barrett, and she looked up to that young lady as a paragon of beauty and perfec­tion. Lillie could hardly recollect a time when she had not "been around white folks." She had changed homes with the habitual restlessness of her race, but she was so well satisfied with her home at the Barretts, that she had announced her intention to remain with the family as long as she lived. She was a fine type of healthy youth, with a complexion dark and glossy as sealskin. She had wide-awake black eyes and thick pinkish grey lips that seldom closed over her white teeth unless there was absolutely no one available to talk to.

 

Nellie had never seen the colored girl angry in all the time she had known her, nor ever worried about anything, great or small, except upon the occasion when her little child had an attack of fever, accompanied by convulsions. If Lillie regarded Nellie as the quintes­sence of perfection generally, Nellie in return, consid­ered her the personification of amiability.

 

The light-hearted colored girl not only never got angry herself, but she never allowed anyone to become angry with her. Her's was always the soft answer that turned away wrath, and sent Mrs. Barrett away relent­ing, no matter how flagrantly untidy the kitchen was found, nor even if one of her finest napkins had been used as a hastily improvised dish-rag.

 

Lillie never did seem to have meant to do wrong, and her patience and humility, were such salient characteristics that her short-comings and sins of omission seemed pardonable, simply because they were hers.

 

Like every member of her race, Lillie was a lively talker, loving to give voice to her ideas better than almost anything else on earth, and if Nellie would but listen to her sometimes, her happiness seemed complete.

 

She had no sooner seated herself and picked up a knife and a peach, than for want of something more original to say she exclaimed: " My, but ain't these peaches fine! They reminds me of when I used to stay at Mis' Belle's. She had the biggest kind of a orchard, but she never had no such fruit as this here."

 

Nellie paid no attention to what Lillie was saying, and for some time both applied themselves silently.

 

" Miss Nellie," asked the girl, " why don'd you make Allen peel some of these peaches; he can finish what little cleanin' up there is while they's on boiling? Allen, you Allen!" she called before Nellie had time to state her wishes in the case one way or another. " Allen, Miss Nellie wants you! "

 

Allen came forward and Nellie without appearing to notice the colored girl's little ruse, gave her commands: " Take some of the peaches to the kitchen, Allen and peel them; I am in the biggest kind of hurry, and want to get them on the stove."

 

Allen did as he was told, and Lillie tried again to attract Nellie's attention, but the young lady had her own pleasant reflections for entertainment that crowded out recognition of her loquacious admirer, and there was silence for half an hour. Silence, if nature's bedlam of sounds can be called by that term. Bees were droning over their work in the great Marechal Neil rose that covered the outer side of the gallery; an en­ergetic hen, accompanied by her brood was discussing the palatable morsels obtained by the interesting exer­tion of a well-directed scratch; a few lazy mosquitoes were dreamily practicing their crescendos, and a saucy fly with a hateful buzz, persisted in descending upon Nellie's hand; a bob-white was calling to his mate down by the bayou; a mocking-bird in the mimosa tree was carrolling with all his might, and a redbird called his "Theodore " merrily, despite the widowed dove in the distant canebrake, who moaned out his aching heart. There was silence, if this be it, but where is silence between the hours of dawn and midnight in this land of bird and insect life, where each is blessed with vocal sounds to express the joy of living?

 

Nellie's thoughts were suddenly brought back to the present moment by an outburst from Lillie.

 

"Well sir! What you reckon 's up now?" She dropped her voice a little lower and went on. " What do that nigger want around here, I wonder?"

 

Nellie looked up and wondered too. At the back gate, a young colored man was dismounting from a fine, well groomed horse, and preparing to hitch the animal to the fence. As the man advanced, it was seen that his person was as well cared for as his steed. His clo­thing was neat and well fitting, and revealed a spotless shirt-front and collar, ornamented with a pretty four-in-hand tie. He carried a small satchel swinging from his shoulder by a strap of a dark tan hue that matched his complexion harmoniously. As he drew nearer, Nellie recognized him as the son of a very well-to-do, and highly esteemed negro of the neighborhood. She had never spoken to the young man except in return­ing his courteous salute in passing on the road, nor had she ever heard his first name mentioned that she could recall, and she was somewhat curious to know his rea­sons for coming to the house.

 

As the darkey came up the steps he lifted his hat and bowed with a grace that would have sat well upon a man of more pretentious rearing, then hesitated, stroking his short curly moustache unconciously, in his partial embarrassment. Nellie waited a moment for him to speak and asked kindly:" Do you wish to see my father, Bishop — I believe your name is Bishop, isn't it?"

 

" Yes'm, Bishop is my name — Junius Bishop," he returned, bowing low again. " No'm, I doesn't wish to see Mr. Barrett, Miss. I have called on the contents of showing you a attachment for a sewin' machine, mam, that is pronounced a great assistance in the runnin' of the machine, makin' it much more — a — easier for to propel."

 

Nellie did not speak, and he went on in the same pompous strain. “I am the onliest one in this neighborhood —a — rep­resentin' the agency, and I would like very much to show it to you or to Mrs. Barrett — a — because I feels very concious, mam, that you will want to purchase one when you sees how much lighter it makes the machine run." He stroked his moustache again and looked inquiringly at the young lady.

 

" Well, you see, Bishop, I am very busy this morning, and really have no time to spare."

 

" Yes'm, I observe you is, but if you could give me a few moments of your valuable time,— it wouldn't take me long to show it."

 

Nellie looked keenly at the darkey to see if his allu­sion to her `valuable time' was meant as sarcasm, but although he was evidently filled with the consciousness of his own importance, his demeanor was respectful, and she allowed him the benefit of the doubt.

 

"A good many of the white ladies," Bishop resumed, " has tried 'em, and they all indorses 'em as bein' a great improvement. Won't you let me show you how you manipulates it?"

 

Nellie was amused, and little vexed too. The darkey's way of speaking was so patronizing that it was ludicrous while it irritated, and she hesitated between her resentment at his manners, and her curiosity in this hitherto untried interview with colored aristocracy. Her first thought was to send him about his business, as she felt his half-impudence merited, but his self esteem was so evident that it became contagious, and finally old mother Eve's distinguishing characteristic prevailed. She, who had lived in contact with negroes from the time when her black nurse rocked her to sleep in her arms, up to the present time, had never before seen a negro in the capacity of " agent." She had bought many articles from many negroes, such as pe­cans, persimmons, birds and berries; but those who brought things to sell, never came with so much display of erudition and fashion as this salesman before her. She knew that young Bishop was a school teacher on one of the large plantations near, and that knowledge whetted her interest in the fellow's pretensions.

 

Nellie arose and smiled as she caught herself instinc­tively taking off her work-apron. As Bishop saw that Miss Barrett meant to let him show her his goods, he laid his derby, which he had been holding in his hand while he talked, upon the floor, and took the satchel from his shoulder.

 

Nellie led the way into Mrs. Barrett's room, to the machine, and rather enjoyed her mother's surprise at seeing the young "collud gentman " ushered into her presence. Mrs. Barrett was sitting near the bed sur­rounded by the confusion of silk and pleated chiffon that she was converting into a ball dress for Nellie.

 

" Mother, this is Junius Bishop. He wishes to show us a sewing machine attachment that he has taken the agency for."

 

Nellie announced his entrance with so much serious­ness that Bishop's figure increased perceptibly, and his manner became more dignified and gracious than before. Mrs. Barrett nodded pleasantly, and Junius again displayed his Chesterfieldian accomplishments. He took his implements from his satchel and proceeded to adjust the spring he wished to sell, to the sewing machine standing near an open window.

 

Nellie was watching his movements and listening to his incessant flow of explanations when she heard a stiffled giggle behind her, and turned around to find Lillie standing there beaming with delighted curiosity. Nellie frowned to make her stop laughing, and the girl hastily quitted the room to avoid an open explosion of mirth. Lillie could not deny herself, however, the pleasure of seeing what was going on, and as soon as she could finish telling Allen what "that dude nigger" was doing, she returned with a painfully sobered countenance, and wisely avoided meeting her young mistress' eye again. Bishop ignored the brunette's presence as entirely as he did the kitten on the rug, and continued extoling the merits of his wares.

 

" You see now, mam, that's the way you adjusses it. Then you starts the machine — a — and when the wheel begins to revolutin' good, it takes very much less zer­tion — a — for to propel the machine — a — don't you know? All you has to do is to press down with the heel and the attachment draws it up again itself." Bishop emphasized his sentences with elaborate jes­tures and frequent little affected gasps, which aug­mented his patronizing tones almost beyond Nellie 's endurance; causing her to battle inwardly between her risibles and resentment.

 

" Won't you please — a — just try it yourself now, Miss?"

 

" Get me a chair Lillie." Lillie placed a chair before the machine, and Nellie, seating herself, started the wheels to running.

 

"Doesn't you find it a great improvement, Miss Barrett?" questioned the agent.

 

"Well really, I do not detect any difference at all, scarcely."

 

Bishop stepped back and assumed a pose of extreme surprise. "Why! I am astonished! All the white ladies who has tried 'em pronounces 'em a great van­tage."

 

Nellie arose from her chair, concealing her indignation. It was something of a novelty to have her veracity questioned, much less to have it doubted by a pompous negro.

