SMOKING FLAX

BY

Hallie Erminie Rives

SECOND EDITION

F. TENNYSON NEELY

PUBLISHER

LONDON    NEW YORK

Neely’s Prismatic Library.

GILT TOP, 50 CENTS.

“I know of nothing in the book line that equals Neely’s Prismatic Library for elegance and careful selection. It sets a pace that others will not easily equal and none surpass.”—E. A. Robinson.

SOUR SAINTS AND SWEET SINNERS. By Carlos Martyn.

SEVEN SMILES AND A FEW FIBS. By Thomas J. Vivian. With full-page illustrations by well-known artists.

A MODERN PROMETHEUS. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.

THE SHACKLES OF FATE. By Max Nordau.

A BACHELOR OF PARIS. By John W. Harding. With over 50 illustrations by William Hofacher.

MONTRESOR. By Loota.

REVERIES OF A SPINSTER. By Helen Davies.

THE ART MELODIOUS. By Louis Lombard.

THE HONOR OF A PRINCESS. By F. Kimball Scribner.

OBSERVATIONS OF A BACHELOR. By Louis Lombard.

KINGS IN ADVERSITY. By E. S. Van Zile.

NOBLE BLOOD AND A WEST POINT PARALLEL. By Captain King.

TRUMPETER FRED. By Captain King. Illustrated.

FATHER STAFFORD. By Anthony Hope.

THE KING IN YELLOW. By R. W. Chambers.

IN THE QUARTER. By R. W. Chambers.

A PROFESSIONAL LOVER. By Gyp.

BIJOU’S COURTSHIPS. By Gyp. Illustrated.

A CONSPIRACY OF THE CARBONARI. By Louise Muhlbach.

SOAP BUBBLES. By Dr. Max Nordau.

F. TENNYSON NEELY,
PUBLISHER,
NEW YORK, LONDON.

Copyrighted in the United States and
Great Britain in MDCCCXCVII by
F. Tennyson Neely.
All rights reserved.

TO MY MOTHER AND THE SOUTH

INTRODUCTION.

“Smoking Flax” is a story of the South written by a young Kentucky woman. Undoubtedly in the South its advent will be saluted with enthusiastic bravos. What will be the nature of its reception in the North it is hazardous to predict. One thing, however, can be confidently prophesied for it everywhere—consideration. This the subject and manner of its treatment assures.

The methods of Judge Lynch viewed from most standpoints are, without extenuation, evil; from a few aspects they may appear to be perhaps not wholly without justification. Miss Rives, through the medium of romance, presents the question as seen from many sides, and then leaves to the reader the responsibility of determining “what is truth,” though where her own sympathies lie she does not leave much in doubt.

The authoress comes of an old Virginia stock to whom the gift of narrative and literary expression seem to be a birthright. Since revolutionary days literature has been more or less enriched by contributions from successive members of the family—the well known contemporary novelist and the youthful author of this book sharing at the present time the responsibility of upholding the hereditary traditions. It seems, therefore, happily appropriate that Miss Rives should have taken upon herself the task of placing before the world southern views of the problem of lynching, which, be it understood, are far from unanimous. The subject is handled with admirable tact, the author steering clear alike from prudish affectations of modesty and shocking details of inartistic realism: and throughout is maintained a judicial impartiality infrequent in the treatment of such burning questions.

Miss Rives will achieve distinction in the South and at least notability elsewhere.

H. F. G.

Rochester, N. Y.

September 22nd, 97.

CHAPTER I.

The house faced the college campus and was the only one in the block. This, in Georgetown, implies a lawn of no small dimensions; the place had neither gardener’s house nor porter’s lodge—nothing but that old home half hidden by ancient elms. For many a year it had stood with closed doors in the very heart of that prosperous Kentucky town, presenting a gloomy aspect and exercising for many a singular attraction. Near the deep veranda a great tree, whose boughs were no longer held in check by trimming, had thrust one of its branches through the frontmost window. Dampness had attacked everything. The upper balcony was loosened, the roof warped, and lizards sunned themselves on the wall.

As for the garden, long ago it had lapsed into a chaotic state. The thistle and the pale poppy grew in fragrant tangle with the wild ivy and Virginia creeper, and wilful weeds thrust their way across the gravel walks.

Sadly old residents saw the place approaching the last stages of decay—saw this house, once the pride of the town, in its decrepitude and loneliness the plaything of the elements.

“A noble wreck! It must have a history of some kind,” strangers would remark.

“Ah, that it has, and a sombre one it is!” any man or woman living near would have answered, as they recalled the history of Richard Harding’s home. For the fate of Richard Harding was a sad memory to them. They remembered how he had been the representative of a fine old family and that much of his fortune had been spent in beautifying this place, to make it a fitting home for Catharine Field, his bride.

She too had been of gentle birth and held an important place in their memory as one who brought with her to this rural community the wider experience usual to a young woman educated in Boston, who, after a few seasons of social success in an ultra fashionable set, has crowned her many achievements by a brilliant marriage.

Her husband adored her and showed his devotion by humoring her extravagant tastes and prodigal fancies. He detested gayeties, yet complied with her slightest wish for social pleasures.

Although it was generally agreed that this young couple got on well together, at the end of two years the husband had to admit to himself that his efforts to render his wife happy had not been entirely successful. He saw that she fretted for her northern life, was bored by everything about her. She cherished a bitter resentment for the slaveholders, vowing that it was barbarous and inhuman to own human beings as her husband and neighbors did. Though expressing pity for the poor, simple, dependent creatures, she did little to make their tasks more healthful and reasonable ones, or to render them more capable and contented.

Her baby’s nurse was the one servant of her household who met with gracious treatment at her hands. This old slave came to her endowed with the womanly virtues of honor, self-respect and humility. But in marveling at her on these accounts, Mrs. Harding forgot that it was the former mistress—her husband’s mother—that had made her what she was.

At length the truth became clearly apparent that she was an obstinate, intensely prejudiced and very unreasonable woman, who, having lived for a time at a centre of fashionable intelligence in a city of culture, supposed herself to be quite beyond the reach of and entirely superior to ordinary country folk. Eventually, her morbid dissatisfaction became so extreme that her husband yielded to her importunities, closed the house, and with her and their baby boy, went to live in Boston.

This sacrifice he made quietly and uncomplainingly, his closest friends not then knowing how it wrenched his heart. A year passed, then another, and at the end of the third, the papers announced the death of Richard Harding.

Though never again seeing his southern home, where he had planned to live his life in peace and useful happiness, it had held to the end a most sacred place in his memory—a memory which he truly hoped would be transmittted to the heart and mind of his son. It was his last wish that the old homestead should remain as it was—closed to strangers—that no living being, unless of his own blood, should inhabit that abode of love and sorrow, that it be kept from the careless profanation of aliens.

The world prophesied that his widow would soon forget the wishes of the dead, but as witness that she had thus far kept faith, there stood the closed, abandoned home, upon which Nature alone laid a destroying hand.

CHAPTER II.

In process of time, hardly a brick was to be seen in this old house that had not grown purple with age and become cloaked with moss and ivy. Antiquity looked out from covering to foundation stone. Only the flowers were young, and flowers spring from a remote ancestry. This house, inlaid in solitude, was as quiet as some cloister hidden away within some French forest.

One summer afternoon, the quiet was broken by a group of college girls looking for some new flower for their botanical collection. But so full of youthful spirits were they that they hardly saw the valley lilies with stems so short that they could scarcely bear up their innocent, sweet eyes, distressed, and stare like children in a crowd.

Among these girls was one whom the most casual observer would have singled out from her companions for a beauty rare even in that land of beautiful women. She had wandered off alone and found a sleepy little primrose. As she freed the blossom from its stem and held it in her hand, a tide of thought surged up from her memory and deepened the color of her face. Quietly she dropped down upon the grass and began turning the leaves of her floral diary until she came to a similar flower pressed between its pages.

In a corner was written: “Gathered in the mountains on the 18th of August.”

“How strange,” she thought, “to note how late it was found there, while it blooms so early here.”

Commonplace as that discovery seemed to be, the face so radiant a moment before, became thoughtfully drawn.

