As the stream emerged into an old field—"Sun's pow'ful hot for you-all!" Hardy added. "Ain't see' such a day this time o' year fo' a coon's age. Hosses feel'n' it. Hard to say which is hottest, sun or brush."

We had skirted the branch a full mile, beating its margin thoroughly, and were in deep woods again, when all at once Charmer let out a glad peal. Her mate echoed it and with the stream at their back they were off and away in full cry. The trail was broad and strong and with rare breaks continued so for an hour. Often the dogs made us trot; in open grounds we galloped. Once, in a thickety wet tract where the still air was suffocating and a sluggish runlet meandered widely, Hardy was forced, after long hinderance, to drop the trail and recover it on a rising ground beyond.

There once more we were making good speed when we burst into an open grove where about a small, unpainted frame church a saddle-horse was tied under every swinging limb. Before the church a gang of boys had sprung up from their whittling to be our gleeful spectators. Hardy waved them off with the assurance that we wanted neither their help nor company, and though the trail took us at slackened speed around two sides of the building we passed and were gone while the worshippers were in the first stanza of a hymn started to keep them on their benches.

Noon, afternoon; we made no pause. "It's ketch 'em before night," said Hardy as we bent low under beech boughs, "or not till noon to-morrow."

About mid-afternoon one of the court-house boys, who had been talking softly with the other, turned back with a bare good-by. His friend explained:

"Got to be at his desk early in the morning. But I'm with you till you run 'em down."

Happy for me that he was mistaken. Two hours more were hardly gone when, "My Prince is sick!" he cried, drew in, and under a smoke of his own curses began wildly to unsaddle. Hardy rode on.

"You'll have to get another mount," I said.

"Another hell! I wouldn't leave this horse sick in strange hands for a thousand dollars!" Suddenly he struck an imploring key: "Look here! I'll give you fifty dollars cash to stay with me till I get him out o' this!"

"Five hundred," I called, trotting after Hardy, "wouldn't hire me."

Till I was out of earshot I could hear him damning and cursing me in snorts and shouts as a sneak who would wear my coat of tar and feathers yet, and I was still wondering whether I ought to or not, when I overhauled the nigger-chaser cheering on his dogs. Their prey had again tricked them, and again the cry was, "Take him, Dandy!" and "Hi, Charmer, hi!"

Between shouts: "Is yo' nag gwine to hold out?"

"He's got to or perish," I laughed.

In time we found ourselves under a vast roof of towering pines. The high green grass beneath them had been burned over within a year. The declining sun gilded both the grass and the lower sides of the soaring boughs. Even Hardy glanced back exaltedly to bid me mark the beauty of the scene. But I dared not. The dogs were going more swiftly than ever, and there was a ticklish chance of one's horse breaking a leg in one of the many holes left by burnt-out pine roots. The main risk, moreover, was not to Hardy's trained hunter but to my worn-out livery "nag."

"We've started 'em, all four, on the run," he called, "but if we don't tree 'em befo' they make the river we'll lose 'em after all."

The land began a steady descent. Soon once more we were in underbrush and presently came square against a staked-and-ridered worm fence around a "deadening" dense with tall corn. Charmer and Dandy had climbed directly over it, scampered through the corn, and were waking every echo in a swamp beyond. The younger pair, still yoked, stood under the fence, yelping for Hardy's aid. He sprang down and unyoked them and over they scrambled and were gone, ringing like fire-bells. Outside the fence, both right and left, the ground was miry, yet for us it was best to struggle round through the bushy slough; which we had barely done when with sudden curses Hardy spurred forward. The younger dogs were off on a separate chase of their own. For at the river-bank the four negroes had divided by couples and gone opposite ways.

"Call them back!" I urged. "Blow your horn!" But I was ignored.



XVI

[Chester sat looking at a newly turned page as though it were illegible.

"I'm wondering," he lightly said, "what public enormity of to-day the next generation will be as amazed at as we are at this."

"Ah," Mme. Castanado responded, "never mine! Tha'z but the moral! Aline and me we are insane for the story to finizh!" And the story was resumed, to suffer no further interruption.]

At the river we burst out upon a broad, gentle bend up and down which we could see both heavily wooded banks for a good furlong either way.

The sun's last beams shone straight up the lower arm of the bend. On the upper bayed Charmer and Dandy, unseen. On the lower we heard the younger pair. On the upper we saw only the clear waters crinkling in a wide shallow over a gravel-bar, but down-stream we instantly discovered Luke and his wife. Silhouetted against the level sunlight, heaving forward with arms upthrown, waist deep in the main current, they were more than half-way across. At that moment two small dark objects, the two dogs, moved out from the shore, after them, each with its wake of two long silvery ripples. The "puppy" was leading.

With a curse their master threw the horn to his lips and blew an imperious note. The rear dog turned his head and would have reversed his course, but seeing his leader keep on he kept on with him. Again the angry horn re-echoed, and the rear dog promptly turned back though the other swam on.

Rebecca threw a look behind and it was pitiful to hear her outcry of despair and terror. But Luke faced about and, backing after her through the flood, prepared to meet the hound naked-handed. Hardy sprang to his tiptoes in the stirrups, his curses pealing across the water. "If you hurt that dog," he yelled, "I'll shoot you dead!"

Up-stream the other two runaways were out on the gravel-bar, Euonymus behind Robelia and Robelia splashing ludicrously across the shoal, tearing off and kicking off—in preparation for deep water—sunbonnet, skirt, waist, petticoat, and howling in the self-concern of abject cowardice.

"Thank heaven, she's a swimmer," thought I, "and won't drown her brother!" For only a swimmer ever cast off garments that way.

The flight of Euonymus, too, was bare-headed and swift, but it was unfrenzied and silent. Neither of them saw Luke or Rebecca; the sun was in their eyes and at that instant Charmer and Dandy, having met some momentary delay, once more bayed joyously and sprang into view. Like Luke, Euonymus faced the brutes. With another fierce outcry Hardy blew his recall of all the four dogs.

Three turned at once but the youngster launched himself at Luke's throat where he stood breast-high in the glassing current. The slave caught the dog's whole windpipe in both hands and went with him under the flood. Hardy's supreme care for Charmer had lost him the strategic moment, but he fired straight at Rebecca.

She did not fall and his weapon flew up for a second shot! but by some sheer luck I knocked the pistol spinning yards away into the river. While it spun I saw other things: Rebecca clasping a wounded arm; Luke and the dog reappearing apart, the dog about to repeat his onset; and Hardy dumb with rage.

"Call the puppy!" I cried, "you'll save him yet."

The master winded his horn, and the dog swam our way. At the same time his fellows came about us, while on the farther bank Luke helped his wife writhe up through the waterside vines, and with her disappeared. Only Euonymus remained in the water, at the far edge of the gravel-bar.

I was so happy that I laughed. "All right," I cried, "I'll pay for the revolver."

Foul epithets were Hardy's reply while he spurred madly to and fro in search of an opening in the vines to let his horse down into the stream. I rode with him, knee to knee. "You'll pay for this with your life !" he yelled down my throat. "I'll kill you, so help me God! Charmer! Dandy! go, take the nigger!"

The whole baying pack darted off for Euonymus's crossing. "Take the nigger, Charmer! Ah! take him, my lady!" We saw that Euonymus could not swim. Still knee to knee with Hardy, I drew and fired. "Puppy's" mate yelped and rolled over, dead.

"Call them back," I said, holding my weapon high; but Hardy only shrieked curses and cried:

"Take the nigger, Charmer, take him!"

I fired again. Poor Dandy! He sprang aside howling piteously, with melting eyes on his master.

"Oh, God!" cried Hardy, leaping down beside the wailing dog, that pushed its head into his bosom like a sick child. "Oh, God, but you shall die for this!"

He was half right but so was I and I checked up barely enough to cry back: "Call 'em off! Call 'em off or I'll shoot Charmer!"

With Dandy clasped close and with eyes streaming he blew the recall. Looking for its effect, I saw Euonymus trying to swim and Charmer quitting the chase. But the young dog kept on. The current was carrying Euonymus away. Twice through vines and brush, while I cried: "Catch the fallen tree below you! Catch the tree!" I tried to spur my horse down into the stream, and on the third trial I succeeded.

The flood had cut the bank from under a great buttonwood. It hung prone over the water, and one dipping fork seized and held the fainting swimmer. The dog was close, but had entered the current too far down and was breasting it while he bayed in protest to his master's horn. Now, as Euonymus struggled along the tree the brute struck for the bank, and the two gained it together. Euonymus ran, but on a bit of open grass dropped to one knee, at bay. The dog sprang. In the negro fashion the runaway's head ducked forward to receive the onset, while both hands clutched the brute's throat. Not dreaming that they would keep their hold till I could get there, I leaped down in the shoal to fire; but the grip held, though the dog's teeth sank into legs and arms, and all at once Euonymus straightened to full stature, lifting the dog till his hind legs could but just tiptoe the ground.

"Right!" I cried; "bully, my boy! Lift him one inch higher and he's whipped!"

But Euonymus could barely hold him off from face and throat.

"Turn him broadside to me!" I shouted, having come into water breast-deep. "Let me put a hole through him!"

But the fugitive's only response was: "Run, Robelia! 'Ever mind me! Run! Run!"

And here came Hardy across the gravel-bar, in the saddle. I aimed at him: "Stand, sir! Stand!"

He hauled in and lifted the horn. Euonymus had heaved the dog from his feet. The horn rang, and with a howl of terror the brute writhed free, leaped into the river and swam toward his master. I sprang on my horse and took the deep water: "Wait, boy! Wait!"

