Chapter Seventh.
"Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness,Wherein the pregnant enemy does much."--SHAKESPEARE'S TWELFTH NIGHT.
"Will you walk into the library, gentlemen? I have just received apackage of new books, which, perhaps, you would like to examine," saidMr. Travilla to his guests as they left the tea-table.
"Presently, thank you," Mr. Dinsmore answered, catching Elsie's eye, andperceiving that she had something for his private ear.
She took his arm and drew him out to her flower garden, while herhusband and Calhoun sought the library.
"Papa, I want a word with you about Cal. I do not like Foster and Boyd;that is, they seem to me to be unprincipled men, of violent temper andaltogether very bad associates for him; and you must have noticed howintimate he is with them of late."
"Yes, I regret it, but have no authority to forbid the intimacy."
"I know; but, papa, you have great influence; he is proud to be knownas your nephew; and don't you think you might be able to induce him togive them up for some better friend; my brother, for instance? Papa, heis twenty-one now, and are not his principles sufficiently fixed toenable him to lead Cal and Arthur, doing them good instead of beinginjured by association with them?"
"Yes, you are right; Horace is not one to be easily led, and Calhoun is.I am glad you have spoken and reminded me of my duty."
"My dear father, please do not think I was meaning to do that," shecried, blushing, "it would be stepping out of my place. But Edward and Ihave had several talks about Cal of late, and decided that we will makehim very welcome here, and try to do him good. Edward suggested, too,what a good and helpful friend Horace might be to him, if you approved,and I said I would speak to you first, and perhaps to my brotherafterward."
"Quite right. I think Horace will be very willing. I should be loth tohave him drawn into intimacy with Boyd or Foster, but as he likesneither their conduct nor their principles, I have little fear of that."
They sauntered about the garden a few moments longer, then rejoined theothers, who were still in the library.
The children were romping with each other and Bruno on the verandawithout; the merry shouts, the silvery laughter coming pleasantly inthrough the open windows.
"How happy they seem, Cousin Elsie," remarked Calhoun, turning to her.
"Yes, they are," she answered, smiling. "You are fond of children, Cal?"
"Yes; suppose you let me join them."
"Suppose we all do," suggested Mr. Dinsmore, seeing Travilla lay asidehis book, and listen with a pleased smile to the glad young voices.
"With all my heart," said the latter as he rose and led the way, "I findnothing more refreshing after the day's duties are done, than a rompwith my children."
For the next half hour they were all children together; then Aunt Chloeand Dinah came to take the little ones to bed, and Elsie, after seeingher guests depart, followed to the nursery.
Mr. Dinsmore rode over to Roselands with his nephew, conversing all theway in a most entertaining manner, making no allusion to politics or toBoyd or Foster.
Calhoun was charmed, and when his uncle urged him to visit the Oaks morefrequently, observing that he had been there but once since Horace'sreturn from college, and proposing that he should begin by coming todinner the next day and staying as long as suited his convenience, theinvitation was accepted with alacrity and delight.
On returning home Mr. Dinsmore explained his views and wishes, withregard to Calhoun, to his wife and son, who at once cordially fell inwith them in doing all they could to make his visit enjoyable. In fact,so agreeable did he find it that his stay was prolonged to several days.
The morning papers one day brought news of several fresh Ku Kluxoutrages, beatings, shootings, hanging.
Mr. Dinsmore read the account aloud at the breakfast table, and againmade some remarks against the organization.
Calhoun listened in silence, then as Mr. Dinsmore laid the paper down,"Uncle," said he doubtfully, and with downcast troubled look, "don't youthink the reconstruction acts form some excuse for the starting of suchan organisation?"
"Let the facts answer," returned Mr. Dinsmore: "the organization existedas early as 1866; the reconstruction acts were passed in March,1867."[D]
[Footnote D: See Reports of Congressional Committee of Investigation.]
"Ah, yes, sir, I had forgotten the dates; I've heard that reason given;and another excuse is the fear of a conspiracy among the negroes to roband murder the whites: and I think you can't deny that they arethievish."
"I don't deny, Cal, that some individuals among them have been guilty oflawless acts, particularly stealing articles of food; but they are poorand ignorant; have been kept in ignorance so long that we cannotreasonably expect in them a very strong sense of the rights of propertyand the duty of obedience to law; yet I have never been able to discoverany indications of combined lawlessness among them. On the contrary theyare themselves fearful of attack."
