The Colonel's Dream

by Charles W. Chesnutt

  _Thirteen_

  In engaging Judge Bullard, the colonel had merely stated to the lawyerthat he thought of building a cotton-mill, but had said nothing abouthis broader plan. It was very likely, he recognised, that the peopleof Clarendon might not relish the thought that they were regarded asfit subjects for reform. He knew that they were sensitive, and quickto resent criticism. If some of them might admit, now and then, amongthemselves, that the town was unprogressive, or declining, there wasalways some extraneous reason given--the War, the carpetbaggers, theFifteenth Amendment, the Negroes. Perhaps not one of them had everquite realised the awful handicap of excuses under which theylaboured. Effort was paralysed where failure was so easily explained.

  That the condition of the town might be due to causes withinitself--to the general ignorance, self-satisfaction and lack ofenterprise, had occurred to only a favoured few; the younger of thesehad moved away, seeking a broader outlook elsewhere; while those whoremained were not yet strong enough nor brave enough to break with thepast and urge new standards of thought and feeling.

  So the colonel kept his larger purpose to himself until a time whengreater openness would serve to advance it. Thus Judge Bullard, notbeing able to read his client's mind, assumed very naturally that thecontemplated enterprise was to be of a purely commercial nature,directed to making the most money in the shortest time.

  "Some day, Colonel," he said, with this thought in mind, "you mightget a few pointers by running over to Carthage and looking through theExcelsior Mills. They get more work there for less money than anywhereelse in the South. Last year they declared a forty per cent. dividend.I know the superintendent, and will give you a letter of introduction,whenever you like."

  The colonel bore the matter in mind, and one morning, a day or twoafter his party, set out by train, about eight o'clock in the morning,for Carthage, armed with a letter from the lawyer to thesuperintendent of the mills.

  The town was only forty miles away; but a cow had been caught in atrestle across a ditch, and some time was required for the train crewto release her. Another stop was made in the middle of a swamp, to putoff a light mulatto who had presumed on his complexion to ride in thewhite people's car. He had been successfully spotted, but hadimpudently refused to go into the stuffy little closet provided at theend of the car for people of his class. He was therefore given anopportunity to reflect, during a walk along the ties, upon his truerelation to society. Another stop was made for a gentleman who hadsent a Negro boy ahead to flag the train and notify the conductor thathe would be along in fifteen or twenty minutes with a couple of ladypassengers. A hot journal caused a further delay. These interruptionsmade it eleven o'clock, a three-hours' run, before the train reachedCarthage.

  The town was much smaller than Clarendon. It comprised a public squareof several acres in extent, on one side of which was the railroadstation, and on another the court house. One of the remaining sideswas occupied by a row of shops; the fourth straggled off in variousdirections. The whole wore a neglected air. Bales of cotton goods werepiled on the platform, apparently just unloaded from wagons standingnear. Several white men and Negroes stood around and stared listlesslyat the train and the few who alighted from it.

  Inquiring its whereabouts from one of the bystanders, the colonelfound the nearest hotel--a two-story frame structure, with a piazzaacross the front, extending to the street line. There was a buggystanding in front, its horse hitched to one of the piazza posts. Stepsled up from the street, but one might step from the buggy to the floorof the piazza, which was without a railing.

  The colonel mounted the steps and passed through the door into a smallroom, which he took for the hotel office, since there were chairsstanding against the walls, and at one side a table on which aregister lay open. The only person in the room, beside himself, was ayoung man seated near the door, with his feet elevated to the back ofanother chair, reading a newspaper from which he did not look up.

  The colonel, who wished to make some inquiries and to register for thedinner which he might return to take, looked around him for the clerk,or some one in authority, but no one was visible. While waiting, hewalked over to the desk and turned over the leaves of the dog-earedregister. He recognised only one name--that of Mr. William Fetters,who had registered there only a day or two before.

  No one had yet appeared. The young man in the chair was evidently notconnected with the establishment. His expression was so forbidding,not to say arrogant, and his absorption in the newspaper so complete,that the colonel, not caring to address him, turned to the right andcrossed a narrow hall to a room beyond, evidently a parlour, since itwas fitted up with a faded ingrain carpet, a centre table with a redplush photograph album, and several enlarged crayon portraits hungnear the ceiling--of the kind made free of charge in Chicago fromphotographs, provided the owner orders a frame from the company. Noone was in the room, and the colonel had turned to leave it, when hecame face to face with a lady passing through the hall.

  "Are you looking for some one?" she asked amiably, having noted hisair of inquiry.

  "Why, yes, madam," replied the colonel, removing his hat, "I waslooking for the proprietor--or the clerk."

  "Why," she replied, smiling, "that's the proprietor sitting there inthe office. I'm going in to speak to him, and you can get hisattention at the same time."