It was hard getting ashore. When I reached the spot of grass I found only the front half of the runaway's hickory shirt, in bloody rags. I spurred to a gap in the bushes, and there, face down, lay Euonymus, insensible. I knelt and turned the slender form; and then I whipped off my coat and laid it over the still, black bosom. For Euonymus was a girl.



XVII

Her eyelids quivered, opened. For a moment the orbs were vacant, but as she drew a deep breath she saw me. Her shapely hand sought her throat-button, and finding my coat instead she turned once more to the sod, moaning, "Brother! Mingo!"

"Is he Robelia?" I asked. "Come, we'll find him."

Clutching my coat to her breast, she staggered up. I helped her put the coat on and sprang into the saddle. "Now mount behind me," I said, reaching for her hand; but with an anguished look:

"Whah Mingo?" she asked. "Is dey kotch Mingo?"

"No, not yet. Your hand—now spring!"

She landed firmly and we sped into the woods.

My merely wounding Dandy was fortunate. It kept Hardy from following me hotfooted or rousing the neighborhood. I dare say he wanted no one but himself to have the joy of killing me.

At a "store" and telegraph-station I let my charge down into a wild plum-patch, bought a hickory shirt, left my half-dead beast, telegraphed my livery-stable client where to find him, and so avoided the complication of being a horse-thief. Then I recovered Euonymus and about ten that night the five of us met on the bank of a creek. Near its farther shore, on a lonely railroad siding, we found a waiting freight-train and stole into one of its empty cars; and when at close of the next day hunger drove us out our pursuers were beating the bush a hundred miles behind.

Fed from a negro-cabin and guided by the stars, we fled all of another night afoot, and on the following day lost Mingo. At broad noon, with an overseer and his gang close by in a corn-field, the seductions of a melon-patch overcame him and he howled away his freedom in the jaws of a bear-trap. His father and mother wept dumb tears and laid their faces to the ground in prayer. Euonymus was frantic. With all her superior sanity, she would not have left the region could she have persuaded us to go on without her.

Well! Day by day we lay in the brush, and night after night fled on. I could tell much about the sweet, droll piety of my three fellow runaways, and the humble generosity of their hearts. No ancient Israelite ever looked forward to the coming of a political Messiah with more pious confidence than they to a day when their whole dark race should be free and enjoy every right that any other race enjoys.

"Even a right to cross two races?" I once asked Luke, smilingly, though with intense aversion.

"No, suh; no, suh! De same Lawd what give' ev'y man a wuck he cayn't do ef he ain't dat man, give' ev'y ra-ace a wuck dey cayn't do ef dey ain't dat ra-ace." I fancy he had been years revolving that into a formula; or—he may have merely heard some master or mistress say it.

"Still," I suggested, "races have crossed, and made new and better ones."

"I don't 'spute dat, suh; no, suh. But de Lawd ain't neveh gwine to make a betteh ra-ace by cross'n' one what done-done e'en-a' most all what even yit been done, on to anotheh what, eh——"

Sidney (Onesimus) put in: "What ain't neveh yit done noth'n'!" And her mother sighed, "Amen!"



XVIII

"Yes?" inquired Mme. Castanado. "Well?"

"Ah, surely!" cried several, "Tha'z not all?"

Mme. De l'Isle appealed to her husband: "Even two, three hun'red mile', that din'n' bring the line of Canada, I think."

"No, but, I suppose, of the Ohio."

"And that undergroun' railway!" said Scipion.

"Yes," Mme. Alexandre agreed, "but that story remain' unfinizh' whiles that uncle of Mr. Chezter couldn' return at his home."

"Not even his State," ventured mademoiselle.

"But he did," Chester said; "he came back."

M. Dubroca spoke up: "Oh, 'tis easy to insert that, at the en'—foot-note."

"And Hardy?" asked Beloiseau, "him and yo' uncle, they di'n' shoot either the other?"

"I believe they did, each the other. I never quite understood the hints I got of it, till now. I know that six months in bed with a back full of somebody's buckshot saved my uncle's life."

"From lynching! That also muz' be insert'!"

Chester thought not. "No, centre the interest in the runaway family, as in mademoiselle's 'Clock in the Sky.'" And so all agreed.

A second time he walked home with mademoiselle, under the same lenient escort as before. One thus occupied, by moonlight, can moralize as he cannot with any larger number. "It's hard enough at best," he said, "for us, in our pride of race, to sympathize—seriously—in the joys, the hopes, the sufferings of souls under dark skins yet as human as ours if not as white."

"Yes, 'tis true. Only one man, Mr. Chester, I ever knew, myself, who did that."

"Your father?"

"Yes, my dear father."

"Will you not some day tell me his story?"

"Mr. Castanado will tell you it. Any of those will tell you."

"I can't question them about you, and besides——"

"Well, here is my gate. 'And besides—' what?"

"Besides, why can't you tell me?"

"Ah, I'll do that—'some day,' as you say."

The gate-key went into the lock.

"But, mademoiselle, our 'Clock in the Sky'—our 'Angel of the Lord'—shan't we join them?"

"Ah, they are already one, but you have yet to hear that first manuscript, and that is so very separate—as you will see."

"Isn't it also a story of dark skins?"

"Ah, but barely at all of souls under them; those souls we find it so hard to remember."

"Chere fille"—M. De l'Isle had come up, with Mme. Alexandre—"the three will go gran'ly together! Not I al-lone perceive that, but Scipion also—Castanado—Dubroca. Mr. Chester, my dear sir, the pewblication of that book going to be heard roun' the worl'! Tha'z going produse an epoch, that book; yet same time—a bes'-seller!"

Mademoiselle beamed. "Does Mr. Chester think 'twill be that? A best-seller?"

Chester couldn't prophesy that of any book. "They say not even a publisher can tell."

"Hah!" monsieur cried, "those cunning pewblisher'! they pref-er not to tell."

"Some poetry," Chester continued, urged by mademoiselle's eyes, "doesn't pay the poets over a few thousand a year—per volume; while some novels pay their authors—well—fortunes."

"That they go," madame broke in, "and buy some palaces in Italie! And tha'z but the biginning; you have not count' the dramatization—hundreds the week! and those movie'—the same! and those tranzlation'!"

"Well, I think we will be satisfied, Mr. Chester, with the tenth of that, eh?"

Chester's reply was drowned in monsieur's: "No, my child! But nine-tenth' maybe, yes! No-no-no! if those pewblisher' find out you are satisfi' by one-tenth, one-tenth is all you'll ever see!"

"Ah," said mademoiselle to madame, "even the one-tenth I mustn't tell to my aunts. They wouldn't sleep to-night. And myself—'publication, dramatization, movies, translation'—I believe I'll lie awake till daylight, making that into a song—a hymn!"

A wonderful sight she was, pausing in the open gate, with the little high-fenced garden at her back, a street-lamp lighting her face. Chester harked back to that first manuscript. It "ought not to wait another week," he declared.

"No," monsieur said, "and since we all have read that egcept only you."

Chester looked to mademoiselle: "Then I suppose I might read it with the Castanados alone."

"No," madame put in, "you see, you can't riturn at Castanado's immediately to-morrow or next day. That next day, tha'z Sunday, but you don't know if madame goin' to have the stren'th for that fati-gue. Yet same time you can't wait forever! And bisside', yo' Aunt Corinne, Aunt Yvonne—Mr. Chezter he's never have that lugsury to meet them, and that will be a very choice o'casion for Mr. Chezter to do that, if——"

"If he'll take the pains," the niece broke in, "to call Sunday afternoon. Then I'll have the manuscript back from Mr. Castanado and we'll read it to my Aunt Corinne and my Aunt Yvonne, all four together in the garden."

"Yes, yet not in this li'l' garden in the front, but in the large, far back from the house, in the h-arbor of 'oneysuckle and by the side of the li'l' lake, eh?" So prompted madame.

"Assuredly," said the smiling girl; "not in the front, where is no room for a place to sit down!"

Chester's acceptance was eager. Then once more the batten gate closed and the key grated between him and Aline—marvellous, marvellous Aline Chapdelaine.



XIX

The sunbeams of a tedious Sabbath began noticeably to slant.

For two days, night, morning, noon, and afternoon, Geoffry Chester had silently speculated on what he was to see, hear, and otherwise experience when, as early as he might in keeping with the Chapdelaine dignity and his, he should pull the tiny brass bell-knob on their tall gate-post.

Chapdelaine! Impressive, patrician title. Impressive too those baptismal names; implying a refinement invincible in the vale of adversity. Killing time up one street and down another—Rampart, Ursuline, Burgundy—he pictured personalities to fit them: for Corinne a presence stately in advanced years and preserved beauty; for Yvonne a fragile form suggestive of mother-o'-pearl, of antique lace. Knowledge of Aline justified such inferences—within bounds. With other charms she had all these, and must have got them from ancestral sources as truly Mlle. Corinne's and Mlle. Yvonne's as hers.

"Oh, of course," he pondered, "there are contrary possibilities. They may easily fall short, far short, of her, in outer graces, and show their kinship only in a reflection of her inner fineness. They may be no more surprising than those dear old De l'Isles, or the Prieurs, or than Mrs. Thorndyke-Smith. So let it be! Aline——"

"Aline-Aline!" alarmingly echoed his heart.

"Aline is enough." Enough? Alas, too much! He felt himself far too forthpushing in—he would not confess more—a solicitude for her which he could not stifle; an inextinguishable wish to disentangle her from the officious care of those by whom she was surrounded—encumbered. "I've no right to this state of mind," he thought; "none." He reached the gate. He rang.