She looked at the name “E. Harding” written below the dry, dead blossom, and thought of the time when it had been written, thence back to her first meeting with its owner—one of those happy chances of travel, which have all the charm of the unexpected—as fresh in her memory as though it had been but yesterday. That summer had been one of those idyllic periods which are lived so unconsciously that their beauty is only realized in memories. To become conscious of such charm at the time would be to break the spell which lies in the very ignorance of its existence.

She, this ardent novice in learning, fresh from graduating honors, and full of unmanageable, new emotions did not comprehend that the same youthful impetuosity which had made the two fast friends in so brief a time, had also made it possible for a few heedless words even more quickly to separate them. An older or more experienced woman would have missed the sudden bloom and escaped the no less sudden storm.

“Primroses are his favorite flowers,” she said half aloud, and a dainty little smile lifted ever so slightly the corners of her mouth as if there were pleasure in the thought. Then she took up her pencil and studiously began to jot down the botanical notes concerning the primrose. “Primrose, a biennial herb, from three to six inches tall. The flower is regular, symmetrical and four parted.”

A twig snapped. The girl looked up quickly. “Welcome to my flowers,” said a voice beside her, and a young man smiled frankly, as he bowed and raised his white straw hat.

“Mr. Harding!” she exclaimed, opening her eyes in wonder and staring at him with the prettiest face of astonishment. Alarm had brought color to her cheeks, while the level rays of the sun, which forced her to screen her eyes with one hand, clothed her figure in a broad belt of gold. “How did you happen to be here?”

“I did not happen. Man comes not to his place by accident.”

His answer, though given with a laugh, had a touch of truth.

Through the bright excitement of her eyes, a sudden gleam of archness flashed.

“Have you come to write us up, or rather down?” she asked.

“I have come to help those who won’t help themselves, but first let us make peace, if such a thing be necessary between us. Here is my offering,” and smilingly he laid two fresh white roses in her hand.

She answered his smile with one of her own as she thrust the long generous stems through her waist belt; but she did not thank him with words, and he was glad that she did not. Just as he would have spoken again, a number of girlish voices called in chorus:

“Come, Dorothy, we are going now.”

CHAPTER III.

In the same year that Elliott Harding was graduated from Princeton, he came into possession of his estate, which he at once began to share with his mother. Her love of good living and luxury, her craving for such elegancies as sumptuous furniture, expensive bric-à-brac, and stylish equipages had well nigh exhausted her means, and she was now almost entirely dependent upon a half-interest in the small estate in Kentucky. Considering that Elliott had a leaning towards the learned professions and political and social pursuits, added to a constitutional abhorrence of a business career, his financial condition was not altogether uncomfortable. He longed to own a superb library, a collection of books, great both in number and quality, and, furthermore, he wanted to complete his education by travel abroad, followed by a year or two of serious research in the South. He realized how ill these aspirations mated with the pleasure loving habits of his mother and how impossible it would be for him to realize his dreams, so long as his purse remained the joint source of supply.

To many a young man the outlook would have been deeply discouraging. To him it was a means of developing the endurance and the strength of will which were among his distinguishing characteristics.

Nature had fashioned Elliott Harding when in one of her kindly moods. She had endowed him with many gifts; good birth, sound health of body and mind, industry, resolution and ambition. Besides possessing these goodly qualifications, he stood six feet in height, and in breadth of shoulder, depth of chest, sturdiness of legs and arms, he had few superiors. There was, too, a nobility of proportion in his forehead that indicated high breeding and broad intellectuality, and his face was full of force and refinement. His steel blue eyes gleamed with a superb self-confidence.

By profession, Elliott Harding was a lawyer; by instinct, a writer. He practiced law for gain. He wrote because it was his ruling passion. He was a man who had been early taught to have faith in his own destiny and to consider himself an agent called by God to do a great work. When he came to his southern home he came with a purpose—a purpose which he determined to carry out quietly but with mighty earnestness. When he first arrived in the town he was content to rest unheralded, and his presence was not understood by the villagers. Nearly every morning now, he could be seen from the opposite window of the college to enter the old abandoned house and sit for hours near the door, his head bowed, his fingers busy with note-book and pencil.

For some weeks this proceeding had continued with little variation. People noted it with diverse conjectures. Old men and women feared lest this man, whoever he might be,—a real estate agent perhaps—would bring about the restoration and sale of the old Harding home. These old-time friends, who had known and loved the father, Richard Harding, through youth and manhood, now rebelled against the possible disregard of his last request, which had become a heritage of the locality. With anxiety they watched the maneuvers of this mysterious individual and drearily wondered what would result from his stay.

To young Harding the anxiety he had caused was unknown. Absorbed in his own affairs, he was too much occupied to think of the impression he was creating. His whole thought was given to gleaning the knowledge he required for the writing of the book by which he hoped to permanently mould southern opinion in conformity with his own against what he believed to be the shame of his native land.

It was an evening in the third month of his residence in Georgetown. Elliott Harding paused in his walk along the street not quite decided which way to go.

“She writes me she has drawn a ten-day draft for twenty-two hundred dollars,” he said to himself. “How on earth can I meet it? What shall I do about it? Let me think it out.” And checking his steps, which had begun to tend towards the college, where a reception to which he had been invited was being held, he took a turn or two in the already darkening street, and then started back to his rooms. In his mind, step by step, he traced out the possible consequences of action in the matter, but long consideration only confirmed his first impression that it was too late now to change the course of affairs so long existing.

“But how am I to meet this last demand?” he questioned. “There is but one way open to me,” he finally thought. “The old home must go.”

He nervously walked on, repeating to himself, “Mother! mother! I could never do this for anyone but you.”

With the memory of his beloved father so strong within him, it was difficult to bring himself to face the inevitable with composure. The turbulent working of his heart contended against the resignation of his brain, and, when for a moment he felt resigned, then the memory of his dead father’s wish would rise up and protest, and the battle would have to be fought over again.

But what he considered to be duty to the living triumphed over what he held as loyalty to the dead, so the next time he went to the old homestead, “For Sale” glared coldly and, he even imagined, reproachfully at him. It was then that Elliott realized the immensity of his sacrifice and bowed his head in silent sorrow.

CHAPTER IV.

After that one time, Elliott Harding determined to face the inevitable and passed into the house without seeming to see the placard.

One day while sitting in his accustomed writing place, which was the parlor, now furnished with a table and office chair, a man walked up the front steps. Elliott had just finished writing the words “The glimpses of light I have gained make the darkness more apparent,” when the man entered the doorway.

The stranger was a tall, lean individual with iron gray beard curving out from under the chin. Eyes dark, keen and deep set; cheekbones as high as an Indian’s; hair iron gray and thick around the base of the skull, but thin and tangled over the top of the head, formed a combination striking and not unattractive. Though apparently far past his prime, he appeared to be as hearty and hale as if half the years of his life were yet to come. After gazing a moment at Elliott, he opened the conversation by saying:

“Good morning! I suppose you are the agent for this property?”

“I am, sir,” answered Elliott, courteously. “Come in and have a seat,” offering him his chair as he stood up and leaned against the writing table.

“I have come to make a bid for this place. I would like to buy it, if it is to be had at a reasonable figure. It is not for the land value alone that I want it,” he went on, “it is the old home of my only sister. Besides, for another and more sacred reason, I never want it to pass out of the family.”

“Your sister’s old home,” said Elliott, without appearing to have heard the offer, “then you are Mr. Field—Philip Field?”

“That is my name—and yours?”

“Elliott Field Harding.”

“My nephew?” questioned the elder.

“Your nephew, I suppose,” assented Elliott.

“And you did not know you had an uncle here?” the old man asked quickly.

“Well, I knew you were living somewhere in the South, but was not certain of the exact locality.”

At this, the face of the visitor softened, a strange glow leaping to life in his quiet eyes.

“Your mother discarded me years ago for marrying a Southern girl not—not exactly up to her ideal, and I thought you might not have known she had a cast-off brother, whom she thought had shamed his blood and name,” was the low spoken comment.

