Chapter IX: Part 9

The white mysteries of the wash-kettle were by this time thickly veiled by a snowy cloud of steam. Its contents, boiling furiously, lifted big bubbles dangerously close to the dry, hot edge of the great black kettle. Miss Judy gingerly took up the wet stick which Merica had laid down, and timidly tried to push the bubbles away; but the harder her weak little hand pushed, the higher and bigger the bubbles arose. Frightened, and not knowing what else to do, Miss Judy knelt beside the steaming caldron, looking amid the smoke and steam like some pretty little witch working some good incantation, and tremblingly drew one of the blazing brands from beneath the kettle. As she moved the brand, a fountain of sparks from it shot upward, to come showering down, and one of these fell upon the biggest and whitest of the bubbles. Miss Judy saw this as it settled, and, although the kettle's contents were an indistinguishable, foaming mass, she knew instinctively that it was not one of Miss Sophia's or one of her own garments, which had been burned. She sank down on Merica's stool, near the gray border of spice pinks, with her limbs shaking so that she could not stand, and her heart beating as it had never beaten before or since the night of the fright. When she could move to get up, she crept over to the kettle and firmly pushed the black spot out of sight. But she said nothing to Merica about it, when the maid returned, more sour and sullen than she had gone away. In silence and dejection Miss Judy went back to the house, and tried to think what was best to do. Ordinarily she turned to Miss Sophia for advice in trouble or perplexity, resting with perfect trust upon the counsel which she thought she received. But this serious accident, which must distress her sister, she now locked in her own bosom. Had Lynn Gordon's shirts been ordinary shirts she felt that the matter would have been very much simpler. By severer economy, she thought that she might possibly have been able to buy him a new garment; although it was hard even for Miss Judy to see how the economy which they practised could be severer than it always was. But the little pension for their father's military services would not be due for another six months, and, moreover, Miss Judy would not have known where or how to get the costly, mysterious garment had she had the money, or how to find the fine tucks and the finer embroidery, which she had admired so greatly, though secretly, of course. She knew how fine the needle-work was, because she herself had been an expert needle-woman in the days when her blue eyes were stronger. For a moment a wild hope of copying the burned shirt, of working the same little rim of delicate tracery around the button holes, darted thrillingly across her troubled mind; but in another instant it was dismissed--wholly gone--with a sigh. She remembered, blushingly, that she had once heard Sidney say that the Queen of Sheba could not make a shirt that the King of Sheba would wear. Miss Judy did not remember ever having read in the Scriptures anything about the King of Sheba, but she had confidence in Sidney's opinions of a good many matters which she felt herself to be no judge of. No, there was plainly nothing to be done, except to darn the hole as neatly as possible, and to tell Lynn the simple truth. Luckily, Miss Judy had reason to believe that the injury had not been to the splendid, embroidered, tucked, and ruffled bosom. She blushed again more vividly--and then she turned very white as a sudden thought stabbed her like a dagger. Ah, the poor little heart! It was fluttering indeed now, and beating its soft wings like a caged wild bird.

The effect of the accident upon Doris's prospects--that was the dread which suddenly struck terror to Miss Judy's heart! What would the young gentleman and his worldly, critical grandmother think, when they thus knew that she and Miss Sophia were aware of what was going on behind the gooseberry bushes? Up to this crisis the means by which Merica earned the larger portion of her wages had seemed so distinctly apart from Miss Judy's own affairs, that she had felt no personal concern about it, beyond an occasional and passing embarrassment. Now, however, the matter became, all at once, widely different. How could she offer Doris the disrespect of making an explanation? Come what would that must be avoided, for Doris's dear sake, let the cost be what it may. A few gentle tears trickled down Miss Judy's cheeks as she sat patiently darning Miss Sophia's stockings, while the latter rocked and nodded, observing nothing unusual.

Many fanciful, impractical schemes flitted through Miss Judy's mind, rather sadly at first, but gradually turning toward her natural hopefulness. The end of her thoughts now, as always, was self-sacrifice, and the sparing of others, her sister and Doris above all. If the worst came to the worst, she could get the doctor to buy a new garment; he would know what to get and where to get it,--he would even loan her the money if she were forced to borrow. Meantime, with innate optimism, she was hoping for the best, relying upon being able to mend the burned hole, which might not be so large or so black, after all. Miss Judy's cheerful spirit could no more be held down by ill luck than an unweighted cork can be kept under water. When she laid her little head beside Miss Sophia's that night, her brain was still busily turning ways and means. If the severest economy became necessary, her sister still need not know. Once before (when their father's funeral expenses were to be met), she had been entirely successful in keeping the straits to which they were reduced from Miss Sophia's knowledge. Fortunately that hard time had come in the winter, and a turkey sent them by Colonel Fielding as a Christmas present stayed hard frozen, except as it was cooked, a piece at a time, for Miss Sophia, till the whole immense turkey had been eaten in sections by that unsuspecting lady. Miss Judy chuckled in triumph, lying there in the darkness, remembering how artful she had been in keeping Miss Sophia from observing that she herself had not tasted the turkey, and of her deep diplomacy in merely allowing Miss Sophia to think it a fresh one, every now and then, without telling an actual fib. It was warm weather now, to be sure, which made a difference--and poor Colonel Fielding could send no more presents, but the way would open nevertheless, somehow; dear Miss Judy was always sure that the way would open. No matter how severely they might have to economize in order to spare Doris a great mortification, Miss Sophia need not be deprived of her few comforts. And it was for this, to spare her sister, that Miss Judy resolved to remain silent, much as she valued Miss Sophia's advice. In the darkness of the big old room a little thin hand reached out and softly patted Miss Sophia's broad back with a protecting tenderness, full of the true mother-love.