 

" You can take the attachment off," she said tersely. " I cannot waste any more time."

 

Bishop looked at her in helpless disappointment and her heart softened. Perhaps, after all, she reflected, he had not meant to be impertinent. She watched him as he slowly began to unscrew the affair, his prolific tongue silent at last.

 

"Mother, shall we let him leave it on?"

 

"Just as you wish about it; how much does it cost?" "Only fifty cents, Madam," bowed Junius, his face brightening.

 

" Leave it on then, I will take it." Nellie procured the necessary amount, and handed it to him.

 

CHAPTER IX

Nellie returned immediately to her work, followed by Lillie, and as soon as young Bishop and his handsome horse were out of sight the colored girl's broad smiles defied all further suppression and burst into a paroxysm of giggling.

 

"What is that boy goin' to git at next, I wonder! " she exclaimed in the midst of her mirth. " Looks like he can think of more things to git into than the law allows. All last year he was peddlin' books — good books too, what I got to leave with you, and when his school closed he got him a picture tent and went to drawin' folkses pictures.”

 

" How did he draw pictures? "

 

"Oh, he had a regular cameo — one of them boxes what you look through."

Were his pictures good? "

 

" Well, yes'm," said Lillie meditatively. "They looked like you, but they was too dark. He couldn't make no kind 'ceptin' them pictures, you know."

 

Lillie lost herself in retrospection for a few moments and worked on industriously all the while, but she could not restrain herself long at a time and soon took up giggling again, followed by more chatter.

 

" Miss Nellie, you'd a died laughin' if you had been at the picnic last — no twas Sat'day before last — at the picnic what Junius' pa gave. I never had so much fun before in all my life. Me and Allen both was tickled," she laughed at the recollection. " You see, most all these here girls is trying to set up to Junius 'cause his pa's rich; but there was two girls in particular, the `two Annies' we calls 'em, what made theirselves plumb redicalus about him. 'Twas Anna Wells and Anna White." Lillie had to stop to laugh and then contin­ued talking, with her habitual ripple of laughter throughout what she said. " Yes sir! the two Annies they just tried theyselves courtin' Junius through his little sister Blanchie. You know Junius got a sister about ten years old, and her ma had her at the picnic, dressed fit to kill, in white organdy trimmed up in lace and pink ribbons. Oh, she had on a ‘dike' I tell you, and she looked nice, too; and first Annie White would take Blanchie up and treat her to lemonade, and then Annie Wells would carry her off and buy her ice cream and cake. I tell you, Blanchie had a good time once in her life, but its a wonder they didn't kill her."

 

Nellie heard a smothered echo of Lillie's laughter in the direction of the kitchen, and knew that Allen was there, an interested listener.

 

" Yes sir, I tell you, Blanchie was ‘in town ‘! Miss Nellie, did you ever see Bishop's wife? "

 

" No. Watch out there, Lillie, you left some pealing on that peach you just dropped. You must be careful."

 

" Yes'm, I will." Lillie attended to the peach in question and went on talking. "She sho is a lucky woman. She's been had two rich husband's now. She had a husband over in Mississippi what was well to do and be died and then she come over here and married David Bishop. Her first husband had a store over near Rockville."

 

" Get me another pan, Lillie, this is too full."

 

Going for the other pan did not break the thread of Miss Alexander's reminiscences. As soon as she was again seated she resumed. "Dave Bishop is a good man, too."

 

"Yes," assented Nellie, "I hear every one speaks highly of him. He has nice manners, too."

 

"He sho has. He ain't biggity with 'em either. He don't put on a bit of airs — nothing like what his son does." Lillie went off into a fit of laughing at recol­lections of the agent's pompousness.

 

" His son is young yet, and will most likely settle down and be more sensible as he grows older."

 

" Well, I trust so. His pa treats everybody well, rich and poor alike, that's why people likes to work for him. He's got people with him now what's been his hands seven years. My Lawd, when Bishop rented Erin plantation all by hisself, the people just crowded there so he had to turn some of 'em off. They got to liking him when he lived on Captain Barringer's place and helped him to manage."

 

There was a restful pause. " We are almost done now, Lillie. I'll leave you to finish while I begin to weigh the fruit and sugar." Nellie began to clean the stain, left by the action of the acid and steel, from her fingers with the fleshy side of a piece of peach skin, and Lillie embraced the chance left by the few moments in sight.

 

"Bishop's goin' to give another picnic Sat'day after next, and is goin' to have his flyin' horses and a band of music, same as usual."

 

Nellie laughed. " And ‘same as usual' you want to go, and leave us to make out on a cold dinner."

 

" Now, Miss Nellie — " protested the girl deprecatingly. "I pintedly does want to go, sho; but I'm scared Mrs. Barrett wouldn't let me off two Sat'days in one month. I was studyin' 'bout I could get an early dinner if she didn't mind, and have all the fun I want at the picnic too. That ain't what's troublin' me, though," Lillie giggled. " What I wants is I wants your blue challie to wear to it — the one you said you might be willin' to sell."

 

Nellie picked up one of the pans. " Oh, that's it, is it? Well we'll discuss that later," she laughed, moving towards the pantry door. She had only gone a few steps though, when her progress was arrested by another one of her serving-maid's sudden outbursts of surprise.

 

"Well, sir! Now who all is this?"

 

Nellie turned and saw the figure of a second dis­mounting darkey, differing in personal appearance from the other as much as two animals of the same genus well could. When he had hitched his mule to the fence, he opened the back gate and sauntered in, swinging his hands idly at his sides. Reaching the edge of the gallery, he stopped short, and clutching his shapeless old hat by the top, he held it long enough to withdraw his head, nod, and thrust it into its covering again; then, with the same hand, he deftly drew a note from his left sleeve and extended it toward Lillie. Lillie put her knife and pan down and walked to the edge of the gallery where the man had deposited his arm with an air of entire repose that would have done Delsarte's heart good to behold. She took the note gingerly by one corner, so as not to soil it with her juicy fingers and carried it to the young lady for whom it was intended. Nellie placed her pan on a table and opened the mis­sive, a little fine line forming between her eyebrows, and growing deeper as she read. She read it through twice, then returned it to its envelope, and started toward her room, pausing in the hall door long enough to say to its bearer: " Wait."

 

Instead of going straight to her own room, however, she went first to her mother's and handed the note to her, sinking into a chair near by to wait until she had read it. It took Mrs. Barrett but a moment to learn the contents of the brief communication, and she looked up inquiringly; but she failed to meet her daughter's eyes, for Nellie had her head bent forward, and was thoughtfully gathering the hem of her apron into a ruffle with a pin.

 

"Have you answered it?"

 

. Nellie laughed shortly. " No'm, not yet."

 

" You will accept, I suppose," Mrs. Barrett said indifferently, as though dismissing an unimportant matter, but she clearly saw that something was wrong. " Don't you want to go with him? "

 

" Ye-es," drawled Nellie, " I guess I would as soon go with him as with any one else; but — "

 

But what? "

 

Nellie laughed again and blushed rosily. "Oh, nothing. Only I wish he hadn't asked me so soon."

 

"Soon, why you almost always receive offers of es­cort as soon as the invitations are issued."

 

Nellie was silent for a while. "It's too bad that a girl can't get all her offers at one time, and then take her choice," she exclaimed ruefully,

 

Mrs. Barrett laughed. "Um, there's the rub, is it?"

 

" Mother, what would you do in my place? " asked Nellie seriously.

 

" Well," deliberated Mrs. Barrett mockingly, " you see, this is a very weighty matter — "

 

"Oh mother! What makes you always ready to tease me? Whenever I come to you like this, you always turn everything into a joke."

 

The girl's sensitive nature was wounded almost to the verge of tears, and as usual she proudly choked them back and shrank behind a shield of indifference. Mrs. Barrett was trying the effect of a certain waist decoration, and scarcely noticed when Nellie took the note up from where she had allowed it to slip from her lap to the floor, and went into her own room to answer it.

 

As soon at Nellie settled the question by replying to Jules Durieux in the affirmative, she again hastened back to the regions of the kitchen and becoming ab­sorbed in watching the contents of her kettles, she dis­missed the matter from her mind.

 

In the afternoon, when the preserves were cooked to perfection and Nellie was filling the last jar with the scalding stuff, a third negro rode up to the back gate and another note was given to Lillie. Lillie was so accustomed to handling notes that passed from messenger to her young mistress that she thought nothing of the fact, except to boast to the other servants of the neighborhood of how much attention her Miss Nellie had and how often she had more company than she knew what to do with.

 

This time the penmanship upon the envelope brought a deeper glow into Nellie's cheeks than even the heat of the stove had done, and a brighter light shown in her sweet blue eyes.

 

"Lay the note there, Lillie, and tell the man he must wait," she said. "I can't stop now." She screwed the last top upon its jar carefully; set the hot thing on the table with its mates, and then read her note. As before, she took the note to her mother and offered it to her, unfolded, saying with a tinge of defiance: " Now, you see?"

 

Mrs. Barrett folded the sheet and handed it back gently. "Oh well, dear." she said soothingly, "what does it matter. You will enjoy yourself quite as well with Mr. Durieux, and really I did not think that Dr. Alli­son would undertake to come for you, when it is more than twice as far from Lauren's to Asola by way of Sigma than it is through by the railroad. It looks un­reasonable," she went on, " for a man to go to a ball by a road twenty-two miles long, when he can get there by one only eight."

