When they sat down beside the Indian graves, to his surprise she suddenly shifted the talk and said, "John, who would you vote for? I asked Aunt Ann, and she said, 'Buchanan, of course'; and when I asked Uncle Jim, he said, 'Fremont'; but I want to understand. I saw in the paper that it was wicked to keep slaves, but my cousins in Maryland have slaves; it can't be wicked."
"Would you like to be bought and sold?" he said.
"But, I am not black, John."
"I believe old Josiah was a slave."
"Every one knows that. Why did he run away, John?"
"Because he wanted to be free, I suppose, and not have to work without pay."
"And don't they pay slaves?" asked Leila.
"No, they don't." John felt unable to make clear to her why the two people they respected and loved never discussed what the village talked about so freely. These intelligent children were in the toils of a question which was disturbing the consciences and the interests of a continent. The simpler side was clear to both of them. The idea of selling the industrious old barber was as yet enough to settle their politics.
"Aunt Ann must have good reasons," said John. "Mr. Rivers says she is the most just woman he ever knew." It puzzled him. "I suppose we are too young to understand."
"Aunt Ann will never talk about slaves. I asked her last week."
"But Uncle Jim will talk, and he likes to be asked when we are alone. I don't believe in slavery."
"It seems so queer, John, to own a man."
John grinned, "Or a girl, Leila."
"Well, no one owns me, I tell you; they'd have a hard time."
She shook what Rivers called her free-flowing cascade of hair in the pride of conscious freedom. The talk ran on. At last she said, "I'll tell you a queer thing. I heard Mr. Rivers say to uncle—I heard him say, we were all slaves. He said that no one owns himself. I think that's silly," said the young philosopher, "don't you, John?"
"I don't know," returned John; "I think it's a big puzzle. Let's go."
No word reached the Squire of the battle behind the church until four days later, when Rivers came in after dinner and found Penhallow in his library deep in thought.
"Worried, Squire?" he asked.
"Yes, affairs are in a bad way and will be until the election is over. It always disturbs commerce. The town will go Democratic, I suppose."
"Yes, as I told you, unless you take a hand and are in earnest and outspoken."
"I could be, but it has not yet the force of imperative duty, and it would hurt Ann more than I feel willing to do. Talk of something else. She would cease her mild canvass if she thought it annoyed me."
"I see—sir. I think I ought to tell you that John has had another battle with Tom McGregor."
"Indeed?" The Squire sat up, all attention. "He does not show any marks of it."
"No, but Tom does."
"Indeed! What happened?"
"Well, I believe, Tom thought John told you what boys were in that joke on Billy. I fancy something was said about you—something personal, which John resented."
"That is of no moment. What else? I ought to be clear about it."
"Well, Squire, Tom was badly mauled and John was tired when I arrived as peacemaker. I stopped the battle, but he was not at all disposed to talk about it. I am sure of one thing—he has had a grudge against Tom—since he was rude to Leila."
The Squire rose and walked about the room. "H'm! very strange that—what a mere child he was when he got licked—boys don't remember injuries that way." Then seeming to become conscious of Rivers' presence, he stopped beside him and added, "What with my education and Leila's, he has grown amazingly. He was as timid as a foal."
"He is not now, Squire, and John has been as useful mentally to Leila.
She is learning to think."
"Sorry for it, Mark, women ought not to think. Now if my good Ann wouldn't think, I should be the happier."
"My dear Squire," said Rivers, setting an affectionate hand on his arm, "my dear Mrs. Penhallow doesn't think, except about the every-day things of life. Her politics and religion are sacred beliefs not to be rudely jostled by the disturbance of thinking. If there is illness, debt or trouble, at the mills or in Westways, she becomes seraphic and intelligent enough."
"Yes, Rivers, and if I put before her, as I sometimes do, a perplexing business matter, I am surprised at her competence. Of course, she is as able as you or I to reason, but on one subject she does not reason or believe that it admits of discussion; and by Heaven! my friend, I am sometimes ashamed to keep out of this business. So far as this State is concerned, it is hopeless. You know, dear friend, what you have been to us, and that to no other man on earth could I speak as I have done to you; but Mark, if things get worse—and they will—what then? John asked me what we should do if the Southern States did really secede. Things seem to stick in his mind like burrs—he was at it again next day."
Rivers smiled. "Like me, I suppose."
"Yes, Mark. He is persistent about everything—lessons, sports, oh! everything; an uncomfortably curious lad, too. These Southern opinions about reclaiming a man's slaves bother the boy. He reads my papers, and how can I stop him? I don't want to. There! we are at it again."
"Yes, there is no escape from these questions."
"And he has even got Leila excited and she wants to know—I told her to ask Ann Penhallow—I have not heard of the result. Well, you are going. Good-night."
The Squire sat still in the not very agreeable company of his thoughts. Leila was to go to school this September, Buchanan's election in November was sure, and John—He had come to love the lad, and perhaps he had been too severe. Then he thought of the boy's fight and smiled. The rector and he had disagreed. Was it better for boys to abuse one another or to settle things by a fight? The rector had urged that his argument for the ordeal of battle would apply with equal force to the duel of men. He had said, "No, boys do not kill; and after all even the duel has its values." Then the rector said he was past praying for and had better read the Decalogue.
When next day Mark Rivers was being shaved by the skilled hand of Josiah, he heard the voice of his friend and fishing-companion, the Rev. Isaac Grace, "What about the trout-brook this afternoon?"
"Of course," said Mark, moveless under the razor. "Call for me at five."
"Seen yesterday's Press?"
"No. I can't talk, Grace."
"This town's all for Buchanan and Breckenridge. How will the Squire vote?"
"Ask him. Take care, Josiah."
"If the Squire isn't taking any active part, Mrs. Penhallow is. She is taking a good deal of interest in the roof of my chapel and—and—other things."
The rector did not like it. "I can't talk, Grace."
"But I can."—"Well," thought the rector, "for an intelligent man you are slow at taking hints." The good-natured rotund preacher went on, amazing his helpless friend, "I wonder if the Squire would like her canvassing—"
"Ask him."
"Guess not. She's a good woman, but not just after the fashion of St.
Paul's women."
"She hasn't done no talking to me," said Josiah, chuckling. "There, sir,
I'm through."