At midnight Miss Judy arose, and creeping cautiously from her sister's side, noiselessly crossed the big, dark room, a ghostly little white figure. It was not hard to find her thimble, needles and thread, and her father's near-by spectacles, even in the darkness, since everything in that orderly old house was always in the same place; and when she had found them, she softly took up the candle and matches from the chair beside the pillow, and with her trembling hands thus filled, she stole across the passage toward the parlor. She opened the door as stealthily as any expert burglar, and closed it behind her without the faintest creak. Then, softly putting down the other things, she lighted the candle, and shading it with a shaking hand, looked around for the basket of rough-dry clothes, which, for privacy more than for any other reason, was always put in the parlor over night between washing and ironing. The stiffness with which some of the well-starched garments asserted themselves rather daunted Miss Judy when she first caught sight of them. Nevertheless, she went resolutely on, and soon found what she sought. She blushed as she gingerly drew it from among the rest, the delicate color tinting her whole sweet face, from its pretty chin to its silver frame of flossy curls. Turning the shirt over, she gave an unconscious sigh of relief to find how small the burned place really was. Burned it was, however, and she threaded her smallest needle with her finest thread and set about darning it then and there, with infinite patience and exquisite skill. As she worked, sitting on a low footstool beside the great basket, with the candle flickering upon a chair (such a pretty, pathetic little figure!) her thread involuntarily wrought delicate embroidery. While she thus wrought, she wished that she knew where gentlemen usually had their monograms embroidered on garments of this description. She could not remember ever having seen any on her father's--and she had never seen anybody else's, she remembered, suddenly blushing again. Yet she could not help feeling a little bashful pride in her handiwork. She even held it up and looked at it critically, with her curly head in its quaint little nightcap on one side,--like a bird listening to its own song,--before putting the garment back in the basket exactly where she had found it, as a measure of precaution against Merica's observing any change and gossiping about it. Every care must be taken on Doris's account. And then this being secure, Miss Judy blew out the candle and stole like a shadow back to her place by her sleeping sister, and lay down with a last sigh of relief; feeling to have done the best she could for her, for Doris, and for Lynn. She did not think of herself.

With her mind thus temporarily at rest, she soon fell asleep and dreamed a radiant vision of Doris. There was some new and wondrous glory around the girl's beautiful head, but Miss Judy could not make out what it was, though she gazed through the sweet mist of her soft dream with all her loving heart in her eager eyes. There also seemed to be some wonderful little white thing in Doris's lovely arms, resting on her breast as a bud rests against a rose; and as the light shone brighter and brighter over the rose-clouds of the silvery dream, Miss Judy saw that the rays about the girl's head were the aureole of motherhood.

"How strange our dreams are," she said to Miss Sophia, smiling and blushing, while they were engaged in the usual polite conversation over their frugal breakfast. "We dream of things we never thought of."

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, who never dreamt at all unless she had the nightmare.

But the feeling of causeless happiness with which Miss Judy awakened on that morning passed by degrees into a renewed sense of uneasiness. The sound of Merica's irons banging in the kitchen appeared to arouse scruples which had merely slumbered through the night. Was it, after all, ever right to do wrong to one person in order to benefit another, even though the injured might never know of the injury? So she wondered in new alarm. It was the first time in Miss Judy's simple, gentle, unselfish life that she had been fronted by this common question, which fronts most of us sooner or later and more or less often; and she knew even less how to meet it than do those who meet it more frequently. Deeply troubled, hopelessly perplexed, she silently debated the right and the wrong of what she had done and was doing, through all the long hours of that peaceful summer day. It would have comforted her greatly to have asked Miss Sophia's advice, but she felt that any knowledge of the accident, however remote, must be distressing, and she still spared her in this as in everything else.

"Don't you think, sister Sophia, that many of poor Becky's mistakes came from not knowing just what was right? It isn't always easy for any of us to tell. We can't be so much to blame--when we are unable to see our way," she said, after a long silence, hanging wistfully upon Miss Sophia's reply.

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with such decisive firmness as made Miss Judy feel for the moment that there could be no uncertainty; that it surely must be as Miss Sophia said.

