Read Ebook: Mam' Linda by Harben Will N Will Nathaniel Masters F B Frank B Illustrator

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Ebook has 1624 lines and 104553 words, and 33 pages

"Oh, I reckon that's all right," the other said, stroking his round, smooth-shaven face with a dogged sweep of his brawny hand. "That's all right, Pole."

"Well, my family knowed yore family long through the war," Abe. "My daddy was with yourn at the front, an' our mothers swapped sugar an' coffee in them hard times, an', Abe, I'm here to tell you I sorter hate to see an unsuspectin' neighbor like you walk blind into serious trouble, great big trouble, Abe--trouble of the sort that would make a man's wife an' childern lie awake many and many a night."

"What the hell you mean?" Johnson asked, picking up his ears.

"Why, it's this here devilment that's brewin' betwixt Dan an' Carson Dwight."

"Well, it's jest this, Abe," Pole leaned back till his feet rose from the ground, and he twisted his neck as his eyes followed the three men who, with their heads close together, had moved a little farther away. "Maybe you don't know it, Abe, but I used to be in the government revenue service, and in one way and another that's neither here nor there I sometimes drop onto underground information, an' I want to give you a valuable tip. I want to start you to thinkin'. You'll admit, I reckon, that if them two men meet to-night thar will be apt to be blood shed."

Johnson stared over the camp-fire sullenly. "If Carson Dwight hain't had the sense to git out o' town thar will be, an' plenty of it," he said, with a dry chuckle.

"Well, thar's the difficulty," said Pole. "He hain't left town, an' what's wuss than that, his friends hain't been able to budge 'im from his seat in Blackburn's store, whar Dan couldn't miss 'im ef he was stalkin' about blindfolded. He's heard threats, and he's as mad a man as ever pulled hair."

"Well, what the devil--"

"Well"--the half-defiant look in the face of Johnson gave way to one of growing alarm--"well!" he repeated, but went no further.

"It's this way, Abe--an' I'm here as a friend, I reckon. You know as well as I do that if thar is blood shed to-night it will git into court, and a lots about the White Cap raid, and matters even further back, will be pulled into the light."

Pole's words had made a marked impression on the man to whom they had been so adroitly directed. Johnson leaned forward nervously. "So you think--" But he hung fire again.

"Huh, I think you'd better git Dan Willis out o' this town, Abe, an' inside o' five minutes, ef you can do it."

Johnson drew a breath of evident relief. "I can do it, Pole, and I'll act by your advice," he said. "Thar's only one thing on earth that would turn Dan towards home, but I happen to know what that is. He's b'ilin' hot, but he ain't any more anxious to stir up the Grand Jury than some of the rest of us. I'll go talk to 'im."

As Johnson moved away, Pole Baker rose and slouched off in the darkness in the direction of the straggling lights along the main street. At the gate he paused and waited, his eyes on the wagons and camp-fire he had just left. Presently he noticed something and chuckled. The horses, with clanking trace-chains, passed between him and the fire--they were being led round to be hitched to the wagons. Pole chuckled again. "I'm not sech a dern fool as I look," he said, "Well, I had to lie some and act a part that sorter went agin the grain, but my scheme worked. If I ever git to hell I reckon it will be through tryin' to do right--in the main."

HE wide avenue which ran north and south and cut the town of Darley into halves held the best and oldest residences. One side of the street caught the full rays of the morning sun and the other the slanting red beams of the afternoon. For so small a town, it was a well-graded and well-kept thoroughfare. Strips of grass lay like ribbons between the sidewalks and the roadway, and at the triangular spaces created by the intersection of certain streets there were rusty iron fences built primarily to protect diminutive fountains which had long since ceased to play. In one of these little parks, in the heart of the town, as it was in the hearts of the inhabitants, stood a monument erected to "The Confederate Dead," a well-modelled, life-size figure of a Southern private wrought in stone in faraway Italy. Had it been correctly placed on its pedestal?--that was the question anxiously asked by reverent passers-by, for the cloaked and knapsacked figure, which time was turning gray, stood with its back to the enemy's country.

"Yes, it is right," some would say, "for the soldier is represented as being on night picket-duty in Northern territory, and his thoughts and eyes are with his dear ones at home and the country he is defending."