 

Nellie had her doubts as to Mr. Durieux proving as interesting an escort as Dr. Allison, and as for the dis­tance to be gone over, youth seldom reflects upon the unreasonableness of a plan When pleasure is the stake played for; still, there was nothing for her to do now but to write an answer to Dr. Allison and tell him that a previous engagement prevented her accompanying him to the grand tournament and ball at Asola on the 6^th.

 

There was a big crumb of comfort left her, even in her disappointment, and this stimulated her delightfully. Dr. Allison's note was dated "Sigma, August 29^th, 3 P. M." and this was as good an announcement as if a courier had proclaimed upon a brazen trumpet that Dr. Allison was in her vicinity and would see her in a few hours where the Gun Club met to practice.

 

Nellie had plenty of time after she finished preserv­ing, to rest a quarter of an hour, and then dress for the engagement she had made with her two girl friends.

 

Ruth and Carrie did not wait for the Barrett carriage to be sent for them, but came around to Nellie's as soon as they were ready, and sat in Mrs. Barrett's room, talking of the all absorbing topics, the tournament, the ball, and their respective dresses, while Nellie put on her hat and gloves.

 

The two girls had gone into raptures over the ma­terials for Nellie's toilette, and Ruth was exclaiming for the fourth time that she knew it would be the love­liest thing in the house that night, when Virgil and Stella dashed into the room in a whirl of laughter, stumbling against each other as they came and finally throwing themselves down upon the floor in an aban­donment of mirth. Every one in the room laughed in sympathy with the two little chaps, and Carrie, who was nearest to Stella, caught her up in her arms and kissed her.

 

" Do tell us what's so funny," she cried, " and then we can laugh too."

 

"Oh, we can't!" declared Virgil. " We promised Lillie not to give her away, didn't we sister Stella?

"

" What on earth is Lillie up to now!" demanded Nellie, tying her veil.

 

" Stella, let's tell? "

 

" But Birg, we promised not to."

 

"Well now, you know she didn't mean we shouldn't tell mother," he said persuasively.

 

Both children laughed again and the girls fell to coaxing their secret from them.

 

" Now, if I tell," began the boy," you must promise not to give Lillie away?"

 

" All right, we won't," the three promised.

 

Virgil jumped to his feet and shoved his hands down in his pockets. He hesitated, glanced at Stella, who clapped her hands over her mouth to keep from laugh­ing; after laughing again himself, be began: " Well, you know old Unc' Bednigo always brings his bucket along when he comes here to help Allen work in the garden —"

" To take some of his dinner back to de chillun," interrupted Stell, giggling.

 

"And after he had eatin' his dinner, and put his bucket on the shelf where he could get it when he's ready to go home, Lillie slipped it, and emptied all he had saved, out — "

 

" And put a bick-bat, wapped in paper, in it! " chimed Stella, clapping hands and dancing about.

 

"What you reckon Unc' Bednigo is going to think when he gets home and looks into his bucket? " chuckled the boy, cutting a pigeon-wing.

 

"Lillie says she bets he'll want to whip her," said Stella with a mischievous smile.

 

" Well, I think he ought," laughed Nellie. " That was a real mean trick of Lillie's, and I am surprised that you and brother would back her in any such bad­ness."

 

Stella tucked her bead and tittered, but Virgil ruffled up like an insulted chicken and retorted: " Lillie was right. She said she'd teach old Unc' Bed a lesson about packin' off so much. She says Unc' Bed carries off most enough grub to feed two niggers, and she's tired of it, too! Why sister, if she don't hide her dinner till she's ready to eat it, he slips more than half of it into his bucket as soon as her back is turned! Lillie says our cats and dog get mighty few scraps when he's working 'round the place, and she's going to put a stop to it."

 

Virgil's eyes had grown large and dark with excite­ment, and his face showed a determination to justify his favorite in her actions.

 

"I suspect Virgil is about right." said Mrs. Barrett, looking up fondly at her son, " Yet I am afraid Lillie is not always as considerate of the cats and dogs as she is today. I shouldn't be surprised if `Miss Alexander's' beaux and that boy of hers did not prompt her to play the prank on old Bedingo, as much as anything else."

 

All laughed, and the girls being ready, they left Mrs. Barrett and the children to further discuss Lillie's con­sideration of their interests, and betook themselves to the surrey.

 

Nellie declined Allen's services as driver, much to his disappointment for he would have enjoyed seeing the Gun Club practice, quite as much as any one, and had hoped that he might go, from the time he was told to get the carriage ready.

 

The three girls got in, two on the back seat and Nel­lie in front, to drive. The sun was trying to see how hot it could be, it seemed, and the girls were glad enough to reach the end of their short drive and draw up in the shade of the big pecan tree, where two or three buggies and several horses were already standing.

 

It was the same pecan tree near the river's bank that had afforded a perch for the happy mockingbird the night of the landing robbery, and the wide band about its bole, paler in hue than the rest of its bark, showed how high the river had lapped its sides when spring floods were forcing their passage-way to the gulf.

 

The pigeon traps were set a short way from the tree, and nearer to the edge of the bank, bluff and almost perpendicular to the low murky water at its foot. The girls saw very little of the shooting that was done immediately after their arrival, for that time was taken up in exchanging greetings with the gentlemen who came up to the surrey. Dr. Allison was among the first to shake hands with them. He saw a golden opportunity awaiting some enterprising young man as soon as the surrey appeared pulling its way over the ramp in the levee, and Nellie had scarcely said "whoa," beneath the wide branches of the tree; before he swung himself into the vacant seat by her side, and taking the lines from her hands, said:" Let me hold them for you Miss Nellie; the shooting might make the horse nervous and restless."

 

The girl smilingly assented. The arrangement suited her very well, although she was not apprehensive of any unseemly conduct upon the part of her span. There was too much phlegmatic fat between Tipsy's and Toddie's glossy bay coats and their nerves to admit of the latter being easily reached. She knew that the horses would each set one hip bone higher than the other, and slouching against the harness, doze contentedly until the small, firm hand of their mistress gave them intimation that they might start homeward, and supperward.

 

There was a full attendance of, the Gun Club that afternoon. There were to be but two more days for practicing between then and the day of the tournament, when the final match was to come off, and Nellie felt very much interested in the result of the day's score. Her father purposed enlisting in the contest, and it was a great pleasure to her to watch how true his aim was, and how steady his arm. He was never taken by sur­prise, no matter in which direction the "pigeons" or " blue rocks " were tossed, and never before shot better than he did that afternoon.

 

Several of her young men friends remonstrated with Nellie for the marked partiality she showed her father's cause, and begged a transfer of her patronage to one of themselves, but she only refused in each case.

 

"No indeed," she would say, "Father's going to win the day at the tournament. You just wait and see! Won't you father?" she cried as Mr. Barrett came up to where she sat.

 

"Oh Nell," exclaimed Carrie when the men were about to put away the traps, " wouldn't you love to try to shoot at those little saucer-things? "

 

"Do you really want to try? " Mr. Barrett asked, looking at the girl's sparkling face.

 

" Yes indeed! Nell, do beg your papa to let us try."

 

" Father won't need begging if he thinks it right," the loyal girl responded, with a fond glance at her handsome parent, and the result of it was, that our three girls and several from the other carriages arrayed themselves nearer the traps, and each who was brave enough to do so, assayed a shot at the swiftly flitting "saucers."

 

When it was Nellie's turn to try, her father directed her attentively, then called for the spring to be touched; just as the blue rock sailed off gracefully, her trembling finger pulled the trigger, and the "bird" fell, a shower of fragments, amid a shout of applause.

 

"Hurrah for Miss Nellie! Try it again! Set the trap for Miss Nellie!" came from all sides, but they called in vain. "No indeed," she declared; flushed and laughing. " I have won my laurels, and can't afford to lose them in the same day!

 

Some of the older men had gone homeward, but as the sun was not yet down, the young people gathered on the edge of the bank, and practiced shooting at sticks thrown into the river, until twilight, that loveliest part of the day, warned them to go home, too.

 

Nellie had often fired a pistol, and was a pretty good shot, as was one or two of the other girls, Carrie, especially, and Carrie was still secretly wondering why she had failed to break her pigeon, when she could hit sticks floating on the water in almost every instance.

 

When Nellie and her friends returned to the surrey, Dr. Allison insisted that he should drive for her, saying he knew her to be too elated over her success as a marksman to safely entrust with the lives of the others, and Durieux seeing Allison's intention, crowded himself on the back seat to take care of Ruth and Carrie, for he vowed Allison knew nothing in the world about driving anything more spirited than a plow mule.

 

As Jules entered the carriage he called to Arthur Wheeler: "Take my horse, old man, and hitch him to Miss Ruth's gate.

 

Mr. Wheeler did as he was bade, and not long after that, his own horse was seen standing at the gate that little Carrie passed through oftenest.

