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The Spirit of the South 
 
 WILL WALLACE HARNEY 
 
 BOSTON 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 The Gorham Press 
 1909 
 
Copyright, 1909, hy Will Wallace Harney 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 
 IJBHAKY 
 
 ,;f CONGRESS 1 
 
 Two <> 
 
 •' - f< .•'.e./ive;:: j 
 
 JUN 
 
 [^ iboy i 
 
 
 J^e Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
To William Randolph Harney ^ without 
 whose help and assurance this work could 
 not have been written or published, this 
 book is dedicated by his father 
 
 WILLIAM WALLACE HARNEY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The reader may be interested to know if the 
 writer has done anything but write verses and 
 little stories of the South for the magazines. 
 
 He is a descendant of that Revolutionary 
 soldier, Lieutenant Jenathan Harney, who fought 
 at Bunker Hill and Long Island; the son of John 
 H. Harney, college president, editor of the first 
 algebra published by an American, and for 
 twenty-five years editor and publisher of the 
 Louisville, Ky., Democrat, the leading journal 
 of the party in the Southwest. 
 
 Young Harney, the writer, began active life 
 as a public school teacher in Louisville. In a 
 service of five years his advanced classes induced 
 the board of trustees to establish a high school, 
 and in recognition of his services, Mr. Harney 
 was made principal. After two successful ses- 
 sions, the singular political insanity, Know- 
 Nothingism, swept the city and elected a new 
 board of trustees, who supplanted Mr. Harney 
 by a successor who knew little enough to satisfy 
 the principles of his party. 
 
 As soon as the trustees of the Kentucky State 
 University knew of Mr. Harney's release, he was 
 appointed to a professorship in the Normal 
 Department of Transylvania, at Lexington, Ky., 
 which was held until the withdrawal of the State's 
 endowment. As a graduate of the Louisville 
 Law School, Mr. Harney returned to practice 
 law in Louisville, but was soon after called as 
 assistant editor to his father on the Louisville 
 Democrat, This position was held until, after 
 
PREFACE 
 
 his father's death, he became editor in chief. 
 In August, 1868, he married Mary St. M. Ran- 
 dolph, of the Virginia family, eldest daughter of 
 Hon. W. M. Randolph, of New Orleans. After 
 birth of a son, in 1869, his wife's health failed, 
 and he removed to the wilds of South Florida. 
 It was too late. The loss of his young wife left 
 him with her infant son in the unsettled wilder- 
 ness of South Florida, almost without resources. 
 But the great editors of the Atlantic, Harper's, 
 Lippincotfs, and other leading magazines, accepted 
 his contributions, and that, dear reader, is the 
 origin of these Southern songs and sketches 
 offered a second time to a second generation. 
 At the same time he entered a homestead, cleared 
 and planted an orange grove with his own hands; 
 built, with Judge Randolph's help, his residence, 
 Pine Castle ; established a post office, to which the 
 name was given, a schoolhouse and school, 
 Sunday school and church service; promoted a 
 railroad and station at Pine Castle. 
 
 But his most effective service was his newspaper 
 correspondence. In 1870 South Florida was an 
 unsettled cow range, wholly unknown even to the 
 agents of State and Federal Governments at Ocala 
 and Tallahassee. The season was opportune; 
 the winters had been severe. But when the 
 Cincinnati Commercial, under that accomplished 
 gentleman editor, Murat Halstead, invited corre- 
 spondence, the monthly letters were followed by 
 a rush of new settler colonists, Swedes, English, 
 Union and Confederate soldiers. Correspondence 
 with the New Orleans Times-Democrat and the 
 Boston Courier completed the impulse. The 
 writer promoted prospected railroads, started a 
 
PREFACE 
 
 newspaper, The Bitter Sweet, at Kissimmee, to 
 encourage river traffic by that river to and through 
 Lake Okechobee to the sea. The effect of this 
 correspondence is sketched in a recent letter to 
 the Boston Courier, and the attraction of the 
 unrivaled climate has interested the great novelists 
 How ells and Chambers and others. 
 
 The infant son grew and prospered. Edu- 
 cated at home, at schools and college, he is in 
 business, with a home and wife of his own. The 
 story is the common story of the educated Ameri- 
 can in the South, and I think in New England. 
 Why should the writer call his collected songs 
 and stories The Spirit of the South ? One must 
 write of what one feels and sees. The writer 
 has always lived in the South. The songs and 
 stories are the romance of Southern lives; the 
 daring exploits by sea and land. Do they not 
 show the spirit of the South more than any 
 formal study .? Please buy and read them. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Preface v 
 
 WhoWonthe Pretty Widow? .... 11 
 Reverend Mr. Bland's Wrestle with the 
 
 Chester White Hog 91 
 
 A Western Seeress 123 
 
 The Spirit of the South 157 
 
 Adonais 159 
 
 The Stab 161 
 
 Catalina's Betrothal 161 
 
 The Lighthouse Rock 164 
 
 The Twilight of the Heart .... 166 
 
 The Reapers 167 
 
 The Old Canoe 169 
 
 September 171 
 
 An Old Georgia Manor House . . . 173 
 
 Over the Sugar Kettles ..... 175 
 
 The Angel of the Twilight .... 176 
 
 The Long Dream 177 
 
 U, S. M, Passenger Steamer .... 178 
 
 Always 181 
 
 Blindfolded 182 
 
 Qasta Diva . . . .... . 18^ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Florida Dawn 183 
 
 The Spirit of Melody 184 
 
 Baby and Mustard Playing Ball . . . 185 
 
 The Moorings 190 
 
 The Northern Snow 192 
 
 Trout Fishing 194 
 
 The Old Mill 195 
 
 In Memory of the Confederate Dead . , 196 
 
 The Ballad of the White Doe . ... 200 
 
 Milking Time 204 
 
 The Buried Hope 205 
 
 The Bergamot Blossom 206 
 
 Idle Words 207 
 
 In Memoriam 207 
 
 Jimmy's Wooing 208 
 
 Fallen Leaves 210 
 
 Coasting from Barbadoes 211 
 
 The Phantom Train 212 
 
 The Transit of Venus 213 
 
 The Parting Soul 213 
 
 The Golden Wedding 217 
 
 South Florida Night 219 
 
 The Greek Bow . 220 
 
 The Little Fault 221 
 
 Philo-Pcena 223 
 
 Under the Rose 225 
 
 After Dark 226 
 
 Florida Indian Love Chant .... 227 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 BOOK I 
 IN PROSE 
 
WHO WON THE PRETTY WIDOW 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 THIS is a story of the times of the" Great 
 Rebelhon. It does not discuss political 
 questions, but only presents an inside 
 picture of the trials and sufferings of one 
 who shared and sympathized with the mis- 
 fortunes of a lost cause. 
 
 A thousand stories, much better told, have 
 delineated the hardships of the Northern 
 wife in that period of desolation; may this 
 one serve to illustrate the trials and en- 
 durance of her Southern sister. 
 
 11 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 ANNO CONFEDERATIONIS 1, and 
 in the interregnum of Jefferson Davis, 
 and the consulship of J. Davis and A. 
 Stephens, there lived in the Province of 
 Mississippi, and not far from a gentle stream 
 that finds its devious way to a neighboring 
 bayou, a very pretty orphan girl. Her house- 
 hold consisted of an ancient maiden lady, 
 and, occasionally, her uncle. To dispose of 
 these at once, let us say that the ancient 
 maiden lady soon found her wise way through 
 the lines of the two armies; and the uncle, 
 who was also her guardian, fell at the battle 
 of Mill Springs, under General ZoUicoffer. 
 
 As to the dwelling of our heroine, it was 
 "built, as many other Southern residences are, 
 apparently on a succession of afterthoughts. 
 Isolated rooms and curious cupboards sud- 
 denly developed themselves on the unwary, 
 about the main building, or were stumbled 
 over, in the surrounding enclosure, as if set 
 out to cool. At a greater distance were the 
 outhouses; with the negro quarters, gin and 
 sugar houses, and barn beyond them. 
 
 This pretty little orphan may be said to 
 have been quite advanced in years, as she 
 was exactly nineteen years older than the 
 country in which she lived at the time our 
 
 13 
 
14 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 story commences. Perhaps her fame ought 
 to be considered equal to her years, inasmuch 
 as two great sections spent three or four hun- 
 dred thousand Hves, and endless dollars, to 
 show that she was not just as old as the record 
 in the family Bible testified. But, as her name 
 is not found in any of the protocols and 
 proclamations of that eventful period of 
 
 Proclamations, the temptation to compare 
 er with Helen of Troy is resisted. Let us 
 be satisfied with the fact that she was a very 
 pretty girl indeed. 
 
 She was accomplished, and could play on 
 the piano a great many selections from 
 opera, and almost as many sweet old-fash- 
 ioned airs, in which the elder generation 
 took great delight. She knew French, so 
 as not to speak it correctly, and a little draw- 
 ing, and a little botany and a great deal of 
 school chemistry of a very confusing nature 
 to the learned and unlearned. She was a 
 skilful dressmaker, too, and knew how to 
 adorn that perishable little body of hers in a 
 manner perfectly maddening. Then she 
 could card and spin and weave, and her nimble 
 fingers made up many a suit of homespun 
 and plaid cotton for the negroes. With these 
 she was a great favorite, and " Miss Lucy 
 says so," or " Miss Lucy won't like," was 
 conclusive. 
 
 In this list of domestic accomplishments 
 it would be scandalous to omit one upon which 
 the lady prided herself not a little. She was 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 15 
 
 mistress of the great art of providing savory 
 viands for the delectation of the appetite; not 
 only the delicate dishes I shall not rashly 
 undertake to name, but also the wholesome 
 sturdy staves of life, so to speak, that fill the 
 body comfortably. In the matter of coffee 
 she was just perfect. Once try it, and for- 
 swear all weak decoctions of inferior artists, 
 lest memory lose the flavor from the palate. 
 The black cook pretended to explain it in the 
 phrase, '* You can't make Miss Lucy skimpy* 
 to de coffee mill," but I think she failed. 
 The little maid became a domestic witch 
 around the coffee boiler, and seemed to infuse 
 some of her own spicy freshness into the 
 beverage. 
 
 She was also intensely and fearfully medical, 
 but an all-wise Providence had tempered her 
 rashness with a strong faith in homoeopathy 
 and little pills. Added to this, however, was 
 an abiding confidence, in all acute cases, in 
 calomel and quinine; which last she pro- 
 nounced kee-neen, as was her duty to her 
 preceptors. It was medicine to a sick man 
 just to see that brisk little figure step in, draw 
 together the arched brows, as if they had 
 been called into the consultation, and so pop 
 a little pellet on the furred tongue, and depart, 
 leaving many injunctions against coffee, tea, 
 spices, and the like. 
 
 *Skimpy, equivalent to scanty and stingy; the radical meaning 
 of both words entering into the signification of the provincialism. 
 
16 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 In the matter of religious instruction, no 
 theologian of the new or old school could 
 rival her. To see her at the cabins of a Sun- 
 day morning with Aunt Sarah, Aunt Lucy, 
 and the cloud of monkey-like little blacks, 
 with the Big Book before her, was a text, ay, 
 and a sermon, of itself. She would read in a 
 clear, fresh voice, with slight inflections of 
 boarding-school taste, that could not spoil 
 it, the parables of our Lord. Her own nature 
 so loved his sweet humanities, she mostly 
 fell upon those that revealed his sympathies 
 with childhood and youth; and The Feast at 
 Cana, The Prodigal Son, The Raising of 
 Jairus's Daughter, came round very often 
 in her loving pictures of a Saviour. Hearing 
 these simple lectures, in that wise, childlike 
 voice you would agree with Uncle Ben, as 
 he stood listening at his cabin door, to the 
 holiness within, '' She's an angel of de 
 Lord," said Ben, throwing up a black, brawny 
 arm as he spoke, — " she's an angel of de 
 Lord; dat jes what she is." Some months 
 later he added, in his rough way, words she 
 had read, " When I forgits her, may dis right 
 hand forgit his cunnin', and de tongue cleave 
 to de roof of my mouf." But he did forget 
 her for all that. Do not let us condemn him. 
 The charity his little teacher taught was 
 ample to cover this. 
 
 When the long political differences cul- 
 minated in action, our little heroine found 
 the opinions crystallized into a common senti- 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 17 
 
 ment, and she shared and sympathized with 
 it in every fiber of her earnest, positive being. 
 She was a very resolute, active Httle rebel 
 indeed, and thought her thought and spoke 
 her speech without the least awe of the Great 
 Giant hid in the gloom. It was her duty, she 
 believed, and she went into Rebellion just as 
 briskly and resolutely as she went into other 
 duties, associating them with her faith and 
 religion. 
 
 She liked a good many things, however, 
 besides duty. She liked a nice pony to ride, 
 and a nice beau to ride with her; she liked 
 a flower garden, and to dibble a little in it 
 every morning; she liked pretty curtains to her 
 room, pretty dresses, pretty and pleasant 
 companions about her when she could get 
 them; and then she would rob the pickle jar, 
 and sit with such boon companions in frightful 
 cucumber dissipation till ever so much o'clock. 
 She liked to have the biddable young men of 
 the county around her, and to please them, 
 and, yes, she did like to nibble sugar biscuit 
 and sweet cakes, behind the cupboard door, 
 between meals. 
 
 The beaux came, in spite of these notorious 
 faults in our heroine. Gay fellows from the 
 city, in gray oval hats, and stark riders from 
 the plantations, in broad felt, hung their 
 tiles on the hall rack, beside the ridiculous 
 rims of suitors from the far North. But 
 come as they might, and roofed in as they 
 Uiight, they had a pleasant visit till the end^ 
 
18 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 and went to come no more. Yes, for if Lucy 
 was not in love, she had at least taken a 
 strange inclination that way. 
 
 This was to a neighbor, the only son of his 
 mother, and she a widow. His paternal 
 farm adjoined Lucy's greater possessions, 
 and the two had grown up together. His 
 father had been a man of promise in the neigh- 
 borhood, and was once chosen to the State 
 Legislature. He thought it an honor, but 
 it was his ruin. It spoiled him as a planter, 
 and he fell into the hands of the country store- 
 keeper. This is the veritable dragon of the 
 small planter, which no Saint George has yet 
 overcome. Cotton, like other monarchs, 
 favors those only who see much of him. The 
 man of a hundred bales ships to his factor, 
 and receives the return less a moderate com- 
 mission. The great busy world watches over 
 his interest; rival looms bid for the staple, 
 rival factors keep down the commission, but 
 the world's huge spectacles cannot see mi- 
 croscopic crops, and the dragon eats up the 
 small planter. The crop is hypothecated 
 to the country merchant as soon as it is in the 
 ground. He will supply necessaries on no 
 other terms, for the dragons are pawnbrokers 
 to a man. The planter has no individual 
 credit, and the crop so pawned is paid for at 
 a price set by the country merchant, in goods 
 on which he sets his own price. 
 
 The father of Lucy's lover got in this mill 
 of the country merchants, and it ground him 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 19 
 
 exceeding fine indeed. He fell into low 
 ways and hung about the village cotton gin, 
 blacksmith shop, and hideous country store 
 with its dilute alcohol, and one day he was 
 taken home starting and trembling in a sad 
 way. He recovered a little before he died, 
 and made a will, leaving all he to had his 
 wife, and afterwards to his son; or, in the 
 event of his son's death, to his nephew, a 
 poor lame man of the neighborhood. Then 
 urging that son to avoid his errors, he made 
 his peace with God, and rested. 
 
 This advice the son was like to follow. He 
 had taught school at seventeen, and farmed 
 a little and traded a little, till he had a small 
 capital of his own at his father's death. With 
 this he paid off immediate encumbrances, 
 and by economy was slowly escaping the 
 dragon's fangs, when the war came between 
 his work and his love for his pretty neighbor, 
 Lucy Lanfranc. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE fall of Sumter committed the South 
 irrevocably to the struggle. The suc- 
 cess, the singular escape from the 
 effusion of blood, seemed to foreshow a bril- 
 liant victory and bloodless independence. It 
 stirred the gay and gallant spirits of the neigh- 
 borhood; a company was raised, and Lucy 
 made a little speech and presented a flag; 
 and the captain made his little speech; his 
 two little speeches, in fact, and didn't seem 
 satisfied, altogether, with their effect. But 
 he went his way as others before him, and 
 after. 
 
 Then Manassas followed, and the enthu- 
 siasm became furious. The cry was, " The 
 Yankees will be whipped before we can get 
 there"; and the leopards scented blood and 
 were eager to be off. A regiment was raised, 
 one of Lucy's favorites was the colonel, and 
 then came the speeches. Lucy, presenting the 
 flag, was charming and eloquent, and gave no 
 symptom of breaking down; but the colonel 
 did break down woefully, both in private and 
 in public, and so followed the captain. 
 