But the sight of Doris and Lynn strolling by on their daily walk set the balance wavering again. She felt the constraint in her own manner while she chatted with them over the gate. She saw the wondering and somewhat anxious gaze which Doris fixed upon her, and she tried to laugh and speak naturally. But in spite of all that she could do, the uneasy sense of wrong-doing grew steadily. She had not before fully realized how fine the young man's linen was--till she guiltily regarded it over the gate. Its very fineness and the number of its tucks filled her with a conviction of guilt toward him. She was strongly tempted to call the young couple back and make a clean breast of it. Then the fear of some possible humiliation of Doris held her from it. So that she went on, sorely troubled, still turning the matter this way and that, till a sudden thought gave her a fresh shock of fear. When the young man saw the darned place, as he was bound to do some time or other, he would be sure to think it Merica's doing. There could be no two sides to the right or wrong of allowing _that_ to happen. Quite in a panic now, fairly driven into a corner, from which there was no escape, Miss Judy sprang up, and rushed out to stop the doctor, who chanced to be passing at that very moment.

He got down from his horse and came up to the fence, throwing the bridle over his arm, always willing and glad to have a word with Miss Judy, no matter how weary he might be. He saw at once that she was deeply agitated, and that her blue eyes were full of tears. A country doctor of the noblest type--as this one was--is the tower of strength on which many a community leans. He touches most of the phases of life, perhaps; certainly he comes in contact with every phase of his own environment. He is, therefore, seldom to be taken completely by surprise, however strange a story he may hear. Yet Dr. Alexander now looked at Miss Judy for a moment in utter bewilderment after she had poured out hers; his thoughts--astonishment, amusement, sympathy, understanding, and, above all, affection--coming out by turns on his rugged, open face, like rough writing on parchment.

"God bless my soul!" he said. "Who ever heard of such a thing! My dear, dear little lady! Why, you'd do that young jackanapes the honor of his life if you burnt his shirt off his back!"

Miss Judy blushed and showed how shocked she was at such loud and indelicate mention of such an intimate article of clothing.

"But I am really in great trouble," she urged gently, her eyes filling again. "If you would only tell Lynn, doctor. It seems an indelicate thing for a lady to speak of to a gentleman. If you would only break it to him, and explain to him how it happened, and that Merica was not to blame--and--and that Doris knew nothing--nothing in the world--about Merica's business."

"Of course I'll tell him," the doctor agreed heartily. "I'll tell him every word that you've told me," he said, mounting his tired old horse, which was almost as tired as he was himself. "And let the young rascal so much as crack a single smile, if he dares;" the doctor added to himself, as he rode off, looking back and carrying his shabby hat in his big hand, as long as he could see the quaint, pathetic little figure standing at the gate.

XIX

INVOKING THE LAW

That night the little lady slept the sweet sleep of a tender conscience, set wholly at rest by a full confession. Old lady Gordon also rested well, after having taken some drops out of the bag hanging at the head of her bed, thus settling an uncommonly hearty supper. So that neither of the ladies either heard or dreamed of a drama which was being enacted that same night under the dark of the moon, and which threatened to turn into a tragedy with the light of the next morning.

It was true--as has been said before--that old lady Gordon had known all along of the trouble brewing between her own cook and Miss Judy's maid of all work. She had also observed the growing fierceness of their rivalry for the heart and hand of her gardener and coachman, Enoch Cotton, but she had not, even yet, thought of interfering, since the affair had progressed without the slightest interference with her own comfort. She had merely laughed a little, as she always did at any candid display of the weakness of human nature; though she had incidentally given Eunice a characteristic word of advice.

"Don't make any more of a fool of yourself than you can help, Eunice," old lady Gordon said, with careless scorn. "You're going about this matter in the wrong way. Stop all this foolery, all this quarrelling and fighting, and stop it now--right off the reel, too. And I'll give you a big red feather for your hat. One red feather is worth more than any number of fights,--for getting a man back."

Eunice thanked her and accepted the present in dignified silence, but without saying what she herself thought of it as an antidote for man's inconstancy to woman, and her mistress had no means of knowing whether she ever really tried it or not. In fact, the whole matter passed out of old lady Gordon's mind as an unimportant incident which had amused her for a moment. And there was nothing to recall it, the warning which she had let fall having made Eunice more than ever cautious in keeping out of her mistress's sight all sign or sound of what was going on.

Thus it was that the danger grew quietly and in darkness, utterly unknown to everybody except the three dusky persons most closely concerned. It had long been unsafe for Merica to come into Eunice's kitchen, and it now became dangerous for her even to venture inside the back gate, when coming for the young master's clothes or taking them home. Eunice was the very soul of frankness with all save her mistress, the only human being of whom she ever stood in awe. She accordingly made no sort of mystery of her intentions to any one else; on the contrary, she told Enoch Cotton, in the plainest language at her command, just what she meant to do:--

"Ef ever dat reg'lar ebo darst set her hoof over dat doo' sill agin!"