Henry Dwight, the wealthy sire of the aggressive young man with whom the foregoing chapters have principally dealt, lived in one of the moss and ivy grown houses on the eastern side of the avenue. It was a red brick structure two and a half stories high, with a colonial veranda, and had a square, white-windowed cupola as the apex of the slanting roof. There was a semicircular drive, which entered the grounds at one corner in the front and swept gracefully past the door. The central and smaller front gate, for the use of pedestrians, with its imitation stone posts, spanned by a white crescent, was reached from the house by a gravelled walk bordered by boxwood. On the right and left were rustic summerhouses, grape arbors and parterres containing roses and other flowers, all of which were well cared for by an old colored gardener.

Henry Dwight was a grain and cotton merchant, money-lender, and the president and chief stockholder of the Darley Cotton Mills, whose great brick buildings and cottages for employ?s stood a mile or so to the west of the town. This morning, having written his daily letters, he was strolling in his grounds smoking a cigar. To any one who knew him well it would have been plain that his mind was disturbed.

Adjoining the Dwight homestead there was another ancestral house equally as spacious and stand-. ing in quite as extensive, if more neglected, grounds. It was here that Major Warren lived, and it happened that he, too, was on his lawn just beyond the ramshackle intervening fence, the gate of which had fallen from its hinges and been taken away.

The Major was a short, slight old gentleman, quite a contrast to the John Bull type of his lusty, side-whiskered neighbor. He wore a dingy brown wig, and as he pottered about, raising a rose from the earth with his gold-headed ebony stick, or stooped to uproot an encroaching weed, his furtive glance was often levelled on old Dwight.

"I declare I really might as well," he muttered, undecidedly. "What's the use making up your mind to a thing and letting it go for no sensible reason. He's taking a wrong view of it. I can tell that by the way he puffs at his cigar. Yes, I'll do it."

The Major passed through the gateway and slowly drew near his preoccupied neighbor.

"Good-morning, Henry," he said, as Dwight looked up. "If I'm any judge of your twists and turns, you are not yet in a thoroughly good-humor."

Dwight's spleen rose and choked out his words, and, red in the face, he stood panting, unable to go further.

"Road to nothing," spluttered Dwight. "I gave him that big farm to see what he could do in its management. Never expected him to work a lick--just wanted to see if he could keep it on a paying basis, but it was an investment of dead capital. Then he took up the law. He did a little better at that along with Bill Garner to lean on, but that never amounted to anything worth mentioning. Then he went into politics."

"And I heard you say yourself, Henry," the Major ventured, gently, "that you believed he was actually cut out for a future statesman."

"Yes, and like the fool that I was I hoped for it. I was so glad to see him really interested in politics that I laid awake at night thinking of his success. I heard of his popularity on every hand. Men came to me, and women, too, telling me they loved him and were going to work for him against that jack-leg lawyer Wiggin, and put him into office with a majority that would ring all over the State; and they meant it, I reckon. But what did he do? In his stubborn, bull-headed way he abused those mountain men who took the law into their hands for the public good, and turned hundreds of them against him; and all for a nigger--a lazy, trifling nigger boy!"

"Well, you see," Major Warren began, lamely, "Carson and I saw Pete the night he was whipped so severely and we took pity on him. They played together when they were boys, as boys all over the South do, you know, and then he saw Mam' Linda break down over it and saw old Lewis crying for the first time in the old man's life. I was mad, Henry, myself, and you would have been if you had been there. I could have fought the men who did it, so I understand how Carson felt, and when he made the remark Wiggin is using to such deadly injury to his prospects my heart warmed to the boy. If he doesn't succeed as a politician it will be because he is too genuine for a tricky career of that sort. His friends are trying to get him to make some statement that will reinstate him with the mountain people who sympathized with the White Caps, but he simply won't do it."