Then the released rector said, "If you talk politics again to me for the next two months, Grace, I will never tie for you another trout-fly. Your turn," and he left the chair to Grace, who sat down saying with the persistency of the good-humoured and tactless, "If I want a roof to my chapel, I've got to keep out of talking Republican polities, that's clear—"
"And several other things," returned Mark sharply.
"Such as," said Grace, but the rector had gone and Josiah was lathering the big red face.
"Got to make believe sometimes, sir," said Josiah. "She's an uncommon kind lady, and the pumpkins she gives me are fine. A fellow's got time to think between this and November. Pumpkins and leaky roofs do make a man kind of thoughtful." He grinned approval of his own wisdom. "Now don't talk, sir. Might chance to cut you."
This sly unmasking of motives, his own and those of others, was disagreeable to the good little man who was eager to get his chapel roofed and no more willing than Mrs. Penhallow to admit that how he would vote had anything to do with the much needed repairs. His people were poor and the leaks were becoming worse and worse. He kept his peace, and the barber smiling plied the razor.
Now the Squire paused at the open door, where he met his nephew. "Come to get those scalp-locks trimmed, John? They are perilously long. If you were to get into a fight and a fellow got hold of them, you would have a bad time." Then as his uncle went away laughing, John knew that the Squire must have heard of his battle from Mark Rivers. He did not like it. Why he did not know or ask himself, being as yet too immature for such self-analysis.
Mr. Grace got up clean-shaven, adjusted a soiled paper-collar, and said, "Good-morning, John. I am sorry to hear that a Christian lad like you should be fighting. I am sure that neither Mr. Rivers nor your aunt would approve of it. My son told me about it, and I think it my duty—"
John broke in, "Then your son is a tell-tale, Mr. Grace, and allow me to say that this is none of his business. When I am insulted, I resent it." To be chaffed by his own uncle when under sentence of a court-martial had not been agreeable, but this admonition was unendurable. He entered the shop.
"Well, I never," exclaimed the preacher, as John went by him.
The barber was laughing. "Set down, Mr. John."
"I suppose the whole of Westways knows it, Mr. Josiah?"
"They do, sir. Wish I'd seen it."
"Damn!" exclaimed John, swearing for the first time in his life. "Cut my hair short, please, and don't talk."
"No, sir. You ain't even got a scratch."
"Oh, do shut up," said John. There was a long silence while the curly locks fell.
"You gave it to the Baptist man hot. I don't like him. He calls me Joe.
It isn't respectable. My name's Josiah."
"Haven't you any other name?" said John, having recovered his good-humour.
"Yes, sir, but I keeps that to myself."
"But why?" urged John.
Josiah hesitated. "Well, Mr. John, I ran away, and—so it was best to get a new name."
"Indeed! Of course, every one knows you must have run away—but no one cares."
"Might say I was run away with—can't always hold a horse," he laughed aloud in a leisurely way. "When he took me over the State-line, I didn't go back."
"I see," said John laughing, as he rose and paid the barber. The cracked mirror satisfied him that he was well shorn.
"You looks a heap older now you're shorn. Makes old fellows look younger—ever notice that?"
"No."
Then Josiah, of a sudden wisely cautious, said, "You won't tell Mrs.
Penhallow, nor no one, about me, what I said?"
"Of course not; but why my aunt, Mr. Josiah? She, like my uncle, must know you ran away."
When John first arrived the black barber's appearance so impressed the lad that he spoke to him as Mr. Josiah, and seeing later how much this pleased him continued in his quite courteous way to address him now and then as Mr. Josiah. The barber liked it. He hesitated a moment before answering.
"You needn't talk about it if you don't want to," said John.
"Guess whole truth's better than half truth—nothin' makes folk curious like knowin' half. When I first came here, I guessed I'd best change my name, so I said I was Josiah. Fact is, Mr. John, I didn't know Mrs. Penhallow came from Maryland till I had been here quite a while and got to like the folks and the Captain."
John's experience was enlarging. He could hardly have realized the strange comfort the black felt in his confession. What it all summed up for Josiah in the way of possible peril of loss of liberty John presently had made plain to him. He was increasingly urgent in his demand for answers to the many questions life was bringing. The papers he read had been sharp schoolmasters, and of slave life he knew nothing except from his aunt's pleasant memories of plantation life when a girl on a great Maryland manor. That she could betray to servitude the years of grey-haired freedom seemed to John incredible of the angel of kindly helpfulness. He stood still in thought, troubled by his boy-share of puzzle over a too mighty problem.
Josiah, a little uneasy, said, "What was you thinkin', Mr. John?"
The young fellow replied smiling, "Do you think Aunt Ann would hurt anybody? Do you think she would send word to some one—to take you back? Anyhow she can't know who was your master."
The old black nodded slowly, "Mr. John, she born mistress and I born slave; she can't help it—and they was good people too—all the people that owned me. They liked me too. I didn't have to work except holdin' horses and trainin' colts—and housework. They was always kind to me."
"But why did you run away?"
"Well, Mr. John, it was sort of sudden. You see ever since I could remember there was some one to say, Caesar you do this, or you go there. One day when I was breakin' a colt, Mr. Woodburn says to me—I was leanin' against a stump—how will that colt turn out? I said, I don't know, but I did. It wasn't any good. My mind was took up watchin' a hawk goin' here and there over head like he was enjoyin' hisself. Then—then it come over me—that he'd got no boss but God. It got a grip on me like—" The lad listened intently.
"You wanted to be free like the hawk."
"I don't quite know—never thought of it before—might have seen lots of hawks. I ain't never told any one."
"Are you glad to be free?"
"Ah, kind of half glad, sir. I ain't altogether broke in to it. You see
I'm old for change."
As he ended, James Penhallow reappeared. "Got through, John? You look years older. Your aunt will miss those curly locks." He went into the shop as John walked away, leaving Josiah who would have liked to add a word more of caution and who nevertheless felt somehow a sense of relief in having made a confession the motive force of which he would have found it impossible to explain.
John asked himself no such question as he wandered deep in boy-thought along the broken line of the village houses. Josiah's confidence troubled and yet flattered him. His imagination was captured by the suggested idea of the wild freedom of the hawk. He resolved to be careful, and felt more and more that he had been trusted with a secret involving danger.