A footfall of daintiest lightness came running! ["Aline-Aline!"] So might Allegro have tripped it. The key rasped round, ["Aline-Aline!"] the portal drew in, and he found himself getting his first front view of Cupid, the small black satellite.

A pleasing object. Smaller than ever. White-collared as ever, starched and brushed to the sheen of a new penny and ugly of face as a gargoyle—ugly as his goddess was beautiful. Not merely negroidal, in lips, nose, ears, and tight black wool divided on the absolute equator; not racially but uniquely ugly—till he smiled—and spoke. He smiled and spoke with a joy of soul, a transparency of innocence, a rapture of love, that made his ugliness positively endearing even apart from the entranced recognition they radiated.

"Ladies at home? Yassuh," he said, with an ecstasy as if he announced the world's war suddenly over, all oceans safe, all peoples free. He led the way up the cramped white-shell walk with a ceremonial precision that gave the caller time to notice the garden. It was hardly an empire. It lay on either side in two right-angled figures, each, say, of sixty by fourteen feet, every foot repeating florally the smile of the child. The rigid beds were curbed with brick water-painted as red as Cupid's gums. The three fences were green with vines, and here and there against them bloomed tall evergreen shrubs. At one upper corner of the main path was a camellia and at the other a crape-myrtle, symbols respectively, to the visitor, of Aunt Corinne and Aunt Yvonne. The brick doorstep smiled as red as the garden borders, and as he reached the open door Aline, with her two aunts at her back, received him.

"Mr. Chester—Mlle. Chapdelaine. Mr. Chester—my Aunt Yvonne." Never had the niece seemed quite so fair—in face, dress, figure, or mental poise. She wore that rose whose petals are deep red in their outer circle and pass from middle pink to central white and deepen in tints with each day's age. If that rose could have been a girl, mind, soul, and all, a Creole girl, there would have been two on one stem.

And there, on either side of her sat the aunts: the elder much too lean, the younger much too dishevelled, and both as sun-tanned as harvesters, betraying their poverty in flimsy, faded gowns which the dismayed youth named to himself not draperies but hangings. Yet they were sweet-mannered, fluent, gay, cordial, and unreserved, though fluttering, twittering, and ultra-feminine.

The room was like the pair. "Doubtlezz Aline she's told you ab-out that 'ouse. No? Ah, chere! is that possible? 'Tis an ancient relique, that 'ouse. At the present they don't build any mo' like that 'ouse is build'! You see those wall', those floor'? Every wall they are not of lath an' plazter, like to-day; they are of solid plank' of a thicknezz of two-inch'—and from Kentucky!"

The guest recognized the second-hand lumber of broken-up flatboats.

"Tha'z a genuine antique, that 'ouse! Sometime' we think we ought to egspose that 'ouse, to those tourist', admission ten cent'." [A gay laugh.]

"But tha'z only when Aline want' to compel us to buy some new dresses. And tha'z pritty appropriate, that antique 'ouse, for two sizter' themselve' pritty antique—ha, ha, ha!—as well as their anceztors."

"I fancy they're from 'way back," said Chester.

"We are granddaughter' of two emigres of the Revolution. The other two they were decapitalize' on that gui'otine. Yet, still, ad the same time, we don't feel antique. We don't feel mo' than ten year'! And especially when we are showing those souvenir' of our in-fancy. And there is nothing we love like that."

"Aline, chere, doubtlezz Mr. Chezter will be very please' to see yo' li'l' dress of baptism! Long time befo', that was also for me, and my sizter. That has the lace and embro'derie of a hundred years aggo, that li'l' dress of baptism. Show him that! Oh, that is no trouble, that is a dil-ight! and if you are please' to enjoy that we'll show you our two doll', age' forty-three!—bride an' bri'groom. Go, you, Yvonne, fedge them."

The sister rose but lingered: "Mr. Chezter, you will egscuse if that bride an' groom don't look pritty fresh; biccause eighteen seventy-three they have not change' their clothingg!"

"Cherie," said Aline, "I think first we better read the manuscript, and then."

After a breath of hesitation—"Yes! read firs' and then. Alway' businezz biffo'!"

All went into the garden; not the part Chester had come through, but another only a trifle less pinched, at the back of the house. A few steps of straight path led them through its stiff ranks of larkspurs, carnations, and the like, to a bower of honeysuckle enclosing two rough wooden benches that faced each other across a six-by-nine goldfish pool. There they had hardly taken seats when Cupid reappeared bearing to the visitor, on a silver tray, the manuscript.

It was not opened and dived into with the fine flurry of the modern stage. Its recipient took time to praise the bower and pool, and the sisters laughed gratefully, clutched hands, and merrily called their niece "tantine." "You know, Mr. Chezter, 'tantine' tha'z 'auntie,' an' tha'z j'uz' a li'l' name of affegtion for her, biccause she takes so much mo' care of us than we of her; you see? But that bower an' that li'l' lake, my sizter an' me we construc' them both, that bower an' that li'l' lake."

Without blazoning it they would have him know they had not squandered "tantine's" hard earnings on architects and contractors.

"And we assure you that was not ladies' work. 'Twas not till weeks we achieve' that. That geniuz Aline! she was the arshetec'. And those goldfishes—like Aline—are self-su'porting! We dispose them at the apothecary, Dauphine and Toulouse Street—ha, ha, ha! Corinne, tha'z the egstent of commerce we ever been ab'e to make, eh?"

"And now," said Aline, "the story."

"Ah, yes," responded Mlle. Corinne, "at laz' the manuscrip'!" and Mlle. Yvonne echoed, with a queer guilt in her gayety:

"The manuscrip'! the myzteriouz manuscrip'!"

But there the gate bell sounded and she sprang to her feet. Cupid could answer it, but some one must be indoors to greet the caller.

"Yes, you, Yvonne," the elder sister said, and Aline added: "We'll not read till you return."

"Ah, yes, yes! Read without me!"

"No-no-no-no-no! We'll wait!"

"We'll wait, Yvonne." The sister went.

Chester smoothed out the pages, but then smilingly turned them face downward, and Aline said:

"First, Hector will tell us who's there."

Hector was Cupid. He came again, murmuring a name to Mlle. Corinne. She rose with hands clasped. "C'est M. et Mme. Rene Ducatel!"

"Well? Hector will give your excuses; you are imperatively engaged."

"Ah, chere, on Sunday evening! Tha'z an incredibility! Must you not let me go? You 'ave 'Ector."

"Ah-h! and we are here to read this momentous document to Hector?" The sparkle of amused command was enchanting to at least one besides Cupid.

Yet it did not win. "Chere, you make me tremble. Those Ducatel', they've come so far! How can we show them so li'l' civilization when they've come so far? An' me I'm convince', and Yvonne she's convince', that you an' Mr. Chezter you'll be ab'e to judge that manuscrip' better al-lone. Oh, yes! we are convince' of that, biccause, you know—I'm sorrie—we are prejudice' in its favor!"

Aline's lifted brows appealed to Chester. "Maybe hearing it," he half-heartedly said, "may correct your aunts' judgment."

The aunt shook her head in a babe's despair. "No, we've tri' that." Her smile was tearful. "Ah, cherie, you both muz' pardon. Laz' night we was both so af-raid about that, an' of a so affegtionate curio-zitie, that we was compel' to read that manuscrip' through! An' we are convince'—though tha'z not ab-out clocks, neither angels, neither lovers—yet same time tha'z a moz' marvellouz manuscrip'. Biccause, you know, tha'z a true story, that 'Holy Crozz.' Tha'z concerning an insurregtion of slave'—there in Santa Cruz. And 'a slave insurregtion,' tha'z what they ought to call it, yes!—to prom-ote the sale. Already laz' night Yvonne she say she's convince' that in those Northron citie', where they are since lately so fon' of that subjec', there be people by dozen'—will devour that story!"

She tripped off to the house.

"Hector," said Aline, "you may sit down."

Cupid slid into the vacated seat. Chester dropped the document into his pocket.

"For what?" the girl archly inquired.

"I want to take it to my quarters and judge it there. Why shouldn't I?"

"Yes, you may do that."

"And now tell me of your father, or his father—the one Beloiseau knew—Theophile Chapdelaine."

"Both were Theophile. He knew them both."

"Then tell me of both."

"Mr. Chester, 'twould be to talk of myself!"

"I won't take it so. Tell the story purely as theirs. It must be fine. They were set, in conscience, against the conscience of their day——"

"So is Mr. Chester."

"Never mind that, either. We're in a joint commercial enterprise; we want a few good stories that will hang on one stem. Our business is business; a primrose by the river's brim—nothing more! Although"—the speaker reddened——

The girl blushed. "Mr. Chester, take away the 'although' and I'll tell the story."

"I take it away. Although——"



XX

THE CHAPDELAINES

"A yellow primrose was to him——"

Yonder in the parlor with the Ducatels, ignorant of the poet's lines as they, the two aunts—those two consciously irremovable, unadjustable, incarnated interdictions to their niece's marriage—saw the primrose, the "business," as the pair in the bower thought they saw it themselves. Were not Aline and Chester immersed in that tale of servile insurrection so destitute of angels, guiding stars, and lovers? And was not Hector with them? And are not three as truly a crowd in French as in American?

"Well, to begin," Chester urged, "your grandfather, Theophile Chapdelaine, was born in this old quarter, in such a street. Royal?"

"Yes. Nearly opposite the ladies' entrance of that Hotel St. Louis now perishing."

"Except its dome. I hear there's a movement——

"Yes, to save that. I hope 'twill succeed. To me that old dome is a monument of those two men."

"But if it comes down the home remains, opposite, where both were born, were they not?"

"Yes. Yet I'd rather the dome. We Creoles, you know, are called very conservative."

