by Don Marquis
CHAPTER XIV
As I drove into the yard, a bare-headed old nigger with a game legthrowed down an armful of wood he was gathering and went limping upto the veranda as fast as he could. He opened the door and bawled out,pointing to us, before he had it fairly open:
"O Marse WILLyum! O Miss LUCY! Dey've brung him home! DAR he!"
A little, bright, black-eyed old lady like a wren comes running out ofthe house, and chirps:
"O Bud--O my honey boy! Is he dead?"
"I reckon not, Miss Lucy," says Bud raising himself up on the mattressas she runs up to the wagon, and trying to act like everything was alla joke. She was jest high enough to kiss him over the edge of the wagonbox. A worried-looking old gentleman come out the door, seen Bud and hismother kissing each other, and then says to the old nigger man:
"George, yo' old fool, what do yo' mean by shouting out like that?"
"Marse Willyum--" begins George, explaining.
"Shut up," says the old gentleman, very quiet. "Take the bay mare and gofor Doctor Po'ter." Then he comes to the wagon and says:
"So they got yo', Bud? Yo' WOULD go nightriding like a rowdy and a thug!Are yo' much hurt?"
He said it easy and gentle, more than mad. But Bud, he flushed up, paleas he was, and didn't answer his dad direct. He turned to his mother andsaid:
"Miss Lucy, dear, it would 'a' done yo' heart good to see the way themtrust warehouses blazed up!"
And the old lady, smiling and crying both to oncet, says, "God bless herbrave boy." But the old gentleman looked mighty serious, and his worrysettled into a frown between his eyes, and he turns to me and says:
"Yo' must pardon us, sir, fo' neglecting to thank yo' sooner." I toldhim that would be all right, fur him not to worry none. And him and meand Mandy, which was the nigger cook, got Bud into the house and intohis bed. And his mother gets that busy ordering Mandy and the oldgentleman around, to get things and fix things, and make Bud as easyas she could, that you could see she was one of them kind of woman thatgets a lot of satisfaction out of having some one sick to fuss over. Andafter quite a while George gets back with Doctor Porter.
He sets Bud's arm, and he locates the bullet in him, and he says heguesses he'll do in a few weeks if nothing like blood poisoning norgangrene nor inflammation sets in.
Only the doctor says he "reckons" instead of he "guesses," which theyall do down there. And they all had them easy-going, wait-a-bit kindof voices, and didn't see no pertic'ler importance in their "r's." Itwasn't that you could spell it no different when they talked, but itsounded different.
I eat my breakfast with the old gentleman, and then I took a sleep untiltime fur dinner. They wouldn't hear of me leaving that night. I fullyintended to go on the next day, but before I knowed it I been there acouple of days, and have got very well acquainted with that fambly.
Well, that was a house divided agin itself. Miss Lucy, she is awfulfavourable to all this nightrider business. She spunks up and her eyessparkles whenever she thinks about that there tobaccer trust.
She would of like to been a night-rider herself. But the old man, hesays law and order is the main pint. What the country needs, he says,ain't burning down tobaccer warehouses, and shooting your neighbours,and licking them with switches, fur no wrong done never righted anotherwrong.
"But you were in the Ku Klux Klan yo'self," says Miss Lucy.
The old man says the Ku Kluxes was working fur a principle--theprinciple of keeping the white supremacy on top of the nigger race. Furif you let 'em quit work and go around balloting and voting it won'tdo. It makes 'em biggity. And a biggity nigger is laying up trouble furhimself. Because sooner or later he will get to thinking he is as goodas one of these here Angle-Saxtons you are always hearing so much talkabout down South. And if the Angle-Saxtons was to stand fur that, purtysoon they would be sociable equality. And next the hull dern countrywould be niggerized. Them there Angle-Saxtons, that come over fromIreland and Scotland and France and the Great British Islands andsettled up the South jest simply couldn't afford to let that happen, hesays, and so they Ku Kluxed the niggers to make 'em quit voting. It wasTHEIR job to MAKE law and order, he says, which they couldn't be withniggers getting the idea they had a right to govern. So they Ku Kluxed'em like gentlemen. But these here night-riders, he says, is AGIN lawand order--they can shoot up more law and order in one night than can bemanufactured agin in ten years. He was a very quiet, peaceable old man,Mr. Davis was, and Bud says he was so dern foolish about law and orderhe had to up and shoot a man, about fifteen years ago, who hearn himtalking that-a-way and said he reminded him of a Boston school teacher.
