The Open Question Part 7

"State?"

"Yes, Georgia or Alabama?"

"No, mehm. It was Keziah wus f'om Alabammy."

"What is your name?"

"Yellah Sal."

She squirmed with an elephantine coquetry.

"Your last name?"

"Las'?"

"Are you married?"

"Huh! Yes, mehm," she chuckled.

"What was your husband's name?"

"W'ich husbin?"

"Have you been married more than once?"

"Huh! Yes, mehm." She bridled and twisted. "Six or seben times."

"As Vice-President," said a white-haired woman, standing up suddenly near the desk, "I suggest that it would be a more practical investment of our time if we confine ourselves to finding out what the candidates could do."

"Do you wish me to register this woman as Yellow Sal?" inquired the President, severely.

"Put her down as Sarah Yellow," advised the Vice-President, and resumed her seat.

This pa.s.sage seemed to unhinge the candidate. The question of what she could do found her relapsed into speechlessness. Even its repet.i.tion elicited only twistings and spasmodic grins.

"Come, come," said the President, wearily. "You are a strong, able-bodied woman; you at least can do a good day's work at something.

Now, the question is, what?"

Yellow Sal only moved her ma.s.sive shoulders with an air of conscious power.

"Did you cook?"

"_Cook?_ No, mehm."

She smiled in a superior fas.h.i.+on.

"What then?"

She twisted a piece of her calico gown.

"Were you the laundress?"

"_Me?_ No, mehm. Bet an' Sabina done de was.h.i.+n'."

"Well, and you? Were you nurse?"

The down-trodden one shook her head.

"Nebber could abide chillen."

"Well, what _did_ you do?"

The President leaned in a threatening att.i.tude over the desk.

"Huh! Me, mehm? _Me_--w'y," speaking soothingly, "Lor bress yo' soul, mehm, I done kep' de flies off'n ole missis."

Miss Hannah's hope of the possible good effects of the meeting upon her guest was more than justified. Mrs. Gano returned to Ashburton Place in a distinctly cheerful frame of mind.

Whether Mr. Tallmadge, too, had begun the day with vows of peace, he certainly bore himself towards his unwelcome visitor with no little consideration and courtesy. Mrs. Gano was forced to admit to herself a growing respect, an unwilling admiration even, for her old enemy. The only outward and visible sign of this change of heart was made manifest after the departure of the one other visitor that evening brought to Ashburton Place. Mr. Tallmadge had not only prevented Mr. Garrison from speaking of the war, but he had headed the conversation off every time it approached any topic of the day that bore upon the South. When the door closed behind him Mrs. Gano turned to her host and said, formally:

"I appreciate your desire not to have these questions raised in my presence; but I see that in one regard you misapprehend me. I agree with your visitor as to the undesirability of slavery."

"You, madam?"

She bowed.

"My objection is almost solely on the score of its evil effects on the superior race. Still, slavery was an inst.i.tution we had inherited, and in which our social and industrial life was rooted. One part of a free country had no right to dictate to another part. The South would have freed her slaves herself in due time."

Mr. Tallmadge was unable to repress an incredulous smile.

"Slaves were once held in the North," his guest reminded him, drawing herself up. "If the African had been able to live in this terrible climate, New England would not so soon have seen the iniquity of slavery. The South, on wider grounds, was coming to the same conclusion. The war only precipitated with bloodshed and disaster that which, if left to right itself, would have been done without such awful squandering of blood and gold."

Mr. Tallmadge shook his head.

"I cannot agree with you, madam. Violent uprooting is the only way to clear the ground of certain noxious growths."

"Ah, you think you've cleared the ground--by inflicting the duties of citizens.h.i.+p all in an instant upon a barbarian horde? You are more of an optimist even than your friends."

"What friends are you quoting?"

"Your Harriet Beecher Stowe, for instance. Even in the full tide of her romantic enthusiasm she can find no better use for the idealized ex-slave than to s.h.i.+p him to Liberia. This, too, after educating him--sending him for four years to a French university." She smiled.

"But since you and I may not meet again, all I wish to point out before I go is that you need not count me as an advocate of slavery."

She rose.

"Before you go?" he began, hesitating.