"Yet no race is more radical than the French."

"True. And we Chapdelaines have always been radical. Grandpere was, though a slaveholder."

"Oh, none of my ancestors justified slavery, yet as planters they had to own negroes."

"But the Chapdelaines were not planters. They were agents of ships. Fifty times on one page in the old Picayune, or in L'Abeille—'For freight or passage apply to the master on board or to T. Chapdelaine & Son, agents.' Even then there were two Theophiles, and grandpapa was the son. They were wholesale agents also for French exporters of artistic china, porcelain, glass, bronze. Twice they furnished the hotel with everything of that kind; when it first opened, and when it changed hands. That's how they came to hold stock in it. Grandpapa, outdoor man of the firm, was every day in the rotunda, under that dome."

"Yes," Chester said, "it was a kind of Rialto, I know. They called it the 'Exchange,' as earlier they had called Maspero's."

"You love our small antiquities. So do I. Well, grandpapa did much business there, both of French goods and of ships; and because the hotel was the favorite of the sugar-planters its rotunda was one of the principal places for slave auctions."

"Yes, they were, I know, almost daily. The old slave-block is shown there yet, if genuine."

"Ah, genuine or not, what difference? From one that was there grandpere bought many slaves. He and his father speculated in them."

"Why! How strange! The son? your grandfather? the radical, who married—'Maud'?"

"Yes, the last slave he bought was for her."

"Why, why, why! He couldn't have met her be'—well—before the year of Lincoln's election."

"No, let me tell you. You remember 'Sidney'?"

"'Maud's' black maid? my uncle's Euonymus? Yes."

"Well, when she came to Maud, at Maud's home, in the North, she was still in agony about Mingo, who'd been recaptured. So Maud wrote South, to her aunt, who wrote back: 'Yes, he had been brought home, and at creditor's auction had been sold to a slave-trader to be resold here in New Orleans.' So then Sidney begged Maud, who by luck was coming here, to bring her here to find him."

"Brave Sidney. Brave Euonymus."

"Yes—although—her Southern mistress—I know not how legally—had sent to her her free-paper. That made it safer, I suppose, eh?"

"Yes. But—who told you all this so exactly—your grand'mere herself, or your grandpere?"

"Ah—she, no. I never saw her. And grandpere—no, he was killed before I was born."

"What?"

"Yes, all that I'll come to. This I'm telling now is from my own papa. He had it from grandpere. Grand'mere and Sidney came with friends, a gentleman and his wife, by ship from New York."

"And all put up at Hotel St. Louis?"

"Yes. From there Maud and Sidney began their search. But now, first, about that speculating in slaves: those two Theophiles, first the father, then both, hated slavery. 'Twas by nature and in everything that they were radical. Their friends knew that, even when they only said, 'Oh, you are extreme!' or 'Those Chapdelaines are extremist.' In those years from about eighteen-forty to 'sixty——"

"When the slavery question was about to blaze——"

"Yes—they voted Whig. That was the most antislavery they could vote and stay here. But under the rose they said: 'All right! extremist, yet Whig; we'll be extreme Whig of a new kind. We'll trade in slaves.'"

Chester laughed. "I begin to see," he said, and by a sidelong glance bade Aline note the rapt attention of Cupid. Her answering smile was so confidential that his heart leaped.

"I'll tell you by and by about that also," she murmured, and then resumed: "While grandpere was yet a boy his father had begun that, that slave-buying. On that auction-block he would often see a slave about to be sold much below value, or whose value might easily be increased by training to some trade. You see?—blacksmith, lady's maid, cook, hair-dresser, engine-driver, butler?"

Chester darkened. "So he made the thing pay?"

"Seem to pay. Looking so simple, so ordinary, 'twas but a mask for something else."

"But in a thing looking so ordinary had he no competitors, to make profits difficult?"

"Ah, of a kind, yes; but the men who could do that best would not do it at all. They would not have been respected."

"But T. Chapdelaine & Son were respected."

"Yes, in spite of that. Their friends said: 'Let the extremists be extreme that way.'"

"The public mind was not yet quite in flames."

"No. But—guess who helped grandpere do that."

"Why, do I know him? Castanado."

The girl shook her head.

"Who? Beloiseau?"

"Ah, you! You can guess better."

"Ovide Lan'—no, Ovide was still a slave."

"Yet more free than most free negroes. 'Twas he. He was janitor to offices in the hotel, and always making acquaintance with the slaves of the slave-mart. And when he found one who was quite of the right kind—and Ovide he's a wise judge of men, you know—he would show him to grandpere, and at the auction, if the bidding was low, grandpere would buy him—or her."

"What was one of 'quite the right kind'? One willing to buy his own freedom?"

"Ah, also to do something more; you see?"

"Yes, I see," Chester laughed; "to help others run away, wasn't it?"

"Not precisely to run, but——"

"To stow away, on those ships, h'm?" There was rapture in crossing that h'm line of intimacy. "I see it all! Ha-ha, I see it all! Well! that brings us back to 'Maud,' doesn't it—h'm?"

"Yes. They met, she and grandpere, at a ball, in the hotel. But"—Aline smiled—"that was not their first. Their first was two or three mornings before, when he, passing in Royal Street, and she—with Sidney—looking at old buildings in Conti Street——"

"Mademoiselle! That happened to them?—there?"

"Yes, to them, there." With level gaze narrator and listener regarded each other. Then they glanced at Cupid. His eyes were shining on them.

"Who is our young friend, anyhow?" asked Chester.

"Ah, I suppose you have guessed. He is the grandson of Sidney."



XXI

"And another time, on the morning just before the ball," said Aline, returning to the story, "they had seen each other again. That was at the slave-auction. That night, before the ball was over, she and grandpere understood—knew, each, from the other, why the other was at that auction; and he had promised her to find Mingo.

"Well, after weeks, Ovide helping, all at once there was Mingo, in the gang, by the block, waiting his turn to go on it. Picture that! Any time I want to shut my eyes I can see it, and I think you can do the same, h'm?"

Blessed h'm; 'twas the flower—of the Chapdelaines—humming back to the bee. Said the bee, "We'll try it there together some day, h'm?" and Cupid mutely sparkled:

"Oh, by all means! the three of us!"

The flower ignored them both. "There was the auctioneer," she said; "there were the slaves, there the crowd of bidders; between them the block, above them the beautiful dome. Very soon Mingo was on the block, and the first bid was from Sidney. She was the only one in a hurry except Mingo. He was trying to see her, but she was hiding from him behind grandpere; yet not from the auctioneer. The auctioneer stopped.

"'Who authorized you to bid here?' he asked her.

"'Nobody, sir; I's free.' She held up her paper.

"Grandpere nodded to the auctioneer.

"'Will Mr. Chapdelaine please read it out?'

"He read it out, signature and all.

"'Anybody know any one of that name?' the auctioneer asked, and grand'mere said:

"'That's my aunt. This free girl is my maid."

"'Oh, bidding for you?' he said; and grand'mere said no, the girl was bidding on her own account, with her own money.

"'What kind of money? We can't take shinplasters.' For 'twas then 'sixty-one—year of secession, you know.

"'Gold!' Sidney called out, and held it up in a black stocking, so high that every one laughed."

"Not Mingo, I fancy."

"Ah, no, nor the keeper of the gang."

"—Wonder how Mingo was behaving."

"He? he was shaking and weeping, and begging this and that of the man who held and threatened him, to keep him quiet. So then the auctioneer began to call Sidney's bid. You know how that would be: 'Gentlemen, I'm offered five hundred dollars. Cinq cent piastres, messieurs! Only five hundred for this likely boy worth all of nine! Who'll say six? Going at five hundred, what do I hear?' But he heard nothing till—'third and last call!' Then the owner of the gang nodded and the auctioneer called out, 'six hundred!"'

"And did Sidney raise it?"

"No, she wept aloud. 'Oh, my brotheh!' she cried, 'Lawd save my po' brotheh! I's los' him ag'in! I done bid my las' dollah at de fust call!'"

"And Mingo knew her voice, spied her out?"

"Yes, and holloed, 'Sidney! sisteh!' till grand-mere wept too and a man called out, 'No one bid that six hundred!' But grandpere said: 'I bid six-fifty and will tell all about this unlikely boy if his owner bids again.'

"So Mingo was sold to grandpere. 'And now,' grandpere whispered to grand-mere and her friends, 'go pack trunks for the ship as fast as you can.'"

"And they parted like that? But of course not!"

"No, only expected to. In the Gulf, at the mouth of the river, a Confederate privateer"—the narrator's voice faded out. She began to rise. Her aunts were returning.



XXII

Mademoiselle, we say, began to rise. Chester stood. Also Cupid. The aunts drew near, speaking with infantile lightness:

"Finizh' already that reading? You muz' have gallop'! Well, and what is Mr. Chezter's conclusion on that momentouz manuscrip'?"

The niece hurried to answer first: "Ah! we must not ask that so immediately. Mr. Chester concludes 'tis better for all that he study that an evening or two in his seclusion."

"And! you did not read it through together?"

"No, there was no advantage to——"

"Oh! advantage! An' you stop' in the mi'l of that momentouz souvenir of the pas'! Tha'z astonizhing that anybody could do that, an' leas' of all" [confronting Chester] "the daughter of a papa an' gran'papa with such a drama-tique bio-graphie! Mr. Chezter, to pazz the time Aline ought to 'ave tell you that bio-graphie, yes!—of our marvellouz brother an' papa. Ah, you should some day egstort that story from our too li'l' communicative girl."

"Why not to-day, for the book?"

"Oh, no-no-no-no-o! We di'n' mean that!" The sisters laughed excessively. "A young lady to put her own papa into a book—ah! im-pos-si-ble!"

