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GENERAL LEE ON TRAVELER

“Robert Edward Lee,” page 346

Photographed from life. M. Miley, Lexington, Virginia

To write of Lee in the fulfilling of his manifold duties would be to fill volumes. Lee as an intrepid young officer in the United States army; as a practical military engineer; as a man among men; as a staunch patriot, a brilliant commander and a magnanimous foe; a hero whose strength was the might of gentleness and self-command; the chief of a vanquished army, setting an example of noble submission; in the sanctity of his home, consecrating his energies to the restoration of a prostrate and desolate country; as the head of a great institution for the upbuilding of character and scholarship; as parent, as husband, friend; and as a modest, God-fearing gentleman—in all of these critical relations which constitute the test of true greatness, the rich nature of Robert Edward Lee shone with unfailing steadfastness and brilliancy.

I cannot attempt, in the limits of a magazine article, to do justice to an inexhaustible subject. Why should I when the most eloquent tongues and pens of two continents have labored to present, with fitting eulogy, the character and career of our cavalier par excellence ? It is the South’s patent of nobility that he is to-day regarded, the world over, not only as ranking with the greatest military geniuses history has known, but as having less of the selfish littleness of ordinary humanity than any of his compeers. I simply weave a wreath of memory to offer on his natal day.

That he was the son of Light Horse Harry Lee and Anne Carter, and was born at Stratford, the Carter ancestral home in Westmoreland, Virginia, the nineteenth of January, 1807, are well-known statistics. Miss Emily V. Mason, in her “Popular Life of General Lee,” [1] gives the following account of his early life:

It was natural that the son of Light Horse Harry should desire to enter the army, and he was doubtless also inspired to take this step by a desire to relieve his mother of the expense of his maintenance and education. “At West Point,” says General Fitzhugh Lee, [2] “he had four years of hard study, vigorous drill, and was absorbing strategy and tactics to be useful in after years. His excellent habits [347] and close attention to all duties did not desert him; his last year he held the post of honor in the aspirations of cadet life—the adjutant of the corps. He graduated second in a class of forty-six and was commissioned second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. It is interesting to note that his eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, also entered the Military Academy twenty-one years after his father, was also the cadet adjutant, graduated first in his class and was assigned to the Engineer Corps.” Of still greater interest is the graduation, in 1902, of his greatnephew, Fitzhugh Lee, Jr., who, on his graduation, was appointed special aide to Mrs. Roosevelt.

Lee’s first assignment to duty was at Fortress Monroe, where he remained four years.

COLONEL R. E. LEE

About the time of the Mexican War

“He went much,” continues his nephew biographer, “in the society of ladies—always most congenial to him.... He was in love from boyhood. Fate brought him to the feet of one who, by birth, education, position and family tradition, was best suited to be his life companion. Mary, the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, of Arlington, and R. E. Lee were married on the thirtieth of June, 1831.”

The modesty of the newly married couple was spared the modern newspaper accounts of the bride’s wedding [348] garments, her trousseau and trunks, the gifts and other intimate details now demanded by an insatiate public.

Mrs. Lee was possessed of a strong intellect, charming person and fascinating manners, being at the same time very domestic in her tastes, and “such a housekeeper as was to be found among the matrons of her day,” says her friend, Reverend J. W. Jones, who adds: “She was, from the beginning, a model wife and mother.” [3]

A short account of the children of this exemplary couple may not be amiss here. George Washington Custis Lee graduated, as has been said, first in his class, and at the time of the secession of Virginia was an officer in the Engineer Corps. He was appointed aide on President Davis’s staff, became brigadier and then major-general, and after the close of the war was made professor of engineering in the Virginia Military Institute and succeeded his father as president of Washington and Lee University. This position he held for twenty-six years, maintaining the high standards set by his father. Since his retirement, in 1897, he has resided at Burke, Virginia.

William Henry Fitzhugh, the second son, was a Harvard graduate and was appointed lieutenant in the army on the special application of General Scott, but had resigned and was living at home when the war came on, and he raised a cavalry company, of which he was made captain. He had command of two companies and was made major of the squadron. After the war he served in the Virginia Senate and in Congress until his death.

Robert E. Lee, junior, was a student in the University of Virginia when the war began, and promptly enlisted in the Confederate army. He served on the staff of his brother, General W. H. F. Lee, and rose to the rank of captain. Since the war he has been a successful planter, and in 1905 he completed the “Recollections of My Father,” truly a work of love. [4]

Miss Anne Carter Lee died during the war, and Miss Agnes shortly after the death of her devoted father. Miss Mildred Lee died in 1905, and Miss Mary Lee is still living, a prominent figure in all social and historical matters in her state and the national capital.

The oldest son was born at Fortress Monroe, but the other children were all born at Arlington, where Mrs. Lee passed much of her time when her husband was sent to distant stations.

Of Lee’s work as military engineer, Mr. Jones says:

His campaign under General Scott, in Mexico, was his first taste of actual service, and history has recorded his zeal, valor and undaunted energy in that memorable conflict. He now entered upon his real career. He was breveted major at Cerro Gordo, lieutenant-colonel at Churubusco, and colonel at Chapultepec. General Scott testified his appreciation in every report he made to the War Department, and Lee repaid the regard of his beloved general with an extraordinary admiration and devotion.

He brought his son, Robert, a mustang pony from Mexico. “He was,” writes Captain Lee, in his “Recollections,” “for his inches, about as good a horse as I ever met with. While he lived ... he and Grace Darling, my father’s favorite mare, were members of our family. Grace Darling was a chestnut mare of fine size and great power. He bought her in Texas from the Arkansas cavalry on his way to Mexico, her owner having died on the march out. She was with him during all of the war, and was shot seven times. As a little fellow I used to brag of the number of bullets in her, and would place my finger on the scar made by each one.”

In 1852 he was appointed Superintendent [349] of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he remained for three years, when he was sent to Texas. His services on the frontier covered a period of five years, with one furlough home, during which he was sent, in October, 1859, to capture John Brown, at Harper’s Ferry. In February, 1861, he was recalled from Texas and ordered to report at Washington. He was not in favor of secession, for he loved the Union strongly, and he clung fondly to the hope that the breach might be closed, but he did not hesitate when he saw that his state would secede. A New York banker, an intimate friend of General Scott, asked him at this time, in the course of a conversation on the art of war: “General, whom do you regard as the greatest living soldier?” General Scott replied immediately: “Colonel Robert E. Lee is not only the greatest soldier in America, but the greatest now living in the world. This is my firm conviction from a full knowledge of his extraordinary abilities, and if the occasion ever arises, Lee will win this place in the estimation of the whole world.” Refusing the supreme command of the United States army, he cast in his lot with the Confederacy, and was placed in command of the troops of Virginia.

ARLINGTON, HOME OF THE LEES

Much discussion has been held concerning the occupation of Arlington by the Federal authorities, but it was claimed that this was a justifiable act, in view of the commanding position of the property. The White House and the department buildings near it were only two miles and a half from the highest point on the Arlington grounds; the Capitol only three and a half miles away, and Georgetown less than a mile. A battery established on the heights would have had the whole of Washington at its mercy. General Scott saw the importance of this position, and, reluctant as he was to turn Mrs. Lee from the lovely home where he had so often received her hospitality; deeply grieved as he must have been to humiliate by his first move one who had been his cherished friend and trusted aide, he sent General Mansfield to take it. “It is quite probable,” wrote the latter in his report, [350] “that our troops assembled at Arlington will create much excitement in Virginia; yet, at the same time, if the enemy were to occupy the ground there a greater excitement would take place on our side.”

Without going into particular details of the four years of fighting, I wish to quote Lord Wolseley’s beautiful tribute to Lee: [5]

Describing Lee’s appointment to the command of the State Militia, he says:

Comparing Lee with the Duke of Marlborough, he says:

He repeats the following pleasantry overheard between two Confederates, after Pope’s dismissal:

A characteristic anecdote of Lincoln is also given. He was asked how many rebels were in arms and replied that he knew the number to be one million, “for,” said he, “whenever one of our generals engages a rebel army he reports that he has engaged a force of twice his strength; now I know we have half a million soldiers in the field, so I am bound to believe the rebels have twice that number.” General Wolseley justly criticises the lack of concerted action among our regiments.

The Englishman concludes:

This was one of the popular songs current after the close of the war:

Why Marse Robert? Major Stiles gives the reason [6] :

VALENTINE’S RECUMBENT LEE STATUE

At Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia

[352]

Lee’s devotion to his soldiers and theirs to him are referred to by one of Pickett’s captains [7] :

In a small volume of War Sketches, issued shortly after the war, I found the following anecdote contributed to a Washington paper by Miss Woolsey, a nurse sent to Gettysburg with the Sanitary Commission:

After the surrender at Appomattox General Lee joined his family at Richmond for a short period of rest before taking up the “burdens of life again.” “There was,” writes General Long, [8] “a continuous stream of callers at the residence ... upon every hand manifestations of respect were shown him.” General Long gives some touching incidents:

“Great and star-like as was the warrior,” says Dr. Shepherd, “the man is greater.” [9]

It is said that General Lee was offered estates in England and in Ireland; also the post of commercial agent of the South at New York, and many other tenders of a home or livelihood. All of these he declined and accepted the presidency of Washington College, at Lexington.

Founded in 1789 under the name of “Augusta Academy,” the name was changed in 1782 to “Liberty Hall Academy,” from which was sent a company of students into the Revolution. Washington, who had accepted from the new State of Virginia 100 shares of the James River Company only on condition that he might give them to some school, chose this academy for beneficiary, and the name was changed in 1798 to “Washington College.” The buildings, library and apparatus had been sacked during the Federal occupancy, and the country was able to furnish only forty students at the opening of the term of ’65-’66. Nothing daunted, the new president gathered around him an able faculty, raised the standard of scholarship, renovated the old buildings and secured funds for new ones. He introduced the “honor system” and knew every student’s name, as well as his class and deportment record. Asked, at a faculty meeting, for a plan to induce students to attend the chapel, he advised: “The best way that I know of is to set them the example,” which [353] he invariably did. This gives the keynote to his remarkable influence.

The effect of his principles was all-powerful. It is doubtful if any other college in the world could show such a high average of morals and scholarship which obtained at Washington College during Lee’s presidency of five years.

I cannot resist relating an anecdote given by another of our soldier-authors, John Esten Cooke: [10]

Coming upon the chieftain conversing cordially with an humbly clad man, he supposed that it was, of course, an old Confederate, the more so as the general, looking after the retreating figure, said kindly:

“That is one of our old soldiers who is in necessitous circumstances.” Questioned, however, he admitted that the soldier had fought on “the other side, but we must not think of that,” was his verdict.

The death of General Lee, on October 12, 1870, brought forth more encomiums from the press, personages of exalted rank, and from the people generally than has ever been accorded any man who died in private life since Washington. “I do not exaggerate,” says Dr. Jones, “when I say that many volumes would not contain the eulogies that were pronounced, for I undertook to make a partial collection of them and have a trunk full now.” In the cemetery near him at Lexington bivouacs his great lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson. They were born in the same month, the one on the nineteenth and the other on the thirty-first of January. It is fitting that they should lie near together. “I know not,” further and most fittingly continues Mr. Jones, who was chaplain of the University, “how more appropriately the tomb of Lee could be placed. The blue mountains of his loved Virginia sentinel his grave. Young men from every section throng the classic shades of Washington and Lee University, and delight to keep ward and watch at his tomb.”

MERCIE’S MONUMENT, LEE CIRCLE, RICHMOND

[We give way in this issue to Judge Lewis M. Hosea, Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati and late Brevet Major U. S. Army, 16th U. S. Infantry, who gives us the viewpoint as seen by Buell’s army. In this paper by this distinguished gentleman, appears the best description of how it feels to be under fire and how the Confederate columns appeared that we have ever seen.

That particular description deserves to live as a classic and no one may read it without afterwards seeing “the surging line of butternut and gray moving rapidly across our front” and “the accompaniment of a leaden blast of hell sweeping into one’s face as though it were a sort of fierce and deadly wind impossible to stand against.”

It will also be observed that Judge Hosea takes decided issue as to certain facts published in the History of the Shiloh Battlefield Commission which we take pleasure in publishing and will accord the same privilege to any one who cares to reply, as it is by this kind of personal testimony that the truth of history is eventually established.

To the readers of Taylor-Trotwood we wish to state that these Historic Highways of the South have been running serially through Trotwood’s Monthly for fifteen months and include The Hermitage, The Creek War Highways, New Orleans, Battle of Franklin, Ft. Donelson, Shiloh and others.— The Editor. ]

The two days’ battle at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River, fought on Sunday and Monday, April 6th and 7th, 1862, viewed from the standpoint of forty years later, looms up as one of the most significant contests of the great Civil War. The entire battlefield was a wilderness of scrub oak and kindred growths, unbroken save by a few settlers’ clearings located at random upon a plain traversed only by irregular “woods-roads,” and by drainage ravines leading by winding courses into the two creeks bounding the field of operations on the north and south—these discharging into the Tennessee River behind the Union Army.

The troops were for the most part new and untried, and the conditions of the ground made the transmission of orders difficult and uncertain. It was impossible for commanders of large bodies to obtain a comprehensive view of the field so as to perceive and provide intelligently for the varying exigencies of the battle as it progressed. They could only guess the swaying movements of the fight by sounds of musketry and by the chance reports of messengers who could locate nothing by fixed monuments. Nor could the men in ranks, or even regimental officers, see beyond a limited distance; and the direction of enfilading or turning movements could be discovered only by the course of bullets among the trees or the tearing of the ground by solid shot or shell.

These things made the battle a supreme test of the quality of the individual units of the army rather than of any directing skill of its higher commanders. The bulldog courage of individual groups of men who hung on and fought “to a finish,” or who, like Prentiss, sacrificed themselves where they stood because of no order [355] to withdraw, delayed the general advance of the enemy and thus saved the first day from overwhelming and complete disaster. It became a case of “night or Blücher;” and when, toward evening, the leading regiments of Buell’s army arrived upon the field and interposed a fresh line of resistance, the Union troops had been driven from the field and huddled as a mass of disorganized fragments in a semicircle of half a mile radius about the landing.

But the Confederates drew off flushed with the spirit of victory and ceased fighting only to prepare for an expected certain and triumphant finish in the morning. Knowing that they had the Union forces hemmed in the semicircle of their lines extending from river to river, every Confederate soldier fully believed that surrender or annihilation of the Union forces would be easy of accomplishment.

This was the spirit and purpose that animated the Confederate forces on Monday when they began to attack soon after daylight on that second day. To the forces of Buell, arriving during the night on transports from Savannah (on the river twenty miles below), and marching up the bank in the dim light of dawn to form a cordon around the fragments of Grant’s army, the scene was dismal and discouraging in the extreme. Making our way through the thousands of men huddled on the bank, hearing at every step the doleful prognostications of defeat, the wooded plain above presented to us visible proof of the disastrous conflict of the day before in the dead and wounded who lay unattended, and the broken and discarded arms and equipments that strewed the ground. These were the sights and sounds that greeted us as we marched to our place in line of battle on the second day; and they fully justified the compliment paid us by our brigade commander, General Lovell H. Rousseau, who says, in his official report of the battle in substance: “Seldom have men gone into battle under such discouraging circumstances, and never have they borne themselves more gallantly.”

In the personal reminiscences that follow I shall speak more particularly of the part taken by Rousseau’s brigade of McCook’s division.

I was personally present throughout the second day, as Adjutant of the First Battalion, Sixteenth U. S. Infantry—which, with similar battalions of the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Infantry, and the First Ohio, Fifth Indiana, and Sixth Kentucky Volunteers—constituted Rousseau’s brigade (4th) of McCook’s division (2d) of the Army of the Ohio commanded by General Buell.

My position as adjutant gave me a somewhat wider range of observation than that of a line officer on duty with a company, and I retain some very distinct recollections of the battle, which I will briefly state in so far as they bear upon the movements of Rousseau’s brigade; but I shall leave others to speak of the severity of the fighting, and leave to you to estimate the quality of the service the brigade rendered the Union cause.

Rousseau’s brigade reached Pittsburg Landing during the night of the 6th of April, 1862, by steamers from Savannah, and disembarked just before day. On the level just back of the landing, in the dim light of the coming dawn, we deposited knapsacks and advanced in a southwesterly direction through the woods, passing through camps (probably Hurlbut’s) where our dead lay unburied as they had fallen the day before. After a short halt we were advanced and deployed to the right and front at the hither edge of a broad and shallow depression, where a small brook coursed on to our right through a comparatively open forest without any visible clearing. Here we were halted, muskets loaded, and, in a short time, at a little after six o’clock, we heard firing toward our right rear, and almost immediately our own skirmishers were driven in and we were engaged with a battle line of the enemy. Then followed a steady and vigorous “stand-up” [356] musketry fight which lasted the greater part of an hour, when the enemy drew off, but soon renewed the attack with greater vigor, only to be again repulsed.

This position was probably on Tilghman’s Creek, shown on the map of the Shiloh Battlefield Commission to which I shall refer; but the hour stated on the map as eight o’clock is wrong and should be six o’clock. By eight o’clock we had been baptized with fire and blood. Here Captain Acker of the Sixteenth was killed, and a number of other officers and men were killed and wounded.

It is an old story, perhaps, to most of you—this first experience of actual battle; yet, even now, dimly remembered through the intervening years, it seems to me the most horrifying experience that can possibly fall to the lot of man.

First came the startling report of a musket fired by one of our own skirmishers out in our front; then a crackling of responses from the woods beyond, but we could see only a little blue smoke rising above the undergrowth—for it was early spring and the green leaves were just beginning to appear—and hear the skipping of stray bullets through the branches with a whirr of spent force. A stir went through the lines and faces grew pale, for we knew that the battle was sweeping toward us and that these shots were the first sprinkle of the coming storm. The quiet command of “Attention!” was obeyed ere it was uttered; but the climax of first impressions came with the order to “load.” That order, like the jarring touch upon the chemist’s glass, crystallized the wild turmoil of thoughts and focalized all upon the actual business of war. I can realize now how important a thing in war is the musket as a steadying factor for overwrought nerves; and how that first order to “load!” brought the panicky thoughts of men back with a sudden shock to the realization that they were there upon equal terms with the enemy to do and not alone to suffer. I remember the “thud” of the muskets as they came down upon the ground almost as one,—for our men had been well drilled,—and the confused rattle of drawing ramrods, and their ring in the gun barrels as they rebounded in ramming the charges home. Every movement and every sound was an encouragement; and in the reaction of feeling the interchange of boastful speech almost ripened into cheers. But, meantime, the fire of skirmishers increased to an almost continuous rattle and grew closer, until—for all this was a matter of minutes only—our skirmishers could be seen coming in, firing as they came, and half carrying two or three wounded men. This, of course, again deepened the tension of nervous expectation, and faces took on a look of grim determination, as eyes peered forward to catch the first glimpse of the approaching enemy. As our skirmishers came into the lines, there went a hoarse whisper down the ranks, “There they are!”—and looking out through the woods I saw the flutter of battle flags and beneath them a surging line of butternut and gray moving rapidly across our front just beyond the shallow ravine, perhaps fifty or seventy-five yards away. In a moment, as it seemed, there burst forth a rattle of musketry that almost drowned the command of our officers to “fire at will!”

The first shock of battle is appalling. The rattle deepens into a roar as men get down to the work of loading and firing rapidly; but it is not alone the noise of firing that appals, the vicious “whizz,” and “zip” past the ears; the heavy “thud” of bullets that strike the tree-trunks with the force of sledge-hammer blows,—all these make up a horrible din that has no parallel on earth. But with it all is the realization that this is but the accompaniment of a leaden blast of hell sweeping into one’s face as though it were a sort of fierce and deadly wind impossible to stand against; and the rain of leaves and twigs cut from the trees, and the occasional fall of larger branches, heightens this impression of a raging storm. After a little the smoke obscures everything [357] and the battle goes on in an ever-increasing acrid fog that would make breathing impossible were it not for the frenzy of battle that seizes upon every other faculty, physical and mental, and makes one oblivious to all other surroundings.

Here and there a man drops his musket, throws up his hands and falls backward dead; or another lunges heavily forward on hands and knees, mortally wounded; and no one who has seen it will ever forget that look of agony unspeakable on the faces of those stricken by sudden death in battle.

For what seemed an interminable time the angry buzz of bullets clipped by our ears and overhead; and I remember, that, as I passed up and down the line assisting the commanding officer of the battalion in encouraging the men to take time in loading carefully and aiming low, a bullet struck a musket in the hands of a young Irishman of my own company, just as he was about to bring it to his shoulder, and the force of the impact shattered the stock and turned him partly about and almost threw him down. I saw the blood spurt from his arm, for he had in the excitement rolled up his sleeves to handle his piece the better. I sprang forward to assist him; but with a cry of rage he stripped off his sleeve, and with the assistance of a comrade, bound up his wound, which proved to be not serious, and seized a dead comrade’s musket beside him and went on with the fight.

But after a time the whirr and hiss of the bullets slackened and finally ceased; finally, skirmishers were ordered out to reconnoiter, while disposition was made of the dead and wounded. Soon, however the skirmishers came hastily back and reported new and heavier lines advancing, and again we saw the battle-flags among the trees, nearer than before. This time, however, the fight opened with the thunder of field guns whose missiles went shrieking overhead with a horrible sound that made the blood run cold. Then came the order to hug the ground and fire at will; and the fight went on as before except that as we had advanced a few rods down the gentle declivity of the ravine, and the line of the enemy was at a relatively higher level, the majority of bullets and the cannon shots passed above us and but few came dangerously close.

But the success of our first experience seemed to tell upon the ranks, and the coolness and deliberation of both men and officers were noticeable thenceforward; and soon the artillery discharges ceased, and after a time we knew, as before, by the lessening of the whizz of bullets, that the enemy had again yielded the ground in our front.

As I look back upon it, it seems astonishing how soon all the natural feelings of apprehension and fear give way to what has been aptly termed the “battle rage” which lifts a man up to a plane where the things of the body are forgotten. Amid the roar and din of musketry and the horrible swish and shriek of shells, the intellect seemed to be disembodied, and, while conscious of the danger of being hurled headlong into eternity at any moment, the pressure upon the brain seemed to deaden the physical senses—fear among them. Fear came later when the fight was over, just as in the waiting moments before it began; but throughout the day while the battle was on I remember having a singular feeling of curiosity about personal experiences. I seemed to be looking down upon my bodily self with a sense of impersonality and wondering why I was not afraid in the midst of all this horrible uproar and danger. I suppose this was the common experience of soldiers, for if it were not so, battles could not be fought.

[358]

GENERAL FORREST AND HIS CAVALRY GOING OUT TO FORT DONELSON

From “Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest.” Copyright, 1899, by Harper & Brothers.

[359]

After repulsing the second attack, at about eight o’clock, we moved forward slowly across the brook, with skirmishers advanced, fighting at intervals, for the enemy stubbornly contested the ground. On reaching a clearing (probably the Duncan field) in the line of our advance we were met by an opposing concentration of the enemy in great force at the far side of it, who attempted a desperate charge upon us. This was met by a steady fire and an unswerving line; and the fighting that ensued is described by Judge Force, in his account of the battle published in the “Campaigns of the Civil War” by the Scribners (p. 171), as a “desperate struggle”—and indeed it was! Guenther, with a section of Terrill’s battery, arrived upon the scene, coming in upon our right, which was unprotected, at the crisis of this fight, and, as the enemy gave way at our front and ran together in a mass to pass through a gate or break in a fence in the rear, he directed his rapid discharges of canister to the same point. The effect upon the enemy was appalling and horrible beyond all description. Among our killed were Lieutenant Mitchell, a most gallant officer of the Sixteenth, and it was here also that Wykoff, then a captain of the Fifteenth, lost his eye.

I recall one striking incident of a personal character connected with this part of the battle. A sergeant of C Company, which I had commanded, was wounded in the shoulder and disabled though not vitally hurt. A moment later, as the sergeant was making his way to the rear, I was knocked down by an exploding shell, whose fragments relieved me of one boot-leg and left one leg of my pants in shreds, but fortunately left the leg intact, except for a wrench and a few bruises of no serious consequence. It so happened that my sergeant saw me fall, and, as he was among the first of the wounded taken to Cincinnati, he reported me as killed, to the great distress of my family at home. My brother, who came down a few days later, found me very much alive, though very ragged, very dirty, and very thankful that the shell that took my boot-leg took no more. I was thankful even for the limp that made me the subject of good-natured derision for some days as I performed my duties as adjutant on one leg.

We immediately followed in pursuit, after this last fight, capturing two field-guns from the enemy, and continued the advance until we had repossessed General McClernand’s headquarters of Sunday, beyond which we again met a determined resistance, but eventually drove the enemy back through a large open field into what has been termed the “water oaks thicket.”

The enemy seemed to be massed in great force at and beyond this point to oppose our further progress, and a heavy line of battle occupied the woods beyond the clearing on the hither edge of which we were halted to replenish our exhausted ammunition.

Our advance, though slow, had been continuous and resulted in projecting a sort of wedge into the enemy’s lines, of which wedge we seemed to be the apex. It resulted, therefore, naturally and necessarily that the enemy concentrated more and more in our immediate front to break the force that was gradually splitting them in two and endangering their communications in rear. Firing still continued toward the rear on both flanks, for we had considerably outstripped the general advance. Our men fixed bayonets and lay down under orders to hold the position, if attacked, at all hazards. The firing against us grew quite heavy, but no reply was made, although some were killed, among them Lieutenant Keyes, a splendid officer of the Sixteenth, with whom I was standing arm in arm at the time his summons came,—for among the regulars it was not then considered “good form” for officers to take shelter.

I have before spoken of the impact of a minie bullet against a tree as like the blow of a sledge hammer. The Keyes incident gives a very realistic illustration. As I have mentioned in another place, Lieutenant Keyes and I were standing arm in arm—my right interlocked with his left,—in rear of his company. We were, as I recall, just exchanging sorrowful remarks over the death of a Sergeant Baker—a fine man—who received a bullet through the forehead just a moment before, while Keyes was exchanging [360] words with him. Just then the sledge hammer struck one of us—for a moment I did not know which—and hurled us both to the ground backwards. As I scrambled to a footing I saw Keyes’ blanched face and the torn garment showing the passage of the bullet through the left shoulder joint where a hasty examination showed that the bony structure of the vicinity had been shattered. He was taken to the rear and died the second day after.

Here, after a long wait, General Sherman came, and I saw him for the first time. I will let him tell you what next occurred. General Sherman is describing, in his official report of the battle, his own movements as he came up on our right; and is speaking of a battery that had reached him at the rear. He says:

“Under cover of their fire we advanced until we reached the point where the Corinth road crosses the line of McClernand camp, and here I saw for the first time the well ordered and compact columns of General Buell’s Kentucky forces whose soldierly movements at once gave confidence to our newer and less disciplined men. Here I saw Willich’s regiment advance upon a point of water oak and thicket, behind which I knew the enemy was in great strength, and enter it in beautiful style.”

(The thicket described by General Sherman, I may remark, was just beyond the field on the edge of which we were lying and through which it was necessary to pass. The Thirty-second Indiana was regarded as the crack German regiment of our western army.)

General Sherman continues:

“Then arose the severest musketry fire I ever heard, and lasted some twenty minutes when this splendid regiment had to fall back.”

(The Thirty-second, let me explain further, had passed around our left and formed in our front, in the open, in column of companies—“double column to the center,” as the formation is described by its commander in his report. The absurdity of this formation seemed to strike even the rank and file, for it drew a direct and enfilading fire from the extended line of the enemy in front that reached even the rear companies and gave rise to the claim on their part that they had been fired upon by the troops in their own rear. This claim was and is, of course, ridiculous. The regulars were at that moment engaged in replenishing their cartridge boxes in the rear of Kirke’s brigade which had been in reserve and had taken our position temporarily for this purpose. The claim was made as an excuse for a most unmilitary blunder in placing a column formation in the open in the face of a battle line, and, as it naturally resulted in a complete rout of the regiment, some excuse was sought as a salve for wounded pride).

General Sherman continues:

“This green point of timber is about five hundred yards east of Shiloh meeting house, and it was evident here was to be the struggle. The enemy could be seen also forming his lines to the south.... This was about 2 p.m. The enemy had one battery close by Shiloh and another near the Hamburg road, both pouring grape and canister upon any column of troops that advanced upon the green point of water oaks. Willich’s regiment had been repulsed, but a whole brigade of McCook’s division advanced beautifully, deployed, and entered this dreaded wood.... This I afterward found to be Rousseau’s brigade of McCook’s division.

“Rousseau’s brigade moved in splendid order steadily to the front sweeping everything before it; and at 4 p.m. we stood upon the ground of our original front line, and the enemy was in full retreat....

“I am ordered by General Grant to give personal credit where I think it is due, and censure where I think it merited. I concede that General McCook’s splendid division from Kentucky drove back the enemy along the Corinth road, which was the great center of the field of battle, where Beauregard commanded in person, supported [361] by Bragg’s, Polk’s and Breckinridge’s divisions.”

General Sherman lived many years in the belief that he had fully and truly stated the facts in this matter, but we now know from a veracious history to which I shall refer, “compiled from the official records upon the authority of the Shiloh Battlefield Commission,” that what Sherman supposed to be a concentration of the Confederate army under Beauregard, including many divisions under distinguished leaders, was only Colonel Looney, of the Shiloh Battlefield Commission, with his regiment “augmented by a few detachments” from others, “driving back the Union line to the Purdy road” and enabling the Confederate army to “leisurely” walk away unmolested without our even suspecting it!

At the time Sherman came to us, Willich, with his large regiment, was just going into the open field and our reserve brigade—Kirke’s—was taking our position while we retired to the road to get a supply of ammunition which had come forward meantime; so that Sherman saw the advance and repulse of Willich, and the re-forming, deploying and advance of Rousseau’s brigade that so favorably attracted his attention as to merit official praise.

Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon we had pushed the enemy, still fighting, back to the vicinity of Shiloh Church. This, as afterward appeared, was Beauregard’s headquarters which he vacated about two o’clock, from prudential motives, and, manifestly by an afterthought, sought to minimize the fact of his own defeat by making it appear that an order to withdraw his army had been given long before. As a matter of fact, we know now from the records that the only order given was an order to the extreme wings of his army to fall back to this very point as a concentration of his forces against the center of our army.