Then, half-unconsciously he stammered, “Catharine—your mother, is she well?”

“Quite well, I thank you,” said Elliott.

“Will she come here to—to see you?”

“Not likely, no; I don’t think she will ever come South again,” was the contemplative reply.

“Then she has not changed; she still hates us here!” commented the other half sadly.

“Well ‘hate’ is perhaps too strong a word; but I think that her inflexible disapproval of the social conditions here will never alter. You know her character. Her ideas are not easily changed and she thinks little outside of Boston and Boston ideals worthy of much consideration.”

“Poor, dear sister! I had hoped that maternity and her early widowhood would awake in her a sense of the vast duties and responsibilities attached to her position as a southern woman. How I have longed to hear that she had learned the blessed lesson.”

To these words Elliott listened intently, his breath coming quick with rebellious mortification.

“If she had learned that lesson I might not now have to sacrifice the old home,” said Elliott, somewhat impetuously.

“Sacrifice!” repeated the other, “and did you care to hold it?”

“It was the dearest wish of my life to do so,” was the reply.

Mr. Field gazed at the young man with a look of admiration.

“Elliott, my nephew,” he fervently said, holding out his hand as he spoke, “if it will please you to call me friend as well as uncle, I shall refuse neither the name nor the duties.”

“Uncle Philip, I thank you and accept your kindly offer,” and Elliott’s face brightened. The furrow which care had been ploughing between his brows the past few days, smoothed itself out. Then in a burst of confidence, he continued:

“It has long been my ambition to do something with this place, worthy of the memory of my father; but my mother is a little extravagant, I am afraid, and I have not as yet been able to carry out my wish. She lately drew upon me for twenty-two hundred dollars and it came at a time when my only recourse was either to sell the place or dishonor her paper.”

“Elliott, it is very pleasing to me that you should speak thus frankly with me. Let me help you. I will gladly lend you the money so that you may not be forced to sell. I am well-to-do and can afford to help you.”

Elliott listened in pleased surprise. He felt touched beyond expression, but emotion irresistibly impelled him to seize his uncle’s hand, to bend low and press his lips upon it. This unexpected offer again buoyed up the hope of his intense desire to keep the homestead. For a time he stared steadily at this friend, his whole soul reflected upon his face.

Mr. Field eyed his nephew closely during this silence and noted the evidence of strength in the serious young face, and the unmistakable air of a thinker it bore, and rightly judged that here was one who had given over play for work.

“The memory of your kind offer will live with me forever,” said Elliott, his voice full of deep feeling, breaking the silence. “But I cannot accept your generosity. I have no assurance that my labors will be attended with success, and I have a horror of starting out in debt.”

“Very well, my boy,” kindly spoke the other, “that spirit will win. I will buy the place, and it will still be in the family.”

“Thank you, uncle! You don’t know how grateful I am for that.”

“And I am doubly pleased to be the owner since meeting you,” interrupted the elder. “This old heart of mine beats warmly for your father. He was a good man and I want to see the boy who bears his name winning a way up to the level of life which was once Richard’s. Yes, I want to see you foremost amongst just and honored men.”

“Uncle Philip,” heartily spoke Elliott, “for the sake of my father’s memory, I hope to fulfill that hope.”

“Ah, yes, yes, you will, my boy!” The old man arose to go and as he and Elliott clasped hands in a hearty good-bye, he added: “I shall be glad to see you at my home, which is two miles south of here, or at the Agricultural Bank of which I am president. I am a widower, have no children, and your presence in my home would fill a void,” and as though not wishing to trust himself further along the mournful trend of thought, he hastily withdrew.

As Elliott watched his uncle walking down the gravelled path, his offer of friendship took a tempting form. A week before, he would have scornfully repelled any such advances.

“Only to think of it!” Elliott soliloquized, “an offer of sympathy and help from this man for whom my mother, his sister, has not one gleam of sympathy, or even comprehension! It is strange that he should be the first to come in when all the world seems gone out.”

Thus, without further heralding and no outward commercial negotiation, the old Harding homestead passed quietly into Mr. Field’s possession, and this matter once settled, Elliott began in earnest the practice of his profession. Accordingly, his law card at once appeared in the local papers and his “shingle” was hung out beside another, bearing the name “John Holmes, Attorney at Law,” at the door of a building containing numerous small offices.

Elliott knew his literary work was not enough to satisfy his insistent appetite for occupation, and for this reason, besides the necessity of earning something toward his modest expenses, he went into the practice of law.

As Mr. Field felt he had been largely instrumental in his nephew’s settling here, he took an active interest in furthering his success.

“That is Elliott Harding, my nephew,” he would say, with an affectionate familiarity, dashed with pride. “He is a most worthy young man, deserving of your confidence,” a commendation usually agreed to, with the unspoken thought sometimes, “and a very conceited one.”

Why does the world look with such disapproval on self confidence? When a person is endowed with a vigorous brain, there is no better way for him to face the world than to start out with a full respect for his own talents, and unbounded faith in the possibilities that lie within him.

Elliott Harding’s belief in himself was not small, and the consciousness of his ability led him to work diligently for both honor and profit. He expected labor and did not shrink from it. Very soon he riveted the attention of a few, then of the many, and it was not long before he rose to a position of considerable importance in the community and began to feel financial ground more solid beneath his feet.

CHAPTER V.

It was a glorious morning in August, when summer’s wide-set doors let in a torrent of later bloom.

As early as ten o’clock the Riverside road was thronged with all manner of conveyances, moving toward the country, bound for an out-of-door fête of the character known in that region as a “bran-dance and barbecue.” This country road, prodigally overhung with the foliage of trees in the very heyday of their southern vigor is bounded on one side by goodly acres of farmland, and on the other by the Elkhorn, a historic river.

The neighboring farms were still to-day. The light wind rustling the silken tassels of the corn was all the sound that would be heard until the morrow, unless, maybe, the neighing of the young horses left behind.

From the topic of stock and farming, called forth by what they saw in passing, Elliott Harding and his uncle, as they rode along, fell to discussing the grim details of a murder and lynching that had but recently taken place just over the boundary, in Tennessee.

“What a tremendous problem is this lynching evil,” said Elliott, looking keenly at his uncle, who shook his head seriously as he answered:

“It is a very grave question that confronts us, and by far the less easier of settlement because we are placed in the full light of public observation, all our doings heightened by its glare, and the passion of the people aroused. It is not that we will, but that we must lynch in these extreme cases. There seems no other way, and that is a poor enough one.”

“How many persons do you suppose have lost their lives by lynch law in the south during the past ten years?” asked Elliott.

“I should say at least a thousand,” replied Mr. Field.

“Heavens! What a record!” exclaimed Elliott, who became silent, a look of brooding thoughtfulness taking the place of the happy expression that had lighted up his face. His uncle, noticing his preoccupation, endeavored to distract his thoughts by calling attention to the distant sound of a big bass fiddle and a strong negro voice that called out many times, “balance all, swing yo par-d-ners.”

“I suppose on this festive occasion I shall also hear some political aspirant promising poor humanity unconditional prosperity and deliverance from evil?” asked Elliott, by way of inquiry as to what other diversions might be expected.

“Oh, yes, Holmes and Feland, the candidates for prosecuting attorney, are sure to be on hand,” replied Mr. Field.

A little further on they came upon the crowd gathered in the woods. On the bough-roofed dancing ground the youths were tripping with lissome maids, who, with their filmy skirts a little lifted, showed shapely ankles at every turn. The lookers-on seemed witched with the rhythmic motion and the sensuous music. Old and young women, as well as men, the well-to-do and the poor, were there. Neat, nice-looking young people, with happy, intelligent faces, kept time to the waltz and the cotillion, which were the order of the day. As the graceful figures animated the arbor, far away in the depths of the wood could be heard echoes of light-hearted talk and happy laughter. The very genius of frolic seemed to preside over the gathering.

Elliott stood near one end of the arbor and drew a long breath of pure delight at this, to him, truly strange and delightful pastoral. The mellow tints of nature’s verdure, the soft languor of the warm atmosphere, gave a happy turn to his thoughts as he looked upon his first “bran-dance.”