They laughed on. "Even my sizter an' me, we have never let anybody egstort that, an' we don't know if Aline ever be persuade'——"

"Yes, some day I'll tell Mr. Chezter—whatever he doesn't know already."

"Ha-ha! we can be sure tha'z not much, Aline. And, Corinne, if he's heard this or that, tha'z the more reason to tell him co'rec'ly. Only, my soul! not to put in the book, no!"

"Ah, no! Though as between frien', yes. And, moreover, to Mr. Chezter, yes, biccause tha'z so much abbout that Hotel St. Louis and he is so appreciative to old building'. Ah, we've notice' that incident! Tha'z the cause that we egs'ibit you our house—as a relique of the pas'—Yvonne! we are forgetting!—those souvenir' of our in-fancy—to show them! Come—all!"

Half-way to the house—"Ah, ha-ha! another subjec' of interess! See, Mr. Chezter; see coming! Marie Madeleine! She's mis' both her beloved miztress' from the house and become anxious, our beautiful cat! We name' her Marie Madeleine because her great piety! You know, tha'z the sacred truth, that she never catch' a mice on Sunday."

"Ah, neither the whole of Lent!"

In the parlor—"I really think," Chester said, "I must ask you to let me take another time for the souvenirs. I'm so eager to save this manuscript any further delay—" He said good-by.

Yet he did not hurry to his lodgings. He had had an experience too great, too rapt, to be rehearsed in his heart inside any small, mean room. All the open air and rapid transit he could get were not too much, till at lamplight he might sit down somewhere and hold himself to the manuscript.

Meantime the Chapdelaines had been but a moment alone when more visitors rang—a pair! Their feet could be seen under the gate—two male, two female—that is not a land where women have men's feet. Flattering, fluttering adventure—five callers in one afternoon! "Aline, we are becoming a public institution!" The aunts sprang here, there, and into collision; Cupid sped down the walk; Marie Madeleine stood in the door.

And who were these but the dear De l'Isles!

"No," they would not come inside. "But, Corinne, Yvonne, Aline, run, toss on hats for a trip to Spanish Fort."

One charm of that trip is that the fare is but, five cents, and the crab gumbo no dearer than in town. "Come! No-no-no, not one, but the three of you. In pure compassion on us! For, as sometimes in heaven among cherubim, we are ennuyes of each other!"

The small half-hourly electric train in Rampart Street had barely started lakeward into Canal, with the De l'Isle-Chapdelaine five aboard and the sun about to set, when Geoffry Chester entered—and stopped before monsieur, stiff with embarrassment. Nevertheless that made them a glad six, and, as each seat was for two, the two with life before them took one.



XXIII

The small public garden, named for an old redout on the lake shore at the mouth of Bayou St. John was filled with a yellow sunset as Chester and Aline moved after the aunts and the De l'Isles from the train into a shell walk whose artificial lights at that moment flashed on.

"So far from that," he was saying, "a story may easily be improved, clarified, beautified, by—what shall I say?—by filtering down through a second and third generation of the right tellers and hearers."

"Ah, yes! the right, yes! But——"

"And for me you're supremely the right one."

Instantly he rued his speech. Some delicate mechanism seemed to stop. Had he broken it? As one might lay a rare watch to his ear he waited, listening, while they stood looking off to where water, sky, and sun met; and presently, to his immeasurable relief, she responded:

"Grandpere was not at that time such a very young man, yet he still lived with his father. So when grand'mere and her two friends—with Sidney and Mingo—returned from the privateer to the hotel they were opposite neighbors to the Chapdelaines and almost without another friend, in a city—among a people—on fire with war. Then, pretty soon—" the fair narrator stopped and significantly smiled.

Chester twinkled. "Um-h'm," he said, "your grandpere's heart became another city on fire."

"Yes, and 'twas in that old hotel—with the war storm coming, like to-day only everything much more close and terrible, business dead, soldiers every day going to Virginia—you must make Mr. Thorndyke-Smith tell you about that—'twas in that old hotel, at a great free-gift lottery and bazaar, lasting a week, for aid of soldiers' families, and in a balcony of the grand salon, that grandpere—" the narrator ceased and smiled again.

"Proposed," Chester murmured.

The girl nodded. They sank to a bench, the world behind them, the stars above. "Grand'mere, she couldn't say yes till he'd first go to her home, almost at the Canadian line, and ask her family. She, she couldn't go; she couldn't leave Sidney and Mingo and neither could she take them. So by railroad at last he got there. But her family took so long to consent that he got back only the next year and through the fall of the city. Only by ship could he come, and not till he had begged President Lincoln himself and promised him to work with his might to return Louisiana to the Union. Well, of course, he and his father had voted against secession, weeping; yet now this was a pledge terrible to keep, and the more because, you see? what to do, and when and how to do it——"

"Were left to his own judgment and tact?"

"Oh, and honor! But anyhow he came. Doubtless, bringing the written permission of the family, he was happy. Yet to what bitternesses—can we say bitternesses in English?"

"Indeed we can," said Chester.

"To what bitternesses grandpere had to return!"

"Aline!" Mme. De l'Isle called; "a table!"

"Yes, madame. Tell me—you, Mr. Chester—to your vision, how all that must have been."

"Paint in your sketch? Let me try. Maybe only because you tell the story, but maybe rather because it's so easy to see in you a reincarnation of your grand'mere—a Creole incarnation of that young 'Maud'—what I see plainest is she. I see her here, two thousand miles from home, with but three or four friends among a quarter of a million enemies. I see her on the day the city fell, looking up and down Royal Street from a balcony of the hotel, while from the great dome a few steps behind her the Union fleet could be seen, rounding the first two river bends below the harbor, engaging a last few Confederate guns at the old battle-ground, and coming on, with the Stars and Stripes at every peak. I see her——"

"She was beautiful, you know—grand'mere."

"Yes, I see her so, looking down from that balcony, awestruck, not fearstruck, on the people who in agonies of rage and terror fled the city by pairs and families, or in armed squads and unarmed mobs swept through the streets and up and down the levee, burning, breaking, and plundering."

"But that was the worst anybody did, you know."

"Oh, yes. We never knew till to-day's war came how humane that war was. It wasn't a war in which beauty, age, and infancy were hideous perils."

"Ah, never mind about that to-day. But about grandpere and grand'mere go on. Let me see how much you can imagine correctly, h'm?"

"Please, mademoiselle, no. Time has made you—through your father's eyes—they say you have them—an eye-witness. So next you see your grandpere getting back at last, by ship—go on."

"Yes, I see that, in a harbor whose miles of wharfs without ships cried to him: 'our occupation and your fortune are gone!' Also I see him again in the streets—Royal, Chartres, Canal, Carondelet—where old friends pass him with a stare. I see him and grand'mere married at last, in a church nearly empty and even the priest unfriendly."

"Had he no new friends, Unionists?"

"Not yet, at the wedding. There he said: 'Old friends or none.' And that was right, don't you think? Later 'twas different. You see, in the navy, both of the rivers and the sea, as likewise the army, grand'mere had uncles and cousins; and when the hotel was made a military hospital she was there every day. And naturally those cousins, whether from hospital or no, would call and even bring friends. Well, of course, grandpere was, at the least, courteous! And then there was his word of honor, to Mr. Lincoln, as also his own desire, to bring the State back into the Union."

"Of course. Don't hurry, please."

"Was I hurrying? Pardon, but I'm afraid they'll be calling us again." The pair rose, but stood. "Well, when a kind of government was made of that part of the State held by the Union, and the military governor wanted both grandpere and his father to take some public offices, his father made excuse of his age and of a malady—taken from that hospital—which soon occasioned him to die."

"I've seen his tomb, in St. Louis cemetery, with its epitaph of barely two words—'Adieu, Chapdelaine.' Who supplied that? Old friends, after all?"

"A few old, a few new, and one the governor."

"Did the governor propose the words?"

"No. If I tell you you won't tell? Ovide. But grandpere he took the office. And so that put him yet more distant from old friends except just two or three who believed the same as he did."

"And our Royal Street coterie, of course."

"Ah, not those you see now; but their parents, yes. They were faithful; though sometimes, some of them, sympathizing differently. Well, and so there was grandpere working to repair a piece of the State, when at last the war finished and the reconstruction of the whole State commenced. He and Ovide were both of that State convention they mobbed in the 'July riot.' Some men were killed in that riot. Grandpere was wounded, also Ovide. Those were awful times to grand'mere, those years of the reconstruction. Grandpere he—" The girl glanced backward, then turned again, smiling. The four chaperons were going indoors without them.

"Yes," Chester said, "your grandpere I can imagine——"

"Well, go ahead; imagine, to me."

"No. No, except just enough to see him with no choice of party allegiance but between a rabble up to the elbows in robbery and an old regime red-handed with the rabble's blood."

"Ah, so papa told me, after grandpere was long gone, and me on his knee asking questions. 'Reconstruction, my dear child—' once he answered me, ''twas like trying to drive, on the right road, a frantic horse in a rotten harness, and with the reins under his tail!' Ah, I wish you could have known him, Mr. Chester—my father!"

"I know his daughter."

"Well, I suppose—I suppose we must go in."

"With the story almost finished?"

"We'll, maybe finish inside—or—some day."



XXIV

T. CHAPDELAINE & SON

The seniors were found at a table for four.

Mme. De l'Isle explained: "But! with only four to sit down there, how was it possib' to h-ask for a tab'e for six? That wou'n' be logical!"