Rousseau’s brigade continued its slow but relentless advance until we reached and passed the church itself, when the forces immediately in our front in the vicinity of the road broke in disorder, leaving, however, a considerable body of the enemy on our right against whom the regular battalions right-wheeled and whom we pursued half way through the former camps of Sherman’s troops lying parallel with the Shiloh branch, completing the rout of all the enemy’s forces in sight. They fled in disorder across the branch, and we were ordered to rejoin the brigade. At the final rout of the enemy at 4 o’clock p.m., we were astraddle of the camps of McDowell’s brigade of Sherman’s division, and this is what General Sherman refers to when he says in his report:

“At 4 p.m. we stood upon the ground of our original first line and the enemy were in full retreat.”

In this final movement the troops of Sherman took no part, nor was the division of General Lew Wallace or that of McClernand in sight. And this is what General Sherman admits by his frank confession that:

“General McCook’s splendid division drove back the enemy along the Corinth road which was the great center of the field of battle.”

This crisis of the battle really lasted from about noon, when we faced the point of water oaks, until four o’clock, when the enemy were routed and fleeing in confusion across Shiloh branch. If there was any rallying force at all on the other side of this branch, it made no demonstration and certainly it was not a battle line of the enemy as represented on the map of the commission. The only rear-guard stand mentioned in the reports was at a point two miles further on and a final stand by Breckinridge’s division at Mickey’s still further toward Monterey.

A few of the Confederate authorities place their final “withdrawal” at two o’clock, and a few others at three, but the overwhelming consensus of testimony of the reports place the final and complete rout of the enemy beyond the Shiloh Church at and after four o’clock; and Sherman again in [362] his report particularizes 4 p.m. as the close of the engagement (p. 254).

After the fighting was over, General Sherman came over to us in his camps of the day before, and, speaking to Major Carpenter (of the Nineteenth), complimented most highly the work of the brigade and particularly of the regular battalions.

It was about this time also that General Thomas J. Woods arrived at the front, at the head of a brigade of his division, and, as Major Lowe reminds me, demanded in no “Sunday school language” to be allowed to go forward in pursuit of the enemy. But the darkness was approaching, and the impossibility of handling new troops in the dark in a wilderness of black jack was manifest, and the pursuit was given over for the night.

The map of the commission shows Wood’s entire division in line with us and taking part at 2 p.m. in the great and final crisis of the day, in which the musketry fire was, as described by General Force, “more severe than any that occurred on the field in either of the two days of the battle.” Wood’s division was not there. One brigade came upon the field just as the fighting was over, at about four o’clock , and the other did not leave the landing until dark. General Force’s statement, substantially to the same effect in his history of the battle (p. 177 in the Scribner’s Series) is:

“Wood’s division, arriving too late to take part in the battle, pushed to the front and engaged his skirmishers with the light troops covering the retreat.”

General Buell’s report states the fact as I give it from my recollection.

A TYPE OF TABLET SHOWING SHAPE ADOPTED FOR SECOND DAY’S BATTLE. THIS PARTICULAR ONE MARKS A POINT ON “HORNET’S NEST”

In the year 1901, I addressed a letter to the Shiloh Battlefield Commission, at the invitation of its chairman, stating the substance of the personal recollections herein given, with a view to the correction of some very serious errors in its official blue print maps. In this letter I referred to between thirty and forty official reports of field organizations engaged in the battle, all showing that the errors complained of existed; but from that day to this no notice whatever has been taken of the letter.

I had not then the slightest idea that the commission intended to constitute [363] itself the official historian of the Battle of Shiloh—for certainly the law of its appointment contemplates no such thing. But, during the year 1903, there appeared from the press of the Government Printing Office, Washington, an innocent looking work bearing on its title page the following:

“Shiloh National Park Commission. The Battle of Shiloh, and the Organizations Engaged. Compiled from the Official Records by Major D. W. Reed, Historian and Secretary, under the Authority of the Commission, 1902. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1903.”

There follows, on a subsequent page, a preface addressed by the Chairman of the Commission—

“To Shiloh Soldiers”—in which, referring to the intent of the statute establishing the Shiloh National Military Park to perpetuate the history of the battle on the ground where it was fought, he expresses the desire of the commission that “this history” (meaning this publication) “shall be complete, impartial, and correct,” etc. He then states, that, “to ensure this accuracy, all reports have been carefully studied and compared. The records at Washington have been thoroughly searched and many who participated in the battle have been interviewed. ... It is, therefore, desired that the statements of the book be earnestly studied by every survivor of Shiloh and any errors or omissions be reported to the commission with a view to the publication of a revised edition of the report.”

This so-called official “history” of the battle contains in permanent form the same erroneous maps put forth as blue prints in 1901. The history proper devotes about sixteen pages to a description of the first day’s operations of the Army of the Tennessee, and one page to those of the second day covering the participation of the Army of the Ohio. Short as is the latter portion of the history, we learn that the weight of numbers really decided the issue before the fight began; and, while Beauregard made a show of resistance for a while, along about dinner time he sent Colonel Looney (of the Shiloh Battlefield Commission) with his regiment “augmented by detachments from other regiments,” who charged and “drove back the Union line,” and enabled Beauregard to safely cross Shiloh branch with his army and leisurely retire to Corinth thirty miles away! So skillfully was all this done, we are told, that the Confederate army “began to retreat at 2.30 p.m. without the least perception on the part of the enemy ” (the Union forces) “that such a movement was going on”—and this is put forth as “history!”

When we look at the maps to which we are referred in connection with this account of the second day’s battle, the astonishing accuracy and completeness of this contribution to history begins to dawn upon us. There we find that the Union troops, after a late breakfast, came upon the field and did a little skirmishing with the enemy, who, as the odds were against them, could not be expected to stay in the game, and withdrew while the Union forces were at dinner, without letting us know anything about it. And we are told that this is real history, based upon an exhaustive search and comparison of all the records, compiled by a distinguished official body, assisted by a “historian,” and this is published by the Government of the United States!

Lest it be thought that I exaggerate, let me here quote the principal portion of this veracious history of the second day’s battle. Beginning with the statement that the battle of the second day was opened by Lew Wallace attacking Pond’s brigade, it continues:

“The 20,000 fresh troops in the Union army made the contest an unequal one, and though stubbornly contested for a time, at about two o’clock General Beauregard ordered the withdrawal of his army. To secure the withdrawal he placed Colonel Looney of the Thirty-eighth Tennessee, with his regiment, augmented by detachments from other regiments, at Shiloh Church, and directed him to charge [364] the Union center. In this charge Colonel Looney passed Sherman’s headquarters and pressed the Union line back to the Purdy road; at the same time General Beauregard sent batteries across the Shiloh branch and placed them in battery on the high ground beyond. With these arrangements Beauregard at four o’clock safely crossed Shiloh branch with his army and placed his rear guard under Breckinridge in line upon the ground occupied by his army on Saturday night. The Confederate army retired leisurely to Corinth, while the Union army returned to the camps that it had occupied before the battle.”

The final touch—“the Union army returned to the camps it had occupied before the battle”—shows how negligible a quality, in the mind of these able historians, was the contribution of Buell’s fresh troops who seem to have been spectators but nothing more.

I was telling ole Wash the other night that I thought the President was a great man and that if he didn’t make any break from now on, as for instance about knocking out states’ rights and undue blowing about the devilish little Japs who are itching to scrap with us, he would rank among the great presidents.

The old man was thoughtful for awhile, looking into the fire.

“Wal, boss, he sho’ is got all the year-marks—a senserble, dermestic wife an’ no signs of a muther-in-law. Now, sah, befo’ eny man kin be great he must fus’ ax his wife an’ arter he gits her consent he mus’ ax his muther-in-law. Now, sah, no man kin be great, don’t keer how much ’bility he’s got, if his wife is in society an’ his muther-in-law is in de house. You can look all down de line, sah, an’ when you finds dat combinashun you’ll find a man whose growin’ gourd of greatness is liable to wilt eny day, like Job’s, at de fus’ good jolt it gits. Wid both of ’em in society an’ both in de’ house, why, Lord, boss, his gourd will nurver even sprout!

“Did I urver tell you ’bout my ’sperience in dat line an’ how nigh I cum to missin’ greatness, all on account of a few muther-in-laws? It wuz a close shave an’ if I hadn’t seed de way de ship wuz headed an’ steered out from dat combernashun, instead of bein’ de gent’man an’ floserpher whose ’pinions you so highly values,” he chuckled modestly, “you’d a had a ole nigger fit only fur de woodpile an’ de blackin’ bresh.

“Boss,” he laughed as he bit off a chew of Brazil Leaf Twist, bred in the hills of Maury, “did you kno’ the ole man am a Only? The only man dat ever lived dat had fo’ muther-in-laws at unct—driv’ a fo’-in-han’ of ’em, so to speak! Oh, I kno’ what you ’bout to say, sah,—but mine wuz legitermates, de actu’l product of de law an’ matremony.”

“Nonsense,” I said, “you couldn’t have been married to four women at once, as sly an old coon as you are. Though I did hear Marse Nick Akin say that he knew of his own knowledge that you once had three wives but gave two of them to the preacher if he would make you an elder in his church, which bargain was duly consummated. Oh, I knew you were driving a very long string of tandems, old man, but four abreast? Tell about it.”

He laughed so loud the pointer jumped up from his bed on the rug and barked.

“Did Marse Nick vi’late de conferdence [365] I composed in his veracity?” he laughed again. “Wal, I jis’ well tell it fur you’ll nurver guess how it wuz.

“Long in de fifties I spliced up wid a likely young widder dat wuz de sod-relic of Brer Simon Harris, a ’piscopal brudder up at Nashville. Befo’ dat she had been de relic of several gent’men of color. Fur a week or so I wuz so busy co’rtin’ her dat I wa’n’t very ’tickler jis’ whut her entitlements an’ habilerments wuz, nur jis’ whut mineral rights an’ easements went wid de property.

“I’ve allers noticed it’s dat a way in de co’rtin’ stage an’ hits a wise dispensashun of ole Marster to trap us all into matremony an’ make us blin’, like snakes in August; an’ eb’ry one of us, when he gits his seckin’ sight arter de entrapment, wakes up to fin’ dat in de deed to de state of matremony dar has been passed wid de free-hold a few hererditerments dat he didn’t cal’late went wid de lan’.

“Sum of us, of co’rse nurver gits dey seckin’ sight at all.

“But I ain’t talkin’ of dem. I’ve nurver writ a fool’s almernac yit!

“But I claims I am de only man dat urver got fo’ muther-in-laws, when I didn’t ’spec’ to git eny!

“Arter a breef but very pinted co’rtship, in which I done de usual close-settin’, low-layin’ an’ tall lyin’, I hitched up my team an’ driv’ up to Nashville an’ married Sally. Arter de circus I driv’ de team ’round to de door fur to carry her home an’ I went in fur to pack up her things. I got ’em all in one big box, fur Brer Simon hadn’t been very felicertus in passin’ round de hat, an’ when I tuck it out to de wag’n dar sot Sally an’ fo’ uther ladies all es cheerful an’ happy as fo’ ole tabby-cats in a hay loft.

“’Dese am my muthers, Wash,’ sez Sally sweetly, ’an’ of co’rse dey am all gwine to lib wid us.’”

“‘Look heah, gal,’ sez I sorter faintly, ‘I ain’t nurver heerd of enybody havin’ mor’n one muther.”

“‘Dese other three am jes’ as dear,’ seys she, p’intin’ to de three ole ladies, ‘dat’s Simon’s muther, dat’s mine, an’ dem two ober dar—’

“Boss, I nearly had a fit! Do you kno’ dat gal had de muthers of ebry one of her fus’ husbands dar an’ claimin’ dey wuz mighty nigh to her?

“Dar wa’n’t nothin’ to do but to git a divorcement an’ as I wa’n’t quite ready fur dat yit, I made de bes’ of it an’ driv’ off; but I knowed if dar wuz ever a day when I needed sum brains now wuz de time. An’ de three sod muthers,—dat wuz de entitlement I gib to de three muthers of Sally’s dead husbands,—dey wuz jes’ plain ole grannies, wid de usual tongue an’ de perviserty fer huntin’ up trouble dat wuz natu’lly predistined fur sumbody else.

“But Sally’s muther she wuz a fine lookin’ ’oman, jes a shade heftier an’ handsumer than Sally so I teched her mighty tenderly an’ gin her to onderstan’ dat I fully intended to fulfill to de letter de scrip’tul injunshuns of filial affecshuns. She wuz a hefty ’oman, boss, but she wuz es bossy es she wuz hansum, es I found out. De day she landed at home, sah, I seed she’d sot in to own de place an’ in two weeks, sah, sides ownin’ Sally an’ de sod-muthers, she owned de mules, de cow, de pigs an’ de farm, me an’ my ’ligious convicshuns an’ perlitical preferment.

“But es I wuz sayin’, boss, she wuz a han’sum ’oman!

“Now I’m allers willin’ to be bossed fur a while by a handsum ’oman, but when it comes to dat batch of ole sod-muthers dat looked like busted bags of dried apples, dat wuz a nurr thing. But I’ve noticed dar is allers a kin’ of communercashun ’mong women folks es to de bossin’ of a man. It jis’ travels by grapevine, or dis here wireless business in de air, to de end dat when one ’oman kin boss a man all of ’em think dey can do it.

“An’ dey think right, only in dis case de thinkin’ hadn’t all ben dun yit. So dey all jes’ put me down as dead easy.

“I let ’em hab free han’ till de honeymoon wuz over. I didn’ think I orter mix eny vinegar wid dat; but by dat time de whole tribe of ’em wuz [366] needin’ sum of de salt dat Lot’s wife got, an’ mebbe sum of de fire an’ brimstone dat wuz de ’casion of her saltin’. Wal, sah, dey sot in fur infairs an’ didn’t do nuthin’ but eat fur two weeks. I had to give ’em three infairs myself an’ then they gin to nose aroun’ an’ git my naburs to have infairs. Fur two weeks mo’ dar wa’n’t nuffin but infairs fur de bride, an’ groom, fur my naburs wuz polite, all wucked up by dese sod-muthers, till dey wuzn’t a chicken or shote left in five miles of my home, an’ if dar had been a hard winter an’ de white folks’ chickens had-roosted high, we would a had a hard time of it.

“Wal, I stood dat, ’caze dar wuz a honeymoon an’ good eatin’ gwine on wid it, but ’long ’bout de thud week when de sod-mammies gin to tell me how I orter roach my hair an’ run my farm I gin to lay my plans fur acshun.

“Dey wuz all ’piscopaliuns, boss, es I wuz sayin’, an’ dey bleeved tarible in Good Friday; an’ ev’ry Friday wuz Good Friday wid dem when it come to eatin’. When I seed my chickens all gwine an’ de pigs an’ sich, I got so disgusted wid dese Good Fridays dat I wanted to be a jay-bird fur a while so I cud git off to hell ebry Friday myse’f! Frum dat dey begin to rub it in to me ’bout baptism an’ so forth an’ dat didn’t tend to make me change in de resolushuns I had fixed up. I went on fixin’ my plans an’ layin’ low, meek as Moses outwardly but inwardly full of wrath.

“By dis time dey gin to ax in all de bredderin of de chu’ch to he’p ’em eat an’ settin’ up by moonlight wid ’em a holdin’ han’s an’ prayin’. Now, boss, de hefty one nurver mixed up in dese small things—she wuz layin’ fur bigger game. She seed de sod-muthers wuz managin’ it all right an’ as she knowed she owned dem an’ Sally an’ dey all owned me, why she let it res’ at dat.

“Sides dat, as I sed, she wuz a han’sum ’oman!

“I let it run on till de time whut dey call Ash We’nesday come, when dey all had a feast an’ special prayers fur de souls of all who had died frum de beginnin’ of de worl’ till den,—or sumpin’ nurr like it. I had already spent all my money an’ dey had ordered lumber fur a new house, ’sides orgernizin’ a society to build de nigger preacher in town a rookery. Dey called it a pay supper—an’ I did all de payin’! It wuz all to cum off de night of Ash We’nesday.

“Now dat Ash biziness sot me to thinkin’. Here wuz my home turned into a karnival of noise an’ carousin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ hoodoo’in’, an’ me payin’ fur it.

“‘Wal,’ sez I to myse’f, ‘I’ll jes’ turn dis thing into a Ash We’nesday sho’ nuff, so I goes out an’ cuts down a ash tree an’ makes me a good, lithe stick dat would knock a bull down, an’ den bounce back into yo’ han’s. Dat wuz fur de bredderin. Den I broke up a good ash-bar’l an’ made de paddles handy fur de sisterin, an’ I sot ’em in de corner behin’ de cup’ard.

“De night cum, but by dat time dey didn’t keer enuff fur me to ax me into de feast. I wuz jes’ a common ole Baptis’ nigger. I waited till dey wuz all dar, de sod-muthers in white apruns, candles burnin’ an’ dude niggers an’ niggeresses frum town and ev’ry whar, all s’posin’ to be payin’ fur a thing dat finally cum outen my pocket. I walked in an’ sot down by de fire, but befo’ I got sot good, one of dem dude niggers put a insultment on me.

“Dat suit me all right. I didn’t want to start de fight in my own house—dat wa’n’t good manners—but soon es dat nigger put de insultment on me, I wuz reddy.

“‘Frien’s, sez I, ‘I am a plain ole Baptis’ nigger, but es I onderstan’ it, dis am Ash We’nesday.’

“‘You bet it am, ole Moses,’ sez one of de dudes, ‘an’ it ain’t a good place fur Baptists to eat—dey am liabul to hab de collect!’

“I didn’t see de p’int, but dey did, an’ all laf’d.

“‘Yes,’ sez I, ‘he mout, but he is mor’n apt to hab stumic enuff left to read de burial sarvices over a few dudes,’ an’ I lit in. I’d locked de do’ [367] but fergot de winder; but I hearn tell arterwards dat only two niggers got out of dar wid a soun’ head, an’ dey didn’t stop runnin’ till Easter mo’nin’!

“I lit on de sod-muthers early in de game wid de staves of de ash bar’l till dey wuz meet fur repentunce, an’ de nex’ mo’nin’ I sent ’em back to town whar I foun’ dey all had husban’s livin’ dat dey had quit fur a easier job. Wal, dey had to take ’em back.

“Now, boss, I wuz keerful not to hurt Sally an’ her mammy—dey wuz both han’sum women, es I wuz sayin’.

“I wuz now rid of de sod-muthers, but how to git rid of Sally’s mammy wuz de nex p’int. I’d figured dat out too, case es I said, she wuz a han’sum ’oman. De tacticks I used, boss, is whut’ll s’prize you.

“Bout de thud night when I had her alone for a while on de little porch an’ we wuz waitin’ fur Sally to git supper, fur she had gone to wuck in earnest arter she seed how handy I wuz wid de ash bar’l, sez I:

“‘A good meny men hab muther-in-laws dat am homely. I’m mighty proud of mine,’ sez I, ‘she is so han’sum.’

“‘Why, Washin’tun!’ she sez, ‘does you really think so?’

“I seed it tickled her, an’ arter a while I slipped over closer an’ sed:

“‘An’ I nurver seed a muther-in-law wid sech b’utiful eyes as you is got,’ an’ I took her han’.

“Dat wuz mor’n she cu’d stan’ on a col’ collar an’ you orter seed her light out—light out an’ he’p git supper, too!

“I let it res’ at dat. I’ve noticed dat too many fo’ks plants dey truck too fas’ in de spring. An’ at de same time I’ve nurver let a late frost keep me frum believin’ it’ll be summer by an’ by.

“De nex’ night I sot out on de po’ch ag’in arter a hard day’s wuck an’ I tuck my stan’ whar I wuz de night befo’ fur I knowed de ole doe allers crosses de creek at de same place. Sho ’nuff, by an’ by heah she cum tipperty-tip—tipperty-tip .

“An’ all she wanted wuz to ax me if I thought de weather wuz gwine ter change! I sot up close ag’in an’ sed:

“‘Sum times a man makes a great mistake by marryin’ in too big a hurry.’

“‘How’s dat?’ she sed, tickled to death an’ nestlin’ up to me.

“‘Why,’ sez I, ‘he marries de gal an’ den he fin’s out dat whut ’ud suit him bes’ wuz de muther-in-law—shoots at de doe an’ kills de fawn,’ sez I, slippin’ my arm aroun’ her wais’.

“Up she jumps ag’in an’ goes up mad lak an’ big es a balloon.

“‘Ain’t you ’shamed of yo’se’f?’ sez she. ‘I’m gwine right in an’ tell Sally.’

“I knowed she wouldn’t an’ I set back an’ chuckled. It wuz all wuckin’ to suit me an’ I seed dar would soon be a complete separashun of de chu’ch an’ de state.

“Now, boss, you’ll wonder des why I’d play es hefty an’ han’sum a ’oman es she is sich a trick, but I ’cided dat one wife in de house am enuff in dat place.

“De thud night I had it fixed. I knowed she’d gone off mad, but I knowed a ’oman, arter one huggin’, is like a dog burryin’ a bone—he’ll leave it fur awhile, but he’s sho to cum back to it ag’in! I jes’ waited an’ let her cum back, fixin’ my plans. I tole Sally to set down in one corner of de po’ch in de dark an’ keep quiet—dat I had a s’prize fer her to sho’ how her virtuous husban’ wuz bein’ inticed by de Philistine.

“Dat wuz enuff—she sot.

“I waited till dark fore I cum an’ den I stomped aroun’, washed my face an’ han’s, an’ lit my pipe. An’ heah she cum tipperty-tip an’ all she wanted to kno’ wuz, if de moon had riz !

“Boss, I let her do de talkin’, fur she wuz ripe fur it, an’ ’bout de time she tole me dat she lubbed me frum de fus’ an’ dat I orter married her stead of Sally, I heerd a scufflin’ in de co’ner,—Sally riz up, dar wuz much excitement an’ scatterment of hair an’ when it wuz over dar wuz nobody on dat place but me an’ Sally, an’ I owned her .”

MRS. PAUL LANSING

Versailles, Kentucky

Buck, Washington

[369]

MISSES THEODORA AND MARGUERITE SHONTS

Twin daughters of Theodore P. Shonts, of Daphne, Alabama, Washington and Panama

[370]

MRS. WILLIAM BAILEY LAMAR

Monticello, Florida

[371]

MISS OLIVE WIGGINS

Daughter of F. Lafayette Wiggins, Nashville

Turner, Nashville

[372]

MRS. SYDNEY JOHNSTON BOWIE

Anniston, Alabama

Buck, Washington

MARY WASHINGTON

Our forefathers were great fighters and excelled the world as makers of history, but unfortunately for us, they were not writers of it. When a duty was done or a great victory gained it seemed not to demand the attention from them that we of the present day think it deserved, but was set aside with perhaps a brief record. It had to make way for new duties demanded by the exigencies of the times.

While they carried the weight of the nation on their young shoulders, they have left us only “shreds and patches” from which to deduce anything like specific exactness of the manners and customs of those early days of our great country. It is, therefore, difficult to elaborate the conditions of the country and particularly the distinctive qualities which made up the social life of those who evolved and produced, to us, the best government in all the world.

The peculiar conditions of early times invest our greatest leaders with additional interest and make the fact of their greatness stand out all the more clearly. Schools were few and travel much restricted. Only about [374] thirty families had good libraries. To the women of that day has been ascribed the honor of training the great men of the nation. George Washington was only eleven years old when his father died. His mother daily taught him from a manual of maxims which he preserved and often consulted in after life. A French general, after a visit to Mary Washington, said, “No wonder America produces such great men when they have such mothers.”

Thomas Jefferson’s father died when he was fourteen. His mother was said to have been unusually refined and intellectual, evincing much literary taste in the art of letter-writing. This was the only field open to a woman with literary proclivities at that time. It was from her he inherited his intellect, and in the training of her boy all that was best and noblest in her was brought to bear upon the formation of his character. These two mothers of great men are not exceptions. History records the names of many noble women who have devoted their lives to their children, not only in Virginia, but elsewhere.

Virginians admired the king and the nobility but liked their own rights better. They loved the pride and pomp of aristocracy, but this was only a matter of taste. When it came to losing a freeman’s right they relegated their aristocratic tastes to the background. They loved the solemn ritual of the church. Governor Spottswood describes the Virginians of his time as “living in gentlemanly conformity with the Church of England,” and the famous old chapel, built in 1632, now familiarly called Old Bruton Church, is consecrated by many hallowed associations. Here worshiped the dauntless Spottswood, himself, as well as Lord de Botetourt, Lord Dunmore and many others in a pew elevated from the main floor and richly canopied. And here worshiped many men whose names are indissolubly bound up with the conception of this grand commonwealth. The churchyard is the place of sepulture of some of Virginia’s most distinguished men.

WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE

Nearly all the great Virginians were [375] descended from the Cavaliers. Washington was the great-grandson of one of them, and Madison, Monroe, the Randolphs, Richard Henry Lee, and others were also descendants of royalists. Virginia succeeded in keeping out the importation of felons. A number of redemptioners, or political prisoners, who were sold by the English government to speculators, were traded in the colonies, but misfortune being their only crime, they became in most cases useful citizens.

The men of that time were fond of sport. Washington was ever an enthusiastic fox hunter. Patrick Henry was devoted to the woods, fields and streams; he also played the fiddle and danced with keenest zest. Social life was ideal at that time. Each plantation was a small principality and they vied with each other in hospitality. It was not unusual for a carriage full of guests to arrive without warning, and the visitors and their retinue were the recipients of the most lordly hospitality for days and sometimes weeks. Card playing was much in vogue, and under great provocation an oath or two was sometimes found to be the only expression that could do the situation justice. It is said Washington swore heartily at General Stephens for losing the battle of Germantown on account of drunkenness.

The dance after supper went without saying, to the music of “the fiddlers three.” It was a delight in which the stately Washington often indulged, with, it may be shrewdly guessed, the belle of the ball for a partner. In the hall of William and Mary College hangs a picture which represents him dancing the minuet with Mary Cary. The Virginia Reel called for the whole company. Flushed and breathless, full of laughter and fun they threaded its mazes in the wee sma’ hours.

TAZEWELL HALL

William and Mary College, the oldest of the American colleges except Harvard, is situated in the old colonial capital, Williamsburg, sometimes called The Middle Plantation. Before the college was burned the first time it had many rare volumes marked with the coats of arms of royalty and noblemen whose names were connected with its early days. Within its walls were trained the youth of the eighteenth century who were to consecrate their lives to the cause of liberty. The Reverend James Blair was its founder and its first president. He went to London and unfolded his scheme of Christianizing the Indians and educating the youth of America. Queen Mary warmly approved of his plan. King William was equally agreeable and gave an order for two thousand pounds sterling to be used in the erection of the buildings. But when Seymour, the Attorney-General, received the order to draw up the charter and pay the money, he was enraged. The nation was engaged in an expensive war, he said, and needed the money for other and better purposes—why was a college wanted in Virginia, anyhow? Mr. Blair explained its purpose as being that of preparing young men for the ministry, adding that the people of Virginia had souls to save as well as the people of England. The idea struck Seymour as particularly [376] absurd and maudlin; his retort, historically recorded, was: “Souls! ⸺ your souls! Make tobacco!”

BASSETT HALL

The Phi Beta Kappa Society, the first fraternal society in this country, was organized at William and Mary December 5th, 1776, and the first meeting was held in the Apollo room at the Raleigh tavern.

Jefferson, the first Democrat, was in 1764, five years after Washington had been happily married to Martha Custis, a gay young student at Williamsburg, or “Devilsburg,” as he wrote of it, in a letter to a friend, expressing himself as being “as happy last night as dancing with Belinda in the Apollo room” could make him.

How close it brings our heroes, to know intimately their youthful loves and pleasures! “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” To the same chum, who seems to be in a like manner transfixed with Cupid’s dart, he writes later: “Have you any glimmering of hope? How does ⸺ do? Had I better stay here and do nothing or go down there and do less? Inclination tells me to go, receive my sentence and be no longer in suspense; but reason says, ‘If you go and your attempt proves unsuccessful you will be ten times more wretched than ever!’——I hear Ben Harrison has been to Wilton. Let me know his success.” Ben Harrison’s success at Wilton, where he was courting Anne Randolph, a cousin of Jefferson, was greater than his own, for she married him and had the honor of being the wife of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a governor of Virginia. Jefferson’s sweetheart might have sat in like high places if she had only smiled a little more. “Cupid lacks the gift of prophecy and Fame will not tell her secrets till the time comes, for the sweetest lips that ever smiled.” Lucy Grymes, a cousin, is said to have been one of his sweethearts, also beautiful Mary Coles, the mother of Dolly Madison. It is told of Washington that before he arrived at wealth and distinction, he went courting Mary Cary and was asked out of the house by her father, the [377] old colonel, on the ground that his daughter had been accustomed to ride in her own coach.

MONUMENT AT YORKTOWN

The Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg still holds much that is interesting. The foundation of the old Capitol lies at one end and one mile away at the other end still flourishes the old college, William and Mary. The courthouse, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, bids fair to last for generations yet. Across the green stands Tazewell Hall, with its “ghost rooms high up under the eaves.” This was the home of the Randolphs. Bassett Hall is on the other side and is noted as having entertained Lafayette within its walls. Thomas Moore was also entertained here. It was at this house he first saw the fireflies, which he immortalized in his poem on the Dismal Swamp.

Martha Washington’s kitchen is yet to be seen not far from Governor Spottswood’s old Powder-Horn. Governor Dunmore’s ice house is still shown to strangers. Dunmore was the last of the royal governors. Patrick Henry, as was fitting, was the first American governor to take his [378] seat in the vice-regal palace which has now entirely disappeared to make way for a model school.

YORKTOWN

There are two monuments at Yorktown to commemorate the surrender of Cornwallis, and the old customhouse still stands, with moss-peaked roof, thick walls, massive oaken doors and shutters. It is said to have been the first customhouse erected in America.

In the colonial period, says a popular writer, it was the rendezvous of the gentlemen of the town and country surrounding it. It was there that the haughty young aristocrats took snuff, fondled their hounds and probably talked over the last Assembly ball, and, mayhap, laughed about the conquests made of their colleagues by the bright eyes of the country-side belles.