 

CHAPTER X

The morning of the tournament dawned at last, and as the sun reached high enough to peep over the rose lattice at Nellie's window and send a shaft of gilt across the foot of her bed, she awoke. For a few moments she laid thinking joyously of the happy hours await­ing her. She heard Lillie in the distance call to Allen to bring her some stove wood, and she jumped up, dreading that she had overslept herself when there was so much to be done. She opened her window and studied the signs to see what the weather would be. The sky spread above like a great blue porcelain dome with a crumpled bride's veil drifting here and there and suggesting, as bridal veils should, only smiles and bliss.

 

When fully assured that there was nothing to fear from the elements above to mar the success of the day, Nellie hurried to the kitchen to make further investigations.

 

She found Lillie at her post, with the leg of mutton roasting in the oven, and the chickens in a pot on the stove boiling at full speed, while breakfast was in course of progress.

 

When the committee of arrangements sent their list of desired edibles out for contributions, Mrs. Barrett, with her usual liberality on such occasions, wrote down her name opposite "4 cakes, 2 gals. chicken salad, and 1 leg mutton," and now, the cakes were ready on the pantry shelf, white arid delicious, the roast was fairly under way, and the salad only had to be made.

 

Breakfast was soon dispatched, the housework hastily done, and by eleven o'clock every one was ready for the greatest frolic of the year. Virgil and Stella were dressed and waiting with their hats on, and for half an hour had been restlessly walking back and forth be­tween their mother's room, Nellie's, and the kitchen; then out to the front gate to watch the passage of pleasure seekers on the way to Asola. Over and over they wondered how long it would be before they, too, could get started. The surrey stood waiting for them at the gate, and Mr. Durieux' buggy was hitched at the rack just behind it, while the little wagon, containing Lillie, Allen, the contribution to the supper and the trunk of ball attire, had been gone for some time.

 

All things come to an end, however, even children's waiting; and finally Mr. Barrett closed and locked the front door behind them and Virgil realized with a whoop and an extra caper of his heeIs, that they were really, at last, upon the point of starting.

 

Nellie looked as dainty as a field morning glory as she walked across the rich green lawn to get into the buggy. She wore a soft white muslin, with a wide white hat shading her face with its rolling brim. A cluster of La France roses nestled amid the lace near her rivaling cheeks.

 

The road was in excellent condition; hard and level, with but little dust, for the June rains, which had forgotten dates and lingered into July, had kept them muddy until very recently, and the buggy and surrey could keep close together. They overtook the little wagon before they were half way to Asola, and soon left it in the rear.

 

If the young couple in the buggy were enjoying themselves in anticipation of the pleasures in store, they had no advantage over the young couple in the wagon. Indeed it would have been hard to tell which of the two girls, the white or the black, was in the more delightful whirl of excitement. Both were looking forward to the different methods they would employ in drawing upon the day's stock of events. Both would see, be seen, and hear, for there would be swains of the colored race there too, in the capacity of waiters, valets and hostlers, as eager to say soft nothings into dusky ears as there would be others of a higher rank in the rooms higher in the house of entertainment.

 

Lillie was perched on the seat beside Allen, dressed in her very best and tossing her head with a daintier air than that which sat upon her in Mrs. Barrett's kitchen. She knew she was assuming affectations, but she always donned them simultaneously with her nice dress, and she was rather proud of herself for her ambition to do so. These mannerisms vanished in the presence of white folks like dewdrops on a hot stove lid, but there was no reason, that Lillie knew of, why they should not be used to dazzle her associates.

 

She had sprung out of bed when the first tap of the nearest plantation bell rang out upon the moist morn­ing air, and lighting a lamp to see how to find her clothes she hurried into them; running from her house to the kitchen, she had her fire started and her preparations well under way before Allen sleepily dragged himself out of his own room. She had not seated herself from the time she buttoned her shoes until she climbed into the wagon, yet there was not a vestage of fatigue on her smooth plump face. When Mrs. Barrett was making the chicken salad, Lillie snatched a moment to taste her breakfast, standing at the kitchen table and rubbing knives between times.

 

"Sit down, Lillie, and eat your breakfast properly," Mrs. Barrett remonstrated when she noticed her; but Lillie only flashed her white teeth in a broad smile.

 

"La, Mrs. Barrett, I can't never eat nothin' when I'm goin' somewheres. I is just makin' out I'm eatin'."

 

"But if you don't eat, you will be tired to death before night."

 

"No'm I won't. I does just this very way every time I goes to a picnic or anything." So Lillie went on with her work as gaily as if it were a part of the day's fun, and had it all finished in plenty of time too. It would not have done for a straight-laced housekeeper to have gone behind Lillie and examined things too closely after she had deserted the kitchen, for she would have found many things to shock her sense of what a well ordered kitchen should be. She would, without doubt, have found a dirty dishrag or two here, a half wiped pan there, and a little pile of dirt in every dark corner, besides the seldom absent uncleaned pot, left to soak under the stove. But — ah, well, what are such trifles when compared with a sunny nature, and that quintessence of charity — the spirit that never irritates another? Better to go to a place of innocent pleasure now and then than to stay at home always and fret over inevitable dirt; for dirt is like the poor, we have it always with us here and a whole eternity of it to claim us as its own when this brief somnambulism we call life is done.

 

Allen sat beside Lillie with his shoulders humped over in a position of typical nigger don't-careness, but he was nevertheless looking forward to a fine time, and to an increase in his finances caused by an occasional half dollar gathered in for sundry services he purposed offering young gentlemen in the way of holding horses and brushing shoes.

 

Allen was young, hardly more than twenty-two, and something of a dude on a moderate scale. He was of considerably lighter complexion than his companion, being what a colored person would call "bright skin." He was good-natured and easy-going in his disposition, like Lillie, but he sorely lacked, Lillie 's industry. Like most good looking young men of his years and station, which latter had enabled him to attend the parish school throughout his childhood, Allen Whitney was decidedly lazy. Mr. Barrett often told him that if he expended as much energy in accomplishing work as he did in avoiding it, he would achieve great things before he died. Allen had a fair understanding of what Mr. Barrett meant, although he could not have given a dic­tionary definition of each word used, and as was his habit when Mr. Barrett rebuked, he grinned good hu­moredly and said nothing.

 

Lillie was supposed to be going to Asola for the pur­pose of taking care of the children and assisting them and the two ladies in dressing for the ball, and Allen was going, so he would have said if asked, to take the trunk and portion of the supper and to look after the horses; and unmistakably they each would attend conscientiously to the several duties apportioned them while there, and there was no harm whatever in their using eyes and ears incidentally after reaching their destination.

 

In the meantime both young darkies were exercising their vocal powers in the manner habitual to them. They were too intimately associated with each other to be able to find any very weighty subject to discuss, or any brilliant remark to make; and moreover, there was but one clearly defined idea in either head. They were on their way to the grandest entertainment ever given in the parish, and with that thought surging through their minds, there was only room left for the lightest and most trancient reflections.

 

"Lord, this is goin' to be another one of them hot days!" Allen exclaimed, mopping the perspiration from his face and neck with a red cotton handkerchief; the new white silk handkerchief he had bought for the occasion was too good to use, and he intended to reserve it until he could flash it forth in its unsullied beauty, where it would produce the highest effect. The young negro so seldom wore a coat in summer, that to have worn one on a hot September day like this, would have been more than he could have endured. That, however, was not the only reason it was laid aside. He wore a pair of elegant yellow satin suspenders, and they were too attractive to be concealed beneath a coat and vest. As Allen wiped the crystal drops from his own brow, Lillie followed his example, giggled, and said in response to his remark: " It certainly is hot! I wonder how those gent'men who is goin' to ride in the tournament is goin' to stand this weather. ` Pears to me like they'd most perish."

 

" Oh la," sniffed Allen, " they ain't a goin' to notice this heat. They'll be so tooken up with the ridin' and havin' all those ladies lookin' at 'em, they won't have the sun to study 'bout."

 

Both laughed, and Allen touched up his mule to make her mend her gait a bit.

 

The road from Sigma to Asola wound through cotton fields almost due south, and directly back from the river. It followed a bayou, here and there, for a mile or two, then turned back again through the fields. There was no part of its way when the rows of cotton did not reach from the wheel tracks, away on one or both sides, except where the road lead through a mile of cool, fragrant woodland. The fields were still vividly green although the plants were rapidly maturing, and the pretty diurnal blossoms gleamed amid the broad glossy leaves in their peculiar way, pure white here, creamy, nearer the base of the stem, and on, shading from delicate pink, to the closing flowers of dark crimson; and side by side with this variety of tints, the tender squares stood bravely above the plump green bolls, which in turn, stood above the dark brown burst bolls, almond-satin lined, and overflowing with snowy, drooping fleece. The cotton was opening fast near the ground, and in some places was ready for the cotton pickers' nimble fingers, and his long white osnaburg bag.

 

As Nellie and Durieux reached Pecan Bayou that ran through Asola, and followed its course into the little town, they saw buggies ahead of them, and still others following the bayou road and coming on behind them.

 

It was just a quarter past twelve when they neared the town limits, and from that distance the music could be heard. Even the horse seemed to be thrilled by the strains of the brilliant tune the band was play­ing, and held his head with statlier grace.

 

Nellie's very finger tips seemed to respond to the queer excitement that only occasionally heard brass bands can send quivering through ones senses. Little Stella had never heard such music in all the five years of her life that she could recall, and being already overwrought with anticipation and the heat of the long drive, she threw her arms about her mother's neck and laughed and cried together in childish hysterics.