When the waiter offered to add a smaller table and make one snug board for six—"No," she said; "for feet and hands that be all right; but for the mind, ah! You see, Mr. Chezter, M. De l'Isle he's also precizely in the mi'l' of a moze overwhelming story of his own———"

"Hiztorical!" the aunts broke in. "Well-known! abbout old house! in the vieux carre!"

"And," madame insisted, "'twould ruin that story, to us, to commenze to hear it over, while same time 'twould ruin it to you to commenze to hear it in the mi'l'. And beside', Aline, you are doubtlezz yet in the mi'l' of your own story and—waiter! make there at that firz' window a tab'e for two, and" [to the pair] "we'll run both storie' ad the same time—if not three!"

"Like that circ'"—the aunts fell into tears of laughter. They touched each other with finger-tips, cried, "Like that circuz of Barnum!" and repeated to the De l'Isles and then to Aline, "Like that circuz of Barnum an' Bailey!"

At the table for two, as the gumbo was uncovered and Chester asked how it was made, "Ah!" said Aline, "for a veritable gumbo what you want most is enthusiasm. The enthusiasm of both my aunts would not be too much. And to tell how 'tis made you'd need no less, that would be a story by itself, third ring of the circus."

"Then tell me, further, of 'grandpere'"

"And grand'mere? Yes, I must, as I learned about them on papa's knee. Mamma never saw them; they had been years gone when papa first knew her. But Sidney I knew, when she was old and had seen all those dreadful times; and, though she often would not tell me the story, she would tell me what to ask papa; you see? You would have liked to talk with Sidney about old buildings. Mr. Chester, I think it is not that in New Orleans we are so picturesque, but that all the rest of our country—in the cities—is so starved for the picturesque. Sidney would have told you that story monsieur is telling now as well as all the strange history of that old Hotel St. Louis. First, after the war it was changed back from a hospital to a hotel. I think 'twas then they called it Hotel Royal. Anyhow 'twas again very fine. Grandpere and grand'mere were often in that salon where he had first—as they say—spoken. Because, for one thing, there they met people of the outside world without the local prejudices, you know?"

"At that time bitter and vindictive?"

"Oh, ferocious! And there they met also people of the most—dignity."

"Above the average of the other hotels?"

"Well, not so—so brisk."

"Not so American?"

"Ah, you know. Well, maybe that's one reason the St. Charles, for example, continued, while the Royal did not. Anyhow the Royal—grandpere had the life habit of it and 'twas just across the street. Daily they ate there; a real economy."

"But they kept the old home."

"Yes. 'Twas furnished the same but not 'run' the same. 'Twas very difficult to keep it, even with all three stories of the servants' wing shut up, you know?—like"—a glance indicated the De l'Isles.

"But you say Hotel Royal was soon closed."

"Yes, and then, in the worst of those days, it became the capitol. There, in the most elegant hotel for the most elegant planters of the South—anyhow Southwest—sat their slaves, with white men even more abhorred, and made the laws. In that old dome, second story, they put a floor across, and there sat the Senate! Just over that auction-block where grandpere had bought Mingo."

"Where was he—Mingo?"

"Dead—of drink. Grandpere was in that government! Long time he was senator. Mr. Chester, for that papa was proud of him, and I am proud."

The listener was proud of her pride. "I know," he said, "from my own people, that in such an attitude—as your grandfather's—there was honor a plenty for any honorable man. Ovide tells me the negroes never wanted negro supremacy. I wonder if that's so. They were often, he says, madly foolish and corrupt; yet their fundamental lawmaking was mostly good. I know the State's constitution was; it was ahead of the times."

Aline made a quick gesture: "And any of the old masters who agreed to that could help lead!"

"Mademoiselle, how could they agree to it? Some did, I know, but that's the wonder. Those that could not—who can blame them?"

"Ah! 'tis no longer a question of blame but of judgment. So papa used to say. Anyhow grandpere agreed, accepted, led; until at the last, one day, that White League—you've heard of them, how they armed and drilled and rose against that reconstruction police in a battle on the steamboat landing? Grandpere was in that. He commanded part of the reconstruction forces. And papa was there, though only thirteen. Grandpere was bayonet-wounded. They carried him away bleeding. Only at the State-house a surgeon met them, and there, under that dome, just as papa brought grand'mere and Sidney, he died." Mademoiselle ceased.

Chester waited, but she glanced to the other table. Monsieur had ended his recital. Madame and the aunts chatted merrily. Smilingly the niece's eyes came back.

"Don't stop," said Chester. "What followed—for 'Maud'—Sidney—your boy father—your little-girl aunts? Did the clock in the sky call them North again?"

"No." The speaker rose. "I'll tell you on the train; I hear it coming."



XXV

"There's a train every half-hour," Chester said.

"Yes, but the day-laborer must be home early."

On the train—"Well," the youth urged, "your grand'mere stayed in the old home, I hope, with the three children—and Sidney?"

"Only till she could sell it. But that was nearly three years, and they were hard, those three. But at last, by the help of that Royal Street coterie—who were good friends, Mr. Chester, when friends were scarce—she sold both house and furniture—what was by that time remaining—and bought that place where we are now living."

"Was there no life-insurance?"

"A little. We have the yearly interest on it still. 'Tis very small, yet a great help—to my aunts. I tell that only to say that papa would never touch it when he and my aunts—and afterward mamma—were in very narrow places."

Chester perceived another reason for the telling of it; the niece wanted to escape the credit of being the sole support of her aunts. She read his thought but ignored it.

"Papa was very old for his age," she continued. "You may see that by his being in the battle with grandpere at thirteen years. And because of that precocity he got much training of the mind—and spirit—from grandpere that usually is got much later. I think that is what my aunts mean when they tell you papa's life was dramatic. It was so, yet not in the manner they mean, the manner of grandpere's life; you understand?"

"You mean it was not melodramatic?"

"Ah! the word I wanted! Mr. Chester, when we get over being children, those of us who do, why do we try so hard to live without melodrama?"

"Oh, mademoiselle, you know well enough. You know that's what melodrama does, itself? What is it, in essence, but a struggle to rise out of itself into a higher drama, of the spirit——?"

"A divine comedy! Yes. Well, that is what my father's life seems to me."

"With tragic elements in it, of course?"

"Oh! How could it be high comedy without? But except that one battle the tragedy was not—eh—crude, like grandpere's; was not physical. Once he said to me: 'There are things in life, in the refined life, very quiet things, that are much more tragic than bloodshed or death or the defying of death.'"

"In the refined life," Chester said musingly.

"Yes! and he was refined, yet never weak. 'Strength,' he said, 'valor, truth, they are the foundations; better be dead than without them. Yet one can have them, in crude form, and still better be dead. The noble, the humane, the chaste, the beautiful, 'tis with them we build the superstructure, the temple, of life—Mr. Chester, if you knew French I could tell you that better."

"I doubt it. Go on, please, time's a-flying."

"Well, you see how tragic was that life! Papa saw it and said: 'It shall not be tragic alone. I will build on it a comedy higher, finer, than tragedy. That's what life is for; mine, yours, the world's,' he said to me. Mr. Chester, you can imagine how a daughter would love a father like that, and also how mamma loved him—for years—before they could marry."

"Your mother was a Creole, I suppose?"

"No, mamma was French. After grand'mere had followed grandpere—above—papa, looking up some of the once employees of T. Chapdelaine & Son, to raise the old concern back to life, arranged with them that while they should reinstitute it here he would go live in France, close to the producers of the finest goods possible. You see? And he did that many years with a kind of success; but smaller and smaller, because little by little the taste for those refinements was passing, while those department stores and all that kind of thing—you understand—h'm?"

The train stopped in Rampart Street, and when one aunt, with madame, and one with monsieur, had followed the junior pair out of the snarlings and hootings of Canal Street's automobiles and to the quiet sidewalks of the old quarter——

"Well?" said Chester, slowing down, and——

"Well," said Aline, "about mamma: ah, 'tis wonderful how they were suited to each other, those two. Almost from the first of his living there, in France, they were acquainted and much together. She was of a fine ancestry, but without fortune; everything lost in the German war, eighteen seventy. They were close neighbor to a convent very famous for its wonderful work of the needle and of the bobbin. 'Twas there she received her education. And she and papa could have married any time if he could promise to stay always there, in France. But the business couldn't assure that; and so, for years and years, you see?"

"Yes, I see."

"But then, all at once, almost in a day, mamma, she found herself an orphan, with no inheritance but poor relations and they with already too many orphans in their care. For, as my aunts say, joking, that seems to run in our family, to become orphans.

"They are very fond of joking, my aunts. And so, because to those French relations America seemed a cure for all troubles, they allowed papa to marry mamma and bring her here to live, where I was born, and where they lived many, many years so happily, because so bravely——"

"And in such refinement—of spirit?"

"Ah, yes, yes. And where we are yet inhabiting, as you perceive, my aunts and me, and—as you see yonder this moment waiting us in the gate—Hector and Marie Madeleine!"

Alone with the De l'Isles in Royal Street Chester asked, "And the business—Chapdelaine & Son?"

"Ah, sinz' long time liquidate'! All tha'z rim-aining is Mme. Alexandre. Mr. Chezter, y' ought to put that! That ought to go in the book," said monsieur.

"If we could only avoid a disjointed effect."

"Dizjoin'—my dear sir! They are going to read thad book biccause the dizjointed—by curio-zity. You'll see! That Am-erican pewblic they have a passion, an insanitie, for the dizjointed!"



XXVI

The week so blissfully begun in the Chapdelaines' garden and at Spanish Fort was near its end.

The Courier des Etats-Unis had told the Royal Street coterie of mighty doings far away in Italy, of misdoings in Galicia, and of horrors on the Atlantic fouler than all its deeps can ever cleanse; but nothing was yet reported to have "tranzpired" in the vieux carre. The fortunes of "the book" seemed becalmed.