 In none of these gayeties and gallantries 
 did the widow's son take part. The fife and 
 drum and the barbecue and picnic rejoiced 
 in the grand Southern woods, as merry as if 
 
 20 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 21 
 
 behind the day and balmy night the long 
 ranks of the to-morrows did not march in 
 Confederate gray and Union blue; but these 
 allured him in vain. Lucy was vexed and 
 uneasy. Could he tarry.? The war would 
 be over, and all the glory harvested, and this 
 preux chevalier of hers not be even at the 
 gleaning. She made up her mind to do some- 
 thing, and did it. 
 
 She lured him at the village church, and 
 bore him captive. It was very sweet, she 
 felt, after all, to have this recreant knight at 
 her bridle-rein; but duty was duty, and she 
 would have her word, cost what it may. 
 
 He explained, frankly enough, that, knowing 
 her heart was in this cause, and not seeing his 
 way clear to go, he had refrained from visiting 
 her. 
 
 "But why.?" she asked; ''is it not your 
 country ? Even Moses, when the Lord was 
 angry with the Jews, chose to be blotted out 
 of His book rather than desert his country- 
 men." 
 
 " Yes," said Victor Shandy, " but a later 
 apostle, under a better dispensation, said 
 that * he who does not provide for his own 
 household is worse than a heathen.' My 
 mother's affairs are so embarrassed, I cannot 
 afford to leave her to struggle alone." 
 
 That was all he said. She understood now 
 how this man w ho stayed was braver than all 
 who had gone. He had sacrificed his am- 
 bition, his eager desire to be well with men,. 
 
m SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 and risked even her love, upon the altar of 
 fihal affection. '' I didn't know; I didn't 
 think," she said; ''but I — Couldn't I take 
 care of your mother ? " 
 
 It was enough, and although she protested 
 that he and his mother were different persons, 
 and she had never offered to take care of 
 him, yet it was somehow arranged that way, 
 and there was a quiet wedding soon after. 
 We can suppose Victor Shandy allowed his 
 wife to assist him in the matter of his mother's 
 embarrassments, for he went soon after to 
 the wars. 
 
 The little wife remained quietly at her 
 home, busy with her household duties, for 
 perhaps a year. One morning, however, 
 she lost her head man, her overseer, a canny 
 Scot. '* He could na just see his way," he 
 said, '' to bide at hame when sae mony braw 
 men were i' th' field. His conscience gied 
 him sair twinges there anent, and the slave 
 boddies were a' gude laddies; belike the lady 
 could sted the place alane." So Lucy praised 
 his resolution, and was left her own overseer 
 and manager. 
 
 How did she get on.^ Let her speak for 
 herself. She wrote many letters to her soldier 
 husband, in those days, — odd mixtures of 
 practical sense, unpractical advice, and pious 
 exhortations. Some of them are preserved, 
 and we quote extracts. 
 
 ** I am no end of a planter," she said. 
 *' Up by day, I breakfast at sunrise, and 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 23 
 
 mount Kitty Clyde for a morning ride over the 
 fields where the men are at work. This 
 keeps me till ten o'clock. Then for domestic 
 duties until the afternoon, when I go again 
 to look at the work and see that it is done 
 right. . . . That unlucky south field wanted 
 manure. Of course fertilizers were impossi- 
 ble, the blockade is so bad. But I ground 
 the cottonseed to a meal, and put it on, a 
 thousand pounds to the acre, and vegetation 
 comes out wonderfully. The stock eat the 
 meal, but it is not good, because it spoils the 
 milk, unless you mix other things with it. . . . 
 Your little wife has become a great spinster. 
 Jane and Lucy and I carded, spun, and wove, 
 not only stuffs for the hands, but heaps beside. 
 The blockade is so bad, as I said, and the poor 
 people just starving and in rags. McCand- 
 less, at the store, is so hard, I just thought I 
 would try a little plan. I sold the soldiers' 
 wives the cloth very cheap. Why not give ? 
 Oh, that is so like a silly man! Because I 
 took the little money, and Mr. Melden, the 
 preacher, who is a very good man, and not at 
 all like the last you disliked so much, and — 
 Oh, yes! Mr. Melden's brother got me some 
 sugar, coffee, etc., for the poor people with 
 the money. I declare, what a funny sentence 
 that is! Never mind. You know what I 
 mean, and I am in a hurry now. But Mc- 
 Candless is as mad about it, you don't know; 
 and the poor creatures seem to think I am 
 making money at it somehow. . . . As to 
 
24 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 the sale of cotton, the business — I don't 
 know how to spell ' business,' no more than 
 I do ' receive ' and ' believe,' or which letter is 
 first. So I crook the ' s ' just the least little 
 bit, and the ' i ' the least little bit, and put the 
 dot above the middle of them. If you don't 
 fix it right, it is your bad spelling, not mine." 
 
 Then she instructed him about the care of 
 his health, in which, we may know, the 
 quinine and little pills were not forgotten. 
 *' I know," she said, " that soldiers must get 
 wet; but whenever you do, as soon as you get 
 to your tent, change everything to the skin, 
 and have Floyd rub you hard with a coarse 
 dry towel. Don't neglect this." She was glad 
 to hear " he had been promoted for gallantry, 
 and was a sergeant " ; then she closed in 
 simple expressions of love and prayers, so 
 dear to the yearning absent. 
 
 At rare intervals letters came from him. 
 Sometimes a batch, and then one or two 
 stragglers, and then silence till the next op- 
 portunity. The mail facilities ( ?) in the Con- 
 federacy were a ridiculous failure at the best. 
 Once old Mr. Sambre, a neighbor, found her 
 frowning over a piece of information in one 
 of these letters. He was a licensed grumbler,, 
 and went on, as usual, this morning till he 
 attracted her attention. 
 
 " I am afraid," said he, hitching his dis- 
 content to some disconnected remarks, — 
 " I am afraid we have not gained much by 
 this cruel Rebellion." 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 25 
 
 At another time she would have rebuked the 
 expression and argued the point; but she had 
 her own private wrong to brood over. " This 
 cruel Rebellion," he continued. " We are 
 taxed this side and t'other. We didn't usen 
 to have it, and hadn't ought to now. Now 
 the government," with a stress on the last 
 syllable, " is a goin' for to take our cotton, 
 callin' of it a loan. Loan indeed! it's mighty 
 like old-fashioned stealin'. I heered say this 
 is the rich man's war, an' the poor man's 
 fight. It's a sight wuss. It's the poor man's 
 pay, too." 
 
 " Mr. Sambre," said Lucy, rallying, " sup- 
 pose you were to ask Mr. McCandless, down 
 at the store, to buy you a certain article in 
 New Orleans, and he did so, but the bill he 
 presented for the goods was larger than you 
 expected; would you refuse to pay ? " 
 
 '' That I would," said he, triumphantly. 
 " I tell you. Miss Lanfranc, — Mrs. Shandy, 
 I mean, — I wouldn't trust that thar Mc- 
 Candless furder'n you could throw a bull 
 by the tail." 
 
 '' But," said Lucy, trying to save her illus- 
 tration, '' if McCandless was an honest man, 
 wouldn't you pay ? " 
 
 '' I dunno; more'n likely I'd have to. But," 
 he added stoutly, '* I'd grumble hke the devil." 
 
 '* Well, well," said Lucy, '' we'll just have 
 to let you and such as you grumble and pay." 
 
 *' But I want to be gittin' what I done 
 told McCandless to git. He may have 
 
26 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 went* and spent it for somethin' else, like that 
 dern lickin' our government's done got up in 
 Kantuek," growled the irrepressible. 
 
 *' What do you mean ? " said Lucy. " Have 
 you any late news ? " 
 
 " You done heered how Zollieoffer's got 
 licked, an' we got licked at Donelson, and 
 somebody's done got licked som'er's else I 
 dunno whar. They ain't none of 'em wuth 
 a cuss, them ginirals. Ginral Jackson'd tie 
 the whole of 'em up in a bag and lick the hind- 
 sights off 'n 'em. They don't put up the right 
 min as officers; that's what's the matter," 
 said the old man. 
 
 " I do not doubt you are right," said Lucy. 
 " Would you believe it, there is my husband, 
 Victor Shandy, only a sergeant.? I don't 
 know what that is, but it is neither suited to 
 his position in society, nor abilities." And 
 she believed this neglect was fruitful of all the 
 disasters. 
 
 '* A sergeant, more partickler, a ordurely 
 sergeant," replied the old man, with a Southern 
 softening of the vowel, " ain't bad. I was a 
 ordurely sergeant myself once 't at the mus- 
 
 But Lucy did not hear him. She had gone 
 to order the pony carriage, for a visit to the 
 post office, and was soon on her way. 
 
 The storekeeper was lounging with the cus- 
 
 *Iii the South, the lower classes have no use for the participle 
 " gone " except as an auxiliary in such a string of pearls as 
 " done been gone done it." *' Might have went " is the common 
 expression. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 27 
 
 tomary idlers of such a place when she 
 entered, and he showed his insolent dislike 
 by the tardiness of his answer to her call. 
 
 " My mail," said she, impatiently. 
 
 He lounged over the counter, reaching one 
 arm blindly to the letter boxes as he spoke. 
 
 " And so Sandy's lef you, ma'am." 
 
 " My mail," she said. 
 
 " Sandy was a forehanded man with craps. 
 It's moighty tight ye bin wid him, when you 
 drav him aff," said he, with familiar im- 
 pertinence. 
 
 " Sandy is a true man," said Lucy, 
 flushing. " He went to share the dangers, as 
 he shared the bread of his people. He would 
 have scorned to make a profit out of their 
 hardships. It is more than you can say of 
 yourself, I fear, Mr. McCandless." 
 
 It provoked the wretch to a last piece of 
 cruel impertinence. " Sure an' ye didn't 
 see your husband's cousin, Misther John 
 Shandy, as is come to take possission av the 
 estate, now poor Vicky's dead." 
 
 " You lie, McCandless," said a mild voice 
 at variance with the words; '' but, ma'am, 
 I am your husband's cousin." 
 
 She turned, and saw a small man with one 
 leg much distorted, that rested on a crutch. 
 He was sallow and homely, quite a common- 
 looking man, but the face, Lucy thought, was 
 not a bad face, as he stood looking straight 
 at her. 
 
^8 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 " I have heard my husband speak of you,** 
 she said. " What does this man mean ? " 
 
 " Never mind his meaning," said he. 
 " What he says of Victor, as well as of me, 
 is, no doubt, false. If you will bring your 
 mail into Mrs. McCandless's sitting-room I 
 will explain." 
 
 He asked her, when they were seated, if 
 her mail contained any letter from her hus- 
 band; and, being answered in the negative, 
 he explained that there had been a great battle 
 at Shiloh, near Pittsburg Landing, by which 
 the enemy's advance was checked, but at the 
 expense of a heavy loss in officers and men. 
 A partial list of the casualties had been pub- 
 lished, and Victor's name was not included 
 in it; and he showed her the paper. " I am 
 very thankful," said she, " both for the victory, 
 and that my husband has been spared. What, 
 then, did that man mean ? " 
 
 ** Oh, nothing," said he; '' only it had been 
 suggested that one name, ' W. Sanders, ser- 
 geant,' might be a misprint for ' V. Shandy,' 
 as the former name was not remembered 
 among the roll of the company that was 
 familiar to the neighborhood." 
 
 *' It is true, Victor is a sergeant," said the 
 wife. 
 
 '' Very true; but such a mistake is not 
 probable. Sanders is a common name; the 
 regiment has been out eighteen months or 
 more, and has doubtless recruited much. I 
 would be willing to bet," said he, " that it has. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 29 
 
 picked up half a dozen Sanders in that time, 
 and this poor fellow is one of them. It would 
 be a very morbid feeling, ma'am, from the 
 very list that assures you that your husband 
 is not hurt, to infer that he actually has been 
 killed." 
 
 In this way, reasoning and explaining, he 
 assured the wife, till she was happy. 
 
 " Come," said she, " you must go with me 
 to ' The Bucks,' and explain this to his 
 mother as kindly as you have to me, and then 
 dine with me at Malvoisee. Victor used to 
 talk a great deal of you, and I almost seem to 
 know you well." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 AS the two, Lucy and her cousin, came 
 through the shop, McCandless half 
 lounged over the counter, and leered, 
 mocking, at the contrasted couple; she was so 
 straight, slender, and graceful; and he so 
 deformed and ungainly, as he labored and 
 rattled on his crutch at her side. 
 
 *' A purty sight to see pride have a fall, 
 and fast Lou Longfrank with no beau but a 
 damn lame fiddler," said the storekeeper, 
 as they passed out to the carriage. It was 
 gross and offensive. John Shandy, after 
 assisting his cousin into her carriage, had 
 turned, when she spoke. 
 
 '' Come in," she said; '' you are to go with 
 me to ma, you know. Never mind that 
 wretch. La! do you think I would break 
 my parasol at Mrs. McCandless's poodle, — 
 it is an ugly little vermin, and so is he, — be- 
 cause it barks at me ? Remember Dr. Watts's 
 * Let dogs delight to bark and bite: 
 It is their nature to.' " 
 
 '' And — and," hesitated he, '' these poor 
 limbs were never made to tear his eyes, but 
 I think my heart is ready to wish it." 
 
 " Oh, yes, come on; and we'll wish him all 
 to pieces, if you like! No harm in that, I 
 hope. But seeing ma is the first thing." 
 
 30 
 
SPIRIT OP THE SOUTH 31 
 
 " Yes," said he, following; " that is first. 
 We will go." And he followed her. The 
 subject was not immediately dropped after 
 they drove off, and he, hesitatingly, referred 
 to his lameness, upon which McCandless 
 had presumed. 
 
 '' Very Hke," said she; " I didn't think of 
 that." And the remark soothed and pleased 
 him. 
 
 One of the most painful reflections to the 
 deformed must be the thought that their defect 
 is in the mind of others with them; and so 
 Lucy's casual rejoinder was pleasant to him. 
 
 In the store, old Mr. Sambre, who had 
 followed Lucy to the post oflice, spoke a word 
 of caution. 
 
 " Now you've done been gone done 
 
 " Done what ? " said McCandless. 
 
 " Jist sowed a crap o' hell-fire in the best 
 
 sile in County, I reckon," replied the 
 
 old man. 
 
 " What, that gal ? Divil a bit do I care," 
 said McCandless. 
 
 " Mebbe not," said the other; " but 'tain't 
 the gal this time. Them Shandys is gun- 
 powder. Mighty cool and shiny ef you let 
 'em alone, but a spark sets 'em all off." 
 
 ''What, the lame fiddler.? I'd straighten 
 his cruked leg aisier than moy little finger," 
 said the storekeeper, contemptuously. 
 
 " Yes, an' git a mahogany bedstead in a 
 doing of it," said Sambre. And with this 
 
3^ SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 figurative description of our last narrow 
 couch, the conversation closed. 
 
 But John Shandy did not dine at Malvoisee 
 that day. He went to his humble apart- 
 ments, and, after writing some letters, he sat 
 and thought. That day a lady had been 
 grossly insulted in his presence and through 
 him, and he had suffered the insult to pass 
 unrebuked. He wished now he had spoken 
 in reply; the matter might have ended in words, 
 but it was too late for that. It was hard that 
 this should come upon him. He had never 
 felt his physical defects so keenly. His life, 
 as he reviewed it, had been one of trial, but 
 nothing like this. His new cousin was so 
 kind to him, and her cool, fresh voice like 
 water brooks in a dry and thirsty land. 
 Others of her sex had been kind ; they were all 
 kind in their way; but the way was out of 
 pity for his lameness, and because he was 
 something different and less than other men. 
 Lucy had been kind, forgetful of his physical 
 defects, and because she seemed to regard him 
 as one different and better than his kind; 
 something near to herself, and to be cherished 
 accordingly. And this one woman of all the 
 world had been repeatedly, and at last brutally, 
 insulted in his presence, and by a reflection 
 that aspersed his manhood. 
 
 He took a pistol from his trunk, cleaned and 
 oiled it, and then reloaded it carefully, after 
 trying the lock. He then sent out and got a 
 bottle of liquor, of which he drank once, as a 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 33 
 
 feverish man drinks water. He then dressed 
 himself with great care, and sat down to think. 
 His thoughts were very, very painful, for he 
 soon lay on the bed crying like a child; but 
 he arose afterwards, resolved. 
 