 

The court house lawn, where the tournament and shooting match were to be held, was already crowded when Mr. Barrett and Mr. Durieux drove into the enclosure. Several buggies and carriages had been drawn up near the elevated benches to be used as additional seats, and as every available bench and chair was already filled, the gentlemen drove up, also, and had Allen remove the horses, taking them to the stable, and leaving the surrey and buggy near enough for the ladies to be together while their escorts were taking part in the shooting. This part of the day's program consumed the remainder of the morning; but did not, as Nellie had predicted, bestow the honors upon her father. His score was good, if not the best, and after all, beat both Mr. Durieux and Dr. Allison. Neither of these gentlemen were to take part in the riding, and soon after the gun match was decided, the Barrett party accepted Mrs. Hilliards' invitation, and went home with her to dinner.

 

Every house in Asola was dispensing hospitality to the throng of guests, and besides this, long tables were set in the wide, lower halls of the court house, and pro­vided with all any one could desire to sustain the inner man.

 

There was a brief time allowed for resting between the hour for dining and the beginning of the riding, and the large jury rooms up stairs furnished as cloak rooms for the occasion, proved admirable lounging places during the interim.

 

The brass band was playing again when our party returned to their places on the grounds, and it was but a short time before the interesting ride for the rings began. It gave Nellie an odd little feeling of having been transported by fairies to the days of Coeur de Leon, as she took her seat in the buggy, surrounded by the intense crowd, and looked about her. The band clashed its stirring martial strains, and two by two the knights in their gay courtier costumes and waving plumes, rode, with lancers at rest, down the track. Nellie had no difficulty in recognizing her friends, despite their unfamiliar attire, and joined the throng in waving her handkerchief in encouragement as they rode leisurely past. When the procession of knights made the circuit and returned to the judges' stand, reining up, each to await his turn in the tourney, there was a sudden hush of expectancy, and the marshal, mounted upon a magnificent black horse, rode to the front, and delivered his address to the ladies. He retired at its conclusion amid a stream of applause and then, one of the knights sallied forth.

 

As each successive young gentleman, with charging lance, dashed at fullest speed down the course, some little feminine heart beat faster, and some sweet maiden's spirits rose, as the ring told by its musical "click" that it was upon the lance; or fell, as her glances told her that the coveted circlet still hung upon its bracket, unsecured.

 

Nellie sat with bated breath, watching every move­ment of a certain two of the make-believe warriors, and a dawning dread gradually chilled her. These two, the Knight of the Pelican and the Knight of the Canebrake, were riding with equal success. Each had made his second tilt and the score stood six to six. The Knight of the Canebrake was just riding forward to begin his third round, and Nellie hushed her breathing.

 

Eagerly she listened, and her strained ear distinctly caught the sound "click"; a little fainter came the second sound, and fainter still the third, which was, nevertheless, acutely heard.

 

Three more rings, making the completed require­ment.

 

The cheer that went up would have announced the knight's success, had not her own senses told her.

 

And then the Knight of the Pelican came boldly forth. Nellie saw him glance at her and lift his plumed hat confidently; she saw him touch his beautiful horse with his spur, and with a roaring in her ears that shut out all other sounds, she half closed her eyes and waited.

 

Another cheer went up, and the girl closed her lips tightly to restrain the cry that almost escaped her.

 

It seemed but a few moments before the marshal rode to the front and announced that the Knight of the Canebrake and the Knight of Pelican, having both secured the complete compliment of rings, would have to ride again to decide which should have the honor of crowning the Queen of Love and Beauty.

 

Nellie sighed in relief and her spirits rose, but only for a moment. Second thought showed her that the complication was not yet at an end. Durieux who sat beside her, and one or two other young men standing near for the chance of winning some attention, spoke to her, but she answered absently.

 

The second tilt was ended, and she scarcely knew with what result. She watched the five successful young gentlemen ride up into a group in front of the judge's stand and hold a consultation. The two who had made the tie seemed to be discussing something, and the others laughed and looked around in her direc­tion. Each knight selected an esquire from among the riders who had taken the least rings and sent him to the lady of his choice. Nellie saw two of the esquires coming straight toward herself, and she shrank among her cushions in dread.

 

She felt that total annihilation, anything, would be preferable to the ordeal before her.

 

As the two young gentlemen reached her side, they bowed in imitation of the courtly days of yore, when tournaments were the play of princes and red blood the trophy, instead of scarlet rings, and one of them, taking his cue from the marshal's graceful address, began in stilted dignity: "Fairest lady of this fairest of earthly realms, Sir Knight of the Pelican sends me with the petition that you deign to accept the crown his valiant hand has won for your peerless brow. He — "

 

" For gracious sake hush, Jim," the other 'squire in­terposed in an exaggerated stage whisper, nudging him with his elbow. " Do give me a chance." He sum­marily pulled his opponent back by the sleeve and stepped into his place before the blushing girl. " Noblest lady in the land," he continued, assuming an heroic attitude and placing his hand over the region of his heart, "Sir Knight of the Canebrake craves that your ladyship will bend from your lofty heights and look down in pity upon his yearning heart on this royal occasion. Allow him to offer you the honors he has won."

 

The young fellow overdid his part, as he intended, so ludicrously that those near enough to see him and hear his words broke into a merry laugh.

 

Nellie cast an appealing look upon her father and he came to her aid.

 

" Oh father," she cried in an undertone, " what on earth am I to do?"

 

" Why, my daughter, the one who offers you the queen's crown has best right to your consideration, because of his superior prowess. Do you not think so?"

 

"But father, what shall I do with the other one? Of course it is the greater honor to be the queen, but I was thinking if I took that one, it would make the girl who is then offered the first maid's crown feel badly at being second choice, but if I accept the maid's crown, almost any girl would be willing to be queen."

 

Mr. Barrett, proud of her unselfishness, looked fondly into his pretty daughter's distressed face. "My dear, why should you trouble yourself about this? You cannot accept but one crown, neither are you responsible for the fact that both gentlemen prefer to have you share his honors."

 

The tears almost sprang into Nellie's eyes.

 

“Oh father, you don't understand! I am so miserable, for I am to blame for it all. This dreadful confusion is all my fault. Don't you see — I was foolish enough to promise them both."

 

Mr. Barrett started in surprise. "My child, how could you! "

 

Nellie hung her head. " I never thought that was it. I promised without thinking, for it never occurred to me that either one of them would be so successful.

 

Mr. Northcot told me when he asked me to accept his crown, if he won it, that he had little hope of success, because his horse was so nervous; he was afraid she would become frightened and unruly; and you know, you said yourself, that Mr. Wayman often failed to take even three rings. I didn’t think it would be possible for both to win," she mused, in conclusion.

 

" Ah! And so my daughter thought she would try to stay on both sides of the fence!"

 

" Oh, father! "

 

" Well, well," said Mr. Barrett, sorry that he had rebuked the distressed girl by his momentary sarcasm, "you must hasten and make a decision. Every one is waiting."

 

Nellie cast a hurried glance about her, and shrank further back froth the merry quisical eyes turned upon her.

 

" Father, this is dreadful! How can I stand to have everybody looking at me this way! Take me home — oh, please take me home. Tell them I am sick — anything. Really my head aches violently."

 

"No, no," remonstrated Mr. Barrett kindly, "that would never do. You must not let your day be spoiled by this. You have been looking forward to tonight's ball for a month. Come, I will speak to the gentlemen and try to effect an explanation. What shall you tell them, yourself?"

 

Nellie's brow contracted for a moment in deep thought. She lifted her troubled eyes. " Wouldn't it be best to tell the gentlemen exactly how it was? Mr. Barrett smiled, pleased with her decision. He thought if her sweet girlish candor could not explain away the difficulty and restore good feeling, nothing else could.

 

" Very well then," he said, " I will go to the gentlemen and ask them to decide between themselves which shall crown you."

 

As Mr. Barrett joined the two squires and with them went in the direction of the waiting knights, Durieux, who had gotten out of the buggy when he saw that Nellie wanted to talk to her father, again took his place and opened such a fire of light chatter that the girl partially forgot her dilemma until Mr. Barrett returned.

 

" They have decided to ride over again," that gentleman said, as be came to her, "and for the sake of the girl whom the unsuccessful knight must choose, they have agreed to say that the hesitation was due to a mistake causing another tie."

 

"You precious darling!" exclaimed the grateful girl, " I knew you could help me out! But tell me," she added, more seriously, " do they seem angry with me?"

 

Mr. Barrett laughed. " Neither one is any too well pleased. I think you will have to be an extraordi­narily good girl indeed to make pleasant terms with the one who is defeated in riding this tilt."

 

" Oh, I'll just do anything that's reasonable to make amends! I'll explain that it was because I was a thoughtless little goose and not because I was wilfully wicked. I'll say just exactly how it was."

 

" Yes, but see here, Miss Nellie," put in Durieux, who had heard part of her explanation to her father, "you said just now that you really thought neither of them would be successful. Do you mean to openly express your doubts of their skill to these gentlemen?"

 

" Ah, tenez-vous tranquille!" Nellie cried saucily, returning to her French as her spirits regained their equanimity. I refuse to discuss the matter with you at all," she went on. "There, look, they are beginning to ride again!"