And Enoch knew that she meant what she said, and that she would do it, whatever it was. The only doubt was as to the meaning of "ebo." The term may have been merely an abbreviation of ebony and nothing worse than a slur upon Merica's complexion. And yet it can hardly have been anything quite so simple and harmless, if only for the reason that Eunice was the blacker of the two rivals--if there be degrees in blackness; and, moreover, Eunice's way of using the word really made it sound like the very worst thing that one colored person could possibly say against another. At any rate, Enoch Cotton felt that the crisis was come, and he warned Merica, as any honorable man--regardless of the color of his skin--stands bound to guard, so far as he can, the girl whom he means to marry in the uncertain event of his being able to escape the widow who means to marry him. Merica was a little frightened at first, and she readily agreed to Enoch Cotton's elaborate plan of fetching the young master's clothes to the althaea hedge every Monday morning at sunup, and of handing them to her there over the fence, shielded from Eunice's argus eyes by the thick dusty foliage and the dull purple flowers. The girl also consented to her lover's waiting at the hedge every Tuesday evening at sundown to take the clothes when she fetched them back and handed them to him, under shelter of the leafy screen. Eunice saw Enoch Cotton going and coming, and knew full well what these manoeuvres meant; but the althaea hedge stood directly in front of her mistress's window, so that Eunice could only bide her time, in masterly inactivity, bound hand and foot to the burning rack of jealousy. Most bitterly trying of all was the fact that at night--and every night--while she was still busy in ministering to her mistress's wants, Enoch Cotton nearly always disappeared, and, try as she would, she could not learn whither he went.

In the rear of Miss Judy's garden, close to a secluded corner, was a half-leaning, half-fallen heap of butter-bean poles, rankly covered with vines. That little lady called it a bower, and thought it very pretty indeed. She had been somewhat disappointed at first when her butter-beans ran all to vines and did not bear at all. She had expected a good deal of those butter-beans; they had been so nice and fat and white when she planted them, and they had doubled out of the earth in such thick loops of luscious whiteness when they first came up. She had indeed told Miss Sophia that she thought there would be enough butter-beans to exchange for two (and maybe three) pairs of stockings, which Miss Sophia had needed for some time; possibly there might be so many that she herself could have a pair. But when the vines utterly failed to bear, and did nothing but riot in rank and tangled greenness over the bending, falling poles, Miss Judy consoled Miss Sophia and comforted herself by observing how very pretty and romantic the bower was. And when she observed, later in the summer, that Merica had formed a habit of going to sit in the bower every night, as soon as the day's work was done, she was quite consoled.

"Sitting there all alone must surely tame her in a measure, poor thing," Miss Judy said to Miss Sophia. "It would benefit all of us to have more time for quiet reflection. Think of the difference it must have made to Becky if she hadn't been so driven."

Accordingly Miss Judy was delicately careful to keep away from the bower, for fear of disturbing Merica's reflections. Eunice had never approached it nor even suspected its existence, thinking, when she noticed it at all, that the green tangle of vines was a mere neglected heap of butter-bean poles. Her ceaseless, fruitless search had heretofore always been turned toward the dark windows of Merica's deserted kitchen and cabin. And thus it was that the girl in comparative safety awaited her lover's coming night after night, under the dark of the moon or after its going down, as the savage women of her tribe must have awaited their warrior lovers in the deepest jungles of Africa. Nevertheless, Merica's heart was the heart of her feminine type all the world over, within and without civilization. With her, as with all her kind, to love and be loved was not enough; the other woman must see and know, before her triumph could be entirely complete. In vain Enoch Cotton pleaded and protested, and even tried again to frighten her. Every word that he uttered only made her the more determined to parade her victory openly, in utter disdain of all restraint, in unbounded contempt of all concealment. What was there for her to be afraid of? she demanded. Was she not younger than Eunice and better-looking and several shades lighter in color? And was not her hair ever so much straighter than Eunice's, when freshly combed out on a Sunday, after being tightly plaited in very small plaits and carefully wrapped with string through the whole week? Finally, she and her lover came so close to a violent quarrel that he dared not say anything more; and although Merica ceased urging the point, she was fully resolved to overthrow the screen of the althaea hedge, to scorn its protection, at the earliest opportunity. This came sooner than she hoped for, on the evening following the accident when the fatal spark had fallen upon the wash-kettle's biggest, dryest bubble. Enoch, gravely alarmed, was waiting as usual in the shelter of the althaea hedge, but she passed him boldly, leaving him trembling with fear and gray with terror; and, marching fearlessly up to the kitchen door with a challenging giggle, she thrust the basket of clean clothes through it and under Eunice's very nose. Then she turned deliberately and flaunted off, with a loud laugh of scornful, mocking defiance.

For an instant the black widow was daunted, overwhelmed, dumfounded, utterly routed, by the brown girl's unexpected and brazen audacity. She could do nothing at first but stand glaring after her in dumb, powerless fury. Enoch had disappeared as though he had sunk into the earth; as more self-possessed and more courageous men have done under similar circumstances. Eunice, thus left alone, could only gather her self-possession gradually, as best she could, and try to think, and think, and think. She still kept perfectly quiet; there was not one outward sign of the turmoil of her fierce spirit. She thought and waited till night came on, and until her mistress had gone to bed, and even until she felt sure that old lady Gordon was sound asleep. And then, led by the blind instinct which leads the wild animal through the trackless forest in search of its mate, Eunice stealthily opened the door of her solitary cabin, and noiselessly went forth. She crossed the shadowed orchard through the soundless darkness, a black and terrible shape of vengeance, and crept softly, her bare, heavy feet padding like the paws of a tiger, on and on, straight to the bower.