“Come! finish this with me,” cried a sturdy farmer boy.

“Do, dear mamma!” begged the gasping maiden at her side, “I am so tired. Do take a round with him.”

Thus appealed to, the stout, handsome matron threw aside her palm-leaf fan and held out her hands to the boy. Although she had but reached that age when those of the opposite sex are considered just in their prime, she, being old enough to be the mother of the twenty-year-old daughter at her side, was considered too old to be one of the dancers. But at the hearty invitation she too became one of the tripping throng and entered into the fun with all the sweetness and spontaneity in voice and gesture which made herself and others forget how far her Spring was past. The waltz now became a waltz indeed. The musicians played faster and faster and the girl clapped her hands as the couple whirled round and round, as though nothing on earth could stop them.

“Please let’s stop. I beg you to stop, now!” cried the matron, panting for breath but the enraptured youth paid no heed to her pleadings, but swifter and swifter grew his pace, wilder and wilder his gyrations, till, fortunately for her, he encountered an unexpected post and was brought to a sudden halt. The waltz, too, had come to an end, and the onlookers clapped their hands in hearty applause. Even the veterans of the community seemed to enjoy the spirit of the sport. Elliott particularly noted the rapt enjoyment of a group of old men silver haired, ruddy skinned, keen eyed, who once seen, remained penciled upon the gazer’s memory—each head a worthy sketch.

These patriarchs were bent with toil as well as age, their hands were roughened by labor, the Sunday broadcloth became them less than the week-day short coat, yet each figure had a dignity of its own. In one aged man, with snow-white hair, Roman nose and tawny, beardless face, the staunch Southerner of old lived again. Here was that calm and resolution betokening the indomitable spirit, the unswerving faith that led men to brave fire and sword, ruin and desolation, rather than surrender principle.

In strong relief were these sombre figures of the group set forth by the light, airy frocks and the young faces and graceful forms of the pretty girls, with beflowered hats coquettishly perched above their heads, or swinging from their hands. One could step easily from the verge of the white holiday keeper to the confines of the pleasure loving black. But it was a great distance—like the crossing of a vast continent—between the habitats of alien races.

On the outskirts of the crowd, here and there, under the friendly shade of some wide spreading tree, could be seen a darkey busily engaged in vending watermelons and cool drinks. Coatless and hatless, with shirt wide open at neck and chest, and sleeves rolled elbow high, he transferred the luscious fruit from his wagon to the eager throng about him; while he passed compliments without stint upon the unbleached domestics who came to “trade” with him, not forgetting to occasionally lift his voice and proclaim the superior quality of his stock, verifying his assurances by taking capacious mouthfuls from the severed melon lying on the top of the load.

Without ceremony, the darkeys, male and female, swarmed about the vender, some seating themselves in picturesque ease upon the ground in pairs and groups. There were mulattos and octoroons of light and darker shades, to the type of glossy blackness, discussing last week’s church “festival,” to-morrow’s funeral, the Methodists’ protracted meeting which begins one Christmas and lasts till the next.

In astonishing quantities did the “culled folks” stow away “red meat” and “white meat,” and with juice trickling from the corners of their mouths down over their best raiment, gave ready ear to the vender’s broad jokes and joined in his loud laughter, showing, as only negroes can, their ready appreciation of the feast and holiday. Their hilarity kept up an undiminished flow until the participants were called to serve the midday meal for the “white folks.”

Hundreds partook of the delicious pig which had been roasted whole, that meat of which the poet wrote, “Send me, gods, a whole hog barbecued.”

Animals spitted on pointed sticks sputtered and fizzled over a hole in the ground filled with live coals. Mindful attendants shifted the appetizing viands from side to side, seasoning them with salt, pepper, vinegar or lemon as the case might require, and when set forth, offered a feast as close to primitive nature as the trees under which it was served.

CHAPTER VI.

Very soon after the feast was ended, Elliott saw John Holmes and a party of men coming toward him.

To a casual reader of the human countenance, it would be evident at a first glance that Holmes was a man of no small worldly knowledge, and as he now appeared with his companions one could discern that this superiority was recognized by them and that he held a certain position of authority, in fact that he was a man accustomed to rule rather than be ruled.

As he approached Elliott, he addressed him with a pleased smile, saying: “I am glad to see you here, Mr. Harding. Maybe you can help us out of a difficulty.”

“In what way?” asked Elliott, surprised.

“My political opponent was to have been here and we were to briefly address the people this afternoon, but, so far, he has failed to put in an appearance. The toiling folk have come here to-day, even laying aside important work in some instances, to hear a ‘speaking,’ and unless they hear some sort of an address (they are not particular about the subject) it will be hard to bring them together again when we need them more.

“I, as a representative of the committee, request you to lend us a helping hand. It is generally desired that you be the orator upon this occasion.”

“What! address this gathering offhand and wholly unprepared? It would blight my prospects forever with them,” laughed Elliott.

“On the other hand, it would give you an opportunity for a wider acquaintance and perhaps elect you to the first office to which you may yet aspire. Come! I will take no excuse,” persisted Holmes, while his companions seconded his insistence.

After considerable pressing, Elliott was escorted to the platform, from which the musicians had moved. Without delay Holmes stepped to the front and in a loud, clear voice which hushed the crowd, said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor of introducing Mr. Elliott Harding, who will speak in place of Mr. Feland, that gentleman, for some reason or other, having failed to put in an appearance.”

Amid a storm of cheers, Elliott arose, straightening his eloquent shoulders as he came forward. His blonde face was full of eager life when he began.

“Ladies and gentlemen: The unexpected compliment paid me by your committee has given me the pleasure of addressing you to-day. I accept the invitation the more gladly inasmuch as it gives me the opportunity of telling you that my heart, linked to the South by birth, has retained its old love in spite of absence and distance, and brings me back to my own place with a fonder and, if possible, a greater and nobler pride in this Southland of yours and mine. And, it is a land to be proud of. More magnificent a country God has never made. It has seen the fierce harrowing of war. Gazing through the past years my fancy sees the ruin that has confronted the home-coming soldier—ashes instead of homes, burnt stubble instead of fences, the slaves on whose labor he had long depended for the cultivation of his fertile fields, with their bonds cast off, meeting him as freemen. Without money, provisions or even the ordinary implements of husbandry, he at once began the toilsome task of repairing his fallen fortunes. Having converted his sword into a plowshare, his spear into a pruning hook, he lost no time, but manfully set to work to restore his lost estate, and bring a measure of comfort to the dear ones deprived of their former luxuries.

“So it is to the soldier of the ‘Lost Cause’ that all honor and praise must be given for the present prosperity of the land. And it becomes us as heirs of his sacrifice and of the fruits of his toil, to lend our every effort to the full garnering of the harvest.

“As the giant West has sprung up from the sap of the East, so must the South rise up by strength drawn from the soil of the North. What the South needs to-day more than any other one thing is an influx of intelligent laborers from the North. It needs its sturdy folk of industrious habit, economy and indomitable energy; it needs a more profitable system of agriculture. Accustomed as that people is to economy, to frugality and to forcing existence out of an unwilling soil, if only they could be induced to come here in sufficient numbers, the country would soon blossom into mellow prosperity. And, my friends, I want to see them coming—coming with their capital to aid us in developing the inexhaustible mineral resources of our mines, the timber of our forests, to build our mills and rear our infant manufactures to the full stature of lusty manhood. Our future with all its limitless possibilities—this future which is to warm the great breast of the business world toward us, this future which shall shower upon us the fullness of earth—is all with you.

“Therefore, with such a vista of promise opening before our gaze, ill would it become us to fail in our duty toward ourselves, toward our country and toward Him who giveth all. Thus it befits us to lend every effort to the furtherance of this, our future salvation. To those upon whose coming so much depends, every inducement must be offered. And be it remembered that capital seeks its home in sections wherein life and prosperity enjoy the greatest security under the law. This is a conclusion founded on the great law of caution, upon which intelligent capital is planted and reared. It becomes necessary, then, to ask ourselves seriously, ‘Are we making every effort to solidify peace and order by the protection of life and the supreme establishment of law?’