There still stands an old weather-boarded mansion whose antique roof and fireplaces set across the corners demand for it the reverence inspired in us by a relic of bygone days. Here in the sitting room were drawn up the articles of capitulation and surrender. It was historical long before that, as being the country residence of Governor Spottswood. Here he held his mimic court, entertaining in the most lavish and ostentatious manner his knights of the Golden Horse Shoe. Not far away is the foundation of a curious building said to have been a temple of worship built by Governor Spottswood. The spectacular taste of the governor gives this an appearance of truth which is borne up by the name of the surrounding plantation. It is called Temple Farm.

A dishonest man doesn’t care for honest criticism.

Don’t stop to think if you can think without stopping.

Energy keepeth her eyes open twenty-four hours every day.

Life is a chain of duties. Discharge one, and another looms up ahead.

Do as you please as long as you please, as long as you please to do right.

It is hard for a man to hang to the religion that he hangs on the outside of himself.

While the lazy man lies in bed dreaming of success, energy gets up and hustles for it.

Some people are so busy grieving over being poor that they have no time to begin to get rich.

Some men are so liberal in their criticism that they forget to compliment the deeds that please.

It is easy to follow the path of an optimist on account of the sunshine he leaves behind him.

Work is a lazy man’s enemy. So long as he loves not his enemy religion abideth not with him.

When in Rome do as Rome does—not want you to do. Do as Rome ought to do, or as right requires.

The rich man is seldom as thankful for his wealth as the hungry tramp always is when a morsel of bread comes his way.

While some men are waiting for a rich relative to die and leave them a fortune they could attend to business and make one.

A little man brags of his bravery when the danger is past. The man who is really brave doesn’t need to brag. His friends do it for him.

CHAPTER XVI

By John Trotwood Moore

[ Note. —The History of this remarkable family of horses was begun in the first number of Trotwood’s Monthly , and has proven to be so popular that nearly all of the back numbers of the magazine have been bought up and bound by the admirers of this great family of horses. Orders are coming in daily, often as many as ten to twenty, for a complete set of last year’s Trotwood . We regret, therefore, that we will be unable to furnish back numbers much longer. This History will be continued during the year, including the story of Brown Hal, Star Pointer, Mattie Hunter, Hal Dillard, Old Brooks, Star Hal, Hal B., and many others now known to fame. It will close with a beautiful tribute to the life and the career of Edward F. Geers, the “Silent Man from Tennessee,” who is to the turf world what Napoleon was to war.—Pubs. Taylor-Trotwood .]

THE REVERY RACE

“Seeing an article in a turf paper about pacing horses being natural swimmers,” remarked a friend to Trotwood a few days ago, “reminds me of an experience I had a dozen years ago down in the piney woods of Alabama, that convinced me that whether a pacer is a born swimmer or not, one thing is certain, the trotting horse I was driving that February day didn’t act like he was a South Sea Islander, by any means.

“You see,” he said, as a companionable crowd of horsemen gathered around him, and passed around the cigar box, as a sign that a story was about to begin, “I had been courting down in that state and made up my mind that I wanted to marry a blue-eyed, pretty daughter of old Major Blank, and I had about half way convinced the girl that she wanted to marry me, when this infernal non-swimming horse had about upset the whole thing. I hadn’t seen the girl for about a month, so I boarded the cars one bright day in February for a short visit. I took precaution to get the best ring I could find in Nashville within my means—I knew the fit of her finger pretty well—and I was as dead certain of leaving that ring in [380] Alabama on the fourth finger of a dimpled hand as I am to-day that little Robert J. could pace round a draft horse.

“I stopped at a small town, ten miles from where she lived in the country, at the house of a friend of mine, for I had to hire a buggy and drive through to the Major’s, as he lived off the railroad. According to agreement, the young lady had written me a letter to that point, telling me how glad they all would be to see me, accenting the “all,” and ending up with a message that made my heart beat like a thumped horse, and enclosing a bunch of violets tied with a few deshabille strands of her own sunset hair. By the way, this was in February as I remarked, but what was the name of that poet that said, ‘love comes like a summer’s sigh?’

“Well, that letter made it July with me.

“I would have been a married man with an interesting family to-day,” he remarked after a pause, with a sigh, “if that friend of mine hadn’t been so everlastingly clever. He had a dish-faced trotter he had bought up in Kentucky, at one of Shanklin’s sales, that could go a mile in that Alabama sand in about five minutes, and do it with such a rip and tear and splutter and dirt throwing that you would think he was trotting ’round the world in eighty days. I had often bragged on the beast, just to please my clerking friend, who thought I knew every trotting horse personally, in the world, and now I got in to it by being so complimentary. Nothing would do but I must drive that old, shying, crow-hopping fool. And I had it to do. After I got him out of town he quit shying at the tree shadows and the black-jack stumps on the road side, and I thought I was getting along pretty well. Considering the fact that I was looking into a pair of blue eyes all the way, and putting a ring on an imaginary finger every mile I went, while the trusting hand to which it was attached nestled coyly between my two big ones, and I smelt the sweet perfume of violets in a wavy mass of auburn hair that nestled, in my mind’s eye, on my breast, I got along without any other accident; but was about to drive into a pretty rapid sheet of water in my dreaming, and perhaps end my own and Old Crow’s—the horse’s—career at the same time, when I heard a gruff voice with true Southern accent and a native nonchalance, say:

“‘You doan’t wanter go in washin’ this early in the season, do you, sah?”

“Well, I didn’t, and I waked up in time to stop the fool horse and back him out. The stranger watched me get out and then proceeded to tell me what I hadn’t had sense enough to see before—that Raccoon Creek was on a boom and Dead Deer Slough, into which I was driving, would swim a horse most anywhere. Now, a slough, in the far South, is a low, marshy place near the borders of a creek or lake, and, while generally dry in summer, in winter it manages to get plenty of water from the overflowing creek or lake nearby. This one ran directly across the road leading up to the foot of the bridge spanning Raccoon Creek beyond, and, though the bridge was partly under water, I could see it was all right and fully half of it, on the highest curve, was clear of water. Moreover, the other part was built on the bluff side of the creek and seemed to be entirely clear. So if I could only get to the bridge I would be all right.

“‘You had better give it up to-day, sah, and wait till mornin’,’ said the stranger, who appeared much interested in my movements. ‘The slough will run down by then, and you can get on the bridge easy. If there are no stoops in it’—I afterwards learned that stoops meant holes washed out by the water—‘you will find no trouble getting over. I’ll take keer of you, sah,’ he added, with true Southern hospitality, ‘for I want somebody to play euchre with to-night. It’s been raining for five days, and I knew old Rack would be scudding along, so I just rode down here to watch her, sah.’

[381]

“I thanked him, but told him I was going over. I was young, boys, and the picture of the old Major’s parlor with the big wood fire sending sparks up the chimney and then dying down to adjust the shadowy light necessary for the ring scene and the tableau act, was too much for my youthful head.

“‘But can that horse there swim?’ said the Southerner, with a more serious expression. ‘It isn’t every horse that can, my young frien’, an’ you had better know what he can do before you go into this mud-hole, sah.’

“‘Oh, I’ll soon teach him,’ I said, with one of those laughs that a man with more brass than sense is frequently caught indulging in. ‘He’ll have to swim or drown and you know he’ll swim before he’ll do that.’

“But right there is where I failed to size up that slanting-headed descendant of old Messenger.

“Well, the Southerner was very quiet and did not intrude his opinion on me further. He sized me up about right and decided to let me go it. The buggy was out of the question so I took old Crow out. Stripped him of everything but the bridle and put the lap robe on his back to help break the angularity of my seat. By the Southerner’s advice I pulled off my pants and underclothing, tying them around my shoulders, thrust my stockings in my upper coat pocket to keep them dry, tied my shoestrings together and threw my shoes over my shoulders, mounted my steed and spurred him with my trembling heels—for I was beginning to shake a little—into the slough. The stranger told me to let the horse have the bit and keep him to the right of a line of willows which he said skirted the road. By no means was I to jerk the beast, but guide him gently to right or left with the line.

“Right here, I want to explain to you that that horse had been listening to us and had decided that now was the time for him to suicide—a thought he had had in his mind for a year or two, I am sure. By doing the job now he expected to kill two birds with one stone, and I was the other bird—a jay at that—for, looking back at that roaring flood from the standpoint of fifteen years’ more sense, I am sure nobody but an idiot would ever have tried it. Well, we went in and I headed him for the willows, and the water crept up to my feet, then to my knees and was soon on the horse’s withers. Right here I expected to see him sail off with me on his back, his tail streaming out, his head on the wave, his ears laid back and his nostrils dilated and sending his steamy breath right and left; but not much of a sail he made. I forgot to tell you he had the longest neck I ever saw on a horse, but I didn’t know it was as long as it was, or I’d never have gone in that slough. Why, that neck was a telescope, and after he got me in up to the armpits he just lengthened it out a notch or two above the waves whenever he wanted to. I am not much on mathematics, but I saw that, as he then held it, it was fully six inches higher than the top of my hat, and I imagined I saw the faintest trace of a satanic grin on his under lip as he let her out another link and looked back at me, as much as to say:

“‘Well, how do you like swimming?”

“I reached for my pocket knife to cut his throat, but found I didn’t even have on my drawers, and just then the water gurgled up under my chin and splashed in my ears and that brute winked his left eye as he let out another notch in that old telescopic neck of his and walked along like he was on dress parade. By this time we were half-way across, and nothing but my nose was out. I was just thinking of getting up on his back on my knees, when he stepped in a little washout and my head went under like a cork. I turned loose everything to get air again, and was swept off before I could say ‘Scat.’ I grasped a willow just as I heard the stranger, who had been sitting on a big, sloping-shouldered gray Hal pacer, hello to me [382] to hold on, and his horse soon swam out to the willow as naturally as if he had done it every day for a year. He circled in about forty feet of water before reaching me, and, telling me to catch his horse by the tail, he swam quietly by and I lost no time in doing as he said and getting back to land. I lost my ten-dollar pants, but this was more than offset by the hundred-dollars’ worth of common sense I had tucked away in my head on the different ways in which horses swim.

“And that horse—well, we sat on the bank and watched that head go leisurely across, lengthening out when it struck a washout and contracting on the ridges, with that same ironical grin part—the ugliest mouth I ever saw on a horse. At last he struck the bridge, clambered up, shook himself like a wet dog, looked back to see if I was taking it all in, and struck out to the Major’s on his own hook.

“But the worst was yet to come. Just as I landed I heard a buggy turn a sharp bend in the road, drive up to where the Southerner and his horse were pulling me out and—great Caesar!—there sat in the buggy old Major Blank and the angel of my dreams. The girl shrieked and ducked her head under the lap robe, while I jumped back in that slough to hide the southern half of me, and tried to commit suicide by drowning, but my youthful head was so corky I couldn’t keep it under water long enough. The old Major drove off and started to his home by another route, the kind gentleman fished me out again, more dead than alive and I went home, with my new friend just in time to have a hard chill. I was sick two weeks, during which time I got it pretty straight that my clerking friend had been courting my blue-eyed beauty for six months himself, and I will always believe that he loaned me that horse just to get me out of the way. Anyway, three days afterwards he went down to the Major’s to get the old horse, stayed all night and fixed the wedding day, while I was swimming imaginary sloughs with my pulse at 105½.

“I got back home as quickly as I could, and now, when I go to buy a horse, I never ask, ‘How fast can he go?’ but ‘How far can he swim?’”

And my bachelor friend struck up a whistle which sounded like “After the Ball” and walked off.

“Very few people”, said Capt. Robert D. Smith, of Columbia, Tenn., “know that the late Gen. Wm. B. Bate, who died United States Senator from Tennessee, told one of the most pathetic horse stories of the war. General Bate was here before his death, attending the Confederate reunion, and I reminded him of the incident and got him to relate it again as it happened. I never saw him so much touched as when he told again of the attachment of his horse, Black Hawk, for him, and the animal’s pathetic death at Shiloh. General Bate is very modest and no braver man ever lived; but I was there and saw the incident and can tell you how it was. At the battle of Shiloh General Bate was then colonel of the Second Tennessee. He had two horses which he used; one, an ordinary, everyday horse which he rode on the march and other rough service; the other was a magnificent black stallion—a thoroughbred and Hal horse—black as a crow and as beautiful as you ever saw. He was a very stout horse, not leggy as some thoroughbreds are, but symmetrical and shapely, and as the General always took a lively interest in horses, this one had been selected for him with great care and at a good deal of expense. By the way, General Bate says he has since heard of a number of Black Hawk’s sons and other descendants making most creditable races. This horse was splendidly equipped and used by Colonel Bate only for parades, long marches where stamina was needed and for battle. The night before the battle of Shiloh the commoner horse was stolen, and the next morning at daylight I remember [383] what a superb looking object our colonel presented on this magnificent animal, who looked fit to race for a kingdom or charge over the guns of Balaklava.

“Men may talk about Gettysburg, Franklin and other battles of the war, but I want to see no stubborner or bloodier fight than we had down there amid the woods, around that little church and on the banks of the Tennessee. You may know what kind of company we had to entertain us, when I say that we struck Sherman’s line first. Time and again we drove them back and as often they reformed and stubbornly contested every foot of the way. The usual position of a colonel is thirty feet to the rear of his regiment, and it was in that position that Colonel Bate first went into the fight. The enemy gave way after the first hard fight—in fact, I will always think we took them a little unawares, though I know that both Generals Sherman and Grant did not think so, probably owing to the fact that they were not at the front when we began the fight, not having anticipated it to begin so soon—but arriving soon after they heard the guns. At the next stand they gave it to us hot, and it was here our lines were nearly broken and it was here that Colonel Bate had to put himself in front of his regiment before they would charge with enough determination to drive the boys in blue again. All this time the battle was raging everywhere. We had driven the Federal army past Shiloh church, and towards the river, where they finally made the desperate stand that stopped us the next day after Buell’s arrival.

“Time and again Colonel Bate led us against Sherman’s brave boys—that thoroughbred horse and rider always in front. Once he made us a short speech just before we had to charge again, having been repulsed at the first attempt. He said he wanted us only to follow him and he would not take us where he would not go himself. This last fight was terrible. Before we struck the enemy Colonel Bate was shot out of the saddle, the men fell around us right and left and we charged on leaving all as they fell.

“Now the remarkable thing was that horse. When Colonel Bate fell the horse seemed to be at a loss what to do. But as the regiment swept on, he quickly fell into his place just in the rear of the regiment and followed us on into battle. We must have fought on for a half mile after that, and it was a strange sight to see that horse following the regiment as stately as if on dress parade, and it touched every man to see him riderless.

“At the first opportunity an ambulance was sent back to find the colonel and take him to the field hospital, some three miles in the rear. In the confusion no one had thought of Black Hawk, but it seemed he had not forgotten his brave rider, for he actually followed the path made by his colonel, or rather those who carried him to the hospital—almost tracking him by his blood—straight up to the hospital tent, and to the surprise of Colonel Bate, who had been badly but not seriously wounded in two places, one ball going through his shoulder, he poked his head in the tent door and affectionately whinnied to his master while the surgeon was dressing his wound. The next instant he walked a few paces in the weeds, staggered and fell down dead. An examination showed what no one had noticed: he had been badly wounded in several places, one of which proved fatal. General Bate says he can still see that almost human look Black Hawk gave him and that last pathetic whinny as he walked off to fall down and die.”

[Trotwood has heard Senator Bate relate this incident himself and the last time he met the old warrior at dinner at the Maxwell House, Nashville, Senator Bate related the above incident and discussed very fondly the pedigree and value of the Southern breed of horses that could produce such intelligent animals as Black Hawk.]

[ Note. —This story was begun in the November number of Trotwood’s Monthly . It opened with a pioneer horse race at the Hermitage, in Tennessee, in which Jack Trevellian, General Jackson and others had entered their horses. Trevellian was a young captain who had been in the Creek wars with General Jackson, and whom the old soldier loved very much. Trevellian was in love with Juliette Templeton, a guest of General Jackson. She had not promised to marry him, but was in love with him. She came to the race accompanied by Colonel Bristow, also in love with her. In the very graphic account of the race, the horse of an unknown boy, the son of an outcast woman, won, for which he was about to be beaten by those who had bet on the other horses, when Trevellian came to his rescue, claiming the boy was a Trevellian. “It is his son!” said someone to Juliette Templeton, and almost fainting she rode away from the field.]

CHAPTER V

An hour afterwards there was a halloo at the lower gate. It was answered by the dogs, who rushed out, barring the way, and stopping the newcomer at the entrance. According to pioneer custom, he sat on his horse till the dogs had been called in by their master.

At a word from Trevellian they slunk back to their kennels.

“Good evening, Jack—you were not expecting me, eh?”

“I am just as glad to see you, General—ride in,” and he opened the gate with a quick, nervous jerk. “I was just about to have the blues,” he added—“yes, we all have them at times.”

The older man seemed to have guessed this, for he had dismounted and hitched his horse, and, arm in arm, they walked up the path to the house.

“I promised Mrs. Jackson I’d not stay long, Jack, but as much as we love them, boy, there are times when a man must talk to a man. Nothing else will do,” and he slapped the other affectionately on the shoulder.

Both, for a while, were constrained, and each knew it. Trevellian knew what the older man had come for, and the other knew that Trevellian had guessed.

In endeavoring to be natural, the General was slightly embarrassed, a thing so unnatural with him that he worried more as he recognized it. But it convinced him how deeply interested he was in the affair before him—how much he cared for the future of the young man at his side.

“That tobacco they raised at the Hermitage while I was away this year is not the best in the world, Jack,” he said, passing his buckskin pouch to the other, “but it will help us out.”

The two were soon smoking. It was plain that the older man had plans, and that he would soon unfold them. Under any other circumstances his talk would have been different—the day’s racing, the banterings, the jokes, the oft-repeated tales of it, the speculation on this and that event, the praise or condemnation of horse or jockey.

To-night it was different. They smoked in silence, and after a while the General said:

“I heard from Washington to-day.”

Trevellian looked up quickly—expectantly.

“Not about Pensacola,” went on the [385] other, “but the treaty with the Creeks. I am directed by the Secretary of War to conclude it, and I will soon meet them at Ft. Jackson. I’ll want you to go with me—of course—and the First Regiment.” He stopped and tapped the young man lightly on the arm:

“And that’s not all the troops I’ll slip into that vicinity. I’ve a good excuse—there has been no reply to my letter concerning the landing of British troops at Pensacola, and the treachery of Spain in permitting it, and I’ll take silence for consent, and with the troops in the forts and on the frontier I’ll order your regiment in and hold all in good striking distance of that nest of Spanish snakes. And we’ll strike, Jack—we’ll strike!”

He arose and began to pace the room.

“I’ll not stay tethered while Spain permits our enemy to use her harbor to shelter them. What do they know at Washington, a thousand miles away, with their ears sealed for fear they’ll have another war on their hands? The government—all governments are abstract things, at best. It is the men in them that count—the concrete agents who carry out the things to be done, and there are things every man is called on to solve for himself, both in war and in life—there are times when the general is the government, and if he fails to rise to the occasion he is a flunk and a failure.”

He was still walking around the room, talking more to himself than to Jack.

“Now, the situation is this: I know. The government doesn’t want to know. It’s my business to fight and whip the foes of my country. It’s my government’s to keep out of more than one fight at a time. That’s all right—but when I can kill two bears with one ball, it’s better than killing one of them and wounding the other. The British are swarming in Pensacola. They are our enemy, and once securely entrenched there they will entrench from the Rio Grande to Mobile Bay. Then it will be too late. In driving them from Pensacola I’ll drive out Spain at the same time and hold it so securely that Spain may bluff for a while, but will finally give in—and Florida will be ours.”

And so he smoked and walked, planning it all out, and in an hour it was arranged, and the General grew calmer and sat down again.

“Now, while we are gone, the election will come off. To-day you had Bristow beat—”

“ You had him beat, General,” the younger man smiled for the first time.

The General gave his first chuckle. The ice was broken.

“But now—” began the General.

“I am out of the race, sir,” said Trevellian, rising. “I shall so announce it to-morrow. I am going with you and fight,” he added.

The General arose quickly: “No, you are not out of it, Jack—not while I am about.”

“What do you mean, General?” He came over and stood face to face with the older man.

“Let us be seated,” said the other. “I will go into detail. Bristow remained with us for supper to-night—”

The younger man was still silent.

“But first, Jack, shall I tell you all?”

Jack nodded.

“It was a little thing—perhaps I should not speak of it. Mrs. Jackson says”—and he smiled—“that for an old Indian fighter I am taking on a lot of romance since I returned, and that you two have caused it. Well, my heart is in this thing, and you know it. But I loved Templeton and I love you, my boy.”

The other bowed his head reverently.

“The girl loves you, Jack; I know it. I know when a woman loves. She is wretched to-night. Why, didn’t I see her when she came home—in spite of Bristow, everybody—everything—with her face set like a flint monument in grief. To-night she was weeping in her room. Mrs. Jackson told me—by God, but you have broken her heart, and you must tell me, Jack.”

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Jack arose hastily and walked the room in silent agitation. At last he stopped and stood before the other.

“I cannot, my General—my God, I cannot! Blame me, cut me off from your esteem and friendship as I am already cut off from hers. This thing is between me and my Maker.

“No man,” said the General, rising, “has the right to ask of you things which are between you and your God. I do not want to know—and this —is—”

“And I cannot tell you anything, my friend—my more than friend.”

He stood before his father’s picture—the Trevellian portrait that hung above them on the wall. He bowed his head in the agony of it all.

“I have never kept anything from you before, and you know how hard it is for me to do this, but—”

The other man was walking the room. He turned and said:

“Well, then, I will tell you what happened. Bristow has said enough for me to challenge him—said it at my table,” and his face flushed with the purpling rage which could so quickly mount to it. “My friends’ fights are my own, Jack—you know that—”

“You have not challenged him, General?” and Jack paled suddenly.

“I will to-morrow—as soon as Patton Anderson can take him a note. I’ll challenge him, and I’ll kill him.” He came up closer to Jack.

“It’s not you and what he said I’m thinking of. You only give me the chance. I’ve been wanting to kill him ever since that cowardly night.”

“You could not prove it before a court-martial, General.”

“No, d—n him—no—I wish I could. But there are things a man knows he cannot prove by the red-tape letter of the law which—no—no—he is too smart to be caught. But I know it and you know, and every man of sense, that he treacherously instigated and led the mutiny of those starved and homesick troops in the Creek wilderness. When—ha, Jack, you know it was he!”

The General was getting hot.

“But you—you stopped it,” smiled the other.

“Yes—with a rifle in their path, and I wish I had shot him then. No, I am not fighting your battles, young man. You may take care of yourself, as I said to him—I am going to kill him for instigating that mutiny when the life of the army and the fate of the war hung on our fighting it to a finish.”

“But you will not challenge him, General—you must promise me you will not.”

The General turned purple with anger—his eyes flashed indignantly into those of the younger man. He stuck his bony finger in Jack’s face and fairly shrieked:

“D—n you, Jack, and your sissy, foolish silence! Yes, sir, I will, unless you tell me you are guilty—that you are not worth Juliette’s love—that the boy is your son. And if you are silent, why then—”

“And if I am silent, General, why then you will believe I am guilty and let this thing pass?”

The General nodded.

“General, I must—I must—I cannot—I must be silent.”

The General looked up.

Jack’s eyes were wet. The General grasped his hand silently.

“By God, you are not guilty, Jack—you will tell me in your own time. I said I’d kill him, but—well, you’ve spoiled my plans. I’ll let him go for your sake.”

“For my sake, General, and I swear to you you shall one day know. Let him have the office—let him have the girl. I’ll have my sacred promise to the dead and my manhood left—that I’ll never part with.”

[ To be continued ]

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MEN OF AFFAIRS

It is quite fitting that the author of Makers of Virginia History should be chosen as Director of the Division of History, Education and Social Economy of the Jamestown Exposition. Mr. Julian Alvin Carroll Chandler brings to his work also an experience of more than thirteen years’ work in the educational field, having been instructor at William and Mary College, Richmond College, Morgan College, Baltimore, and president of the Woman’s College, Richmond. Mr. Chandler holds degrees from William and Mary, Richmond College and Johns Hopkins and has long been an authority on Southern history, being an active member of the Virginia Historical Society, American Historical Association and Society for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities; and having written Representation in Virginia , History of Suffrage in Virginia , Makers of Virginia History and Makers of American History (joint author). Since the year 1904 he has been editor for the publishing house of Silver, Burdett & Co.—the only Southern man who is editor of a New York publishing house.

J. A. C. CHANDLER

Mr. Chandler’s interest in the work of the Jamestown Exposition and his thorough knowledge of the ground and departments covered led to his being asked to take charge of a special department and he received a year’s leave of absence from his publishing house in order to accept the position. His plans include a splendid historical exhibit of the sources of history as shown in rare documents and letters, valuable relics, oil paintings and statuary relating to the beginnings of our country; an educational exhibit, showing the best in our schools throughout the country, with especial stress upon the schools of the South. Consolidation of schools; grading of rural schools; the [388] establishment of county high schools and county agricultural schools, teaching of manual training and domestic science will be fully brought out in this exhibit and will contain much of practical assistance to teachers in all parts of the country. Mr. Chandler’s indefatigable efforts and tireless energy will make this department a thoroughly interesting one. He is a young man, having been born in Guineys, Virginia, in 1872.

Joseph Forney Johnston, who was elected Alternate United States Senator in the Democratic Primary in Alabama, in August last, was born in Lincoln county, North Carolina, in 1843. He entered the Confederate Army, as a private, in April, 1861, served until the war closed, was wounded four times, and rose to the rank of captain. After the war closed, he returned to Alabama, where he had been studying law when the war commenced. On being admitted to the bar in 1866, he practiced law at Selma until he removed to Birmingham, in 1884, to accept the presidency of a bank. He continued in the banking business until he was elected governor in 1896.

JOSEPH F. JOHNSTON

Whilst in Selma, he lead the movement which overthrew Republican rule, and served his party many years as chairman of county, congressional and state committees. He never held any office, and never sought any, until he became a candidate for governor.

In the panic of 1893, he was one of the factors that averted financial disaster to Birmingham. He was one of the organizers and first president of the Sloss Iron & Steel Company; so that when he became governor he had behind him large business experience, and a wide knowledge of the conditions and resources of Alabama.

He was nominated for governor in 1896, in one of the most exciting campaigns the state ever witnessed, and in spite of the opposition of the railroads, great corporations and money power.

When he became governor he found a large deficit in the state treasury, the public schools languishing and the public credit impaired. When he quit office, after serving two terms, the deficit had been wiped out, the terms of the public schools largely extended, more competent teachers secured by wise laws compelling examinations, the credit of the state at the highest point ever reached, and the public service the most efficient in the history of the state. Every department of the state government had lasting impression made upon it by the firmness of his grip; the laws and policies he established, [389] though severely criticised at the time, have remained, through adverse administrations, untouched, and stand yet as monuments to his justice and sagacity. We find from his record that he began ten years ago the fight on graft that is now sweeping the country; that he has a mailed fist that does cheerful and effective battle with corrupt interests and all interests that conflict with the laws and with the rights of the public, and that he can serenely stand under fire until an ultimate victory appears out of the smoke of battle.

When we consider Mr. Johnston’s past services, his indomitable spirit, his unvarying regard for the public interest throughout his entire career, his fearlessness, aggressiveness and candor, his large experience in practical affairs, as well as American politics, it is not difficult to see why the people have chosen him for successive honors.

It is rare that dominant qualities of the kind possessed by Governor Johnston are coupled with a personality so genial and winning and so rare a faculty for attaching warm friendships. The boy released from the Army of Northern Virginia, with his five scars, courageously leaving the home of his fathers to begin life in Alabama with a capital stock consisting of a mule and wagon and a box of tobacco, was no more friendly, no more kind-hearted and approachable than is now this man of affairs and broad renown, who has been chosen by the democrats of Alabama for succession to the United States Senate.

One of the heroes of the battle of San Jacinto, that victory won by sheer force of despair, was General Edward Burleson, who commanded the center at that famous encounter with the blood-thirsty Santa Anna. Subsequently, when the little republic of the Lone Star was added to the gallery of nations General Burleson was made Commander-in-Chief of the army and was one of the early vice presidents of the republic. Originally from North Carolina, General Burleson removed in early youth to Tennessee and followed Jackson on his campaign which ended at New Orleans, serving as one of “Old Hickory’s” lieutenants. This experience made him immensely valuable to Sam Houston. The last legislature of Texas placed a handsome portrait of this pioneer public servant upon the walls of its magnificent capital amidst a goodly array of great and good men whose efforts lifted Texas to her present proud position among the commonwealths of the union.

A. S. BURLESON

General Burleson’s son, Major Edward [390] Burleson, was also a soldier of the young republic and helped to frame its constitution. He settled at the head of the lovely San Marcos river and there the subject of this sketch, Albert Sidney Burleson, was born on the third of June, 1863. His father was away fighting for the Confederate cause at that time, as were five of his mother’s brothers—one, Fergus Kyle, a captain in the Terry Rangers. It would seem that young Burleson was pre-ordained to be either a soldier or a statesman, with chances more in favor of the former than the latter. After graduating from the State Agricultural and Mechanical College and from Baylor University (founded by his cousin, Reverend Rufus C. Burleson), he decided on the law, taking his degree at the State University, and serving as Assistant City Attorney at Austin for six years. He next served four years as District Attorney and was then elected to Congress. He is now serving his fourth term at Washington, where he has served his state ably and well.

Last winter Mr. Burleson was put on the appropriation committee and has secured important appropriations for his state, among them being appropriations for experiments in exterminating Johnson grass and the boll weevil; experimental stations for the cultivation of tobacco and tea; an allowance of ten thousand dollars yearly for the maintenance of a School of Mines at the State University; laws enabling Confederate Veterans who took part in the Mexican and Spanish wars to enter National Soldiers’ Homes; dam at El Paso (secured in conjunction with the efforts of Congressman Smith), thereby making Texas a participant in the appropriations for the reclamation of arid lands; the reimbursement of nearly half a million dollars for monies expended by Texas in protecting her frontier from Indian depredations.

Mr. Burleson is an expert on agricultural matters and was a member of the agricultural committee for two terms. He is also the author of the Cotton Statistics Law, by which the control of the cotton market has been wrested from the stock exchange, and the regulation of prices placed in the hands of the farmers. It is natural and right that this law, so far-reaching in its benefits, should be enacted through the efforts of a representative of our leading cotton state.