What happened then only the rivals ever knew. Enoch Cotton himself did not know. He fled at the first onslaught, as braver and whiter men have done under the same desperate and hopeless conditions; he--and they--could do nothing else; could not prevent the conflict, and could not take part. Enoch could only take refuge in instantaneous and wordless flight.

Neither Eunice nor Merica had ever a word to say of what transpired after Enoch was gone and they were left alone to have their wild, furious will of each other. The wrecked bower, of which hardly one pole remained upon another or one vine clung untorn from the others, silently told a part of the story. Eunice's face looked like a red map of darkest Africa, and Merica's face was much mottled by deep blue bruises; Eunice limped about her work on the following morning, and Merica cooked breakfast with one hand, having the other in a sling. And still, oddly enough, neither Eunice nor Merica bore herself quite as the victorious nor yet quite as the vanquished. There was, in truth, an air of tense uncertainty on both sides. Nowadays, everybody would know what was to follow under such circumstances; both sides nowadays would make instantaneous and vociferous appeal to the law as soon as the court was open. But things were different then, and this special case was peculiarly complicated. Eunice was a slave and had consequently no clearly discernible individual rights or privileges under the law. Merica on the other hand was free, and this fact, while placing her socially far beneath Eunice, gave her, nevertheless, certain rights before the courts which her rival as a slave could not enjoy. Accordingly it was with pride and satisfaction unspeakable that Merica set out, unobserved, soon after breakfast, to do what Eunice fully expected her to do, which was, to swear out a warrant for Eunice's arrest. This legal formula was, however, known to Eunice and to Merica, as it is known to most litigants of their race to-day, as a "have-his-carcass," which sounds to be a much larger and a much graver thing. Having, then, seen this document safe in the constable's hand, and having been duly assured of its prompt service, Merica went home as quietly as she had come away, and slid unseen through a hole in the fence, soothed by the completeness of the legal victory which she foresaw, and which could not fail to make her the admired and envied of all her race, which then found--as it still finds--a strange distinction in any sort of legal recognition, either good or bad.

The officer nevertheless took his own time in serving the warrant. It was not the Oldfield way to hurry over the doing of anything. Moreover, he had, perhaps, had a rather wide experience of colored quarrels, notwithstanding the fact that they were brought into court much more rarely at that period than they have been since. And then, no one, however daring or energetic, ever hastened under any circumstances to interfere with the old lady Gordon's affairs. Was it not known--as has been related--that when Alvarado himself dashed along the big road and everybody else drove into the fence-corner till he went by, old lady Gordon always kept straight along the middle of the big road, and it was Alvarado that went round. Bearing this recollection in mind, the constable strolled very slowly down the highway toward the Gordon place, and he was glad to catch sight of Eunice in the garden, gathering vegetables for dinner. It was better than finding her nearer her mistress. He laid his hands on the top of the garden fence and swung himself over the pickets.

"Good morning, Eunice," he said, walking toward her between the tall rows of yellow-flowering okra, from which she was picking tender green pods, for a delicious soup which only herself knew the recipe for.

"Good morning, Mr. Jim," responded Eunice, calmly. She knew at once what he had come for. There was a nice distinction in her calling him "Mr. Jim," rather than "Marse Jim," a subtle social distinction which was quite as clear to the constable as to herself, and one which he did not like.

"I've got a warrant here for your arrest for attempted murder," he accordingly said somewhat less mildly. "You'll have to come along with me to jail."

"Yes, sir," answered Eunice, respectfully, but adding calmly, as if stating an accepted and unalterable fact: "Yes, sir, but in course I'll have to ask Miss Frances first. I can't stop a-gathering her vegetables while the dew's on 'em--lessen _she_ say so. You know that, Mr. Jim, just as well as I do. Miss Frances's vegetables ain't to be left a-layin' round to swivel in the sun--no, sir, they ain't!"

The officer hesitated; he took off his rough straw hat, and looked for a moment as if he meant to scratch his head. But remembering the dignity of office, he fanned himself instead. "Well, come on up to the house, then, and I'll speak to your mistress," he said, with more composure than he felt.

They turned toward the house, the officer leading the way, and Eunice walking in her proper place behind him, carrying in her large, clean, white apron the okra, the beets, the cucumbers, and tomatoes, and all the other fresh and good, green and red things which she had already gathered for the daily noontide feast.

Old lady Gordon's keen eyes caught a glimpse of the constable and the cook a long way off; and she hailed them sharply as soon as they were within hearing: "What's this? What are you doing, Eunice? What are _you_ here for, Jim, at this time of day?"

The officer, a good-looking, good-humored young giant, bared his head with an embarrassed smile. He made a brief explanation, turning his hat in his awkward hands, and resting his huge bulk first on one foot and then on the other.

Old lady Gordon hardly allowed him to finish what he found to say, which was very little. "Now, what's the use of your telling me any such nonsense as that, Jim Slocum? You know I'm not going to let you come here, interfering with my cook's getting my dinner."

"Yes, ma'am," said Jim, deferentially. "I do hate to inconvenience you, ma'am. But you see, ma'am, there's the law and here's the warrant. I'm bound to do what the law requires--I'll have to serve it."