"Won't do it! I reckon not!" Dwight blurted out. "Didn't the young idiot wait in Blackburn's store for Dan Willis to come and shoot the top of his head off? He sat there till past midnight, and wouldn't move an inch till actual proof was brought to him that Willis had left town. Oh, I'm no fool! I know a thing or two. I've watched him and your daughter together. That's at the bottom of it. She sat down on him before she went off to Augusta, but her refusal didn't alter him. He knows Helen thinks a lot of her old negro mammy, and in her absence he simply took up her cause and is fighting mad about it--so mad that he is blind to his political ruin. That's what a man will do for a woman. They say she's about to become engaged down there. I hope she is, and that Carson will have pride enough when he hears of it to let another man do her fighting, and one with nothing to lose by it."

"She hasn't written me a thing about any engagement," the Major answered, with some animation; "but my sister highly approves of the match and writes that it may come about. Mr. Sanders is a well-to-do, honorable man of good birth and education: Helen never seemed to get over her brother's sad death. She loved poor Albert more than she ever did me or any one else."

"And I always thought that it was Carson's association with your son in his dissipation that turned Helen against him. For all I know, she may have thought Carson actually led Albert on and was partly the cause of his sad end."

"She may have looked at it that way," the Major said, musingly. They had now reached the porch in the rear of the house and they went together into the wide hall. A colored maid with a red bandanna tied like a turban round her head was dusting the walnut railing of the stairs. Passing through the hall, the old gentlemen turned into the library, a great square room with wide windows and tall, gilt-framed pier-glass mirrors.

"Yes, I'm sure that's what turned her against him," Dwight continued, "and that is where, between you and Helen, I get mixed up. Why do you always take up for the scamp? It looks to me like you'd resent the way he acted with your son after the boy's terrible end."

"Well, it always has seemed odd to me," old Dwight said. "I couldn't exactly believe you wanted to bring him and Helen together, after your experience with that sort of man under your own roof."

"It is this way," said the Major, awkwardly. "To begin with, I am sure, from all I've picked up, that it was not your son that was leading mine on to dissipation, but just the other way. He's dead and gone, but Albert was always ready for a prank of any sort. Henry, I want to talk to you about it because it seems to me you are in the same position in regard to Carson that I was in regard to my poor boy, and I've prayed a thousand times for pardon for what I did in anger and haste. Henry, listen to me. If ever a man made a vital mistake I did, and I'll bear the weight of it to my grave. You know how I worried over. Albert's drinking and his general conduct. Time after time he made promises that he would turn over a new leaf only to break them. Well, it was on the last trip--the fatal one to New York, where he had gone and thrown away so much money. I wrote him a severe letter, and in answer to it I got a pathetic one, saying he was sick and tired of the way he was doing and begging me to try him once more and send him money to pay his way home. It was the same old sort of promise and I didn't have faith in him. I was unfair, unjust to my only son. I wrote and refused, telling him that I could not trust him any more. Hell inspired that letter, Henry--the devil whispered to me that I'd been indulgent to the poor boy's injury. Then came the news. When he was found dead in a small room on the top floor of that squalid hotel--dead by his own hand--my letter lay open beside him."

"Well, well, you couldn't help it!" Dwight said, most awkwardly, and he crossed his short, fat legs anew and reached for an open box of cigars. "You were trying to do your duty as you saw it, and to the best of your ability."

"Yes, but my method, Henry, resulted in misery and grief to me and Helen that can never be cured. You see, it is because of that awful mistake that I take such an interest in Carson. I love him because Albert loved him, and because sometimes it seems to me that you are most too quick to condemn him. Oh, he's different! Carson has changed wonderfully since Albert died. He doesn't drink to excess now, and Garner says he has quit playing cards, having only one aim, and that to win this political race--to win it to please you, Henry."

"Win it!" Dwight sniffed. "He's already as dead as a salt mackerel--laid out stiff and stark by his own bull-headed stupidity. I've always talked down drinking and card-playing, but I have known some men to succeed in life who had such habits in moderation; but you nor I nor no one else ever saw a blockhead succeed at anything. I tell you he'll never make a successful politician. Wiggin will beat the hind sights off of him. Wiggin is simply making capital of the fool's inability to control his temper and sympathies. Wiggin would have let that mob thrash his own father and mother rather than antagonize them and lose their votes. He knows Carson comes of fighting stock, and he will continue to egg Dan Willis and others on, knowing that every resentful word from Carson will make enemies for him by the score."