“I need not answer this question. Circumstances have done so for me. The electric wire is still hot from flashing to the furtherest corner of our Nation, in all its revolting details, news of the recent awful crime in our sister state.

“I am well aware that in touching upon this point I am wounding the sensibilities of a people who have been shadowed by personal injury and embittered by a natural race prejudice; but I feel that I can speak the more boldly because I touch the matter not as an alien whose sympathies are foreign and whose theories are theoretical chimeras, but as a southerner—one whose interest is the stronger because he is a southerner. My audience may refuse to grant the justice of my argument, but it must admit the truth of the situation I outline. Whichever way we turn the tremendous problem of the lynching evil stares us in the face. It baits us, it defies us, it shames us.

“Think of it! More than one thousand human lives forfeited to Judge Lynch form the South’s record for the past ten years. What a horrible record! It seems almost incredible that such lawlessness can exist in communities supposed to be civilized. Would to God it were but an evil dream and that I could to-day assure the world that this terrible condition is but the unfounded imagining of a nightmared mind.

“Lynching is a peculiarly revolting form of murder, and to tolerate it is to pave the way for anarchy and barbarism. It cannot be truthfully denied that one of the most potent factors militating against the progress of this country is this frequent resort to illegal execution, and before we can realize the full benefits of your natural inheritance, your laws—our laws—must be impartially enforced, property must be protected, and life sacredly guarded by rigid legal enforcement, backed by an elevated public conception of duty.

“It is no greater crime for one man to seize a brother man and take his life than it is for a lawless multitude to do the same act. The first, if there be any difference, is less criminal than the latter for it, at least often has the merit of individual courage and the plea for revenge on the ground of personal injury. But when a man is deprived of his liberty by incarceration in the jail and thus shorn of his power of self protection, it is the acme of dishonor and cowardice to wrest him from the grasp of the law and deprive him of his life upon evidence that possibly might not convict him before a jury.

“I do not wish to be understood as saying that brave and good men do not sometimes, under strong excitement, participate in this outrage against human rights and organized society, for it is a fact that such rebellions are not infrequently led by the most prominent citizens, and, from this very fact, it is the more to be deplored.

“My friends, have you never thought to what this practice may lead? Has the frequency of mob violence no alarming indications for you? Directed, as it more often is, against our negro population, instead of making better citizens of the depraved and deterring them from crime, it has a tendency to cultivate a race prejudice and stir up the worst of human passions. It is inculcating a disregard of law because it ignores that greatest principle of freedom—that every man is to be considered innocent until proven to be guilty by competent testimony.

“Judge Lynch is the enemy of law and strikes at the very foundation of order and civil government. His rule is causing large classes to feel that the law of the land affords them no protection. The courts furnish an adequate remedy for every wrong. One legal death on the scaffold has a more salutary effect than a score of mob executions. The former teaches a proper dread of offended law, leaves no unhealing wounds in the hearts of the living, stirs up no revengeful impulses, creates no feuds and causes no retaliatory murders. What a field of home mission stretches before us! We owe it to the South to remove this blot on our good name. Let us hasten the day when Judge Lynch shall be spoken of with a shudder, as a hideous memory.

“This pitiful people, our former slaves, if instructed by intelligent ministers and teachers, might be delivered from the cramped mind, freed from the brutalized spirit which causes these crimes among us. They are naturally a religious people and this principle, which seems to be strong within them, under the guidance of an earnest enlightened ministry, might prove to be the key to the race problem find open up a social and political reformation, unequalled in modern times.

“Already the negro race is doing much for its own advancement and good. To-day there are thirty-five thousand negro teachers in the elementary schools of the South. Six hundred ministers of the gospel have been educated in their own theological halls. They own and edit more than two hundred newspapers. They have equipped and maintain more than three hundred lawyers and four hundred doctors and have accumulated property which is estimated at more than two hundred and fifty millions. I note this fact with pleasure. It makes them better citizens by holding a stake in their community. Let us show our appreciation of what they have already done by helping them to do more.”

CHAPTER VII.

The strange faces, the new scene, the suddenness of the call had shaken Elliott’s self-possession, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he finished his speech.

The mayor and municipal council crowded around him with outstretched hands, foremost amongst them, an old man with Roman features.

“I was interested in your speech, young man,” said he, “but wait until this thing strikes home before you condemn our code.”

“You’re right, Mr. Carr, you’re right!” cried several voices in chorus.

The old gentleman talked on during the intervals of greetings and ended by inviting young Harding to his home, where a lawn party was to be held that night.

As the volume of general applause lessened, the cry of “Holmes! Holmes!” was kept up with an insistence which might have induced a less capable man to respond. Nor would the enthused throng be quieted until John Holmes mounted the platform.

“It had not been my purpose, ladies and gentlemen,” said he, “to address you to-day upon the subject touched upon by Mr. Harding, but, since he has modestly lectured us on our barbarity, I must say a word in defense of the South and southerners. He intimates that the curse of slavery still rests upon the southern states. I wonder if Mr. Harding knows whether or not the curse of slave-trade, which to be accurate is called ‘the sum of all villainies,’ really rests upon Great Britain, who was the originator of the inhuman system and not upon us southerners?

“The most careful statistics show that in the beginning over 19,000,000 Africans were imported into the British West Indies and so severely were they dealt with that when emancipation came, only a little over 600,000 were left to benefit by it. The slave trade was fastened on the American colonies by the greed of English kings, who, over and over again, vetoed the restrictive legislation of the Colonial Assemblies on the ground that it interfered with the just profits of their sea-faring subjects. Is there no work for Nemesis here?

“That the system of slavery, as it existed in the southern states, was accompanied by many cases of hardship and cruelty, we freely admit; that its abolition is a proper ground for sincere rejoicing, we do not hesitate to affirm. But, it is nevertheless true, that, looked at in a large way, slavery was a lifting force to the negro race during the whole period of its existence here. The proof lies just here—when the war of emancipation came, the 4,000,000 negroes in the southern states stood on a higher level of civilization than did any other equal number of people of the same race anywhere on the globe.

“As to the mental and moral advancement of the negro, we have not done enough to render us boastful or self-satisfied, but enough to dull the shafts of the mistaken or malicious who would convict us of heathenish indifference to his elevation. We have from childhood had a lively appreciation of the debt we owe to the race. Nobody owes them as much as we do; nobody knows them as well; nobody’s future is so involved in their destiny as our own. Is it not natural that we should help them in their pathetic struggle against poverty, ignorance and degradation?

“Mr. Harding, in speaking of their progress, intimates that these results have been reached by their own unaided efforts. The fact is that the elementary schools of which he speaks are sustained almost entirely by the southern white people, who, in the midst of their own grinding poverty, have taxed themselves to the extent of $50,000,000 to educate the children of their former slaves. The colored churches of to-day are the legitimate fruit of the faithful work done amongst the slaves before the war by white missionaries.

“Two hundred and fifty millions is a vast sum. Could a race gather and hold so much in a commonwealth where its rights are being trampled upon with impunity? The question answers itself. There is, in truth, no place on earth where the common negro laborer has so good an opportunity as between the Potomac and Rio Grande. Here he is admitted to all the trades, toils side by side with white workmen, and is protected in person and property so long as he justifies protection.

“As to the statement that one thousand have been lynched in the past ten years, doubtless Mr. Harding accepts without further examination the crooked figures of partisan newspapers. But, granting this horrible record to be true, it must be acknowledged that the man does something to call forth such treatment. Along with the telling of our alleged bloodthirstiness, there should be related the frequency and atrocity of his outrages against our homes. The south willingly appeals to the judgment of civilized mankind as to the truth of her declaration that the objects of enlightened government are as well secured here as on any portion of the globe.

“That Mr. Harding and his sympathizers are actuated by excellent motives, I do not mean to question.

