Colonel Carter of Cartersville Part 7

"Marsa John? No, sah. He laughed loud as anybody; an' den dat night he says to me as I was puttin' some wood on de fire:--

"'Chad, where did dat leg go?' An' so I ups an' tells him all about Henny, an' how I was lyin' 'cause I was 'feared de gal would git hurt, an' how she was on'y a-foolin', thinkin' it was my goose; an' den de ole marsa look in de fire for a long time, an' den he says:--

"'Dat's Colonel Barbour's Henny, ain't it, Chad?'

"'Yes,' marsa, says I.

"Well, de next mawnin' he had his black horse saddled, an' I held the stirrup for him to git on, an' he rode ober to de Barbour plantation, an' didn't come back till plumb black night. When he come up I held de lantern so I could see his face, for I wa'n't easy in my mine all day. But it was all bright an' s.h.i.+nin' same as a' angel's.

"'Chad,' he says, handin' me de reins, 'I bought yo' Henny dis arternoon from Colonel Barbour, an' she's comin' ober tomorrow, an' you can bofe git married next Sunday.'"

A cheerful voice at the yard door, and the next moment the colonel was stamping his feet on the hall mat, his first word to Chad an inquiry after my comfort, and his second an apology to me for what he called his brutal want of hospitality.

"But I couldn't help it, Major. I had some letters, suh, that could not be postponed. Has Chad taken good care of you? No dinner, Chad; I dined down town. How is the Madeira, Major?"

I expressed my entire approbation of the wine, and was about to fill the colonel's gla.s.s when Chad leaned over with the same anxious look in his face.

"De grocerman was here, Colonel, an' lef' word dat he was comin' agin later."

"You don't say so, Chad, and I was out: most unfortunate occurrence!

When he calls again show him in at once. It will give me great pleasure to see him."

Then turning to me, his mind on the pa.s.sbook and its empty pages,--"I'll lay a wager, Major, that man's father was a gentleman. The fact is, I have not treated him with proper respect. He has shown me every courtesy since I have been here, and I am ashamed to say that I have not once entered his doors. His calling twice in one evening touches me deeply. I did not expect to find yo' tradespeople so polite."

Chad's face was a study while his master spoke, but he was too well trained, and still too anxious over the outcome of the expected interview, to do more than bow obsequiously to the colonel,--his invariable custom when receiving an order,--and to close the door behind him.

"That old servant," continued the colonel, watching Chad leave the room, and drawing his chair nearer the fire, "has been in my fam'ly ever since he was bawn. But for him and his old wife, Mammy Henny, I would be homeless to-night." And then the colonel, with that soft cadence in his voice which I always noticed when he spoke of something that touched his heart, told me with evident feeling how, in every crisis of fire, pillage, and raid, these two faithful souls had kept unceasing watch about the old house; refastening the wrenched doors, replacing the shattered shutters, or extinguis.h.i.+ng the embers of abandoned bivouac fires. Indeed, for months at a time they were its only occupants, outside of strolling marauders and bands of foragers, and but for their untiring devotion its tall chimneys would long since have stood like tombstones over the grave of its ashes. Then he added, with a break in his voice that told how deeply he felt it:--

"Do you know, Major, that when I was a prisoner at City Point that darky tramped a hundred miles through the coast swamps to reach me, crossed both lines twice, hung around for three months for his chance, and has carried in his leg ever since the ball intended for me the night I escaped in his clothes, and he was shot in mine.

"I tell you, suh, the color of a man's skin don't make much diffe'ence sometimes. Chad was bawn a gentleman, and he'll never get over it."

As he was speaking, the object of his eulogy opened the hall door, and the next instant a tall, red-headed man with closely trimmed side-whiskers, and wearing a brown check suit and a blue necktie, ran the gauntlet of Chad's profound but anxious bow, and advanced towards the colonel, hat in hand.

"Which is Mr. Carter?"

The colonel arose gracefully. "I am Colonel Carter, suh, and I presume you are the gentleman to whom I am indebted for so many courtesies.

My servant tells me that you called earlier in the evenin'. I regret, suh, that I was detained so late at my office, and I have to thank you for perseve'in' the second time. I a.s.sure you, suh, that I esteem it a special honor."

The tall gentleman with the auburn whiskers wiped his face with a handkerchief, which he took from his hat, and stated with some timidity that he hoped he did not intrude at that late hour. He had sent his pa.s.s-book, and--

"I have looked it over, suh, repeatedly, with the greatest pleasure.

It is a custom new to us in my county, but it meets with my hearty approval. Give yo' hat to my servant, suh, and take this seat by the fire."

The proprietor of the hat after some protestations suffered Chad to bear away that grateful protection to his slightly bald head,--retaining his handkerchief, which he finally rolled up into a little wad and kept tightly clenched in the perspiring palm of his left hand,--and then threw out the additional hope that everything was satisfactory.

"Delicious, suh; I have not tasted such Madeira since the wah. In my cellar at home, suh, I once had some old Madeira of '28 that was given to my father, the late General John Caarter, by old Judge Thornton.

You, of course, know that wine, suh. Ah! I see that you do."

And then followed one of the colonel's delightful monologues descriptive of all the vintages of that year, the colonel constantly appealing to the dazed and delighted grocerman to be set right in minor technical matters,--the grocer understanding them as little as he did the Aztec dialects,--the colonel himself supplying the needed data and then thanking the auburn gentleman for the information so charmingly that for the moment that worthy tradesman began to wonder why he had not long before risen from the commonplace level of canned vegetables to the more sublime plane of wines in the wood.