 

The tilt was soon concluded, resulting in victory again for the Knight of Pelican. The marshal came forward for the last time and proclaimed the names of the victorious knights, and also of the young ladies who were to be the Queen of Love and Beauty and her four maids of honor.

 

The ceremony of crowning was not to take place until night, in the ball-room, and the crowd having witnessed all that was to transpire before that event, dispersed to rest and to prepare for the ball. The sun was just setting when Mrs. Barrett and her party again repaired to her cousin's home and found that lady busily engaged in serving iced tea to the crowd friends sitting on the gallery and in the hall, where the coolest breezes were to be found.

 

CHAPTER XI

It was somewhat after nine o'clock when Mr. and Mrs. Barrett, preceded by Stella and Virgil, and fol­lowed by Nellie and Mr. Durieux, entered the ball room. The extensive apartment, which upon legitimate occa­sions was the court room, had been stripped of its legal appurtenances and converted, as it had often been before, into a place of enjoyment for our dance loving people.

 

As Nellie crossed the threshold of the central door, voices on all sides were heard in undertones, exclaim­ing: " The queen, here comes Miss Nellie Barrett — here's the queen at last. Now we'll see the crowning,  “and the dancing can begin."

 

Alvah Northcot, the Knight of Pelican, was standing near the door waiting for her. He hastened up, and offering his arm, was about to lead her to the dais on the opposite side of the room, when Durieux interposed. "Not so fast, if you please, Sir Knight. Just wait an instant until I can get a program for our queen and put my name upon it. Ah, here is one now."

 

Durieux intercepted the young boy who was distrib­uting cards of the dance among the guests, and took two from him. " If I let Miss Nellie go with you without the promise of a set, my chances will be gone for the evening. Now Miss Nellie," he added, writing as he spoke, "I shall have the first set after the royal quadrille, may I not, — and this waltz on the second half? Thanks.'

 

He bowed, and extended the card toward her, but before Nellie's hand could touch it, half a dozen larger hands were thrust into the way, and the program circulated among their owners until the first side was closely filled with names.

 

As Nellie and Northcot stood chatting amid the crowd near the door, waiting for the program to be returned to her, the marshal hastened to them.

 

"Say boys," he cried, "you are delaying things dreadfully. Come; let Alvah take Miss Barrett to the dais. Everybody is impatient to see the crowning and begin the dance.”

 

Northcot again offered her his arm, and together they walked the length of the room. To Nellie the distance had never seemed so great before. With the eyes of the crowd watching her every movement, she had that chilling sensation of a sleeper who tries to rush from danger and feels that his feet refuse to move.

 

They were a charming couple, these two. He, tall and heroically proportioned, with the faultlessness of his figure thrown into relief by his close fitting knee breeches of ruby velvet, and silken hose. His gilt embroidered zouave jacket with his emblem bird emblazoned upon each front, and his wide lace collar, fitting snugly over a silk blouse, which, like his hose, was of that pink which tinges the summer horizon between sunset and twilight, and the whole gave him a strikingly distinguished air, both noble and poetic.  Nellie beside him, dainty, tall and slender, looked the regal personage she represented, in her faintly blue dress, soft and floating, revealing her flawless neck and arms and enhancing the beauty of her majestically poised head.

 

As they reached the dais, and took their places amid the pretty maids of honor and their gorgeously attired cavaliers, a murmur of admiration was awakened that rose into a loud cheer before it died away.

 

Nellie bowed her graceful head to receive the wreath of forget-me-nots that proclaimed her queen, and waited until her maids were crowned about her, then the royal party descended to the floor, and being joined by the marshal and a lady from among the spectators whom he had chosen, the initial quadrille was formed.

 

This was almost the only set during the evening that was danced with any degree of real pleasure. For after this, when all who wished were at liberty to join, the crush was so intense that it amounted to but little more than dodging one's way through the surging mass, to the strains of violins and harp, rather than dancing.

 

Every one in the parish was there; and besides these, three other parishes were well represented, as was also the city across the river. At an affair given as this one was, by two benevolent societies, the Knights of Py­thias and Knights of Honor, whose democratic prin­ciples embrace recruits from every strata of the social mountain, it was expected that the throng would be great and varied.

 

There is no tangible line drawn among social sets in this country where each man has all the elbow room he can desire, yet there is a distinction felt by each class, and these, coming in constant social contact, meet in genial courtesy, mingle, but rarely mix. The enforced law of this heterogeneous structure is, that by common consent, criminals shall be debarred from its ranks; but for the rest, each set realizes its inherent station and abides therewith. Every one assumes his best behavior together with his best suit of clothes, and going to the place of amusement, seeks nothing else than pleasure.

 

Nellie did not know even half of the people who were present, the greater portion of whom she had never seen before, and one of her amusements during the evening was guessing what names belonged to cer­tain faces and wondering why it was that she who had lived in the parish all her life, did not, after all, know all its people. Neither were all the royal party her ac­quaintances. Her first maid of honor was her dearest girl friend, Carrie; and this pretty maiden, having consoled the Knight of the Canebrake by accepting the distinction she could not, harmony seemed restored. The second maid of honor, a beautiful Jewess whom Nellie knew quite well, was a girl of refinement and culture. She had come to this land of the free to live with relatives because the family bank account in Ger­many was not elastic enough to provide her and each of her six sisters with dowries of a size to enable them all to marry men of their own station at home. She was exquisitely dressed, and was admired greatly by many besides her Jewish cavalier, and he, a man highly esteemed, was the son of one who years before began his American mercantile career with a pack upon his back and a pair of stout walking boots upon his feet. The third maid was a bayou-side belle of sixteen carefree summers, with two leading ideas, balls and beaux.

 

As this self-conscious young woman entered the room and was met by her gallant, she tossed her head in keen appreciation of the importance of her position and giggled with childish complaisance. "I hope I, haven't kept you all waiting," she sim­pered. " Mama just looked like she never was going to be ready."

 

" Oh that's all right; " reassured her admirer, " don't anybody mind waiting for you. I would a went for you myself if I'd a known where you was at."

 

This flattered beauty was quite as well satisfied with herself as any other young woman in the house, and was equally contented with her favorite lover. She had flatly refused to be sent back to school and by way of domineering over her parents, held the threat of running away with this same lover constantly before them. The young gentleman, for gentleman he certainly was if the prevailing definition of that term is to be relied upon, was a handsome fellow, always well dressed. He had never earned a dollar by the sweat of his brow in the twenty-three years of his life; nor had he labored at anything more arduous than win­ning at a horse race or a game of cats. He lived at his ease, as a gentleman is supposed to do, and owned one of the handsomest, fleetest horses in the state.

 

After this dashing young pair came the fourth and last maid of honor — a girl who taught school for the support of herself and mother as a profession, and sewed and cooked when not engaged with pedagogic duties. She had, besides her erudition, a genealogical table somewhere at home that showed her descent from nine generations of representative Americans, and as many others of an older country, including among its members soldiers and statesmen of no mean order. Her knight was in every way worthy of herself, being a young lawyer with excellent family connections and hereditary intellect sufficient to promise him a brilliant future.

 

Mrs. Barrett with a group of ladies sat near one of the great open windows, watching the young people gliding about. At her right was Mrs. Hilliard, a woman with decided opinions upon most matters, and not re­luctant to express these when she felt that she was right in her estimate of the subject under discussion. She was several years younger than Mrs. Barrett and far more self assertive, yet there was a strong personal resemblance between them and a great similarity of tastes.

 

The lady who sat at Mrs. Barrett's left was Mrs. Minor, at one time a famous beauty and belle but now mostly a structure of petty affectations, former date education, handsome diamonds, powder and a bit of rouge. She was a woman who, in her younger days, had traveled and seen a good deal of the world with its company manners on. She had come into it with the traditional silver spoon, and a splendid one it was at that, ready for her, and she had spent much of her time since bewailing the uncongenial circumstances which compelled her to battle almost single handed with privations that she scorned to acknowledge ac­quaintance with. Then, fate, not seeming satisfied with using her aristocratic nature for a football, had added greater disappointment than all in the person of Vincent, her only son.

 

Mrs. Minor fanned herself with the same graceful dignity she acquired in the zenith of her belledom, and lamented the degeneracy of society in general and of Louisiana in particular.

 

" Ah," she sighed, with an uplifting of her still bright eyes, "society was not once what it is now! Never did I think to see the day when our class would will­ingly mingle with such people as are here tonight. Think, Cornelia, of mothers allowing their daughters to attend places of entertainment like this, where if participating in a quadrille or lancers their hands must necessarily come in contact with hands of men whom they would never consent to meet on terms of equality elsewhere. Ah, things were quite different when I was a girl."

 

Mrs. Barrett winced slightly. She was the only one of the three who had a young lady daughter at the ball, for Mrs. Minor's was married and at home with her small family. Mrs. Hilliard, on the other hand, smiled behind Mrs. Minor's averted face and wondered how that lady failed to know that her own son was one of the few whom young ladies with the proper spirit, and Nellie Barrett conspicuously among that number, refused to perceive.