It is unnecessary to add that Mr. Burleson is possessed of a wonderful persistence and tireless energy which enable him to accomplish everything he undertakes. He takes his politics seriously and he never stops working. He is a forceful debater and makes a dramatic speech, having the eloquence of a man who believes what he says. He is noted not only for this convincing earnestness, but for the absolute accuracy of all his statements and his thorough mastery of every point he presents. He has, withal, a vast store of characteristic Western stories and his jolly wit, coupled with his loyalty to his friends, makes him one of the most popular of congressmen.

Nature shows her power in the waterfall, just as in the daisy and violet she shows her grace and beauty.

One of the several objects of curiosity and admiration to those who visit South Georgia is Forest Falls, near Whigham, a town on the Atlantic Coast Line Railway, in the new county of Grady. A stream of clear, sparkling water rushes over a cliff and falls into a huge sink nearly a hundred feet below, where, instead of flowing on in its precipitated direction, it immediately steals away into the earth as if endowed with life and seeking refuge beneath monstrous rocks and in the depths of a bed of sand washed white by the water’s continual dash in shouts of victory.

FOREST FALLS

A few hours at Forest Falls is a midsummer dream whose refreshing delights last indelibly. The walls of the sink are splendid transcendent beauties, robed in richest green, with which nature decks her favorites.

The only way to reach the foot of the falls is adown the walls of this immense lime sink by following artificial foot-paths, clinging to trees and roots until the cool, refreshing spray of the falls defies your approach, which defiance is really a temptation on a warm summer day.

The riotous music of the falls, mingling with enraptured cadence of singing birds, swinging branches and rustling leaves overhead would alone charm and enchant the spectator, but the rocks and cliffs and their delicate draperies of ferns and vines outstrip the imagination.

The most appropriate time to enter the sink is at the noon hour, when old Sol hangs a bow of richest colors in the falls, when the observer stands in a ray of sunlight that floods the deep, verdant well from the bottom of which he peers upward at the swaying branches of trees that lean over the edge of this strange receptacle.

IRWIN RUSSELL

By Kate Alma Orgain

This poet was born in Port Gibson, Mississippi, and was among the first of the Southern writers to recognize the possibilities of negro dialect and character in poetry and fiction, and to picture in poetry the unique relation between the Southern slave and his master.

It is not surprising that there is no general knowledge of this gifted writer, for he passed away after a brief struggle with life, leaving only one collection of poems, which was published after his death by the Century Company, in 1888. Irwin Russell’s grandfather was a Virginian, who moved west to Ohio. Here the father of Irwin was born. He married a New York lady, and going South he settled in Port Gibson, where Irwin and two other children were born. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Irwin’s father cast his lot with the Confederacy, and after the war sent the boy to St. Louis University in St. Louis, conducted by the Jesuit Fathers. Here he became a diligent student, and his young friends called him a “walking encyclopedia.” He also gave evidence of fine mathematical powers. After graduation he returned to Mississippi and began the practice of law. He was in Port Gibson during the yellow fever epidemic in 1878, and he remained through the whole dreadful tragedy of sickness, serving everywhere as needed, a devoted nurse. He never fully rallied from the fearful strain and the harrowing scenes through which he passed, for he was, says W. W. Baskerville, “that rare union of bright mind with frail body through which the keenest appreciation and most exquisite sensibility are developed.”

IRWIN RUSSELL

His father, Dr. William Russell, who had also remained in Port Gibson during the scourge, staying nobly [393] at his post of duty, sank under the strain and died.

This left young Russell entirely dependent upon himself. Joel Chandler Harris says: “Russell always had warm personal friends from whom he could command everything that affection could suggest.” Going to New York, he took some literary matter to Charles Scribner’s Sons, who received him with great personal kindness and encouraged him to adopt the profession of authorship.

The climate, however, was too severe to allow him to work in New York and he fell ill with a low fever. He determined to return to the South and before he was quite recovered, set out to work his passage on a boat bound for New Orleans. He arrived in port very weak and almost penniless, but secured employment on the Times , and with characteristic disregard of health or personal comfort, threw himself, heart and soul into his work.

Although young, Russell gave remarkable evidence of training in the best of literature. He gave his work hard, painstaking study, and his insight into the peculiarities and pathos and poetry of the negro character was truly wonderful.

Thomas Nelson Page says: “Personally I owe him much. It was the light of his genius, shining through his dialect poems that led my feet in the direction I have since tried to follow.”

Dr. C. A. Smith says: “The appearance of ‘Christmas Night in the Quarters’ meant that Southern literature was now become a true reproduction of Southern conditions.”

Joel Chandler Harris says: “Irwin Russell’s negro character studies rise to the level of what, in a large way, we term literature. I do not know where there could be a more perfect representation of negro character than his operetta, ‘Christmas Night in the Quarters.’ It is inimitable.”

Beginning with the arrival of the negroes who are coming to “Uncle Johnny Booker’s Ball,” this poem says:

Arrived at the scene of merriment the dance is preceded by a prayer by “Brudder Brown,” who takes the middle of the floor to “beg a blessin’ on dis dance.”

Then the dance begins.

In the wee sma’ hours near daylight Uncle Booker sings the story of the first banjo.

Regarding the merits of Irwin Russell’s verses one critic says: “They have all a swinging gait, and you can hear the rythmical pattering of the feet, and see the swaying of the darky figures in the walk round as you read.”

Russell declared the pathos and humor in the character of the real old-fashioned negro of the South afforded an inexhaustible amount of material for both prose and poetry.

Like Sidney Lanier, Russell was passionately fond of music, and became a remarkably skillful performer on the banjo.

He died at the early age of twenty-six: suffering and sorrow and poverty were his till the last. The brief struggle ended in New Orleans, leaving his beautiful contributions to Southern dialect poetry for our heritage.

Of all the so-called lighter plays of Shakespeare, there is none, perhaps, which has a greater charm of its own than “Twelfth Night; or, What You Will.” There is in its droll humor a spiciness, a piquancy, unsurpassed by any of the great dramatist’s own productions or those of his contemporaries. Open the volume where you will, and mingle for a time with the fantastic revelers of the play—what mirth, what laughter, what drollery is here! The spirit of the “Twelfth Night” is rampant. But we can better appreciate the aptness of the title if we see for ourselves the merry-making which of old universally prevailed at that season. In the modern work-a-day world of the present, but scant time is allotted that highest and holiest joy of the Christmastide, and long before “Twelfth Night,” which falls upon the sixth of the new month, we have soberly resumed the accustomed round of daily duties. From the busy, bustling world of to-day it is refreshing to turn back to the past again, and lose ourselves in the joyous abandon of the old-time festival.

It is “Twelfth Night” in “Merrie England” in the days of the long ago, and the Christmas festivities have lingered on to find their culmination in the revels of this night. Truly we find here none of our modern haste in returning to the prosaic realities of life, and unconsciously we imbibe some of the mirth-prevailing spirit. How gay the shops in their holiday garb, and what a goodly store of frosted cakes the confectioner displays! It fairly makes one’s mouth water to see them, and catch a faint whiff of their spicy fragrance, for these are the “Twelfth Night” cakes of all sorts and sizes that will find their way into every home from the highest to the lowest. That little lad turns away regretfully from the huge frosted creation of the baker’s skill to the wee modest one of which his few jingling pence will soon make him the proud possessor, and then gives way good-naturedly to the bustling dame who makes a judicious selection from the varied assortment; and so the happy throng moves in and out, for “Twelfth Night” would scarce be “Twelfth Night” without the cake, the crowning glory of the feast.

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The season brings a strange mingling of mirth and superstition and reverence. The smallest lad is familiar with its origin, and can tell the story of the three wise men who journeyed from afar over plain and mountain, until, led by the wondrous star in the East, they knelt beside the cradle of the infant King and worshiped Him. The wealthier class bring their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh to place upon the altar, as did those wise men of old, and the humble rustic invokes a blessing upon his harvest fields.

At dusk the farmer gathers around him his friends and servants, and together the strange little procession makes its way across the freshly turned sod to where the young wheat is beginning to spring up. Here, on the highest part of the ground, twelve small fires and one large one are kindled. Cider circulates freely while they drink to the health of the company and to the success of the future harvest, and a fantastic circle gathers around the larger fire to shout and halloo until the welkin rings, and the answer is borne back on the night wind from all the neighboring hillsides where similar fires glimmer dimly in the distance. This ceremony completed, the merry company return home again, where the housewife and her maids have been busily preparing for the evening’s festivities. The table fairly groans under its weight of meats and puddings, and cakes with caraways, and pitchers of sparkling cider and ale, while a huge frosted cake with a hole through the center occupies the position of honor. After supper a queer ceremony takes place. The company follow the bailiff, or keeper of oxen, to the wain-house, where the master fills a cup with strong ale, and, standing before the finest and largest of the oxen, pledges him a curious toast. He then produces the big cake with the hole in the center, and places it upon the ox’s horn. The ox is tickled to make him toss his head, and if he throw the cake behind him, it is considered the mistress’ perquisite, but if before, the bailiff claims the prize. More sport of the same kind follows amidst the laughter and shouts of the rustics assembled, and then the boisterous crowd returns home once more to find the doors fast-barred; nor can they gain admittance from the fair ones within until they have earned it with rollicking song and jest. Once inside a scene of mirth and jollity ensues, and all too quickly the moments speed, for care is forgotten in the joyous abandon of the present.

In the southern villages a friendly, jovial crowd make their way to the orchard and encircle the best-bearing tree. In sparkling ale they drink a toast, chanting in joyous unison,

How lustily the shout rings out on the evening air, and then the merry company return with empty pitchers, only to be greeted by shouts of laughter from behind the fast-closed doors. Just a faint whiff of the goodly store within, and the tantalizing demand to guess what is on the spit. This, of course, is some bit or dainty not likely to be thought of, and when, after many random hits and freely interchanged jests, it is guessed at last, the doors are thrown open, and the lucky clodpole is rewarded with the much-prized tidbit, amid the congratulations of his less fortunate companions. So with mirth and wassail speeds the night away, for truly “care’s an enemy to life.”

The simple-hearted rustic firmly believes that by these timely ceremonies and invocations he has helped to keep the blight from his rye, and to insure a goodly return from the well-laden orchard trees. But “Twelfth Night” festivities are by no means confined to the simple, free-hearted sports of field and farm. In palace and mansion the feast is observed with great [397] splendor, with masque and pageant, with rollicking song and mirth. Thousands of pounds are spent in preparing for the revels of a night. The long table spread for the feast is a wonder of art fresh from the hands of the pastry cook and confectioner. There are pasteboard castles to be blown up in jest, the rarest of old claret flowing like blood from the side of a wounded stag, with all sorts of curious and dainty conceits set forth amid sparkling glass and silver, while the guests playfully pelt one another with eggshells filled with rose-water. The cake, huge and shining in its frosty whiteness, and wrought in elaborate design, seems to tower over the rest of the feast with a sort of proud and smiling benignity, for reposing in its capacious depth lies the fateful prize of the evening, the bean which proclaims the lucky finder king over the evening’s festivities. The guests cut for this amid good-natured laughter and merriment, and when someone more fortunate than the rest has discovered it, they declare him with one accord “king of the bean,” and cheer him right lustily. The newly crowned monarch is raised aloft to the ceiling to mark a white cross upon one of the great oaken beams, for thereby will evil spirits be warded off for the evening and through all the year to come. The others then draw lots and assume their parts of lords or ministers of state, and each sustains his character with mock dignity throughout the revels. This quaint old ceremony is observed in palace and mansion and humbler household as well, and a sort of good-natured fellowship reigns supreme. The story is told of how Mary, Queen of Scots, when her maid was chosen queen, lent her own royal robes, that the part might be sustained with proper dignity.

The candles have sputtered and burnt out, the tawdry tinsel is thrown aside for the soberer garb of the real, and Sir Francis Flatterer and Sir Randle Rackabite have passed into the ranks of everyday life. The laughter and mirth are but a memory, and we come back with a start to the daylight and the present, with its unfinished duties ever pressing for completion.

And Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” lies open before us. From its pages arise, through the master’s art, the living forms of Sir Toby and Malvolio, Viola and the Duke. “Grave and gay, the lovers, the laughers, and the laughed-at, are made to harmonize in one scene and one common purpose.” We can well imagine that Twelfth Night in the Middle Temple in the days of the long ago, when the happy company of barristers and students gathered to hear for the first time, the drama fresh from the master’s hand, when its exquisite poetry charmed with new grace and melody the ear of some secluded scholar, and the antics of its revellers brought a smile even to the lips of that grave and formal dispenser of justice. One commentator tells us that the title was probably suggested by this, the first night of its performance, but do we not find a subtler significance in its embodiment of the spirit of the season? Is not the mirth and jest of those old-time sports and festivities aptly repeated here in this crowd of revelling, laughter-creating personages, in the drollery of Sir Toby Belch and his comrades, and the fantastical vanity of Malvolio? And as, in the midst of those old-time Twelfth Night revels, with their care-free abandon and joy, we catch now and then the sub-tone of the minor, and the richer harmonies of life, a mere glimpse of the simple love and faith of those lives of the long ago, so it is that we look past the boisterous merriment of these jesting revellers of the play to discern the true beauty of the characters who stand in the half-light behind. Then we become conscious of a quiet harmony of color and form, and we feel anew the poet’s close touch with life and nature.

I’se be’n heahin’ some quare talk erbout yoah doin’s dis pas’ week an’ some yuther times, my heahers. I’se be’n telled erbout some uv dem sayoncies you niggahs hev be’n holdin’, same’s lak dey do up tuh Kunnel Simpson’s house, an’ dat dar triflin’ yalleh house gal uv his’n an’ dat mottled yahd boy be’n lahnin’ you, my belubbed flock, de wiles uv de debbil an’ claimin’ dey’s meejums an’ claihvoyans, an’ hev be’n holpin’ you-alls talk wif spookses an’ hobgoblins an’ onfamiliar sperits.

Now, my chillen, bein’ as I is yoah pasture an’ is set oveh you tuh gyahd yoah morils an’ luk afteh yoah etehnal welfaih, as I hev be’n put heah tuh guide yoah tottehin’ feets in de paf uv de wuhld, I’se boun’ tuh wahn you-alls dat all sich things am onrighteous an’ sinful an’ am tuh be ’voided an’ kep out uv de way uv, an’ dat you am temptin’ fate er de debbil in all sich puhfo’mances.

You-alls ought tuh know, my brudderns an’ sisterns, dat dere ain’ no comin’ back f’om de sperit wuhld, an’ dat any ’tempt tuh prove dat dey is am a vexation uv sperit, an’s gwine bring its own results. I wan’ you-alls tuh ’membeh dis tex’, an’ ’membeh hit well, dat w’en Divehs went tuh hell an’ raised up he eyes in tohment an’ seed Lazarus in ol’ Fatheh Ab’aham’s buzzum, he axed tuh hev him sont foh er speshil wahnin’ tuh he brothehs on yea’th, tuh tell ’em tuh gib all dey money tuh de Chu’ch an’ de poah, an’ tuh git some sores foh de dogs tuh lick an’ go beggin’ an’ eat crum’s wif de pupses so’s dey could be in glory bimeby.

Well, now, you ’membeh dat, an’ you ’membeh lakwise dat he wuz tol’ dere wuz fixed er unpassable gulf ’twixt an’ between an’ dat no one could cross hit, an’ de people would’n’ heed no wahnin’ ef dey did hev one; he say’d hit did’n’ mek no diff’unce ef dey wuz tuh sen’ er dead man tuh come back, dey would’n’ keer, ’cause Lazarus he done riz once, jis’ tuh try ’em, an’ dat afteh he be’n dead foah days.

Now, you-alls ’membehs all dis, my onrighteous travelehs tuh de bah uv Gawd, an’ ’membehs dat ef sperits could er come back dat ol’ money grubbeh Divehs would er come back an’ tol’ de little Divehs, an’ ol’ Mizziz Divehs an’ de whole Divehs fambly, ’bout de trubble he wuz hevin’ down dere an’ tuh wahn dem an’ caution dem ’bout de way dey handled de propehty w’at dey wuz spendin’ so free.

Lazarus he hed no call tuh come back, kaze he’d done shed he sores an’ wuz in good comp’ny at las’, an’ ’sides afteh de sperimen’ he made onc’t dey ain’ neveh gwine let no man come back tuh wahn de people. Lazarus he could’n’ an’ would’n’, an’ Divehs he could’n’ an’ did’n’, an’ dat’s de way wid all de res’.

Now, den, w’at’s all dis I heahs ’bout dem triflin’ niggahs callin’ up ol’ Job Mixon an’ hevin’ him tell de folkses w’at dey done es little chillen, an’ [399] tellin’ dem w’at dey done es grown folkses, an’ doin’ uv hit in sich er foolish way? Who eveh knowed ol’ Job tuh do sich foolishness ez bumpin’ er table, hey?

Jis’ ’magine ol’ Job, w’at wuz hung foh muhdeh an’ w’at hed be’n a thief all he life, gwine erbout dis wuhld es er spook, follehin’ afteh dem puny little house sehvants, rappin’ on tables an’ bumpin’ de floor w’en dey say so!

“ Dat you, Unc’ Job? Ef so, please knock. ”

Table raps; he mean yes.

“ Is you happy oveh theah, Unc’ Job? Rap onc’t ef you is, an’ twic’t ef you ain’. ”

Den dey git two raps, strong an’ hahd, ’cause nobody’s fool ’nough tuh ’spect ol’ Job bein’ wheah he happy less’n he could steal er kill.

Den some trim’lin’, puny little niggah w’at won’ pass de graveyahd at night, he say: “ Ax him ’bout my mammy; wheah she? ” an’ den dat fool meejum go th’oo some jinnyfluxins, one rap A, two rap B, three rap C , an’ spell out er whole lot en passel uv trash w’at nobody kin dispute, an’ den dey say de sperit done answeh!

Yas, I know he tol’ erbout things some uv you-alls done, an’ w’at you thought nobody knowed, an’ you say dat proof ernough. Proof ernough! You need no proof! You guv hit yoah own se’f.

“ Mist’ Job, you knows uv anything we-alls done w’at nobody else knows in dis wuhld? ”

Do he know anything you-alls done? He doan’ need know; you-alls knows yoah-selves, an’ yoah feah meks yoah heaht palpehtate so foh feah dat somebody’ll know, an’ yoah body ’gins tuh quake an’ shake so dat you-all jis’ nachelly meks de little raps in yo’ agertations an’ yoah shivehin’ nervousness jis’ raps “ One rap A, two rap B, three rap C ,” an’ spells out de deeds you’ve done foh dat meejum in yoah feah.

You does hit yoahself, you frazzled idjits! You tells uv yoah own sin! You sits dere quakin’ in yoah shoes or wif yoah bare toes rattlin’ on de boahds, wif de trimble in you answehin’ evehy call uv dat finicky dun gal, “ One rap A, two rap B, three rap C. ”

Job, he mighty fine man tuh be ahbitratin’ uv you-alls fate; mighty fine man, an’ one w’at ought tuh mek betteh folkses outen you.

He wa’nt no good man on yearth; he wa’nt good foh nuffin in dis life—but he’s er mighty good wahnin’ dead, an’ I hope he stay a good wahnin’, an’ stay dead. De Lawd knows He need him foh a wahnin’. He ought tuh git some good outer Job, kaze He sho’ got none heah, foh uv all de liverashous coons w’at eveh lived he wuz de liverashousest an’ de leas’ account an’ de hahdest tuh kill.

He wuz a scand’lous niggah, Job wuz, an’ no respecteh uv pussons, an’ no regahdeh uv uthority; he didn’ keer no moah foh er man’s ufficial puhsition ner his sperityil capacity ’n nothin’.

Why, I ’membehs jis es if hit war yistiddy, how he hed de affront’ry tuh offeh me a drink uv whisky onc’t! Me, his pasture, an’ de watcheh oveh his soul. I rebuked him, my heahehs, an’ rebuked him seveahly, an’ he neveh insulted me dat way erg’in. Yas, suh! I gib him a lesson he neveh fohgot, foh I tuk de whole quaht an’ didn’t gib him er drop uv hit an’ he didn’t hev no moah.

Heah, oveh theah! You needn’ snicker! I knows w’at tuh do in er ’mehgency, an’ I won’ tek no levity ner laughin’ at my sperityil methods, an’ I’d do any uv you-alls de same way; yas, I would, ’n you knows hit!

Job hed de ’dacity tuh ’vite me tuh he house tuh er tuhkey dinneh onc’t, too. Tuhkey , w’en he neveh raised a tuhkey ’cept offen some w’ite man’s roost, ner hed nothin’ but w’at he stole. Dat sho’ wuz er fine tuhkey, an’ I gib Job er nuther lesson an’ showed him dat stolen goods profiteth little.

Dat tuhkey wuz er big gobbleh, an’ dere wuz nobody but me an’ Job dere, an’ I seasoned dat buhd wif de good wine w’at Job hed stole, an’ admonishuns tuh be good an’ wahnin’s f’om de wrath tuh come. Hit wuz er [400] hahd pull, but I finished dat tuhkey in spite uv Job’s hints dat he ’spected hit tuh las’ him er week. Hit sho’ly would hev tasted good if hit hadn’t b’en stoled an’ I hed tuh drink up de wine w’at he hed ’prop’iated f’om somewhere, but de sauce uv a deed well did an’ a sinneh rebuked, almos’ made hit relish, an’ I held out tuh de end.

Now I’s told you-alls ’bout dis tuh show you how tuh meet de tempteh, an’ if Job wuz er comin’ back heah in de sperit an’ you-alls treated him severe he’d go back tuh de place wheah de Lawd put him, an’ let you-alls alone.

Think uv ol’ Job Mixon as er angel uv light, ol’ thief Job sent back heah tuh talk tuh you folkses an’ tell you w’at you-alls done did an w’at you gwine tuh do! Yas, I sees hit, I sees hit! Ol’ Job, w’at man hed tuh keep in jail mos’ uv de time, an’ w’at wuz a debbil in de flesh. De Lawd tried tuh kill him time Kunnel Simpson shot him in he henhouse; an’ tuk ’nutheh tuhn at him de time he got dat whisky. De Lawd knowed he wuzn’t fit foh dis wuhld w’en He made dat wild mule w’at Job stole fall on him an’ den tromp on him, an’ if hit hed be’n anybody but Job, he’d hev died.

A angel uv light, an’ foh fohty yeahs de Lawd tried tuh git him erway f’om you chillen, tuh gib you-all a chanst foh glohy! An’ he’d ’a be’n alive now if hit hadn’t be’n foh shootin’ at a w’ite man an’ hangin’ three days ’foah anybody foun’ him. Yas suh, no ord’nary hangin’ would hev killed dat niggah, an’ de Lawd knowed w’at He ’bout keepin’ any uv us f’om findin’ him afteh he wuz hung.

Claihvoyins! Meejums! Sayoncies! Sperits an’ table rappin’s, an’ “ One rap A, two rap B, an’ three rap C! ” Sperityilizzum, an’ nex’ thing Christian Science an’ some uv you advanced niggahs will be goin’ ’round heah wid yoah jaw tied up, groanin’ wid de toofache an’ sayin’ dey ain’ no sich thing es pain; some uv you-alls wid razur blades in yoah annatohmmy a-gnawin’ at yoah vitals, sayin’ hit am ’maginary; dat de will rules an you kain’t hurt de flesh!

Listen tuh me, you niggahs! Heah yoah pasture! Keep ’way f’om sich contrapshuns uv de debbil! Sen’ ol’ Job back tuh hell wheah he belong an’ keep ’way f’om de w’ite folkses’ fads! Go on wid yoah conjurin’, if you mus’ hev er rickreation, an’ weah yoah graveyahd rabbit feets, an’ yoah little bags uv niggah wool; but keep ’way f’om sperityilizzum an’ Christian Science an’ all dere attendant evils; eschew, as de poet say, dey alluremen’s, ’less some uv yoah wives an sistehs an’ daughters tuhn out er Mizziz Eddy an’ tries teh lead you in pashtuhs new er indulges in holy ghos’ chillen—dey’s nuff not ’counted foh ’thout that.

Go on, my people an’ be yoahselves, an’ hev pains an’ ha’nts, an’ leave de painless dentistry uv life an’ de ’lightened sperits tuh a w’ite an’ idle an’ moah civilized people; ’membeh dat you hev er neveh-dyin’ soul teh save, an’ beah in min’, night an’ day, de feelin’ uv de song we is now gwine teh sing:

There was an old man, and he was very old indeed—so old that he did not know his own age, though he knew the age of every boy and girl, and every man and woman, and every city, and every country, in the world—so old that he had seen the mountains rise out of the land and the continents out of the great oceans. He was very, very old indeed, you see; the oldest man that ever was. He had long, white hair and a long, white beard that fell quite down to his waist.

But though he was so very old, he was very strong and healthy, so that no one ever thought that he would die. And because he was so, he was able to accomplish everything. He was never idle and never had been—no, not for one minute. He worked while people slept and while they played; no one ever knew him to stop. That is why he had done so very, very much. For he had formed great peoples so long ago that nobody but he knows anything about them; and many, many centuries ago had written wonderful stories that we still read; and had built great churches and palaces, and painted beautiful pictures, and carved beautiful statues, and composed wonderful music, and had discovered wonderful new ways of doing things and wonderful elements in earth and air that nobody had thought of, and had done so many things that ought to be done, that I believe a thousand men could not tell all of them if they wrote all their lives.

He was very good, too, for he meant that everything he did should make people happier. But oftentimes he made mistakes, and did things wrong, or seemed to, and then people suffered—sometimes only a few people for a little while, and sometimes many people for years and years. But as soon as he saw that he had done wrong or that things were not going as they should, he set to work to undo his mistake and make things come right; and he never stopped until he did this, so that people came to say that he would bring everything right in the end if only it were left to him. And though he was so busy and so old, he was always glad when he had done good and was always happy with people he had helped.

He had millions of children, too—millions alive and millions dead. All the people in the world were his children. If there were a baby Hottentot born, it was his; and if there were a little Greenlander born, that was his, too. Even the greatest man that ever lived, whom we all love, whether we think or not that he was just a man, like others, was his child, and knew it; for this is what he meant when he said, “The hour is come.”

Now you may be very sure that this kind, strange old man loved his children or he would not have worked so very long and hard for them. So every twelve months he gave each of them a wonderful present; not one kind of present for one and another for another, but just the same thing for everybody. The little beggar-boy, standing on his frost-nipped feet by the king’s road, got just the same as the king who rattled past in his chariot and never gave him even a copper; the poor Indian squaw, with nothing to wear but an old wolf skin, got just the same as the beautiful lady who had wonderful silken dresses and diamond necklaces and shoes with [402] golden buckles. Yet everybody got just what he wanted, and would not even think of trading off his present for anything else in the world.

There never has been and never will be anything worth so much as a single one of these presents. If a boy, or a girl, or a man either, had all the silver mines of Mexico, and all the gold mines of the Yukon, and all the diamond fields of South Africa, they would not be worth as much as just one of these presents, for the presents could be used in any way and for anything. Yet all that this kind old man asked of people was, please to use the gifts the best they knew how. If they did so, they were all happier, but if they did not, they became very miserable, and even the gifts themselves were a sorrow to them.

Now there was a man and his wife who had a son they loved greatly; and they had made good use of their presents and were happy. But one day the boy said, “I want to take my presents now and go to college.” The mother was glad, but the father said, “The way to use them is the way I tell you. Then I’ll put mine with yours, and we will use them both together.”

“I cannot, father,” the boy said. “Mine were not meant to be used that way.”

Then the boy left home so that he could use his presents; and his mother died: and his father was angry towards him. The boy used as well as he knew how the presents he received, but he did not know well at first how to use them (though he learned after awhile), and he was very unhappy and his life was almost ruined. And his father continued angry with him, and misused all his presents after that, and was very miserable until he died; for he saw that what his son had done was right, yet he would not forgive when he was asked, and all the gifts he had received only made him feel the sadder.

Again, there was an old man who used his presents to make money. He had always used them so, and he meant always to use them so. He would not use them to help people who did not know how to use their own, no, not even to help a friend. But he could not do that, for nobody would be friends with such a man. He would not even use any part of them to serve his country when it was at war and needed him. And every twelve months he was more miserable, and swore he would give all the money he had made, just for a little happiness; yet every time he used his gifts in the same selfish way.

At last the old, old man sent word to this old man (who was nothing but an hour-old babe beside the other), that he might take back the next gift at any time. The money-lover trembled and shook; but in a little while he had forgotten all about his warning and was misusing the gift as he had done with all he ever had. Then came the old man one dark night, and snatched back the present from the miser. And the old man who had never used his presents well, screamed in his terror and fell back dead.

This stern, kindly old man gave his gifts to nations, too, for the nations were his children just the same as the boys and girls. Now one time, in midsummer, word was brought him that he had a new nation child.

“I declare,” he exclaimed, “I’ve only a piece of a present left for it. That will be enough, though; the child won’t live.”

But that was once the old man was wrong, for the child did live; and it made such good use of its present that he gave it another, and another, and another. And the nation kept growing, for it used his gifts wisely, and helped him to do away with many things that were not good; and at last it used his gifts to save weaker people from hunger, and sword, and what is worse than either.

And if there be such an old man now (I hope there is, don’t you?), I hope he has already taught us how to use his gifts; and if there be such a nation, the child of Father Time, I pray that God has made it wise enough so that the gifts of years will make certain centuries of existence.

[403]

The Shadow of the Attacoa

By Thornwell Jacobs

SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS

Commenced in the April number.

Ervin McArthur, bearing the nickname of “Satan” on account of his ungovernable temper, learns printing at the office of the Dunvegan (N. C.) Democrat and loves Colonel Preston’s daughter. The colonel, objecting to a love affair between his aristocratic daughter and a son of “poor whites,” shifts the youth to a place on the Charleston Chronicle . Here, the Civil War coming on, he distinguishes himself by his journalistic ability and by his inventions of war-engines. In these last he is ably assisted by Helen Brooks, a Boston girl visiting Charleston relatives. She learns to love the inventor and his cause and he struggles between his allegiance to Helen Preston and his newly awakened love. He returns to Dunvegan on furlough and in an altercation with his old time chum, Henry Bailey, the latter meets his death. Ervin escapes and another friend, Ernest Lavender, is tried and convicted. Ervin confesses and is tried but cleared on proof discovered by Helen Preston that the crime was committed by Mack Lonovan, who, wishing to marry Helen Brooks, destroys the only living witness to his secret marriage with half-witted Nance West.

