John March, Southerner

ST. VALENTINE'S: EVENING

At Widewood that same hour there was deep silence. Since the first of the year the only hands left on the place were a decrepit old negro and wife, whom even he pronounced "wuthless," quartered beyond the stable-yard's farther fence. For some days this "lady" had been Widewood's only cook, owing to the fact that Mrs. March's servant, having a few nights before seen a man prowling about the place, had left in such a panic as almost to forget her wages, and quite omitting to leave behind her several articles of the Widewood washing.

Within the house John March sat reading newspapers. His healthy legs were crossed toward the flickering hearth, and his strong shoulders touched the centre-table lamp. The new batten shutters excluded the beautiful outer night. His mother, to whom the mail had brought nothing, was sitting in deep shadow, her limp form and her regular supply of disapproving questions alike exhausted. Her slender elbow slipped now and then from the arm of her rocking-chair, and unconscious gleams of incredulity and shades of grief still alternated across her face with every wrinkling effort of her brows to hold up her eyelids.

John was not so absorbed as he seemed. He felt both the silence and the closed shutters drearily, and was not especially cheered by the following irrelevant query in the paragraph before him:

"Who—having restored the sight of his jailer's blind daughter and converted her father from idolatry—was on this day beheaded?"

Yet here was a chance to be pleasant at the expense of a man quite too dead to mind.

"Mother," he began, so abruptly that Mrs. March started with a violent shudder, "this is February fourteenth. Did any ancient person of your acquaintance lose his head to-day?" He turned a facetious glance that changed in an instant to surprise. His mother had straightened up with bitter indignation, but she softened to an agony of reproach as she cried:

"John!"

"Why, mother, what?"

"Ah! John! John!" She gazed at him tearfully. "Is this what you've joined the church for? To cloak such——"

"My dear mother! I was simply trying to joke away the dismals! Why,"—he smiled persuasively—"if you only knew what a hard job it is." But the ludicrousness of her misconstruction took him off his guard, and in spite of the grimmest endeavor to prevent it, his smile increased and he stopped to keep from laughing.

Mrs. March rose, eloquent with unspoken resentment, and started from the room. At the door she cast back the blush of a martyr's forgiveness, and the next instant was in her son's big right arm. His words were broken with laughter.

"My dear, pretty little mother!" She struggled alarmedly, but he held her fast. "Why, I know the day is nothing to you, dear, less than nothing. I know perfectly well that I am your own and only valentine. Ain't I? Because you're mine now, you know, since I've turned over this new leaf."

The mother averted her face. "O my son, I'm so unused to loving words, they only frighten me."

But John spoke on with deepening emotion. "Yes, mother, I'm going to be your valentine, and yours only, as I've never been or thought of being in all my life before. I'm going to try my very best! You'll help me, won't you, little valentine mother?"

She lifted a glance of mournful derision. "Valentine me no valentines. You but increase my heart-loneliness. Ah! my self-deluded boy, your fickle pledges only mean, to my sad experience, that you have made your own will everything, and my wish nothing. Valentine me no valentines, let me go."

The young man turned abruptly and strode back to his newspapers. But he was too full of bitterness to read. He heard his mother's soft progress upstairs, and her slow step in the unlighted room overhead. It ceased. She must have sat down in the dark. A few moments passed. Then it sounded again, but so strange and hurried that he started up, and as he did so the cry came, frantic with alarm, from the upper hall, and then from the head of the stairs:

"John! John!"

He was already bounding up them. Mrs. March stood at the top, pale and trembling. "A man!" she cried, "with a gun! I saw him down in the moonlight under my window! I saw him! he's got a gun!"

She was deaf and blind to her son's beseechings to be quiet. He caught her hands in his; they were icy. He led her by gentle force down-stairs and back to her sitting-room seat.

"Why, that's all right, mother; that's what you made me put the shutters on down here for. If you'd just come and told me quietly, why, I might a' got him from your window. Did you see him?"

"I don't know," she moaned. "He had a gun. I saw one end of it."

"Are you sure it was a gun? Which end did you see, the butt or the muzzle?"

Mrs. March only gasped. She was too refined a woman to mention either end of a gun by name. "I saw—the—front end."

"He didn't aim it at you, or at anything, did he?"

"No—yes—he aimed it—sidewise."

"Sideways! Now, mother, there I draw the line! No man shall come around here aiming his gun sideways; endangering the throngs of casual bystanders!"

"Ah! John, is this the time to make your captive and beleaguered mother the victim of ribald jests?"

"My dear mother, no! it's a time to go to bed. If that fellow's still nosing 'round here with his gun aimed sideways he's protection enough! But seriously, mother, whatever you mean by being embargoed and blockaded——"

"I did not say embargoed and blockaded!"

"Why, my dear mother, those were your very words!"

"They were not! They were not my words! And yet, alas! how truly——" She turned and wept.

"O Lord! mother——"

"My son, you've broken the second commandment!"

"It was already broke! O for heaven's sake, mother, don't cave in in this hysterical way!"

The weeper whisked round with a face of wild beseeching. "O, my son, call me anything but that! Call me weak and credulous, too easily led and misled! Call me too poetical and confiding! I know I'm more lonely than I dare tell my own son! But I'm not—Oho! I'm not hysterical!" she sobbed.

So it continued for an hour. Then the lamp gave out and they went to bed.

The next morning John drove his mother to Suez for a visit of several days among her relatives, and rode on into Blackland to see if he could find "a girl" for Widewood. He spent three days and two nights at these tasks, stopping while in Blackland with—whom would you suppose? Proudfit, for all the world! He took an emphatic liking to the not too brainy colonel, and a new disrelish to his almost too sparkling wife.

As, at sunset of the third day, he again drew near Suez and checked his muddy horse's gallop at Swanee River Bridge, his heart leaped into his throat. He hurriedly raised his hat, but not to the transcendent beauties of the charming scene, unless these were Fannie Halliday and Barbara Garnet.

A LITTLE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERIES

For two girls out on a quiet stroll, their arms about each other and their words murmurous, not any border of Suez was quite so alluring as the woods and waters seen from the parapet of this fine old stone bridge.

The main road from Blackland crossed here. As it reached the Suez side it made a strong angle under the town's leafy bluffs and their two or three clambering by-streets, and ran down the rocky margin of the stream to the new railway station and the old steamboat landing half a mile below. The bridge was entirely of rugged gray limestone, and spanned the river's channel and willow-covered sand-bars in seven high, rude arches. One Christmas dawn during the war a retreating enemy, making ready to blow up the structure, were a moment too slow, and except for the scars of a few timely shells dropped into their rear guard, it had come through those years unscathed. For, just below it, and preferable to it most of the year, was a broad gravelly ford. Beyond the bridge, on the Blackland side, the road curved out of view between woods on the right and meadows on the left. A short way up the river the waters came dimpling, green and blue in August, but yellow and swirling now, around the long, bare foot of a wooded island, that lay forever asleep in midstream, overrun and built upon by the winged Liliputians of the shores and fields.

The way down to this spot from the Halliday cottage was a grassy street overarched with low-branching evergreen oaks, and so terraced that the trees at times robbed the view of even a middle distance. It was by this way that Fannie and Barbara had come, with gathered skirts, picking dainty zigzags where, now and then, the way was wet. The spirit of spring was in the lightness of their draperies' texture and dyes—only a woman's eye would have noticed that Barbara was in mourning—and their broken talk was mainly on a plan for the celebration, on the twenty-second, not of any great and exceptionally truthful patriot's birthday—Captains Champion and Shotwell were seeing to that—but of Parson Tombs's and his wife's golden wedding.