 

"Do you really believe," she questioned of Mrs. Minor, " that we are deteriorating, or is it not probably due to the different view we take of intrinsic worth? "

 

"Unquestionably to the different views of today," Mrs. Minor returned, smiling patronizingly upon Mrs. Hilliard as one too young to have previously judged of such matters, and again Mrs. Hilliard's lips curved into a quaint smile. She thought again of Vincent Minor and the manner in which he was faithfully reflecting his father's aristocratic vices in a mirror less polished than that sire had done before him. Mrs. Minor would have said, if asked, that girls were too innocent in her youth to be aware that moral deformities existed; and if asked how one could expect the son to escape inher­iting evil as well as virtue from his progenitor, she would have been shocked at the up-to-date woman's question and shrunk from her contaminating influence.

 

Mrs. Hilliard did her own thinking, and the older woman went on talking.

 

" What is strangest of all to me," she said, " is not only that our former exclusiveness is gone, but that our girls are allowed to attend these social functions alone with young men. In my girlhood no young lady drove several miles with a gentleman unaccompanied by a chaperone."

 

Mrs. Minor appealed to. Mrs. Barrett. " Do you not regret, Cornelia, that this deplorable condition of af­fairs exists?"

 

Mrs. Barrett moved uneasily, feeling that this criti­cism touched upon her own method with Nellie rather severely. She wondered if Mrs. Minor meant to take her to task, but that lady intended nothing of the kind. She was looking at facts collectively and comparing the times with that of thirty years ago, when she was the reigning belle and Mrs. Barrett but a bit of a school girl. Mrs. Minor repeated her question and Cornelia Barrett had to give her opinion.

 

"Really, Mrs. Minor, I have never thought of it one way or another. I have simply accepted existing customs. All of the other girls go alone to parties with their gentlemen friends, and naturally Nellie has `gone with the procession'." Mrs. Barrett laughed, and Mrs. Minor, shaking her head sadly, turned to Mrs. Hilliard, who, as soon as she was confronted by Mrs. Minor's inquiringly arched eyebrows and deprecating shrug, parted her lips with her habitual decisiveness. "No indeed. I see nothing to deplore. I have often thought how much it argues in favor of our youth that such a condition of social liberties is possible. It may be necessary in some countries to keep girls and young men under surveillance, and if it is, it only reflects all the more credit upon our young men, whom experience shows can take as good care of another's sister, as of their own. Comparing our methods with European customs, I think it speaks volumes in favor of our men."

 

" And the purity and common sense of our girls," interposed Mrs. Barrett, stimulated by her cousin's vehemence and amused as she spoke by the horrified expression upon Mrs. Minor's countenance.

 

Further discussion of the subject was prevented by the approach of Vivian, a twelve year old daughter of Mrs. Hilliard, who with her boyish partner, came up to them.

 

"You tired of your set soon," Mrs. Barrett said to her, smiling. " No' m," the boy answered. We weren't tired but we had to stop because we couldn't get along at all. The crowd is dreadful."

 

" Yes, mama," said Vivian, " it is! Somebody stepped on my foot, and before I could get over that, somebody else bumped against my back so it nearly took my breath away."

 

" And," put in her mother, " the moral of it all is that children should not try to dance at grown people's parties."

 

The boy and Vivian exchanged glances and laughed.

 

" Vivian, where are Stella and Virgil?" Mrs. Barrett asked as the juvenile couple turned to go.

 

" They are asleep in the dressing room. Lillie made Allen bring her the carriage cushions, and with them and the shawls she has made them the nicest sort of a bed."

 

" Ain't you sleepy, too? "

 

"Why, mama! The idea! No indeed. I'm having too nice a time to be sleepy. I've danced nearly every set."

 

"You mean you've tried to," laughed the boy.

 

" Well, I tried to then, if I must be so particular about the truth; but I enjoyed it just the same. “My,” she added, laughing, " ain't it hot in here? And no place to sit down either."

 

" Come, let's go out on the gallery, where there are plenty of benches."

 

Vivian Hilliard took her young friend's arm and to­gether they worked their way through the crowd to the cool gallery where there were seats in plenty, illumi­nated by the rows of Japanese lanterns that swung from the edge of the roof, in addition to the moon's brilliant light.

 

Supper had been served in the halls below, and the second half of the program was nearly through. The violins were playing a spirited polka and to its time Dr. Allison and Nellie drifted, making use of the lazy walk-step alternately with the glide. Nellie had danced so unceasingly at the importunity of her partners that she was thoroughly tired, and scarcely noticed whither Dr. Allison was guiding her, until he stopped at the door leading into the end of the hall, and laying the hand he held, upon his arm, conducted her to a little balcony that stood out from the hall at the side of the building. He found her a chair and sank into another near by. The music went on in the ball room, for the set had little more than commenced when Allison, knowing that the balcony was empty, made good his opportunity to secure it for himself. There was only room enough upon it for two people at a time and was intended more for ornamenting the handsome court-house than for actual utility. It was so delightfully restful out there as compared with the brilliant lights and heat within that for a time both young people sat in silence. Nellie sighed in pure relief for this oasis in the wilderness of sounds and mirth, and her com­panion arose and turned his chair around, placing it nearer the girl's and so that it fronted the long open window giving egress to their retreat. When his chair was arranged and he seated again, he leaned forward and eagerly looked upon Nellie's moon-illumined face.

 

" Are you tired much?" he murmured.

 

The words were so common-place that they might have been shouted above the noise within, yet the tone in which they were spoken was so ineffably tender, that Nellie started and looked suddenly into the speaker's face. There was only a glance, and her eyes fell. She tried to answer carelessly, but the thrilling steadfast­ness of those wonderful eyes, set her heart beating faster, and she spoke scarcely above a whisper: " Yes."

 

She sat with her head bent forward and her restless fingers opening and shutting her fan. Allison watch­ing her intently, rested one elbow upon his knee, and leaning toward her, ruthlessly twisted his mustache, breaking out one after another of the strands unconsciously. At last he spoke:

 

" Miss Nellie," he said intensly, "heaven knows I have tried to keep from telling you how I love you — tried not to tell you until there was some chance that I can see, to ask you to marry me. Tonight I cannot help myself. I feel that I would give the best years of my life just for the delight of telling you how sweet, sweet, sweet, you are, and how passionately I love you!"

 

As he spoke he leaned nearer until his lips almost touched her ear, but she sat so still, her bead only sink­ing a little lower, that Allison started back in dread.

 

Miss Nellie! " he cried, suppressing his tones, " for God's sake, don't say that I am mistaken — don't say that you have seen my love all this time, and now mean to throw me over ! "

 

There was such pain, such misery, in his hurried uttered words that Nellie was dismayed. She turned her head and looked at him again as she whispered reproachfully: " How could you say that? "

 

Allison in turn, read immutible love in a glance, and his heart beat with such ecstasy that he could express his thanks in no way but by clasping her hand, and kissing it fervently. A happy little laugh bubbled from his heart.

 

" Then you don't consider me a fool? "

 

She, too, laughed softly, joyously, and answered playfully: " I'm not so sure of that."

 

" Why?" he asked, too delighted with what her eyes had told, to heed the words from her lips. " For wasting your time on such as I."

 

" Darling! "

 

Allison again squeezed the hand he had not released, and laughed softly.

 

Neither of them had noticed that the polka they deserted, was over, and that the dancers were prome­nading in the ballroom and hall, the scores of feet making a dull, roaring sound as they moved ceaselessly around. A negro passing coffee among the guests came toward them and Allison had barely time to drop the hand he held before he stepped upon the balcony before them.

 

" Have some coffee, Sir? "

 

Won't you take some, Miss Nellie?" Allison asked, his voice sounding so unnatural and flippant that the girl laughed, and in turn her tones seemed strangely silly.

 

No, thank you," and she laughed again.

 

Allison sobered up. "Perhaps you would better," he said, the physician rising superior to the lover. " Are you not very tired? "

 

" Will you take a cup if I do?"

 

" Yes."

 

There was a meeting of bashful eyes, and soft laughter, and these two, almost beside themselves with their new happiness, took the cups, and were once more left alone. The coffee did do Nellie good, for it refreshed her tired body and steadied her nerves so that she could bear her bliss with more composure, and when the darkey returned with his empty tray, she put her cup upon it and said, " Thank you," naturally. Just as she did so, she heard the negro bandmaster calling the next set.

 

Nellie hastily picked up her card. " Whom have I promised this Number," she cried, consulting it. "Oh yes, to Mr. Durieux. Come, I must go in so he can find me."

 

" Just a moment! " Allison caught her hand again. "Let me tell you once more I love you, I love you, I love you! Darling, won't you tell me that you love me?"

 

" Nellie showed through her eloquent eyes all the love she could not speak, but she shook her head slowly.

 

" Just one word," he coaxed, " only one? Can't you then say, `dear Ed'? Won't you say that? — just ‘dear Ed,' once, that's all I ask," he pleaded.

 

Nellie felt that she must not linger. She parted her lips, but the words would not come. She lifted her hand that was clasped in her lover's strong, firm, fin­gers, bringing both nearer, and pressed her soft pink cheek for an instant against the back of his ungloved hand; then springing to her feet and taking Allison's arm, together they somehow went the short distance that lay between the balcony and ball-room; just within, they met Jules Durieux; he put his arm about Nellie's waist, and glided with her amid the throng.