 He was about to leave the room, when his 
 violin case caught his eye. He turned back, 
 and taking the instrument tenderly as if he 
 loved it, he began to play. An inspiration, 
 such as musicians will recognize as coming 
 strangely at times, was upon him, and the 
 strings yielded a soft, bugle-like melody, so 
 low and sweet, to his wish. Dear old farewell 
 airs, suggested less, he thought, by himself 
 than the violin, came marvelously to him, 
 though he had not played them before for 
 years. The music wailed and sobbed, and 
 clung like a child to the bow and strings, as if 
 loath to part. He heard the whispering 
 voices of little children at the door, listening 
 to the low, charmed melody, and he remem- 
 bered his own sad, solitary childhood. Then 
 the tender violin seemed to whisper rebukingly 
 its early love and companionship. Yes, it 
 had been his only friend, his only adviser, his 
 only comforter. He remembered when his 
 small hand could scarcely enclose the neck and 
 finger the strings, and how he had struggled 
 and toiled to learn that mysterious language, 
 the melodious tongue spoken in the violin. 
 He had learned it; and he and the old violin, 
 growing sweeter in companionship as the 
 years rolled on, had talked many whispered 
 
34 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 secrets together, in the sweet, sad times. But 
 it would never be so again; and the violin 
 wailed its sorrow with unspeakable tenderness. 
 He tried again and again to put it down, but 
 again and again the pleading old love con- 
 quered, in increasing melody. But it must be 
 done. This violin was to him a pure, angelic 
 spirit. It was the voice of innocence out of 
 the heavens, enclosed in the dry wood and 
 tender strings. He might do what he was 
 resolved to do, what he knew he had to do, 
 but he could not return and lay his stained 
 hand upon his violin again. 
 
 It was with a great effort he ceased, and, 
 beginning at the treble, turned and stretched 
 each string till it snapped with ringing jar; 
 and, laying the violin in its case, like a poor 
 babe in its little coffin, he burst into a passion 
 of tears. All was over. All ties to the past 
 were broken with the sweet strings, and the 
 future purpose was fixed. He gave a lingering 
 look at the room and its furniture. He felt 
 that, though he should see it a thousand times 
 hereafter, it would never again look to him 
 as now; never as it had looked to him in the 
 past. His life there had not been happy, 
 but it made him inexpressibly sad to know 
 that he was parting with that life for- 
 ever. 
 
 Strange to say, in all these meditations over 
 what he was resolved to do, and its conse- 
 quences, no thought of danger to himself had 
 occurred to him. Weak, deformed, and un- 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 35 
 
 used to events requiring prompt and decisive 
 action, and with an impossibly chivalrous 
 conduct for his guidance, planned beforehand, 
 the thought of any fatal result to himself never 
 crossed his mind. Under these influences, 
 therefore, he paused once more, pistol in 
 hand, at the door, and looked back. It was 
 John Shandy's farewell to his old life. 
 
 He crossed the street, walking straight to 
 McCandless's door. The bully stood on the 
 stoop, but turned hastily and went in, as he 
 saw the lame man, and passed round the 
 counter to his desk. By it stood his double- 
 barreled gun, heavily loaded. His hand was 
 on it, but Shandy spoke: '' You scoundrel, do 
 you insult a lady ? " And the pistol cracked, 
 McCandless dropped, and a crowd rushed 
 around. John Shandy surrendered, and was 
 held in custody, waiting the result of the 
 wound, reported critical and very dangerous. 
 
 In the mean while, Lucy, unconscious of 
 the desperate resolution taken by the lame 
 man, thought only of his kindness to her. 
 " Just like Victor," she said to herself, '' and 
 his voice is like Victor's; just that pitch of 
 pliant, watchful tenderness, as if it had been 
 schooled in soothing little children, and yet 
 the words so calm, wise, and firm, so cool and 
 reasonable. It would have been hard to 
 receive the mean stab of that wretch Mc- 
 Candless, had not he been there." And then 
 she thought indignantly of the offensive man- 
 ner and last studied insult of the storekeeper, 
 
36 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 and, clinching her Httle hands, she thought 
 of her absent protector. 
 
 Then, at the moment, she heard the news 
 that she was avenged. It shocked her. It 
 seemed as if some evil power had granted the 
 last wicked wish in her mind; and then she 
 thought of her avenger less kindly than before 
 he did this deed, or than if it had been undone. 
 Still she thought of him, and remembered that 
 duty, perhaps, required something of her. 
 She went to her mother, Mrs. Shandy, and the 
 two visited the prisoner. 
 
 As McCandless recovered, Shandy was 
 admitted to bail, on the bond of his aunt and 
 cousin, and was free, but not the same man as 
 before. He had received a great shock and 
 kept aloof more than ever. When his cousin 
 •^aw it, she endeavored to comfort and 
 cheer him, but he remained silent and 
 depressed. 
 
 But a sorrow was coming to his comforter. 
 John Shandy one day recognized an old school- 
 mate in a disabled soldier, and inquired the 
 news. 
 
 '' Nothing since Shiloh," said he. *' I sup- 
 pose you heard of your cousin Victor's death. 
 Poor fellow! he got his lieutenancy the day 
 before he fell." 
 
 *' Victor dead! I will not believe it," said 
 John Shandy. / 
 
 " He's dead, all the same. I saw him. We 
 fell together. I left this other fellow," pointing 
 to his leg, " and poor Vic got a charge o' 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 37 
 
 grape right here," pointing to his breast, said 
 the soldier. 
 
 *' Was he killed instantly ? " asked Shandy. 
 
 '' Well, no; we fell near together, I said. 
 He sent some words of love and that sort of 
 thing to his wife, and then went off. Indeed, 
 I can't say I saw him die, exactly, for this 
 cursed bone was grinding me, and I sort o' 
 fainted; but that was the last o' him," was the 
 reply. 
 
 " Poor Vic! and have you told his wife.? " 
 said Shandy. 
 
 " Ne'er a time, at least not yet; want you 
 to go 'long and sort o' reinforce me. It's a 
 bad job," said the other. 
 
 " No," said John, " you must go. It 
 is better. She has been very good to me, and 
 it will break her heart. I may see aunt, and 
 break it to her. That is bad enough." 
 
 Poor Lucy! To lose the beloved in the 
 waning years is hard; but then the comfort is in 
 the brief separation. One has only gone 
 before to prepare a place for the other that 
 will soon come. But to lose such in the green 
 and bourgeon of wedded life is the fulness 
 of woe. She thought of her youth and vigor 
 pityingly, as another might lament old age 
 and feebleness. It must be so long, so long 
 before she saw him again. But yesterday, she 
 vainly thought, she was living for him, and all 
 she did was for him; but now, her work was 
 done ! If it only could be for an instant; if she 
 could only close his eyes, and perform the last 
 
38 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 offices of love for him, that would be sweet; 
 but she could do nothing for him any more. 
 It was all done now, and ended. 
 
 Yesterday, and for him, she loved this life 
 with its hardships and trials, for it was Victor's 
 life. She had loved to adorn her person and 
 cherish it for his sake. Now it wearied her. 
 This corporeal frame had been her servant, 
 to do her will, to please her husband. She 
 had loved its beauty, and cherished and culti- 
 vated its endowments, for his sake. Now 
 this servant had become her terrible master. 
 It willed for her to live, and she lived. It 
 willed for her to toil and suffer, and she 
 toiled and suffered unrewarded. Nothing 
 she did was for herself; nothing she ever did 
 hereafter could be for herself; all was for this 
 stern, relentless body. It made her live, 
 when she would be away and at rest. It made 
 her toil and plan and suffer; it hungered and 
 thirsted; it froze and burned; it was never 
 satisfied. She came to think of it as her 
 deadly enemy; cruel, relentless, and perse- 
 cuting, fastened upon her by chains she dared 
 not break. She prayed to be released from it; 
 prayed also, poor child, that she might be able 
 to see God's love still shining from His cross. 
 We will not doubt the Comforter came. 
 
 A second sorrow, for a time, did her good, 
 in raising her out of the selfishness of grief. 
 Poor Mrs. Shandy, Victor's mother, did not 
 long survive the shock of her son's death. 
 She lived to bless her daughter and her 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 39 
 
 nephew, at her bedside, and, smiling recogni- 
 tion of the loved in heaven, she passed away 
 and was at peace. 
 
 After his aunt's funeral, John Shandy, 
 oppressed with his own sorrows, and driven 
 by the sordid cares of earning a hard living, 
 kept away from the widow, his cousin. She 
 had borne up well in the care of her mother- 
 in law, and John Shandy was unaware of the 
 extent of her dejection. He chanced, how- 
 ever, to meet the village physician, and 
 learned with a shock of her condition. 
 
 " Does she talk much," at last Shandy 
 asked, " I mean about Victor ? " 
 
 "Victor.? oh! ah! yes! No, that topic 
 is forbidden. It is dwelling upon that which 
 saps her vital energies. Possibly we cannot 
 minister to a mind diseased; but avoiding 
 injurious topics, we can afford the light, 
 cheerful food of gossip, the news of the day, 
 and so enable the mind to achieve its own 
 cure." 
 
 '' Throw physic to the dogs," muttered 
 John Shandy, as he thought of the doctors 
 talking gossip and twaddle to such a patient, 
 and he hobbled off. 
 
 Black Lucy,* the maid of the poor little 
 
 *It was amusing, on a large plantation, to observe the curious 
 cognomens arising from the habit of the negroes of naming their 
 offspring after a favorite in the planter's family. There would 
 be, for. example, a " Black Lucy," " Yellow Lucy," " Jane 
 Lucy," " Sarah's Lucy," and so ad infinitum. But this was 
 more amusing when a " Little Jim " stood before you, six feet 
 and over, and heavy in proportion. 
 
40 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 widow, admitted him. '' How is your mis- 
 tress ? " asked John Shandy. 
 
 " Lord! Mass John, she's jis a peekin' 
 and a pinin' away; dat she is! " answered the 
 maid. 
 
 " Does she talk much about her husband .? " 
 he asked. 
 
 '* 'Bout Mass Vic; bress de Lord, no! 
 Doctor done said not. She jis lay on de bed 
 alookin' and alookin' at Mass Vic's picter 
 oba de mankel-shel all de time "; and so 
 leading to the sitting-room, she announced, 
 " Mass John done come." 
 
 Lucy was lying on a little sociable, or sofa, 
 as he entered. She rose to meet him, and 
 spoke indifferent words of welcome. She had 
 thought of John Shandy, in an idle way, in 
 her grief, even wondering that, as her hus- 
 band's nearest relative, he had not come to 
 her. With the curious selfishness of sorrow, 
 she had even taken a little comfort in the 
 thought that he had deserted her. Grief 
 does so like to multiply and isolate itself 
 sometimes. But now he had come and was 
 welcome. 
 
 He gradually and easily led the conversation 
 to Victor Shandy, bringing up reminiscences of 
 his school days and his generosity and kind- 
 ness. Then he told of his earlier manhood and 
 struggles, and how bravely he had faced mis- 
 fortune and borne it down. He spoke of his 
 love for his mother, and finally of his love and 
 devotion to Lucy. Her memory and her love 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 41 
 
 responded in the story of his enHstment, and 
 of his generous love. So the two twined 
 threads of tender recollection around the gal- 
 lantry and gentleness of the dead; and when 
 the thought of the noble close of that brief 
 precious life was reached, Lucy could whisper 
 of it, 
 
 " It is not all of life to live, 
 Nor all of death to die." 
 
 She realized how rich she was in having won 
 so precious a love, and worn it, and she was 
 comforted. When John Shandy arose to go 
 she thanked him, expressing her gratitude in 
 few and simple words. She asked him to 
 remain, at least a few days, and act for her 
 on the farm. He consented, and finally it was 
 settled that he was to live at " The Bucks," 
 which place, Lucy, backed by her lawyer, 
 declared to be his. On this point he resisted, 
 but Victor's death preceding his mother's, 
 the estate had never vested in Victor, but had 
 gone directly to John Shandy. So John 
 Shandy took *' The Bucks," and assisted in 
 the management of both places. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A YEAR with its alleviations passed 
 slowly over the two in their new rela- 
 tions, adjusting them in their habits 
 and peculiarities, each to the other. The 
 widow felt that John Shandy's presence was 
 under the providential will of Him who cares 
 for the widow; and John Shandy acknowl- 
 edged a growth and purpose in life that made 
 it valuable. A very dear secret had formed 
 itself slowly in his heart, and diffused its 
 delicious poison over the feeble frame of the 
 lame man; but he never spoke of it or hinted 
 it to a creature in the world, not even to the 
 long-neglected violin. If it was known at all, 
 it was marred; if it was told to one other, it 
 was converted into a pain. It was his own 
 and only his, and of its existence the widow 
 was as unconscious as are the living of the 
 good angels guarding them. 
 
 One morning these two were in consultation, 
 when Black Lucy announced in customary 
 phrase, '* Miss Lucy, de sogeas done come." 
 
 It proved to be an agent of the Confederate 
 government, levying the cotton loan. When 
 Lucy understood, she said, " Mr. Shandy will 
 wait upon you; take what you please, or all, 
 if you please, and God prosper the cause 
 that has the widow's offering." 
 
 42 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 43 
 
 Others were not so liberal. McCandless, 
 defeated in the prosecution of John Shandy, 
 had gone on prospering in other affairs, as 
 such men did during the war. He now owned 
 one or two large plantations, and had a large 
 stock of cotton on hand, collected in his 
 business. He tried various artifices to escape 
 the levy, but to no purpose. 
 
 " I am a subject of Quane Victory's," said 
 he,^as if the name of that mighty potentate 
 was enough. 
 
 " Confound ' Quane Victory,' she's been a 
 little too much on the other side. We don't 
 want you, but the cotton." And the cotton 
 he would have; and it was duly taken and 
 placed under a small guard for removal the 
 following week. 
 
 McCandless, however, did not give up so 
 readily. It is supposed, from events, that he 
 betrayed the seizure to the Federal forces 
 hovering near, and also that he sought, at 
 the same time, other revenges on those he 
 hated. 
 
 A few nights later Lucy was wakened by 
 a loud knocking, and Lucy, her maid, entered 
 and said, " Bress de Lord, miss, de Yankees 
 done come." These were visitors that would 
 not take denial. She rose and went to the 
 small drawing-room. A soldier in blue en- 
 tered and bowed, speaking at once, coldly and 
 clearly : " My name is E — — . I am an 
 officer in the Union Army, detailed to protect 
 the seizure of certain confiscated cotton on 
 
44 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 your premises. I have taken your teams, and 
 employed your farm hands in its removal. 
 It is also my painful duty to arrest one John 
 Shandy, a Rebel spy, harbored or concealed 
 about these premises." 
 
 " Did you arouse me, sir, to tell me you had 
 robbed me of my cotton, stock, and slaves, 
 and intended to murder my cousin ? " said the 
 widow, coldly. 
 
 " I waked you to let you know my duty so 
 far as it affected you. Deliver up the spy, 
 and it may be in your favor at headquarters," 
 said he. 
 
 " I reject your bribe; do your worst," said 
 she, stoutly. 
 
 The officer turned to the maid, that stood 
 looking ashy pale at the scene. " Where is 
 John Shandy ? "he asked, sharply. 
 
 " Don't you tell," said Lucy to her. 
 
 " Lord, miss, how'd I know, ef he ain't 
 down at De Bucks," stammered the maid. 
 
 *' We will find him," said the officer; and, as 
 Lucy prayerfully hoped he would not, she 
 heard the threats of the soldiery, as they 
 searched, to hang her cousin at her door porch. 
 She would have spoken again bitterly, but 
 just then, rising over the tramp of feet and 
 the shouting, she heard the musical droll of a 
 fiddle, and an irresistibly comical voice sing- 
 ing,— 
 
 " He who hath any peanuts 
 
 And giveth his neighbor none, 
 
 Sha' n't have none o' my peanuts 
 
 When his peanuts are gone." 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 45 
 
 And the violin drolly re-echoed " pea-ea-ea- 
 nuts," in mocking treble. The house shook 
 with the shouts and laughter of the delighted 
 soldiery. As the violinist entered the room 
 his instrument concluded with the long yawn 
 and dissatisfied growl of a person newly 
 aroused. 
 
 " Humph! " said the officer, trying to appear 
 grave amid the clamor, and looking at the 
 player's feet. " We have got the devil here, 
 hoofs and all; who else are you, sir? Come, 
 you seem to be a jolly dog. What's this 
 McCandless has told about you ? You don't 
 look like a dangerous spy, at all events," 
 said the officer. 
 