“We are as mindful as others of the dangerous tendency of resorting to lawlessness, but strangers cannot understand the situation as well as those who are personally familiar with it and have suffered by it. It is much to be regretted, of course, that lynchings occur, but it is far more to be regretted that there are so many occasions for them. When the sanctity of woman is violated, man, if man he be, cannot but choose to avenge it. If the villain did not commit the crime for which this penalty is inflicted, then we would not be inflamed to summary vengeance. The perpetrator of this deed, the most heinous of all crimes and to which death is often added, need not complain when vengeance is visited upon him in a swift and merciless manner, according with the teaching of his own villainy.

“Unquestionably it would be better if judicial formalities could be duly observed, but the law should make special provisions for summary execution when such grave offenses occur. Then, too, there is something to be said for the peculiar indignation which such cases incite. This anger is the just indignation of a community against a peculiarly vile class of criminal, not against a race, as Mr. Harding and others have grown to believe and to set forth. That it has seemed a race question with the south, has been because for every negro in the north we have one hundred here.

“Mid the stormy scenes a quarter of a century ago, when the bugle called the sons of the south to war, they went, leaving their wives, mothers, children and homes in the hands of the slaves who, though their personal interests were on the other side, were true to their trust, protected the helpless women and children and earned for them their support by the sweat of their own brow, and with a patience unparalleled left the question of freedom to the arbitrament of war. Their behavior under manifold temptations was always kindly and respectful, and never one raised an arm to molest the helpless. In the drama of all humanity, there is not a figure more pathetic or touching than the figure of the slave, who followed his master to the battle-field, marched, thirsted and hungered with him, nursed, served and cheered him—that master who was fighting to keep him in slavery. This subject comprises a whole vast field of its own and if the history of it is ever written, it will be written in the literature of the south, for here alone lies the knowledge and the love.

“Who has taught him to regard liberty as a license? Who has sown this seed of animosity in his mind? Until they who have sown the seed of discord shall root up and clear away the tares, the peace and prosperity that might reign in this southern land can be but a hope, a dream. It is this rooting of the tares, and this more surely than anything else, that will bring nearer the union and perfect good fellowship which is so greatly needed. Sound common sense and sterling Americanism can and will find a way to prosperity and peace.”

CHAPTER VIII.

The sun had set; off beyond the glistening green woodline, the sky was duskily red. The air was full of that freshness of twilight, which is so different from the dew of morning.

Elliott left the bran-dance by a new road which was plain and characterless until he had passed through an unpretentious gate and was driving along the old elm avenue, a part of the Carr domain, which was undeniably picturesque. Shortly the elm branches came to an end and he entered a park, indifferently cared for, according to modern ideas, but well stocked with timber of magnificent growth and of almost every known native variety. Perhaps the oaks dominated in number and majesty, but they found worthy rivals in the towering elms.

Neglect is very picturesque in its effect, whether the thing neglected be a ruined castle or an unkept tangle. The unpicturesque things are those in which man’s artificial selection reigns supreme.

Had Elliott’s order-loving mother been with him, she would have observed that this park was ill-maintained, and that she would dearly love to have the thinning out and regulating of its trees. Whereas, to his less orderly fancy, it presented a most agreeable appearance. There was Nature’s charm wholly undisturbed by man, and what perhaps added the finishing touch to his satisfaction was the exceeding number of maples, in the perfect maturity of their growth. These straight and goodly trees so screened the house that he was very close before it could be seen. Even at the instant and before he had looked upon more than its gray stone frontage almost smothered in Virginia creepers, up to the very top of its rounded gables, Elliott was pleased.

It was a secluded place. Its position was, according to his taste, perfect. It had the blended charm of simple, harmonious form and venerable age. It faced almost southeast, the proper aspect for a country house, as it ensures morning cheerfulness all the year round, and the full advantage of whatever sunshine there is in winter from dawn practically to sundown and the exquisite effects of the rising of the moon.

Low-growing lilies breathed seductive fragrance, and the softness of the air permitted the gay party assembled to indulge in what would have been indiscretion in a more northerly climate. Young girls discarded their straw hats and danced upon the smooth, green lawn, while elderly chaperons could retire to the halls and porches if they feared the chill night air.

As Elliott approached the moonlit crowd of figures, Dorothy Carr came out to greet him. A young woman, tall and slight, with a figure lithe and graceful, made more perfect by ardent exercise. A skin which had never been permitted to lose its infant softness, with lips as pure as perfect health and lofty thoughts could make them. Her blown gold hair was lustrous and soft, and she carried herself with the modesty of the gentlewoman. Her blue eyes were dark, their brows pencilled with delicate precision combining a breadth that was both commanding and sweet.

“I am delighted to see you again, Mr. Harding,” Dorothy Carr said, graciously.

“And I am delighted to be here,” replied Elliott, as he turned with his fair hostess to a rude seat fixed about the bole of an oak.

“It was upon your grounds that we last met,” she added after a slight pause.

“Yes, and I have waited with some impatience for an invitation here, which came just to-day. You see how quickly I accepted.”

“What a dainty reproof,” she said, laughing. “But I have been away all the summer or you should have been invited here long ago.”

A few such commonplaces passed between them, then Dorothy referred to Elliott’s speech, which she had listened to with interest.

“I was so suddenly called upon that I did little justice to the subject, and it is a subject of such grave responsibility. But perhaps it is just as well that I did not have time to present it more strongly for it appears to have been already misunderstood, and I hear that not a few have branded me with all sorts of bad names. I trust I have not fallen under your condemnation.”

“Well, to be frank, I think you exhibited a somewhat fanatical anxiety to lecture people differently circumstanced,” she answered gravely. “Yet I did not condemn you. I hope you give me credit for more liberality than that. You are new to our land, and have much to grow accustomed to. We should not expect you at once to see this matter as we do,” was the evasive reply.

“She certainly does not lack the courage of her convictions,” he thought. Then aloud:

“You evidently think I shall alter my views?” this in his airily candid manner; “I stated the true conditions of affairs, just as I understand them.”

“There is the trouble. The true condition is not as you and many others understand it.”

“Then let us hope that I may fully comprehend before a great while. I at least intend to make the best of this opportunity, for, as you may know, I have settled permanently in Georgetown.”

She looked up with a beautiful aloofness in her eyes. The brave mouth, with its full, sensitive lips, was strong, yet delicate.

“I am glad to hear that, for then you can hardly fail, sooner or later, to feel as we do about the subject of your to-day’s discussion. I hope to help you to think kindly of your new home.”

“Nothing could be more comforting than this from you,” he assured her, with that frank manner which suited well the fearless expression of his face. “I am now delightfully quartered with my kinsman, Mr. Field, whose acres join yours, I believe; so we shall be neighbors.”

Then they laughed. “We are really to be neighbors after all our quarrel in the mountains? Well!” she added, hospitably, “a cover will always be laid for you at our table, and you shall have due warning of any entertainment that may take place. It shall be my duty to see that you are thoroughly won over to the South; to her traditions as well as her pleasures.”

“But changing this flippant subject to one of graver importance, just now; there is one thing absolutely necessary for you Kentuckians to learn before you win me.” His face lighted with a charming smile.

“What is that?” she asked.

“You must first know how to make Manhattan cocktails.”

She answered with a pretty pout, “I—we can make them now; why shouldn’t we? Doesn’t all the good whiskey you get up North come from the bluegrass state?”

Amused at her loyalty, Elliott assented willingly: “That is a fact. And I like your whiskey,—a little of it—I like your state—all of it—its bluegrass, its thoroughbreds, and its women. But, you will pardon me, there is something wanting in its cocktails, perhaps—it’s the cherry!”

“A fault that can be easily remedied, and—suppose we did succeed, would you belong to us?”

“I’m afraid I would,” he agreed smilingly.

Here the music of the two-step stopped, and Uncle Josh, the old negro fiddler, famous the country over for calling the figures of the dance, straightened himself with dignity, and called loudly:

“Pardners for de las’ waltz ’fore supper!”

Dorothy could not keep the mirth from her lips. Uncle Josh was not measuring time by heartbeats but the cravings of his stomach; his immortal soul was his immortal appetite. However, whatever motive inspired him to fix the supper time, it proved efficacious, and partners were soon chosen and the dancing began again as vigorously as ever.