It was Saturday evening. The streets had just been lighted. Mlles. Corinne and Yvonne, dingy even by starlight, were in one of them—Conti. Now they turned into Royal, and after them turned Chester and Aline. Presently the four entered the parlor of the Castanados. Their coming made its group eleven, and all being seated Castanado rose.

After the proper compliments—"They were called," he said, "to receive——"

"And discuss," Chester put in.

"To receive and discuss the judgment of their——"

"The suggestions," Chester amended.

"The judgment and suggestion' of their counsel, how tha'z best to publish the literary treasure they've foun' and which has egspand' from one story to three or four. Biccause the one which was firzt acquire' is laztly turn' out to be the only one of a su'possible incompat'—eh—in-com-pat-a-bil-ity—to the others." His bow yielded the floor to Chester. "Remain seated, if you please," he said.

"In spite of my wish to save this manuscript all avoidable delay," Chester began, "I've kept it a week. I like it—much. I think that in quieter times, with the reading world in a more contemplative mood, any publisher would be glad to print it. At the same time it seems to me to have faults of construction that ought to come out of it before it goes to a possibly unsympathetic publisher. Yet after—was Mme. Alexandre about——?"

"Juz' to say tha'z maybe better those fault' are there. If the publisher be not sympathetique we want him to rif-use that manuscrip'."

"Yes!" several responded. "Yes! He can't have it! Tha'z the en' of that publisher."

"Well, at any rate," Chester said, "after using up this whole week trying, fruitlessly, to edit those faults out of it, here it is unaltered. I still feel them, but I have to confess that to feel them is one thing and to find them is quite another. Maybe they're only in me."

"Tha'z the only plase they are," said Dubroca, with kind gravity. "I had the same feeling—till a dream, which reveal' to me that the feeling was my fault. The manuscrip' is perfec'."

"Messieurs," Mme. Castanado broke in, "please to hear Mlle. Aline." And Aline spoke:

"Perfect or no, I think that's what we don't require to conclude. But if that manuscript will join well with those other two—or three, or four, if we find so many—or if it will rather disjoint them—'tis that we must decide; is it not, M. De l'Isle?"

"Yes, and tha'z easy. That story is going to assimilate those other' to a perfegtion! For several reason'. Firz', like those other', 'tis not figtion; 'tis true. Second, like those, 'tis a personal egsperienze told by the person egsperienzing. Third, every one of those person' were known to some of us, an' we can certify that person that he or she was of the greatez' veracity! Fourth, the United States they've juz' lately purchaze' that island where that story tranzpire. And, fifthly, the three storie' they are joint'; not stiff', like board' of a floor, but loozly, like those link' of a chain. They are jointed in the subjec' of friddom! 'Tis true, only friddom of negro', yet still—friddom! An', messieurs et mesdames, that is now the precise moment when that whole worl' is wile on that topique; friddom of citizen', friddom of nation', friddom of race', friddom of the sea'! And there is ferociouz demand for short storie' joint' on that topique, biccause now at the lazt that whole worl' is biccome furiouzly conscientiouz to get at the bottom of that topique; an' biccause those negro' are the lowez' race, they are there, of co'se, ad the bottom!"

"M. Beloiseau?" the chair—hostess—said; and Scipion, with languor in his voice but a burning fervor in his eye, responded:

"I think Mr. Chezter he's speaking with a too great modestie—or else dip-lomacie. Tha'z not good! If fid-elitie to art inspire me a conceitednezz as high"—his upthrown hand quivered at arm's length—"as the flagpole of Hotel St. Louis dome yonder, tha'z better than a modestie withoud that. That origin-al manuscrip' we don't want that ag-ain; we've all read that. But I think Mr. Chezter he's also maybe got that riv-ision in his pocket, an' we ought to hear, now, at ones, that riv-ision!"

Miles. Corinne and Yvonne led the applause, and presently Chester was reading:



XXVII

THE HOLY CROSS

This is a true story. Only that fact gives me the courage to tell it. It happened.

It occurred under my own eyes when they were far younger than now, on a beautiful island in the Caribbean, some twelve hundred miles southeastward from Florida, the largest of the Virgin group—the island of the Holy Cross. Its natives called it Aye-Aye. Columbus piously named it Santa Cruz and bore away a number of its people to Spain as slaves, to show them what Christians looked like in quantity and how they behaved to one another and to strangers. You can hear much about Santa Cruz from anybody in the rum-trade.

It has had many owners. As with the woman in the Sadducee's riddle, she of many husbands, seven political powers have had this mermaid as bride. Spain, the English, the Dutch, the Spaniards again, the French, the Knights of Malta, the French again, who sold her to the Guiana Company, who in 1734 passed her over to the Danes, from whom the English captured her in 1807 but restored her again at the close of Napoleon's wars. Thus, at last, Denmark prevailed as the ruling power; but English remained the speech of the people. The island is about twenty-three miles long by six wide. Its two towns are Christiansted on the north and Fredericksted on the south. Christiansted is the capital.

In 1848 I lived in Fredericksted, on Kongensgade, or King Street, with my aunts, Marion, Anna, and Marcia, and my grandmother—whom the servants called Mi'ss Paula—and was just old enough to begin taking care of my dignity. Whether I was Danish, British, or American I hardly knew. When grandmamma, whose husband had been of a family that had furnished a signer of our Declaration, told me stories of Bunker Hill and Yorktown I glowed with American patriotism. But when she turned to English stories, heroic or momentous, she would remind me that my father and mother were born on this island under British sway, and—"Once a Briton always a Briton." And yet again, my playmates would say:

"When you were born the island was Danish; you are a subject of King Christian VIII."

Kongensgade, though narrow, was one of the main streets that ran the town's full length from northeast to southwest, and our home was a long, low cottage on the street's southern side, between it and the sea. Its grounds sloped upward from the street, widened out extensively at the rear, and then suddenly fell away in bluffs to the beach. It had been built for "Mi'ss Paula" as a bridal gift from her husband. But now, in her widowhood, his wealth was gone, and only refinement and inspiring traditions remained.

The sale or hire of her slaves might have kept her in comfort; but a clergyman, lately from England, convinced her that no Christian should hold a slave, and setting them free she accepted a life of self-help and of no little privation. She was his only convert. His zeal cooled early. Her ex-slaves, finding no public freedom in custom or law, merely hired their labor unwisely and yearly grew more worthless.

[The reader lifted his eyes across to Aline:

"I had a notion to name that much 'The Time,' and this next part 'The Scene.' What do you think?"

"Yes, I think so. 'Twould make the manner of it less antique."

"Ah!" cried Mlle. Corinne, "'tis not a movie! Tha'z the charm, that antie-quitie!"

"Yes," the niece assented again, "but even with that insertion 'tis yet as old-fashioned as 'Paul and Virginia.'"

"Or 'Rasselas,'" Chester suggested, and resumed his task.]



XXVIII

(THE SCENE)

Yet to be poor on that island did not compel a sordid narrowing of life. You would have found our living-room furnished in mahogany rich and old. In a corner where the airs came in by a great window stood a jar big enough to hide in, into which trickled a cool thread of water from a huge dripping-stone, while above these a shelf held native waterpots whose yellow and crimson surfaces were constantly pearled with dew oozing through the porous ware. On a low press near by was piled the remnant of father's library, and on the ancient sideboard were silver candlesticks, snuffers, and crystal shades.

But it was neither these things nor cherished traditions that gave the room its finest charm. It was filled with the glory of the sea. There was no need of painted pictures. Living nature hung framed in wide high windows through which drifted in the distant boom of surf on the rocks, and salt breezes perfumed with cassia.

Outside, round about, there was far more. A broad door led by a flight of stone steps to the couchlike roots of a gigantic turpentine-tree whose deep shade harbored birds of every hue. To me, sitting there, the island's old Carib name of Aye-Aye seemed the eternal consent of God to some seraph asking for this ocean pearl. All that poet or prophet had ever said of heaven became comprehensible in its daily transfigurations of light and color scintillated between wave, landscape, and cloud—its sea like unto crystal, and the trees bearing all manner of fruits. Grace and fragrance everywhere: fruits crimson, gold, and purple; fishes blue, orange, pink; shells of rose and pearl. Distant hills, clouds of sunset and dawn, sky and stream, leaf and flower, bird and butterfly, repeated the splendor, while round all palpitated the wooing rhythm of the sea's mysterious tides.

The beach! Along its landward edge the plumed palms stood sentinel, rustling to the lipping waters and to the curious note of the Thibet-trees, sounding their long dry pods like castanets in the evening breeze. By the water's margin, and in its shoals and depths, what treasures of the underworld! Here a sponge, with stem bearing five cups; there a sea-fan, large enough for a Titan's use yet delicate enough to be a mermaid's. Red-lipped shells; mystical eye-stones; shell petals heaped in rocky nooks like rose leaves; and, moving among these in grotesque leisure, crabs of a brilliance and variety to tax the painter. All the rector told of a fallen world seemed but idle words when the sunset glory was too much for human vision and the young heart trembled before its ineffable suggestions.