"Oh, I can see that, too!" the Major sighed; "but, to save me, I can't help admiring the boy. He thinks the White Caps did wrong that night and he simply can't pretend otherwise. It is the principle of the thing, Henry. He is an unusual sort of candidate, and his stand may ruin his chances, but I--I glory in his firmness. I must say g me to try him once more and send him money to pay his way home. It was the same old sort of promise and I didn't have faith in him. I was unfair, unjust to my only son. I wrote and refused, telling him that I could not trust him any more. Hell inspired that letter, Henry--the devil whispered to me that I'd been indulgent to the poor boy's injury. Then came the news. When he was found dead in a small room on the top floor of that squalid hotel-- dead by his own hand--my letter lay open beside him."

"Well, well, you couldn't help it!" Dwight said, most awkwardly, and he crossed his short, fat legs anew and reached for an open box of cigars. "You were trying to do your duty as you saw it, and to the best of your ability."

"Yes, but my method, Henry, resulted in misery and grief to me and Helen that can never be cured. You see, it is because of that awful mistake that I take such an interest in Carson. I love him because Albert loved him, and because sometimes it seems to me that you are most too quick to condemn him. Oh, he's different! Carson has changed wonderfully since Albert died. He doesn't drink to excess now, and Garner says he has quit playing cards, having only one aim, and that to win this political race- -to win it to please you, Henry."

"Win it!" Dwight sniffed. "He's already as dead as a salt mackerel--laid out stiff and stark by his own bull-headed stupidity. I've always talked down drinking and card-playing, but I have known some men to succeed in life who had such habits in moderation; but you nor I nor no one else ever saw a blockhead succeed at anything. I tell you he'll never make a successful politician. Wiggin will beat the hind sights off of him. Wiggin is simply making capital of the fool's inability to control his temper and sympathies. Wiggin would have let that mob thrash his own father and mother rather than antagonize them and lose their votes. He knows Carson comes of fighting stock, and he will continue to egg Dan Willis and others on, knowing that every resentful word from Carson will make enemies for him by the score."

"Oh, I can see that, too!" the Major sighed; "but, to save me, I can't help admiring the boy. He thinks the White Caps did wrong that night and he simply can't pretend otherwise. It is the principle of the thing, Henry. He is an unusual sort of candidate, and his stand may ruin his chances, but I--I glory in his firmness. I must say that."

"Oh yes, that's the trouble with you sentimental people," Dwight fumed. "Between you and the boy's doting mother, the Lord only knows where he'll land. I've overlooked a lot in him in the hope that he'd put this election through, but I shall let him go his own way now. It has come to a pretty pass if I have to see my son beaten to the dust by a man of Wiggin's stamp because of that long-legged negro boy of yours who would have been better long ago if he had been soundly thrashed."

When his visitor had gone Dwight dropped his unfinished cigar into the grate and went slowly upstairs to his wife's room. At a small-paned window overlooking the flower-garden, on a couch supported in a reclining position by several puffy pillows, was Mrs. Dwight. She was well past middle-age and of extremely delicate physique. Her hair was snowy white, her skin thin to transparency, her veins full and blue.

"That was Major Warren, wasn't it?" she asked, in a soft, sweet voice, as she put down the magazine she had been reading.

"Yes," Dwight answered, as he went to a little desk in one corner of the room and took a paper from a pigeon-hole and put it into his pocket.

"How did he happen to come over so early?" the lady pursued.

"Because he wanted to, I reckon," Dwight started out, impatiently, and then a note of caution came into his voice as he remembered the warning of the family physician against causing the patient even the slightest worry. "Warren hasn't a blessed thing to do, you know, from mom till night. So when he strikes a busy man he is apt to hang on to him and talk in his long-winded way about any subject that takes possession of his brain. He's great on showing men how to manage their own affairs. It takes an idle man to do that. If that man hadn't had money left to him he would now be begging his bread from door to door."

"Somehow I fancied it was about Carson," Mrs. Dwight sighed.

"There you go!" her husband said, with as much grace of evasion as lay in his sturdy compound. "Lying there from day to day, you seem to have contracted Warren's complaint. You think nobody can drop in even for a minute without coming about your boy--your boy! Some day, if you live long enough, you may discover that the universe was not created solely for your son, nor made just to revolve around him either."

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