The Jucklins Part 4

Alf was still asleep when I arose from my bed the next morning. I stood at the head of the stairs and looked back at his handsome, though sun-browned face, and I felt a strange and strong sympathy for him, but I had not begun to agonize in my love; it was so new that I was dazzled.

When I went down stairs Guinea was feeding the chickens from the kitchen window, and the old man was walking about the yard, with his slouch hat pulled down to shut out the slanting glare of the sun. But he saw me and, calling me, said that he would now show me his beauties. And just then I heard Guinea's voice: "If he starts to make them fight you come right away and leave him, Mr. Hawes," she said. "We don't allow him to fight them on Sunday."

"Miss Smartjacket," the old man spoke up, "I hadn't said a word about makin' 'em fight. Hawes, these women folks don't want a man to have no fun at all. As long as a man is at work it's all right with the women; they can stand to see him delve till he drops, but the minit he wants to have a little fun, why, they begin to mowl about it. Of course, I'm not goin' to let 'em fight on Sunday. But a preacher would eat one of 'em on Sunday. All days belong to 'em. It's die dog or eat the hatchet when they come round. And yet, as I tell you, I believe in the Book from kiver to kiver. Step out here, Hawes."

I thought that I received from Guinea a smile of a.s.sent, and I followed him. The enclosure wherein he kept his chickens was almost as strong as a "stockade." The old man unfastened a padlock and bade me enter. I stepped inside, and when the master had followed me he was greeted with many a cluck and scratching, the welcome of two game c.o.c.ks in a wire coop, divided into two apartments by a solid board part.i.tion. "I jest wanted you to look at 'em and size 'em merely for your own satisfaction," said the old man, fondly looking upon his s.h.i.+mmering pets. "This red one over here is Sam, and that dominecker rascal is Bob.

Ah, Lord, you don't know what comfort there is in a chicken, and how a preacher can eat a game rooster is beyond my understandin'. But I'm with him, you understand, from kiver to kiver. Keep quiet there, boys; no fight to-day. Must have some respect, you know."

He took a grain of corn from his pocket, placed it between his teeth, and with a grin on his face got down on his knees and held his mouth near the bars of Sam's cage. The rooster plucked out the grain of corn, and Bob, watching the performance, began to prance about in jealous rage. "Never you mind, Bob," said the old man, getting up and dusting his knees. "I know your tricks. Held one out to you that way not long ago, and I wish I may never stir agin if you didn't take a crack at my eye, and if I hadn't ducked I'd be one-eyed right now. But they are callin' us to breakfust. Bound to interfere with a man one way or another."

It was with great care that Alf prepared himself to go with me to the General's house. Out under a tree in the yard he placed a mirror on a chair and there he sat and shaved himself. Then he went upstairs to put on a suit of clothes which never had been worn, and anon I heard him calling his mother to help him find b.u.t.tons and neckwear that had been misplaced. And he shouted to me not to be impatient, that he was doing the best he could. Impatient! I was sitting in the pa.s.sage, leaning back against the wall, and near the steps Guinea stood, looking far out over the ravine. She had donned a garb of bright calico, with long, green-stemmed flowers stamped upon it, and I thought that of all the dresses I had ever beheld this was the most beautiful and becoming. She hummed a tune and looking about pretended to be surprised to see me sitting there, and for aught I know the astonishment might have been real, for I had made no noise in placing my chair against the wall.

"I ought not to be humming a dance tune on Sunday," she said, stepping back and standing against the opposite wall, with her hands behind her.

"I don't see how the day can make music harmful," I replied.

"The day can't make music harmful," she rejoined. "But I can't sing.

Sometimes when I can't express what I am thinking about I hum it. How long are you and Alf going to be away?"

"As long as it suits him," I answered. "I have decided to have no voice as to the length of our stay."

"Then you are simply going to accommodate him. How kind of you. And have you always so much consideration for others? If you have you may find your patience strained if you stay here."

"To stand any strain that may be placed upon our patience is a virtue,"

I remarked--sententious pedagogue--and she lifted her hands, clasped them behind her head, looked at me and laughed, a music sweet and low.

Just then Alf came out upon the pa.s.sage, looking down at himself, first one side and then the other; and it was with a feeling of close kins.h.i.+p to envy that I regarded his new clothes. He apologized for having kept me waiting so long, but in truth I could have told him that I should have liked to wait there for hours, looking at the graceful figure of that girl, standing with her hands clasped behind her brown head.

The distance was not great and we had decided to walk, and across a meadow, purpling with coming bloom, we took a nearer way. I said to Alf that one might think that he was a stranger at the General's house, and he replied: "In one way I am. I have been there many a time, it is true, but always to help do something."

"Is the family so exclusive, then?" I asked.

