The Colonel's Dream

by Charles W. Chesnutt

  _Twenty-nine_

  Colonel French's interest in Ben Dudley's affairs had not beenpermitted to interfere with his various enterprises. Work on the chiefof these, the cotton mill, had gone steadily forward, with onlyoccasional delays, incident to the delivery of material, the weather,and the health of the workmen, which was often uncertain for a day ortwo after pay day. The coloured foreman of the brick-layers had beenseriously ill; his place had been filled by a white man, under whomthe walls were rising rapidly. Jim Green, the foreman whom the colonelhad formerly discharged, and the two white brick-layers who had quitat the same time, applied for reinstatement. The colonel took the twomen on again, but declined to restore Green, who had been dischargedfor insubordination.

  Green went away swearing vengeance. At Clay Johnson's saloon he hurledinvectives at the colonel, to all who would listen, and with angerand bad whiskey, soon worked himself into a frame of mind that wasripe for any mischief. Some of his utterances were reported to thecolonel, who was not without friends--the wealthy seldom are; but hepaid no particular attention to them, except to keep a watchman at themill at night, lest this hostility should seek an outlet in someattempt to injure the property. The precaution was not amiss, for oncethe watchman shot at a figure prowling about the mill. The lesson wassufficient, apparently, for there was no immediate necessity to repeatit.

  The shooting of Haines, while not so sensational as that of BarclayFetters, had given rise to considerable feeling against Ben Dudley.That two young men should quarrel, and exchange shots, would notordinarily have been a subject of extended remark. But two attempts atassassination constituted a much graver affair. That Dudley wasresponsible for this second assault was the generally acceptedopinion. Fetters's friends and hirelings were openly hostile to youngDudley, and Haines had been heard to say, in his cups, at ClayJackson's saloon, that when young Dudley was tried and convicted andsent to the penitentiary, he would be hired out to Fetters, who hadthe country contract, and that he, Haines, would be delighted to haveDudley in his gang. The feeling against Dudley grew from day to day,and threats and bets were openly made that he would not live to betried. There was no direct proof against him, but the moral andcircumstantial evidence was quite sufficient to convict him in theeyes of Fetter's friends and supporters. The colonel was sometimesmentioned, in connection with the affair as a friend of Ben's, forwhom he had given bail, and as an enemy of Fetters, to whom hisantagonism in various ways had become a matter of public knowledge andinterest.

  One day, while the excitement attending the second shooting was thusgrowing, Colonel French received through the mail a mysteriouslyworded note, vaguely hinting at some matter of public importance whichthe writer wished to communicate to him, and requesting a privateinterview for the purpose, that evening, at the colonel's house. Thenote, which had every internal evidence of sincerity, was signed byHenry Taylor, the principal of the coloured school, whom the colonelhad met several times in reference to the proposed industrial school.From the tenor of the communication, and what he knew about Taylor,the colonel had no doubt that the matter was one of importance, atleast not one to be dismissed without examination. He thereuponstepped into Caxton's office and wrote an answer to the letter, fixingeight o'clock that evening as the time, and his own library as theplace, of a meeting with the teacher. This letter he deposited in thepost-office personally--it was only a step from Caxton's office. Uponcoming out of the post-office he saw the teacher standing on anopposite corner. When the colonel had passed out of sight, Taylorcrossed the street, entered the post-office, and soon emerged with theletter. He had given no sign that he saw the colonel, but had lookedrather ostentatiously the other way when that gentleman had glanced inhis direction.

  At the appointed hour there was a light step on the colonel's piazza.The colonel was on watch, and opened the door himself, ushering Taylorinto his library, a very handsome and comfortable room, the door ofwhich he carefully closed behind them.

  The teacher looked around cautiously.

  "Are we alone, sir?"

  "Yes, entirely so."

  "And can any one hear us?"

  "No. What have you got to tell me?"

  "Colonel French," replied the other, "I'm in a hard situation, and Iwant you to promise that you'll never let on to any body that I toldyou what I'm going to say."

  "All right, Mr. Taylor, if it is a proper promise to make. You cantrust my discretion."

  "Yes, sir, I'm sure I can. We coloured folks, sir, are often accusedof trying to shield criminals of our own race, or of not helping theofficers of the law to catch them. Maybe we does, suh," he said,lapsing in his earnestness, into bad grammar, "maybe we doessometimes, but not without reason."

  "What reason?" asked the colonel.