But Miss Lucy and Bud, they tells me what all them night-ridings isfur. It seems this here tobaccer trust is jest as mean and low-down andunprincipled as all the rest of them trusts. The farmers around thereraised considerable tobaccer--more'n they did of anything else. Thetrust had shoved the price so low they couldn't hardly make a living.So they organized and said they would all hold their tobaccer fur a fairprice. But some of the farmers wouldn't organize--said they had a rightto do what they pleased with their own tobaccer. So the night-riders wasformed to burn their barns and ruin their crops and whip 'em and shoot'em and make 'em jine. And also to burn a few trust warehouses now andthen, and show 'em this free American people, composed mainly out of theAngle-Saxton races, wasn't going to take no sass from anybody.
An old feller by the name of Rufe Daniels who wouldn't jine thenight-riders had been shot to death on his own door step, jest about amile away, only a week or so before. The night-riders mostly used thesehere automatic shot-guns, but they didn't bother with birdshot. Theymostly loaded their shells with buckshot. A few bicycle ball bearingsdropped out of old Rufe when they gathered him up and got him into shapeto plant. They is always some low-down cuss in every crowd that carriesthings to the point where they get brutal, Bud says; and he feels likethem bicycle bearings was going a little too fur, though he wouldn't leton to his dad that he felt that-a-way.
So fur as I could see they hadn't hurt the trust none to speak of, themnight-riders. But they had done considerable damage to their own county,fur folks was moving away, and the price of land had fell. Still, Iguess they must of got considerable satisfaction out of raising thedeuce nights that-away; and sometimes that is worth a hull lot to afeller. As fur as I could make out both the trust and the night-riderswas in the wrong. But, you take 'em one at a time, personal-like, andnot into a gang, and most of them night-riders is good-dispositionedfolks. I never knowed any trusts personal, but mebby if you could ketch'em the same way they would be similar.
I asts George one day what he thought about it. George, he got mightyserious right off, like he felt his answer was going to be used todecide the hull thing by. He was carrying a lot of scraps on a plate toa hound dog that had a kennel out near George's cabin, and he walled hiseyes right thoughtful, and scratched his head with the fork he had beenscraping the plate with, but fur a while nothing come of it. FinallyGeorge says:
"I'se 'spec' mah jedgment des about de same as Marse WILLyum's an' MissLUCY's. I'se notice hit mos' ingin'lly am de same."
"That can't be, George," says I, "fur they think different ways."
"Den if DAT am de case," says George, "dey ain't NO ONE kin settle hittwell hit settles hitse'f.
"I'se mos' ingin'lly notice a thing DO settle hitse'f arter a while.Yass, SAH, I'se notice dat! Long time ago dey was consid'ble gwines-onin dis hyah county, Marse Daniel. I dunno ef yo' evah heah 'bout dat o'not, Marse Daniel, but dey was a wah fit right hyah in dis hyah county.Such gwines-on as nevah was--dem dar Yankees a-ridin' aroun' an' eatin'up de face o' de yearth, like de plagues o' Pha'aoah, Marse Daniel, andrippin' and rarin' an' racin' an' stealin' evehything dey could laydey han's on, Marse Daniel. An' ouah folks a-ridin' and a racin' andprojickin' aroun' in de same onsettled way.
"Marse Willyum, he 'low HE gwine settle dat dar wah he-se'f--yass, SAH!An' he got on he hoss, and he ride away an' jine Marse Jeb Stuart. Butdey don'
settle hit. Marse Ab'ham Linkum, he 'low HE gwine settle hit,an' sen' millyums an' millyums mo' o' dem Yankees down hyah, MarseDaniel. But dey des ONsettle hit wuss'n evah! But arter a while it dessettle HITse'f.
"An' den freedom broke out among de niggers,and dey was mo' gwines-ON, an' talkin', an' some on 'em 'lowed dey wasgwine ter be no mo' wohk, Marse Daniel. But arter a while dat settleHITse'f, and dey all went back to wohk agin. Den some on de niggersgits de notion, Marse Daniel, dey gwine foh to VOTE. An' dey was mo'gwines-on, an' de Ku Kluxes come a projickin' aroun' nights, like degrave-yahds done been resu'rected, Marse Daniel, an' den arter a whiledat trouble settle HITse'f.