While John wandered away, the barber cut the Squire's hair, and to his surprise Josiah did not as usual pour out his supply of village gossip.
CHAPTER VI
It was now four days since John's sentence had been pronounced, and not to be allowed to swim in the heat of a hot September added to the severity of the penalty. The heat as usual made tempers hot and circumstances variously disturbed the household of Grey Pine. Politics vexed and business troubled the master. Of the one he could not talk to his wife—of the other he would not at present, hoping for better business conditions, and feeling that politics and business were now too nearly related to keep them apart. Ann, his wife, thought him depressed—a rare mood for him. Perhaps it was the unusual moist heat. He said, "Yes, yes, dear, one does feel it." She did not guess that the obvious unhappiness of the lad who had won the soldier's heart was being felt by Penhallow without his seeing how he could end it and yet not lessen the value of a just verdict.
Of all those concerned Leila was the one most troubled. On this hot afternoon she saw John disappear into the forest. When Mrs. Ann came out on the porch where she had for a minute left the girl, she saw her sewing-bag on a chair and caught sight of the flowing hair and agile young figure as she set a hand on the low stone wall of the garden and was over and lost among the trees. "Leila, Leila," cried Mrs. Ann, "I told you to finish—" It was useless. "Everything goes wrong to-day," she murmured. "Well, school will civilize that young barbarian, and she must have longer skirts." This was a sore subject and Leila had been vainly rebellious.
Meanwhile the flying girl overtook John, who had things to think about and wished to be alone. "Well," he said, with some impatience, "what is it?"
"Oh, I just wanted a walk, and don't be cross, John."
He looked at her, and perhaps for the first time had the male perception of the beauty of the disordered hair, the pleading look of the blue eyes, and the brilliant colour of the eager flushed face. It was the hair—the wonderful hair. She threw it back as she stood. No one could long be cross to Leila. Even her resolute aunt was sometimes defeated by her unconquerable sweetness.
"I am so sorry for you, John," she said.
"Well, I am not, Leila, if you mean that Uncle Jim was hard on me."
"Yes, he was, and I mean to tell him—I do."
"Please not." She said nothing in the way of reply, but only, "Let us go and see the spring."
"Well, come along."
They wandered far into the untouched forest. "Ah! here it is," she cried. A spring of water ran out from among the anchoring roots of a huge black spruce. He stood gazing down at it.
"Oh, Leila, isn't it wonderful?"
"Were you never here before, John?"
"No, never. It seems as if it was born out of the tree. No wonder this spruce grew so tall and strong. How cold it must keep the old fellow's toes."
"What queer ideas you have, John." She had not yet the gift of fancy, long denied to some in the emergent years of approaching womanhood. "I am tired, John," she said, as she dropped with hands clasped behind her head and hidden in the glorious abundance of darkening red hair, which lay around her on the brown pine-needles like the disordered aureole of some careless-minded saint.
John said, "It is this terrible heat. I never before heard you complain of being tired."
"Oh, it's just nice tired." She lay still, comfortable, with open eyes staring up at the intense blue of the September sky seen through the wide-east limbs of pine and spruce. The little rill, scarce a finger thickness of water, crawled out lazily between the roots and trickled away. The girl was in empty-minded enjoyment of the luxury of complete relaxation of every muscle of her strong young body. The spring was noiseless, no leaf was astir in all the forest around them. The girl lay still, a part of the vast quietness.
John Penhallow stood a moment, and then said, "Good gracious! Leila, your eyes are blue." It was true. When big eyes are wide open staring up at the comrade blue of the deep blue sky, they win a certain beauty of added colour like little quiet lakelets under the azure sky when no wind disturbs their power of reflecting capture.
"Oh, John, and didn't you know my eyes were blue?" She spoke with languid interest in the fact he announced.
"But," he said, looking down at her as he stood, "they're so—so very blue."
"Oh, all the Greys have blue eyes."
He laughed gentle laughter and dropped on the pine-needles of the forest floor. The spring lay between them. He felt, as she did not, the charm of the stillness. He wanted to find words in which to put his desire for expression. She broke into his mood of imaginative seekings.
"How cold it is," she said, gathering the water in the cup of her hand, and then with both hands did better and got a refreshing drink.
"That makes a better cup," he said. "Let us follow the water to the river."
"It never gets there. It runs into Lonesome Man's swamp, and that's the end of him."
"Who, Lonesome Man or the spring? And who was Lonesome Man?"
"Nobody knows. What does it matter?"
He watched her toy with the new-born rill, a mere thread of water, build a Lilliputian dam, and muddle the clear outflow as it broke, and then build again. He had the thought that she had suddenly become younger, more like a child, and he himself older.
"Why don't you talk, John?" she said.
"I can't. I am wondering about that Lonesome Man and what the trees are thinking. Don't you feel how still it is? It's disrespectful to gabble before your betters." He felt it and said it without affectation, but as usual his mood of wandering thought failed to interest Leila.
"I hate it when it's quiet! I like to hear the wind howl in the pines—"
He expressed his annoyance. "You never want to talk anything but horses and swimming. Wait till you come back next spring with long skirts—such a nice well-behaved Miss Grey." He was, in familiar phrase, out of sorts, with a bit of will to annoy a disappointing companion. His mild effort had no success.
"Oh, John, it's awful! You ought to be sorry for me. The more you grow up the more your skirts grow down. Bother their manners! Who cares! Let's go home. It feels just as if it was Sunday."
"It is, in the woods. Well, come along." He walked on in the silence, she thinking of that alarming prospect of school, and he of the escaped slave's secret and, what struck the boy most—the hawk. Never before had he been told anything which was to be sacredly guarded from others. It gave him now a pleasant feeling of having been trusted. Suppose Leila had been told such a thing, how would she feel, and Aunt Ann? He was like a man who has too large a deposit in a doubtful bank. He was vaguely uneasy lest he might tell or in some way betray his sense of possessing a person's confidence.
As they came near the house, Leila said, "Catch me, I'll run you home."
"Tag," he cried.
As they came to the side porch, Ann Penhallow said, "Finish that handkerchief—now, at once. It is time you were taught other than tom-boy ways."