  "Well, sir, fer the reason that we ain't always shore that a colouredman will get a fair trial, or any trial at all, or that he'll get ajust sentence after he's been tried. We have no hand in makin' thelaws, or in enforcin' 'em; we are not summoned on jury; and yet we'reasked to do the work of constables and sheriffs who are paid forarrestin' criminals, an' for protectin' 'em from mobs, which theydon't do."

  "I have no doubt every word you say is true, Mr. Taylor, and such astate of things is unjust, and will some day be different, if I canhelp to make it so. But, nevertheless, all good citizens, whatevertheir colour, ought to help to preserve peace and good order."

  "Yes, sir, so they ought; and I want to do just that; I want toco-operate, and a whole heap of us want to co-operate with the goodwhite people to keep down crime and lawlessness. I know there's goodwhite people who want to see justice done--but they ain't alwaysstrong enough to run things; an' if any one of us coloured folks tellson another one, he's liable to lose all his frien's. But I believe,sir, that I can trust you to save me harmless, and to see that nothin'mo' than justice is done to the coloured man."

  "Yes, Taylor, you can trust me to do all that I can, and I think Ihave considerable influence. Now, what's on your mind? Do you know whoshot Haines and Mr. Fetters?"

  "Well, sir, you're a mighty good guesser. It ain't so much Mr. Fettersan' Mr. Haines I'm thinkin' about, for that place down the country isa hell on earth, an' they're the devils that runs it. But there's afriend of yo'rs in trouble, for something he didn' do, an' I wouldn'stan' for an innocent man bein' sent to the penitentiary--though manya po' Negro has been. Yes, sir, I know that Mr. Ben Dudley didn' shootthem two white men."

  "So do I," rejoined the colonel. "Who did?"

  "It was Bud Johnson, the man you tried to get away from Mr.Fetters--yo'r coachman tol' us about it, sir, an' we know how good afriend of ours you are, from what you've promised us about the school.An' I wanted you to know, sir. You are our friend, and have showedconfidence in us, and I wanted to prove to you that we are notungrateful, an' that we want to be good citizens."

  "I had heard," said the colonel, "that Johnson had escaped and leftthe county."

  "So he had, sir, but he came back. They had 'bused him down at thatplace till he swore he'd kill every one that had anything to do withhim. It was Mr. Turner he shot at the first time and he hit young Mr.Fetters by accident. He stole a gun from ole Mr. Dudley's place atMink Run, shot Mr. Fetters with it, and has kept it ever since, andshot Mr. Haines with it. I suppose they'd 'a' ketched him before, ifit hadn't be'n for suspectin' young Mr. Dudley."

  "Where is Johnson now," asked the colonel.

  "He's hidin' in an old log cabin down by the swamp back of Mink Run.He sleeps in the daytime, and goes out at night to get food and watchfor white men from Mr. Fetters's place."

  "Does his wife know where he is?"

  "No, sir; he ain't never let her know."

  "By the way, Taylor," asked the colonel, "how do _you_ know all this?"

  "Well, sir," replied the teacher, with something which, in anuneducated Negro would have been a very pronounced chuckle, "there'smighty little goin' on roun' here that I _don't_ find out, sooner orlater."

  "Taylor," said the colonel, rising to t
erminate the interview, "youhave rendered a public service, have proved yourself a good citizen,and have relieved Mr. Dudley of serious embarrassment. I will see thatsteps are taken to apprehend Johnson, and will keep your participationin the matter secret, since you think it would hurt your influencewith your people. And I promise you faithfully that every effort shallbe made to see that Johnson has a fair trial and no more than a justpunishment."

  He gave the Negro his hand.

  "Thank you, sir, thank you, sir," replied the teacher, returning thecolonel's clasp. "If there were more white men like you, the colouredfolks would have no more trouble."

  The colonel let Taylor out, and watched him as he looked cautiously upand down the street to see that he was not observed. That colouredfolks, or any other kind, should ever cease to have trouble, was avain imagining. But the teacher had made a well-founded complaint ofinjustice which ought to be capable of correction; and he hadperformed a public-spirited action, even though he had feltconstrained to do it in a clandestine manner.