When John March saw them, they had just been getting an astonishing amount of amusement out of the simple fact that Miss Mary Salter and the younger pastor were the committee on decorations. They were standing abreast the bridge's parapet, the evening air stirring their garments, watching the stern-wheeler, Launcelot Halliday, back out from the landing below into the fretting current for a trip down stream. John had always approved this companionship; it had tended to sustain his old illusion that Fannie's extra years need not count between her and him. But the pleasure of seeing them together now was but a flash and was gone, for something else than extra years was counting, which had never counted before. He had turned over a new leaf, as he said. On it he had subscribed with docile alacrity to every ancient grotesqueness in Parson Tombs's science of God, sin, and pardon; and then had stamped Fannie's picture there, fondly expecting to retain it by the very simple trick of garlanding it round with the irrefragable proposition that love is the fulfilling of the law! But not many days had the leaf been turned when a new and better conscience awoke to find shining there, still wet from God's own pen, the corollary that only a whole sphere of love can fulfil the law's broad circumference.

As Fannie and Barbara made their bow and moved to pass on he hurriedly raised his hat and his good horse dropped into a swift, supple walk. The bridle hand started as if to draw in, but almost at the same instant the animal sprang again into a gait which showed the spur had touched her, and was quickly out of hearing.

"Barb," murmured Fannie, "you're thinking he's improved."

"Yes, only—-"

"Only you think he'd have stopped if he'd seen us sooner. Why can't you think maybe he wouldn't? But you're not to blame; you simply have a girl's natural contempt for a boy's love. Well, a boy's love is silly; but when you see the constant kind, like John's, as sure as you live there are not many things entitled to higher respect. O Barb! I've never felt so honored by any other love that man ever offered me. He'll get over it; completely. I believe it's dying now, though it's dying hard. But the next time he loves, the girl who treats his love lightly—Let's go down in these woods and look for hepaticas. John can't bring them to me any more and Jeff-Jack never did. He sends candy. There's homage in a wild flower, Barb; but candy, oh—I don't know—it makes me ashamed."

"Why don't you tell him so?"

Fannie leaned close and whispered, "I'm afraid."

"Why, he gave me wild flowers, once."

"When? Who?" The black eyes flashed. "When did he ever give you flowers?"

"When I was five years old." They turned down a short descent into the woods.

Fannie smiled pensively. "Barb, did you notice that John——"

"Has been trading again! His love's not very constant as to horses."

"But what a pretty mare he's got! Barb, 'pon my word, when John March is well mounted, I do think, physically, he's—" The speaker hearkened. From the low place where they stood her eyes were on a level with the road. "It's him again; let's hide."

March came loping down from the bridge, slackened pace, and swept with his frowning glance the meadows on the left. Then he moved along the edge of the wood searching its sunset lights and glooms, and presently turned down into them, bending under the low boughs. And then he halted, burning with sudden resentment before the smiling, black-eyed girl who leaned against the tree, which had all at once refused to conceal her.

Neither spoke. Fannie's eyes were mocking and yet kind, and the resentment in John's turned to a purer mortification. A footstep rustled behind him and Barbara said:

"We're looking for wild flowers. Do you think we're too early?"

"No, I could have picked some this afternoon if I'd felt like it, but it's a sort o' belief with me that nobody ought to pick wild flowers for himself—ha-ha-ha!—Oh eh, Miss Garnet, I reckon I owe you an apology for charging down on you this way, but I just happened to think, after I passed you, that you could tell me where to find your father. He's president pro tem. of our land company, you know, and I want to consult him with Mr. Gamble—you know Mr. Gamble, don't you?—president of the railroad? O! of course you do! Well, he's our vice-president."

"Why, no, Mr. March, I don't know where you'll find pop-a right now. I might possibly know when I get back to the house. If it's important I could send you word."

"O no! O no! Not at all! I'll find him easily enough. I hope you'll both pardon me, Miss Fannie, but it seems as if I learned some things pow'ful slow. I ought to know by this time when two's company and three's a crowd."

Before he had finished, the two listeners had seen the remoter significance of his words, and it was to mask this that Barbara drawled—

"Why, Mr. March, that's not nice of you!"

But the young man's confusion was sufficient apology, and both girls beamed kindly on him as he presently took his leave under the delusion that his face hid his inward mortification.

A PAIR OF SMUGGLERS

A short way farther within the wood they began to find flowers.

"Well—yes," said Fannie, musingly. "And pop consented to be treasurer pro tem., but that was purely to help John. You know he fairly loves John. They all think it'll be so much easier to get Northern capital if they can show they're fully organized and all interests interested, you know." She stooped to pick a blossom. Barbara was bending in another direction. Two doves alighted on the ground near by and began to feed, and, except for size, the four would have seemed to an on-looker to have been very much of a kind.

Presently Fannie spoke again. "But I think pop's more and more distrustful of the thing every day. Barb, I reckon I'll tell you something."

Barbara crouched motionless. "Tell on."

"O—well, I asked pop yesterday what he thought of this Widewood scheme anyhow, and he said, 'There's money in it for some men.' 'Well, then, why can't you be one of them,' I asked him, and said he, 'It's not the kind of money I want, Fan.'"

"O pshaw, Fannie, men are always saying that about one another."

"Yes," murmured Fannie.

"Fan," said Barbara, tenderly, "do stop talking that way; you know I'm nearly as proud of your father as you are, don't you?"

"Yes, sweetheart."

"Well, then, go on, dear."

"I asked him if John was one," resumed Fannie, "and, said he, 'No, I shouldn't be a bit surprised to see John lose everything he and his mother have got.'"

Barbara flinched and was still again. "Has he told him that?"

"No, he says John's a very hard fellow to tell anything to. And, you know, Barb, that's so. I used to could tell him things, but I mustn't even try now."

"Why, Fan, you don't reckon Mr. Ravenel would care, do you?"

"Barb, I'll never know how much he cares about anything till it's too late. You can't try things on Jeff-Jack."

"I wish," softly said Barbara, "you wouldn't smile so much like him."

"Don't say anything against him, Barb, now or ever! I'm his and he's mine, and I wouldn't for both worlds have it any other way." But this time the speaker's smile was her own and very sweet. The two returned to the road.

"I asked pop," said Fannie, "where Jeff-Jack stands in this affair. He laughed and said, 'Jeff-Jack doesn't take stands, Fan, he lays low.'"

"Somebody ought to tell him."

"Tell who? Oh, John!—yes, I only wish to gracious some one would! But men don't do that sort of thing for one another. If a man takes such a risk as that for another you may know he loves him; and if a woman takes it you may know she doesn't."

"Fan," said Barbara, as they locked arms, "would it do for me to tell him?"

"No, my dear; in the first place you wouldn't get the chance. You can't begin to try to tell him till you've clean circumgyrated yourself away down into his confidence. It's a job, Barb, and a bigger one than you can possibly want. Now, if we only knew some girl of real sense who was foolish enough to be self-sacrificingly in love with him—but where are we going to find the combination?"

"And even if we could, you say no woman in love with a man would do it."

"There are exceptions, sweet Simplicity. What we want is an exception! Law, Barb, what a fine game a girl of the true stuff could play in such a case! Not having his love yet, but wanting it worse than life, and yet taking the biggest chance of losing it for the chance of saving him from the wreck of his career. O see!" They stopped on the bridge again to watch the sun's last beams gilding the waters, and Barbara asked,

"Do you believe the right kind of a girl would do that?"

"Why, if she could do it without getting found out, yes! Why, Law, I'd have done it for Jeff-Jack! You see, she might save him and win him, too; or she might win him even if she tried and failed to save him."

"But she might," said Barbara, gazing up the river, "she might even save him and still lose."