John went by into the house. After dinner the Squire had his usual game of whist, always to the dissatisfaction of Leila, whose thoughts wandered like birds on the wing, from twig to twig. John usually played far better, but just now worse than his cousin, and forgot or revoked, to his uncle's disgust. A man of rather settled habits, now as usual Penhallow went to his library for the company of the pipe, which Ann disliked, and the Tribune, which she regarded as the organ of Satanic politics. Seeing both John and her aunt absorbed in their books, Leila passed quickly back of them, opened the library door, and said softly, "May I come in, Uncle Jim?"
During the last few days he had missed, and he well knew why, John's visits and intelligent questions. Leila was welcome. "Why, of course, pussy cat. Come in. Shut the door; your aunt dislikes the pipe smoke. Sit down." For some reason she desired to stand. "Don't stand," he said, "sit down on my knee." She obeyed. "There," he said, "that's comfy. How heavy you are. Good gracious, child! what am I to do without you?"
"Isn't it awful, Uncle Jim."
"It is—it is. What do you want, my dear? Anything wrong with the horses?"
"No, sir. It's—John—"
"Oh! it's John. Well, what is it?"
"It isn't John—it's John and the horses—I mean John and Dixy. Patrick rides Dixy for exercise every day."
"Well, what's the matter? First it's John, then Dixy, then John and Dixy, and then John and Dixy and Pat."
The girl saw through the amusement he had in teasing her and said with gravity, "I wish you would be serious, Uncle Jim. I want five minutes of uninterrupted attention."
The Squire exploded, "Good gracious! that is Ann Grey all over. You must have heard her say it."
"I did, and you listen, too. Sometimes you don't, Uncle Jim. I guess you weren't well broke when you were young."
"Great Scott! you minx! Some day a girl I know will have to stand at attention. Go ahead."
"Pat's ruining Dixy's mouth. You ought to see him sawing at the curb. You always rode him on the snaffle."
"That boy Pat needs a good licking, Leila."
"But Dixy don't. The fact is, Uncle Jim, you're neglecting the stables for politics."
"Is that your own wisdom, Miss Grey? What with the weight of wisdom and years, you're getting heavy. Try a chair."
"No, I'm quite comfy. It was Josiah who told me. He often comes up to look over the colts, of a Sunday—"
"Nice work for Sunday, Miss Grey."
She made no direct reply. "He told me that horse ought to be ridden by—by John or you, and no one else. He says the way to ruin a horse is to have a lot of people ride him like Pat—they're just spoiling Dixy—"
"What! in four days? Nonsense."
"But," said the counsel in the case, "it's to be ten. It isn't about
John, it's Dixy's mouth, uncle."
"Oh, you darling little liar!" Here she kissed him and was silent. "It won't do," he said. "There's no logic in a kiss, Miss Grey. First comes Ann Grey and says, too much army discipline; and then you tell me what that gossiping old darkey says, and then you try the final argument—a kiss. Can't do it. There will be an end of all discipline. I hate practical jokes. There!"
If he thought to finish the matter thus, he much undervalued the ingenuity and persistency of the young Portia who was now conducting the case.
"Suppose you take a chair, Miss Grey. It is rather warm to provide permanent human seats for stout young women—"
"I'm not stout," said Leila with emphasis, accepting the hint by dropping with coiled legs upon a cushion at his feet. "I'm not stout. I weigh one hundred and thirty and a half pounds. And oh! isn't it hot. I haven't had a swim for—oh, at least five days counting Sunday." The pool was kept free until noon for Leila and her aunt.
"Why didn't you swim?" he asked lightly, being too intellectually busy clearing his pipe to see where the leading counsel was conducting him.
"Why, Uncle Jim, I wouldn't swim if John wasn't allowed too; I just couldn't. I'm going to bed—but, please, don't let Pat ride Dixy."
"I can attend to my stables, Miss Grey. John won't die of heat for want of a swim. You don't seem to concern yourself with those equally overbaked young scamps in Westways."
"Uncle Jim, you're just real mean to-night. Josiah told me yesterday that my cousin beat Tom McGregor because he said it was mean of you to stop the swimming. John said it was just, and Tom said he was a liar, and—oh, my! John licked him—wish I'd seen it."
This was news quite to his liking. He made no reply, lost in wonder over the ways of the mind male and female.
"You ought to be ashamed, you a girl, to want to see a fight. It's time you went to school. Isn't the rector on the porch? I thought I heard him."
Now, of late Leila had got to that stage of the game of thought-interchange when the young proudly use newly acquired word-counters. "I think, Uncle Jim, you're—you're irreverent."
The Squire shut the door on all outward show of mirth, and said gravely,
"Isn't it pronounced irrelevant, my dear Miss Malaprop?"
"Yes—yes," said Leila. "That's a word John uses. It's just short for 'flying the track'!"
"Any other stable slang, Leila?"
He was by habit averse to changing his decisions, and outside of Ann Penhallow's range of authority the Squire's discipline was undisputed and his decrees obeyed. He had been pleased and gaily amused for this half hour, but was of a mind to leave unchanged the penalties he had inflicted.
"Are you through, with this nonsense, Leila?" he said as he rose. "Is this an ingenious little game set up between you and John?" To his utter amazement she began to cry.
"By George!" he said, "don't cry," which is what a kind man always says when presented with the riddle of tears.
She drew a brown fist across her wet cheeks and said indignantly, "My cousin is a gentleman."
She turned to go by him. "No, dear, wait a moment." He held her arm.
"Please, let me go. When John first came, you said he was a prig—and if he would just do some boy-mischief and kick up his heels like a two-year-old with some fun in him—you said he was a sort of girl-boy—" There were for punctuation sobs and silences.
"And where did you get all this about a prig?" he broke in, amazed.
"Oh, I heard you tell Aunt Ann. And now," said Portia, "the first time he does a real nice jolly piece of mischief you come down on him like—like a thousand of bricks." Her slang was reserved for the Squire, as he well knew.
The blue eyes shining with tears looked up from under the glorious disorder of the mass of hair. It was too much for the man.
"How darned logical you are!" He acknowledged some consciousness of having been inconsistent. He had said one thing and done another. "You are worse than your aunt." Then Leila knew that Ann Penhallow had talked to the Squire. "Well," he said, "what's your opinion, Miss Grey?"
"I think you're distanced."