 An explanation followed; and the officer 
 remained for some time, and John Shandy 
 touched his violin in a different strain. Such 
 sweet old airs as " Bonnie Doon," the " Braes 
 of Balquhidder," '' Dumbarton's Belle," and 
 " Annie Laurie," softened the heart towards 
 the singer. " Let me speak to Mrs. Shandy 
 a moment," said the officer; and, when Shandy 
 had left the room, he added, *' This is a bad 
 business. I don't like it. It will not hurt 
 Shandy. I will take care of that, but it 
 will cost him some trouble. Of course, I 
 must put him in custody as soon as he 
 returns." 
 
 Lucy smiled and said nothing; but I think 
 she and the Federal soldier had one thought 
 in common, — that John Shandy would not 
 fall in the way again that night. 
 
46 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 ; It vexed her, therefore, to meet her cousin, 
 after the officer had gone out. " What are you 
 doing here ? " she said. " Why don't you go .P" 
 
 He repKed, '' Go! where am I to go.^ I 
 heard, down in the village, of your danger, and 
 I came. I must stay till it is over." He did 
 stay, but the party left without seeing him 
 again. Perhaps purposely. 
 
 She censured his rashness the next morning, 
 and more when she understood that he had 
 information at the time of bribes and whiskey 
 given by McCandless to the men, to inflame 
 them to execute him at her door. " You 
 might have been killed, and what could I do 
 without you ? " she said, piteously. 
 
 The words thrilled him inexpressibly. Nor 
 was his devotion lost upon Lucy. He was so 
 brave, so rash, and yet so ready in resource; 
 his violin, so long neglected, had doubtless 
 saved him. But there were other matters to 
 demand attention. 
 
 It was found, the next morning, that a great 
 part of the able-bodied slaves had gone off 
 with the Federal soldiers. Part of the teams 
 were taken, but with what remained, and the 
 negroes, Lucy and John Shandy thought 
 they could still manage to save the crop. It 
 was the first shock of the battery against the 
 " peculiar institution," and it was felt severely 
 there as elsewhere; the first crumbling of that 
 huge fabric whose ruin crushed, for a time, 
 beneath its weight, the energy and productive 
 wealth of the South. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 47 
 
 But the disorder among the slaves was not 
 the only evil of this period. A bandit of the 
 neighborhood had spread a terror that the 
 false security of a home-guard company had 
 increased. This holiday troop, having feasted 
 and frolicked as " our defenders," and having 
 been petted by the girls, who, poor creatures, 
 in the absence of the real article, were fain to 
 amuse themselves playing with these wooden 
 soldiers, was one day bagged by the bandit, 
 and ridiculously paroled " not to take up 
 arms." After this, the violence and terror 
 increased until John Shandy could bear it no 
 more, and set out for the nearest Confederate 
 military post to obtain efficient protection. 
 
 Very many things of another character had 
 occurred to try John Shandy's spirit at this 
 time. While his fair mistress did not abso- 
 lutely '* go into society," she began to receive 
 attentions. Sturdy widowers came and talked 
 crops and the difficulty of conducting a plan- 
 tation without proper female guidance. Gay 
 Confederate soldiers at home on leave courted 
 her desperately, with professional audacity, 
 for twenty-four hours on a stretch. Lucy 
 would say, after such visits, how wretched she 
 was, and do a sort of '' hour's penance " 
 before poor Victor Shandy's picture. One 
 day the maid rebuked her in this way : — 
 
 " Why is you wretched ? You's got every- 
 thing. Everybody jis say, Poor Lucy! 'cause 
 Mass Vic done gone and got hisself shot, and 
 dey all fusses oba you. I think I'se a heap 
 
48 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 wretcheder." And the maid mightily be- 
 moaned herself. 
 
 " You! " said Lucy, opening her eyes, 
 '' why, what makes you wretched? " 
 
 '' AH 'cause o' dat nigger Floyd went off 
 wid Mass Vic," said the girl. 
 
 '' Floyd! Victor's servant! Why, he is not 
 killed too, is he? " asked the mistress. 
 
 '* No, miss, and dat's jis what's de matter. 
 Ef Floyd done got hisself killed, everybody'd 
 say, * See dat po' brack chile ! Her beau done 
 got hisself shot,' and de wimmen, and de 
 brack genelem too, be a-comin' mighty sorry 
 for dis po' gal. But now. Lord bress ye! 
 dey say, * See dat little nigga mopin' da, jis 
 'cause Mass Vic's Floyd done gone off an' lef 
 her, an' got married to some white gal up 
 Norf.' " And the maid sobbed with honest 
 vexation. 
 
 " You needn't fear," said Lucy, '* the 
 Northern ladies are very far from marrying 
 one of your color." 
 
 *' Yes," sobbed the maid, " but dem niggas 
 ses it all de same. Bet dat nigga Floyd done 
 run de fus' gun," she added fiercely. 
 
 Lucy slightly modified her conduct after 
 this. She no longer received suitors as such; 
 but her pastor began to be particular in his 
 attentions, the gossips said. This was the 
 Mr. Melden mentioned in one of Lucy's 
 letters. He was a quiet, scholarly young man, 
 living with his widowed mother in the village 
 parsonage. He had been driven from New 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 49 
 
 Orleans, and had found his way to this quiet 
 retreat. As an accompHshed, though rather 
 pedantic student, but more especially as her 
 pastor, he was made welcome to Lucy's house 
 and table, and many a symposium was spread 
 for him. His mother sometimes accompanied 
 him, and quiet tea drinkings took place, at 
 which there was some serious lovemaking of a 
 very proper character. 
 
 One of these pleasant repasts was suddenly 
 interrupted by a shocking occurrence of 
 imminent peril to the pretty widow, as well as 
 to her serious lover. They were just seated 
 and the usual grace pronounced, when there 
 came a violent knocking, and the maid burst 
 in, pale as ashes. " Lord! miss," she screamed, 
 '* dem debbils done come." 
 
 No need of further announcement. A 
 stalwart ruffian, girt with pistols, stood in the 
 door.* 
 
 *A villain capable of the acts narrated in the text operated, 
 in Lower and Middle Mississippi, during the war, and actually 
 captured and paroled a local guard, raised to repress his outrages. 
 He was finally captured with his band by Major O. P. Preston, 
 C. S. A. That gallant and wary officer avoided the imprudent 
 snare furnished by the planters, which betrayed the unlucky 
 local guard, by remaining in camp, steadfastly declining the 
 hospitalities of the neighborhood, and pursuing the search through 
 active and trusted scouts. In a few days two of these reported 
 the discovery of the outlaw's retreat, in the dense thicket of a cane- 
 brake, approachable by secret paths, known only to the outlaws. 
 These had been discovered and threaded by the scouts, and by 
 dawn, under their guidance, the Major and his men penetrated 
 the secluded recesses of the jungle, and surprised the banditti, 
 plunged in the lethargy sequent upon debauch. The Con- 
 federate laid his hand upon the throat of their leader, Price, as he 
 lay with his concubines, his adjacent arms having been removed. 
 The bandit's only remark, with an oath, on discovery of the 
 situation, was, " Well, by , you got me." 
 
50 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 " Sorry I'm so dern late; knowed I was ex- 
 pected to grub too. Oh, don't mind me, I 
 ain't pertickler who I eats with! Jack, 
 straighten that thar fellow, he's a fallin' off'n 
 his cheer." 
 
 Mr. Melden looked scared, and drew back. 
 Lucy looked cold and pale. '' What does 
 this mean ? " she asked. 
 
 ''Hell!" said he, briefly; "coffee, marm, 
 and git out your liquor." 
 
 Lucy rose from the table. " Stop right 
 thar; dursn't move out'n your tracks," said the 
 bandit, rising. 
 
 She attempted to escape. He caught her 
 in his rude arms, and pressed her lips with 
 coarse, hot kisses. '' Mr. Melden," she 
 screamed, " are you a man ? " 
 
 "I — I am a minister of the gospel. God 
 alone can deliver us from this peril," said the 
 startled priest. But Lucy at last broke away 
 and fled. 
 
 '* By Joe, she's a game one. Jack, lock 
 that outer door. She's safe now, I reckon," 
 said the ruffian. '' Gal," to the colored girl, 
 '' go in to your missis, an' fix her up; she's 
 goin' to git married. I've come a purpose, 
 an' so's the preacher here." Then a scene 
 took place between the minister and the 
 bandit; the one swearing the other should 
 perform a sort of ceremony over his horrid 
 purpose; and the other, who had recovered 
 his firmness, refusing, amid the coarse jests 
 of the ruflaans, and the frantic cries and ap- 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 51 
 
 peals of the mother. The bandit persisted, 
 swearing he *' had had handmaids, like them 
 patriarchs Jacob and Joseph and them," but 
 now he was going to have a wife, " ef it was 
 only to settle down, after fightin' and fun was 
 over, and be a honest man." 
 
 This contest gave our heroine time. At 
 first she was paralyzed with terror, and her 
 womanly horror of the man. 
 
 ** Lucy," she said to her maid, when she 
 understood his purpose, " what shall we do ? 
 We must escape from this place." 
 
 " De Lord knows how! Dis door done 
 locked; dey's all in de dinin'-room, and dey 
 ain't no udder," said the scared negress. 
 
 *' Stay," said Lucy, " the Lord will pro- 
 vide." And she opened a third door, and 
 went in, the maid following. 
 
 The house was originally constructed on the 
 usual plan of Southern country houses, with 
 a gallery in front, on which a small room had 
 been closed in. This, in her schooldays, had 
 been Lucy's room; but the random addition 
 of other apartments had made it superfluous 
 as a chamber, and, for convenience, it had 
 been converted into a clothes-room. The walls 
 were hung with the garments of three genera- 
 tions. Opposite the door was a huge press, 
 closing the window. The shutter was closed 
 without, and likely to be overlooked ; especially 
 as the ruffians had complete information of the 
 plan of the house and of the use to which the 
 small room had been put. Lucy tore out the 
 
52 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 clothing, and shook the loose, thin backing 
 of the press, till it fell out, to one side. There 
 was no sash, and the half-rotted shutter 
 yielded to a steady push. Lucy peeped out. 
 A large live oak obscured the opening, and 
 the figures, plainly visible by the torches that 
 blinded the bearers, were distinctly to be seen. 
 *' Fasten the outer and inner door, while I get 
 two cloaks. Throw them out, now be quiet." 
 And the two were without. 
 
 The torches of the ruffians were an advan- 
 tage. Avoiding the light, they reached the 
 garden. " Where shall we go now ? " said 
 Lucy; " I see a sentinel on the road above 
 and below, and even one on the spring walk." 
 
 " Lord! miss, why d'n't I think," said the 
 maid, excitedly, " we's safe; come dissa way." 
 
 ** Where are you going.?" asked Lucy, 
 following. 
 
 *' Bress de Lord, jes to think, I's been here 
 a many a time when de niggas used to run 
 away, totin' 'em vittles," said the maid, 
 hurrying on. 
 
 *' You, Lucy ? " But it was no time to 
 discuss the fugitive-slave question. The way 
 was rough; through oak scrub and palmetto 
 brush, and gradually descending. The earth 
 grew moist under foot; and then the water 
 rose over their shoes, over their ankles, up to 
 their knees. Then the ground ascended a 
 little, and they got among tangled jasmine 
 vines and green brier; they stumbled over the 
 cypress knees, the foliage getting heavier and 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 53 
 
 denser; and the long drapery of Spanish 
 moss hung lower and lower, trailing the 
 ground from the boughs above. They turned, 
 and, with eyes used to the gloom, discovered 
 themselves to be in a sort of hut, roofed with 
 the broad fans of palmetto. 
 
 The maid, whose evening task of lighting 
 lamps supplied her with matches, lighted a 
 small fire of dried leaves and tinder. The 
 girls sat trembling, hearing in the distance 
 the shouts of the bandits. " Aren't you afraid 
 the light will betray us .^ " asked Lucy. 
 
 " Lord, no! dey ain't nuflfin kin fine us but 
 dogs; and Massa Earle* done kill all dem," 
 said the girl. 
 
 *Earle was a gallant and daring officer belonging to the provost 
 marshal's cavalry division of the United States Army, operating 
 in the counties lying around New Orleans. He was of Scotch 
 parentage, the son of a commission merchant of that city, and 
 gave an earnest and active support to the Federal cause. His 
 feats, as narrated to the writer by a valiant adversary in the Con- 
 federate Army, would read like the prowess of the pristine days 
 of chivalry. Having at his command a small steamer, he moved 
 with rapidity, and, hearing of detachments of Confederate troops 
 within his reach and compass, he would land and burst upon 
 them with all the vigor of freshness and surprise. Although 
 much employed in the seizure of cotton, he coveted and sought 
 the renown due to bold and martial deeds. One of these was a 
 charge, with only twelve men, on Colonel Griffin's Battalion, 
 C. S. A., lying in camp in Claiborne County, opposite Rodney, 
 Mississippi. A vigorous pursuit by the whole command resulted, 
 and Earle was, with difficulty, headed off and captured in a lane. 
 Sent in charge of a squad to the provost marshal, he escaped on 
 the way. But the following morning two of his pursuers came 
 upon him breakfasting at a farmhouse. Earle started to his feet 
 as they entered, and, interposing a young lady attending between 
 him and the guns of his pursuers, he made his escape. Dogs 
 having been put upon his track, he was retaken, and upon this 
 occasion he adopted the resolution that resulted in the circum- 
 stance mentioned in the text, and so faithfully kept the vow, after 
 
54 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 " That is true; I never expected to be glad 
 that poor Tray and Blanche were shot," said 
 Lucy, thankfully. 
 
 They sat for some time, and the night 
 slowly waned. At length Lucy said with a 
 yawn, " Are you sure we're safe, Lucy ? Do 
 you know, I'm right down sleepy." 
 
 " Dar's de bed," said the maid, pointing to a 
 low couch of Spanish moss in one corner; 
 ** jis wrap up in ole mas'r's cloak. Lord, 
 miss, you's jis as safe as — as — " 
 
 '* Don't say Lord always, Lucy," said her 
 mistress. '' When you don't say it in prayer, 
 it sounds like — like it was in something else." 
 And with this characteristic admonition, the 
 tired little widow fell asleep. 
 
 his escape, that for a region of two hundred miles the bark of a 
 dog became as rare as the wolf's howl. 
 
 Sent with a double guard to the provost marshal's he accepted 
 
 Earole for the town of Clinton, but, his delivery at Richmond 
 aving been ordered, he jumped from the train between Branden 
 and Meridian, Mississippi, and made his escape, to renew his 
 activity and put in execution his resolution. At last he met a 
 soldier's death in the town of Fayette, Jefferson County, Missis- 
 sippi. He had heard of the presence of a rival Confederate 
 partisan therein, and charged the town. His rival. Sergeant Smith, 
 was there with a comrade, who fled. Smith awaited the charge, 
 behind a street corner, and fired as Earle rode down. The 
 latter fell, and his command scattered. He was conveyed to a 
 neighboring house, and lingered till evening, when the bold life 
 closed, and he was laid to rest under the flowers of a little garden 
 by his kindly enemies, enemies no more. Earle was about five 
 feet, ten inches in height, of sandy hair and complexion, and 
 wore beard and mustache of like hue. His eyes were small and 
 gray, 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MISTRESS and maid both slept, but 
 when the gray of morning came, they 
 were up, anxious and observant. 
 '' Did you hear or see anything, Lucy, after I 
 went to sleep ? " asked the widow. 
 
 " Seed de fire; yond' 'tis now. See de red ? 
 Spec dey done burnt de barn," said the 
 colored girl. 
 
 "No! it is more likely the house. Well, 
 let it go. I am very thankful. Can we go out 
 now, do you think ? " said Lucy. 
 
