LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

should so much as touch this hemisphere. The Cubans had earned their freedom long since, and the cries of starving women and children for the bread which fathers and brothers asked but the right to earn must cease. To put out of mind the Americans blown to death at Havana—if such a thing were possible—he yet believed with all his heart in the war. He did not think there would be much of a fight—the regular army could doubtless take good care of the Spaniard—but if everybody acted on that presumption, there would be no answer to the call for volunteers. He was proud to think that the Legion of his own State, that in itself stood for the reunion of the North and the South, had been the first to spring to arms. And he was proud to think that not even they were the first Kentuckians to fight for Cuban liberty. He was proud that, before the Civil War even, a Kentuckian of his own name and blood had led a band of one hundred and fifty brave men of his own State against Spanish tyranny in Cuba, and a Crittenden, with fifty of his followers, were captured and shot in platoons of six.

      "A Kentuckian kneels only to woman and his God," this Crittenden had said proudly when ordered to kneel blindfolded and with his face to the wall, "and always dies facing his enemy." And so those Kentuckians had died nearly half a century before, and he knew that the young Kentuckians before him would as bravely die, if need be, in the same cause now; and when they came face to face with the Spaniard they would remember the shattered battle-ship in the Havana harbour, and something more—they would remember Crittenden. And then the speaker closed with the words of a certain proud old Confederate soldier to his son:

      "No matter who was right and who was wrong in the Civil War, the matter is settled now by the sword. The Constitution left the question open, but it is written there now in letters of blood. We have given our word that they shall stand; and remember it is the word of gentlemen and binding on their sons. There have been those in the North who have doubted that word; there have been those in the South who have given cause for doubt; and this may be true for a long time. But if ever the time comes to test that word, do you be the first to prove it. You will fight for your flag—mine now as well as yours—just as sincerely as I fought against it." And these words, said Crittenden in a trembling voice, the brave gentleman spoke again on his death-bed; and now, as he looked around on the fearless young faces about him, he had no need to fear that they were spoken in vain.

      And so the time was come for the South to prove its loyalty—not to itself nor to the North, but to the world.

      Under him he saw his mother's eyes fill with tears, for these words of her son were the dying words of her lion-hearted husband. And Judith had sat motionless, watching him with peculiar intensity and flushing a little, perhaps at the memory of her jesting taunt, while Grafton had stood still—his eyes fixed, his face earnest—missing not a word. He was waiting for Crittenden, and he held his hand out when the latter emerged from the crowd, with the curious embarrassment that assails the newspaper man when he finds himself betrayed into unusual feeling.

      "I say," he said; "that was good, good!"

      The officer who, too, had stood still as a statue, seemed to be moving toward him, and again Crittenden turned away—to look for his mother. She had gone home at once—she could not face him now in that crowd—and as he was turning to his own buggy, he saw Judith and from habit started toward her, but, changing his mind, he raised his hat and kept on his way, while the memory of the girl's face kept pace with him.

      She was looking at him with a curious wistfulness that was quite beyond him to interpret—a wistfulness that was in the sudden smile of welcome when she saw him start toward her and in the startled flush of surprise when he stopped; then, with the tail of his eye, he saw the quick paleness that followed as the girl's sensitive nostrils quivered once and her spirited face settled quickly into a proud calm. And then he saw her smile—a strange little smile that may have been at herself or at him—and he wondered about it all and was tempted to go back, but kept on doggedly, wondering at her and at himself with a miserable grim satisfaction that he was at last over and above it all. She had told him to conquer his boyish love for her and, as her will had always been law to him, he had made it, at last, a law in this. The touch of the loadstone that never in his life had failed, had failed now, and now, for once in his life, desire and duty were one.

      He found his mother at her seat by her open window, the unopened buds of her favourite roses hanging motionless in the still air outside, but giving their fresh green faint fragrance to the whole room within; and he remembered the quiet sunset scene every night for many nights to come. Every line in her patient face had been traced there by a sorrow of the old war, and his voice trembled:

      "Mother," he said, as he bent down and kissed her, "I'm going."

      Her head dropped quickly to the work in her lap, but she said nothing, and he went quickly out again.

IV

       Table of Contents

      It was growing dusk outside. Chickens were going to roost with a great chattering in some locust-trees in one corner of the yard. An aged darkey was swinging an axe at the woodpile and two little pickaninnies were gathering a basket of chips. Already the air was filled with the twilight sounds of the farm—the lowing of cattle, the bleating of calves at the cowpens, the bleat of sheep from the woods, and the nicker of horses in the barn. Through it all, Crittenden could hear the nervous thud of Raincrow's hoofs announcing rain—for that was the way the horse got his name, being as black as a crow and, as Bob claimed, always knowing when falling weather was at hand and speaking his prophecy by stamping in his stall. He could hear Basil noisily making his way to the barn. As he walked through the garden toward the old family graveyard, he could still hear the boy, and a prescient tithe of the pain, that he felt would strike him in full some day, smote him so sharply now that he stopped a moment to listen, with one hand quickly raised to his forehead. Basil was whistling—whistling joyously. Foreboding touched the boy like the brush of a bird's wing, and death and sorrow were as remote as infinity to him. At the barn-door the lad called sharply:

      "Bob!"

      "Suh!" answered a muffled voice, and Bob emerged, gray with oatdust.

      "I want my buggy to-night." Bob grinned.

      "Sidebar?"

      "Yes."

      "New whip—new harness—little buggy mare—reckon?"

      "I want 'em all."

      Bob laughed loudly. "Oh, I know. You gwine to see Miss Phyllis dis night, sho—yes, Lawd!" Bob dodged a kick from the toe of the boy's boot—a playful kick that was not meant to land—and went into the barn and came out again.

      "Yes, an' I know somewhur else you gwine—you gwine to de war. Oh, I know; yes, suh. Dere's a white man in town tryin' to git niggers to 'list wid him, an' he's got a nigger sojer what say he's a officer hisself; yes, mon, a corpril. An' dis nigger's jes a-gwine through town drawin' niggers right an' left. He talk to me, but I jes laugh at him, an' say I gwine wid Ole Cap'n ur Young Cap'n, I don't keer which. An' lemme tell you, Young Capn', ef you ur Ole Cap'n doan lemme go wid you, I'se gwine wid dat nigger corpril an' dat white man what 'long to a nigger regiment, an' I know you don't want me to bring no sech disgrace on de fambly dat way—no, suh. He axe what you de cap'n of," Bob went on, aiming at two birds with one stone now, "an' I say you de cap'n of ever'body an' ever'ting dat come 'long—dat's what I say-an' he be cap'n of you wid all yo' unyform and sich, I say, if you jest come out to de fahm—yes, mon, dat he will sho."

      The boy laughed and Bob reiterated:

      "Oh, I'se gwine—I'se gwine wid you—" Then he stopped short. The turbaned figure of Aunt Keziah loomed from behind the woodpile.

      "What dat I heah 'bout you gwine to de wah, nigger, what dat I heah?"

      Bob laughed—but it was a laugh of propitiation.

      "Law, mammy. I was jes projeckin' wid Young Cap'n."

      "Fool nigger, doan know what wah is—doan lemme heah you talk no more 'bout

Скачать книгу