"What—what! Wait a little. You may tell that young man to ride when he pleases and to swim, and to tell those scamps it's too hot to deprive them of the use of the pool. There, now get out!"
"But—Uncle Jim—I—can't. Oh, I really can't. You've got to do it yourself." This he much disliked to do.
"I hear your aunt calling. Mr. Rivers is going."
She kissed him. "Now, don't wait, Uncle Jim, and don't scold John. He's been no use for these four days. Goodnight," and she left him.
"Well, well," he said, "I suppose I've got to do it."
He found Ann alone.
"About John! I can't stand up against you two. He is to be let off about the riding and swimming. I think you may find it pleasant to tell him, my dear."
She said gravely, "It will come with more propriety from you; but I do think you are right." Then he knew that he had to do it himself.
"Very well, dear," he said. "How that girl is developing. It is time she had other company than John, but Lord! how I shall miss her—"
"And I, James."
He went out for the walk he generally took before bed-time. She lingered, putting things in order on her work-table, wondering what Leila could have said to thus influence a man the village described as "set in his ways." She was curious to know, but not of a mind to question Leila. Before going to bed, she went to her own sitting-room on the left of the hall. It was sacred to domestic and church business. It held a few books and was secured by long custom from men's tobacco smoke. She sat down and wrote to her cousin, George Grey.
"DEAR GEORGE: If politics do not keep you, we shall look for you this month. There are colts to criticize and talk over, Leila is eager to see her unknown cousin before she goes to school near Baltimore this September.
"I believe this town will go for Buchanan, but I am not sure. James and I, as you know, never talk politics. I am distressed to believe as I do that he will vote for Fremont; that 'the great, the appalling issue,' as Mr. Buchanan says, 'is union or disunion' does not seem to affect him. I read Forney's paper, and James reads that wild abolition Tribune. It is very dreadful, and I am without any one I can talk to. My much loved rector is an extreme antislavery man.
"Yours always,
ANN PENHALLOW.
"I am not at all sure of you. Be certain to let us know when to expect you. You know you are—well, I leave your social conscience to say what.
"Yours sincerely,
ANN PENHALLOW."
At breakfast Ann Penhallow sat down to the coffee-urn distributing cheerful good-mornings. The Squire murmured absently over his napkin, "May the Lord make us thankful for this and all the blessings of life." He occasionally varied his grace, and sometimes to Ann's amazement. Why should he ask to be made thankful, she reflected. These occasional slips and variations on the simple phrase of gratitude she had come to recognize as signs of preoccupation, and now glanced at her husband, anxious always when he was concerned. Then, as he turned to John, she understood that between his trained belief in the usefulness of inexorable discipline and an almost womanly tenderness of affection the heart had somehow won. She knew him well and at times read with ease the signs of distress and annoyance or resolute decision. Usually he was gay and merry at breakfast, chaffing the children and eating with the appetite of a man who was using and renewing his tissues in a wholesome way. Now he was silent, absent, and ate little. He was the victim of a combination of annoyances. Had he been wise to commit himself to a reversal of his sentence? Other and more important matters troubled him, but as usual where bothers come in battalions it is the lesser skirmishers who are felt for the moment.
"I see in the hall, Ann," he said, "a letter for George Grey—I will mail it. When does he come?"
"I do not know."
"John," he said, "you will oblige me by riding to the mill and asking Dr. McGregor to come to Westways and see old Josiah. Of course, he will charge it to me." The Squire was a little ashamed of this indirect confession of retreat.
John looked up, hesitated a moment, and said, "What horse, sir?"
"Dixy, of course."
"Another cup, James," said Mrs. Ann tranquilly amused.
John rose, went around the table to his uncle, and said in his finest manner, "I am greatly obliged, sir."
"Oh, nonsense! He's rather fresh, take care."
Then Leila said, "It's very hot, Uncle Jim."
"You small fiend," said Penhallow. "Hot! On your way, John, tell those rascals at Westways they may use the pond." The faint smile on Ann Penhallow's face somehow set the whole business in an agreeably humorous light. The Squire broke into the relief of laughter and rose saying, "Get out of this, all of you, if you want to keep your scalps."
John went to the stable not quite pleased. He had felt that his punishment for a boy-frolic and the unexpected results of Billy's alarm had been pretty large. His aunt had not said so to him, but had made it clear to her husband that the penalty was quite disproportioned to the size of the offence; a remark which had made him the more resolute not to disturb the course of justice; and now this chit of a girl had made him seem like an irresolute fool, and he would have to explain to Rivers, who would laugh. As he went out of the hall-door, he felt a pretty rough little paw in his hand and heard a whisper. "You're just the dearest thing ever was."
Concerning John Penhallow, it is to be said that he did not understand why he was let off so easily. He had a suspicion that Leila was somehow concerned, and also the feeling that he would rather have suffered to the end. However, it would be rather good fun to announce this swimming-permit to the boys.
Seeing from his shop door John riding down the avenue, Josiah came limping across the road. He leaned on the gate facing the boy and looking over the horse and rider with the pleasure of one who, as the Squire liked to say, knew when horse-flesh and man-flesh were suitably matched.
"Girth's a bit slack, Master John. Always look it over, sir, before you mount."
"Thanks, Josiah. Open the gate, please. How lame you are. I am to send the doctor to look after you and Peter Lamb."
The big black man opened the gate and adjusted the girth. "That's right now. I've got the worst rheumatics I ever did have. Peter Lamb's sick too. That's apple-whisky. The Squire's mighty patient with that man, because his mother nursed the Squire when he was a baby. They're near of an age, but you wouldn't think it to look at Peter and the Captain; whisky does hurry up Old Time a lot." And so John got the town gossip. "I ain't no faith in doctorin' rheumatics; wouldn't have him now if I hadn't lost my old buck-eye. My rabbit-foot's turned grey this week. That's a sign of trouble."
John laughed and rode from the gate on which Leila had invited him to indulge in the luxury of swinging. It seemed years ago since she had sung to his astonishment the lyric of the gate. She appeared to him now not much older. And how completely he felt at home. He rode along the old pike through Westways, nodding to Mrs. Lamb, the mother of the scamp whom the Squire was every now and then saving from the consequences of the combination of a revengeful nature and bad whisky. Then Billy hailed John with malicious simplicity.
"Halloa!—John—can't swim—can't swim—ho, ho!"