"Den arter de Ku Kluxes dey was de time Miss Lucy Buckner gwine ter mahyMarse Prent McMakin. An' she don' want to ma'hy him, if dey give her herdruthers about hit. But Ol' Marse Kunnel Hampton, her gram-pa, and heraunt, MY Miss Lucy hyah, dey ain't gwine give her no druthers. And deywas mo' gwines-ON. But dat settle HITse'f, too."
George, he begins to chuckle, and I ast him how.
"Yass, SAH, dat settle HITse'f. But I 'spec' Miss Lucy Buckner done he'psome in de settleMENT. Foh de day befoh de weddin' was gwine ter be,she ups an' she runs off wid a Yankee frien' of her brother, Kunnel TomBuckner. An' I'se 'spec' Kunnel Tom an' Marse Prent McMakin would o'settle' HIM ef dey evah had o' cotched him--dat dar David Ahmstrong!"
"Who?" says I.
"David Ahmstrong was his entitlement," says George, "an' he been gwineto de same college as Marse Tom Buckner, up no'th somewhah. Dat'show-come he been visitin' Marse Tom des befoh de weddin' trouble donesettle HIT se'f dat-away."
Well, it give me quite a turn to run onto the mention of that thereDavid Armstrong agin in this part of the country. Here he had beenjilting Miss Hampton way up in Indiany, and running away with anothergirl down here in Tennessee. Then it struck me mebby it is jestdifferent parts of the same story I been hearing of, and Martha had gother part a little wrong.
"George," I says, "what did you say Miss Lucy Buckner's gran-dad's namewas?"
"Kunnel Hampton--des de same as MY Miss Lucy befo' SHE done ma'hiedMarse Willyum."
That made me sure of it. It was the same woman. She had run away withDavid Armstrong from this here same neighbourhood. Then after he gother up North he had left her--or her left him. And then she wasn'tMiss Buckner no longer. And she was mad and wouldn't call herself Mrs.Armstrong. So she moved away from where any one was lible to trace herto, and took her mother's maiden name, which was Hampton.
"Well," I says, "what ever become of 'em after they run off, George?"
But George has told about all he knows. They went North, according towhat everybody thinks, he says. Prent McMakin, he follered and hunted.And Col. Tom Buckner, he done the same. Fur about a year Colonel Tom,he was always making trips away from there to the North. But whether heever got any track of his sister and that David Armstrong nobody knowed.Nobody never asked him. Old Colonel Hampton, he grieved and he grieved,and not long after the runaway he up and died. And Tom Buckner, hefinally sold all he owned in that part of the country and moved furthersouth. George said he didn't rightly know whether it was Alabama orFlorida. Or it might of been Georgia.
I thinks to myself that mebby Mrs. Davis would like to know where herniece is, and that I better tell her about Miss Hampton being in thatthere little Indiany town, and where it is. And then I thinks to myselfI better not butt in. Fur Miss Hampton has likely got her own reasonsfur keeping away from her folks, or else she wouldn't do it. Anyhow,it's none of MY affair to bring the subject up to 'em. It looks tome like one of them things George has been gassing about--one of themthings that has settled itself, and it ain't fur me to meddle andunsettle it.
It set me to thinking about Martha, too. Not that I hadn't thought ofher lots of times. I had often thought I would write her. But I keptputting it off, and purty soon I kind of forgot Martha. I had seen a lotof different girls of all kinds since I had seen Martha. Yet, wheneverI happened to think of Martha, I had always liked her best. Only movingaround the country so much makes it kind of hard to keep thinking steadyof the same girl. Besides, I had lost that there half of a ring, too.
But knowing what I did now about Miss Hampton being Miss Buckner--orMrs. Armstrong--and related to these Davises made me want to get awayfrom there. Fur that secret made me feel kind of sneaking, like I wasn'tbeing frank and open with them. Yet if I had of told 'em I would of feltsneakinger yet fur giving Miss Hampton away. I never got into a mix upthat-a-way betwixt my conscience and my duty but what it made me feelawful uncomfortable. So I guessed I would light out from there. Theywasn't never no kinder, better people than them Davises, either. Theywas so pleased with my bringing Bud home the night he was shot theywould of jest natcherally give me half their farm if I had of ast themfur it. They wanted me to stay there--they didn't say fur how long, andI guess they didn't give a dern. But I was in a sweat to ketch up withDoctor Kirby agin.