Ervin returns to Charleston and invents the ironclad torpedo, destined, when copied by the Federals, to destroy the Confederate Navy. He also constructs a submarine torpedo boat and while preparing for his initial trip has an interview with Helen Brooks.

He decides to attack the Housatonic instead of the New Ironsides , as Helen has confessed that one whom she loves is on the latter. The Housatonic is sunk, also the torpedo, Ervin alone being rescued and captured. Sent to the stockade on Morris’ Island, he finds Tait Preston, who is about to be exchanged on account of a wound. Ervin determines to escape.

CHAPTER XXXVII— Continued

But weeks passed and McArthur was forced to stay and see himself growing haggard, weak and filthy. It grew cold and the ragged quilts barely sufficed to cover the sand.

At last one day at dusk he determined to make his escape or die. A dense fog had settled down over the island, and in the growing darkness he could scarcely see the guards with their guns pointed over the stockades. It was absolute folly to attempt it, but what was a worm-fed man not willing to attempt? So, as his custom was, he went into his tent, and by his ragged pallet, asked a mercy from his God, and then went out toward the death-line. Well nigh crazed, he thought in the fog he could safely burrow a way unseen under the stockade. He chose a spot midway between a gullah negro (a lowlander from the rice fields of the Combahee) and a mulatto who spoke often of his rights and liberty, and who was as anxious that all should know of his presence as a little game bantam cockerel that has just learned how to crow. Then, kneeling upon the sand, he cautiously began work. A long, lanky man from the mountains of North Carolina saw him and followed:

“Friend, it’s death,” he whispered.

“It doesn’t matter.”

The sand was beginning to fly when he heard a noise as though some one was clambering up the poles of the stockade. Listening, he stared intently in the direction of the noise. A gust of wind had blown off the cap [404] of the Combahee negro, and by means of a rope he was letting himself down to get it.

Was it a mercy?

At least it was a chance.

Stealing up in the darkness he slapped his hand on the guard’s shoulder.

“To whom do you belong, Jim?”

Taken by surprise, and noting instinctively the white man’s voice, the thin veneer of freedom and egotism wore off.

“To ’state of Norris—on de main, Marster.”

“Hand me that pistol from your belt.”

Still under the power of the masterful man, the negro handed it over. Scarcely had McArthur taken it, however, when the spell was broken.

“Looky ’ere, stan’ off dar. I’se one of de gyards. I b’longs to Mr. Linkum an’ myself, now. Stan’ off an’ gimme dat musket,” he quavered, trying to re-assume his self-confidence.

Then he shivered as he felt the cold steel against his temple.

“Don’t speak again, or I’ll kill you instantly.”

Terrified, the negro fell to wringing his hands, his teeth chattering convulsively.

“Take off those clothes,” ordered Ervin, “cap, trousers, coat.”

While this was being done, a dark gray form loomed up by his side out of the fog.

“You got him? I’ll help you.”

It was the mountaineer.

McArthur handed him the pistol, and divesting himself, took the negro’s blue uniform and put it on.

“If he speaks, blow his brains out!”

“Ugh, ugh, ugh!” sobbed the negro, trying hard to swallow even this sound.

“Quick, what is your regiment?”

“Secon’ South Ca’lina. Marster, please take down dat gun!”

“Who runs the ferry boat at Cumming’s Point?”

“Hatchett an’ Simpson, Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.”

“What is your company?”

“Company C, sah.”

“Who is the Captain?”

“Cap’n ain’t come, marster—name’s Brown—’spectin’ him to-morrow.”

Quickly climbing the rope, he picked up the gun of the guard, and began descending. Neither was he to be confused in the fog and darkness. Many times in the Eseeolas had he taken his bearings from a bucket, two sticks and the pole star, as though he were really lost.

“You git it?” It was the mulatto’s voice.

“Yeah, aisy,” Ervin answered in pure Combahee.

He went on down the parapet.

“Where you goin’, you blame bluegum gullah?” the mulatto called.

“Huh, you swongerrin’ mighty rash to a free nigger wid a gun!”

The mulatto laughed.

“If I c’d see you, I’d shoot you like one of them d—n rebels. That’s a fancy way you goin’ to camp.”

“’Tain’t matter about de road, so long as ’e cah’y you to de right place,” was the answer.

Thoroughly familiar with the island, McArthur veered westward and turned his face toward Battery Gregg. As he passed it he was challenged.

“Cholly Smif—”

“What regiment?”

“Secon’ South Ca’lina.”

“What duty?”

“Gyardin’ dese d—n rebels.”

“Pass on, you black nigger braggart.”

“I ain’t lahgin’, mister. Take dese white folks to lahge. Niggers cain’t lahge nuttin’ to de Buckra. Sabby?”

“Get on, Combahee monkey,” called the sentry, recognizing the low country lingo.

Ervin passed on towards Cumming’s Point, his eyes serving him in good stead. Almost in a moment he was by the landing. A towboat lay at anchor, and a couple of mulatto men were in charge of it.

“Hello!” hailed Ervin. His tone was one of easy command.

“Hello,” one of them answered.

“Where are you going?”

[405]

“Been out to the Montauk —comin’ in—”

“Lay that boat alongside.”

“We have orders against it, sir, except by special request.”

“Never mind about the orders. I guess you don’t know Captain Brown, of your own company. You are Second South Carolina, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Company C?”

“Yes, sir,” and they saluted.

“You made a splendid charge at Wagner. We nearly drove the rebs out that night. There, bring her up. You are detailed by Captain Emilio to convey me to James’ Island, within the Confederate lines. I am going to do a little reconnoitering.”

So they pulled up the anchor, and the towboat turned into the creeks between Morris’ and James’ Island.

Scarcely had they gone a hundred yards before a boat was pushed off hurriedly after them, and a voice called excitedly:

“Stop that boat! Hatchett, Simpson, he’s a rebel prisoner! Stop!”

The two boatmen instantly ceased rowing and looked at McArthur angrily. Not a feature of his face changed. Only his nostrils dilated suggestively, and two little flames of fire shot from his eyes.

“Take up those oars, men,” he said, quietly, pointing his pistol at them. “Row as if all hell were behind you.”

The men hesitated.

McArthur fired at the foremost, intentionally grazing his clothes. At the report of the pistol, they cowered in mortal terror.

“Good God, marster, doan’ shoot any mo,’ we’se rowin’!”

“Then row!” thundered the master. “If they catch us I’ll kill you both!”

CHAPTER XXXVIII

“Father,” whispered Helen Preston, in the low voice of despair. “Father, don’t you know me?”

The old warrior who loved Dunvegan sat still as death in his arm chair, a happy smile on his face.

“Father, it is Helen. Oh, father! Don’t you know me?”

Slowly he opened his eyes with a look of incredulous disappointment.

“Oh! Helen, child, is it you? Why disturb me? I was with him—we had just won a great victory—the men were cheering old Traveler as he came down the battle line—”

“But, father, you had been quiet so long—I was afraid—I—”

He had sunk again into a stupor.

She rose heart-broken, and pressed her wan face against the window pane.

“He will die soon,” she murmured, “and I shall be alone. Tait has Annie, but Ervin is so far away! Oh, if he could only come!”

She looked, as always, from the window that faced the southwest, where the ivy-covered cabin crouched, only her eyes now wandered on over the green wheat fields to the blue range of the Wa-haws. Beyond them Ervin was, Ervin who loved her, and would come back some day, and claim his highland lassie.

The twilight was falling gently in the Silver Creek valley, the cooing of the dove came softly from the piny woods. She closed her eyes—and—

The fighting is ended, the tears are over and gone. Of a glad day he comes back stronger, nobler, manlier. The little red church in under the oaks is garlanded with roses. Annie is playing the wedding march, and Dr. Allerton—

“Miss Helen,” called a happy old voice.

“Why, Ben—you—I was asleep surely! What are you grinning at?” Helen asked dazedly.

“I’se got some good news for de young mistis! Ole Ben’s shorely got some good news. De white pigeon what was lost is come home!”

In her anguish she saw him wounded—a great hole, perhaps, in his breast. Pathetically crowning him with her own motives, she hears him tell them to loose the dragoon, reads the one thought of his soul, that Helen should know and come to him.

[406]

“Helen, my child,” a weak voice called from the arm chair, “come near me—do not go far away—I feel ill—my child—it is so good to have you with me at the last—so good to know that you—will not go—a—”

He sank again into a stupor.

She slowly lifted her hand from his forehead where he had lovingly placed it. Her little figure trembled as a soul before the breath of Jehovah. She fell on her knees by the bedside, where her mother had taught her to pray. For an hour the duties fought bloodily over her heart, then she rose and went toward the stable.

Half an hour later Dr. Allerton heard a knock on his door. He saw her by the candle light.

“Helen, my child, what can—is he—dead?”

“Oh, Doctor,” she pleaded, piteously, “tell me what to do!”

“Trust, my child,” he said, seating her tenderly.

She told him all, and when it was done he encouraged her.

“How good it is to know that your brother is with him!”

“Tait? No, I have not even that comfort. He is in Virginia.”

“He is everywhere.”

Then she understood.

“Oh, Doctor Allerton, may I go? Tell me I may go!” she pleaded.

For a long while he sat silent, while a memory of the long ago came stealing through the closed window. A face—a death—a promise kept through forty long years of celibacy. The face laughed at him as he sat silent there, as if he had pleased her well.

“Go,” he said.

And he raised his hand in benediction and blessed her.

CHAPTER XXXIX

The fussy little engine had at last completed its task and the train was ready to start. A crowd of small boys was hanging around it—the greatest marvel of the world to the mountain lads. Its big funnel-shaped smoke-stack sent wonder’s own thrills down their backs, and when the wheels slipped on the cast iron rails they shook with delight. “What a engine!” one of them said. “It’s ’most as tall as a man!”

The engineer was busy pulling off a sliver that had started from one of the rails, which experience had taught him might creep upward, farther and farther, till a car wheel caught it, and sent it through the bottom of a passenger coach, for it was but cast iron, after all.

Helen Preston turned to go, and her eyes caught sight of the Attacoa—highest of all the Blue Ridge, save the forehead of Grandfather’s Mountain. The stranger coming to the village sees it first, and the inhabitant turns invariably as to an old friend to say good-bye when he leaves.

“I love old Attacoa,” she said. “It was there that Light conquered Darkness.”

One by one the mountains sank away behind her, and the forest gave way to the wheat. Pines and chunky oats ran the fuzzy-fingered spruce and slender limbed larches away, and at last when night was settling down over all, after a record-breaking run, averaging twelve miles per hour, she reached Charlotte, and the queer little passenger coach with its twelve-paned window sashes was abandoned.

It was early morning when she left for Charleston, and from the window of her car she watched the red embankments, last semblances of things familiar, become fewer and fewer, and the soft, gray soil of the low country take its place. The harsh blowing of the engine became mellower as the rolling hillocks flattened into fertile plains and juniper trees hastened to claim place by black, sluggish streams. As she neared the city, interminable cypress swamps closed in round them, and long festoons of gray moss hung from every limb. Forests of long leaved pines took their places when the track left the river bottoms, and all the rocks crumbled into sand. When the engine stopped for wood, she heard a bob-white calling his mate, and she fell asleep to dream of the [407] ruffed grouse in the Silver Creek valley.

The depot was a long, low wooden building, and Helen soon found a colored driver who knew where the Chronicle office was, knew Colonel Masters and was sure he was in the city. The cold of the mountain had vanished, and the air was soft and balmy as she drove through the streets. At last they stood before a two-storied building that faced the bay, and over the door the sign of the Chronicle could be deciphered. Underneath was the simple legend, “What is it but a map of busy life?”

Tremblingly mounting the steps, she found herself looking through the open door of the office. An old man sat before the fireplace, holding a tattered flag in his hand. His lips seemed moving slowly, but Helen could not hear his words, as he muttered:

“Ervin, my son, my son, would God I had died for thee!”

“Is this Colonel Masters?” she inquired, trying to be brave, as his kindly blue eyes turned towards her.

“It is, madam, your servant, Colonel Masters. Pray be seated.”

“Colonel Masters, I came to ask if you could tell me where Mr. McArthur is. He is ill somewhere, and I am come to—to find him.”

He looked at her as if he were reading a chapter in his own love story.

“Is—he—ill?” he asked, slowly.

“Yes, sir, he is. I am sure he is. I had hoped that you knew where!”

“I was not aware that he was—ill.”

“He must be—a messenger told me!”

“Could he not tell you where?”

“No, it was not a messenger that could speak.”

Colonel Masters understood. Such messengers had spoken to him many times.

“You loved him,” he said, simply.

A scarlet glow crept over her cheeks.

“I—yes. When did you see him last?”

“When I saw him last he was well, I am sure he was well.”

“How long ago, sir, when—”

“May I be pardoned for asking the name of my pretty inquisitor?”

“It is Helen Preston. I am from Dunvegan.”

“He loved a Helen.”

Again the scarlet flush came. The colonel noticed her eyes light for the first time.

“I must go, sir. Can you not tell me where to find him?”

“Yes, I know where you will find him,” he said, smiling tenderly. “Heaven will not be far from where you find him.”

Helen returned his smile trustingly.

“Perhaps Mrs. Adams, his landlady, has heard something of him. I will send Joe to her house,” Colonel Masters continued, looking, not at the girl, but at the flag he held in his hand. Helen insisted on accompanying Joe, for her impatience could not brook delay in her loving search.

Mrs. Adams herself came to the door when Helen rang the bell, and was stupefied with amazement at the first question:

“Is Mr. McArthur in?”

“Mr. McArthur, madam? Has he risen—has he come back?”

“He is ill somewhere—is it not here?” Her heart sank, for she knew already the answer.

“He—isn’t he dead?”

“Dead!”

The girl from the far hills fainted on the doorstep.

Mrs. Adams bore her quietly to the settee and stood over her till she opened her eyes again.

“Did you—did he die here?”

“No, miss, now do be quiet. Maybe he ain’t dead at all,” the good woman said, soothingly.

“But the pigeon—did he—not loose the pigeon last week?”

At the mention of the pigeon, Mrs. Adams started. Could the girl, whose accent betrayed her highland blood, know that she had freed the dragoon? It was an accident that he had escaped, and he had disappeared instantly, [408] only circling once over the house.

“To be sure, Miss, did he loose the pigeon?”

“Yes, a white one—a big dragoon.”

“Well, now I wonder!”

Then a happy thought came to her.

“If he’s sick, Miss, he must be at the hospital.”

Helen rose, half dazed.

“It is very, very strange,” she said. “Nobody seems to know where he is, yet you know—you must know. May I go to his room?”

“Certainly, ma’am, but there hasn’t anybody seen him in so long that how could we be blamed for thinking him dead?”

They had reached McArthur’s room. Everything was neatly in place. Suddenly Helen started. A glove with a little brown splotch on it hung over a daguerreotype portrait.

“Whose—whose is that?” she faltered.

“I don’t know, Miss; I don’t know at all.”

“Did—did Mr. McArthur like—anybody?”

Mrs. Adams looked at her sharply.

“Mr. McArthur, Miss, didn’t ever let anybody know his secrets!”

But Helen knew the woman knew, and said quietly:

“You would not hurt my feelings, please tell me.”

“Well, Miss, to be perfectly—that is candid—I think he did.”

“And her name?”

“I think—that is—her name is Helen.”

The highland lassie’s face beamed with pleasure.

“Do you know where she lived?” she asked, wishing to make very sure.

“I—not exactly—her home was not here—I think it was in—”

“Never mind,” said Helen, hurriedly, as if Dunvegan had already been pronounced. “I will go to the hospital—perhaps he is there.”

CHAPTER XL

“Oh, Tait!” she sobbed, “I did not know you were here. We all thought you were in Virginia. Oh, I am so glad you are here!”

“Here, Sis, here in this hospital with a game leg?”

“But, Tait, I am here, and you can tell me about Ervin. Is he, oh, brother, is he dead?” The last words sank to a terror’s whisper.

“Dead!” exclaimed her brother. “Good gracious! No! He’s as ’live as a Wa-haw squirrel. He’s captured, that’s all. Cheer up, Sis, he’s all right.”

“Oh, Tait, you are so sweet! Tell me over again, tell me he is just captured! But he—I know he is sick!”

“Not much, I guess. You can’t make old Ervin sick.”

“I know he is ill, Tait, very ill, and I am going to him. I am going to him now.”

As she had left father, so she now left brother, and following his directions, passed out through the long rows of wounded, into the street.

“Go to the Confederate post on James’ Island,” Tait had said, “and they will get a message through for you. Tell Captain Dillard who you are, Sis, and he’ll do all he can to help you.” The words rang hopefully in her ears.

She returned to the Chronicle office, bearing the good news to Colonel Masters, who immediately began arrangements for her conveyance to James’ Island. Joe and another trusty man were detailed as escort. “I regret exceedingly, my dear Miss Preston,” the gallant colonel declared, “that I am unable to accompany you myself, but Ervin’s d⸺ absence—” he corrected himself joyfully, “leaves me tied here. Joe, however, will do all that any one can do.”

Joe dressed in an old broadcloth suit, Prince Albert coat, silk hat crushed into an Egyptian ruin, and hair almost white, made a striking picture. Little tufts of gray hair grew here and there on his scalp, like the scrubby bushes that dot a far Eastern landscape.

Once in the boat with its sea-begrimed sails, Helen began to take in the beauty of the view. Far out in [409] the harbor, Sumter, the unconquerable, looked like a little black box floating on the water. Cumming’s Point was on the right, Moultrie on the left, and the famous hundred pines, so tall that they were seen first of all by the ships at sea, were near at hand on James’ Island. These were the charmed shores of which she had dreamed so often, and now she saw for herself the long low islands fringed with dense deep forests, of palmetto and live oak. The waving salt marshes, too, now sought, now deserted by the sea, seemed familiar, and the deep estuaries and the silver ribboned streams. As the boat moved swiftly over the river, Joe told of the winter residences of the rich planters that lined the banks farther up, of the golden rice fields and the snowy drifts of sea island cotton, of how the teal and mallard duck and wild geese came from the great lakes and wintered in the marshes, and fish swarmed the channels through the rice fields. Deer there were in the forest, too, and tough-necked alligators, which had to be pulled out of the mud when the rice fields dried up in the spring. Emboldened by her silence, he described the great Christmas festival, as it used to be, when for weeks the servants in the great houses had been busy. The river was deserted now, but once sailing crafts of all kinds made the Ashley look like a blue heaven filled with white-winged gulls, and from every bank and field came the song of the happy laborers. Time was when large schooners, fresh from the rice fields along the banks, were making for the Cooper River wharves, and barges laden with snowy cotton bales were being towed to the city.

Captain Dillard himself met her on James’ Island. Colonel Masters’ messenger had found him.

“He is here!” she cried, as soon as she saw the captain’s face. “Is he—is he—how is he?”

“Why, Miss Preston, he is desperately wounded. I can’t imagine how you knew he was here.”

“I knew he was ill, too,” she murmured.

“Then an angel of God must have told you, for it only happened a few days ago, and we have kept it absolutely secret.”

“A little bird told me,” she answered, smiling.

“They almost captured him, but our men heard the firing. Two negroes were dead in the boat, and he had emptied his revolver and was running for the bushes. They shot him as he made a dash for the woods.”

“Does he know anyone?”

“Absolutely no one, and nothing. He is wildly delirious at times, but here we are. Colonel Masters wrote me that you had a right to see him. I shall await your wishes.”

“I will go in now.”

He lay upon a pallet that loving comrades had made in a cabin under the shadow of the pines. His eyes shone wildly, the unnatural brightness intensified the pallor of his emaciated face. As Helen entered, he seemed to know her, and a smile lit up his wan features, a smile which Helen prized above her life. She bent low over his pillow and he whispered, “Helen, darling!”

Great tears sprang to her eyes, for she, too, had seen of the travail of her soul and was satisfied.

“Helen,” he murmured, “we will be married soon, in the little red church in under the oaks. I will care for you always, I will strike down your enemies as I struck down the man who smote you in the face!” His voice rose to a shriek.

“He’s delirious again, madam,” Captain Dillard said sadly, passing out of the door.

But her heart was happy as was the Dawn-Maiden’s when Ioskeha came.

“He’s delirious now, but he knew me,” she murmured, ecstatically, “he knew me at first, and he loves me!”

“Ervin, darling boy,” she whispered. “You love me, do you not, you love only me?”

“I love—I love Helen—” he said, vacantly.

And she clasped him again in her arms, and covered his pale face with kisses.

[410]

CHAPTER XLI

Hattie Corbin and Helen Brooks sat by the fire in the living room. But yesterday the news had come of the sinking of the Housatonic and of the submarine torpedo with terrible loss of life on one and total loss on the other. After the first heartrendings of grief, Helen had sunk into stolid indifference to everything and everybody. The last scene between them, and her note with the hastily scribbled “It is too late,” on the back, crushed her anew at each remembrance. Only one thing had anyone dared to say to her. It was Hattie who had spoken.

“Now, Helen, dear, you know how much we love the Great Cause, who give our all.”

So each day only found her face more deeply lined with pain, and her sympathy with the poor, wounded fellows at the hospital more tender.

One day she was in the hospital and passed by the bed of a poor patient who had just been brought in from Morris’ Island. His face was thin and haggard, and the flesh had all gone away from his bones. His right arm was shattered and one eye had been attacked by cancer. The poor fellow called weakly:

“Miss, a favor, please ma’am.”

“Certainly, sir. What may I do for you?”

“Could you write a letter for me, Miss?”

“Indeed I shall. Wait until I get the paper and ink.”

A few minutes later he was telling her what to write.

“It’s to Miss Annie Little—I mean Mrs. Tait Preston, at Dunvegan, North Carolina,” and at the mention of his loved one’s name, the sick man groaned.

Helen was quick with attention at the mention of Dunvegan.

“Dear Annie: I—am—sick——. Can’t you—come to me? I was—captured in—Virginia. About ten left. Poor Ervin—”

“Ervin,” she said—“Ervin—”

“Ervin McArthur, ma’am.”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes, ma’am, I did—poor fellow. He was the dearest comrade of us all.”

“Now, what did—did you say?” She controlled herself with a great effort.

“Poor Ervin,” he confirmed, “built a submarine tor—.” She stopped and her eyes were full of tears.

“I can get some one else to write it, ma’am—”

“I am ashamed of myself, sir, but his death was so sad—he—”

“Good God! Is he dead?” The sick man almost leaped from his bed. She looked up sadly and replied:

“Yes, sir, he—is—dead!”

The poor fellow leaned back with a groan and turned his face to the wall, saying in a moan:

“Ervin, dear old boy, my comrade! Ervin dead!” Then suddenly his eyes flashed through the cancer.

“Damn them, the blasted fiends! Starving a man on worms, shooting them like dogs. Poor fellow, poor Ervin. God have mercy on his mother! Don’t tell Annie, Miss—don’t tell her he’s dead. It would kill his mother. He loved his mother—and now he’s dead!”

Death—Love.

Love and Death are brothers, and we would tell them so, could we but persuade them to forget their mutual hatred long enough to come and listen to our words. For Love is life, and Death is death, and they never meet. Love never dies. There is a third brother, the youngest of the three, and his name is Fancy, who closely resembles the oldest. Death often crosses his pathway. His body, they say, too, is often found stiff and cold in human hearts, and cast out upon the public highway, where those who hate his elder brother, may see and scorn, and say that Death is stronger than Love. But it is not Love, it is only the fickle one that resembles him. Love never dies. Between him and his grim brother the great gulf is fixed. It is with the weak one that Death walks arm in arm, for he seems to meet often the dalliance of Fancy, and plays daily with the infatuations of [411] youth, whom he can never call aright, not knowing whether it is the ghost of Love or the phantom of Death.

Love and death! We can hardly distinguish between them as we meet them upon the street. And so they are ever strangers to us, though they are often the guests of our hearts and homes.

They treat us to the same, so that one never knows whether it is Love or Death who knocks at the door until the latch is lifted, for their footsteps are not heard. They are not alike again after they have crossed the threshold, not alike at all, ever. Each knocks but once at the door of our hearts, and if we do not answer, but sit still and wait and there comes no sound, not even the sound of his retreating footsteps, it was Love. If you do not answer, but sit still in the gloom and silence, and there is no other knock and the latch lifts, it is Death.

And so we sit expectantly in our humble homes, because we never know when the latch is raised—never know when that single knock will come, nor which of the three faces will appear when the door is opened. We tremble as we open to the visitor, lest he be Death, and glance furtively about the apartments of our life, lest it be God. But those of us who are wiser than any others, always lift the latch, for God and Death will enter anyway, their knock being only a warning that they are coming; and while it might have been Love, the latch must be lifted before he turns away into the night, for he never enters unless the door is opened.

The pathos of our lives and their tragedies are dependent upon the order of the coming of God and Love and Death. If God comes first, we are happy then, for he seems to know when Love approaches, and so he is never turned away. Sometimes Love leaves the heart, but never if God comes first, for he is truer in the presence of the King, and the King is happy when Love is near. Sometimes Love comes first, and while he sits waiting, Death knocks; then he flees from the soul, for he fears the face of his brother, unless God is there, for Death always smiles when he sees God. Sometimes Death comes first, and then neither Love nor God can enter. This and this only is Tragedy with us in Dunvegan. Our children never pass his home at night, and we scarce dare breathe his name at midday—the home, the name of the man who died and saw neither Love nor God.

About a week after the writing of Tait’s letter, a pretty, girlish figure entered the hospital, and finding no one near, began searching the beds for the face of some loved one. On the way down she had been trying to prepare herself for the meeting and tried to make the bright eyes she remembered grow dim, the strong muscles flabby, and the hale glow of health on the cheeks fade to pallor, but she could not.

All the way from Dunvegan she had been planning how she would see him, among the others, on his white bed, and the old, familiar face would look as ever into hers. Now when she turned into the wards and saw the ghastly sights around her, she was stunned for a moment. Men were there looking ruefully at their stubs of arms and fingers, men with every imaginable part of their bodies shot off, and one man who lay just beside her, with his face turned away—Great God!—suppose Tait should be like him—. One eye was eaten out with cancer; disease had laid hold of his very vitals, and his right arm had been amputated. The thought of him made her sick, and she leaned against the bedstead. Then, not daring to look around, she went back to find a nurse for directions. She had hardly staggered a yard when she heard a weak voice:

“Annie, Annie!”

Stopping at the sound of her name, she paused to locate the sound.

“Annie, Annie, don’t you hear me? Here I am.”

The voice was weak and husky and unfamiliar, but the name was Annie. She turned. It was the man whose [412] arm was gone, whose eye was eaten out by cancer.

“Annie, Annie, I am Tait! Oh, God, don’t you know me?”

The thin wasted hand held out in entreaty. She knew that it was her husband.

“Tait, darling boy! Oh, what have they done to you? My darling, my darling!”

Love—and—Death—a woman’s love, a soldier’s death.

A few days later, women were gathering in little groups about their homes and the boys and old men left in the city were congregated in the street.

Suddenly, as from a clear sky, the news has come—Sherman was coming. Mrs. Corbin and Helen and Hattie were at breakfast when the morning Chronicle came in and the news was read.

Sherman coming! Flee, hide your valuables, bury your silver! The few soldiers in the city had been ordered north to try to save the Confederacy there. The city was defenseless. Even the bells of St. Michael’s had been sent to Columbia for safety.

“I am glad Bessie is in Columbia,” Mrs. Corbin said, when it was read. “The little babe will be born in peace at least.” Bessie was the young bride of Jack Corbin.

“Mother,” said Hattie, “you and Helen must leave immediately.”

As though to emphasize her words, a cannon ball crashed through the house, whizzed by the speakers and penetrated into the cellar. In an instant they realized that it would have exploded if it were going to, and so sat quietly talking on, so used had Charleston grown to her sorrows.

“You must go immediately. I will get everything in order and follow later on.”

So they left in a few days, for Mrs. Corbin must needs be by Bessie, and Helen would go with her aunt.

As they entered the car set apart for ladies and their escorts, as was the custom now, a woman in front of them with a little baby, heard a voice outside:

“Madam, please lend me your baby.”

Her eyes were red and swollen with weeping. She had been pressing her child closely to her breast. She looked down. It was a poor soldier with a wounded arm who was going home. Without a word she handed her baby through the window, and in a few minutes it bobbed up serenely at the car door. The guard thinking it was the man’s child, let him pass into the more comfortable car.

“Thank you,” he said, seating himself wearily and handing the baby back.

Soon another soldier borrowed it, and another also, before the train started on its long, slow ride to Columbia. The rolling stock had fairly given out during the four years in which nothing could be done to replenish or repair it.

“Madam, will you give another lady a seat?” she heard the conductor say to the woman with the baby, who was leaning on a package that lay on two seats and was covered with a faded shawl. The woman looked up and moved and they saw that it was a rude wooden coffin.

Her eyes were red and inflamed with much weeping, and she spoke softly in the accents of the hills.

“It is my husband; I am taking him home.”

Nor did Helen know who the sweet sufferer was, though she heard her ask, when she left the train at Columbia, when the next train went north to Dunvegan.

CHAPTER XLII

General Sherman’s army was marching through Georgia.

At daybreak the pillar of cloud went before him, and at night great bonfires of burning homes lit up their rearward. The strong fled at their approach, and the weak trembled and prayed.

There was a day when the foragers of the victorious veterans reached the home of an old couple who lived with their few slaves in the path of the devourer. [413] They had but returned from the burial of a little baby boy, a colored baby whose mother was the faithful old cook, Mary Ann, and whose father was a brother of the Chronicle’s Joe in Charleston. They were standing under the vine-colored doorway looking at a dense smoke rising in the direction of a neighbor’s, when a squad of soldiers in blue came up.

“Old woman, we are hungry. Got anything to eat?”

The best the white-haired grandmother had was set before them, and when it was gone—more. At last one of them said:

“Madam, you had best hide everything you have, or by this time to-morrow you will have nothing.”

“Shet up, ol’ Secesh!” said another.

When the men had gone, they dug little holes and hid their few treasures; a dozen knives and forks and as many spoons, and the old man took his watch and put it far up the chimney. By the time it was done, blue-coated soldiers were swarming all over the premises.