"Yes, for a man thinks he's doing well if he so much as forgives a deliverer—in petticoats. Yet still, Barb, wouldn't a real woman sooner lose by saving him, than sit still and let him lose for fear she might lose by trying to save him?"

"I don't know; you can't imagine mom-a doing such a thing, can you?"

"What! Cousin Rose? Why, of all women she was just the sort to have done it. Barb, you'd do it!" Fannie expected her friend to look at her with an expression of complimented surprise. But the surprise was her own when Barbara gave a faint start and bent lower over the parapet. The difference was very slight, as slight as the smile of fond suspicion that came into Fannie's face.

"Fannie"—still looking down into the gliding water—"how does your father think Mr. March is going to lose so much; is he afraid he'll be swindled?"

"I believe he is, Barb."

"And do you think"—the words came very softly and significantly—"that that makes it any special matter of mine that he should be warned?"

"Yes, sweetheart, I do."

"Then"—the speaker looked up with distressed resolve—"I must do what I can. Will you help me, or let me help you, rather?"

"Yes, either way, as far as I can." They moved on for a moment. Then Barbara stopped abruptly, looking much amused. "There's one risk you didn't count!"

"What's that?"

"Why, if he should mistake my motive, and——"

"What? suspect you of being——"

"A girl of the true stuff!"

"O but, sweet, how could he?"

As they laughed Fannie generously prepared to keep her guess to herself, and to imply, still more broadly, that all she imputed to her friend was the determination secretly to circumvent a father's evil designs.

Barbara roused from a reverie. "I know who'll help us, Fan,—Mr. Fair." She withstood her companion's roguish look with one of caressing gravity until the companion spoke, when she broke into a smile as tranquil as a mother's.

"Barb, Barb, you deep-dyed villain!"

The only reply of the defendant—they were once more in the shady lane—was to give her accuser a touch of challenge, and the two sprang up a short acclivity to where a longer vista opened narrowly before them. But here, as if rifles had been aimed at them, they shrank instantly downward. For in the dim sylvan light two others walked slowly before them, their heads hidden by the evergreen branches, but their feet perfectly authenticated and as instantly identified. One pair were twos, one were elevens, and both belonged to the Committee on Decorations. An arm that by nature pertained unto the elevens was about the waist that pertained unto the twos, and at the moment of discovery, as well as could be judged by certain sinuosities of lines below, there was a distance between the two pairs of lips less than any assignable quantity.

LEVITICUS

The two maidens were still laughing as they re-entered their gate. Fannie threw an arm sturdily around her companion's waist and sought to repeat the pantomime, but checked herself at the sight of a buggy drawing near.

It was old, misshapen, and caked with wet and dry mud, as also was the mule which drew it. In the vehicle sat three persons. Two were negro women. One of them—of advanced years—was in a full bloom of crisp calico under a flaring bonnet which must have long passed its teens. The other was young and very black. She wore a tawdry hat that only helped to betray her general slovenliness. From between them a negro man was rising and dismounting. A wide-brimmed, crackled beaver rested on his fluffy gray locks, and there was the gentleness of old age in his face.

The spring sap seemed to have started anew in the elder woman's veins. She tittered as she scrambled to rise, and when the old man offered to help her, she eyed him with mock scorn and waved him off.

"G'way fum me, 'Viticus Wisdom—gallivantin' round here like we was young niggehs!—Lawd! my time is come I cayn't git up; my bones dun tuk dis-yeh shape to staay!"

"Come, come!" said the husband, in an undertone of amiable chiding; and the buggy gave a jerk of thankful relief as its principal burden left it for the sidewalk, diffusing the sweet smell of the ironing-table.

While the younger woman was making her mincing descent, Fanny and Barbara came toward them in the walk.

"Miss Halliday," said Leviticus, lifting his beaver and bowing across the gate, "in response to yo' invite we—O bless the Lawd my soul! is that my little—Miss Barb, is that you?"

Before he could say more Virginia threw both hands high. "Faw de Lawd's sake!" She thrust her husband aside. "G'way, niggah! lemme th'oo dis-yeh gate 'fo' I go ove' it!" She snatched Barbara to her bosom. "Lawd, honey! Lawd, honey! Ef anybody 'spec' you' ole Aunt Fudjinny to stan' off an' axe her baby howdy dey bettah go to de crazy house! Lawd! Lawd! dis de fus' chance I had to hug my own baby since I been a po' ole free niggah!" She held the laughing girl off by the shoulders.

"Honey, ef it's my las' ac', I"—she snatched her close again, kissed one cheek twice and the other thrice, and held her off once more to fix upon her a tearful, ravishing gaze. "Lawd, honey, Johanna done tole me how you growin' to favo' my sweet Miss Rose, an' I see it at de fun'l when I can't much mo'n speak to you, an' cry so I cayn't hardly see you; but Lawd! my sweet baby, dough you cayn't neveh supersede her in good looks, you jess as quiet an' beautiful as de sweet-potateh floweh!

"Howdy, Miss Fannie?" She gave her hand and courtesied.

"Howdy, Uncle Leviticus?" said Barbara.

The old man lifted his hat again, bowed very low, and looked very happy. "I'm tol'able well, Miss Barb, thank the Lawd, an' hope an' trus' an' pray you're of the same complexion." Still including Barbara in his audience, he went on with an address to Fannie already begun.

"You know, Miss Fannie, yo' letteh say fo' Aunt Fudjinny an' me to come the twentieth—yass, ma'am, we understan'—but, you know, Mr. Mahch, he come down an' superscribe faw this young—ah——"

"Girl," suggested Barbara, with pretty condescension; but Fannie covertly trod on her toe and said, "lady," with a twinkle at the dowdy maiden.

"P'ecisely!" responded Leviticus to both speakers at once. "An' Mr. Mahch, he was bereft o' any way to fetch her to he's maw less'n he taken her up behime o' his saddle, an' so it seem' like the Lawd's call faw us to come right along an' bring her hencefah, an' then, if she an' his maw fin' theyse'ves agreeable, then Mr. Mahch—which his buggy happn to be here in Suez—'llow to give her his transpotes the balance o' the way to-morrow in hit."

"And you and Aunt Virginia will stay through the golden wedding as our chief butler and chief baker, as I wrote you; will you?"

"Well, er, eh"—the old man scratched his head—"thass the question, Miss Fannie. Thass what I been a-revolvin', an' I sees two views faw revolution. On one side there is the fittenness o' we two faw this work."

"It's glaring," mused Fannie.

"Flagrant," as gravely suggested Barbara.

"P'ecisely! Faw, as you say in yo' letteh, we two was chief butler an' chief baker to they wedd'n' jess fifty year' ago, bein' at that time hi-ud out to 'Squi' Usher—the ole 'Squieh, you know—by Miss Rose' motheh, which, you know, Miss Tomb' she was a Usher, daughteh to the old 'Squi' Usher, same as she is still sisteh to the present 'Squieh, who was son to the ole 'Squieh, his father an' hern. The ole 'Squieh, he married a Jasper, an' thass how come the Tombses is remotely alloyed to the Mahches on the late Jedge's side, an' to you, Miss Barb, on Miss Rose's Montgomery side, an' in these times, when cooks is sca'ce an' butlehs is yit mo' so, it seem to me—it seem to me, Miss Fannie, like yo' letteh was a sawt o'—sawt o'——"

"Macedonian cry," said Fannie.

"Hark from the Tombses," murmured Barbara.

"And so you'll both come!" said Fannie.

"Why, as I say, Miss Fannie, thass the question, fo' there's the care o' my flock, you know."

"De laymbs," put in Virginia, "de laymbs is bleeds to be fed, you know, Miss Fannie, evm if dey is black."