"Oh, they are as friendly as any people you ever saw, but, of course, I naturally place them high above me. The old General doesn't appear to know that I have grown to be a man; always talks to me as if I were a boy--wants to know what father's doing and all that sort of thing. He doesn't give a snap what father's doing."

"And the girl. How does she talk to you?" It was several moments before he answered me.

"I was just trying to think," he said. "To tell you the truth, I don't know how she talks to me. I can't recall anything she has ever said to me. She calls me Alf and I call her Miss Millie, and we laugh at some fool thing and that's about all there is to it. But I know that the old man would never be willing for me to marry her. He is looking pretty high for her or he wouldn't have spent so much money on her education."

"But, of course, the girl will have something to say," I suggested.

"I don't know as to that," he replied; "but, of course, I hope so. You can't tell about girls--at least, I can't. The old General married rather late in life and has but two children. His wife died several years ago. Chydister, the boy, or, rather, the man--for he's about my age--is off at a medical college. He doesn't strike me as being so alfired smart, but they say that he's got learning away up in G. The old man says that he is going to make him the best doctor in the whole country, if colleges can do it, and I reckon they can. He and I have always got along pretty well; he used to stay at our house a good deal."

We crossed the creek, by leaping from one stone to another, and pursued a course along a rotting rail fence, covered with vines. And from over in the low ground came the "sqush" of the cows as they strode through the rank and sappy clover. We crossed a hill whereon stood a deserted negro "quarter"--the moldering mark of a life that is now dreamy and afar off--and after crossing another valley slowly ascended the rounding bulge of ground, capped by the home of the General. Alf had begun to falter and hang back, and when I sought gently to encourage him he remarked: "But you must remember that this is the first time that I have ever been here with new clothes on, and I want to tell you that this makes a big difference."

"It has been some time since I went anywhere with new clothes on," I replied, which set him laughing; but his merriment was shut off when I opened the gate. Behind the house, where the ground sloped toward the orchard, there were a number of cabins, old, but not deserted, for negro children were playing about the doors and from somewhere within came the low drone of a half-religious, half-cornshucking melody. An old dog got up from under a tree, but, repenting of the exertion, lay down again; a turkey loudly gobbled, a peac.o.c.k croaked, and a tall, bulky, old man came out upon the porch.

"Walk right in," he called, and shouting back into the hallway he commanded some one to bring out three chairs. And even before we had ascended the stone steps the command had been obeyed by a negro boy.

"Glad to meet you, sir," he said when Alf had introduced me. "You have come to teach the school, I believe. Old man Perdue was over and told me about it. Sit down. What's your father doing, Alf?"

"Can't do anything to-day," Alf answered, glancing at me.

"I suppose not. All the folks well? Glad to hear it," he added before Alf could answer him. "It's been pretty wet, but it's drying up all right."

He wore a dressing gown, befigured with purple gourds, was bare-headed and I thought that he wore a wig, for his hair was thick and was curled under at the back of his neck. His face, closely shaved, was full and red; his lips were thick and his mouth was large. I could see that he was of immense importance, a dominant spirit of the Old South, and my reading told me that his leading ancestor had come to America as the master of a Virginia plantation.

"Henry!" the old General called. "Fetch me my pipe. Henry!"

"Comin'," a voice cried from within. His pipe was brought and when it had been lighted with a coal which Henry carried in the palm of his hand, rolling it about from side to side, the General puffed for a few moments and then, looking at me, asked if I found school-teaching to be a very profitable employment.

"The money part of it has been but of minor consideration," I answered.

"My aim is to become a lawyer, and I am teaching school to help me toward that end."

He cleared his throat with a loud rasp. "I remember," said he, "that a man came here once from the North with pretty much the same idea. It was before the war. We got him up a school, and by the black ooze in the veins of old Satan, it wasn't long before he was trying to persuade the negroes to run away from us. I had a feather bed that wasn't in use at the time, and old Mills over here had a first-rate article of tar on hand, and when we got through with the gentleman he looked like an arctic explorer. Where are you from, sir?"

I told him, and then he asked: "The name is all right, and the location is good. My oldest brother knew a Captain Hawes in the Creek war."

"He was my grandfather," I replied. He looked at me, still pulling at his pipe, and said: "Then, sir, I am, indeed, glad to see you. Alf, what's your father doing?"

"Nothing, sir; it's Sunday," Alf answered, blus.h.i.+ng. The old General looked at him, cleared his throat and said: "Yes, yes. Folks all well?"

I heard the door open and close and I saw Alf move, even as his father had moved when he came upon me in the road. I heard light foot-falls in the hall, and then out stepped a girl. She smiled and nodded at Alf and the General introduced me to her. Alf got up, almost tumbled out of his chair and asked her to sit down. "Oh, no, keep your seat," she said.