"Well, sir, then there were those organizations in the other--theRepublican party; the Union Leagues and Redstrings. I've been told theKu Klux Klan was gotten up in opposition to them."
"I presume so, but Union Leaguers and Redstrings do not go about indisguise, robbing, beating, murdering."
"But then the carpet-baggers," said Calhoun, waxing warm, "puttingmischief into the negroes' heads, getting into office and robbing thestate in the most shameless wholesale manner; they're excuse enough forthe doings of the Ku Klux."
"Ah!" said his uncle, "but you forget that their organization was inexistence before the robberies of the state began: also that they do nottrouble corruptionists: and why? because they are men of both parties;some of them men who direct and control, and might easily suppress theKlan. No, no, Cal, judged out of their own mouths, by their words totheir victims, with some of whom I have conversed, their ruling motivesare hostility to the Government, to the enjoyment of the negro of therights given him by the amendments to the Constitution, and by the lawswhich they are organized to oppose.[E] Their real object is theoverthrow of the State governments and the return of the negro tobondage. And tell me, Cal, do you look upon these midnight attacks ofoverpowering numbers of disguised men upon the weak and helpless, someof them women, as manly deeds? Is it a noble act for white men to stealfrom the poor ignorant black his mule, his arms, his crops, the fruit ofhis hard labor?"
[Footnote E: See Reports of Congressional Committee of Investigation.]
"No, sir," returned Calhoun half-reluctantly, his face flushing hotly.
"No, emphatically no, say I!" cried Horace, Jr., "what could be morebase, mean, or cowardly?"
"You don't belong, do you, Cal?" asked Rosie, suddenly.
He dropped his knife and fork, his face fairly ablaze, "What--what couldmake you think that, Rosie? No, no, I--don't belong to any organizationthat acknowledges that name."
A suspicion for the first time flashed upon Mr. Dinsmore, a suspicion ofthe truth. Calhoun Conly was already a member of the White Brotherhood,the name by which the Klan was known among themselves, Ku Klux being theone given to the world at large; that thus they might avail themselvesof the miserable, Jesuitical subterfuge Calhoun had just used.
He had been wheedled into joining it by Foster and Boyd, who utterlydeceived him in regard to its objects. He had never taken part in theoutrages and was now fully determined that he never would; resolvingthat while keeping its secrets, the penalty of the exposure of which wasdeath, he would quietly withdraw and attend no more of its meetings. Heunderstood the language of the searching look Mr. Dinsmore gave him andseized the first opportunity for a word in private, to vindicatehimself.
"Uncle," he said with frank sincerity, "I am not free to tell youeverything, as I could wish, but I hope you will believe me when Iassure you that I never had any share in the violent doings of the KuKlux, and never will."
Mr. Dinsmore bent upon him a second look of keen scrutiny. Conly bore itwithout flinching; and extending his hand, his uncle
replied, "I think Iunderstand the situation: but I will trust you, Cal, and not fear thatin entertaining you here I am harboring a hypocrite and spy who maybetray my family and myself into the hands of midnight assassins."
"Thanks, uncle, you shall never have cause to repent of yourconfidence," the lad answered with a flush of honest pride.
He returned to Roselands the next day, and went directly to an upperroom, at some distance from those usually occupied by the family, fromwhence came the busy hum of a sewing machine.
The door was securely fastened on the inner side, but opened immediatelyin response to three quick, sharp taps of a pencil which Calhoun tookfrom his pocket.
It was his mother's face that looked cautiously out upon him. "Oh, youhave returned," she said in an undertone; "well, come in. I'm glad tosee you."
He stepped in, and she locked the door again, and sitting down, resumedthe work, which it seemed had been laid aside to admit him. She wasmaking odd looking rolls of cotton cloth; stuffing them with cottonwool.
Mrs. Johnson, the only other person present, was seated before thesewing machine, stitching a seam in a long garment of coarse, whitelinen.
"How d'ye do, Cal?" she said, looking up for an instant to give him anod.
He returned the greeting, and taking a chair by Mrs. Conly's side, "Allwell, mother?" he asked.
"Quite. You're just in time to tell me whether these are going to lookright. You know we've never seen any, and have only your description togo by."