"Indeed, you won't do anything of the kind! Who ever heard of such impudence!" exclaimed old lady Gordon. "The very idea! Taking my cook away from getting my dinner to lock her up in jail! Upon my word, Jim Slocum, I thought you had some sense. But I'm not going to allow you to annoy me or get me stirred up on a warm morning like this. I'm not even going to discuss the matter. Just you run along now, Jim, that's a good fellow, and let Eunice alone--she's busy--and don't bother me any more."

She settled herself back in her wide, low chair, and began to wave the turkey-wing fan with one hand, turning the leaves of her novel with the other.

"But you see, ma'am, it's a mighty grave charge, attempted murder,--the state--"

"Grave fiddlesticks!" retorted old lady Gordon, looking up from her novel with real fire blazing now in her fine dark eyes. "The state!" with infinite scorn. "What difference would it make to me if it were the United States? I tell you I won't have another word!"

Her raised voice, the lower tone of the officer's mild, but firm, persistence, the hurried gathering and smothered whispering of the servants around the windows and doors, all these combined had finally attracted the attention of Lynn Gordon, who was absorbed in reading in his own room overhead, and he now came hurrying downstairs. Entering his grandmother's room, he looked in surprise at the group which he found there; at her, at the constable, and lastly at Eunice, who had stood quietly by throughout the whole controversy with the manner of a coolly disinterested spectator. The officer turned eagerly to Lynn with the relief that every man feels upon the entrance of another man into a difficult business transaction with women.

"Maybe you can persuade your grandmother to let Eunice go," the constable said, addressing him, when a few words had made the matter clear to Lynn. "It is really the quickest way to get her cook back. The county judge is in town; I saw him tying his horse to the tavern hitching-post as I passed coming down here. He'd hurry up the case and get it over in no time to accommodate your grandma, being as they're kinder kin--him and your grandma's folks."

"Mr. Slocum is right, grandmother. That is certainly the quickest way, and the easiest," Lynn said. "Let Eunice go and I'll defend her; I'll take her as my first case,--shall I?" he added smilingly, looking at old lady Gordon.

"I don't care what any of you do, so long as you let me alone and have Eunice back here in time to get my dinner. What have you been up to, anyway?" she said, suddenly turning to Eunice as if the nature of the charge had just occurred to her for the first time. "Well, you'd better be back in plenty of time to boil that blackberry roll, that's all I've got to say to you. Lynn, send somebody to tell Davy,--that's the judge, Judge Thompson,--to tell Davy Thompson that I would be much obliged if he would go to the court-house at once and get this bother over, so that Eunice may be back within an hour. Please ask him to take the trouble to hurry; tell him I asked it. Send Enoch Cotton--where is Enoch, anyway?" she said, glancing over the assemblage of black masks crowding the windows and doors.

Enoch--naturally enough--was not to be found then nor for hours afterward, but another servant was despatched running in his stead; and then the procession moved briskly out through the side gate and on up the big road toward the court-house. Eunice walked behind the officer as manners required, but there was nothing abject in her carriage. She held her head high, feeling glad that she happened to be wearing her gayest bandanna head-handkerchief and that her white apron was still spotlessly clean. Hers was an imposing figure, and she knew it, and consequently bore herself with dignified pride. Her friends, too, began to flock around her as the procession advanced, thus swelling the crowd; and the white people living along the big road came to the doors and windows of their houses to see what was going on.

From the opposite direction approached a much larger and longer procession, headed by Merica, fairly flamboyant in an ecstasy of triumph, and tailed by dusky ragged figures, some of them little black children, trailing in the distance, indistinct as a smoky antique frieze. Merica's forces largely outnumbered Eunice's, as the attacking army nearly always outnumbers the defending force. Merica came marching at the very forefront, as if to the throb of inaudible drums and to the waving of invisible banners. Eunice trod more slowly, as the garrison goes cautiously to man the walls.

There was one tense, dangerous moment when the opposing forces met at the court-house steps; but the judge, the prosecuting attorney, and the prisoner's counsel chanced, luckily, to arrive at the same instant, so that, owing to their restraining presence, the danger passed with no greater violence than an exchange of threatening glances between the contending parties. Side by side the furious factions crowded into the small court-room, and straightway the examining trial of Eunice for attempted murder was then and there begun, without an instant's delay.

And yet everything was done decently and in order. It was a complete surprise to the defence to find that the assault which had taken place in the butter-bean bower was entirely ignored in the indictment. The charge was that Eunice had put poison in the well from which Merica drew water, thereby attempting to kill, to murder, and to do deadly harm etc., to the plaintiff. The prosecuting witness testified that she had heard a noise about daylight; that on going to the well she had found an empty box, which she was certain had contained rat-poison, lying beside it; and that a white powder which she was mortally sure was the rat-poison itself--and nothing else--was plainly to be seen floating on the surface of the water. Such was the case made out by the prosecution. It was not at all what the defence was prepared for, but the prisoner's counsel showed himself to be a person of resources upon sudden demand. He readily admitted that the prosecuting witness might have heard a noise about daylight. There were, as he had himself observed, a great many cats in that part of the village. Also he admitted with equal readiness that she might have found an empty box which had once contained a rat-poison. He pointed out the fact that this particular variety of rat-poison was in such general use in Oldfield,--where rat-poison was one of the necessities of life, not merely one of its luxuries,--that the empty boxes which had contained it were to be found almost anywhere. As for the alleged poison itself, which a notoriously untruthful and untrustworthy witness had just testified to seeing still afloat on the surface of the water in the well, after the acknowledged lapse of several hours--the court could judge the worth of that evidence without any assistance from the defence.