“Old man, come out here!”

When he followed some men into the bushes, they made merry with the grandmother.

“Old woman, where is your silver?”

Silence.

“Where is the silver?”

By this time the smoke-house was on fire and a half dozen bales of cotton were burning. The negro slaves gathered in terror.

Soon the white-haired man came back, his face purple, his eyes bloodshot, his step tremulous.

“Give me my watch, Mary.”

“Why, Henry, it is not theirs!”

“Give it. They have choked me nearly to death.”

The old man staggered to his chair. They had taken him to the swamp, and bending a small sapling over the road, stretched a rope upon it and said:

“Now, old man, tell where you keep your gold.”

“I have no gold, gentlemen.”

“Don’t lie to us. We’ve heard all that before. You might as well tell us first as last. See that rope, you know what it means.”

“I have told you the truth.” The old man was thin and aged.

“Swing him up, boys.”

He dangled from the end of the rope, and then they let him fall.

“Now, where is the gold?”

He did not understand at first, then he said feebly:

“The gold—oh, yes, the gold—. I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have no gold.”

“Swing him up again.”

The jerk on his neck well-nigh broke it, and the suffocation was almost too much.

“Will you remember now where it is?”

“The gold—oh, yes, gentlemen,” dazedly, “I’m sorry, but I have no gold.”.

“Swing the damned rebel once more.”

It was really useless, for he was insensible, and when he fell he looked like a dead man. His withered old hand and his thin gray hair and his weak aged heart could not stand much. He was totally unconscious.

“We nearly went too far that time, boys.”

When he came to, they were bathing his face in the brook.

“Oh, yes,” he said, involuntarily, “the gold. It is as I have said—only the watch I told you of at first. I am an old man now and have no use for gold.”

So they brought him back to the house.

“Old woman, fork out that watch.”

“I will not do it.”

“You will!”

They were coming towards her when the one whom they had called “old Secesh,” entered, and they stopped.

“Men, for shame! For shame! Don’t dare touch that old woman! The first man who touches these old people will be shot,” he continued, raising his gun, and they went sullenly out into the yard.

[414]

And when they had gone, they had taken all—the sweet potatoes in the hills, the corn, bacon, flour, the cows, cooking utensils, anything any one wanted. And “old Secesh” stayed by the aged woman’s side.

“It is a shame,” he said, apologetically. “If only Grant were our commander! This isn’t the way he and Lee fight.”

At intervals other soldiers came, and finding all taken, passed on. To one she looked up reproachfully, and said, as she listened to the groans of the negroes about their burning cabins.

“And yet you say you are the friends of our negroes?”

“We came to save the Union. Damn the niggers,” was the reply she received; and then the man continued:

“You think Georgy is havin’ a bad time of it, old woman—jes’ wait till we git to Ca’liny, we’ll grease her over and burn her up. That’s where treason begun, an’, by God, that’s where it shall end!”

“Yes, and old Columbia’ll be red, white and blue when we’re done,” chimed in another.

At sunset the aged woman went out into the empty yards and an old negro mammy was sitting on her porch, her body swaying backward and forward, as is the custom of the race when in the deepest misery. Occasionally a low moan and the ringing of hands in silent sorrow. Then seeing her mistress approaching, she cried out:

“Mistis, what kind of folks is dese here Yankees? Dey won’ eben let de daid rest in de grabe.”

“Why, Mary Ann, what is it?”

“You know my little John, what was buried yistiddy? Ain’t dey done tuk him up and lef’ him on de top o’ de groun’ fer de hogs to root?”

The soldiers had seen the fresh earth, and they mistook the new-made grave for hidden treasures, and “a little dead nigger was not worth reburying.”

So the black mother rocked and moaned in horror and agony.

And that night by the campfires not far away, a man was warming his hands and saying:

“Dees tarn rebels down here tink dey haf a hard time in Georgy—jus’ wait till we strike South Ca’liny oncet. We’ll burn ’em up all to oncet already.”

“Have you heard what Sherman says, Dutchy?” a soldier asked.

“ I know what Cheneral Sherman haf say, and I will carry it oud entirely. Ve vill burn up that Columbia ven de tree rockets goes up oncet. Ve vill gif dem hell already, dey hadn’t ought ter lef’ de glorious union,” and he laughed knowingly.

“General Sherman didn’t say that.”

“Ach, mein Gott, don’t I know vat Cheneral Sherman say and tink? Ach, he ain’t say nothings, aber he think a blicky full. You jus’ vait till we burn dat Columbia, and Cheneral Sherman vill be dere and von’t say one word, py tam!”

To be continued

The present race problem is cognate to the African slavery problem, which preceded it in point of time. Slavery was a grievous fault, and grievously hath the South answered it. Morally, the whole country is responsible for its introduction.

The slave trade, the most degrading and offensive branch of slavery, was carried on by New England, they being a maritime people, and the South, an agricultural section then, bought the negroes as laborers. Then came the day when it was to shake the foundation stones of the republic. It was agitated in pulpit and hall; in song and in story. The art of the novelist, the moving strains of sacred song, and the dagger of the assassin, were alike employed to arouse interest and zeal in the fate of the poor, downtrodden negro.

These were the abolitionists whose chief seat was Boston, whose place of rendezvous was Faneuil Hall, a place made historic by great speeches and great meetings there in the early days, by the lovers of free institutions. Plymouth pulpit added its voice, and the days of slavery were then numbered; but the country was to be baptized with fire, and with blood, if nothing better. These people were fanatics, and fanaticism has been defined as “ a popular movement acting without reason or judgment , always, however, founded upon some religious or philanthropic idea or sentiment , to give it character and volume .”

This bird of dark plumage and portentous croak, winged its way from Exeter Hall, London, the parent body of the American society meeting there. Results will forever mark an object lesson for true patriots, and practical statesmen and sound a note of warning against incorporating altruistic, philanthropic fads, and the various cults growing out of idealism into party platforms and making use of such explosive material to gain political advantage.

Slavery was abolished in the English colonies and elsewhere peacefully, as would have ultimately happened here; and though it may have been delayed a half century, nay, even a century, the net moral gain would have been far greater.

England had slavery also, and the Exeter Hall people, like those of Faneuil Hall, were fanatics. They exalted the negro and ascribed to him attributes, qualities and possibilities equal to those of the white race, and hated his owners and the constitution, government and laws of this republic as founded by the fathers. To-day many of the triflers with the stern facts of anthropological and ethnological science, who distort the truths of history while laboring under the magic spell of this fanaticism, confound all dark, dusky or colored peoples with the true negro of Africa. They have credited the ancient civilization of Egypt to the negro race, when many school boys know that the Egyptians, the founders of Thebes, of Memphis, the builders of the pyramids, and the carvers of the Sphinx, were Coptics , not negroes. Neither Pharaoh, Ptolemy nor Cleopatra, the fair sorceress of the Nile, were negroes, though natives of Africa.

When the Constitution of the United States was framed many of the delegates to the convention traveled by private conveyance; and as slavery [416] existed both at the North and South, many of them brought negro drivers or servants to the meeting place. Slavery was even then fully established, recognized and protected by a clause inserted in the Constitution as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered upon claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

This provision was adopted by the convention without opposition, and this solemn instrument, creating a government among men, which was to become at once the wonder and admiration of the statesmen of the world, bore the signatures of Washington, Franklin, Hamilton and Madison, but Senator Sumner, the leading spirit of rabid fanaticism, in the Senate of the United States, said that it was “a covenant with hell;” and advised resistance, by force if necessary. Many Northern states enacted “personal liberty laws” prohibiting the return of fugitive slaves to their owners.

The Republican party was formed upon this new-born craze, and incorporated these new and strange doctrines into its platform at Chicago, in June, 1860; and in five months the movement culminated in the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency.

If there is one thing more than another sedulously taught to Southern youth as a political creed it was that our government was based upon a written constitution which should be obeyed, upheld and respected; to do otherwise was treasonable. The South then viewed the situation with horror and alarm.

Nat Turner, a negro preacher in North Carolina, had, some years before, fomented a servile insurrection and in the night time the negroes rose and murdered many white families.

John Brown, a white fanatic from the West, had gone down to Virginia and incited servile insurrection; and having armed men, made war against Virginia. He was taken, and after trial for treason, was legally executed. When his remains crossed the Potomac river, going North, his casket was covered with flowers, thus testifying that his aborted efforts in Virginia had many sympathizers. A servile insurrection thenceforth became a possibility to be thought of. A servile insurrection meant efforts at midnight assassination. The South is now, as then, desirous of preserving good order, peace and quiet, between the two races, and the people of other sections do not realize the situation.

These facts are of interest now only in throwing light upon the view point of the South, when a new political party triumphed, the leading principle of which was interference with slavery. Aside from pecuniary considerations as to the value of the slaves, the effect upon the slaves themselves of these agitations was a matter of the deepest concern and the South sought safety and repose in withdrawing from the Union as a last resort. Its people were divided on the subject and the ordinances of secession passed by narrow majorities, thus showing that under normal conditions, the South was strongly attached to the Union.

It is painful to utter views not in accordance with a well founded hope for the final uplifting of all men, but naught shall be set down in malice or ill-will to an inferior and weaker race. The white man of the South has a duty and a burden; and if he has, as has been often charged, suppressed negro votes and elected legislatures, he has, at the same time, in ten Southern states, impoverished and ruined by war, appropriated for negro schools over one hundred millions of dollars . While the South has encouraged the negro in industrial, educational, and moral training, and produced some fine specimens of the negro race, still there are millions who are just as they were, and many good observers see evidences of retrogression in the generation since emancipation.

No prophetic vision can see, no intellect can foretell, what the final result will be. All sorts of speculations [417] have been indulged, extinction by absorption, by a gradual dispersion over the states, or, remaining in the South, a co-equal parallel development of the two races.

A race problem of course implies race antagonisms, and the chief factor in bringing about race antagonism is not in the bare fact that the negro vote is Republican, but in the fact that the race, vote as a race , solidly, en masse , and naturally , in view of the manner of its emancipation. It is not that white men see in mere party allegiance a menace to good order, or are intolerant of Republican politics, especially the national and economic politics of the party, for many are at heart protectionists; but it is the perpetual solidarity of the vote of the negro race, voting as a race that sharply accentuates race attrition. Much has been spoken and written about the solidarity of the Southern states in voting, and little notice taken of the cause , which is the solidarity of the negro vote. Thus one solidarity begets another solidarity , and the South has not been in a normal condition, politically, since emancipation.

Is there not a problem in this?

It is submitted to all fair minded men whether it is not true—that if any race whatever vote solidly and habitually, as a race, be they German, Irish, Jew, Negro or Chinese, that it would inevitably produce race antagonism, in any state in the union. The South had at the close of the Civil War, its share of the Whig party, who on account of negro solidarity were driven into white solidarity —the Democratic party, and they and their descendants have remained solidly there, voting solidly against the solid negro vote. In many parts of the South the negroes outnumber the whites, and could elect, if their solid vote was counted as cast, judges, clerks and sheriffs, and in at least three states, state officials, a state of affairs as much to be desired as a Chinaman mayor of San Francisco, or governor of California. The negro vote has been in some way neutralized, or he has not voted the full numerical strength of the race, else such results must have followed.

The fact is, the negro has been practically disfranchised for thirty-five years, and the South has grown tired of dishonesty in elections. Thus, by restricting suffrage, the causa causans is removed.

Under these constitutions a new star of hope for civic virtue and fair elections has just arisen upon the Southern horizon. Throughout this long midnight of political darkness hope has been cherished of a brighter day. The political wanton, or fanatic, only, could seek to disturb, or obstruct it. The best element of the citizens of Alabama are not unlike, and are morally and intellectually the equals of citizens of other states, and they may be trusted to do equal justice to both races. With the right to vote restricted, and the removal of the fear of negro majorities, white men can afford to divide and sternly call each other to account at the ballot box. Two parties are essential in the American political system, and the best results cannot be obtained without them. When these new constitutions shall be acquiesced in, or judicially tested and sustained, solidarity in the South will disappear; and the republic will rest upon surer foundations. The constitutional guarantees of life, liberty, property, the pursuit of happiness, with the facilities afforded him for education, moral and industrial training, are of far more value to the negro than the political right to vote; which in the present stage of his progress has served only to make friction between the races. After a time it may be the part of wisdom to remove present restrictions, and time alone can point the way.

Intelligent and patriotic negroes will not fail to discern, that when vast masses of the race no longer vote solidly against their white neighbors, Southern white men will be more and more disposed to enforce, in his favor, the rights enumerated. In other words, the race is restricted in a purely political function, but it is enlarged in every other direction by that very restriction.

[418]

It may require the passing of several generations of negroes to determine their real capabilities under the uplifting influence of American institutions, for they have failed sadly in other emancipation countries. There were 6,000,000 Africans held as slaves on this continent, at the beginning of the century just closed. Only 883,602 of this number, were held in the United States; about 2,000,000 by Spain on the continent and West Indian Islands, about 900,000 by England on the continent and in the West Indies. The remainder were held by the Portuguese, Dutch, Danes and Norwegians in their various colonies. Their descendants have all been emancipated, some for a hundred years, some for only a few years, and they furnish fields for observing the experiments made with the negro as a part and parcel of the social, political, and economic affairs of those countries.

Emancipation occurred in Hayti in 1792, as an incident of the French Revolution, and the negroes rose and exterminated every man, woman and child of the white race in the island, with atrocious and revolting details unrecorded. They then set up a republic, a military despotism it was, and such it has remained. Splendid sugar and coffee plantations left untilled, grew up in wild growths, the rich resources of the island were consumed. For a brief space the orderly habits of the white race flickered, and then went out in darkness, eclipsed by a saturnalia of idleness and crime. Negro nature, left to itself, relapsed into barbarism.

“But,” says Froude, the most distinguished modern English historian, “behind the immorality, behind the religiosity, there lies active and live, the horrible revival of the West African superstition; the serpent worship, the child sacrifice, and the cannibalism. There is no room to doubt it.” A missionary assured me that an instance of it occurred only a year ago, within his personal knowledge. The facts are notorious. A full account was published in one of the local newspapers, and the only result was that the president imprisoned the editor for exposing his country. [11]

Bishop Kingsley, who visited the island in 1871, says: “The chief center of this detestable system (Obeahism or Vaudoux worship) is St. Vincent, where, so I am told by one who knows that island well, some sort of secret college or school of the diabolic prophets exists.... In Jamaica I was assured by a non-conformist missionary, who had long lived there, Obeah is by no means on the decrease, and in Hayti it is probably on the increase, and taking, at least until the fall and death of Salnave, shapes which when made public in the civilized world will excite more than mere disgust. But of Hayti I shall be silent, having heard more of the state of society in that unhappy place than it is prudent, for the sake of the few white residents, to tell at present.” [12]

Again he says: “The same missionary told me that in Sierra Leone also, Obeah and poisoning go hand in hand.” Ibid. p. 345.

Sir Spencer St. John, for twelve years the British Minister to Hayti, later Minister to Mexico, in a work entitled “Hayti, the Black Republic,” pp. 196-204, gives at length the horrible details of these practices, as brought out in a legal trial by the evidence, to which trial he was an eye witness. Several persons were charged with, and convicted of, cannibalism. A child being the victim, was first offered as a sacrifice, to propitiate the serpent. “In treating of the black,” says Sir Spencer, “and the mulatto, as they appeared to me during my residence among them, I fear that I shall be considered by some to judge harshly. Such, however, is not my intention. Brought up under Sir James Brook, whose enlarged sympathies could endure no prejudice of race or color, I do not remember ever to have felt any repugnance to my fellow creatures on account of difference of complexion. I have dwelt about thirty-five years among colored people [419] of various races, and am sensible of no prejudice against them” (pp. 8 and 9). “All who know me know that I had no prejudice of color, and if I place the Haytian in general in an unenviable light, it is from a strong conviction that it is necessary to describe the people as they are, and not as one would wish them to be. The most difficult chapter to write was that on Vaudoux worship and cannibalism. I have endeavored to paint it in the least sombre colors, and none who know the country will think that I have exaggerated; in fact, had I listened to the testimony of many experienced residents I should have described rites at which dozens of human victims were sacrificed at a time. Everything I have related has been founded on evidence collected in Hayti, from Haytian official documents, from trustworthy officers of the Haytian government, my foreign colleagues, and from respectable residents, principally, however, from Haytian sources.”

Sir Spencer St. John is an Englishman, a gentleman, and in no way concerned with the race problem under discussion. His testimony should stimulate honest inquiry among conservative thinkers, and should sober fanaticism. While the negro of the Southern states has not fallen to the level of the Haytian, there is abundant proof in the history of every country where emancipation has taken place, that the negro race in every instance, when left to guide itself, and the prop of the white man’s rule withdrawn, has retrograded—reverted to the original type.

Retrogression, decay, vice and Voodoism are the same in Jamaica as in Hayti, modified now for the better, since it has been changed from a responsible colony, as classified in the British Colonial system, to a crown colony, and the elective franchise withdrawn from the negroes. The crown colonies are governed directly by the home government.

Emancipation began there in 1838 and was accomplished through the agitations of Exeter Hall. Jamaica is one of the most fertile spots on the earth’s surface; and tilled under the direction of Englishmen, it was a garden spot, producing vast quantities of coffee and sugar, yielding a large revenue to the government. Indolence followed emancipation, and the once beautiful plantations became waste places. Poverty and want prevailed, revenues failed, and the parliament appointed committees to investigate. The evidence taken showed that the negroes had quit work, the plantations had grown up in bush, and they had squatted in the forests and along the streams. The Exeter Hall Society made many excuses and explanations, and all failing to account for the negro’s degeneracy, they finally urged that he be given the right to vote, in order to encourage him; and under the tireless exertions of these fanatics, parliament enacted a universal suffrage law, with a proviso that the voter should own some real estate, but without specifying the amount. The land had been abandoned and had little value, and the Exeter Hall Society bought a tract of about 1,200 acres, and gave it in small parcels to the negroes until 50,000 of them were qualified to vote under the law, which was not passed anticipating such a result.

The negroes then had a majority over the whites, and speedily took charge of the government of the island, and nearly all white men left their property and the country. “That Jamaica,” says a British official, “was a land of wealth, rivaling the East in its means of riches—nay, excelling it as a market for capital, as a place in which money might be turned; and that it now is a spot on the earth almost more poverty stricken than any other, so much is known to almost all men.”

The little island of Barbadoes contained 160,000 negroes and about 300 white men, and as there was no waste land for the negroes to squat upon, and the white men took care that they obtained no land so as to qualify, that island has remained a highly cultivated, prosperous and happy country. [420] These last named islands furnish striking contrasts, and the islands of Jamaica and Hayti are irrefragable proofs that unrestricted negro suffrage and negro government bring desolation and ruin to both races; and there is no instance to the contrary in all of the emancipation colonies, including the Hispano-American colonies.

San Domingo, once a Spanish colony, and in which emancipation had taken place, is naturally the most fertile of these islands, and was abandoned by Spain. During General Grant’s term of office, a commission was sent there to examine this island and its resources, with a view of appropriating it, and establishing a negro state, by emigration from the United States. Senator Sumner, the leading exponent of abolition, defeated its ratification in the Senate, well knowing the negro’s incapacity for self-government.

Out of the vast mass of evidence the limits of this paper will not permit more than a few opinions additional, from travelers and men of science, in each instance wholly disinterested in American politics, being natives and residents of other countries.

David Page, of Edinburgh, F. N. S. & C., says: “However much mistaken philanthropy may argue to the contrary, there can be but little doubt that the Ethiopian, or black man of Africa, is inferior both to Mongol and Malay, and still more to the Caucasian. He has had possession of the African Continent with all its variety of situation, climate and produce, from time immemorial, and yet has no arts save the rudest, no literature, no science, no temples, no ships, no cities, no moral code; in most instances no idea even of a Supreme Being; nothing in fine, that removes him beyond the desires and necessities of animal existence. [13] ”

Professor Page then quotes the English traveler, Sir Samuel Baker, and says: “Notwithstanding all this and a thousand times more (he refers to the Andamaner and the native of Australia) there are some who still argue about the equality of the human race, and talk high sounding generalizations regarding the unity and brotherhood of men. As well might they contend for equality of brothers of the same family, or equal capacity among the men and families of a nation. As in the physical world there are suns, systems, and satellites, so in the vital and intellectual, there are higher and lower, races born to command and lead, and others as certainly destined to obey and follow.

“It is not because one race has risen under favorable circumstances, and another retrograded or remained stationary under conditions of an adverse nature, but because of aboriginal differences and capabilities, which no circumstances can efface nor appliances counteract.

“Brotherhood there may be and ought to be, as far as the inherent instincts of race toward race will permit; and these instincts are not to be disregarded with impunity; but as to unity, if by unity is meant oneness of power and tendency, it is an assertion that all history and present experience must deny. It is a mere phrase that may please the unthinking ear, but it is not a fact that can satisfy the reason. [14] ”

Captain Richard Burton, geographer, explorer, ethnical psychologist, a shrewd and sagacious observer, says: “The study of psychology in Eastern Africa is the study of man’s rudimental mind; when subject to the agency of material nature, he neither progresses nor retrogrades.

“He would appear rather a degeneracy from the civilized man than a savage rising to the first step, were it not for his apparent incapacity for improvement. He has not the ring of the true metal. There is no rich nature as in the New Zealander for education to cultivate. He seems to belong to one of those childish races, which, never rising to man’s estate, fall like worn out links from the great chain of animated nature. He unites the incapacity of infancy with the unpliancy [421] of age. For centuries he has been in direct intercourse with the most advanced people of the Eastern Coast (Arabs), still he has stopped short at the threshold of progress; he shows no sign of development; no higher or varied orders of intellect are called into being. [15] ”

“I have,” says Du Chaillu, “been struck with the steady decrease of the population even during the short time I have been in Africa, on the coast and in the interior, but before I account for it, let me raise my voice in defense of the white man who has been accused of being the cause of it. Wherever he settles, the aborigines are said to disappear. I admit that such is the case; but the decrease of the population had already taken place before the white man came; the white man noticed, but could not stop it. The decrease of African population is due to several causes—witchcraft taking away more lives than ever the slave trade did.

“I have found no vestige whatever of ancient civilization. Other travelers in different parts of Africa have not been more successful—I think everything tends to show, that the negro is of great antiquity, and has always remained stationary. As to his future capabilities I think extreme views have prevailed. Some think that the negro will never rise higher than he is; others think he is capable of reaching the highest state of civilization. I do not agree with either of these opinions. I believe that the negro may become a more useful member of mankind than he is at present, that he may be raised to a higher standard, but if left to himself he will soon fall back into barbarism, for we have no example to the contrary.

“The efforts of missionaries for hundreds of years have had no effect. The missionary goes away and the people relapse into barbarism. That he (the African) will disappear in time from the land I have but little doubt; and that he will follow in the course of time the inferior races who have preceded him. So let us write his history.” [16]

The foregoing is from the pen of a man of science, an eminent naturalist, and is worthy of the thoughtful consideration of all persons to whom evidence has meaning.

That the present condition of the negro in the Southern states is superior to the African in his native lair, or his descendants in other emancipation countries, cannot be doubted. But it should not be forgotten, that whatever improvement there may be, is due to the training of a superior race of white men, for many generations, and since emancipation, to the facilities for education, morally, intellectually, and industrially.

The Southern white man, under normal conditions, in the absence of excitement and irritating circumstances, is the negro’s best friend. He can here work out his destiny, slowly, as natural law moves—through generations, and he will reach his goal, whether it be high or low, and no man should obstruct, or deny him this. It is only insisted that he is not yet fitted for the elective franchise unrestricted—a right, as jurists hold, not springing out of man’s nature, but a civil right to be conferred by the state upon those most capable of its intelligent exercise. Nor is it conferred by the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution; those amendments are merely limitations upon the states preventing them from enacting a law excluding negroes from voting, because they are negroes.

They do not prevent restrictions upon voting, if reasonable, and applied to both races.

About one-fourth of the area of the United States is directly afflicted with this race problem, and while the people of the South are more interested in its wise management than the people of other states, yet every patriot and every business man looking forward to that high destiny which awaits us as a nation, must feel concerned for its proper solution.

The matter should be put upon a [422] higher plane than party politics. Investments and rapidly developing industries in the South would be retarded by partisan agitation, and business men, acting through their organizations, should seek to avert it. It is believed that all of the Southern states had, at the time of the adoption of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, universal suffrage fixed in their constitutions, and since the legislatures could not restrict suffrage under the old constitutions, the effect of those amendments, was to suddenly enfranchise ex-slaves, while most of their former owners were disfranchised for participation in rebellion.

The latter was not unnatural, but the former was, and must stand in history as the extreme limit to which partisan and fanatical passions have carried men. The most rapacious exactions of pecuniary indemnity, or the stripping the conquered of the very soil of their fathers, are in comparison trifling inconveniences.

That one great enlightened section of the white race, was willing to submerge another great section of its own race, beneath a sea of African ex-slaves, has a parallel only in England’s calling to its aid “the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

The one was an offense against life .

The other an offense against institutions .

The one violated every known rule of civilized warfare; the other consigned the conquered to the dominion of African ex-slaves.

Both will live in history—both will testify to enlightened men, the one, of the horrors of war, the other, of the baleful sequences of war.

By every consideration of prudence, and the general welfare of all concerned the status of the negroes of the Southern states should not be interfered with by congressional, or other outside action. His unrestricted right to vote, and his solid vote as a race, have been the greatest impediments to good government in the Southern states. Never was there a more appropriate field for the application of the doctrine of laissez faire .

BATTLE OF BURKE’S ORCHARD

Ed and I skinned our rabbits and sunk them in the creek and kept on over to Burke’s apple orchard, where we found two dozen boys belonging to all parts of town and representing all the gangs and tribes and feuds. Newspapers prate about Kentucky feuds, Italian vendettas, the Mafia and such petty things, as if they were in it alongside of the Fayetteville feuds. There were various and sundry deadly schisms existing among the several factions, with sub-feuds between the minor clans, under-feuds, super-feuds, and inter-feuds, until the feudal system ramified the whole body politic of Fayetteville boydom so thickly that you could roust one up and make grim visaged war wrinkle his front whenever two or three boys were gathered together, except at Sunday-school.

I have not a word in protest of the outrage perpetrated upon us by the Kentuckians and Italians, in imitating our feuds. Everybody knows it is a brazen infringement, but these people are outside the jurisdiction of our two judges.

The clans were dividing, and a brawl brewing when we got there, and it looked like there was going to be about a five-pronged battle, with perhaps a little side rock-polemics and personal gouging disputations. Ed and I did not know the merits of the question under debate, but in those days the code did not require you to know the mere vulgar details and causes. All you wanted to be certain of was that the other fellows were there. The world should rid itself of the delusion that it requires any especial aggravation to prompt a boy to hit at any head he sees poking up.

The first thing I saw, Sam Ramsey had climbed after a particularly red apple that Bob Neeld had claimed the week before, and when he shook it down John Formwalt picked it up and bit it. Fon Feeney, who belonged to a subsection of the Ramsey Rooters, saw the dirty deed, and he smashed John on the jaw with a rotten apple, and Bob grabbed the red apple. A boy does not mind being hit with a pile driver or a club, or being shoved off a house backwards, or shaken out of a tree, in a fair fight; but he despises to be hit with anything soft and rotten. When Fon hit John, Will McEwen made a dive at Fon, but Bob Wilson tripped him up and fell on top, and in rushed eight fellows, looking for an opening. John Formwalt, with rotten apple smeared over his jaw and running down under his shirt, was a terror to see, and here he came making for everybody in sight, but he ran jam against Charlie Fulton’s fist, and stopped to count the stars. Then Matt [424] Neill came frisking up to close the debate, and Willis Bonner landed on Matt’s snoot, and he hunted grass. There was a mighty mixtry along about then of gouging boys, and Sam dropped out of the tree right on top of the Kilkenny bunch and went for every head in sight.

Spot Miller had been sparring for an opening for an under-hook, and was about to run his fist clean through John Perkins, when Big Yaller Marshall started for Spot and I punched Big Yaller in the paunch and doubled him up. It is swollen to this day. Fitzsimmons hit Corbett just a little above where I hit Big Yaller, but he wrote me afterwards that he aimed at the same place. Ed ran clean over Bob Bright to get at George Morgan, who had Bob Clark down rubbing dirt in his mouth. It was just getting where the fun was ripest when Bob Bright called a truce. Bill Allen’s nose was bleeding again, and the boys all wanted to see that, for Bill had the out-bleedingest nose ever stuck on mortal face. I have seen it myself, coupled with what other boys have seen and sworn to, bleed four barrels on a stretch, and a good deal on the ground, judging by the way he messed up his clothes and things around for ten feet, though of course he may not have bled more than half that much. Billy Hill ran over home to get a bunch of keys to hang down his back, and I rolled up a piece of paper and made him put it over his front gums and draw his lip tightly over it. Hal McKinney (his father was a doctor and Hal was then a candidate) pressed his fingers hard up and down by the side of Bill’s nose, and Ed made Bill spit on a chip and he went off and hid it under a rock. That last is considered about infallible, but it all failed on Bill’s nose, and then Big Yaller told him to scratch in the ground with his big toe, and bleed forty drops in it and cover it up with a leaf and say:

Strange to say, that failed, too. When Bill’s nose started in to play ball it finished out nine innings. Bill is no more, and a royal good fellow he was, but I have seen him shed more blood than Bragg’s army, and I can prove it. Bob Bright started home with Bill, where they knew better how to humor his nose, and George Steel laughed at John Formwalt’s smeared face, and John doused him, and the war broke out with worse sanguinary symptoms than ever, the crowd gradually dividing into two parties and backing off and resorting to rocks. It looks dangerous and bloody on ordinary white paper like this to read about two dozen boys, all throwing rocks at short range, so thick and fast that you might hold up your hat and catch it full, and it looks like somebody ought to get hurt, but they don’t much. I never saw a boy knocked more than one somerset at a time, and besides that, a boy is as hard to hit as a kildee.