  About his own part in the affair the colonel was troubled. It wasbecoming clear to him that the task he had undertaken was no lightone--not the task of apprehending Johnson and clearing Dudley, butthat of leavening the inert mass of Clarendon with the leaven ofenlightenment. With the best of intentions, and hoping to save a life,he had connived at turning a murderer loose upon the community. It wastrue that the community, through unjust laws, had made him a murderer,but it was no part of the colonel's plan to foster or promote evilpassions, or to help the victims of the law to make reprisals. His aimwas to bring about, by better laws and more liberal ideas, peace,harmony, and universal good will. There was a colossal work for him todo, and for all whom he could enlist with him in this cause. The verystandards of right and wrong had been confused by the race issue, andmust be set right by the patient appeal to reason and humanity.Primitive passions and private vengeance must be subordinated to lawand order and the higher good. A new body of thought must be built up,in which stress must be laid upon the eternal verities, in the lightof which difficulties which now seemed unsurmountable would begradually overcome.

  But this halcyon period was yet afar off, and the colonel rousedhimself to the duty of the hour. With the best intentions he had letloose upon the community, in a questionable way, a desperatecharacter. It was no less than his plain duty to put the man underrestraint. To rescue from Fetters a man whose life was threatened, wasone thing. To leave a murderer at large now would be to endangerinnocent lives, and imperil Ben Dudley's future.

  The arrest of Bud Johnson brought an end to the case against BenDudley. The prosecuting attorney, who was under political obligationsto Fetters, seemed reluctant to dismiss the case, until Johnson'sguilt should have been legally proved; but the result of the Negro'spreliminary hearing rendered this position no longer tenable; the caseagainst Ben was nolled, and he could now hold up his head as a freeman, with no stain upon his character.

  Indeed, the reaction in his favour as one unjustly indicted, went farto wipe out from the public mind the impression that he was a drunkardand a rowdy. It was recalled that he was of good family and that hisforebears had rendered valuable service to the State, and that he hadnever been seen to drink before, or known to be in a fight, but thaton the contrary he was quiet and harmless to a fault. Indeed, theClarendon public would have admired a little more spirit in a youngman, even to the extent of condoning an occasional lapse into license.

  There was sincere rejoicing at the Treadwell house when Ben, now freein mind, went around to see the ladies. Miss Laura was warmlysympathetic and congratulatory; and Graciella, tearfully happy, triedto make up by a sweet humility, through which shone the truewomanliness of a hitherto undeveloped character, for the past stingsand humiliations to which her selfish caprice had subjected her lover.Ben resumed his visits, if not with quite their former frequency, andit was only a day or two later that the colonel found him andGraciella, with his own boy Phil, grouped in familiar fashion on thesteps, where Ben was demonstrating with some pride of success, theoperation of his model, into which he was feeding cotton when thecolonel came up.

  The colonel stood a moment and looked at the machine.

  "It's quite ingenious," he said. "Explain the principle."

  Ben described the mechanism, in brief, well-chosen words whichconveyed the thought clearly and concisely, and revealed a fine mindfor mechanics and at the same time an absolute lack of technicalknowledge.

  "It would never be of any use, sir," he said, at the end, "foreverybody has the other kind. But it's another way, and I think abetter."

  "It is clever," said the colonel thoughtfully, as he went into thehouse.

  The colonel had not changed his mind at all since asking Miss Laura tobe his wife. The glow of happiness still warmed her cheek, the spiritof youth still lingered in her eyes and in her smile. He might go athousand miles before meeting a woman who would please him more, takebetter care of Phil, or preside with more dignity over his household.Her simple grace would adapt itself to wealth as easily as it hadaccommodated itself to poverty. It would be a pleasure to travel withher to new scenes and new places, to introduce her into a wider world,to see her expand in the generous sunlight of ease and freedom fromresponsibility.

  True to his promise, the colonel made every effort to see that BudJohnson should be protected against mob violence and given a fairtrial. There was some intemperate talk among the partisans of Fetters,and an ominous gathering upon the streets the day after the arrest,but Judge Miller, of the Beaver County circuit, who was in Clarendonthat day, used his influence to discountenance any disorder, andpromised a speedy trial of the prisoner. The crime was not the worstof crimes, and there was no excuse for riot or lynch law. The accusedcould not escape his just punishment.

  As a result of the judge's efforts, supplemented by the colonel's andthose of Doctor Price and several ministers, any serious fear ofdisorder was removed, and a handful of Fetters's guards who had comeup from his convict farm and foregathered with some choice spirits ofthe town at Clay Jackson's saloon, went back without attempting to dowhat they had avowedly come to town to accomplish.