Here Mr. Pettus unexpectedly appeared in the court-room. He kept the rat-poison, as he kept everything in daily Oldfield demand, and he had been hurriedly summoned as an expert witness for the defence, and he now took the stand. He testified to having handled that particular variety of rat-poison in very large quantities for many years. He claimed, on cross-examination, to be perfectly familiar with the kind of box used by the manufacturers of the rat-poison, and he gave it as his opinion that the particular box in question--the one which he then held in his hand, and which he was examining minutely--had been used for several other purposes, and harmless ones, apparently, since being emptied of its original deadly contents. He called the attention of the court to the fact that a particle of sugar still adhered to one corner, while a grain of coffee still lingered in another corner. Finally, when the prisoner's counsel was quite ready for the grand stroke, he allowed the witness--who was an amateur chemist in the line of his business--to testify from his own personal knowledge of the rat-poison that it dissolved instantly upon coming in contact with water.

"And yet, your Honor, the prosecution rests its case upon the testimony of an ignorant, vindictive savage, who swears--who solemnly testifies under oath, your Honor--that she saw this identical poison, and no other, floating on the surface of the water in the well several hours after she claims to have heard a noise; that it was there, plainly to be seen, several hours after my innocent client is known to have been at work in her mistress's kitchen and was seen in her mistress's garden, openly and constantly in view of the whole community. I can summon any number of unimpeachable witnesses--"

"The declaration is dismissed. The complaint is denied for lack of evidence," said the judge, as seriously as possible. "Call the next case."

"You may go home now, Eunice," said Lynn, smiling.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," said Eunice, calm as ever, and deliberately dropping a clumsy courtesy.

She courtesied still more clumsily to the court and to Mr. Pettus, and to all the white persons present, and then she turned slowly and ponderously, like some large and heavy royal personage, and she cast openly a high glance of infinite scorn over the humbled heads of her enemies. They might flock like coal-black crows as much as they had a mind to, she remarked in the dialect which they best understood; they were no more to her than the dust of the big road which she had "trompled under foot." She had white folks for her friends, she said triumphantly. With this single parting volley she went slowly and calmly down the court-house steps and set off homeward, bearing herself with all the arrogance of Semiramis returning victorious to Nineveh.

"Well, so you are back in time! No," said old lady Gordon, holding up the turkey-wing fan with a restraining gesture and resuming her novel with a yawn, "I don't want to hear a word about it. I know well enough that you ought to be in the penitentiary. Go on and get my dinner."

At the other end of the village Merica, deeply dejected, utterly crushed, stole toward home close in the shelter of the fence. She was returning entirely alone, as the leader of a lost cause nearly always returns, if he return at all. One by one her followers had dropped away, one disappearing here in a back yard, another vanishing there in a wood-lot, till all were gone. Desertion is the bitter hemlock of defeat that the vanquished are always forced to drink. The board was still off the fence at its farthest corner; Merica had squeezed through the hole on her flamboyant departure, so that Miss Judy might not see her and prevent her going; and she now dragged herself through it again on her downcast coming back, and thus reached the coveted shelter of her own domain and was able to hide her diminished head wholly unobserved by her unsuspicious, gentle little mistress.

"Merica's very quiet this morning. I haven't heard her stirring," Miss Judy said to Miss Sophia, as they sat placidly side by side in their little rocking-chairs--swaying gently--as they so loved to sit. They were talking, too, with that inexhaustible interest in one another's conversation which made their lifelong companionship the beautiful and perfect thing it was.

"Perhaps the poor creature is distressed over the falling down of the bower. She seemed to be real fond of it. And how strange to think there could have been such a violent storm without a drop of rain or our hearing the wind. I thought at first that we might have the bean-poles set up again, but the poles are broken and the vines are actually torn up by the roots. Oh, yes,--going back to what we were discussing before I happened to think of the bower,--I am sure that you are quite right in thinking that Doris's character has developed very rapidly of late. Her ideals really appear surprisingly well formed for so young a girl. And, as you say, there could hardly be anything unsettling now in her reading about the troubles that poor Becky went through. It can hardly do the dear child any harm now even to read about the mistakes which poor Becky made. For you know, sister Sophia, Becky was really good-hearted. You remember that Amelia might have gone sorrowing all her life, but for Becky's being so kind-hearted."

Miss Judy pleaded as though Miss Sophia was some keen and merciless critic from whose stern justice she strove gently to save the innocently erring.

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, so promptly, so firmly, so comprehensively, so conclusively, that Miss Judy beamed at her, positively radiant with admiration, and sighed a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction at having the long and sorely vexing question thus thoroughly disposed of at last.