  Their entrance did not disturb the young man's reposeful attitude,which remained as unchanged as that of a graven image; nor did heexhibit any consciousness at their presence.

  "I want a clean towel, Mr. Dickson," said the lady sharply.

  The proprietor looked up with an annoyed expression.

  "Huh?" he demanded, in a tone of resentment mingled with surprise.

  "A clean towel, if you please."

  The proprietor said nothing more to the lady, nor deigned to noticethe colonel at all, but lifted his legs down from the back of thechair, rose with a sigh, left the room and returned in a few minuteswith a towel, which he handed ungraciously to the lady. Then, stillpaying no attention to the colonel, he resumed his former attitude,and returned to the perusal of his newspaper--certainly the mostunconcerned of hotel keepers, thought the colonel, as a vision ofspacious lobbies, liveried porters, and obsequious clerks rose beforehis vision. He made no audible comment, however, but merely stared atthe young man curiously, left the hotel, and inquired of a passingNegro the whereabouts of the livery stable. A few minutes later hefound the place without difficulty, and hired a horse and buggy.

  While the stable boy was putting the harness on the horse, the colonelrelated to the liveryman, whose manner was energetic andbusiness-like, and who possessed an open countenance and a sympatheticeye, his experience at the hotel.

  "Oh, yes," was the reply, "that's Lee Dickson all over. That hotelused to be kep' by his mother. She was a widow woman, an' ever sinceshe died, a couple of months ago, Lee's been playin' the big man,spendin' the old lady's money, and enjoyin' himself. Did you see thathoss'n'-buggy hitched in front of the ho-tel?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, that's Lee's buggy. He hires it from us. We send it up everymornin' at nine o'clock, when Lee gits up. When he's had his breakfas'he comes out an' gits in the buggy, an' drives to the barber-shop nex'door, gits out, goes in an' gits shaved, comes out, climbs in thebuggy, an' drives back to the ho-tel. Then he talks to the cook, comesout an' gits in the buggy, an' drives half-way 'long that side of thesquare, about two hund'ed feet, to the grocery sto', and orders half apound of coffee or a pound of lard, or whatever the ho-tel needs forthe day, then comes out, climbs in the buggy and drives back. When themail comes in, if he's expectin' any mail, he drives 'cross the squareto the post-office, an' then drives back to the ho-tel. There's otherlazy men roun' here, but Lee Dickson takes the cake. However, it'smoney in our pocket, as long as it keeps up."

  "I shouldn't think it would keep up long," returned the colonel. "Howcan such a hotel prosper?"

  "It don't!" replied the liveryman, "but it's the best in town."
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  "I don't see how there could be a worse," said the colonel.

  "There couldn't--it's reached bed rock."

  The buggy was ready by this time, and the colonel set out, with ablack driver, to find the Excelsior Cotton Mills. They proved to besituated in a desolate sandhill region several miles out of town. Theday was hot; the weather had been dry, and the road was deep with ayielding white sand into which the buggy tires sank. The horse soonpanted with the heat and the exertion, and the colonel, dressed inbrown linen, took off his hat and mopped his brow with hishandkerchief. The driver, a taciturn Negro--most of the loquacious,fun-loving Negroes of the colonel's youth seemed to havedisappeared--flicked a horsefly now and then, with his whip, from thehorse's sweating back.

  The first sign of the mill was a straggling group of small framehouses, built of unpainted pine lumber. The barren soil, which wouldnot have supported a firm lawn, was dotted with scraggy bunches ofwiregrass. In the open doorways, through which the flies swarmed inand out, grown men, some old, some still in the prime of life, werelounging, pipe in mouth, while old women pottered about the yards, orpushed back their sunbonnets to stare vacantly at the advancing buggy.Dirty babies were tumbling about the cabins. There was a lean andlistless yellow dog or two for every baby; and several slatternlyblack women were washing clothes on the shady sides of the houses. Ageneral air of shiftlessness and squalor pervaded the settlement.There was no sign of joyous childhood or of happy youth.

  A turn in the road brought them to the mill, the distant hum of whichhad already been audible. It was a two-story brick structure with manywindows, altogether of the cheapest construction, but situated on thebank of a stream and backed by a noble water power.

  They drew up before an open door at one corner of the building. Thecolonel alighted, entered, and presented his letter of introduction.The superintendent glanced at him keenly, but, after reading theletter, greeted him with a show of cordiality, and called a young manto conduct the visitor through the mill.