"Yass, ma'am," resumed Leviticus; "an' if we speak o' mere yearthly toys, Fudjinia's pigs an' chickens has they claims."

"Well, whoever's taking care of them now can keep on till the twenty-second, Uncle Leviticus; and as for your church, you can run down there Sunday and come right back, can't you? Why can't you?"

"Uncle Leviticus," said Barbara, "we expect, of course, to pay you both, you know."

"Why, of course!" said Fannie, "you understood that, didn't you?"

"Yass'm, o' co'se," interposed Virginia, quickly, while Leviticus drawled,

"O the question o' pay is seconda'y!—But we'll have to accede, Fudjinia; they can't do without us."

"I think, Fannie," said Barbara, looking very business-like, "we'd better have them name their price and agree to it at once, and so be sure——"

"Lawd, honey!" cried Virginia, "we ain't goin' to ax no prices to you-all! sufficiend unto de price is de laboh theyof, an' we leaves dat to yo' generos'ty. Yass, dass right where we proud an' joyful to leave it—to yo' generos'ty."

"Well, now, remember, the Tombses mustn't know a breath about this. You'll find Johanna in the kitchen. She'll have to give you her room and sleep on the floor in Miss Barb's; she'll be glad of the excuse——"

"Thaank you, Miss Fannie," replied Virginia, with amiable complacency, "but we 'llowin' to soj'u'n with friends in town."

"O, indeed! Well"—Arrangements for a later conference were made. "Good-evening. I'm glad you're bringing such a nice-looking girl to Mrs. March. What is her—what is your name?"

"Daaphne."

"What!"

"Yass'm. Mr. Mahch say whiles I wuck faw he's maw he like me to be naame Jaane, but my fo'-true name's Daaphne, yass'm."

"Barb," said Fannie, "I've just thought of something we must attend to in the house at once!"

DELILAH

Daphne Jane was one of Leggettstown's few social successes. She was neither comely nor guileless, but she was tremendously smart. Her pious parents had sent her for two or three terms to the "Preparatory Department" of Suez University, where she had learned to read, write, and add—she had been born with a proficiency in subtraction. But she had proved flirtatious, and her father and mother had spent their later school outlays on her younger brothers and sisters. Daphne Jane had since then found sufficient and glad employ trying to pomatum the frizzles out of her hair, and lounging whole hours on her window-sill to show the result to her rivals and monopolize and cheer the passing toiler with the clatter of her perky wit and the perfumes of bergamot and cinnamon.

Cornelius Leggett had easily discovered this dark planet, but her parents were honestly, however crudely, trying to make their children better than their betters expected them to be, and they forbade him the house and her the lonely stroll.

The daughter, from the first moment, professed to look with loathing upon the much-married and probably equally widowed Cornelius, but her mother did not trust her chaste shudderings. When John March came looking for a domestic, she eagerly arranged to put her out to service in a house where, Leviticus assured her, Cornelius dared not bring his foot. John March, however, was not taken into this confidence. The maid's quick wit was her strong card, and even Leviticus did not think it just to her to inform a master or mistress that it was the only strong card she held.

So, thanks to Leviticus, the only man in Leggettstown who would stop at no pains to "suckumvent wickedness in high places," here she was, half-way to Widewood, and thus far safe against any unguessed machinations of the enemy or herself. In Suez, too, all went well. Before Mrs. March Jane seemed made of angelic "yass'ms," and agreed, with a strange, sweet readiness to go to Widewood and assume her duties in her mistress's absence, which would be for a few days only.

"And you'll go"—"yass'm"—"with my son"—"yass'm"—"in the buggy"—"yass'm"—"and begin work"—"yass'm"—"just as though"—"yass'm"—"I were there"—"yass'm." Mrs. March added, half to herself, half to her son, "I find Suez"—"yass'm"—"more lonely than"—"yass'm"—"our forest home." "Yass'm"—said the black damsel.

John was delighted with such undaunted and unselfish alacrity. He was only sorry not to take her home at once, but really this business with Garnet and Gamble was paramount. It kept him late, and the next morning was well grown when he sought his mother to say that he could now take Jane to Widewood.

"My son, you cannot. It's too late."

"Why, what's the matter?"

"Nothing, my dear John."

"Where's the girl?"

"On the way to her field of labor."

"How is she getting there?"

"In our buggy."

"You haven't let her drive out alone?"

"My son, why should you charge me with both cruelty and folly?"

"Who took her out?"

"One, my dear boy, who I little thought would ever be more attentive to the widow's needs than her own son: Cornelius Leggett." Mrs. March never smiled her triumphs. Her lips only writhed under a pleasant pain.

"Well, I'll be——"

"Oh!"

"Why, what, mother? I was only going to say I'll be more than pleased if he doesn't steal the horse and buggy. I'll bet five dollars——"

"Oh!"

"O, I only mean I don't doubt he's half ruined both by now, and all to save a paltry hour."

"My son, it is not mine to squander. Ah! John, the hours are not ours!"

"Why, what are they? O! I see. Well, I wish whoever they belong to would come take 'em away!"

Cornelius was at that moment rejoicing that this one was peculiarly his. As he drove along the quiet Widewood road he was remarking to his charge:

"I arrove fum Pussy on the six o'clock train. One o' the fus news I get win' of is that you in town. Well! y'ought to see me!"

But his hearer refused to be flattered. "Wha'd you do—run jump in de riveh?"

"Jump in—I reckon not! I flew. Y'ought to see me fly to'a'ds you, sweet lady!"

The maiden laughed. "Law! Mr. Leggett, what a shoo-fly that mus' 'a' been! Was de conducto' ayfteh you?"

Mr. Leggett smiled undaunted. "My mos' num'ous thanks to yo' serenity, but I enjoys fum my frien' President Gamble the propriety of a free paass ove' his road."

"Oh? does you indeed! Is dat so! Why you makes me proud o' myse'ff. You hole a free paass on de raailroad, an' yit you countercend to fly to me!" The manner changed to one of sweet curiosity. "Does you fly jess with yo' two feet, aw does you comp'ise de assistance o' yo' ears?"

"Why, eh—why, I declah 'pon my soul, you—you es peart es popcawn! You trebbles me to respond to you with sufficient talk-up-titude."

"Does I? Laws-a-me! I ax yo' pahdon, Mr. Leggett. But I uz bawn sassy. I ought to be jess ashame' o' myseff, talkin' dat familious to a gen'leman o' yo' powehs an' 'quaintances. Why you evm knows Mr. Mahch, don't you?"

"Who, me? Me know Johnnie Mahch? Why, my dea'—escuse my smile o' disdaain—why Johnnie Mahch—why—why, I ra-aise' Johnnie!"

"Why, dee Lawdy! Does you call him Johnnie to his face?"

"Well, eh—not offm—ve'y seldom. 'Caze ef I do that, you know, then, here, fus' thing, he be a-callin' me C'nelius."

"I think C'nelius sounds sweet'n—" The speaker clapped a hand to her mouth. "Escuse me! O, Mr. Leggett, kin you escuse me?"

"Escuse you?"—his sidelong glance was ravishing—"yo' beauty mo'n escuse you."

The maiden dropped her lashes and drew her feet out of her protector's way. "An' you an' Mr. Mahch is frien's! How nice dat is!"

"Yass, it nice faw him. An' it useful faw me. We in cahoots in dis-yeh lan' boom. O, yass, me an' him an' Gyarnit an' Gamble, all togetheh like fo' brethers. I plays the fife, Johnnie beats the drum, Gyarnit wear the big hat an' flerrish the stick, an' Gamble, he tote the ice-wateh!" The two laughed so heartily as to swing against each other.