 '' S'pos'n' I see," said the maid; but going, 
 she soon returned with news that the figures 
 and horses of the ruffians were still to be seen 
 in the yard and grounds. It was twelve o'clock 
 before they ventured cautiously out, and, 
 avoiding the smoking ruins of Malvoisee, 
 Lucy's dwelling, sought shelter at the Bucks, 
 the Shandy place. They were very hungry, 
 and, while the maid rummaged about for 
 food and cooking vessels in a bachelor's 
 kitchen, Lucy strolled into her mother's old 
 room. It was used apparently as a bedroom. 
 There were pantaloons slung over the bedpost, 
 a boot and some old crutches in one corner, a 
 violin case on a table, and above the mantel- 
 piece a small, vigorous sketch of a female 
 head. Lucy took it to the light. It was the 
 
 55 
 
56 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 face of a middle-aged lady with a mild, sweet 
 face, that must have been very pretty once, 
 and was lovely even now. She placed it 
 carefully back in its place, and then, a-tiptoe, 
 opened the violin case. Loose papers were 
 scattered over the instrument, and she picked 
 up one sheet. It was the commencement 
 of some verses, — love verses, too. *' Whom 
 does John Shandy write love verses to .? " 
 she asked herself, when her eye caught some- 
 thing that looked as if it might be another 
 sketch. She picked the papers up, for there 
 were several, and stepped smiling to the light. 
 She started. It was her own fair face; there 
 was no mistaking it. " The eyes are too 
 large," said Lucy to herself, softly, '' and the 
 lashes too long, and it is altogether too pretty, 
 but — " But she felt there might have been 
 a time when she looked like that. How did 
 John Shandy see it ? Had he eyes to see what 
 might have been behind what was ? She 
 looked further, they were all the same. She 
 blushed, for she had a thought that she knew 
 to whom John Shandy wrote love verses. 
 But a familiar and irregular step startled her, 
 and she hastily restored the sketches. It was 
 John Shandy, she knew, and she waited a 
 moment to recover her composure. She heard 
 him enter the adjoining chamber and throw 
 himself into a chair, crying in agony, *' O 
 my darling, my darling, why did I go away, 
 why did I leave you! " and then bursting into 
 threats of vengeance on the bandit that made 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 57 
 
 her tremble. It would not do to meet him 
 now. Black Lucy must first break the news 
 of her safety, and she stole out of the room. 
 After the good news was conveyed to him, they 
 met, and the propriety of that meeting would 
 have pleased evenyour fastidious taste, madam. 
 
 Lucy resolved upon a line of affectionate, 
 sisterly conduct towards John Shandy after 
 this; but there are some wilful men, not sub- 
 ject to the most wisely planned treatment. 
 John Shandy was one of these, and Lucy's 
 notable plan for his peace and happiness fell 
 through. He brought her, a few days later, 
 the news of the capture of the bandit and his 
 gang by the officer detailed, at his request, for 
 the purpose, and things resumed their old way. 
 
 Mr. Melden came back, and Mrs. Melden 
 came back. The mother's account of her 
 son's valor and sufferings in Lucy's behalf was 
 positive eloquence, and Lucy spoke her little 
 speeches of gratitude; she was very good at 
 little speeches, and the tea fights went on, as 
 usual. It vexed John Shandy, and he spoke 
 about it in a way that irritated the little widow. 
 She "didn't care what the gossips said"; 
 was she to be deprived of the comforts of re- 
 ligion, and the society of that good man, her 
 preserver ? She was her own mistress ; widow- 
 hood, she said, with tears in her eyes, gave her 
 at least that privilege for all it had taken, and 
 she would do as she pleased. So John 
 Shandy left her, believing she would finally 
 marry the Rev. Mr. Melden. 
 
58 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 The preacher was in love, — the mildest 
 infantile form of the pleasing epidemic; but 
 still he had it. "I do think, mother," he had 
 said, — " I do think she prefers me. I've half 
 a notion to speak." 
 
 '' Make it a whole notion," said the mother 
 stoutly. *' Of course, she's got to marry 
 somebody, and who else is there for her to 
 prefer ? Of course, she's got to marry," 
 persisted the widow, indignantly, for she too 
 had been a widow and had married a second 
 time, and she regarded Lucy's continued 
 widowhood as rank treason to a pet theory of 
 her own. This was, that widows must marry. 
 Maids might remain single, but it was the first 
 duty of widowhood, she had chapter and verse 
 for it, to be comforted, and how else could 
 they be comforted ? It would be wicked to 
 refuse, and she did not think Lucy was wicked. 
 
 So Mrs. Melden would not take tea with 
 her " sweet little friend " that evening, but 
 prayerfully commended her son to Lucy's 
 hospitable care; and her son had a duty to per- 
 form he only half liked. He was pledged to 
 make premeditated love, a task hard enough 
 to a braver man. He brought it in awk- 
 wardly, though he thought very skilfully, by 
 reference to her recent danger, and having at 
 last spoken his mind, got a mild and humble 
 refusal. He persisted, until Lucy replied to 
 a shaft from the maternal quiver, on the duty 
 of marriage : " If I must marry, I will marry a 
 man, and a brave man, like poor Victor." 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 59 
 
 '' Good heavens! Mrs. Shandy, I will not 
 speak of my own courage, but you heard what 
 my mother said," answered he. 
 
 " Yes," said she, '' but I have thought 
 more of what you said. When I called to you, 
 in the hands of that wretch, you replied that 
 you were a minister of the gospel. As I said, 
 if I must marry, I want a man for a husband. 
 Had there been in vour place even poor John 
 Shandy " 
 
 But she was not allowed to express an 
 opinion of what her cousin would have done 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 " John Shandy! " said the preacher; " why, 
 you do not compare me to that lame man ? " 
 
 '' No," said Lucy, '* I never saw but one 
 man to compare to John Shandy, — my hus- 
 band, his cousin Victor." 
 
 " Then you are going to marry John 
 Shandy ? " said the mortified suitor, indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 ** That is just what is none of your business," 
 said the little widow, plumply. " I will be 
 glad to see you as a friend or pastor, but never 
 come to me as you have done this evening, or 
 to renew this subject." 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Melden was suppressed; 
 and Lucy had offended and convinced each 
 of two rivals that she intended to marry the 
 other. Mrs. Melden had charge of this new 
 piece . of gossip, and managed it skilfully. 
 " John Shandy was a dissipated little cripple, 
 and almost a murderer for that wicked 
 
60 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 woman, and now she was going to marry him! 
 Well, perhaps it was the best thing she could 
 do. Leon," she added, thankfully, " had 
 escaped her toils providentially." 
 
 While these events occurred something was 
 told to John Shandy that greatly excited and 
 disturbed him. The soldier who had brought 
 the news of poor Victor Shandy's last words was 
 clerking for McCandless at the village store. 
 This had kept him apart from John Shandy, 
 but they were old schoolmates, and some- 
 times met. On a late occasion the veteran re- 
 ferred to the prevailing rumor in the village. 
 
 *' Well, Tirs," said he, borrowing a nick- 
 name from a pleasant old book now almost out 
 of date, " how's the Widow Wadman ? " 
 
 " Dry up that," said Shandy. 
 
 " Oh, I'm agreeable! Poor Vic. I wonder 
 how he'd like it," said the soldier, not at all 
 agreeably. 
 
 '' Poor Victor," repeated Shandy, trying to 
 change the conversation. " It was strange, 
 that misprint of ' W. Sanders ' for ' V. Shandy,' 
 in the list of killed." 
 
 " Never saw it," said the other, curtly, 
 " knew Bill Sanders, though; tall fellow, red 
 hair, but gamy, eh! Salty, very. Why, now 
 I think. Bill was shot at the same place, but 
 not the same day; me an' Vic was knocked 
 over next day." 
 
 " Why, was there a' W. Sanders ' in Victor's 
 company, a sergeant ? None of us knew it! " 
 exclaimed John Shandy, excitedly. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 61 
 
 '' Of course not; joined us at Vicksburg, I 
 told you; a regular fire-eater," said the soldier. 
 
 "No! you did not tell me," said Shandy. 
 " Did you see Victor after his death ? " he 
 inquired. 
 
 " How could I ? " was the reply; " fainted, 
 and, when I come to, sawbones had me, taking 
 off this other fellow." And he kicked up the 
 footless stump. 
 
 *' Then Victor may be alive yet," said 
 Shandy. '* Was his name in the Hst of 
 killed, do you know ? " he asked. 
 
 " Hardly; never saw no Hst; just pegged off 
 home, soon as I could toddle," said the soldier. 
 
 *' But, Bob," urged Shandy, '' then he may 
 be alive yet. It is possible for him to be alive, 
 you know." 
 
 " Yes, if a man can live with a gallon of 
 grapeshot in his body. Ugh! he was mashed 
 all to pieces. Oh, he's dead, poor fellow, 
 you bet! Besides, you never heard from him 
 since," said the veteran. 
 
 ** That certainly does look like you are 
 right. But there was a negro boy, Floyd, went 
 with Victor, and he has never come back," 
 said Shandy. 
 
 " A nigga. Oh, they petered out fust fiah! 
 That's no sign," said the veteran. 
 
 " Yes," urged Shandy, " but when they 
 
 Eetered out, they petered back home. The 
 lacks do that more than the whites. This 
 one may have stayed, and taken up his 
 master." 
 
62 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 " Not likely, not at all likely," said the 
 soldier, familiar with the negro character. 
 *' Poor Vick's drawn his last ration. No 
 doubt of her being a widow, if thafs what 
 you're at. Why, I heard his last words." 
 
 But John Shandy saw a doubt that excited 
 him. " I will find it out," thought he, " if 
 I search every battlefield." And so, leaving 
 his companion, and cogitating the plans for 
 a thorough investigation, he sought his fair 
 cousin. 
 
 " Lord, Mass John," said her maid, " whar 
 ye been all dis time ? Nobody don't come now; 
 miss done kicked de preacher." 
 
 " Kicked the preacher! " said Shandy. 
 
 ** Yes, done guv him de sack; I heered it 
 myself. Da's miss, now," continued the 
 maid. 
 
 " Cousin," said Shandy, " I offended you, 
 and you were right to rebuke me." 
 
 '* Cousin John, you are the only friend and 
 protector I have in the world, and you were 
 right to speak as you did. But Mr. Melden 
 is gone, and will come no more, at least as you 
 thought he came before." 
 
 John Shandy reflected. His cousin, then, 
 had no thought of marrying again, and there 
 was no need of revealing his doubts, that 
 would probably end only in renewed sorrow 
 and disappointment. 
 
 " Cousin," he said, " I am going to take 
 a little trip; it may be not a little one, and I 
 wish to know what money you have." 
 
SPIRIT OF' THE SOUTH 63 
 
 '' Oh, heaps! Where are you going? Will 
 you need some ? " said Lucy. 
 
 *' None for myself; let me see it," said 
 
 She brought her treasures, — vouchers of 
 the Confederate government, certificates of 
 the cotton loan. Confederate treasury notes, 
 and a small sum in gold and silver. 
 
 John Shandy sighed when he saw how small 
 a sum the last was. " I will take these," said 
 he, referring to the notes and securities, 
 " and try to exchange them. I have sold the 
 sugar to Mr. Isaacs. He will pay you to- 
 morrow, when he removes it." 
 
 He was going, but she asked, " Will you 
 tell me where you are going ? " 
 
 '' Well, no; I may be disappointed. It is 
 a duty I alone can do," said he. 
 
 Lucy reflected. John Shandy had an only 
 sister living in Tennessee. It must be on her 
 account. As he did not choose to speak 
 directly, she would inquire no more; but, 
 meaning a kindness, she said, " Well, John, 
 come back as soon as you can, and if you 
 bring any one with you, you know how wel- 
 come she will be." John started. " You 
 see I have guessed your great secret; you know 
 I have a little bird. Well, give her my love." 
 And then they parted for the time. 
 
 John wondered what his cousin was at, for 
 a few moments. *' Pshaw," said he, " she 
 thinks I am going to get married." And he 
 dismissed the subject. 
 
64 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 In the afternoon he handed her fifty dollars 
 in gold, the proceeds of as many hundreds in 
 Confederate securities. " I had to sell to 
 McCandless," said he, " and he skinned you. 
 Isaacs will pay you four hundred and fifty, 
 in cash or draft, for the sugar in the morning." 
 
 She followed him out, and hung about him. 
 "Would he be sure and come back soon.^^ 
 She would pray for him and his speedy return. 
 And, yes, she put up her lips and kissed him, 
 as he stooped from the saddle. 
 
 ** Yes," thought he, '' when I return I will 
 bring you a protector or offer you one." And 
 he was gone. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE reader will understand how the 
 months rolled into years, as these events 
 progressed to the last annual season of a 
 wasting war. And now the evil days drew on, 
 and narrowed around the little widow. Her 
 maid would announce, *' Uncle Reuben and 
 Aunt Sarah done gone; " or, '* George and 
 Lucy done gone, miss; " for her slaves were 
 leaving her. Soon none remained but Lucy 
 and her maid; and the crops were wasting 
 in the fields. 
 
 She soon found she would have none to 
 gather. The negroes would cut down the 
 green cane in broad day, and the worm con- 
 sumed the cotton. Her purse began to want 
 filling. Careless in expenditure from habit, 
 she had negligently permitted the sum put 
 in her hands by John Shandy to diminish. 
 Still she had Mr. Isaacs's draft for four hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars, and she felt easy. She 
 took it out, and observed that it was on Mc- 
 Candless. She disliked this man exceedingly; 
 but she admitted that he was, perhaps, the only 
 person in the neighborhood who could honor 
 a draft for such an amount. She prudently 
 resolved, however, that the money itself was 
 better than McCandless's credit, and she took 
 advantage of an occasional visit of old Mr. 
 
 65 
 
66 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Sambre's to get the order cashed. She was 
 explaining its purport to him, when he spoke. 
 He " done done business that away before. 
 McCandless must pay, or he would bring the 
 paper back." And he left on his errand. 
 
 He soon returned. ** Well, Mr. Sambre," 
 said she, *' did you get the money ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, ma'am; no trouble about that," 
 said the old man. 
 
 Lucy breathed freer as she took the package 
 and opened it. She knew them at once by 
 the numbers, — her own Confederate notes. 
 She had sold them to McCandless at a cent 
 per cent, and they came back to her dollar 
 for dollar. 
 
 There was no redress, nothing but to sit 
 down and endure. It was all her resources 
 gone at one swoop. Her plantation was 
 ruined, her money all gone. She must look 
 out for a living. She could teach music and 
 drawing. Nobody would learn, or could pay 
 for such accomplishments. All Lucy's little 
 graces were useless. She tried a little school, 
 but her patrons could not pay. She tried, 
 and did get a little sewing; and, yes, she assisted 
 black Lucy at the wash tub. 
 
 One day old Mr. Sambre met the poor little 
 woman staggering under a heavy sack. " Bless 
 my soul. Lord bless my soul. Ma'am, gimme 
 that; what is it .^ " said he. 
 
 " It's very heavy," said Lucy; '* it's pota- 
 toes. I didn't know potatoes could be so 
 heavy. I bought them to feed Lucy and 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 67 
 
 myself, and they will last such a little while. 
 We do eat so much! " 
 
 Another time Lucy and the black girl sat 
 over their Lenten fare. *' Tellee what, missis, 
 I done seed a bee-tree goin' out to wash dis 
 mornin'," said the girl. 
 
 *' A bee-tree going out to wash! Why, Lu, 
 what is that ? " asked Lucy, wondering. 
 
 " I don't mean de tree; it's I'se gwine to 
 wash, and seed de tree," said the other. 
 
 '' Oh, that! " said Lucy. " Well, what of it r 
 
 *' A heap of it," answered the maid; " dat 
 tree done chock full o' honey, ef we could 
 git it." 
 
 " Ah! " sighed Lucy, " but how ? " 
 
 ** Chop down de tree; s'pos'n' le's try; 
 honey's mighty good, even wid taters," said 
 the other. 
 
 ** Well, I am willing," said her mistress, 
 '' but I don't know how to chop, do you ? " 
 
 " Chop wood for de kitchen fire," said the 
 black. " You jes come, an' I'll show ye how." 
 
 They did go. They worked at the tree all 
 morning. *' How hacked and ugly it looks! " 
 said Lucy, pausing to rest. ** I do believe 
 it's fatter than when we began. Lucy, this 
 tree grows faster than we cut." 
 
 *' No: it don't, it dursn't. I wish lightnin' 
 done strike it," said the negress, pausing. 
 " S'pos'in' we try ef it won't break now," she 
 continued, after a look. 
 
 It was very unpromising, but, with united 
 strength, they propped up a stout sapling, and 
 
68 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 bore against the lever with all their strength. 
 The tree swayed and cracked. They cheered 
 and panted and pushed, and with a cloud of 
 dust the tree broke, not at the cut, but its 
 rotted roots, and fell with a crash.* Lucy sat 
 down, exhausted as she was, and laughed till 
 she cried, but they got the honey. 
 