  The guide seemed in somewhat of a hurry, and reticent of speech; norwas the noise of the machinery conducive to conversation. Some of thecolonel's questions seemed unheard, and others were imperfectlyanswered. Yet the conditions disclosed by even such an inspectionwere, to the colonel, a revelation. Through air thick with flyingparticles of cotton, pale, anaemic young women glanced at himcuriously, with lack-luster eyes, or eyes in which the gleam was notthat of health, or hope, or holiness. Wizened children, who had neverknown the joys of childhood, worked side by side at long rows ofspools to which they must give unremitting attention. Most of thewomen were using snuff, the odour of which was mingled with the flyingparticles of cotton, while the floor was thickly covered withunsightly brown splotches.

  When they had completed the tour of the mills and returned to theoffice, the colonel asked some questions of the manager about theequipment, the output, and the market, which were very promptly andcourteously answered. To those concerning hours and wages the replieswere less definite, and the colonel went away impressed as much bywhat he had not learned as by what he had seen.

  While settling his bill at the livery stable, he made furtherinquiries.

  "Lord, yes," said the liveryman in answer to one of them, "I can tellyou all you want to know about that mill. Talk about niggerslavery--the niggers never were worked like white women and childrenare in them mills. They work 'em from twelve to sixteen hours a dayfor from fifteen to fifty cents. Them triflin' old pinelanders outthere jus' lay aroun' and raise children for the mills, and then setdown and chaw tobacco an' live on their children's wages. It's a sinan' a shame, an' there ought to be a law ag'inst it."

  The conversation brought out the further fact that vice was rampantamong the millhands.

  "An' it ain't surprisin'," said the liveryman, with indignationtempered by the easy philosophy of hot climates. "Shut up in jail allday, an' half the night, never breathin' the pyo' air, or baskin' inGod's bright sunshine; with no books to read an' no chance to learn,who can blame the po'r things if they have a little joy in the onlyway they know?"

  "Who owns the mill?" asked the colonel.

  "It belongs to a company," was the reply, "but Old Bill Fetters owns amajority of the stock--durn, him!"

  The colonel felt a thrill of pleasure--he had met a man after his ownheart.

  "You are not one of Fetters's admirers then?" he asked.

  "Not by a durn sight," returned the liveryman promptly. "When I lookat them white gals, that ought to be rosy-cheeked an' bright-eyed an'plump an' hearty an' happy, an' them po' little child'en that neverget a chance to go fishin' or swimmin' or to learn anything, I allow Iwouldn' mind if the durned old mill would catch fire an' burn down.They work children there from six years old up, an' half of 'em die ofconsumption before they're grown. It's a durned outrage, an' if I evergo to the Legislatur', for which I mean to run, I'll try to have itstopped."

  "I hope you will be elected," said the colonel. "What time does thetrain go back to Clarendon?"

  "Four o'clock, if she's on time--but it may be five."

  "Do you suppose I can get dinner at the hotel?"

  "Oh, yes! I sent word up that I 'lowed you might be back, so they'llbe expectin' you."

  The proprietor was at the desk when the colonel went in. He wrote hisname on the book, and was served with an execrable dinner. He paid hisbill of half a dollar to the taciturn proprietor, and sat down on theshady porch to smoke a cigar. The proprietor, having put the money inhis pocket, came out and stepped into his buggy, which was stillstanding alongside the piazza. The colonel watched him drive a stone'sthrow to a barroom down the street, get down, go in, come out a fewminutes later, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, climb intothe buggy, drive back, step out and re-enter the hotel.

  It was yet an hour to train time, and the colonel, to satisfy animpulse of curiosity, strolled over to the court house, which could beseen across the square, through the trees. Requesting leave of theClerk in the county recorder's office to look at the records ofmortgages, he turned the leaves over and found that a large proportionof the mortgages recently recorded--among them one on the hotelproperty--had been given to Fetters.

  The whistle of the train was heard in the distance as the colonelrecrossed the square. Glancing toward the hotel, he saw the landlordcome out, drive across the square to the station, and sit there untilthe passengers had alighted. To a drummer with a sample case, hepointed carelessly across the square to the hotel, but made nomovement to take the baggage; and as the train moved off, the colonel,looking back, saw him driving back to the hotel.

  Fetters had begun to worry the colonel. He had never seen the man, andyet his influence was everywhere. He seemed to brood over the countryround about like a great vampire bat, sucking the life-blood of thepeople. His touch meant blight. As soon as a Fetters mortgage restedon a place, the property began to run down; for why should the nominalowner keep up a place which was destined in the end to go to Fetters?The colonel had heard grewsome tales of Fetters's convict labourplantation; he had seen the operation of Fetters's cotton-mill, wherewhite humanity, in its fairest and tenderest form, was stunted andblighted and destroyed; and he had not forgotten the scene in thejustice's office.