Dorothy and Elliott were not slow in joining the other dancers and glided through the dreamy measures which Uncle Josh, despite his longing to eat, drew forth sweetly from his old, worn fiddle. He was the soul of melody and had an eye to widening his range of selections and his inimitable technique appreciating the demands upon his art. When, with an extra flourish, Uncle Josh eventually brought the music to an end, Mr. Carr, with his easy Southern manner, courteously invited every one in to supper. He led the way, accompanied by Elliott Harding and Dorothy.

How pretty the dining-room looked! Its half-light coming through soft low tones of pink. Big rosy balls of sweet clover, fresh from the home fields, were massed in cream tinted vases, bunched over pictures and trailed down in lovely confusion about the window and straggling over door frames. Upon the long table stood tall candlesticks and candelabras many prismed, with branching vines twisted in and out in quaint fashion, bearing tall candles tipped with pink shades. From the centre of the ceiling to each corner of the room first, then to regular distances, were loosely stretched chains of pink and white clovers. Large bows of ribbon held these lengths in place where they met the chair board. In each corner close to the wall were jars which, in their pretty pink dresses of crinkled paper held in place by broad ribbon sashes, would scarcely be recognized as the old butter pots of our grandmothers’ days. From these jars grew tufts of rooted clover. Even the old fireplace and broad mantel were decked with these blossoms.

At each side of the table stood two glass bowls filled with branches of clover leaves only; one lot tied with pink ribbon, the other with white. When supper was served these bowls were passed around while Dorothy repeated the pretty tradition of the four-leaf clover. Then commenced the merry hunt for the prize that only two could win. Bright eyes and deft fingers searched their leaves through.

While this went on, in the dining-room just outside, under the moon and the maples, near the kitchen door, was another scene as joyous, if not so fair. At the head of the musician’s banquetting board sat Uncle Josh, hospitably helping each to the good things Aunt Chloe had heaped before them in accordance with the orders of “her white folks.” She was considered one of the most important members of the Carr household, having been in the service of the family for thirty years, being a blend of nurse, cook and lady’s maid.

As Uncle Josh’s brown, eager hands greedily grasped the mint julep, and held it sparkling between him and the light, with a broad smile on his beaming face, he exultantly exclaimed:

“De Lawd love her soul, Miss Dor’thy, nebber is ter fergit we all. Talk erbout de stars! She’s ’way ’bove dem.”

While he and his companions drank mint julep in token that his grateful sentiment was recognized as a toast to the fine hostess, the dining-room was ringing with laughter and congratulations over Elliott Harding’s victory, he having found one of the four-leaved trophies.

“Where is its mate?” was the eager question as nimble fingers and sharp eyes searched over the little bunches right and left again, anxious to find this potent charm against evil. The search, however, was vain. Some one asked if its loss meant that Mr. Harding should live unwedded for the rest of his days.

The evening closed with jokes of his bachelorhood.

By midnight the dining-room was still, the table cleared, the only sign of what had been was the floor with its scattered leaves.

All tired out with the long hours of gayety, Dorothy had hurried off to bed. There was a little crushed four-leaved clover fastened upon her nightgown as she lay down to her sweet, mysterious, girlish dreams.

CHAPTER IX.

Dorothy’s father, Napoleon Carr, was a man well known and greatly respected throughout the south country where he had always lived. His existence had been a laborious one, for he had entered the lists heavily handicapped in the matter of education. Intellectual enjoyment, dimly realized, had never been his; but he struggled that his family might have a fairer chance. Much of his comfortable income of late years had been generously devoted to the education of his daughter.

He had been happily wedded, though long childless. At length, when Dorothy was born it was at the price of her mother’s life. This was a terrific blow to the husband and father. He was inconsolable with grief. The child was sent to a kinsman for a few months, after which time Mr. Carr felt that he must have her ever with him. To him there was nothing so absorbing as the tender care of Dorothy. He was very prideful of her. He watched her daily growth and then, all at once, while he scarcely realized that the twilight of childhood was passing, the dawn came, and, like the rose vine by his doorway, she burst into bloom.

With what a reverential pride he saw her filling the vacant place, diffusing a fragrance upon all around like the sweet, wet smell of a rose.

He was a splendid horseman and crack shot, and it had been one of his pleasures to teach her to handle horse and gun. Together they would ride and hunt, and no day’s outing was perfect to him unless Dorothy was by his side.

It was not surprising, therefore, to find her a little boyish in her fondness for sport. However, as she grew to womanhood, she sometimes, from a fancy that it was undignified, would decline to take part in these sports. But when he had started off alone with dogs and gun, the sound of running feet behind him would cause him to turn to find Dorothy with penitent face before him. Then lovingly encircling his neck with arms like stripped willow boughs, the repentant words: “I do want to go. I was only in fun,” would be a preface to a long day of delight.

In time these little moods set him thinking, and he began to realize that their beautiful days of sporting comradeship were in a measure over. How he wished she might never outgrow this charm of childhood.

Ah! those baby days, not far past! How often of nights the father went to her bedroom, just touching his child to find out if the covering was right and that she slept well. How many, many times had he leaned over her sleeping form in the dim night light, seeming to see a halo around her head as he watched the dimpling smile about her infant mouth, and, recalling the old nurse saying, that when a baby smiles, angels are whispering to it, took comfort in the thought that maybe it was all true, that the mother was soothing her child to deeper slumber, and so, perhaps, was also beside him. All unconsciously she had slept, never hearing the prayer to God that when the day should come when she would leave him for the man of her heart, death might claim his lone companionship.

How it hurt when the neighbors would says “You have a grown daughter now,” or “Dorothy is a full fledged woman.” It was not until then that Mr. Carr had let his daughter know that it would almost break his heart if she should ever leave him for another. But he made absolutely no restrictions against her meeting young men.

Of course this rare creature had sweethearts not a few, for the neighboring boys began to nourish a tender sentiment for her before she was out of short dresses. Her playmates were free of the house; their coming was always welcome to her and encouraged by her father though this past year, when a new visitor had found his way there, the father took particular note of her manner toward this possible suitor. The kind old eyes would follow her with pathetic eagerness, not reproaching or reproving, only always questioning: “Is this to be the man who shall open the new world’s doors for her; who shall give her the first glimpse of that wonderful joy called love?”

Yet so truly unselfish was her nature,—despite the unlimited indulgences when, visiting in congenial homes where she was petted and admired, full of the intoxication of the social triumphs, she had out of the abundance of her heart exclaimed: “Oh, I am so happy! happy! happy!”—there was sure to follow a time of anxious solicitude, when she asked herself, “But how has it been with him—with dear old father?”

It was so generous of him to spare so much of her society; so good of him to make her orphan way so smooth and fair. She could read in his pictured face something of the loneliness and the disappointments he had borne; something of the heartaches he must have suffered. All this she recalled, the pleasure of it and the pain of it, the pride and joy of it. What a delight it was to make her visit short, and surprise him by returning home before he expected her.

CHAPTER X.

Time went swiftly. The seasons followed each other without that fierceness in them to which one is accustomed in the North. The very frosts were gentle; slowly and kindly they stripped the green robes from tree and thicket, gave ample warning to the robin, linnet and ruby-throat before taking down the leafy hangings and leaving their shelter open to the chill rains of December. The wet kine and horses turned away from the North and stood in slanting rains with bowed heads.

Christmas passed, and New Year. Pretty soon spring was in the valleys, creeping first for shelter shyly, in the pause of the blustering wind that was blowing the last remnants of old winter from the land.

There was a general spreading of dry brush over the spaded farm country; then the sweet, clean smell of its burning and a misty veil of thin blue smoke hanging everywhere throughout the clearing. As soon as the fear of frost was gone, all the air was a fount of freshness. The earth smiled its gladness, and the laughing waters prattled of the kindness of the sun. When the dappled softness of the sky gave some earnest of its mood, a brisk south wind arose and the blessed rain came driving cold, yet most refreshing. At its ceasing, coy leaves peeped out, and the bravest blossoms; the dogwoods, full-flowered, quivered like white butterflies poised to dream. In every wet place the little frogs began to pipe to each other their joy that spring was holding her revel. The heart of the people was not sluggish in its thankfulness to God, for if there were no spring, no seed time, there would be no harvest. Now summer was all back again. Song birds awakening at dawn made the woods merry carolling to mates and younglings in the nests. All nature was in glad, gay earnest. Busy times, corn in blossom rustling in the breeze, blackberries were ripe, morning-glories under foot, the trumpet flower flaring above some naked girdled tree. Open meadows full of sun where the hot bee sucks the clover, the grass tops gather purple, and ox-eyed daisies thrive in wide unshadowed acres.