 As the season advanced cotton picking 
 begun, and it was a harvest for this little 
 Robinson Crusoe and her woman Friday. 
 They were paid in kind, fifty cents on the 
 hundred pounds, and the two earned per- 
 haps a dollar a day. If the pay was in cotton, 
 the country merchant skinned it, in exchange 
 for groceries, but it was sometimes in vege- 
 tables, meat, or meal. The dealings with the 
 store took Lucy to her old enemy McCandless 
 in the village, and there she met with the 
 soldier clerk. Bob Asa. Bob was kind in his 
 way, giving Lucy shockingly partial bargains, 
 and one day, when she was out of work, sug- 
 gested that McCandless wanted cotton pickers, 
 and paid well. *' He will not see you; his 
 overseer manages it all, and I do the paying," 
 said he, persuasively. Lucy was reluctant, 
 but needs must, and so she and her black 
 companion went to the work. Bob was, for 
 once, mistaken. That day, by accident, Mc- 
 Candless did come out and saw the widow. 
 Poverty had not deepened the soft lines of that 
 delicate face, or distorted the light, active 
 
 *This authentic incident occurred in Florida, during the war, 
 and is related with circumstance and addition the writer does 
 not attempt to follow. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 69 
 
 figure. She was fair to look upon, this Ruth 
 gleaning in the cotton, and McCandless was 
 quite willing to enact Boaz. He was of a sel- 
 fish but emotional nature, and very tender of 
 himself over the death of his poor, hard- 
 worked wife. He began his attentions with 
 suflScient skill. Cotton, like other natural 
 products, is governed by the soil, and in the 
 same field it will boll out beautifully or be 
 sparse, according to the nourishment furnished. 
 Observing Lucy and her companion to be 
 toiling on the meager side of the patch, he 
 changed them to the more luxuriant slope, 
 but did not that day address the mistress. 
 The next day he did refer to his late loss, 
 similar to her own, and shed a few tears; for 
 McCandless thought it hard to lose his wife 
 in the harvest season, and Lucy gave the man 
 credit for a better nature than he possessed. 
 
 He came afterwards daily and tried to get 
 up an intimacy. The cotton picking occupied 
 several weeks, and when it ended another 
 task offered. The Lanfranc and Shandy 
 sugar w^as famous in those old days, a brand 
 commanding the best market. This was due 
 to the care observed in its boiling, and the 
 just promptitude in removing the mass from 
 the kettles at the true granulating point. 
 Lucy had, in her way, learned all this, and the 
 year previous had made all the sugar of the 
 plantation. It was conceded, by black and 
 white, that she had no equal in this delicate 
 operation, and McCandless desired her ser- 
 
70 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 vices. She refused plumply at first, as it was 
 a task requiring unintermitting attention day 
 and night; but when McCandless proposed to 
 wagon the cane to the Lanfranc sugar mill, still 
 unimpaired, Lucy, with proviso and ex- 
 ception, consented. 
 
 She made Bob Asa her lieutenant in this 
 work, and kept him about as a sort of guard; 
 but he could not, nor could she, altogether 
 keep off McCandless, who inclined more and 
 more to the part of Boaz as this Ruth shrank 
 from that cast for her. Good natured and 
 coarse, he still had some of the Irish native 
 wit and sentiment under the rough husk, and it 
 flowered out in the reluctant sunshine of the 
 widow's charms. As she spoke civilly and gent- 
 ly to him, with the courtesy of her sex and breed- 
 ing, the selfish vanity of the man took hope. 
 
 The evening the work was finished it rained 
 heavily. McCandless drove up in a hand- 
 some new close carriage, with an ugly hand 
 sprawling over the panel, which he was kind 
 enough to inform Lucy was the '' arrums of the 
 ould McCandless famuly." She declined, 
 however, to be enclosed in such " arrums," and 
 preferred walking. But he had not brought 
 the money. '' Wud the leddy jist stip in; it 
 was as aisy as her own swate ways, to be sure," 
 and they would " rowl down to the shtore 
 for the cash, an' she should go home like in 
 her own carruge, as in ould times." 
 
 Lucy was vexed. She was determined to 
 have this money down, and it was too late 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 71 
 
 to walk. But she would not ride alone with 
 McCandless. " Get in, Captain Asa," she 
 said to her bodyguard, and in the Confederate 
 stepped, very coolly and leisurely, while the 
 Irishman looked blank at this sudden snapping 
 of his little network plot. 
 
 He was not a man, however, to be easily 
 repulsed, and the same evening he called at the 
 widow's shelter. He was refused admittance at 
 first, but, pleading ** business," at length was 
 received. The widow stood holding by the 
 sitting-room door, facing him, with a letter 
 which she had, apparently, been interrupted in 
 reading, in the other hand. It was the attitude 
 of one who expected to answer a question or two 
 before closing the door on the speaker, and re- 
 suming a previous, more important occupation. 
 If it was premeditated, it was a quiet stroke of 
 genius. It demoralized the enemy, so to speak. 
 
 He was excited. There was a purpose, not 
 thoroughly defined, in his mind to win the 
 widow, and on that night. He struggled 
 against the conscious scowl growing on his 
 face at the sight of the thoroughly defensible 
 position, and slipped into his brogue and 
 blarney: "Sure how can a swate crature be 
 so crule as to shtand widh her purty fut on' 
 his hear-rut an' her sarvent askin' her to 
 warrum it in his boo-som." 
 
 The enemy did not even show her colors to 
 this assault. 
 
 '' What is your business.'^ " she said; " I 
 am engaged." 
 
72 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 *' Sure an' that's me business; for ye to be 
 ingaged to be marrid; to meself, I mane." 
 He saw her face chill and harden and her nos- 
 trils quiver at this assault, and he again 
 changed. " It's alone ye are here, loike a 
 burred in its cage, an' it's poor ye are; the 
 little penny is soon gone, bad luck to the same 
 and sorra a bit more to fade thim roses an 
 yer chakes. It wud deloight Terry Mc- 
 Candless to presarve the same; to take the 
 purty burred out o' the cage and set it free in 
 his arrums, with a carruge of its own to roide 
 in, to be sure." 
 
 *' You may be jesting or drunk, sir, but this 
 house is no place for you," said the widow, 
 only angry as yet. 
 
 ** Divil a bit has touched my lips, barrin' 
 a mouthful to yer health and for luck, widdy. 
 If it's the gossoon Pathrick, sure an' he can 
 go to the school, or to the divil, for the matther 
 of that; and if it's manes, sure an' I'm rich, 
 and plaze the pigs, ef the war goes an, it's 
 more the richer I'll be; spake, an' we'll have 
 the praist at wanst. Hear to raison," he 
 continued, pushing in as the widow drew back; 
 " divil a bit can ye live like this; ye must 
 marry, and bedad ye shall marry me," he said, 
 boldly and persistently. " For betther or for 
 wurrus, them's the wurruds; take me for luve, 
 or bedad for hate, as you loike, but it's take 
 me you shall." And he looked more brutal 
 as the dark instincts of his nature grew into 
 his face. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 73 
 
 " Wretch! do you think me without pro- 
 tection? Who should know better than you 
 that God provides an avenger for the widow ? 
 This letter is from John Shandy. He is 
 coming. Villain, will you dare to wait till 
 he hears of this insult ? " 
 
 The animal in him quailed before the high- 
 spirited Southern beauty, threatening that 
 fierce Southern law of personal redress whose 
 deadly certainty he knew. 
 
 " Be gorra, thin, marm, an' I nivir heard 
 before it was an insult to ask a lady to marry," 
 he growled, remonstrating. 
 1^.- ' Such asking would be an insult from 
 crowned king or ragged beggar, and from you, 
 — your very presence has been an insult." 
 And she slammed the door on his retreating 
 face, bolted it, and sat down trembling with 
 excitement. 
 
 Lucy had threatened this man with John 
 Shandy's coming; but the letter Lucy held, 
 though speaking of his return, did it ob- 
 scurely, and set no period. She thought of 
 this the next day, and, consulting with her 
 maid, she resolved to ojffer a room to the lame 
 soldier. 
 
 He gladly accepted the offering; and poor 
 Bob Asa being, in this way so near such a 
 brilliant intoxicating light, must need flicker 
 in the flame a little, poor moth! 
 
 " Why, Captain Asa," said the indignant 
 widow, *' I am ashamed of you. I thought 
 you were my friend. I asked you to come on 
 
74 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 purpose, and now you must go and talk to me 
 just like other men." 
 
 " Flanked, by George! '* said the discom- 
 fited soldier. " Dog on it, Mrs. Shandy, I 
 thought you'd like it." 
 
 '* But I don't, you see. I dislike it very 
 much; and you mustn't do so any more," said 
 the widow, sharply. 
 
 " Curse the luck! " said the soldier; *' I 
 thought you hankered after me. Black Lucy 
 told me so, anyhow." 
 
 " Black Lucy is a goose; don't you be one. 
 You see, I don't hanker for you. I don't 
 hanker, as you call it, for anybody. I am a 
 sort of little Southern Confederacy that wants 
 to be let alone, and I wanted you to be my 
 soldier," the little widow replied. 
 
 The illustration pleased Bob, and as he 
 promised " not to do so any more," they got 
 on quite contentedly for a while. 
 
 But the sure heavy weight was slowly, 
 slowly coming down. As a man heaves a huge 
 block up with an effort and holds it, you ad- 
 mire the stiffened sinews, the development of 
 muscle in the energy of will and force bent to 
 the elaborate task. But watch the sturdy 
 lifter! Slight, imperceptible quivers shake the 
 muscles; the frame quivers, the smile of tri- 
 umph fades into doubt. The huge block has 
 done nothing; has remained dumb, quiet, 
 oppressive. It has put out no effort against 
 that great will force, that gallant and graceful 
 play of fibre and muscle; it just weighs and 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 75 
 
 weighs, with a silent, unalterable law, down- 
 ward, downward. 
 
 So I have thought poverty sometimes lies, 
 huge, misshapen, and ponderous, on a gallant 
 soul. We cannot look and admire, for we see 
 the vital force must yield to a weight beyond 
 its strength. So, on poor Lucy the great 
 volume of existence settled more and more 
 heavily. 
 
 There was no more cotton picking, no more 
 sugar making. Then the Federal Army came 
 in. The ravages of the negroes, bad enough 
 before, became unendurable, destructive. She 
 had to give up her little garden; it was plun- 
 dered of its vegetables before they were ripe. 
 Her ** soldier," as she had called Asa, had 
 been forced to sacrifice his situation or to leave 
 the widow's. Poor fellow, he too had to 
 surrender to the burden beyond his strength. 
 As it was inculcated industriously by their new 
 masters that a common school education in- 
 cluded all the moral virtues, Lucy attempted 
 a little school among those who had been her 
 servants. It was not Bible lessons or the pure 
 morals of a Saviour they wanted. A, B, C, 
 included it all, and these Lucy undertook 
 to teach. 
 
 Let any young New England girl, just 
 ventured from a quiet, loving home into the 
 hard world to teach, recall that charge given 
 her, where ignorant and vulgar patrons thought 
 the meager sums doled out gave them a right 
 to censure and dictate, and let her imagine the 
 
76 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 coarseness and impertinence hugely exagger- 
 ated upon a grosser ignorance, and she will 
 realize some of poor Lucy's trials. The tuition 
 fees were in food, the coarse food of the negroes 
 themselves, and it was grudgingly given. It 
 was slowly starving and slowly killing her, 
 when black Lucy, her maid, broke it up. 
 Lucy thanked her and lay down quietly to die. 
 But, teaching the blacks, she had become 
 known to some Federal officers having to do 
 with the same poor material; and the evening 
 black Lucy ordered the pupils to " cFar out 
 and nebber come back da no mo'," two Federal 
 soldiers inquired for lodgings at the widow's 
 house. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LUCY'S new boarders were an elderly 
 and a young man, father and son. The 
 elder was a grave, quiet man, having 
 some semi-civil, semi-military duties. The son 
 was a brisk, romping fellow of twenty-one or 
 two, full of spirits. It amused Lucy to hear 
 the crisp, cool syllables, so different from the 
 broad, soft vowels and Southern intonation. 
 He would laugh over his college scrapes, his 
 *' doing the faculty " out of his diploma by 
 enlisting, his loves and his hates, in a perfectly 
 frank, humorous manner, willing indifferently 
 to be laughed with or laughed at, so she 
 laughed. He would tell how his father en- 
 listed *' just to be near him," with tears, and 
 then bubble over with some ridiculous flirta- 
 tions of the watering places. He courted the 
 widow, of course, in a week; wrote quite 
 scholarly sonnets to her, and laughed and pro- 
 tested and talked about " the little Yankee 
 girl he was going home to marry when the 
 war was over." It was the champagne of 
 love, iced; but in icing it was tempered in its 
 more intoxicating qualities. 
 
 One day he found the widow sad over a 
 letter. He did what a Southerner would have 
 avoided, by asking her " what was the matter." 
 
 " Only a letter from a lady who thinks I 
 77 
 
78 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 am rich, and wants to live with me as house- 
 keeper, poor thing. She says her son was 
 slain in the same battle Victor, my husband, 
 was, and it seems to confirm poor Victor's 
 death. If Malvoisee had a roof, she would be 
 welcome, but it has none for me to offer poor 
 Mrs. — Sanders is the name." 
 
 "Malvoisee.^" said the officer; "it's the 
 burned place next here; was it yours ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is mine," said the widow. "Why.? " 
 
 ** Oh, I'm so sorry, it was sold for delayed 
 taxes this morning; a fellow, McCandless, 
 below here, bought it," said the lieutenant. 
 
 ** It was the widow's home. Do you call 
 that making war, Mr. Endicott ? " 
 
 The soldier winced. " I don't like it," 
 he said; " but war is war, and the government 
 tries to get paid so as to pay its army." 
 
 " That is, my place was sold to get money 
 for the government to pay those who slew my 
 husband, for the slaying. Does your Bible 
 say anything about seething a kid in its 
 mother's milk, Lieutenant ? " said the widow, 
 very softly. 
 
 The lieutenant|was silent. " Hang it, it's 
 all loot for that rascal, McCandless. I'll 
 block him. I will see the governor and 
 
 General , and have the thing stopped." 
 
 But the generous youth was not permitted to 
 carry out his act of chivalrous justice, nor to 
 speak to father or friend in the matter. The 
 unseen shadow that walks beside us all and 
 watches its opportunity was drawing near. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 79 
 
 and as he talked his winding-sheet was high up 
 on the throat. The Confederates still hung a 
 cloud in the distance, occasionally throwing out 
 a tongue of flame and destruction. That 
 evening, on rumors of such a raid, young 
 Endicott gathered a force of scouts and 
 started to reconnoitre. About three o'clock 
 in the afternoon, the two parties. Federal and 
 Confederate, encountered in a little field in 
 sight of the house. Each party was small, 
 numbering twenty or thirty, but the conflict 
 was short and desperate. Young Endicott 
 fell, and his friends were retreating slowly on 
 the house, when the elder Endicott came up 
 with reinforcements, and the Confederates, 
 in turn, fell back. 
 
 The poor young man was brought into the 
 widow's room. She had suffered, as the 
 reader knows, by the war, but it had never 
 before dashed its actual red surf over her 
 threshold. Yet shocked as she was, all feeling 
 gave way in sympathy for the agonized father. 
 
 He only walked up and down, up and down, 
 repeating the passionate words of the Hebrew 
 king, " Oh, my son Absalom, my son, my son 
 Absalom; would I had died for thee! Oh, 
 Absalom, my son, my son! " over and over 
 again, wrenching his hands all the time, and 
 walking up and down, up and down. 
 
 It was with difficulty he was so far soothed 
 as to be removed, while the last soldierly 
 attentions were paid by the young man's 
 comrades. He was laid to rest in the little 
 
so SPIRIT OP THE SOUTH 
 
 widow's flower garden, and the next day the 
 father was calmer. He said to his hostess, 
 with a great sob that contradicted his words, 
 in the language of the heroic king, " I will 
 mourn no more. I shall go to him, but he 
 S'hall not return to me." 
 
 With a sad difference the old ways returned, 
 but not to him. He was changed and broken. 
 An old man before, the blow had aged him 
 greatly, and he loved to spend his leisure with 
 the poor, lonely little widow. He spoke of his 
 son and then of his wife gone before, and told 
 his life story, of a long love and a late marriage 
 with his first love, and of her death; then of his 
 enlisting, to be near his son. In her sympathy, 
 the poor old man found comfort, and she came 
 to regard him, this alien enemy, with some- 
 thing of filial solicitude. They were useful 
 to one another, these two people lonely in the 
 world. The little money for his board sup- 
 plied the table, and he assisted in her garden 
 and gave her protection. 
 
 When the peace came, it brought no peace 
 here. The sound was a mockery to them. 
 " I will return to you, my child," said he, 
 " some day." 
 
 But Lucy only said, " I know you think 
 so, but you will not. I seem to be enclosed 
 in a charmed circle of sorrow. When I was a 
 foolish girl I had many lovers, who all went 
 away vowing to return. They never came. 
 So father and mother crossed the dark river. 
 Then my uncle went, and never returned. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 81 
 
 Then I won my Victor, and my charmed circle 
 became sacred; but he, too, went to his duty, 
 and never came back to me. After that I had 
 a noble, true friend who went to bring his 
 sister to us, but he has passed the charmed 
 circle and will never return. You think you 
 will return, but you cannot. The fatal circle 
 is about me and cannot be passed." 
 