Stooping for a rock, I dropped my pistol and Spot Miller picked it up and the boys all saw it, and peace brooded instanter. Every fellow dropped his rocks and crowded in, and I had every marble in the crowd in half an hour. While these negotiations were proceeding Ed had climbed a tree and a limb broke and he fell out and broke his left arm. Ed always regretted it when he broke his arm, and I have seen the poor fellow almost cry over it. It disqualified a fellow for so many of the pursuits, forcing him to lie up for the bone to knit. Besides that, Bill Allen made arm-breaking so common that the boys got tired of it. Bill fell upon every rock he came across and broke his arm, and then he would rebreak it and break it over in another place. At first it was something to have your arm broken, and a fellow was envied and looked up to, but at that time a collar-bone fracture was considered more recherché and distingué . When I was a boy you had to break all of a boy’s legs and arms and things to disqualify him for the game. One little measly fracture was just fun, and kept a fellow out of the garden. The only difference that it made with Ed and me was [425] that I had to dig all the worms for two weeks and sort o’ hold and piddle around and back him up.

I went home with Ed—and don’t you think they sent for a doctor? I could have set it myself, but they did not ask me; and, besides that, it did not need setting. I would bet on Ed’s arm growing out strong and straight every time. He was that sort. If it had been cut off it would not have surprised anyone who knew him to see another one grow out. I have already told why it happened—because he failed to make a cross mark and spit in it before breakfast. I think now that was also the reason I missed that rabbit—if the reader persists in saying that I did miss it. I am willing to admit that the suspicions were against me until I showed the wounds on the rabbit, but I am not going to try to cram anything down public credulity, because I have several more things to tell that I am not willing to swear to, and it is necessary to have the confidence of my creditors.

While Ed’s arm is knitting I will gather up a few odds and ends that are needed to round out these exciting narratives. Ed could make a bow and arrow that was a perfect Indian’s dream, and I doubt if the Six Nations had anything like them. Find a green cedar limb about an inch thick and cut it to three feet length; trim the knots smooth and shave it just a little each side of the center on the concave side at the places where it must gently bend; cut a notch on the side just at the center for the arrow to rest in, and string it with a stout cord. Cut your arrows out of straight hickory and make them plumb, and then take a piece of tin about two inches square and roll it into a sharp spike and fasten it on tightly with a rivet. You can send that arrow through a two-inch plank and hit a tree two hundred yards.

Tony was a little negro boy who lived at Mrs. McEwen’s. We used to hold him down on his back and prop his eyes open and let the sun shine in. One day I shied an arrow straight up and it came down and struck Tony on the forehead about the edge of the hair and went in under the skin of his forehead, clean down to his eyebrows, and stood up like a flagstaff. I pulled it out and made him tell that a piece of stovewood flew up and hit him.

I shot one of Dr. McKinney’s pigs one day through and through, but I did not mind the loss of the pig nearly so much as the loss of the arrow. The contrary little thing ran straight up to the back gate, squealing, and I had no chance to rescue my arrow. Bob McKinney offered the arrow to me next day, to see if I claimed it, but I was too many for him—I had never seen it before. They were also too many for me—Joel, Bull Woolens, Tobe, Hal and Bob—and it would have been very unhealthy to claim it with five McKinney boys to one me.

Remus suffered an accident one day that came near disfiguring him for life. I went into Doug Farquaharson’s barber shop and Remus followed, and then I came out and Remus tried to follow, and there is where he made the mistake of his life. Doug was a negro who belonged to Colonel Farquaharson. I hardly imagine that if Doug had had the selection of his own surname he would have hit upon such an incongruous befuddlement of letters to spell a name that was pronounced plain “Ferguson,” but I mention the name only to say that if you take all the letters in it and rattle them around in a milk-shake a week and then sling them out promiscuous-like, they would spell something that looks a little like Remus’ face did when he got out of that shop. There was a long mirror on the wall right by the door, and when I went out and closed the door after me, Remus thought I went out through the mirror, and he took a running start and made a leap at it. If Remus ever had any lurking notion that he could jump through a brick wall, offhand, he was cured of it then. He tried his best, but it would not work. He was the most surprised dog when he bounced back that ever carromed on a plate glass mirror, but he was not half as much astonished [426] as he was messed up. His countenance was utterly shipwrecked. No one has ever heard me lay claim to any very beatific personal beauty for Remus, but I never knew a dog in my life to lose more sweet elegance of expression than Remus did in half a second. I was about thirty yards off when I heard Remus hit the wall, and I thought I saw it bulge out a little, and I stood there four minutes and heard glass falling. I never went back to Doug’s any more to see whether or not the mirror was injured. I was afraid I might do him some personal injury for setting his mirror where it could inveigle Remus into making such a grave mistake. Four minutes of rattling glass, and the door opened and Remus popped out, with Doug after him with a barber’s chair. I broke for Frog Bottom and Remus for home. He stayed under the house a week, and when he came out his tail was so firmly fixed between his legs that a surgical operation was necessary. I understand that the wall where Remus hit is soft to this day, and that once in a while a fragment of glass falls out yet. It is worthy of remark, and the statement carries with it a solemn warning to the reader, that I had neglected to spit in a cross mark before breakfast that morning. The very next day I saw a black snake over my left shoulder, and a boil broke out under my right arm that very night. We cannot be too watchful, brethren.

AMBITION LURES

“Ed, dog-gone my cats ef I know whether I want to fight Indians or not! I’m afraid One-eyed Sam’ll have ’em all killed ’fore we kin git there.” A new ambition had struck me and I was wabbling between being a stage-driver or an Indian fighter. Ed was amazed and replied:

“Dod-bust it, Laze, ain’t we done ’greed to go, an’ got ready? They ain’t nothin’ in this pokey ol’ country to keep a fellow awake.”

“Huh! I’d druther be in Granville Thompson’s place an’ drive the Huntsville stage than to kill all the Indians I ever see,” I ventured.

“If I thought there was any more bugle horns in the worl’ lack Granville’s an’ I could git to blow one, I’d druther be one, too,” said Ed. “I’d druther come a-sailin’ up the river lane on top o’ that big ol’ stage a-yank-in’ them lines over four horses jes’ a-prancin’ an’ a-gallopin’, an’ a-toot-in’ a tune on that brass bugle—Ta-ta-te-ta-ra-ah! Gen-tul- men ! I’d druther be that than to be a policeman almos’. But we done promise the boys, Laze—how’re we goin’ to git outer that?”

“’Spect we better not let on for a while,” I said, “cause we mightn’t git to drive a stage. But we gotter do sump’un mighty quick, Ed. Dog-gone ef I ain’t jes’ a-gittin’ hungry to smash sump’un-nuther.”

“Git your pistol, Laze, an’ le’s go over the river an’ kill hogs. That’ll keep up the tas’e in our mouths ’till we go Wes’.”

“I lack to clean forgot,” I said excitedly. “’Sposin’ we run off with that circus that’s a-comin’ nex’ week? Betcher I kin ride stan’in’ up ef you’ll let me put rozum on my stockin’ feet.”

“I done bin thinkin’ ’bout that, but ef I don’t go out Wes’ I ’spect I’ll hafter be a dod-busted preacher. They’re jes’ after me at home all the time to be a big preacher,” said Ed. “I dunno whether to be a circus rider or a preacher, Laze. Which’d you druther?”

“Shucks, feller—anybody kin preach. I want to be sump’un sho’nuf when I git a man. I’d druther have a grocery store lack Bill Yates’s than to be a dratted presidin’ elder or a bishop. Ef I had a store lack that with nothin’ to do but to eat candy, an’ cheese, an’ sardines, an’ pickles, an’ sech things, an’ set up in the back room an’ play the fiddle an’ chew terbacker an’ spit, dog-gone my cats ef I’d quit that to be a policeman or a emperor.”

“So’d I,” said Ed, “but what’s the use o’ tryin’ to do that? Betcher Bill Yates’s got more’n fifty dollars worth o’ goods. Nex’ time you’ll wanter be a queen o’ somewheres. I never see [427] sech a feller for tryin’ to git to be the bigges’ man in all this whole worl’.”

“They’re raisin’ me to be president,” I said sorrowfully, “an’ I ’spect I oughter be in Congress right now. All of ’em at home don’t want me to be nothin’ but some dad-gum little thing lack that.”

“Well, if I hafter be a dod-busted bishop an’ you nothin’ but president, the boys’ll laugh us clean outer town,” said Ed.

The foregoing conversation occurred on our wood-pile one moonshiny night about frost. There is no telling what heights Ed and I might have attained if our destinies had not been controlled by persons totally devoid of ambition to shine in the greater walks of life.

[ This isn’t all ]

In after years the Emperor Napoleon III often said to great personages who visited Paris during his reign: “Go to the Conciergerie ; it is very interesting.”

Notwithstanding the sadness which filled his heart, the future sovereign of France retained his faith in his star. Madame Récamier, the friend who, at nightfall, in the Coliseum at Rome, had given words of sympathy to his mother, came to visit the captive. He had also the consolation of receiving a kind message from his father, King Louis.

King Louis had always disapproved of what he considered the vain hopes of his son, and had never spared him censure or remonstrance. On October 7, 1840, the captive was sent from Paris to the fortress of Ham, condemned to be incarcerated there for life. He was carefully guarded; four hundred infantrymen occupied the barracks of the fortress and sixty sentinels, scattered on every side, obeyed strict orders.

In the beginning his captivity was solitary. After a time the government accorded him the precious favor of having three faithful friends beside him. Gen. Count de Montholon came of an old and distinguished family, a hero in the campaign in Italy, at Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram; at the Emperor’s side at Waterloo; accompanying him to St. Helena; and in whose arms he died. He was one of the executors of the Emperor’s will, and the depository of his manuscripts. Devoted to the nephew as he had been to the uncle, before the Court of Peers he spoke these words: “I received the Emperor’s last sigh; I closed his eyes; that is enough to explain my conduct.” He requested and obtained permission to be incarcerated with the prince. His wife accompanied him to the fortress of Ham, as she had done to St. Helena.

Dr. Conneau had been secretary to King Louis. He studied medicine in [428] Florence and intended to establish himself in Paris as a physician, but after going to visit Queen Hortense at Arenensberg, he never left her. These words occur in the Queen’s will: “I give to Dr. Conneau a present of twenty thousand francs and a watch as a souvenir of his devotion in coming to attend me. I greatly desire that my son may retain him.” This last wish was piously observed. During the trial of her son, Dr. Conneau sat on the bench at his side; he had never left him, and asked to share his captivity. Blondel was not more faithful to Richard of the Lion Heart than Dr. Conneau to Louis Napoleon.

Charles Thelin’s prayer to those in authority was not for liberty, but for captivity with a master to whom he was not a valet, but a friend; to that level the prince had raised him.

The prince was simply lodged. He wrote: “I have a good bed, white curtains, a round table and six chairs.” He had also a looking glass measuring thirty-six inches. In after years, in looking into mirrors in palaces, he many times recalled this looking-glass. Upon two wooden shelves were placed his silver toilet articles marked with the imperial arms. After a time he was allowed another room to be used as a study, and in this were placed some of his family souvenirs. Some wooden shelves fastened on the wall held the books and papers allowed for his use; on one of these shelves he inscribed the letter “N,” and said it would bring him good luck. That plank was destined to be the plank of his salvation.

Everything intended for his personal service was daily subjected to the minutest examination. An allowance of seven francs apiece was made for the nourishment of the captives, and their cooking was done by the gate-keeper. The prince was allowed to cultivate a little garden of about a hundred feet on the rampart. “I am occupied a good deal just now gardening,” he writes. “The pleasure I find makes me think that our nature has many resources and consolations unknown to those who are happy.” The inhabitants of the town were always asking for flowers from his garden, and he took great pleasure in sending them.

He gave collations to the school children under an enormous lime tree which has become legendary, and he distributed medals among them, as well as alms among the poor. The curé of the town was the medium of his bounty and became sincerely attached to him. By his gentleness, affability, simplicity and great kindness he made friends even of his jailers; captivating all with whom he came in contact, beginning with the commandant of the fortress. The soldiers were forbidden to speak, stand or salute in his presence; but they contrived means of secretly showing their sympathy. On this account the garrison had often to be changed, and the sentry boxes to be washed to efface inscriptions of “Long live Napoleon!” “Long live the Emperor!”

Prince Louis Napoleon was a magnificent horseman. He was permitted to buy a horse and ride in the courtyard. He amused himself by galloping up the glacis at full speed and stopping suddenly on the summit of the ramparts, on the very edge of the precipice, the boldness of the rider never failing to arouse the admiration of all passers-by. Every detachment of troops passing through the city halted at the foot of the fortress to catch a glimpse of the prisoner. It would have been safer to have kept in captivity forever, on distant seas, this man so impassioned in feeling, so calm and unmoved in expression, so daring in action, so soft and gentle in manner. What wonder that none could understand him nor reconcile the rash temerity of his deeds and the impassive calmness of his attitude. The prisoner of Ham made his prison a place of meditation and study, silently preparing his political future. He wrote a great deal, and from these written words can be comprehended best his character, his ideas, his hopes, his illusions, his sadness and concentrated [429] enthusiasm. These papers written in imprisonment show the most remarkably complex nature; the politician, the conspirator. The man determined to wield tremendous power looks upon his prison as a vestibule to the palace; the poetic, melancholy dreamer breathes forth in every word a sad, sentimental longing for love and happiness.

The great captive lived six years at St. Helena, converting his rock into a monument, of imperishable glory. Memory once more brought kings, as suppliants, into his presence. The mighty conqueror saw again all nations tremble at his approach. The captivity at St. Helena is an epilogue; that at Ham a prologue.

The sad, poetic prisoner, filled with dreams of a wonderful future, sustained by unshaken faith in the star of his destiny, had also passed six years in his dreary prison; so far as men could see, calmly accepting whatever fate might bring. He had said: “I prefer to be a captive on French soil rather than a free man in foreign land.”

In the year 1845 he received a letter which changed his mind and influenced his destiny. It was from his father, for whom he had a profound veneration, and towards whom he had ever been faithful in the discharge of filial duties. King Louis had not been sparing in his blame of the vain hopes which had led his son to the escapades of Strasbourg and Boulogne. With a gloomy memory, replete with bitterness, of all the tempestuous glory of his family, he looked with anger and compassion upon this audacious soul—his son who could throw himself into the stormy ocean of human greatness. A king against his will, an unhappy husband, a loving father deprived by fate of his children, his life had been one of sadness and disappointment.

In August, 1845, he wrote:

The Prince replied:

King Louis’ application for his son’s release having proved fruitless, the Prince resolved to make a personal appeal to the French Government.

[430]

With Bob Taylor

SENTIMENT AND STORY

There was once a civilization in the beautiful land of the South more brilliant than any that ever flourished in all the tide of time. About its ruins there clings a pathetic story of vanished dreams made holier and sweeter by lips that are dust and hearts that are stilled forever. There is nothing left of that civilization now but the memory of its departed glory lingering among its tombstones and monuments like the fragrance of roses that are faded and gone. It was an imperial civilization, ruled from a throne of living ebony; but like great Caesar, it fell at last, with a hundred gaping wounds, and its bleeding corpse dissolved into ashes long ago on the funeral pile of war. I would not recall those bloody wounds nor wake the hatreds of Civil War, but rather let me lift the curtain and give you a glimpse of the glory and the grave of that civilization.

I lift the curtain and see the old South enthroned amid the luxuries of peace and plenty. Heaven never smiled upon a happier people nor upon a land more beautiful; the eagles never soared under softer skies. I see the white-columned mansions of the masters rising in groves of maple and live oak, where perfect types of Caucasian beauty are wooed and won by men as brave and courtly as ever shivered lances in the romantic days when knighthood was in flower. I see the snowy cotton fields stretching away to the horizon, alive with toiling slaves who, without a single care upon their hearts, sing as they toil from early morn till close of day; and when their task is done I hear them laughing and shouting at the negro quarters in the gathering shadows of the evening. I see them swinging corners in the old Virginia reel to the music of the banjo and the fiddle and the bow, until the dust rises above them and swings corners with the moonbeams in the air. I see the old black mammies soothing their masters’ children to sleep with their lullabies. I see the whole black race rejoicing in their transplantation from darkest Africa and gladly serving the white race who led them into the light [431] of civilization and the Christian religion, leaving not an infidel among all those millions of slaves.

I lift the curtain and look again. I hear the tocsin of war. Unfaltering courage and high-born chivalry with shimmering epaulets of gold and bright swords gleaming proudly rode to glory and the grave; bayonets glittered under the silken folds of the Stars and Bars, the shrill fife screamed and the kettle drum timed the heavy tramp of the shining battalions as the infantry deployed into line; and thunder-tongued batteries unlimbered on the bristling edge of battle; a sea of white plumes nodded to the music of Dixie and ten thousand sabres flashed as the cavalry hovered on the flanks and rear awaiting the bugle signal for the charge. Then came the blinding flash and the awful thunder peals where angry columns in frenzied fury met and the hills were strewn with the dead and dying, and the very furrows of the fields ran blood. They were fighting for their homes and the civilization of their fathers as forward with the fierce and daring rebel yell the intrepid armies of Lee and Jackson rushed into a hundred carnivals of death.

Once more I lift the curtain and see their decimated and half-starved columns, ragged and bare-footed, exhausted and encompassed by overwhelming numbers, reel backward in defeat and anguish at Appomattox; the harp of Dixie is hung on a willow tree and the flag of its hope and glory goes down in a flood of tears. Despair swept the harp strings of Father Ryan’s heart, and the South’s poet priest poured out his soul in song:

I lift the curtain and look again. I see the clouds roll away. The laughter of other days is hushed; the mansions lie in charred and blackened ruins, and there is nothing left but mourning and requiems above a land of desolation and of new-made graves. I see the triumphant armies of the Union, with flags flying and bands playing the martial airs of victory, marching in pomp and splendor through the grand avenues of their cities, amid the plaudits of rejoicing millions, leaving the weak and helpless race they had emancipated as a charge upon their ruined and impoverished masters. I see the remnants of the Confederate armies giving shelter and food and raiment to this helpless race and furnishing them with land and plows and mules, and building [432] school houses and taxing themselves to promote the education of the negro children at their doors. I see the sturdy veterans at work in every department of life, and new cities and towns rising in the track of war, and the devastated South blossoming like the rose.

Now a vision of the future opens before me. I see the land of Washington and Jefferson, of Jackson and Polk, of Hill and Gordon again the richest land in all the world, not only in material wealth, but in the wealth of brain and courage and manhood, and in the Cabinet and the Congress, wielding again the destinies of the republic. I see generation after generation weaving garlands of the lily and the rose and hanging them about the monuments of those who wore the gray. I see the North and the South clasping hands in eternal friendship and brotherhood, and Old Glory waving above a united people for a thousand years to come.

The knightly spirit of the cavalier, that led their comrades to the opening grave, inspired the heroes who still survived, to face the dark and lowering future as bravely as they had faced the foe in the dreadful past; and buttoning on their tattered jackets of gray, their paroles of honor, they turned their tanned and tear-stained faces Southward and straggled back to Dixie to rebuild their ruined homes and raise the domes and spires of a new civilization in the air above the ashes of the old. Upon their faithful souls there is no stain of treason; upon their noble brows they wore no bloody wreath of conquest, but only the crown of honor. When impartial history shall be written by the truthful and the just, the names of these men who knelt at the shrine of the Old South and laid their hopes, their fortunes and their lives on its sacred altar, shall shine with the names of the world’s greatest heroes, and generations yet to be shall scatter flowers above their hallowed dust, as sweet tokens of their undying love and their devotion to the precious memories that cling about the folded Stars and Bars.

To the jaded politician who has grown weary of fishing for votes and angling for suckers, there is surcease of sorrow in the brawling brooks of the mountains, where the genuine speckled trout plays hide and seek with the sunshine in the shoals, or sleeps in the darkening eddies, under the fragrant bloom of the overhanging honeysuckles. To the overworked public servant upon whose head the snows that never melt have too soon fallen, these bright, leaping, laughing, dashing, buoyant mountain rivers are the symbols of youth and the synonyms of happiness. On their grassy brinks he may sit and listen to the singing of his reel and the swish of his line, and watch the [433] game black bass as he leaps up out of the middle of the stream, with the hook in his mouth, and flashes in the sunlight, and then darts back to make the reel sing and the line swish again. Or, if he wishes a diversity of sport and pleasure, I will lend him one of my shotguns and a pair of my leggings, and we will leave the trout and bass in the brook and brimming river and follow my brace of beautiful Llewellyn bird dogs, “Fiddle” and “Bow,” into the fields, and serenade the vanishing coveys with chilled shot and smokeless powder. In such a life, in such a land there is no snow upon the heart; ’tis always summer there.

We are the product of the labor and sacrifice of age—labor and sacrifice which unknowingly worked out its own destiny in shaping ours. In our turn we toil to-day that future generations may have such heritage as we will to bequeath to them. Shall we permeate their lives with the dreariness of drudgery, the weariness of eternal struggle, the unworthiness of our fellow men and the hopelessness of reward? Or shall we live each day in joyousness of spirit, in happy accomplishment of duty, in serene confidence in the worth of mankind, believing that “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,” attracting to ourselves the happiness and sunshine we radiate?

Which is the better legacy to our posterity?

Common folks cannot understand so-called high-class music, nor the figures of these newfangled dances, and, therefore, they are in a condition which is beautifully illustrated by a tale I used to hear before politics snatched me baldheaded. At an old-time country dance, the fiddlers rosined their bows and took their places on the platform. The floor manager rose and imperiously shouted: “Get your partners for a cotillion! All you ladies and gentlemen who wear shoes and stockings will take your places in the center of the room; all you ladies and gentlemen who wear shoes and no stockings will take your places immediately behind them; and you barefooted crowd must jig it around in the corners.”

[434]

THE PARADISE OF FOOLS
PART X

Why mourn and brood over broken fortunes and the calamities of life? Why tarry in the doldrums of pessimism, with never a breeze to catch your limp and drooping sails and waft you on a joyous wave? Pessimism is the nightmare of the world. It is the prophet of famine, pestilence and human woe. It is the apostle of the Devil, and its mission is to impede the progress of civilization. It denounces [435] every institution established for human development as a fraud. It stigmatizes law as the machinery of injustice. It sneers at society as hollow-hearted corruption and insincerity. It brands politics as a reeking mass of rottenness, and scoffs at morality as the tinsel of sin. Its disciples are those who rail and snarl at everything that is noble and good, to whom a joke is an assault and battery, a laugh is an insult to outraged dignity, and the provocation of a smile is like passing an electric current through the facial muscles of a corpse.

God deliver us from the fools [436] who seek to build their paradise on the ashes of those they have destroyed! God deliver us from the fools whose life-work is to cast aspersions upon the motives and characters of the leaders of men! I believe the men who reach high places in politics are, as a rule, men of sterling worth and intelligence, and upon their shoulders rest the safety and well-being of the peace-loving, God-fearing millions.

I believe the world is better to-day than it ever was before. I believe the refinements of modern society, its elegant accomplishments, its intellectual [437] culture, and its conceptions of the beautiful, are glorious evidences of our advancement toward a higher plane of being.

I believe the superb churches of to-day, with the glorious harmonies of their choral music, their great pipe organs, their violins and cornets, and their grand sermons, full of heaven’s balm for aching hearts, are expressions of the highest civilization that has ever dawned upon the earth. I believe each successive civilization is better and higher and grander than that which preceded it; and upon the shining rungs of this ladder of evolution, [438] our race will finally climb back to the Paradise that was lost. I believe that the society of to-day is better than it ever was before. I believe that human government is better and nobler and purer than it ever was before. I believe the church is stronger and is making grander strides toward the conversion of the world and the final establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth than it ever made before.

I believe that the biggest fools in this world are the advocates and disseminators of infidelity, the would-be destroyers of the Paradise of God.

[439]

With Trotwood

THE LAST DRIVE

[440]

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE

The problem of life is not so strange when taken in its relation to things around us. The things which to us seem incomprehensible are often so merely from our own ignorance or failure to look at them in the light of existing environments. The questions of life and death, could we grasp them with the myriad of causes before and after, which go with and are a part of them, might even themselves be understood. Of death we know one thing which should rob it of all fear, and that is that, as our coming into the world was painless and unconscious to us, so shall our going out be; and that as we had no choice in the matter of our coming in, so shall we have none in the matter of our going out, and that as we are a link in the cause of events, we should accept our position with the cheerful fortitude of one upon whom a task has been placed by an unseen Creator, relying upon the justice of His wisdom to see that it is not greater than we can bear. For in the bearing of it lie all our growth and all the strength and nobility which shall fix our place in the life to come.

It seems a paradox, indeed, to us to think that we must die to live; yet if we look around us we may see where this same principle is carried out in all the relations of the world; that we grow not by what we get, but by what we give; that we are developed not through pleasure and play, but through hard knocks and hard work; that we are softened and ripened not through happiness, but through pain and sorrow; that use is growth, and idleness is decay, and that from stone to star and from plant to planet, disintegration is the law of God, that greater things may be built upon the ashes of the past, and a grander life evolved from the crucifixions of the present.

The reason we fail to properly understand the workings of God in our lives and the lives around us is because we take too narrow a view of life. We do not look far enough ahead, and so we fail to harmonize things because of the narrowness of the scope. We see a child born, open its eyes upon the world, suffer a little pain and pass away as if it ne’er had been, and we wonder why all of this for nothing. We see injustice elevated and the wicked people prosper and thrive, and things that are great come to naught, and things that are little become great, and in our short-sightedness we complain and doubt, and rush after the short cuts and practice the bad because, for the time being, it seems more profitable than the good. These, indeed, would seem paradoxes, and well might we doubt, and do, if we look at it only from the transitory standpoint of temporal life. Nay, the very fact that such seeming injustice can live, that a young life should be taken, that fraud and envy should prosper, is our strongest evidence that this life is but a link in a chain, and a very short link at that; that there is one grand principle of recompense in all nature and all law, and that as surely as God lives, and the universe lives, and this law lives, so surely will all things be adjusted and evened up. With this view of it, then, we can readily see how the young life that is taken here has that much more to its credit in a land and living a life that is nobler, and that wrong and injustice may grow gray-headed here; but so sure as the great laws of centrifugal and centripetal force act in unison to balance and adjust, there shall be a balancing in which the gray head of every wrong shall pay back, with interest and to the last farthing, in another life, the over-drawn account it made in this.

We know nothing—we are too small to know. But we do see this—everywhere, always, forever and around us: [441] that everything is balanced, and that Balance is the Great Law of the Universe.

Will this Great Law then balance everything, from star-dust to star, from force to effect, and leave man’s life unbalanced?

John Trotwood Moore.

A QUAIL HUNT IN AN AUTOMOBILE
A TRUE BILL

My telephone rang and I laid down my pen.

“Hello, Trotwood,” called my neighbor, one of those strenuous business men who goes at things with a rush from daybreak till dark. He has made a pile, but like all such he has got hold of the handle of things and can’t turn loose. Some day he will turn up his toes and leave a handsome widow with a tempting competency.

“Hello, I say; is that you, Trotwood? Yes? Well, say, let’s go after quail this morning. Ever see such a pretty day?”

“Never did,” I replied. “It’s glorious, and I am ready for a quail hunt any day except Sunday—never had any luck on Sunday, you know.”

“I’ll be around in my new automobile in ten minutes.”

“Oh, say,” I shot back, “now, that’s another thing. I’ve never been out of town in one of those things—they are not bred right, and besides I’ve got religious scruples on that subject. Cut it out, Horatius. I’ll have the little mare and buggy hooked up by the time you get here.”

I heard him laugh derisively. “Nonsense! Why, man, I’m going way up on Bear Creek pike—fifteen miles—and we want to go flying, for it’s 9 o’clock now. But I’ll have you there in forty minutes. Now, the little mare would be two hours and then dead tired for a long drive back home. Say, no use talking—I’ll be there in ten minutes; have your pointer ready; I’ll bring my two setters;” and he rang off.

“I guess I’m in it,” I said to myself, as I went off to put on my hunting clothes. But I remembered that the Bear Creek pike was not a very public thoroughfare, and no one that I knew would be likely to meet me.

“If it gets out on me,” I said, “I’ll prove that I didn’t want to. Besides, this new hunting cap I’ve got would make Moses look like a Turk in Hades—nobody’ll ever know it.”

The truth is, I wanted to go hunting—it was in my blood that morning, and these beautiful December days with a hazy glow on the blue hills and that stillness that comes like a dropping nut in a forest, and the sunshine spiked with the faintest crisp of a frost would put it into anybody’s blood—anybody who had it. And when the infection hits you there is only one antidote—a dog, gun, a tramp over the hills and—whirr! bang! bang!

And to-day was ideal. I had felt it all morning—the cool, bracing air with that little frosty aroma of leaves curling to crispness under the first blight of things, and that other delightful odor of pungent woodland damp with frost-biting dew. And the hills blue and beautiful are alone worth going to meet, and the trees crimson in the hectic flush of the dying year.

Jack, my pointer, was jumping all over me and turning dogsprings of delight.

“Down, Jack! Heigh ho, old boy; that machine is against my religion, but I’d go hunting in a negro hearse to-day. Besides,” I said, with a twinge of conscience, “he’ll get us to the field in forty minutes, and the little mare is getting old and we’ve got a late start.”

I sighed and felt better. I had fought so long and said so much for the horse, and now—now—it was inexorable; [442] they were being driven to their fate—they had to go before the relentless wheel of progress. I was virtually admitting it, I, who had said I’d never—

I shouldered my gun. Somehow it didn’t seem like the old, joyous hunt.

At the front gate the automobile stood—a pretty thing, to be sure. Its owner was smiling, goggle-eyed and all aglow, his hand on the wheel, or whatever you call the steering end of it.

“Jump in, Trotwood, old man—we must be in a hurry. Slap Jack in there behind with my two setters. Be in a hurry! By George! I know where there are a dozen coveys, and we’ll be there in forty minutes. Hi, Jack! what’s the matter? Get in! Confound him, what’s the matter with that old dog?”

I was lugging Jack and trying to get him in. He was kicking like a half-roped steer. He had always jumped to his place in the little buggy, but now—

I knew what was the matter. Even Jack, dog that he was, had his principle, and he was man enough to say so. While I—

I turned crimson.

“Get in, old boy,” I begged. “We’ll be there in a jiffy. Dead bird—good doggie.”

I got him in, with his head down and his tail between his legs. To all intents he was going to a funeral. I turned quickly away, for I could not stand the scorn and dumb reproach of his eyes. Right then I would have quit and gone back, but I didn’t want to hurt my friend’s feelings.