“Just a year ago since I came to the South,” mused Elliott Harding, as he walked back and forth in his room, the deep bay window of which overlooked a lawn noticeably neat and having a representative character of its own.

As a rule, South country places in thickly settled regions are pronounced unlovely at a glance, either by reason of the plainness of their architecture or by the too close proximity of other buildings. Here was an exception for the outhouses were numerous but in excellent repair and red-tiled like the house itself. The tiles were silvered here and there with the growth and stains of unremoved lichens. There was not an eye-sore anywhere about this quiet home of Mr. Field.

Elliott’s intimates had expressed a pity for him. Surely this quiet must dull his nerves so used to spurring, and he find the jog-trot of the days’ monotony an insupportable experience. That Elliott belonged to the world, loved it, none knew better than himself. He had revelled in its delights with the indifferent thought, “Time enough for fireside happiness by-and-by.” His interest in life had been little more than that which a desire for achievement occasions in an energetic mind.

In spite of his past association, his past carelessness, this moment found him going over the most trivial event that had the slightest connection with Dorothy Carr. He tried to recall every word, every look of hers. Often when he had had a particularly hard day’s work, it rested him to stop and take supper with the Carrs. The sight of their home life fascinated him. He had never known happy family life; he had little conception of what a pure, genial home might be. The simple country customs, the common interests so keenly shared, the home loyalty—all these were new to him, and impressed him forcibly. And how like one of them he had got to feel walking in the front hall often, hanging up his hat, and reading the evening papers if the folks were out, and sometimes when Aunt Chloe told him where Dorothy had gone, he felt the natural inclination to go in pursuit of her. He remembered once finding her ankle deep in the warm lush garden grasses, pulling weeds out from her flowers, and he had actually got down and helped her. That was a very happy hour; the freshness of the sweet air gave her unconventional garb a genuine loveliness—gave him a sense of manliness and mastery which he had not felt in the old life. How infinitely sweet she looked! Something about her neatness, grace and order typified to him that palladium of man’s honor and woman’s affection—the home. She appealed to the heart and that appeal has no year, no period, no fashion.

Daylight was dying now; he looked longingly towards the gray gables, the only indication of the Carr homestead. Afar beyond the range of woodland the day’s great stirrup cup was growing fuller. Up from the slow moving river came a breath of cool air, and beyond the landline quivered the green of its willows. Dusk had fallen—the odorous dusk of the Southland. In the distance somewhere sounds of sweet voices of the negroes singing in the summer dark, their music mingling with the warm wind under the stars. The night with its soft shadings held him—he leaned long against the window and listened.

CHAPTER XI.

“Whar’s dat bucket? Whar’s dat bucket? Here it is done sun up an’ my cows aint milked yit!”

Aunt Chloe floundered round in a hurry, peering among the butter bowls and pans on the bench, in search of her milk bucket.

“I’se ransacked dis place an’ it kyant be paraded,” she said, placing her hands on her ample hips to pant and wonder. Meanwhile she could hear the impatient lowing of the cows and the hungry bleating of the calves from their separate pens. Presently her thick lips broadened into a knowing smile.

“Laws ter gracious! If Miss Dorothy aint kyard my las’ ling’rin basket an’ bucket to dem cherry trees. She ’lowed to beat de birds dar. Do she spec me to milk in my han’? I’m gwine down dar an’ git dat.”

Here she broke off with a second laugh, and with a natural affection in the midst of her hilarity, which had its tender touch with it.

“I’se lyin’! I’d do nuthin’ ob de sort. If she’d wanted me ter climb dem trees myself I’d done it even if I’d knowed I’d fall out and bust my ole haid.”

Again Aunt Chloe looked about her for something which would do service for a milkpail. Out in the sun stood the big cedar churn, just where she had placed it the night before that it might catch the fresh morning air and sunshine. At sight of it she looked relieved.

“Well! dis here doan leak, and aint milk got to go in it arter all?” So shouldering the awkward substitute, she hurried to the “cup pen” with the thought: “Lemme make ’aste an’ git thro’, I’se gwine ter he’p Miss Dorothy put up dem brandy cherries.”

Down in the orchard Dorothy was picking cherries to fill the last bucket whose loss had caused Aunt Chloe’s mind such vexation, and whose substitute—the churn—was now causing her a vast deal more, as the cow refused to recognize any new airs, and so moved away from its vicinity as fast as she set it beside her.

Presently Dorothy heard the sound of a horse’s tread, at the same time a voice called out:

“Oh, little boy, is this the road to Georgetown?”

Elliott Harding had drawn in rein, and was looking up through the leaves.

“How mean of you!” she stammered, her face flushing. “What made you come this way?”

He only laughed, and did not dare admit that Aunt Chloe had been the traitor, but got down, hitched his horse, and went nearer. Dorothy was very lovely as she stood there in the gently swaying tree, one arm holding to a big limb, while the other one was reaching out for a bunch of cherries. Her white sunbonnet with its long streamers swayed over her shoulders. Her plenteous hair, inclined to float, had come unplaited at the ends and fell in shimmering gold waves about her blue gingham dress. Nothing more fragrant with innocent beauty had Elliott ever seen, as her lithe, slim arms let loose their hold to climb down. She was excited and trembling as she put out her hands and took both his strong ones that he might help her to the ground.

“I suppose it is tomboyish to climb trees,” she commenced, in a confused sort of way. “But, the birds eat the cherries almost as fast as they ripen, and I wanted to save some nice ones for your cocktails.”

A look of embarrassment had been deepening in Dorothy’s face. Her voice sounded tearful, and looking at her he saw that her lips quivered and her nostrils dilated, and at once comprehended that the frank confession was prompted by embarrassment rather than gayety. Remembering her diffidence at times with him, he quickly reassured her, feeling brutal for having chaffed her.

“It is all right to climb if you wish,” he said. “I admire your spirit of independence as well as your fearlessness. You are a wholesome-minded girl; you will never be tempted to do anything unbecoming.”

As he stood idly tapping the leaves with his whip, a strange softening came over him against which he strove. He wanted to find some excuse to get on his horse and ride away without another word. He looked off toward the path along which he had come. At the turn of it was Aunt Chloe’s cabin, half hidden by a jungle of vines and stalks of great sunflowers. Festoons of white and purple morning-glories ran over the windows to the sapling porch around which a trellis of gourd vines swung their long-necked, grotesque fruit. Flaming hollyhocks and other bits of brilliant bloom gave evidence of the warm native taste that distinguished the negro of the old regime. The sun flaring with blinding brilliancy against the white-washed fence made him turn back to the shade where he could see only Dorothy’s blue eyes, with just that mingling of love and pain in them; the sweet mouth a little tremulous, the color coming and going in the soft cheeks.

“And a cocktail with the cherry will be perfect.” He had almost forgotten to take up the conversation where she had left off. “But your dear labor has brought a questionable reward. You will remember the cherry was the one thing lacking to make me yours?”

“Oh, yes!” her face lightening with a sudden recollection. “Now you do belong to us.”

“If ‘us’ means you, I grant you that I have been fairly and squarely won.”

Dropping his whip, Elliott leaned over and took Dorothy’s face between his hands bringing it close to his own, their hearts and lips together for one delicious moment.

“Dorothy, we belong to each other,” he said, gazing straight into her eyes.

She had been beautiful to him always, but loveliest now with the look of love thrilling her as he felt her tapering wrists close around his neck.

“It seems as though I have loved you all my life, Elliott.”

“Oh, if in loving me, the sweetness of you, the youth, the happiness should be wasted! Shall I always make you happy, I often ask myself. I want to know this, Dorothy, for I hope to make you my wife.”