She held up a completed roll. It looked like a horn, tapering nearly toa point.
"I think so," he said; "but, mother, you needn't finish mine: I shallnever use it."
"Calhoun Conly, what do you mean?" she cried, dropping the roll into herlap, and gazing at him with kindling eyes.
"You're not going to back out of it now?" exclaimed Enna, leaving hermachine, and approaching him in sudden and violent anger. "You'd bettertake care, coward, they'll kill you if you turn traitor; and right theyshould too."
"I shall not turn traitor," he said quietly, "but neither shall I go anyfarther than I have gone. I should never have joined, if Boyd and Fosterhadn't deceived me as to the objects of the organization."
"But you have joined, Cal, and I'll not consent to your giving it up,"said his mother.
"I don't like to vex you, mother," he answered, reddening, "but--"
"But you'll have your own way, whether it displeases me or not? Adutiful son, truly."
"This is Horace's work, and he's a scalawag, if he is my brother,"cried Enna, with growing passion, "but if I were you, Cal Conly, I'd beman enough to have an opinion of my own, and stick to it."
"Exactly what I'm doing, Aunt Enna. I went into the thing blindfold;I have found out what it really is--a cruel, cowardly, lawlessconcern--and I wash my hands of it and its doings."
Bowing ceremoniously he unlocked the door, and left the room.
Enna sprang to it and fastened it after him. "If he was my son, I'd turnhim out of the house."
"Father would hardly consent," replied her sister, "and if he did, whatgood would it do? Horace or Travilla would take him in of course."
"Well, thank heaven, Boyd and Foster are made of sterner stuff and ourlabor's not all lost," said Enna, returning to her machine.
The two ladies had been spending many hours every day in that room fora week past, no one but Calhoun being admitted to their secrets, forwhether in the room or out of it they kept the door always carefullylocked.
The curiosity of servants and children was strongly excited, but vainhad been all their questions and coaxing, futile every attempt to solvethe mystery up to the present time.
But three or four days after Calhoun's return from the Oaks, the thoughtsuggested itself to mischievous, prying Dick and his coadjutor Walter,that the key of some other lock in the house might fit that of the doorthey so ardently desired to open. They only waited for a favorableopportunity to test the question in the temporary absence of theirmothers from that part of the building, and to their great joydiscovered that the key of the bedroom they shared together was theduplicate of the one which had so long kept their masculine curiosityat bay.
It turned readily in the lock and with a smothered exclamation ofdelight they rushed in and glanced eagerly about.
At first they saw nothing in any way remarkable--the familiar furniture,the sewing machine, the work-table and baskets of their mothers, a fewshreds of white cotton and linen, a scrap here and there of red braidlittering the carpet near the machine, and the low rocking-chair used byMrs. Conly.
"Pooh! nothing here to be so secret about," cried Walter, but Dick,nodding his head wisely said, "Let's look a little further. What's inthat closet?"
They ran to it, opened the door, and started back in sudden momentaryaffright.
"'Taint alive," said Dick, the bolder of the two, quickly recoveringhimself; "horrid thing! I reckon I know what 'tis," and he whispered afew words in his companion's ear.
Walter gave a nod of acquiescence of the opinion.
"Here's another 'most finished," pursued Dick, dragging out andexamining a bundle he found lying on the closet floor. (The one whichhad so startled them hung on the wall.) "We'll have some fun out of 'emone of these times when it's ready, eh, Wal?"
"Yes, but let's put 'em back, and hurry off now, for fear somebodyshould come and catch us. I'm afraid those folks in the drawing-room maygo, and our mothers come up to their work again."
"So they might, to be sure," said Dick, rolling up the bundle andbestowing it in its former resting place. "We must be on the watch, Wal,or we'll miss our chance; they'll be sending them out o' this about assoon as they're finished."
"Yes. Who do you think they're for?"
(The boys scorned the rules of English grammar, and refused to befettered by them. Was not theirs a land of free speech--for thearistocratic class to which they undoubtedly belonged?)
"Cal and Art, of course."
"Don't you believe it, Art cares for nothing but his books andSilverheels. Wasn't that a jolly birthday present, Dick? I wish Travillaand Cousin Elsie would remember ours the same way."
"Reckon I do. There, everything's just as we found it. Now let'sskedaddle."
Elsie's Motherhood Page 7