"Escuse me!" said Mr. Leggett, with great fondness of tone.

"You ve'y escusable," coyly replied the damsel. "Mr. Leggett, in what similitude does you means you plays de fife?"

"Why in the s'militude o' legislation, you know. But Law'! Johnnie wouldn't neveh had the sense to 'range it that-a way if it hadn't been faw my dea' ole-time frien' an' felleh sodjer, Gyarnit."

"Is dat so? Well, well! Maajo' Gyarnit! You used to cook faw him in camp di'n' you? How much good sense he got, tubbe sho'!" A mixture of roguishness spoiled the pretence of wonder.

"Good sense? Law'! 'twant good sense in Gyarnit nuther. It was jess my pow' ove' him! my stra-ange, masmaric poweh! You know, the arrangements is jess this! Gyarnit got th'ee hund'ed sheers, I got fawty; yit I the poweh behime the th'one. Johnnie, he on'y sec'ta'y an' 'ithout a salary as yit, though him an' his maw got—oh! I dunno—but enough so he kin sell it faw all his daddy could 'a' sole the whole track faw—that is, perwidin' he kin fine a buyeh. Champion, Shotwell, the Graveses—all that crowd, they jess on'y the flies 'roun' the jug; bymeby they find theyse'ves onto the fly-papeh." The pair laughed again, and——

"Oh! escuse me!"

"My accident, seh. Mr. Leggett, hoccum you got all dat poweh?"

"Ah!" said the smiling gallant, "you wants to know the secret o' my poweh, do you? Well, that interjuce the ezacly question I'm jess a-honin' to ass you. You ass me the secret o' my poweh. Don't you know thass the ve'y thing what Delijah ass Saampson?"

"Yass, seh. I knows. Dass in de Bible, ain't it?"

"It is. It in the sacred scripters, which I hope that, like myseff, fum a chile thou hass known them, ain't you? Yass, well, thass right. I loves to see a young lady pious. I'm pious myseff. Ef I wan't a legislater I'd be a preacher. Now, you ass me the same riddle what Delijah ass Saampson. An' you know how he anseh her? He assed a riddle to her. An' likewise this my sweet riddle to you: Is I the Saampson o' yo' hope an' dream an' will you be my Deli——Aw! now, don't whisk away like that an' gag yo'seff with yo' handkercher! I's a lawful widoweh, dearess."

The maiden quenched her mirth and put on great dignity. "Mr. Leggett, will you please to teck yo' ahm fum roun' my wais'?" She glanced back with much whiteness of eyes. "Teck it off, seh; I ain't aansw'ed you yit."

The arm fell away, but his whispering lips came close. "Ain't I yo' Saampson, dearess o' the dear? Ain't you the Delijah o' my haht? Answeh me, my julepina, an' O, I'll reply you the secret o' my poweh aw any otheh question in the wide, wide worl'!"

"Mr. Leggett, ef you crowds me any wuss on dis-yeh buggy seat I—I'll give you—I'll give you a unfavo'able answeh! Mr. Leggett"—she sniggered—"you don't gimme no chaynce to think o' no objections even ef I had any! Will you please to keep yo' foot where yo' foot belong, seh? Mr. Leggett——"

"What is it, my sweet spirit o' nightshade?"

"Mr. Leggett"—the eyes sparkled with banter—"I'll tell you ef you'll fus' aansweh me a riddle; will you? 'Caze ef you don't I won't tell you. Will you?"

"Lawd! I'll try! On'y ass it quick befo' my haht bus' wide opm. Ass it quick!"

"Well, you know, I cayn't ass it so scan'lous quick, else I run de dangeh o' gettin' it wrong. Now, dis is it: When is—hol' on, lemme see—yass, dass it. When is two—aw! pshaw! you make me laaugh so I can't ax it at all! When is two raace hawses less'n one?"

"Aw, sheh! I kin ans' that in five minutes! I kin ans' it in one minute! I kin ans' it now! Two hosses is—"

"Hol' on! I said raace hawses! Two raace hawses, I said, seh!"

"Well, dass all right, race hosses! Two race hosses less'n one when they reti-ud into the omlibus business."

"No, seh! no seh!" The maiden cackled till the forest answered back. "No, seh! two raace hawses less'n one when each one on'y jess abreas' o' the otheh!"

—"'Breas' o'—aw pshaw! you tuck the words right out'n my mouth! I seed the answeh to it fum the fus; I made a wrong espunction the fus time on'y jess faw a joke! Now, you ans' my question, dearess."

But the dearest had become grave and stately. "Mr. Leggett, befo' I comes to dat finality, I owes it to myseff an' likewise to my pa'ents to git yo' respondence to, anyhow, one question, an' ef you de man o' poweh you say you is, y' ought to be highly fitt'n' to give de correc' reply."

"Espoun' your question, miss! Espoun' yo' question!"

"Well, seh, de question is dis: Why is de—? No, dat ain't it. Lemme see. O yass, whass de diff'ence 'twix' de busy blacksmiff an' de loss calf? Ans' me dat, seh! Folks say C'nelius Leggett a pow'ful smaht maan! How I gwine to know he a smaht maan ef he cayn't evm ans' a riddle-diddle-dee?"

"I kin ans' it! I's ans'ed bushels an' ba'ls o' riddles! Now that riddle is estremely simple, an' dis is de inte'p'etation thereof! The diff'ence betwix' a busy blacksmiff an' a loss ca-alf—thass what you said, ain't it?—Yass, well, it's because—O thass too easy! I dislikes to occupy my facilities with sich a trifle! It's jess simply because they both git so hawngry they cross-eyed! Thass why they alike!"

"No, seh! no, seh! miss it ag'in! O fie, fo' shaame! a man o' sich mind-powehs like you! Didn't you neveh know de blacksmiff fill de air full o' bellows whilce de loss calf—aw shucks! you done made me fo'git it! Now, jess hesh up, you smaht yalleh niggeh! try in' to meek out like you done guess it! Dis is it; de blacksmiff he fill de caalf full o' bellows, whilce——"

They both broke into happy laughter and he toyed innocently with one of her pinchbeck ear-rings.

"O! my sweet familiarity! you knows I knows it! But yo' sof' eyes is shot me th'oo to that estent that I don't know what I does know! I jess sets here in the emba'ssment o' my complacency a won'de'n' what you takes me faw!"

"How does you know I's tuck you at all yit; is I said so, Mr. Saampson?—Don't you tetch me, seh! right here in full sight o' de house! You's too late, seh! too late! Come roun' here, C'nelius Leggett, an' he'p me out'n dis-yeh buggy, else I dis'p'int you yit wid my aansweh.—No, seh! you please to take jess de tips o' my fingehs. Now, gimme my bundle o' duds!" the voice rose and fell in coquettish undulations—"now git back into de buggy—yass, seh; dass right. Thaank yo ve'y much, seh. Good-by. Come ag'in."

"Miss Daphne, y' ain't ans' my interrogutive yit."

"Yass, I is. Dass my answeh—come ag'in."

"Is dat all de respondence my Delijah got faw her Saampson?"

"Mr. Leggett, I ain't yo' Delijah! Thass fix! I ain't read the scripters in relations to dat young lady faw nuthin! Whetheh you my Saampson remain"—the smile and tone grew bewitching—"faw me to know an faw you to fine out."

"Shell I come soon?" murmured Mr. Leggett, for the old field hand and his wife were in sight; and the girl answered in full voice, but winsomely:

"As to dat, seh, I leaves you to de freedom o' yo' own compulsions."

He moved slowly away, half teased, half elated. At the last moment he cast a final look backward, and Daphne Jane, lagging behind the old couple, tossed him a kiss.