XX

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN FAITH AND LOVE

About that time of the year an aspect of great, glowing beauty and a feeling of deep, sweet peace always comes to this beautiful, pastoral country.

The long, warm days are then of the rarest gold, and the short, cool nights are of the purest silver. The ripened grain has been garnered, and its golden sheaves no longer tent the rich, broad lands. The tall, tasselling corn now flows free in rippling, murmuring, ever widening silvery seas. The ocean of the vast tobacco fields rolls and rolls its mighty billows of deepening green into the darkening purple haze of the misty horizon. The wooded hillsides are now very still, and dark blue shadows linger all day among the trees--which stir scarcely a leaf--waiting to creep down toward the village at nightfall to meet the snow-white mist loitering over the resting meadows. The birds, too, are resting, half asleep in the heart of the ancient wood; they sing more seldom and their songs are sweeter and softer and come forth touched with a tender melancholy. The very shrilling of the crickets in the long grass sounds less shrill, and seems to rise and fall with the waves of heat. The butterflies, clustering on the commonest wayside weeds like tropical flowers, hardly move their dazzling wings of yellow and white, waving them as languorously as a flower unfurls its petals. And then--in those radiant days--the thistledown also softly spreads its pinions of gossamer silver, and, borne on the breath of the south breeze, it wings its weightless way over all the snow-masses of the elder bloom, and burnishes its lacelike whiteness into the luminous border of the veil which the midsummer heaven lends to the midsummer earth.

The honeysuckle over Tom Watson's window was thinning under the heat and bronzing under the drouth. Its leaves, green-yellow, drifted languidly down to the browning grass of the neglected lawn. So that there was scarcely a cool shadow left to shield the wretchedness of the stricken man, sitting day after day in the spot to which destiny had chained him; or one to cover the sadness of the wife, keeping her hopeless vigil by his side, in open view for every passer-by to see. It was a sight to wring any heart, and the Oldfield people were always kind to one another and always helpful--as simple, poor people are everywhere. But in this sad case there seemed no way to help, nothing that any one could do. No one might penetrate the dumb horror of the sick man's awful gaze, straining all the desolate day through, as long as the light lasted, toward some unseen and unreachable thing, as a wild creature strains dumbly at its chain. No one could pass the silence of Anne's reserve to share, to lessen, or even completely to comprehend the conflict ceaselessly waging within the high, narrow walls of her spirit.

Up to the beginning of this strife Anne's heart and soul had gone more nearly abreast, more evenly side by side, than most women's hearts and souls are able to go through life. The one nearly always goes before the other in every true woman's breast. And the path of Anne's spirit was very narrow, much narrower than that in which most women tread; so that, at this last steep pass, there was not room for both to go together, and thus her heart and her soul were forced to strive, the one with the other, for the right of way. There was never a moment's doubt in Anne's single, simple, and most strenuous mind as to which should lead. Now, as always, the road between right and wrong lay straight, clear, and open before her feet. There never was the slightest danger of her wandering or wavering. But oh, the agonized wringing of her heart, the almost unendurable travail of her soul--in this death struggle for her husband's salvation! And yet she suffered the anguish unflinchingly, her very love forbidding her conscience to yield, to barter the hope of the life everlasting for the relief of a few broken years. And every day the conflict grew fiercer as her husband's growing strength increased his piteously powerless resistance to restraint, and fed the flame of his desire for cards, now as strong as any ruling passion ever was in death. Impassive as Anne was by nature, she used sometimes to wonder if she would be able to bear it any longer and live. Her heart was breaking, her soul was almost at bay, so desperate was the strife between the two.

It is one of life's cruel ironies that the deepest feeling must often find trivial and even absurd expression. In poor Anne's first blind casting about for something to divert her husband's thoughts, in her first futile trying to remember what he used to like,--and she had known very little of his tastes in the days of his strength,--the recollection of seeing him read the county newspaper, which was published weekly in a neighboring town, came suddenly out of the mists of her memory. She sent for the paper and tried to read it to him, beginning at the top line of the first column and going straight through to the last line on the last page, fearing lest she might miss the article which he most wanted to hear. But Anne was not a good reader, and a clouded mind and a racked body do not make a patient listener. Tom gave no sign and he did not try to speak; but Anne saw his miserable, unresting eyes wander away to the far-off purpled hills, beyond which lay the free, bright world; and his thoughts--but who dare wonder whither his thoughts wandered?

After the failure in the reading of the newspaper, Anne turned to books. There were no new books in Oldfield, had poor Anne known the new from the old, and there were few of any kind. Miss Judy had more than any one else, and she was eager in offering all that had belonged to her father, as well as the handful of more recent ones gathered by her own simple tastes; and these last she urged upon Anne as being lighter and more cheerful, and consequently more suited to the cheering of an invalid. She was quite sure, so she said, smiling to hearten Anne, that Tom would like to hear about Becky; he had always liked lively, good-hearted people--like himself. But Anne instinctively chose the major's books instead, shrinking from all lightness as unsuited to her husband's need, and believing, as a woman of her type usually believes, that a man is most interested in what she herself least understands.