The butcher's small boy was loading meat on a cart. John stayed to say a word to him, pleased to have the chance, as the boy grinned at Billy's mocking malice. "Halloa! Pole," he called. "My uncle says we fellows may swim. Tell the other fellows."
"Gosh! but that's good—John. I'll tell 'em."
John rode on and fell to thinking of Leila, with some humiliating suspicion in regard to her share in the Squire's change of mind; or was it Aunt Ann's influence? And why did he himself not altogether like it? Why should his aunt and Leila interfere? He wished they had let the matter alone. What had a girl to do with it? He was again conscious that he felt of a sudden older than Leila, and did not fully realize that in the race of life he had gone swiftly past her during these few months, and that in the next year she in turn would sweep past him in the developmental changes of life. Now she seemed to him more timid, more childlike than usual; but long thinkings are not of the psychic habits of normal youth, and Dixy recovered his attention.
He satisfied the well-bred horse, who of late had been losing his temper in the society of a rough groom, ignorant of the necessity for good manners with horses. Neither strange noises nor machines disturbed Dixy as John rode through the busy iron-mills to the door of a small brick house, so well known that no sign announced it as the home of the only medical man available at the mills or in Westways. John tied Dixy to the hitching-post, gnawed by the doctor's horse during long hours of waiting on an unpunctual man.
The doors were open, and as John entered he was aware of an odour of drugs and saw Dr. McGregor sound asleep in an armchair, a red silk handkerchief over his bald head, and a swarm of disappointed flies hovering above him. In the back room the clink and rattle of a pestle and mortar ceased as Tom appeared.
John, in high good-humour, said, "Good afternoon, Tom. My uncle has let up on the swimming. He asked me to let you fellows know."
"It's about time," said Tom crossly. "After all it was your fault and we had to pay for it."
"Now, Tom, you made me pretty angry when you talked to me the other day, and if you want to get me into another row, I won't object; but I was not asked for any names, and I did not put the blame on any one. Can't you believe a fellow?"
"No, I can't. If that parson hadn't come, I'd have licked you."
"Perhaps," said John.
"Isn't any perhaps about it. You look out, that's all."
John laughed. He was just now what the Squire described as horse-happy and indisposed to quarrel. "Suppose you wake up the old gentleman. He can snore."
Tom shook the doctor's shoulder, "Wake up, Dad. Here's John Penhallow."
The Doctor sat up and pulled off his handkerchief. The flies fell upon his bald pate. "Darn the flies," he said. "What is it, John?"
"My uncle wants you to come to Westways to-morrow and doctor old Josiah's rheumatism."
"I'll come."
"He wants you to look after Peter Lamb. He's been drinking again."
"What! that whisky-rotted scamp. It's pure waste of time. How the same milk came to feed the Squire and that beast the Lord knows. He has no more morals than a tom-cat. I'll come, but it's waste of good doctoring." Here he turned his rising temper on Tom. "You and my boy have been having a fight. You licked him and saved me the trouble. I heard from Mr. Rivers what Tom said."
"It was no one's business but Tom's and mine," returned John much amused to know that the peaceful rector must have watched the fight and overheard what caused it. Tom scowled, and the peacemaking old doctor got up, adding, "Be more gentle with Tom next time."
Tom knew better than to reply and went back to pill-making furious and humiliated.
"Good-bye, John," said the Doctor. "I'll see the Squire after I have doctored that whisky sponge." Then John rode home on Dixy.
CHAPTER VII
Before the period of which I write, the county and town had unfailingly voted the Democratic ticket. But for half a decade the unrest of the cities reflected in the journals had been disturbing the minds of country communities in the Middle States. In the rural districts of Pennsylvania there had been very little actively hostile sentiment about slavery, but the never ending disputes over Kansas had at last begun to weaken party ties, and more and more to direct opinion on to the originating cause of trouble.
The small voting population of Westways had begun to suspect of late that James Penhallow's unwillingness to discuss politics meant some change in his fidelity to the party of which Buchanan was the candidate. What Mrs. Ann felt she had rather freely allowed to be known. The little groups which were apt to gather about the grocer's barrels at evening discussed the grave question of the day with an interest no previous presidential canvass had caused, and this side eddy of quiet village life was now agreeably disturbed by the great currents of national politics. Westways began to take itself seriously, as little towns will at times, and to ask how this man or that would vote at the coming election in November. The old farmers who from his youth still called the Squire "James" were Democrats. Swallow, the only lawyer the town possessed, was silent, which was felt as remarkable in a man who usually talked much more than occasion demanded and wore a habit-mask of good-fellowship, which had served to deceive many a blunt old farmer, but not James Penhallow.
At Grey Pine there was a sense of tension. Penhallow was a man slow in thinking out conclusions, but in times demanding action swiftly decisive. He had at last settled in his mind that he must leave his party and follow a leader he had known in the army and never entirely trusted. Whether he should take an active share in the politics of the county troubled him, as he had told Rivers. He must, of course, tell his wife how he had resolved to vote. To speak here and there at meetings, to throw himself into the contest, was quite another matter. His wife would feel deeply grieved. Between the two influential feelings the resolution of forces, as he put it to himself with a sad smile, decided him to hold his tongue so far as the outer world was concerned, to vote for the principles unfortunately represented by Fremont, but to have one frank talk with Ann Penhallow. There was no need to do this as yet, and he smiled again at the thought that Mrs. Ann was, as he pretty well knew, playing the game of politics at Westways. He might stop her. He could ask her to hold her hand, but to let her continue on her way and to openly make war against her, that he could not do. It did not matter much as the State in any case would go for Buchanan. He hesitated, and had better have been plain with her. She knew that he had been long in doubt, but did not as yet suspect how complete was his desertion of opinions she held to as she did to her religious creed. He found relief in his decision, and too in freedom of talk with Rivers, who looked upon slavery as simply wicked and had no charity for the section so little responsible for an inherited curse they were now driven by opponent criticism to consider a blessing for all concerned.
John too was asking questions and beginning now and then to wonder more and more that what Westways discussed should never be mentioned at Grey Pine. He rode Dixy early in the mornings with Leila at his side, fished or swam in the afternoons, and so the days ran on. On September 30th, Ann was to take Leila to the school in Maryland. Three days before this terrible exile was to begin, as they turned in at the gate of the stable-yard, Leila said, "I have only three days. I want to go and see the Indian graves and the spring, and all the dear places I feel as if I shall never see again."