I often rode a pony. If we turned inland our way was on a road double-lined with cocoa palms, or up some tangled dell where a silvery cascade leaped through the deep verdure. On one side the tall mahogany dropped its woody pears. On another, sand-box and calabash trees rattled their huge fruit like warring savages. Here the banyan hung its ropes and yonder the tamarind waved its feathery streamers. Here was the rubber-tree, here the breadfruit. Now and then a clump of the manchineel weighted the air with the fragrance of its poisonous apples, the banana rustled, or the bamboo tossed its graceful canes. Beside some stream we might espy black washerwomen beetling their washing. Or, reaching the summit of Blue Mountain, we might look down, eleven hundred feet, on the vast Caribbean dotted with islands, and, nearer by, on breakers curling in noble bays or foaming under rocky cliffs. Northward, the wilderness; eastward, green fields of sugar-cane paling and darkling in the breeze; southward, the wide harbor of Fredericksted, the town, and the black, red-shirted boatmen pushing about the harbor; westward, the setting sun; and presently, everywhere, the swift fall of the tropical night, with lights beginning to twinkle in the town and the boats in the roadstead to leave long wakes of phosphorescent light.

Of course nature had also her bad habits. There were sharks in the sea, and venomous things ashore, and there were the earthquake and the hurricane. Every window and door had heavy shutters armed with bars, rings, and ropes that came swiftly into use whenever between July and October the word ran through the town, "The barometer's falling." Then candles and lamps were lighted indoors, and there was happy excitement for a courageous child. I would beg hard to have a single pair of shutters held slightly open by two persons ready to shut them in a second, and so snatched glimpses of the tortured, flying clouds and writhing trees, while old Si' Myra, one of the freed slaves who never had left us, crouched in a corner and muttered:

"Lo'd sabe us! Lo'd sabe us!"

Once I saw a handsome brig which had failed to leave the harbor soon enough stagger in upon the rocks where it seemed her masts might fall into our own grounds, and grandmamma told me that thus my father, though born in the island, had first met my mother.



XXIX

(THE PLAYERS)

Si' Myra was a Congo. She believed the Obi priests could boil water without fire, and in many ways cause frightful woes. To her own myths she had added Danish ones. "De wehr-wolf, yes, me chile! Dem nights w'en de moon shine bright and de dogs a-barkin', you see twelb dogs a-talkin' togedder in a ring, and one in de middle. Dah dem wait till dem yerry [hear] him; den dem take arter him, me chile," etc.

Strangest, wildest practice of the slaves was the hideous misuse Christian masters allowed them to make of Chrismas Day and week. It was then they danced the bamboula, incessantly. All through the year this Saturnalia was prepared for in meetings held at night by their leaders. The songs to which they danced were made of white society's scandals reduced to satirical rhyme; and to the rashest girl or man there was power in the warning, "You'll get yourself sung about at Christmas." Yearly a king, queen, and retinue were elected. The dresses of court and all were a mixture of splendor and tawdriness that exhausted the savings and pilferings of a twelvemonth. Good-natured "missies" often helped make these outfits. They were of velvet, silk, satin, cotton lace, false flowers, the brilliant seeds of the licorice and coquelicot, tinsel, beads, and pinch-beck. Sometimes mistresses even lent—firmly sewed fast—their own jewelry.

On Christmas Eve, here and there in the town, ground-floor rooms were hired and decorated with palm branches; or palm booths were built, decked with oranges and boughs of cinnamon berries, lighted with candles and lanterns and furnished with seats for the king, queen, and musicians, and with buckets of rum punch. Then the "bulrush man" went his round. Covered with capes and flounces of rushes and crowned with a high waving fringe of them, he rattled pebbles in calabashes, danced to their clatter, proclaimed the feast, and begged such of us white children as his dress did not terrify, for stivers from our holiday savings.

Soon the dancers began to gather in the booths; women in gorgeous trailing gowns, the men bearing showy batons and clad in gay shirts or satin jackets, and with a mongrel infant rabble at their heels. When the goombay—a flour-barrel drum—sounded, the town knew the bamboula had begun. On two confronting lines, the men in one, the women in the other, a leading couple improvised a song and all took up the refrain. The goombay beat time, and the dancers rattled or tinkled the woody seed-cases of the sand-box tree set on long handles and with each of their lobes painted a separate vivid color; rattles of basketwork; and calabashes filled with pebbles and shells. All instruments were gay with floating ribbons. So the lines approached each other by two steps, receded, advanced, and receded, always in wild cadence to the signals of voice and instrument; then bowed so low that they touched—twice—thrice; then pirouetted and resumed the first movement, and now and then, with two or three turns or bows, clashed their rattles together in time. As night darkened, the rude lights flared yellow and red upon the dusky forms bedizened with beads, bangles, and grotesquer trumpery. Faces, necks, arms reeked and shone in the heat, ribbons streamed, gross odors arose, the goombay dominated all, and children of the master race—for even I was permitted to witness these orgies—without comprehending, stood aghast. Close outside, the matchless night lay on land and sea; a relieved sense caught ethereal perfumes and was soothed by the exquisite refinement into whose space and silence the faint deep voice of the savage drum sobbed one grief and one prayer alike for slave and master.

The revel always ended with New Year's Day. The next morning broke silently, and with the rising of the sun the plantation bell or the conch called the bondman and bondwoman into the cane-fields. Then, alike in broadest noon or deepest night, a spectral fear hovered wherever the master sat among his loved ones or rode from place to place. Not often did the hand of oppression fall upon any slave with illegal violence, or he or she turn to slaughter or poison the oppressor; but the slaves were in thousands, the masters were but hundreds, the laws were cruel; the whipping-post stood among the town's best houses of commerce, justice, and worship, with the thumbscrews hard by. As to armed defense, the well-drilled and finely caparisoned volunteer "troopers" were but a handful, the Danish garrison a mere squad; the governor was mild and aged, and the two towns were the width of the island apart.



XXX

(THE RISING CURTAIN)

In that year, 1848, this unrest was much increased. King Christian had lately proclaimed a gradual emancipation of all slaves in his West Indian colonies. A squad of soldiers had marched through the streets, halting at corners and beating a drum—"beating the protocol," as it was termed—and reading the royal edict. After twelve years all slaves were to go free; their owners were to be paid for them; and meantime every infant of a slave was to be free at birth.

I suppose no one knows better than the practical statesman how disastrous measures are apt to be when designed for the gradual righting of a public evil. They rarely satisfy any class concerned. In this case the aged slaves bemoaned a promised land they might never live to enter; younger ones dreaded the superior liberty of free-born children; and the planters doubted they would be paid, even if emancipation did not bring fire, rapine, and death.

One day, along with all "West-En'," as the negroes called Fredericksted—Christiansted was "Bass-En',"—I saw two British East-Indiamen sail into the harbor. Such ships never touched at Fredericksted; what could the Britons want?

"Water," they said, "and rest"; but they stayed and stayed! their officers roaming the island, asking many questions, answering few. What they signified at last I cannot say, except that they became our refuge from the black uprising that was near at hand. Likely enough that was their only errand.

Sunday, the 2d of July, was still and fair. To me the Sabbath was always a happy day. High-stepping horses prancing up to the church-gates brought friends from the plantations. The organ pealed, the choir chanted, the rector read, and read well; the mural tablets told the virtues of the churchyard sleepers, and out through the windows I could gaze on the clouds and the hills. After church came the Sunday-school. Its house was on a breezy height where the wind swept through the room unceasingly, giving wings to the children's voices as we sang, "Now be the gospel banner."

But this Sunday promised unusual pleasure. I was to go with Aunt Marion to dine soon after midday with a Danish family, in real Danish West Indian fashion, and among the guests were to be some officers of the East-Indiamen. I carried with me one fear—that we should have pigeon-pea soup. Whoever ate pigeon-pea soup, Si' Myra said, would never want to leave the island, and I longed for those ships to go. But in due time we were asked:

"Which soup will you have—guava-berry or pigeon-pea?"

Hoping to be imitated I chose the guava-berry; but without any immediately visible effect one officer took one and another the other. After soup came an elegant kingfish, and by and by the famous callalou and other delicate and curious viands. For dessert appeared "red groat"; sago jelly, that is, flavored with guavas, crimsoned with the juice of the prickly-pear and floating in milk; also other floating islands of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale-green granadillas crowned the feast. These were eaten with sugar and wine, and before each draft the men lifted their glasses high to right and left and cried: "Skoal! Skoal!" As the company finally rose, our host and hostess shook hands with all, these again saluting each other, each two saying: "Vel be komme"—"May this feast do you good."

There was strange contrast in store for us. Late in the afternoon we started home. On the way two friends, a lady and her daughter, persuaded us to turn and take a walk on the north-side road, at the town's western border. It drew us southward toward "the lagoon," near to where this water formed a kind of moat behind the fort, and was spanned by a slight wooden bridge. While we went the sun slowly sank through a golden light toward the purple sea, among temples, towers, and altars of cloud.

As we neared this bridge two black men crossing it from opposite ways stopped and spoke low:

"Yes, me yerry it; dem say sich t'ing' as nebber bin known befo' goin' be done in West-En' town to-night."

"Well, you look sharp, me frien'——"

Seeing us, they parted abruptly, one troubled, the other pleased and brisk. Our friends drew back: "What does he mean, mother?"

"Oh, some meeting to make Christmas songs, I suppose."

"I think not," said Aunt Marion. "Let's go back; my mother's alone."

Just then Gilbert, young son of an intimate neighbor, appeared, saying to the four of us: "I've come to find you and see you home. The thing's on us. The slaves rise to-night. Some free negroes have betrayed them. At eight o'clock they, the slaves, are to attack the town."

Our home was reached first. Grandmamma heard the news calmly. "We're in God's hands," she said. "Gilbert, will you stop at Mr. Kenyon's" [another neighbor] "and send Anna and Marcia home?"

Mr. Kenyon came bringing them and begging that we all go and pass the night with him. But grandmamma thought we had better stay home, and he went away to propose to the neighborhood that all the women and children be put into the fort, that the men might be the freer to defend them.