Quite satisfied to be idle, but not to be alone, the maiden so early contrived with her Leggettstown vivacity to offend the old field hands, that the night found her with only herself and her cogitations for company.

However, the house was still new to her, if not in its pantry, at least in its bureaus and wardrobes, and when she had spent the first evening hour counterfeiting the softly whimpered quavers of a little screech-owl that snivelled its woes from a tree in the back-yard, the happy thought came to her innocent young mind to try on the best she could find of her mistress's gowns and millinery. By hook and by crook, combined with a blithe assiduity, she managed to open doors and drawers, and if mimicry is the heaven of aspiring laziness, the maid presently stood unchallenged on the highest plateau of a sluggard's bliss. She minced before the mirror, she sank into chairs, she sighed and whined, took the attitudes given or implied by the other Daphne's portrait down-stairs, and said weary things in a faint, high key.

And then—whether the contagion was in the clothing she had put on, or whether her make-up and her acting were so good as to deceive Calliope herself—inspiration came; the lonely reveler was moved to write. Poetry? No! "Miss it ag'n!" She began a letter intended to inform "Mr. S. Cunnelius Leggett," that while alike by her parents and by Mrs. March she was forbidden to see "genlmun frens," an unannounced evening visitor's risks of being shot by Mr. March first, and the question of his kinship to the late Enos settled afterward, were probably—in the popular mind—exaggerated. The same pastime enlivened the next evening and the next. She even went farther and ventured into verse. Always as she wrote she endeavored to impersonate in numerous subtleties of carriage the sweet songstress whose gowns she had contrived—albeit whose shoes she still failed—to get into. And so, with a conscience void of offence, she was preparing herself to find out, what so many of us already know, that playing even with the muse's fire is playing with fire, all the same.

MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS

At sunrise of the twenty-second, Barbara started from her pillow, roused by the jarring thunder of a cannon. As it pealed a second time Fannie drew her down.

"It's only Charlie Champion in the square firing a salute. Go to sleep again."

As they stepped out after breakfast for a breath of garden air, they saw John March a short way off, trying to lift the latch of Parson Tombs's low front gate. He tried thrice and again, but each time he bent down the beautiful creature he rode would rear until it seemed as if she must certainly fall back upon her rider. The pastor had come out on his gallery, where he stood, all smiles, waiting for John to win in the pretty strife, which the rider presently did, and glanced over to the Halliday garden, more than ready to lift his hat. But Fannie and Barbara were busy tiptoeing for peach blossoms.

"Good-morning, Brother March; won't you 'light? I declare I don't know which you manage best, yo' horse aw yo' tempeh!" The parson laughed heartily to indicate that, however doubtful the compliment, his intentions were kind.

"Good-morning, sir," said John in the gateway as his pastor came bareheaded toward him; and after a word or two more of greeting—"Mr. Tombs, there's to be a meeting of stockholders in the parlor of the hotel at ten o'clock. My friend, Mr. Fair, got here yesterday evening, and we want him to see that we mean business and hope he does."

"I see," said Parson Tombs, with a momentous air. "And I'll come. I may be a little late in gett'n' there, faw I've got to hitch up aft' a while and take Mother Tombs to spend the day, both of us, with our daughters, Mrs. Hamlet and Lazarus Graves. I don't reckon anybody else has noticed it but them, but, John, my son, Mother Tombs an' I will be married jess fifty years to-night! However that's neither here nor there; I'll come. If I'm half aw three-quarters of an hour late, why, I reckon that's no mo'n the rest of 'em will be, is it?"

John smiled and said he feared it wasn't. As his mare leaped from the sidewalk to the roadway he noted the younger pastor going by on the other side, evidently on a reconnoisance. For the committee on decorations was to come with evergreens to begin to deck the Tombs parsonage the moment the aged pair should get out of sight of it.

Three persons were prompt to the moment at the meeting of stockholders: Garnet, Gamble, and Jonas Crickwater, the new clerk of Swanee Hotel and a subscriber for one share—face value one hundred dollars, cash payment ten. A moment later Cornelius entered, and with a peering smile.

"Howdy, Leggett?" said Garnet, affably; but when the tawny statesman moved as though he might offer to shake hands, the Major added with increased cordiality, "take a seat," and waved him to a chair against the wall; then, turning his back, he resumed conversation with the railroad president. Presently John March arrived, with a dignity in his gait and an energy in his eye that secretly amused the president of the road. John looked at his watch with an apologetic smile.

"I supposed you had gone some place to get Mr. Fair," said Garnet.

"He's in Jeff-Jack's office; they're coming over together." John busied himself with his papers to veil his immense satisfaction. Looking up from them he saw Leggett. "Oh!" he exclaimed, stepped forward, and, with a constrained bow, for the first time in his life gave him his hand. The mulatto bowed low and smiled eruptively, too tickled to speak.

At the end of half an hour the gathering numbered nine, and everybody was in conversation with somebody. Mr. Crickwater, after three gay but futile attempts to tell Gamble that they were from the same State in the North, leaned against a wall with anguish in his every furtive glance, hopelessly button-holed by Leggett.

"Ah!" cried Garnet, as Jeff-Jack and Fair entered together. The Major laughed out for joy. In a moment it was—"Mr. Fair, this man, and Mr. Fair, that one—you remember President Gamble, of course?—and Captain Champion? Mr. Fair, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Hersey. Mr. Weed I think you met the last time you were here. No! this is Mr. Weed, that's our colored representative, Mr. Leggett. He'd like to shake hands with you, too, sir."

"Mr. Fair," said Cornelius, "seh, to you; yass, I likes to get my sheer o' whateveh's a-goin'."

He was about to say much more, but Garnet purposely drowned his voice. "Gentlemen, we'll proceed to business. Mr. Crickwater, will you act as doorkeeper?" Mr. Crickwater assumed that office.

Secretary March having occasion to mention the number of subscribed shares represented by those present as six hundred and eleven, Garnet explained that besides his own subscription he represented one of fifteen shares and another of ten for two ladies, and Champion unintentionally uttered a lurid monosyllable as Shotwell stuck him under the leg with a pin. They were the shares, Garnet added, that General Halliday had failed to take.

Business went on. When, by and by, Mr. Crickwater admitted Parson Tombs, the pastor found the company listening to the Honorable Cornelius Leggett as he expounded the reasons for, and the purposes of, the various provisions of An Act to authorize the Counties of Blackland, Clearwater, and Sandstone to subscribe to the capital stock of the Three-Counties Land and Improvement Company, Limited, and to declare said counties to be bodies politic and corporate for the purposes therein mentioned.

"You see, gentlemen," interposed Garnet, "we make Mr. Leggett one of the principal advocates of this bill in order to secure the support of those, both in the Legislature and at the polls, who are likely to vote as he votes on the question of the three counties subscribing to this other thousand shares, the half of our capital stock reserved for the purpose."

Mr. Weed asked how many shares offered to voluntary subscribers on the ten-dollar instalment plan had been taken, and Garnet replied, "All. Those, together with the shares assigned me in exchange for the mortgages I hold on Widewood and propose to surrender, the forty for which Mr. Leggett pays five hundred dollars, and the two hundred retained by Mr. March and his mother, make six hundred and forty, leaving three hundred and sixty to be placed with capitalists willing to pay their face value. We have to-day an increased confidence that these reinforcements"—he smiled—"are not far off. When this is done we shall have raised the three-eighths of the face value of the one thousand private shares, as required, before the three counties' subscription to the other thousand shares can become effective. I have to state, gentlemen, that General Halliday has been compelled by the weight of other burdens to resign the treasurership; but on the other hand I have the pleasure to announce that Captain Charles Champion has consented to act as treasurer, and also, that Colonel Ravenel expresses his willingness to serve as one of the two trustees for the three counties on the—(applause)—on the very reasonable condition that he be allowed to name the other trustee. I believe there's no other formal business before the meeting, but before we adjourn I think a few brief remarks from one or two gentlemen who have not yet spoken will be worth far more than the time they occupy. I'll call on our vice-president, Mr. Gamble." (Applause.)