 

Allison went back to the balcony and sat in the chair Nellie had quitted, pressing his lips to his hand that still thrilled with the velvety contact of her fair face. He laughed in his intoxication; and hated to break the delicious spell that held him in bliss that was divine. If there was some way to make that pulsing caress in­delible, how gladly he would embrace it! He pressed his own cheek to his hand as she had done, and then hurriedly, be went in search of the partner who was waiting for him.

 

CHAPTER XII

Durieux wrapped Nellie's soft, white shawl carefully about her before he helped her into the buggy, and as he spread the linen lap-cloth over her silken skirts, he urged her to draw her zephyr hood more closely about her head. Mr. and Mrs. Barrett and the children were ready to start for home, too, and Mr. Barrett held his reins, waiting, leaned out, and called, " All ready? "

 

"All ready!" answered Durieux cheerily, and Mr. Barrett taking the lead, the two conveyances rolled off briskly, leaving Allen and Lillie to follow as soon as the former could climb into the wagon where Lillie sat nodding, a piece of cake in her hand. She waked up with a jump as Allen gave his mule a tap, and took another bite of cake.

 

Their long nap in the dressing room, followed by their coming into the fresh night — or rather morning air, for it was after three o'clock — waked the children thoroughly and they fell to chattering in the liveliest manner. This would have been all well enough if they had been willing to make their conversation a duet, but almost every remark concluded with "Didn't it mother?" or "Wasn't it, father?" which demanded constant appearance of attention on the part of their sleepy parents.

 

Nellie and Durieux revived, too, at first, as the cool purity of the air aroused them, and many events of the day were gone over again in interchange of thought, but by and by, as the night grew darker, and the fatigue of the long drive was added to that of dancing, and the day's excitement, Nellie became more and more subdued, until she sat in total silence. She was thinkng of the compliments that had been showered upon her since the day's pleasures began, and unknowingly, she was thinking that all of these combined, failed, when compared with the delicious moment when the greatest compliment of her life was offered her, — when Edward Allison, unable to withstand the inward press­ure of his love, had, against his will and better judg­ment, told her how precious she was to him. She was thinking of all this, drifting off into a reverie that made her oblivious of where she was, or with whom she was floating in a paradise of sweet recollections that held but two beings — her lover, and herself to be loved.

 

The man beside her was thinking, too; hard, bitter, miserable thoughts. Never before had his lot seemed so hard, his limitations so narrowed. He hated the fate that placed him, a man of refinement, of culture and luxurious tastes, in the semi-menial position be held: manager of a plantation where, day after day, the worry of contact with thick-headed, rascally negroes was his hourly portion. He felt that he hated the whole race of miserable mongrels, whose sense of honor was little broader, little higher than the lowest of brutes. He hated the thought that with the coming of the day, the same eternal vigilance, which was the only price of liberty for the white man who hired the negro, must begin and go monotonously over again.

 

He hated the circumstances that made him poor — made him dependent upon his constant exertions for his daily bread, and left him with so little to lay aside for the proverbial rainy day. All his existence seemed so contracted, so hard, so pregnant with the reason why life was not worth the living!

 

He hated his pride — the one strong legacy inherited from his ancestors. This had once been a source of — self-congratulation, and he was content to think that in descending to him it formed a bulwark in his nature. He had been content with it, and with the courage that bore him up to labor and to wait; but now the futility of it all mocked him like a grinning demon.

 

His pride was the characteristic that had sealed his lips. He would not bring himself to ask her love of the woman who could look down upon his poverty. He would not ask her to leave her life of ease, of plenty, to share the restrictions that held him in a circle so narrow. The woman he loved should never feel that she lost, in becoming his wife. She should be elevated, or she should never know his temptation to tell her of his love.

 

Nellie Barrett had never in her life had a wish un­gratified that money could command, and Durieux almost hated the man who could trade upon her inexperience and ask of her sacrifices that she now knew nothing of; and yet Durieux was just and could not scorn his rival. He had not been blinded by his hope into belief in future security. When Dr. Allison first came, he saw his danger. He watched the two together, and saw the color come and go in her translucent cheeks, as the guileless girl showed her growing preference for the stranger. In the beginning he tried that strongest weapon against woman, ridicule, hoping with it to check her growing interest, but only failed.

 

In his justice, he could but acknowledge that Allison was right in seeking what he so well knew she would scarce be able to withhold. He had foreseen it all. In calm jealousy he noted every glance that passed be­tween them when they were together in his presence; and that night as he met them in the doorway return­ing from the balcony, he saw that the die had been cast, and that he, too, must abide by the throw.

 

He saw the tell-tale light in the face of each, that was like the sting of a viper. With smiling lips that covered an aching heart, he went to her, and in a voice that sounded hard only to himself, because he alone knew that he suffered, he claimed his partner. Allison, smiling unconsciously in his rapture, gave her up with a little air of proprietorship that was maddening.

 

Nellie, oblivious of the conflict raging within the man beside her, yet perhaps esoterically influenced by it, drifted from joyous into troubled reflections. She realized that it would be a long, long time before Dr. Allison could come for her, and give her the privilege of being always by his side, and not only was this waiting unavoidable, but to it she knew would be added her father's disapproval to make the coming years drag wearily.

 

Durieux' horse, which in his abstraction had been allowed to go drowsily on, trusting to his instincts to keep the path, drew the buggy too far to the right, and striking a small stump, aroused his driver abruptly.

 

Durieux turned his head and saw that his com­panion had not felt the jolt, and was still lost in deep meditation. He smiled bitterly as he thought of the surprise the knowledge of his own misery would be to her. He pulled himself together with an effort, and exclaimed in mock alarm: " Miss Nellie, say, wake up! I'll be lonesome if you go to sleep! "

 

Nellie laughed softly. ` I am not asleep," she said, "but I was beginning to think you were, from the way you were driving." She laughed again and went on: "Please don't ask me to talk, though, for my poor jaws fairly ache with the excessive exercise they have had today. They feel exhausted; and I have laughed until the muscles of my face seem set in an eternal grin. It is no wonder we grow wrinkled and ugly is it, when we have too good a time?"

 

Durieux laughingly agreed with her, and silence fell between them again, leaving Nellie to return to her perplexity over one of the greatest puzzles of her life. Intuitively she knew that her father did not like Dr. Allison, and why this aversion existed she could not comprehend. To her it seemed the irony of fate that two men, so noble, so true, so alike in all that was best, could fail to understand each other.

 

The world had gradually thrown off its gloom, the grey ether revealed objects dimly on the horizon, and the trees that were nearest were now individuals. The sky was becoming softer and paler, and lowly insects crept away through the weeds. A partridge, followed by her half-grown family, scurried noiselessly across the roadway, and vanished beneath the cotton's dewy foliage.

 

A plantation bell in the distance rang out suddenly its solemn, dew-muffled notes, and Nellie started shiver­ingly. Durieux watched her averted face, and as the bell still uttered its deep-toned music he saw her shiver again. Determining to break the silence that was at best only misery to him, he laughed shortly.

 

"Poor little girl," he said lightly, "are you so sleepy? "

 

"No," she answered seriously, still looking away from him. " I am waking up now. See, it is beginning to grow pink over yonder above the tree tops. And listen to that bell! Isn't it all — ah, I can't express myself; it is something that one cannot describe and can only feel — don't you understand — the powerful silence, the awful stillness of it all? " She looked earnestly into his eyes for sympathy she went on. "There is only one other thing as deeply tragic to me as this — the dawn, and that is that great thing over there." She waved her hand toward the river that was concealed by the breadth of the fields and the trees that inter­vened. " In either case," she continued, speaking in English as she always did when feeling deeply, "you cannot see the power, you can only feel that it is there. Mountains tower above, and you can realize the limit of their strength, and the sea murmurs and warns by constantly restless waves, but the river, and this, is so silent, so powerful, so alluring, that it almost makes me cry out in pain at the knowledge of its tremendous might and my own littleness. If they were not so still, so subtle in their coming, it would not seem so hard to understand, but they represent that awful unseen something that bears us on against all struggle, all opposition. We can no more check the flowing of the one, than the coming of the other. Silently they both glide on and humanity seems, when compared with the force that drives them on, so weak, so utterly in vain. Think how we plan our lives, how we planned and carried out the great event of yesterday, and how, now, with the dawn of today it is all done and cast away like a dead flower. We, exhausted and unable to go any further, must stop to rest while this uncon­trollable something goes on, never ageing, ever, ever, ever, in a seeming great circle, and we wonder if it ever had a beginning or will ever have an end! The un­familiarity of it all is what makes it seem so unreal. I, too, feel strange and as though I did not belong to my body or any one particular place. Such a yearning for something better — such a realization of my own limitations, makes me almost cry out in despair I " As she spoke she leaned further forward; still looking at her companion's down-cast face, she touched his arm. "Do you not feel the awful mystery of it, too?"

 

" No! " Durieux answered in his short, cold English.

 

" Mr. Durieux! — "

 

Jules turned his head and feasted his eyes upon what to him was the greatest mystery of all that had ever emanated from a creator's hands. Instead of the cry that she spoke of suppressing, he closed his lips tightly to control the groan of misery that almost burst his heart. Her earnest face in its pallor showed white and weird in the grey gloom, and her eyes, defying sleep, looked wide and black. What would he not forfeit for one moment of ecstasy that was his if he dared but snatch it. They were all alone, surroun