“Jump in, jump in—let’s be going,” he shouted, in his nervous, business way. “Oh, just a minute! There—you’re on the ground. Say, here, take this and give that starting crank a whirl. I’m not very expert myself,” he went on, “and I sometimes forget; but you’re on the ground—there—right there!”

I took the crank and put it in the spindle he pointed out.

“Now give her a whirl, old man—a good twist—there!”

I gave her a whirl—several of them. I whirled her like blue blazes. I kept on whirling, while her owner grasped the wheel and his eyes danced nervously, as he expected her to flash into the throb that said steam was on.

But she didn’t flash and I kept whirling.

“Faster, Trotwood, harder!” he cried.

I whirled and whirled. I began to get warm. The sweat began to pour off.

“Say,” I said, gasping for breath, “this beats turning a grindstone. What the devil—”

“Why, I canth—thee—” he lisped “Turnth again—quick—a tharp, sthnappy onth!”

I turned her again, quick, sharp and snappy. The thing pulled heavy and felt like an unoiled grindstone, just out of the store. My arms ached, the sweat poured off and my back was nearly broken.

I gave her a final desperate twist, and—there she was!

Dead as a log wagon.

“Confound it,” I said, mopping my forehead and staggering up; “I could have curried the mare and hitched her up six times. Why, something’s wrong with your old gas-wagon,” I went on, getting hot. “I’ll not turn this crank any more,” I said; “I’ll be so sore in my arms I couldn’t hold my gun straight to-day.”

He looked puzzled—annoyed.

“Why, I can’t thee—” he began to lisp again.

“What’s that you’ve got in your mouth?” I jerked out. “You don’t lisp that way naturally.”

A smile broke over his face. He took out a little, black peg and roared. It was too funny—to him.

“Beg yo’ pardon, old boy—beg yo’ pardon—ha—ha—ha! Good joke. That’s the switch plug. You take it out when the machine’s idle, and I forgot to put it back in the little hole. Here,” he said, sticking it in—“and it connects the current—ha—ha—good joke—now give her a whirl.”

I gave the whirl, but in no manner to enjoy the joke. I heard her fire [443] up and begin to throb. We moved off beautifully. We began to fly up the smooth pike, my hand back in Jack’s collar, for fear he’d jump out and suicide. I dared not turn round to look the honest dog in the eyes.

“Fine, fine—ain’t this fine, old man?” cried my friend enthusiastically, as we buzzed up the road. “Look at your watch—nine-twenty. Ah, now we’ll be in the field at ten sharp—sharp—two good hours for hunting before we eat our pocket lunch.

“Now, your little old mare,” he laughed, “would take up those fifteen miles by now? Say! ha! ha!—acknowledge the corn, old man—the decree has gone forth—it’s all over with the old pacers.”

I growled and said nothing. So did Jack. It was good, though, the way we were eating up space and getting nearer to the birds—those game, nervy, whirring birds that dart like winged flashes of thunder before your gun.

We whirled over the bridge at the river at lightning speed. I saw the sign up about the fine for going over faster than a walk, but how—

“How can an automobile walk—ha-ha!” he shouted, for he had read it also and divined my thoughts and winked knowingly at me. “That applies to horses and jackasses and such,” he laughed—“things that walk. But this don’t walk, eh?”

Honk! Honk!

He was blowing for a stray mule to get out of his way.

The mule got, tail up, and settled into a barbed wire fence, which he tried to jump, but only succeeded in cutting up his countenance.

Honk! Honk! “Get out of the way, if that’s all the sense you’ve got. My! but ain’t we buzzing?”

I nodded, beginning to become exhilarated myself.

“This is pretty good,” I admitted. “I begin to see how you people soon become speed crazy. We’ll get the birds to-day,” I warmed up, “and I thank you for—look out! stop!”

He stopped, but not in time. It was a nervous-looking, old, fleabitten, gray mare, full of Stackpole Traveler, Dan Rice and Boston blood. I had seen it so often that I knew the very turn of its tail. In the buckboard she was pulling were three country girls, fat, solidly happy, their lines wabbling around anywhere, and the old mare going where she listeth. They were the kind of girls I knew and loved in my sappy days down in Alabama. I used to commence to kiss ’em about Christmas, knowing they’d wake up and respond about the Fourth of July. Two of them amply filled up the buckboard, but, as usual, a third one had piled on top of the others somewhere, and—

“Great heaven, Horace!” I shouted. “Stop—that one there on top is holding a baby.”

I sprang out, for I saw the old mare begin to squat, her old, scared, brown eyes blazing in her white face like holes in a big lard can. I heard her snort like a scared bear and saw her feet pattering jigs all over the pike. Then she whirled, running into a fence, where, between the overturned buckboard, the shafts and the rail fence, she stood wedged upon her hind legs, pawing the air.

But the girls surprised me. Without a change in their fat, immutable, expressionless faces, they simply rolled out on the pike in a bunch, the baby on top, like snow folks tilted over by a boy.

They got up, dusting their frocks. They had taken it for granted. It was all right. There was not a squawk—not even from the baby, as one of them picked it up and I grabbed the bits and straightened out the old mare.

“I hope you ladies aren’t hurt,” said my friend from the roadside, in his machine.

“Sally, is you hurt?” asked the fattest one.

“Naw,” she grunted.

“Mamie, is you?”

Mamie merely wiggled.

“Is Tootsy hurt?”

Tootsy was eating an apple, with unblinking eyes fixed on the wonderful machine.

Nothing was hurt but the harness. [444] That was hurt before they started, but I had to spend the next twenty minutes patching it up. Finally we got them all in, Tootsy on top. No word had they spoken, but I could see they were eying me with that country suspicion that makes every maid of them rate every man she meets in the road as Lothario, Jr., or a prince in disguise.

“Now, ladies, you are all right,” I said, trying to keep cheerful; “and I am so glad none of you were hurt.”

Then one of them drawled, but looking over toward the distant horizon:

“Ain’t you named Mister Trotwood?”

I turned red and pleaded guilty.

“After all you’ve writ, I don’t think you had oughter done this,” and they all drove sedately off, still looking toward the horizon.

“Now, that’s the worst thing about automobiles,” said Horatius, after we started again—“these fool country horses. Why, I waited till this time of day, thinking they’d all be in town by now, for they get up with the chickens. Anyway, we are not likely to meet any more of them.”

“I hope not,” I sighed, pulling out a cigar and a match. I struck the match, as I’d always done in the buggy. It was blown out before the sulphur burned.

“You can’t do that in an automobile,” he yelled; “we’re going too fast. Like to stop for you, but we’re fairly humming—be there in half an hour, old man.” Honk! honk!

We had turned a bend in the road.

“Great Caesar!” I shouted. “Nobody going to town! Look!”

His jaws dropped. There they were. We could see for half a mile, and so help me heaven, but this was the procession that passed as we pulled out of the narrow pike on the roadside, consumed with impatience to get to the field, the machine throbbing beneath us like a loft over a bran dance.

First, an old sorrel mare, a worn-out buggy of the vintage of 1874, and two old ladies.

The whole thing approached gingerly, creeping up like a yellow cat. It was a toss-up as to which of the two’s eyes popped the biggest, or had her mouth shut tightest. The old mare was game, and sidled up, and just as I saw the wheels begin to form in her head and the occupants throw down the lines and begin to pop two pair of country-yarned legs out of the two sides of the buggy, exclaiming:

“ Fur ther Lord’s sake thar, Mister, ketch ’er! ”

I jumped out and had her by the bits.

One of them relieved herself by spitting snuff over the dashboard, while the other took it out on me, deprecating the day when “Sech folks an’ things blocks up ther public trail—an’ so he’p me, ain’t that thar Mister Trotwood, an’ my old man bred this mar’ by his say so! Trotwood Ananias,” she sniffed, as she drove off.

The next were right on us—two slick, three-year-old sugar mules, hauling a load of darkies. They came on in a rattling clip, making more noise than a freight train, jollying, laughing and cackling. The men were on plank seats across the wagon, the women in high-back hickory chairs, squatting low and feeling as good as Senegambians usually do in a white man’s country, where he does all the worrying and thinking and they do all the loafing and eating.

They passed us without a wabble. I expected that, for a mule, like a negro, never sees anything until he has passed it. I saw the gate of the wagon had been taken out in the rear to let the damsels in; also the chickens, the coop of ducks, a bundle of coon-skins, pumpkins, a sack of unwashed wool, some spare ribs and a tub of only such nice chitlings as a country mammy can prepare. They passed, and then the scare got into those three-year-old corn feds good, by way of their tails. For I saw these straighten out first, then their ears. I saw the big driver fall back on the lines, and—

“ Whoa, dar! ”

They jumped twenty feet the first jump, and ran half a mile in spite of his lugging and sawing. But the first [445] jump was enough. The damage was done then, for everything in it but the driver, who held on to the reins, came boiling out of the rear. Up the road for half a mile was a telegraph line of chitlings—the rest were mixed up. They all rose but one damsel, weighing close to 468 pounds. She sat still. A young buck went to help her up.

“G’way f’m heah, nigger—wait till I see ef my condiments is busted,” she cried, feeling her sides and her chest. “Sides, I wants Brer Simon to hope me up.”

Brother Simon helped her and she was all right.

We gave her a dollar and the others a quarter each. It was expensive, but I deemed it just.

Dey wuz all right den!

The following then passed with more or less hesitancy, shying and plunging:

A surrey and team; a boy and his best girl; a log wagon and four mules, the leaders rushing by in terror, pulling the wheelers by the neck, as they were trying to go the other way.

Old ’Squire Jones on his roan Hal pacer. The horse got half-way by before he decided that the goggle eyes on the roadside had him. Well—no goggle eyes had ever caught any of his tribe—not yet! In bucking to wheel, he tapped the old ’squire in the mouth with his poll. The old man had been raised a Presbyterian, with Baptist propensities, and he made the ozone sulphuric. He brought his horse back to the scratch, spurring and swearing. It was all right this time, till the old horse looked into the back of the machine. True to the fool in his pedigree, he knew what the machine was, because he had never seen one before; but the dogs—they were things he had seen all his life, and he bolted backward again, jamming the old squire’s stomach against the pommel and his back against the cantle. It was time to go, and we shot out, leaving the old horse waltzing into town on his hind legs.

“I didn’t hear his last remarks,” I said, as we went along. “They seemed to be rather personal.”

“Let ’em go,” said Horatius. “You wouldn’t want to put them in your scrap book.”

“I don’t think the mare and buggy would have made us all these enemies,” I remarked, “and we would have been there by now. Do you know it’s eleven o’clock?”

“We’ve got a fine run, now,” he apologized. “We’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“We’ll be there by night,” I snarled. “Say, we’ll just call it a ’possum hunt, eh?”

This made him mad, and he did not speak till he got to the big hill.

Here at the foot we stopped and sat, throbbing.

Horatius fumbled with a side brake a moment, touched a pedal and looked wise.

“What’s all this for?” I asked.

“I’m resting for a little headway before taking that steep hill. And say, while we’re at it, you ought to know something about a machine—you might be called on to help me in an emergency.”

I turned pale. Up to this time I had felt secure. Now I understood something of the feelings of that pair of mules that never saw danger until they had passed it.

“Why, I thought you knew all about it,” I began.

“Of course I do, but something might happen to me. You might be thrown on your own resources. Now here,” he went on, “this little lever at your foot is the sparker—it quickens things—the next one is the throttle; that means more power. This is the switch-plug here; this is the starting crank and this the brake. Now remember and watch me start.”

He did, the thing starting slowly up the hill and then beginning to go in little jumps, exactly like a horse galloping.

“Pull him down,” I growled; “he’s broken his gait—” for I felt every moment as if it would soon wabble and quit. But he kept galloping and I [446] settled down and began unconsciously to wabble my body as I would in motion to a galloping horse. I couldn’t help it. I glanced at Horatius—he was doing the same, but hitching at the side crank all the time, and we were bobbing like two Muscovy ducks over a mud hole.

It was uncomfortable—it was uncanny.

“Confound you,” I growled, “I tell you the thing’s galloping—he’s all tangled up; bring him down.”

Snap , went something, and Horatius breathed easy.

“All right now,” he said, as we began to climb the hill beautifully. Over the top we went, and then—down—down! How she did fly! My heart jumped into my throat. I held my breath and felt that same feeling I used to feel pumping in a swing when I’d soar up to the top and start down again. The same when I started down the elevator from the 19th story of the Masonic Temple and felt my legs give way and threw my arms around the neck of the elevator boy and begged him for heaven’s sake to stop until I got my breath and my legs in speaking distance of each other, and collected the rest of myself.

“Stop her,” I cried, “down—this—hill—I’m—feeling—queer—Lord—I’m—stop, I tell you!”

“It’s easy,” he laughed. “Do it yourself—on that brake—there—just to teach you—there!”

Gasping for breath and pale with fright, I kicked up the little pedal—

The thing bumped twenty feet!

“Don’t!” I heard him yell. “Good Lord, that’s the throttle!”

I saw a big ditch on the other side of us. I saw his hand dart quickly to his side.

Like all man and woman-kind, in emergencies with a horse, I do the fool thing—grab at the reins. This instinct overpowered me. I grabbed the brakes to help him. I over-did it. It stopped so quickly it actually kicked up behind. It stopped like a twelve-inch ball striking armor plate. I went over clear across the ditch. The three dogs were faithful and they followed. Horatius tried it, but the steering wheel stopped him.

“It was my fault,” I said, as I limped up, after the dogs got off of me. “I grabbed at your reins, I guess—thought you were running away.”

But the sudden stop had sprung something, and Horatius was out fixing it. He had pulled off his cap and got under the machine, and I saw the beaded sweat begin to rise on the crown of his bald head, like bubbles on a mill pond.

This did me a world of good. I lighted a cigar, propped up and began to smoke.

For half an hour he tinkered and tinkered. I smoked and gave him such bits of sarcastic encouragement as happened into my head. I reminded him that Tempus was fugiting, and that it was already quite 9:50 and we were still ten miles from nowhere; that the little mare would have been there by now, and we would still have had some friends left on the Bear Creek pike.

“Consider the lilies that ride in automobiles,” I quoted—“they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that that old gray mare, in all her glory never worked as hard as you are working now.”

It was my time, and Jack and I enjoyed it, sensible dog that he was. After every bit of such he’d wink and fairly guffaw.

Horatio was working hard. He was groveling in the dirt to do it, too, and that suited me also. I could gauge his efforts by the sweat drops that arose on his bald spot, growing and then bursting like soap bubbles, to roll down his collar.

“Plague it,” he said at last, rising, “I can’t see very well without my glasses. Say, stop your guying, now, and look under here and see if you can see what’s wrong.”

I got out as leisurely as a lord; all I could see was a small coil of wire, red hot. “I see it,” I said, solemnly. “The thing’s appendix is red hot. Give me an axe and I’ll open it up.”

Jack howled with delight. I thought [447] he’d die. Horatius smiled grimly. But it was one that said:

“I’ll even this up yet.”

“Put in your shells; we’ll hunt around toward that farm house, and up there I’ll ’phone to town and have Smith come out and fix it.”

Thus he spoke, and I agreed. In fact, there was nothing else to do. We rolled the machine aside, the dogs were let out, and we were soon quartering a field toward a farm house.

“Whose place is this?” I asked, as the dogs began to hunt down the wind.

“Old Bogair’s a French Canadian. He came here three years ago from Canada—ticklish old fellow, but he knows me, and it’s all right.”

I felt secure, for while the game law is very strict, requiring written permission to hunt on one’s premises, intended as a guard against pot hunters, no gentleman ever objected to another hunting on his farm.

We started through a cedar wood in a glady spot and I saw Jack beginning to nose the wind and to throw up his head for quail. Then I heard my companion calling lustily for me to come. I rushed up, Jack at my heels.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A coon—a big coon—up in that cedar tree. Get on the other side, quick!”

I ran around, and, sure enough, up among the branches, trying to hide, but showing the end of a brindled and streaked tail, was the coon.

In a trice I let him have it, and he came crashing through the branches. Jack ran up and seized it, shaking. I saw yellow eyes, ears laid back, and the coon spitting and fighting for life. It was dying, but struck out, tearing Jack’s nose to threads. I ran up and planted the heel of my hunting boot on its neck, while Jack howled with his lacerated nose.

“That’s a funny looking coon,” I said, as I eyed the thing suspiciously. I heard Horatius laugh and saw him turn and make a break for the road. I looked up—old Bogair had run up, red-faced and breathless.

“By gar,” he yelled, as soon as he saw what I’d done, “vut fur you keeld ze house cat fur? Vut fur?”

It was true; but never had I seen a tomcat look more like a coon. On a distant hillside I could see my deserting friend rolling on the grass and shouting.

In vain I apologized. Old Bogair kept dancing around and shouting: “Vut fur you keel ze house cat fur? Vut fur?”

“What are you damaged?” I said at last, with disgust.

“Ah, en passant —dees one from T’ronto, I breeng. Hee’s registaire—fife tallar, an’ fife fur treespaire.”

I paid it like a man. Old Bogair smiled and bowed, with his hand on his stomach.

“Eet vus all right now.”

I took up the cat by the tail.

“Vut fur, you don’t vant heem,” he gasped.

“Yes, I do,” I said, hotly. “He’s mine. I’ve paid for him and I want to take him over yonder and rub him under the nose of that villain that induced me to go hunting in an automobile and steered me on the premises of a confounded Dago who keeps registered cats that look exactly like coons when up a tree.”

He thought I was complimenting him.

“ Voila —I t’ank you,” he said, bowing again, with his hand on his stomach.

I hunted around an hour before I went to the machine. I waited to cool off. Jack found a fine covey, and I missed them right and left. I had lost my nerve and my luck.

When I reached the machine, Horatius was in, blinking, and we said not a word. It was my time to freeze. Smith had run out from town and fixed it. A little wire the size of a pencil point had got an inch out of place, and it had been as dead as a log wagon on us.

It was now exactly 3:30, but we decided we still had a chance to get a covey. We made the next three miles in beautiful time, meeting only one man driving a game, high-headed [448] horse that swept by us without giving us the least notice.

“If they were all bred like that one,” I said, “a man in a machine might think he had some rights on the road.”

“Glad you are beginning to see the other side,” said Horatius.

I shut up.

“We’ll be there by four,” he said; “just the time the birds begin to feed good. Oh, we’ll get a few yet. It’s a long lane, you know. Our luck is turning.”

“This is fun,” I said, as we flew along the newly gravelled road parallel with the creek—“fine—give it to her.”

The scenery was beautiful; the bluffs were draped in clustering red berries, and the woods old gold and crimson. The water foamed over the lime rocks, glowing iridescent in the sun, and the air was bracing as we buzzed along.

Honk! Honk! “Let her up!” I cried, as a touch of speed mania got into me. “Say, I see how it is,” I said, “why a man soon gets the speed mania in him. Horsemen can’t blame you, for they have got it, too.”

“Oh, we’re riding,” he cried. “You have an hour yet.”

We were indeed riding—along a narrow path of the road rising to a rather abrupt hill. Rising and peeping over, I saw a long procession of creeping things, their ears just shining above the hill we were both ascending.

“Halt! Stop!” I cried.

It was too late—everlastingly too late! We were meeting a negro funeral procession—good old Uncle Pete, as good an old-time darky as ever lived. I had known him well, a fellow of infinite jest. But I did not recognize him promptly, now—at least as I soon saw him.

I hate to write what followed. I felt faint and sick.

Be it known that every negro loves to be buried behind white mules. It is his glory and his religion. This kind was hauling Uncle Pete. Now, a white mule is an old mule, and the older the mule, the bigger the fool, and when they peeped over the top of that hill, only to butt into a goggle-eyed demon, they did what mules always do. When I first saw them I was looking at the north end of that funeral procession. The next instant I was looking at the south end. And as the thing turned over once to adjust itself to different direction, a venerable old darky shot out of the rear end of that hearse, followed by a two-dollar coffin, and everything in that two miles of vehicles turned tail at the same time.

I jumped out, grabbing my hunting coat, which I knew held a flask of whiskey, and rushed pell-mell through the woods for the creek bank. All I wanted was a little water in that whiskey.

After fixing myself so I would not faint, I went back in time to see that everything had been fixed and the thing headed north again.

“No, sah, it didn’t hurt Brer Pete,” the preacher was explaining to Horatius; “but it did upsot some ob de sisterin, an’ dey fainted when he come outer de back end ob dat kerridge so nachul an’ briefly. No, sah; nobody’s hurt, sah; it wuz jes’ a sivigerus accerdent.”

“How much money have you, Horatius? I’ve spent all mine on dead and registered cats,” I said, bitterly.

He had plenty, and tipped the whole two miles of them, as they passed by, singing: “Jordan is a hard road to travel.”

And never had that old song seemed so real to me!

“I stop right here,” I said, after assuring myself that I would not faint again. “The sun is setting; we’ve been out all day, and found nothing but a cat and a corpse.”

Our experience had taken our nerve, and we waited two hours by the roadside, way after dark, until we’d seen everything we met in the morning go back home.

Then we lit up and reached home at ten o’clock.

The Angel and the Cherub met me at the gate, scared to death.

[449]

“So glad you’re safe,” she cried, kissing me. “I know you’ve got a full bag—you’ve never failed, and, oh, Dearie, I’ve invited a dozen ladies over to-morrow for lunch, promising quail on toast—so I do hope nothing has happened.”

By this time the Cherub was climbing over me, shouting: “Daddy, show me old Bob White—show me old Brer Rabbit.”

The bitterness of it went into me.

“Quail on toast?” I cried with sarcasm. “Change it now, my dear; write them all a note at once and tell them tom-cat is better, for it’s all I’ve killed to-day. Just make it tom-cat on toast.”

I left her crying and saying she believed I had taken a drink. But that was false—to keep from suiciding, I had drunk the whole flask!

Trotwood.

Owing to the election of Governor Robt. L. Taylor to the United States Senate, and his inability to give all his time to the splendid magazine his fame and talents had made so successful, Trotwood’s Monthly has combined with the Bob Taylor Magazine, an account of which will be found on another page.

By this combination we have the largest list of subscribers of any Southern Magazine and are in position to give our readers a better magazine than either publication could give separately.

Trotwood personally wishes to assure his friends that the Taylor-Trotwood magazine will continue to follow the same literary lines and to follow the same plans and literary methods Trotwood’s Monthly has pursued from the beginning. In short, it will be the same old Trotwood with better facilities, larger scope, a greater field, more capital and a wider influence, assisted from the United States Senate by the wit, pathos and humor of the inimitable Bob Taylor, the friend and champion of the plain, honest, common people of his country. We congratulate ourselves and feel warranted in congratulating the many thousand readers of Trotwood.

TROTWOOD PUBLISHING COMPANY.

[450]

Books and Authors

LILLIAN KENDRICK BYRN

On Newfound River. By Thomas Nelson Page. New York: Chas. Scribner’s Sons. Price, $1.50.

Mr. Page, whose place among the foremost of living American authors no one disputes, has given us, in “On Newfound River,” a charming love story. It is not so long or so elaborate as “Red Rock,” but the author says of it: “It does not pretend to be a novel. It is, on its face a love story of simple country life in Old Virginia ... the incidents are those which might have taken place in a rural community before the war where the gentry ruled in a sort of manorial manner, and their poorer neighbors bore a relation to them, part retainer, part friend.” The illustrations are by John Edwin Jackson, a young Southern artist who has risen to the front rank in the illustrating world by the merit and sympathetic quality of his work.

The Amulet. By Charles Egbert Craddock. New York: Macmillan & Co. Price, $1.50.

The history and characters of the Tennessee Mountains seem to have become the peculiar property of Miss Murfree, who is never so happy as when in this particular field. In her latest book, which, like “The Story of Old Fort Loudon,” deals with the early settlement of this state, she gives a stirring history of the vicissitudes of the early settlers, and the terrible vengeance of the Cherokees. As the time antedates the Revolution by thirteen years the heroine is a lovely, highborn English girl, while the hero is a sturdy young product of colonial training and education. While it is an engrossing love story, it is also a distinct contribution to American romantic history.

Old Creole Days. By George W. Cable. New York: Chas. Scribner’s Sons. Price, $2.50.

Mr. Cable’s delightful book, his first volume, by the way, was published in 1879, and so popular has it proven that it goes through several editions every year. Each issue seems more artistic than the last, but surely the illustrations can never be better than those which Albert Herter has given this Christmas. He has caught the very spirit of the Creoles, their grace, their jauntiness, their naive simplicity. It may not be generally known that Mr. Cable, born of a Puritan mother and a Virginia father, started out on a promising newspaper career in New Orleans, after returning from the Confederate army in 1865; a career which came to grief because he refused to edit the theatrical column, having a deep-rooted prejudice against the stage. He then became a clerk in a cotton firm and his Creole sketches, done at odd times, appeared in Scribner’s Magazine , where they speedily won for him the recognition in the world of letters which his later work has so well upheld.

Their First Formal Call. By Grace MacGowan Cooke. New York: Harper & Bros. Price, $1.

The laughable experience of two country lads who go to make their first call on the girls they admire is rendered still more quaintly comical by Peter Newell’s inimitable drawings. One of the boys had prepared [451] for the ordeal by a faithful study of “Hints and Helps to Young Men in Business and Social Relations,” but the principles expounded therein prove very poor working dependences. “When seated,” the “Hints and Helps” advised, “ask the young lady who her favorite composer is. Name yours. Ask her pet poet. Name yours.” The sufferings the boys endured in trying to follow these instructions, the humiliating climax that ended their first attempt to fulfill the social amenities, make a thoroughly enjoyable story.

Life and Sayings of Sam Jones. By Mrs. Jones and Reverend Walt Whitcomb. Atlanta: J. L. Nichols & Co. Price, $2.50.

Carrying out what was perhaps his last request, within one week after the death of this beloved man, his old co-worker, Mr. Holcomb, with several stenographers, under the advisement of the bereaved widow, began working night and day, arranging and weaving together into tangible shape “The Life and Sayings of Sam Jones.” The result is a book replete with anecdote, incident and narrative, all showing the forceful and vigorous character, the personal magnetism, the practical knowledge of human nature and the winning tenderness of this foe to cant and sham. These qualities, coupled with his homeliness of speech, every word of which was a sledge hammer blow to the wicked, brought the rich and poor, the ignorant and the educated to hear him. He knew how to excite his auditors to laughter one minute and to tears the next. He knew how to reach the hearts of the callous, and how to encourage the struggling. The volume is profusely illustrated and will probably be put through several editions.

A Knight of the Cumberland. By John Fox, Jr. New York: Chas. Scribner’s Sons. Price, $1.25.

Mr. John Fox, Jr., the author of the popular “Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come,” was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, the very heart of the bluegrass region. At fifteen he entered Kentucky University and from there went to Harvard, where he graduated the youngest of his class. He first thought of studying law, but became attached to the staff of the New York Times and has had a passion for the pen ever since. His interest in the life of the Kentucky mountaineers led to his first book, “A Modern Europa,” and the success of this first effort led to the writing of others. At the outbreak of the Spanish War, Mr. Fox joined the Rough Riders, but left the service to act as special correspondent for Harper’s Weekly . His experience there furnished the material for his next novel, “Crittenden.” After the war he returned to his home and has been engaged in writing steadily since, having a half dozen or more stories to his credit. The study of the mountain dialect is particularly interesting to Mr. Fox. He has found, he says, over two hundred words used in his section that were in use in Chaucer’s time. His latest book is a realistic description of the life and old-world ideals still to be found in the remote mountain districts, and is written in his usual sympathetic vein.

By the Eternal. By Opie Read. Chicago: Laird & Lee. Price, $1.50.

This silhouette of the illustrious and ever fascinating Old Hickory far exceeds anything that has previously appeared from the pen of the Arkansas author. It deals with the life and adventures of Jackson up to and through the battle of New Orleans, showing clearly the integrity, the invincible determination, and the kindliness, withal, of the hero. Two duels are described and through the story runs a pretty romance, which meets and overcomes obstacles, aided by the future president. It goes without saying that Mr. Read has introduced, or rather brought out, a strong element of humor throughout the book.

[452]

BUSINESS NOTICES

REUBEN WATSON BOYETT,
Amory, Mississippi

REUBEN WATSON BOYETT

Young Mr. Reuben Watson Boyett, whom we take especial pleasure in introducing to Bob Taylor’s readers, resides at Amory, Mississippi, and although only thirteen years of age, is the champion local solicitor of subscriptions. The people in that part of Mississippi stand loyally by him. A travelling agent through that region recently was met everywhere with the response that the subscription had been promised young Boyett. He is a handsome young fellow, but he is better than that: he is what the slangster calls a “live wire”—pushing, energetic, honest, prompt, a boy who is sure to become a successful man. His work for Bob Taylor’s is being widely emulated, but other agents must get very busy to pass him.

Don’t fail to read the ad of The Commoner and Bob Taylor’s Magazine in combination in this issue. Bryan’s paper and Taylor’s magazine should be in every family. By reading The Commoner you understand the political situation at all times, and it’s bound to be particularly interesting during the next twelve months. Whether you are for or against Bryan, he’s an important factor in this country—keep up with him. Bob Taylor’s Magazine differs from other magazines as Bob Taylor differs from other men. If you already take the magazine, tell your friends about it. Get some subscribers for us—many or few—and we’ll pay you well.

CHRONIC ASTHMA CURED

Miraculous Recoveries from Asthma and Catarrh Due to Vienna Treatment.

Evidence of the wonderful cures effected by the Vienna Toxico Treatment in Asthma, Catarrh and Bronchitis continue to pour in from all parts of the country. Diseases of the respiratory tract have evidently this time met their master. Obstinate cases are cured in less than sixty days. The dose is minute and acts directly on the membranes and tissues, and it has a wonderful tonic effect.

The Toxico Laboratory, 1269 Broadway, New York City, who are the sole dispensers, have generously offered to send a test treatment to every sufferer who will write for it.

Gray & Dudley Hardware Company, of Nashville, Tenn., offer free a 50-cent cook book to housekeepers who send them the name of the most prominent stove dealer nearest to them. It’s a good cook book; costs you nothing. Write for it and say you saw the offer in Bob Taylor’s Magazine .

The Massachusetts Squab Co., Box 878, Whitman, Mass., are offering bargains in pigeons. See their ad in another column.