Gamble said his father used to tell him a man of words and not of deeds was like a garden full of weeds. Here he was silent so long that Champion whispered to Shotwell, "He's stuck!"

But at length he resumed, that he attributed his own success in life to his always having believed in deeds!

"Indeed!" echoed Shotwell in so audible a whisper that half the group smiled.

Gamble replied that his statement might surprise some that had been asleep for the last twenty years, but he guessed there wasn't any such person in this crowd. (Laughter.) However, he proposed to say in a few words, which should be as much like deeds as he could make 'em, what he was willing to do. He paused so long again that Champion winked at John and was afraid to look at Shotwell.

He remembered, the speaker finally began again, another good saying—couldn't seem to be sure whether it was from Shakespeare or the Bible—that "a fool and his money are soon parted." Now, he was far from intending that for anyone present——

"No-o," slowly interrupted Hersey, turning from a large spittoon, "we ain't any of us got any money to part with."

"Well, I haven't mistook any of you for fools, neither. But I think that proverb, or whatever you call it, is as much's to say just like this, that if a man ain't a fool, 'tain't easy to part him from his money!" (Applause.)

"How about a fool and his land?" asked John, with a genial countenance.

"O you're all right," eagerly replied Gamble, and smiled inquiringly as the company roared with laughter. "Why, gentlemen, our able and efficient secretary is all right! Land ain't always money, and the fool is the man who won't let his land go when he's got too much of it. (Applause.) But that's not what I was driving at. What I was driving at was this: that if we want to get any man or men to put big money into this thing out o' their own pockets, we've got to make 'em officers of the company an' give'em control of it. Of course, our secretary is in to stay; that's part of his pay for the land he gives; but except as to him, gentlemen, there'll have to be a new slate. How's that, Mr. President?"

"Certainly; we're all pro tern, except Mr. March—and Colonel Ravenel."

"Yes, Colonel Ravenel, of course; but the man he selects for the other trustee must be someone satisfactory to the men on the new slate, eh, Colonel?"

Ravenel smiled, nodded, and as Gamble still looked at him, said, "All right."

"Now, gentlemen, if any of you don't agree to these things, now is the time to say it." A long pause. "If we are all agreed, then all I've got to add, Mr. President, is just this: you say there's three hundred and sixty shares for sale at their face value; I'll take two hundred when anybody else will take the balance." (Applause.)

As Gamble sank down Garnet glanced over to Fair, who was sitting next to Jeff-Jack; but Fair began to read some of the company's printed matter and the whole gathering saw Ravenel give Garnet a faint shake of the head.

"Ravenel!" suggested Champion, but Jeff-Jack quietly replied, "Father Tombs," and five or six others repeated the call. The pastor rose.

"I'm most afraid, my dea' friends an' brethren, I oughtn't to try to speak to this crowd. I'm a man of words and not of deeds, an' yet I'm 'fraid I shan't evm say the right thing. I belong to the past. I've been thinkin' of the past every minute I've been a-sitt'n' here. Yo' faces ah all turned to the future an' ah lighted"—he lifted his arm and waggled his hand—"by the beams of a risin' sun reflected from the structu'es o' yo' golden dreams. As I look back down the long an' shining stair-steps o' the years I count seventy-two of 'em in the clear sight o' memory's eye besides fo' or five that lie shrouded in the silve'y mist of earliest childhood." The pastor, ceased and his hearers were very still.

"I don't tell my age to brag of it, but if I remind you-all that I've baptized mo' Suez babies than there are now Suez men an' women alive, an' have seen jest about eve'y cawnehstone laid in this town that's ever been laid, I needn't say my heart's in yo' fawtunes whether faw this world aw the next.

"An' I don't doubt you goin' to be prospe'd. What I'm bound to tell you I've my private fears of, an' yet what I'm hopin' an' trustin' and prayin' the Lord will deliveh you fum—evm as a cawp'ate company—is the debasin' sin o' money greed. Gentlemen, an' dea' friends an' breth'en, may Gawd save you fum that as he saved the two Ezra Jaspehs, the foundeh o' Suez an' his cousin, the grantee of Widewood, fum the folly o' Ian' greed. For I tell you they may not 'a' managed either tract as well as some otheh men think they might 'a' done it, but they were saved the folly whereof I speak. They's been some talk an' laugh here this mawnin' about John March a-partin' with so much o' his lan'. Well, if that makes him a fool, he's a fool by my advice! Faw when he come to me with his plans all in the bud, so to speak, I said to him there an' then, an' he'll remembeh: Johnnie, s'I, I've set on the knees of both Ezra Jaspehs, an' I'm tellin' you what I know of the one that was yo' fatheh's grand-fatheh, as you say you know it of yo' own sainted fatheh: that if the time had eveh come in his life when paht'n' with Widewood tract would of seemed any ways likely to turn it into sco'es an' hund'eds o' p'osp'ous an' pious homes he would 'a' givm ninety-nine hund'edths away faw nothin' rather than not see that change; yes, an' had mo' joy oveh the one-hund'edth left to him than oveh the ninety an' nine to 'a' kep' 'em as the lan's of on'y one owneh an' one home.

"Gentlemen, I'm free to allow, as I heah the explanations o' all the gue-ards an' counteh-gue-ards o' this beautiful scheme—schools faw the well-to-do an' the ill-to-do, imperatively provided as fast as toil is provided faw the toiler and investments faw the investor—I have cause to rejoice an' be glad. An' yet! It oughtn't to seem strange to you-all if an' ole man, a man o' the quiet ole ploughin' an' plantin', fodder-pullin', song-singin', cotton-pickin', Christmas-keepin' days, the days o' wide room an' easy goin', should feel right smaht o' solicitude an' tripidation when he sees the red an' threatenin' dawn of anotheh time, a time o' mines an' mills an' fact'ries an' swarmin' artisans' an' operatives an' all the concomitants o' crowded an' complicated conditions, an' that he should fall to prayin' aloud in the very highways an' hotels, like some po' benighted believer in printed prayehs an' litanies, the petition: Fum all Ole Worl' sins an' New Worl' fanaticisms, fum all new-comers, whetheh immigrants aw capitalists, with delete'ious politics at va'iance fum ow own, which, heavm knows, ah delete'ious enough, an' most of all fum the greed o' money, good Lawd deliv' us!

"An' I have faith that he will. Uphel' by that faith, I've taken fifteen shares myself. But O, if faith could right here an' now be changed into sight, then would this day be as golden in my hopes faw Suez an' her three counties as it already is faw my private self in memory o' past joys."

The speaker was sinking into his chair when Garnet asked with a smile that everyone but the pastor understood, "Why, how's that Brother Tombs; is this day something more than usual to you?"

"Brother Garnet, if I've hinted that it is, it's mo' than I started out to do, but I'm tempted, seein' so many friends in one bunch so, to jest ask yo'-all's congratulations on"—the eyes glistened with moisture—"the golden anniversary o' my weddin' day."

The walls rang with applause, men crowded laughingly around the Parson to shake his hand, and in ten minutes the room was silent and the company gone, "every man to his tent," as the happy Parson said, each one as ready for his noontide meal as it was for him.