 He was very much affected. " Sit down," 
 said he, taking her hand; ** I am an old man 
 and must speak; first, some sad news, and 
 then some other words, meant to be kind, my 
 child; believe me, meant to be kind. Tell me, 
 is this yours, this place where you live ? " 
 
 " No," said Lucy, ** it is my cousin's, John 
 Shandy's. My place, Malvoisee, has been 
 taken away from me." 
 
 " Alas, yes," said the old man; " and, my . 
 poor child, this too has been sold for delayed ^ 
 taxes. One McCandless bought it. Is he a 
 friend? Will he " 
 
 '' No! he is my hard enemy. Now, indeed, 
 is all shelter gone," sobbed the widow. 
 
 "No, my child, not all. Hear me. I am 
 an old man, and past the years of lovers. I 
 will speak plainly. I offer you a home; I ask 
 you, will you be my daughter, under the name , 
 of wife ? If I was a rich man, I might do 
 better for you, if you would let me, but I am 
 not. I can only take you with me, and guard 
 you under the name of wife; but you shall be 
 my daughter only, my poor widowed daughter; 
 a,nd I am a weak, old man with no other ties," 
 
82 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 And he was silent. After a while he said, " I 
 will leave you now, my child, to think over 
 what I have said. You know it is sincere; 
 you know I mean to be kind." 
 
 " I know you are kind," said Lucy, extend- 
 ing her hand. " I will think about it." And 
 they parted. 
 
 She did think of it. She reviewed the past, 
 and saw how fate had narrowed around her. 
 She thought of John Shandy and his love, his 
 goodness to her. It was a crown to her, and 
 something to be very proud of; but her hus- 
 band's image arose before her, vivid with dear 
 associations; and as the bounty of his manly 
 love flowed through the channels of recollections, 
 old hopes and feelings and expressions flowered 
 up in the kindly moisture. She loved her 
 husband yet, deeply, purely, tenderly, with all 
 the passion of a wife's first love. She loved 
 no one else. The very thought of so loving 
 another was pain, even were it John Shandy. 
 Poor John Shandy! 
 
 But this other .^ She knew without argu- 
 ment, it was different, and knew what the 
 relation would be better than he who offered 
 it. She knew that he was and would be truly 
 all he said. She knew, too, what her part 
 must be. She would be his nurse. She 
 would have the care of him; and there would 
 be irksome duties and hard trials, but she 
 would never be his wife, never be called so 
 by him; she would only be his daughter. She 
 saw that future plainly as in a glass. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 83 
 
 There are periods, crises in life, which 
 almost every one can recall, when some innate 
 power acts that is not the reason of logic with 
 cause and effect, nor the discriminating judg- 
 ment, weighing alternatives. It is neither 
 advocate nor judge. It reveals; it does not 
 argue. We see pictured as in a mirror a far 
 future, as if we had lived it. We know, with- 
 out an effort of reason, but as of recollection, 
 just what events and feelings are to follow 
 from a defined course. It leaves no room 
 for doubt or argument. Judgment only 
 comes in to determine which we will ac- 
 cept. 
 
 So it was with Lucy. She saw herself as 
 the nominal wife, the actual daughter and 
 nurse of old Mr. Endicott. She saw what 
 that life was, that it was not one of ease. She 
 saw years of drudgery, of care, of exceeding 
 patience. She saw the waning age of an old 
 man growing captious, irritable, complaining, 
 and selfish. She saw herself in his house, 
 bearing all, suffering all, in irksome care and 
 silence. She saw a household, sufficient but 
 narrow; hopes, feelings, sentiments, all starved 
 into that existence, and bounded by an old 
 and broken man's narrow economies. She 
 saw years and customs growing on her, and 
 crushing old ways of thought and speech, and 
 knew that she would be altogether different, — 
 different even in herself and to herself, a sad 
 and soured old woman who had missed all the 
 flower of life. 
 
84 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 What else? She would live alone. Her 
 life would be her own. Bearing all this cark 
 and care of another, she would bear none of 
 her own. She would be the living, loving wife 
 of Victor Shandy, with no presumptuous 
 image to thrust between her and that dear 
 nourishing sweetness of her existence, her love 
 for her dead husband. But the other alter- 
 native ? No prophetic clairvoyance was needed 
 here. If she refused the offer, she saw the 
 future in the past, the last bitter year. She 
 knew she had courage, and the will to work, 
 the slave of this cruel body, if she could find 
 the work to do. She could not plough or chop 
 wood or wash; and these comprehended the 
 demands of that impoverished neighborhood. 
 Her accomplishments in that barren spot 
 were like Robinson Crusoe's gold; it would 
 buy nothing, it was useless. If she stayed she 
 might teach school, teach the negro children, 
 be the patient, insulted drudge of these poor, 
 ignorant slaves, drunk with new, misunder- 
 stood freedom. As all the memory of that 
 sickening endurance and final failure crawled 
 like a loathsome worm over her, she shuddered 
 and brushed it away. It was not the will to do, 
 but the power to do, was in question; and she 
 knew that power was not in her. 
 
 Lucy was a brave woman. She had fought 
 the good fight. She had been patient and 
 even cheerful under trials that would have 
 snapped a steel less fine and finely tempered 
 than her own, but Lucy was. too^ wise and too 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 85 
 
 brave not to know and to face the truth. She 
 did not pretend that she could not preserve a 
 sordid existence, at the gates of starvation, 
 by herself, in this corner, but it would be at the 
 expense of degradation to her womanhood, to 
 that preserving purity sustained by womanly 
 occupations. It would cost too much. So 
 this little soldier was prepared to surrender 
 her sword. Not because she was unwilling 
 to fight, but because she saw fighting would 
 not gain what she desired and struggled 
 for. It would only be a species of sui- 
 cide. 
 
 She gave a last sad thought to poor John 
 Shandy. Never in her life did she love and 
 honor him more than when, in this final crisis 
 of life, she weighed his wishes with her power 
 to grant. She knew that she could not marry 
 John Shandy, as she might marry this old 
 man, giving nothing of what he asked in 
 exchange. She knew, if she married him, she 
 ought to give, and he ought to ask, a whole, 
 undivided, wifely love; that it would be a lie to 
 marry him, denying him this. And so, gently 
 and tenderly loving him the more in her tears, ^ 
 she put him away in her thought, and sorrowed 
 for him as for a dear, dead friend. Poor 
 John Shandy! 
 
 So she sat in the twilight singing, very low, 
 a strange, old melody she had not recalled for 
 years. It was her own story, the story of a 
 brave woman conquered, and she whispered 
 it^softly,— 
 
86 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 '* And young Jamie at the sea, — 
 And auld Robin Gray cam' a-courtin* o' me.** 
 
 Mr. Endicott came in. He looked troubled. 
 '' Have you thought, my child ? Have you 
 thought of any other way I can help you ? " 
 
 " No, none; none by which I can help you 
 in return," said the widow, softly. 
 
 " Ah! well, when you please, you can tell 
 me. Never mind," he said, as the widow 
 made an effort to speak. " There, let me 
 have my w ay ; to-morrow ? Well, I have news 
 for you; good news " 
 
 But a noise startled them, and black Lucy 
 came running in, stumbling, and screaming. 
 '' Lord, miss," said she, " Floyd's done come; 
 Mass John's done come." iVnd she fell in a 
 fit. No need of announcement. The grave, 
 handsome face and figure of Victor Shandy 
 rose above his cousin's, upon whose shoulder 
 one hand, half embracing, lay lightly as he 
 stood in the doorway. '' It is Victor: it is my 
 husband. O Victor, Victor! " and the brave, 
 over-tired little wife fell in his arms. 
 
 The two, John and Victor Shandy, had 
 spoken first to old Mr. Endicott, who had 
 come up from his quarters in the village to 
 break the news of her husband's return to his 
 wife; but youth and impatience, as we know, 
 had anticipated the slow, hesitating old man's 
 action. It was as well. Joy does not kill. 
 
 Victor Shandy's story must be recorded. 
 Taken up by Floyd, and a prisoner, he was 
 exchanged, after his recovery, and enlisted in 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 87 
 
 a different regiment; was wounded in the 
 retreat from Petersburg, and found by John 
 Shandy sick and heartbroken over a rumor 
 of his wife's marriage. The failure of their 
 frequent letters, mutually written each other, 
 was an occurrence too frequent at that period, 
 in the South, to need explanation or comment. 
 The colored boy, Floyd, to Bob Asa's intense 
 disgust and incredulity, had actually stood by 
 his master to the last; nay, stands by him yet, 
 with a wife to help him who is quite reconciled 
 to " dat nigga's " not having ** done got his- 
 self killed"; and they are the servants of 
 Victor and Lucy Shandy, and call them Mars 
 Vic and Miss Lucy. 
 
 The pretty widow is won. Is there any 
 more to tell ? McCandless is prospering after 
 his kind, in purse and its respectability; and 
 as man, Hke water, finds his level, he is prob- 
 ably now, or soon will be, in Congress. Is 
 that all ? 
 
 No. The moon is setting, and sending its 
 long, slant glories through the trees, bringing 
 out the broad galleries of rebuilt Malvoisee 
 in the clear obscure. The child of the old 
 love listens silently at his knee to the soft, 
 melancholy flow of the violin; for John Shandy 
 is playing. A light wind bears the odors of 
 flowers. Tike incense, from the garden and 
 Lucy listens in her chamber, silently, in tears, 
 as the harmony of '* Auld Robin Gray " 
 floats softly in. She thinks of the poor old 
 man to whom Heaven was kind, in taking him 
 
88 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 home from a lonely world, and her heart fills 
 with old memories and trials of that sad time. 
 But the music flows on, flows on, in sweeter 
 curves and changes. Sad old plantation airs, 
 with stories of a way of tenderness in life that 
 shall be no more forever, melt from the 
 strings and mingle with the rustle of the leaves. 
 The music sobs like the spirit of the past, 
 about the galleries and deserted cabins. No 
 more that melodious charm will call troops of 
 happy, wondering black faces, from nooks and 
 recesses of the old cabins, to linger entranced 
 at the spell. 
 
 But John Shandy plays on. Snatches of 
 old dreams and of an old delight, idealized 
 and purified above the earth, faints in the 
 tender symphonies. The old love has grown 
 and softened into a precious feeling, that 
 belongs to no one on earth, and yet is not all 
 the creation of that tender, loving heart. Born 
 in heaven and nourished on the bounty of a 
 sweet, unselfish nature, it floats on the long, 
 soft swells and cadences, rising musically, 
 tenderly, in lengthened undulations to its 
 home. As the disk of the setting moon grows 
 broader and broader in the foliage and the 
 sliadows darken around its eclipse, the 
 soft clear voice breaks out, in a sweet old 
 hymn, to the according violin. Does it 
 associate itself with the sympathies and 
 heroes of a Lost Cause, mingled with the 
 devout inspiration of a loving and relying 
 heart? ^ 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 89 
 
 " Through sorrow's night and danger's path, 
 Among the gathering gloom, 
 We, soldiers of an injured king. 
 Are marching to the tomb." 
 
 And the last faint glimmer of the setting moon 
 is gone, and all is dark. 
 
REVEREND MR. BLAND'S WRESTLE 
 WITH THE CHESTER WHITE HOG 
 
 THE scene of the Rev. Mr. Bland's trial 
 lies among the Salt River hills, Ken- 
 tucky, with a homely but picturesque 
 village nestled in the low farming lands, 
 which begin on the north bank, the limbo 
 of politicians, and slope off into the Ohio 
 basin. Handsome country seats adorn the 
 spurs of adjacent hills, and overlook the 
 checkerboard verdure of field and fallow, 
 with the soft blue velvet knobs falling away, 
 south and west, at either hand. The Ohio 
 River has burst its way through the range, 
 forming a beautiful cluster of sand and rocky 
 islets, or more fertile tracts, in the rapids, 
 which are fast wasting away under the grand 
 trowels of the water-shed. But as we follow 
 the little tributary we meet the contrast of wild 
 and rugged scenery of hill, dale, and river 
 lying contiguous to arable and pasture, to 
 which the pleased imagination gives the name 
 of the Picturesque. A certain unexpected- 
 ness adds to the charm of contrasts in travel 
 through this region, which, indeed, is best 
 pursued, w^ith dog and gun. Now we come 
 on farms lusty in tilth, the partridge whirring 
 in the stubble, and wide-open barns bursting 
 with harvest; then a turn brings us upon 
 scenes of wild, untutored nature, unspoiled 
 by the woodman's axe, or Macadam's inven- 
 tion of road-bed, out of which suddenly the 
 
m SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 wild glens develop a stately villa, embroidered 
 with walks, drives, shrubbery, and fair pavil- 
 ions set in the lonely forest. Crossing the 
 various tributaries of Floyd's Fork, Long 
 Run, Harrod's Creek, and classic Beargrass, 
 we meet continuous examples of the physical 
 law that ascribes to each watershed its own 
 peculiar features, till, from a gentle acclivity, 
 the characteristic unexpectedness develops 
 the broad, squared avenues, the stately roofs, 
 chimneys, and cupolas of the city of Louis- 
 ville. The same prevailing spirit of contrast 
 reappears in a population in which the highest 
 culture associates with rural simplicity; or 
 humanity preserves its savage characteristics 
 among the rough, lawless charcoal burners of 
 the Wet Woods. 
 
 It has been many years since I looked upon 
 these scenes, once so familiar to my boyish 
 sports; yet they lie before the mind's eye as 
 vivid as the soft, half -tropical beauty of foliage 
 that meets my daily walks. Many pleasing 
 reminiscences of books and men and boyish 
 playfellow have knitted themselves into the 
 embroidery of these old home scenes; and it 
 pleases my fancy to reflect that the subjective 
 sensation still remains, as vivid to my imagi- 
 nation as if I were actually to look on them 
 again, and more harmonious. Indeed, with- 
 out the sensitive receptive faculty of the boyish 
 heart, I fear the new impressions would come 
 like a blurred photograph that disfigures 
 more than it represents. Nothing is more 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 93 
 
 dangerous than revisiting scenes on which 
 memory too fondly dwells; for if we do not 
 find saddening changes in the scenes them- 
 selves, we are sure to find them in the altered 
 feeling in ourselves with which we look upon 
 them. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Bland was assigned to the 
 village church in one of these neighborhoods 
 about the time it suffered a loss in the death 
 of the Hon. James Griffin, formerly member 
 of Congress from the district. The reverend 
 gentleman was rather a strict disciplinarian 
 for the gentle and forbearing Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, but he had delivered his famous 
 sermon on the prophecies of Daniel, and the 
 city churches in which he had been alternated 
 for many years were reluctant to lose the ser- 
 vices of a preacher of such piety and scholar- 
 ship. But the good man had lost his wife a 
 short time before, and was anxious for a 
 change. He brought with him his daughter 
 Estella, no less an acquisition to the young 
 people than her father proved to be to the 
 society of her elders. 
 
 He bore with composure the pseudo enthu- 
 siasm which welcomes every newcomer, and 
 gradually established himself in the confidence 
 of the more select body of reflecting persons 
 capable of understanding his practical and 
 mathematical theory of the prophecies. A 
 part of his congregation did, indeed, look 
 upon him a little coldly, as a Presbyterian in 
 disguise; and one loose fish, of no church at 
 
94 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 all, objected that Rev. Mr. Bland wanted 
 every one to wear his Sunday go to meetin's 
 a week days — an extravagance of habit, he 
 thought, few even of church-goers could afford. 
 As usual, there was a leaven of justice in these 
 criticisms. Mr. Bland inclined to severity 
 in discipline, and his habits of accurate 
 thought led him to election and predestination 
 in theory. 
 