"I'm not going to stay but a minute." She walked over to a post and, leaning against it, turned and looked back at us. She wore a flower in her hair, and in her hand she held a calacanthus bud. She was rather small, with a petulant sort of beauty, but I did not think that she could be compared with Guinea, for all of Alf's raving over her. Her cheeks were dimpled, and well she knew it, for she smiled whenever anything was said, and when no word had been spoken she smiled at the silence.

"Alf, what has become of Guinea?" she asked. "It seems an age since I saw her."

"She was over here last, I think," Alf answered.

"Ahem--m--" came from the General. "You'll be counting meals on each other, like the Yankees, after a while," he said. "Why don't you quit your foolishness; and if you want to see each other, go and see. I don't know what your feelings are in the matter, sir," he added, turning to me, "but I don't see much good in this so-called public school system.

And of all worthless things under heaven it is a negro that has caught up a smattering of education. G.o.d knows he's trifling enough at best, but teach him to read and he's utterly worthless. I sent a negro to the postoffice some time ago, and he came along back with my newspaper spread out before him, reading it on the horse. And if it hadn't been for Millie I would have ripped the hide off him."

"He didn't know any better," the girl spoke up. "Poor thing, you scared him nearly to death."

"Yes, and I immediately gave him the best coat I had to square myself, not with him, but with myself," said the old man. "But I hold that if the negro, or anyone else, for that matter, is to be a servant, let him be a servant. I don't want a man to plow for me simply because he can read. Confound him, I don't care whether he can read or not. I want him to plow. When I choose my friends it is another matter. Your father go to church to-day, Alf?"

"I don't know, sir," Alf answered, moving about in his chair, and then in his embarra.s.sment he got up and stammeringly begged the girl to sit down.

"Why, what's all this trouble and nonsense about," the General asked, looking first at the girl and then at Alf. "'Od zounds, there oughtn't to be any trouble about a chair. Fifty of them back in there."

Alf dropped back and the girl laughed with such genuine heartiness that I thought much better of her, but still I did not think that she was at all to be compared with Guinea. The General yelled for Henry to bring him another coal, and when his pipe had been relighted he turned to me and said: "You don't find the old North State as she once was, sir. Ah, Lord, the ruin that has gone on in this world since I can remember. And yet they say we are becoming more civilized. Zounds, sir, do you call it civilization to see hundreds of fields turned out to persimmon bushes and broom sedge? Look over there," he added, waving his hand. "I have seen the time when that was almost a garden. What do you want?" The last remark was addressed to the negro boy who had suddenly appeared.

"Dinner? Yes, yes. Come, Mr. Hawes, and you, Alf. This way. Get out!" A dog had come between him and the door. "Devilish dogs are about to take the place, but they are no account, not one of them. Lie around here and let the rabbits eat up the pea vines. Even the dogs have degenerated along with everything else."

I walked with the General, and, looking back, I was pleased to see that Alf had summoned courage enough to follow along beside the girl. We were shown into a long dining-room, with a great height of ceiling. The house had been built in a proud old day, and all about me I noted a dim and faded elegance. The General bade us sit down, and I noticed that his tone was softened. He mumbled a blessing over a great hunk of mutton and, broadly smiling upon me, told me that he was glad to welcome me to his board. "The school-teacher," said he, "modifies and refines our native crudeness. Yes, sir, you have a great work, a work that you may be proud of. Had education more broadly prevailed, had the people North and South better understood one another, there would have been no b.l.o.o.d.y disruption. Now, gentlemen, I must request you to help yourselves, remembering that such as I have is freely yours. When age comes on apace there is nothing more inspiring than to see the young and the vigorous gathered about us. And it is thus that the evening of live is brightened. Henry, pa.s.s the bread to Mr. Jucklin, and the peas, the very first of this backward season, I a.s.sure you. Mr. Hawes, can you recall the face of your n.o.ble grandfather?"

"No, General; he died many years before I can remember."

"A pity, I a.s.sure you, for what is more spurring to our ambition than to recall the features of a noted relative. Some of this lettuce, Mr.

Hawes? A sleepy, but withal a soothing, dish. My daughter, I must request you to help yourself. Charming weather we have, Mr. Hawes, with the essence of youth and hope in the air."

How completely had his manner changed. His eyes, which had seemed hard and cold when he had waved his hand and looked out over the yellow sedge gra.s.s, were beaming now with kindly light, and his voice, which I had thought was coa.r.s.e and gruff, was vibrant with notes of stirring sympathy. Alf, heartened by the old gentleman's streaming courtesy, spoke a low word to the girl who sat beside him, and she nodded, smiling, but with one ear politely lent to the familiar talk of her father.