THE JAMBOREE

The social event of that midday was not the large family dinner where Mother Tombs sat between Hamlet and Lazarus, and Father Tombs between their wives; where Sister March was in the prettiest good humor conceivable and the puns were of the sort that need to be italicized, and the anecdotes were family heirlooms, and the mirth was as spontaneous as the wit was scarce, and not one bad conscience was hidden beneath it all. The true social event of that hour was the repast given by John March to Mr. Fair in Swanee Hotel, at which General Halliday, Captain Champion, and Dr. Coffin were on John's left, Ravenel sat at the foot of the board, and at John's right were Fair, in the place of honor, then Garnet, and then Shotwell in the seat appointed for Gamble, who had suddenly found he couldn't possibly stay.

Here were no mothers' quotations of their children's accidental wit, nor husbands' and wives' betrayals of silly sweetnesses of long-gone courtships and honeymoons. Passing from encomiums upon Parson Tombs's powers to the subject of eloquence in general, the allusions were mainly to Edmund Burke, John C. Calhoun, Sargent S. Prentiss, and Lorenzo Dow. The examples of epigram were drawn from the times of Addison, those of poetic wisdom from Pope, of witty jest from Douglas Jerrold and Sidney Smith, of satire from Randolph of Roanoke. John March told, very successfully, how a certain great poet of the eighteenth century retorted impromptu upon a certain great lord in a double-rhymed and triple-punned repartee. Champion and Shotwell, in happy alternation, recited two or three incredible nonsense speeches attributed to early local celebrities, and Garnet and Halliday gave the unpublished inside histories of three or four hitherto inexplicable facts, or seeming facts, in the personal or political relations of Marshall, Jackson, Webster, and Clay. Burns and Byron were there in spirit, and John could have recited one of his mother's poems if anyone had asked for it.

As for Ravenel and Fair, they had their parts and performed them harmoniously with the rest, so that John could see that he himself and everyone else were genuinely interesting to those two and that they were growingly interesting to each other. Both possessed the art of provoking the others to talk; they furnished the seed of conversation and were its gardeners, while the rest of the company bore its fruits and flowers. Ravenel seemed always to keep others talking for his diversion, Fair for his information.

John pointed this out to Miss Garnet that evening, at the Parson's golden wedding, and noticed that she listened to him with a perfectly beautiful eagerness.

"It's because I talked about Fair," he said to himself as he left her—"Aha! there they go off together, now."

The scene of this movement was that large house and grounds, the "Usher home place," just beyond the ruined bridge where Cornelius had once seen ghosts. A pretty sight it was to come out on the veranda, as John did, and see the double line of parti-colored transparencies meandering through the dark grove to the gate and the lane beyond. Shotwell met him.

"Hello, March, looking for Fair? He's just passed through that inside door with Miss Garnet."

"I know it—I'm not looking for anyone—in particular."

Out here on the veranda it was too cool for ladies; John heard only male voices and saw only the red ends of cigars; so, although he was not—of course he wasn't!—looking for anyone—in particular—he went back into the crowded house and buzzing rooms.

"Hunt'n' faw yo' maw, John?" asked Deacon Sexton as he leaned on his old friend Mattox; "she's——"

"Why, I'm not hunting for anybody," laughed March; "do I look like I was?"

He turned away toward a group that stood and sat about Parson Tombs.

"I never suspicioned a thing," the elated pastor was saying for the third or fourth time. "I never suspicioned the first thing till Motheh Tombs and I got into ow gate comin' home fum the Graveses! All of a sudden there we ware under a perfec' demonstration o' pine an' ceda' boughs an' wreaths an' arborvitæ faschoons! Evm then I never suspicioned but what that was all until Miss Fannie an' Miss Barb come in an' begin banterin' not only Motheh Tombs but me, if you'll believe it, to lie down an' rest a while befo' we came roun' here to suppeh! Still I 'llowed to myself, s'I, it's jest a few old frien's they've gotten togetheh. But when I see the grove all lightened up with those Chinee lanterns, I laughed, an' s'I to motheh, s'I, 'I don't know what it is, but whatev' it is, it's the biggest thing of its kind we've eveh treed in the fifty years that's brought us to this golden hour!' An' with that po' motheh, she just had to let go all ho-holts; heh—heh cup run oveh.

"You wouldn't think so now, to see heh sett'n' oveh there smilin' like a basket o' chips, an' that little baag o' gold dollahs asleep in heh lap, would you? But that smile ain't change' the least iota these fifty years. What a sweet an' happy thought it was o' John March, tellin' the girls to put the amount in fifty pieces, one for each year. But he's always been that original. Worthy son of a worthy motheh! Why, here he is! Howdy, John? I'm so proud to see Sisteh March here to-night; she told me at dinneh that she 'llowed to go back to Widewood this evenin'."

"I see in the papeh she 'llowed to go this mawnin'," said Clay Mattox.

John showed apologetic amusement. "That's my fault, I reckon, I understood mother to say she couldn't stay this evening."

A finger was laid on his shoulder. It was Shotwell again. "John, Miss Fannie Halliday wants Jeff-Jack. Do you know where he is?"

"No! Where is Miss Fannie?"

Shotwell lifted his hand again, with a soothing smile. "Don't remove yo' shirt; Ellen is saafe, fo' that thaynk Heavm, an' hopes ah faw the Douglas givm."

March flung himself away, but Shotwell turned him again by a supplicating call and manly, repentant air. "Law, John, don't mind my plaay, old man; I'm just about as sick as you ah. Here! I'll tell you where she is, an' then I'll tell you what let's do! You go hunt Jeff-Jack an' I'll staay with heh till you fetch him!"

"That would be nice," cheerfully laughed John.

In the next room he came upon Fannie standing in a group of Rosemont and Montrose youths and damsels. They promptly drew away.

"John," she said, "I want to ask a favor of you, may I?"

"You can ask any favor in the world of me, Miss Fannie, except one."

"Why, what's that?" risked Fannie.

"The one you've just sent Shotwell to do." He smiled with playful gallantry, yet felt at once that he had said too much.

Fannie put on a gayety intended for their furtive observers, as she murmured, "Don't look so! A dozen people are watching you with their ears in their eyes." Then, in a fuller voice—"I want you to get Parson Tombs away from that crowd in yonder. He's excited and overtaxing his strength."

"Then may I come back and spend a few minutes—no more—with you—alone? This is the last chance I'll ever have, Miss Fannie—I—I simply must!"

"John, if you simply must, why, then, you simply—mustn't. You'll have the whole room trying to guess what you're saying."

"They've no right to guess!"

"We've no right to set them guessing, John." She saw the truth strike and felt that unlucky impulse of compassion which so often makes a woman's mercy so unmercifully ill-timed. "Oh!" she called as he was leaving.

He came back with a foolish hope in his face. She spoke softly.

"Everybody says there's a new John March. Tell me it's so; won't you?"

"I"—his countenance fell—"I thought there was, but—I—I don't know." He went on his errand. Champion met him and fixed him with a broad grin.

"I know what's the matter with you, March."

"O pooh! you think so, eh? Well, you never made a greater mistake! I'm simply tired. I'm fairly aching with fatigue, and I suppose my face shows it."

"Yes. Well, that's all I meant. Anybody can see by your face you're in a perfect agony of fatigue. You don't conceal it as well as Shotwell does."

"Shotwell!" laughed John. "He's got about as much agony to conceal as a wash-bench with a broken leg. O, I'll conceal mine if anybody'll tell me how."

Champion closed his lips but laughed audibly, in his stomach. "Well, then, get that face off of you. You look like a boy that'd lost all his money at a bogus snake-show."

When Fair came up to Barbara, she was almost as glad to see him as John supposed, and brought her every wit and grace to bear for his retention, with a promptness that satisfied even her father, viewing them from a distance.