"Now the Madeira you sent me this mornin', suh, is a trifle too fruity for my taste. Chad, open a fresh bottle."

The owner of the pa.s.s-book instantly detected a very decided fruity flavor, but thought he had another wine, which he would send in the morning, that might suit the colonel's palate better.

The colonel thanked him, and then drifted into the wider field of domestic delicacies,--the preserving of fruits, the making of pickles as practiced on the plantations by the old Virginia cooks,--the colonel waxing eloquent over each production, and the future wine merchant becoming more and more enchanted as the colonel flowed on.

When he rose to go the grocer had a mental list of the things he would send the colonel in the morning all arranged in his commercial head, and so great was his delight that, after shaking hands with me once and with the colonel three times, he would also have extended that courtesy to Chad had not that perfectly trained servant checkmated him by filling his extended palm with the rim of his own hat.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

When Chad returned from bowing him through the tunnel, the lines in his face a tangle of emotions, the colonel was standing on the mat, in his favorite att.i.tude--back to the fire, coat thrown open, thumbs in his armholes, his outstretched fingers beating woodp.e.c.k.e.r tattoos on his vest.

Somehow the visit of the grocer had lifted him out of the cares of the day. How, he could not tell. Perhaps it was the fragrance of the Madeira; perhaps the respectful, overawed bow,--the bow of the tradesman the world over to the landed proprietor,--restoring to him for one brief moment that old feudal supremacy which above all else his soul loved. Perhaps it was only the warmth and cheer and comfort of it all.

Whatever it was, it buoyed and strengthened him. He was again in the old dining-hall at home: the servants moving noiselessly about; the cut-gla.s.s decanters reflected in the polished mahogany; the candles lighted; his old, white-haired father, in his high-backed chair, sipping his wine from the slender gla.s.s.

Ah, the proud estate of the old plantation days! Would they ever be his again?

CHAPTER IV

_The Arrival of a True Southern Lady_

"Mistress yer, sah! Come yistidd'y mawnin'."

How Chad beamed all over when this simple statement fell from his lips!

I had not seen him since the night when he stood behind my chair and with bated breath whispered his anxieties lest the second advent of "de grocerman" should bring dire destruction to the colonel's household.

To-day he looked ten years younger. His kinky gray hair, generally knotted into little wads, was now divided by a well-defined path starting from the great wrinkle in his forehead and ending in a dense tangle of underbrush that no comb dared penetrate. His face glistened all over. His mouth was wide open, showing a great cavity in which each tooth seemed to dance with delight. His jacket was as white and stiff as soap and starch could make it, while a cast-off cravat of the colonel's--double starched to suit Chad's own ideas of propriety--was tied in a single knot, the two ends reaching to the very edge of each ear. To crown all, a red carnation flamed away on the lapel of his jacket, just above an outside pocket, which held in check a pair of white cotton gloves bulging with importance and eager for use. Every time he bowed he touched with a sweep both sides of the narrow hall.

It was the first time in some weeks that I had seen the interior of the colonel's cozy dining-room by daylight. Of late my visits had been made after dark, with drawn curtains, lighted candles, and roaring wood fires. But this time it was in the morning,--and a bright, sunny, lovely spring morning at that,--with one window open in the L and the curtains drawn back from the other; with the honeysuckle beginning to bud, its long runners twisting themselves inquiringly through the half-closed shutters as if anxious to discover what all this bustle inside was about.

It was easy to see that some other touch besides that of the colonel and his faithful man-of-all-work had left its impress in the bachelor apartment. There was a general air of order apparent. The irregular line of foot gear which decorated the washboard of one wall, beginning with a pair of worsted slippers and ending with a wooden bootjack, was gone. Whisk-brooms and dusters that had never known a restful nail since they entered the colonel's service were now suspended peacefully on convenient hooks. Dainty white curtains, gathered like a child's frock, flapped lazily against the broken green blinds, while some sprays of arbutus, plucked by Miss Nancy on her way to the railroad station, drooped about a tall gla.s.s on the mantel.

Chad had solved the mystery,--Aunt Nancy came yesterday.

I found the table set for four, its chief feature being a tray bearing a heap of eggsh.e.l.l cups and saucers I had not seen before, and an old-fas.h.i.+oned tea-urn humming a tune all to itself.

"De colonel's out, but he comin' back d'rektly," Chad said eagerly, all out of breath with excitement. Then followed the information that Mr. Fitzpatrick was coming to breakfast, and that he was to tell Miss Nancy the moment we arrived. He then reduced the bulge in his outside pocket by thrusting his big hands into his white gloves, gave a sidelong glance at the flower in his b.u.t.tonhole, and bore my card aloft with the air of a cupbearer serving a princess.

A soft step on the stair, the rustle of silk, a warning word outside: "Look out for dat lower step, mistress--dat's it;" and Miss Nancy entered the room.

No, I am wrong. She became a part of it; as much so as the old andirons and the easy chairs and the old-fas.h.i.+oned mantelpieces, the snowy curtains and the trailing vine. More so when she gave me the slightest dip of a courtesy and laid her dainty, wrinkled little hand in mine, and said in the sweetest possible voice how glad she was to see me after so many years, and how grateful she felt for all my kindness to the dear colonel. Then she sank into a quaint rocking-chair that Chad had brought down behind her, rested her feet on a low stool that mysteriously appeared from under the table, and took her knitting from her reticule.