"What nonsense, Leila. What do you mean?"
"Oh, Aunt Ann says I will be so changed in a year, I won't know myself."
"You mean, you won't see things then as they are seen now."
"Yes, that's what I wanted to say, but you always know how to find the right words."
"Perhaps," he said. "Things never look just the same tomorrow, but they may look—well, nicer—or—I can't always find the right word. Suppose we walk to the graves after lunch and have a good talk." It was so agreed.
They were never quite free from the chance of being sent on errands, and as Aunt Ann showed signs they well knew, they slipped away quietly and were gone before the ever-busy lady had ready a basket of contributions to the comfort of a sick woman in the village. They crossed the garden and were lost to view in the woods before Leila spoke. "We just did it. Billy will have to go." They laughed merrily at their escape.
"Just think, John, how long it is since you came. It seems years. Oh, you were a queer boy! I just hated you."
"I do suppose, Leila, I must have looked odd with that funny cap and the cane—"
"And the way you looked when I told you about swinging on the gate. I hadn't done that for—oh, two years. What did you think of me?"
"I thought you were very rude, and then—oh, Leila! when you came up out of the drift—" He hesitated.
"Oh, go on; I don't mind—not now."
"I thought you beautiful with all that splendid hair on the snow."
"Oh, John! How silly!" Whether or not she was unusually good to look at had hardly ever before occurred to her. She flushed slightly, pleased and wondering, with a new seed of gentle vanity planted in her simple nature, a child on the threshold of the womanly inheritance of maidenhood.
Then he said gravely, "It is wonderful to me how we have changed. I shall miss you. To think you are the only girl I ever played with, and now when you come back at Christmas—"
"I am not to come back then, John. I am to stay with my uncles in
Baltimore and not come home until next June."
"You will be a young lady in long skirts and your hair tucked up. It's dreadful."
"Can't be helped, John. You will look after Lucy, and write to me."
"And you will write to me, Leila?"
"If I may. Aunt says they are very strict. But I shall write to Aunt Ann, of course."
"That won't be the same."
"No."
They walked on in silence for a little while, the girl gazing idly at the tall trees, the lad feeling strangely aware, freshly aware, as they moved, of the great blue eyes and of the sun-shafts falling on the abundant hair she swept back from time to time with a careless hand. Presently she stood still, and sat down without a word on the moss-cushioned trunk of a great spruce, fallen perhaps a century ago. She was passing through momentary moods of depression or of pleasure as she thought of change and travel, or nourishing little jealous desires that her serious-minded cousin should miss her.
The cousin turned back. "You might have invited me to sit down, Miss Grey." He laughed, and then as he fell on the brown pine-needles at her feet and looked up, he saw that her usual quick response to his challenge of mirth was wanting.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked.
"Oh, about Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim, and—and—Lucy, and who will ride her—"
"You can trust Uncle Jim about Lucy."
"I suppose so," said the girl rather dolefully and too near to the tears she had been sternly taught to suppress.
"Isn't it queer," he said, "how people think about the same things? I was just going to speak of Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim. Uncle Jim often talks to me and to Mr. Rivers about the election, but if I say a word or ask a question at table, Aunt Ann says, 'we don't talk politics.'"
"But once, John, I heard Mr. Rivers say that slavery was a curse and wicked. Uncle Jim, he said Aunt Ann's people held slaves, and he didn't want to talk about it. I couldn't hear the rest. I told you once about this."
"How you hear things, Leila. Prince Fine Ear was a trifle to you."
"Who was Prince Fine Ear?" she asked.
"Oh, he was the fairy prince who could hear the grass grow and the roses talk. It's a pretty French fairy tale."
"What a gabble there must be in the garden, John."
"It doesn't need Prince Fine Ear to hear. Don't these big pines talk to you sometimes, and the wind in the pines—the winds—?"
"No, they don't, but Lucy does."
Something like a feeling of disappointment faintly disturbed the play of his fancies. "Let us go to the graves."
"Yes, all right, come."
They got no further than the cabin and again sat down near by, Leila carelessly gathering the early golden-rod in her lap as they sat leaning against the cabin logs.
"This is our last walk," she said, arranging the golden plumes. "There is a white golden-rod; find me another, John."
He went away to the back of the cabin and returning threw in her lap a half dozen. "Old Josiah says the blacks in the South think it is good luck to find the first white golden-rod. Then, he says, you must have a luck-wish. What shall it be? Come—quick now."
"Oh, I—don't know. Yes, I wish to have Lucy at that terrible boarding-school."
John laughed. "Oh, Leila, is that the best you can do?"
"Yes, wish a wish for me, if mine doesn't suit."
Then he said, "I wish the school had small-pox and you had to stay at
Grey Pine."
"I didn't think you'd care as much as that. Aren't these flowers beautiful? Wish me a real wish."
"Then, I wish that when we grow up you would marry me."
"Well, John, you are a silly." She took on an air of authoritative reprimand. "Why, John, you are only a boy, but you ought to know better than to talk such nonsense."
"And you," he said, "are just a little girl."
"Oh, I'm not so very little," returned Miss Grey.
"When I'm older, I shall ask you again; and if you say no, I'll ask again—and—until—"
"What nonsense, John. Let's go home."
He rose flushed and troubled, and said, "Are you vexed, Leila?"
"No, of course not; but it was foolish of you."
He made no reply, in fact hardly heard her. He was for the moment older in some ways than his years. What had strangely moved him disturbed Leila not at all. She talked on lightly, laughing at times, and was answered briefly; for although he had no desire to speak, the unfailing courteous ways of his foreign education forced him to disregard his desire to say. "Oh, do let me alone; you don't understand." He hardly understood himself or the impulsive stir of emotion—a signal of coming manhood. Annoyed by his unwillingness to talk, she too fell to silence, and they walked homeward.
During the time left to them there was much to do in the way of visits to the older village people and some of the farmer families who had been here on the soil nearly as long as the Penhallows. There were no other neighbours near enough for country intercourse, and the life at Grey Pine offered few attractions to friends or relatives from the cities unless they liked to tramp with the Squire in search of game. The life was, therefore, lonely and would for some women have been unendurable; but as the Baptist preacher said to Rivers, "Duties are enough to satisfy Mrs. Penhallow, and I do guess she enjoys her own goodness like the angels must do."