  The fighting blood of the old Frenches was stirred. The colonel'smeans were abundant; he did not lack the sinews of war. Clarendonoffered a field for profitable investment. He would like to dosomething for humanity, something to offset Fetters and his kind, whowere preying upon the weaknesses of the people, enslaving white andblack alike. In a great city, what he could give away would have beenbut a slender stream, scarcely felt in the rivers of charity pouredinto the ocean of want; and even his considerable wealth would havemade him only a small stockholder in some great aggregation ofcapital. In this backward old town, away from the great centres ofcommerce, and scarcely feeling their distant pulsebeat, except whensome daring speculator tried for a brief period to corner the cottonmarket, he could mark with his own eyes the good he might
accomplish.It required no great stretch of imagination to see the town, a fewyears hence, a busy hive of industry, where no man, and no womanobliged to work, need be without employment at fair wages; where thetrinity of peace, prosperity and progress would reign supreme; wheremen like Fetters and methods like his would no longer be tolerated.The forces of enlightenment, set in motion by his aid, and supportedby just laws, should engage the retrograde forces represented byFetters. Communities, like men, must either grow or decay, advance ordecline; they could not stand still. Clarendon was decaying. Fetterswas the parasite which, by sending out its roots toward rich and pooralike, struck at both extremes of society, and was choking the life ofthe town like a rank and deadly vine.

  The colonel could, if need be, spare the year or two of continuousresidence needed to rescue Clarendon from the grasp of Fetters. Theclimate agreed with Phil, who was growing like a weed; and the colonelcould easily defer for a little while his scheme of travel, and thefurther disposition of his future.

  So, when he reached home that night, he wrote an answer to a long andgossipy letter received from Kirby about that time, in which thelatter gave a detailed account of what was going on in the colonel'sfavourite club and among their mutual friends, and reported progressin the search for some venture worthy of their mettle. The colonelreplied that Phil and he were well, that he was interesting himself ina local enterprise which would certainly occupy him for some months,and that he would not visit New York during the summer, unless it wereto drop in for a day or two on business and return immediately.

  A letter from Mrs. Jerviss, received about the same time, was lesseasily disposed of. She had learned, from Kirby, of the chivalrousmanner in which Mr. French had protected her interests and spared herfeelings in the fight with Consolidated Bagging. She had not beenable, she said, to thank him adequately before he went away, becauseshe had not known how much she owed him; nor could she fittinglyexpress herself on paper. She could only renew her invitation to himto join her house party at Newport in July. The guests would befriends of his--she would be glad to invite any others that he mightsuggest. She would then have the opportunity to thank him in person.

  The colonel was not unmoved by this frank and grateful letter, and heknew perfectly well what reward he might claim from her gratitude. Hadthe letter come a few weeks sooner, it might have had a differentanswer. But, now, after the first pang of regret, his only problem washow to refuse gracefully her offered hospitality. He was sorry, hereplied, not to be able to join her house party that summer, butduring the greater part of it he would be detained in the South bycertain matters into which he had been insensibly drawn. As for herthanks, she owed him none; he had only done his duty, and had alreadybeen thanked too much.

  So thoroughly had Colonel French entered into the spirit of his yetundefined contest with Fetters, that his life in New York, save whenthese friendly communications recalled it, seemed far away, and ofslight retrospective interest. Every one knows of the "blind spot" inthe field of vision. New York was for the time being the colonel'sblind spot. That it might reassert its influence was always possible,but for the present New York was of no more interest to him thanCanton or Bogota. Having revelled for a few pleasant weeks in memoriesof a remoter past, the reaction had projected his thoughts forwardinto the future. His life in New York, and in the Clarendon of thepresent--these were mere transitory embodiments; he lived in theClarendon yet to be, a Clarendon rescued from Fetters, purified,rehabilitated; and no compassionate angel warned him how tenacious oflife that which Fetters stood for might be--that survival of thespirit of slavery, under which the land still groaned andtravailed--the growth of generations, which it would take more thanone generation to destroy.

  In describing to Judge Bullard his visit to the cotton mill, thecolonel was not sparing of his indignation.

  "The men," he declared with emphasis, "who are responsible for thatsort of thing, are enemies of mankind. I've been in business fortwenty years, but I have never sought to make money by trading on thesouls and bodies of women and children. I saw the little darkiesrunning about the streets down there at Carthage; they were poor andragged and dirty, but they were out in the air and the sunshine; theyhave a chance to get their growth; to go to school and learnsomething. The white children are worked worse than slaves, and aregrowing up dulled and stunted, physically and mentally. Our folks downhere are mighty short-sighted, judge. We'll wake them up. We'll builda model cotton mill, and run it with decent hours and decent wages,and treat the operatives like human beings with bodies to nourish,minds to develop; and souls to save. Fetters and his crowd will haveto come up to our standard, or else we'll take their hands away."

  Judge Bullard had looked surprised when the colonel began hisdenunciation; and though he said little, his expression, when thecolonel had finished, was very thoughtful and not altogether happy.