Mark Rivers answered, "That is pretty nearly true, but I wish she would not invent duties which don't belong to women."
"About the election, you mean?"
"Yes. It troubles me, and I am sure it troubles the Squire. What about yourself, Grace?" and a singularly sad smile went with the query and a side glance at his friend's face. He had been uneasy about him since Grace had bent a little in the House of Rimmon.
"Oh, Rivers, the roof has got to leak. I have kept away from Mrs. Penhallow. I can't accept her help and then preach against her party, and—I mean to do it. I've wrestled with this little sin and—I don't say I wasn't tempted—I was. Now I am clear. We Baptists can stand what water leaks down on us from Heaven."
"You mean to preach politics, Grace?"
"Yes, that's what I mean to do. Oh! here comes Mrs. Penhallow."
They had met in front of Josiah's shop. As Mrs. Penhallow approached, Mr.
Grace discovering a suddenly remembered engagement hurried away, and
Rivers went with her along the rough sidewalk of Westways.
"I go away to-morrow with Leila," she said, "and Mr. Penhallow goes to Pittsburgh. We shall leave John to you for at least a week. He will give you no trouble. He has quite lost his foreign boyish ways, and don't you think he is like my husband?"
"He is in some ways very like the Squire."
"Yes, in some things—I so rarely leave home that this journey to
Baltimore with Leila seems to me like foreign travel."
"Does Leila like it?"
"No, but it is time she was thrown among girls. She is less than she was a mere wild boy. It is strange, Mark, that ever since John came she has been less of a hoyden—and more of a simple girl."
"It is," he said, "a fine young nature in a strong body. She has the promise of beauty—whatever that may be worth."
"Worth! It is worth a great deal," said Mrs. Ann. "It helps. The moral value of beauty! Ah, Mark Rivers, I should like to discuss that with you. She is at the ugly duck age. Now I must go home. I want you to look after some things while I am away, and Mr. Penhallow is troubled about his pet scamp, Lamb."
She went on with her details of what he was to do, until he said laughing, "Please to put it on paper."
"I will. Not to leave John quite alone, I have arranged for you to dine with him, and I suppose he will go to you in the mornings for his lessons as usual."
"Oh, yes, of course. I enjoy these fellows, but the able ones are John and Tom McGregor. Tom is in the rough as yet, but he will come out all right. I shall lose him in a year. He is over seventeen and is to study medicine. But what about Lamb?"
"I am wicked enough to wish he were really ill. It is only the usual drunken bout, but he is a sort of Frankenstein to the Squire because of that absurd foster-brother feeling. He is still in bed, I presume."
"As you ask it," said Rivers, "I will see him, but if he belongs to any flock, he is a black sheep of Grace's fold. Anything else, Mrs. Penhallow?" he asked smiling—"but don't trust my memory."
"If I think of anything more, I shall make a note of it and, of course, you will see us at the station—the ten o'clock train—and give me a list of the books you wanted. I may find them in Philadelphia."
"Thank you."
"Oh," she said, turning back, "I forgot. My cousin, George Grey, is coming, but he is so uncertain that he may come as he advises me in ten days, or as is quite possible to-morrow, or not at all."
"Very good. If he comes, we will try to make Grey Pine agreeable."
"That is really all, Mark, I think," and the little lady went away, with a pleasant word for the long familiar people as she went by.
In the afternoon Leila saw the Squire ride to the mills with John, and went herself to the stable for a last mournful interview with Lucy. It was as well that her aunt with unconscious good sense kept her busy until dinner-time. The girl was near to accepting the relieving bribe of unrestrained tears, being sad and at the age of those internal conflicts which at the time of incomplete formation of character are apt to trouble the more sensitive sex. A good hard gallop would have cured her anticipative homesickness, for it must be a very black care indeed that keeps its seat behind the rider.
The next morning the rector and John were at the station of Westways Crossroads when the Grey Pine carriage drove up. Mrs. Ann and Leila were a half hour too early, as was Mrs. Penhallow's habit. Billy was on the cart with the baggage, grinning as usual and full of self-importance.
"Well, Billy," said Leila, talking to every one to conceal her child-grief at this parting with the joyous activities of her energetic young life. "Well, Billy, it's good-bye for a year."
"Won't have no more fun, Miss Leila—and nobody to snowball Billy, this winter."
"No, not this winter."
"Found another ground-hog yesterday. I'll let her alone till you come back."
John laughed. "Miss Leila will have long skirts and—hoops, Billy. There will be no more coasting and no more snowballing or digging up ground-hogs."
"Hoops—what for?" said Billy. John laughed.
"Please don't, John," she said, "it's too dreadful. Oh! I hear the whistle."
"Mark," said Mrs. Ann, "if George Grey comes—James, did you leave the wine-closet key?"
"Yes, my dear."
He turned to Leila, and kissing her said, "A year is soon over. Be a good girl, my child. It is about as bad for me as for you. God bless you. There, get on, Ann. Yes, the trunks are all right. Good-bye."
He stood a moment with John looking after the vanishing train. Then, he said, "No need to stay here with me, Mark," and the rector understanding him left him waiting for the westbound train and walked home across the fields with John Penhallow.
John was long silent, but at last said, "It will be pretty lonesome without Leila."
"Nice word, lonesome, John. Old English, I believe—has had its adventures like some other words. Lonely doesn't express as well the idea of being alone and sorrowful. We must do our best for your uncle and aunt. Your turn to leave us will come, and then Leila will be lonesome."
"I don't think she will care as much."
Rivers glanced at the strong young face. "Why do you say that?"
"I don't know, Mr. Rivers. I—she is more of a child than I am."
"That hardly answers my question. But I must leave you. I am going to see that scamp misnamed Lamb. See you at dinner. Don't cultivate lonesomeness, John. No one is ever really alone."
Leaving his pupil to consider what John thought rather too much of an enigma, the young clergyman took to the dusty highway which led to Westways. John watched the tall figure awkwardly climbing a snake fence, and keeping in mind for explanation the clergyman's last remark he went away through the woods.