 But the mild gossip which, in America at 
 least, grows out of an abstract difference of 
 doctrine was soon lost in the keener zest of a 
 rumor which connected his name with the 
 relict of the late Mr. Griffin — a very interest- 
 ing and wealthy widow lady of the neighbor- 
 hood. There could be no inequality in a 
 marriage between a gentleman of probity, 
 piety, and reputation, and the widow of the 
 late representative in Congress, however am- 
 ple her dower, and his congregation viewed it 
 with satisfaction, as a means of attaching him 
 to them. But others, connected with the 
 lady, objected, from chiefly interested motives. 
 Mrs. Miller, nee Sally Sampson, wife of 
 Robert Miller, the lady's brother, was the 
 principal of these. My neighbor, Tom Gwynn, 
 — a hearty, manly fellow, — said that Mrs. 
 Sally ordered up the junior of Miller, Sampson, 
 and Co., Mr. Job Newsants, from the counting 
 house as she would order a horse from the 
 stables, and came down to make a Sabine 
 marriage. It was good as a play to hear 
 Tom swear out his prejudices about Mrs. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 95 
 
 Sally. He said she had traded on Hon. 
 James Griffin's influence, and filled her side- 
 board full of china and silver as presents, until 
 she drove him out of politics. Then she had 
 borrowed his wife's inheritance of the Colonel 
 to put in her husband's business, " because, 
 you know, dear, you never gave Robert Miller 
 anything when you had influence." " She 
 got at him about our investments in wild 
 land," laughed Tom; '* said it was wicked, 
 and quoted the parable of the buried talent 
 on us. I offered to put up the monument to 
 Jim myself," added Tom Gwynn, " if they'd 
 let me write the inscription — ' Died of a 
 Sally Sampson.' " 
 
 ** What sort of a person is this gentleman ? 
 what is his name .? " I asked. 
 
 " Nuisance," blurted out Tom, stretching 
 his long arm out for the flask. We had 
 stopped to lunch at Rock Spring while part- 
 ridge shooting. " A confounded nuisance. 
 There are men. Will, — and they fill no undis- 
 tinguished places in the world, — who find a 
 corner in the midst of its most audacious 
 ventures, and yet take no risk. Messieurs y 
 faites voire jeu, is content with the sure per 
 cent of the table. That's the fellow, by the 
 croupier's face of him. And that woman — 
 O Lord! " he ejaculated. " She heard of the 
 parson's visits of condolence — I hope he 
 may get her — and she just lit down on the 
 poor woman: * Robert Miller could not come. 
 I've just run down to see how you are getting 
 
96 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 on. It must be right pleasant to have 
 things your own way, and nobody to 
 hinder.' " 
 
 " Come, old fellow," said I, *' that is too 
 strong — congratulating a woman on the 
 death of her husband; draw it mild." 
 
 " Not a bit," said Gwynn. " Nelly heard 
 it. Depend on it, Sally Sampson- did not 
 think it a shocking speech. It suited her to 
 have poor Jim out of the way, and it must 
 be so to everybody. Besides, there was more 
 of it, Nelly told me. ' You'll like Job New- 
 sants,' was her next speech. ' So much 
 dignity, force of character. Just the husband 
 for Emma,' I said. You know, if you or I 
 had gone on in that style to Emma Griffin six 
 weeks after poor Jim died, she would have 
 dropped off in hysterics. But what's the use ? 
 The poor thing, with forty chattels of her 
 own on the place, was wondering who would 
 take Mr. Newsants's horse, and what in the 
 deuce Aunt Abby in the kitchen would find 
 for these people to eat. Oh, Em has got to 
 marry. She can't manage that place. I hope 
 Mr. Bland will come to time. What is he 
 holding back for.^ " 
 
 Why, indeed ? It was no use for the widow 
 to try to defend herself, or to deny herself to 
 Mr. Newsants. He would be rolled in on his 
 casters by Mrs. Sally, and his merits as an 
 article of furniture cracked up in the bagman's 
 plainest prose. It was certainly time for a 
 protector to appear. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 97 
 
 But there was a burden on the spirits of 
 Mr. Bland which deprived him of that airy 
 lightness necessary to captivate the butterfly 
 of a lady's affection. It was not his daughter 
 Estella, for Mr. George Shanklin was anxious 
 to relieve him of that incumbrance. Neither 
 was it the prevalence of heretical opinion in 
 mesmerism and table tipping necromancy. 
 Nor did it grow out of his interpretation of the 
 Book of Daniel, by which the heaven was to be 
 rolled up like a scroll at a period significant 
 of nothing worse than the rolling up of the 
 Southern rebellion. Neither was it that the 
 want of a riding horse gave his visits on an 
 animal at livery too much the appearance of a 
 shop-boy's holiday. 
 
 No: his difficulties were of far too serious 
 a character to spring from wounded vanity 
 or morbid self-consciousness. It was of the 
 kind that lies down with one and gets up with 
 him. It was of the malicious I don't know 
 what to do with you kind. 
 
 " This sort of grief 
 Cannot find in religion the slightest relief." 
 
 or the Rev. Mr. Bland would have found it. 
 It was too ridiculously insignificant and con- 
 temptible to think about; and he could think 
 about nothing else. Yet he did not dare 
 mention it, or even hint of it, for fear of 
 ridicule. It did not touch his conscience or 
 moral character, it affected no one but him- 
 self, and yet it was no physical defect or 
 
98 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 obliquity. It would injure him in the good 
 opinion of no one if known, yet it lowered him 
 in his own eyes, and rebuked his whole life for 
 a want of charitableness for the weakness or 
 foibles of others. It arose up in judgment, 
 and turned his own intellectual skill against 
 him, whipping through any casuistry with 
 which he would shield himself. Moreover, it 
 degraded him in his own eyes, as a man and a 
 gentleman, to feel how severely its con- 
 temptible insignificance preyed upon him. 
 It was a pig. 
 
 One of his parishioners, soon after his 
 coming to the village, had presented him with a 
 Chester White pig. Mr. Bland had been bred 
 in the city, and his life had been passed in 
 cities. The country and its primitive habits 
 he knew only through the mirage of his reading ; 
 and these pictured the life as full of rural sim- 
 plicity, and healthful occupations among the 
 flocks and herds. From the Bucolics to 
 Thomson's " Seasons " the ideal felicities of 
 such an existence had gone on ripening, 
 in the turmoil of the city, until, indeed, it 
 became the motive in him which had in- 
 fluenced the Conference to locate him among 
 such scenes. The pig, therefore, was an 
 expression, a realization to the preacher's 
 mind, of many vague, half-poetic longings for 
 a pastoral life; it was the thing itself incarnate, 
 and he rejoiced in it. It was such a plump, 
 full-bodied, cleanly pig. It was an intelli- 
 gent pig, and subject to the gentler influences. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 99 
 
 He bragged about it, and turned the con- 
 versation to stock raising in order to bring 
 it in. 
 
 He had time to repent. That pig had not 
 been appreciated. Vulgar minds had only 
 regarded his perishable flesh, and kept him 
 pent up, neglectful of his higher instincts. 
 Now he was allowed to curl his tail over his 
 back, and show the precocious daring of an 
 original investigator in the natural sciences. 
 As a horticulturist he was of the radical school, 
 but, with a catholicity of spirit worthy of the 
 philosopher, he pushed his researches into all 
 branches that bore fruit. Cauliflower and 
 columbine were alike gone into ; and he left no 
 subject until he had gotten to its roots, and 
 digested them fully. 
 
 After investigation of some forty or fifty 
 dollars' worth of rare exotics, a paling fence 
 divided the front and back premises. This 
 gave quite a new interest in life to the pig and 
 the family. Often between the heads of his 
 discourse the question of the pig's probable 
 presence in the front yard crossed the preach- 
 er's mind. If it rendered the sermon some- 
 what desultory and disconnected, it schooled 
 him in processes of carrying on two trains of 
 thought simultaneously. Sometimes he was 
 distracted by mental debate over the feasi- 
 bility of climbing the fence, on his return home, 
 in preference to opening the gate, at hazard 
 of having the pig run between his legs, as was 
 sometimes its habit of afternoon. It would. 
 
100 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 cause him to give a troubled look to the pew 
 where his daughter sat with Mr. George 
 Shanklin, in devout attention, and perhaps 
 suggest the tactics of allowing the young 
 people to precede him — a sort of offering up 
 of his children to that Moloch of a pig. In 
 charity to such evil-minded promptings, let 
 it be said that Mr. Shanklin and his daughter 
 exhibited the most complete indifference upon 
 the subject, as if unconscious of the existence 
 of such a creature; or if the animal, by a spirit 
 of diligent inquiry, did force itself upon at- 
 tention, the young gentleman contented himself 
 with compliments to its owner upon its fine 
 condition. It comforted the father to discover 
 such reckless courage in one so young, but it 
 did not hurt the pig. 
 
 Denied the prospect of the front yard the 
 animal gave way to no vain repining, but 
 cultivated a talent for opening gates and doors. 
 The statement of a neighboring tenant that it 
 learned to climb a tree, in order to rob an 
 apple orchard, lacks confirmation in its details. 
 But it could insert its tough membranous 
 rooter under a door, like a hand, and by lever- 
 age of neck and shoulders throw the valve off 
 latch, and proceed to investigate the dough tray 
 or pan of rusk, left to rise against the close of 
 service. Sometimes it was the pantry; and 
 its investigations included the consumptive 
 and digestive labor of weeks in a single after- 
 noon — so thrifty is a wise economy in house- 
 bold affairs. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 101 
 
 As this intelligent animal grew in size and 
 spirit, it comprehended the Shakespearean 
 adage, " Home-keeping youth hath ever 
 homely wit," and declined to limit its faculties. 
 If a neighbor ventured to set a' pail of slops 
 for the evening cow, this sagacious animal 
 threw its nose in the air, grunted, and, by 
 gate, lane, and across lots, proceeded to in- 
 vestigate. It was equally unerring on a 
 potato hill, and invariably turned up in the 
 right place, until its impartial investigations 
 left a general appearance of ploughed ground. 
 Indeed, it threatened to create a village 
 famine; for though it could not climb a tree, 
 it was currently charged with shaking down 
 the fruit; and no gate, fence, or hedge could 
 stay its active industry, no cunning secreting 
 foil its elaborate research. The fame of so 
 enterprising and sagacious an animal spread 
 far and wide, and came back to its happy 
 possessor in the shape of various shaken 
 heads and fists. 
 
 The good gentleman began to be timid, 
 and not easy in mind about his sacred duties — 
 terribly embarrassed in his exhortations to 
 penitence and amendment. How could he 
 preach, the divine law of returning good for 
 evil, when it seemed like asking perpetual 
 license for the ravages of that terrible, im- 
 penitent pig.^ How could he speak to the 
 widow of resignation to the Divine will, or the 
 particular way in which widows may take 
 comfort, when he felt that a whole neighbor- 
 
102 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 hood described him to her as " a man as fat's 
 his hogs off'n other folks' garden sass " ? He 
 knew they did, for — et tu. Brute — the very 
 neighbor who had given him that frightful 
 beast had addressed those very words to him 
 that forenoon. As you take the fair Esmeralda 
 by the hand, and look into her divine 
 eyes, just fancy that she has that char- 
 acter of you strictly defined in her mind, 
 and then go on with your pretty talk if you 
 can. 
 
 This explains that curious reluctance of 
 which Tom Gwynn had complained. Soon 
 after, I was called into the case. Not by 
 Mr. Bland — in whom was the stubborn 
 blood of the martyrs, or rather the stoic 
 spirit of the American Indian that dies and 
 makes no sign — but by the widow. She 
 was sure something preyed on his mind. 
 She had asked Estella, but the young lady 
 had interests of her own that occupied her 
 entirely. Mr. Bland had not been at Dun- 
 hopen for a month. Would I see him, and 
 try to draw him out, and say how glad Mrs. 
 Griffin would be to see him, etc. ? 
 
 Love is, I believe, much like the whooping- 
 cough or measles, that passes lightly over the 
 young, who are liable to a second or seventy- 
 second attack; but as we get older our less 
 flexible organization quivers with it; it en- 
 rheums the eyes, shakes the larynx and vocal 
 organs, and hangs on desperately. The widow 
 had my entire sympathy. She was forty, and 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 103 
 
 did not look thirty; and her daughter Lucy — 
 Of course I was interested. 
 
 But I was like a physician who has not 
 the confidence of his patient, nor a single 
 symptom by which to diagnose the case. He 
 gave a sickly smile and blush at my message 
 from the pretty widow at Dunhopen, and said 
 he was physically well, and would call to 
 relieve Mrs. Griffin's friendly anxiety. 
 
 But he failed to do so. He had begun to 
 be superstitious about the hog. He would 
 hear of ravages committed by that ubiquitous 
 animal at opposite extremities of the village 
 at the very time when he had the rational 
 evidence of his own sense that it had broken 
 into his storeroom and made havoc of his 
 provisions. 
 
 He had not butchered the brute, partly 
 because it was too much fresh meat for his 
 little family, and partly because he was city 
 bred, and thought it a proper and creditable 
 thing to raise and cure his own meat, like a 
 country gentleman. Had he been country 
 bred, he would have thought little of such 
 economy; but it is a confession of our poor 
 humanity to think other lives finer than our 
 own, and try to imitate them. 
 
 In the mean while the situation of the widow 
 in her straitened garrison was becoming really 
 desperate. Tom Gwynn had not exaggerated 
 in speaking of it as a Sabine marriage. As 
 the reader may be incredulous about the ability 
 to entrap a middle-aged, discreet lady having 
 
104 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 a contrary preference into a match against 
 her will, it may be better to give the exact 
 detail, as explained later by my old chum, 
 Tim Griffin, who was then in Europe, and 
 confirmed by his sister Lucy, and Nelly Gwynn. 
 
 Sally Sampson was a sharp, energetic little 
 woman, of sandy hair and complexion, and 
 gray eyes, in one of which was a brown or 
 chestnut spot as large as a pin's head, as if that 
 color had splashed into the iris. 
 
 Mrs. Griffin had been drifting, by a series 
 of civilities, into a sort of forced confidence 
 with her sister in law and her confederate. 
 The three were in the sitting-room at Dun- 
 hopen, the ladies having some pretense of 
 needlework, and Mr. Newsants sitting, with 
 that croupier's face on him, watching the 
 game, when Mrs. Sally made her great coup, 
 
 " Now, Mr. Newsants," said she, "Emma and 
 I have been talking business; and there is a 
 matter in which Emma is directly interested, on 
 on which we want your candid opinion." 
 
 The croupier is politely willing to explain 
 the rules of the game. Mrs. Griffin is in a 
 flutter, as if asked to stake down on the 
 double zero. She looks to the door, as if 
 meditating flight: but there are her guests. 
 
 '* Now about those wild lands, Mr. New- 
 sants. Will you please to explain that.?" 
 continues Mrs. Sally. 
 
 " Certainly, madam; " and he turns and 
 explains in a clear and incisive way to the 
 widow. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 105 
 
 " The original investment was a very pru- 
 dent one; the lands were bought in at a nominal 
 rate at one dollar and a quarter. Colonel 
 GrifRn had them examined by an expert, and 
 they developed coal and iron. He might have 
 sold to advantage then. He did better. He 
 fostered a railroad enterprise through them; 
 the lands have gone up cent per cent. But 
 they have reached the maximum. The object 
 of the investment is accomplished. Had 
 Colonel Griffin lived, he would have reahzed; 
 that remains to be done and should be done 
 at once, while the securities are steady." 
 
 " What I Hke about Mr. Newsants is, he 
 is so clear and impartial," interpreted the 
 chorus. *' Now, sir, what do you think 
 about Emma's future ? She can't stay in this 
 poky place among idle, insolent blacks." 
 
 '* It is not necessary," responded he. '* With 
 capital from these wild lands, and the sale of 
 her Southern plantation and slaves on account 
 of the unsettled poHtical condition of the South, 
 her income will exceed her expenditure. 
 Especially, on Miss Lucy's account, invest- 
 ments should be such as to relieve her mother 
 of care, that she might take personal charge 
 of the young lady." 
 
 " Just what I told Emma," interrupted 
 Mrs. Sally. '' Will you sacrifice your children 
 for this poky place and its lazy blacks ? And 
 there's Timothy! Must he come home from 
 the court of St. Jeemes's and the Tooleries 
 to that sort of thing! " 
 
106 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 " Under the arrangements, Mr. Tim Griffin 
 can exercise his own pleasure," said the 
 croupier. " His mother's investments in pork 
 and tobacco will enable her to make his allow- 
 ance very ample." 
 
 " Now that is what I call considerate," 
 said Mrs. Sally, stealing her arm about the 
 widow as she closed the trap. " Every true 
 mother must think of those dear ones first; 
 and it is noble and like Mr. Newsants to think 
 of them and make that so clear. But now, 
 Mr. Newsants, about Emma herself. She 
 can't manage things : she must have some one 
 she can trust. You understand me — some 
 honorable, upright man of established business 
 character, that her family knows and trusts, 
 in order to her perfect security. Robert Miller 
 will never consent to less than that, for dear 
 Emma's sake." 
 
 As he made the final cou]), the gamester's 
 face was as cold and impassive as ever, but a 
 shade paler; for the stake in the widow's 
 hands might touch a quarter of a million. 
 He spoke, however, in the same cool, incisive 
 tone: " I shall be very happy to devote myself 
 to Mrs. Griffin and her interests entirely. I 
 shall see that her tastes and preferences are 
 consulted, and her intentions about the chil- 
 dren and the disposal of her property shall 
 remain as completely in her own hands as 
 in her widowhood. I shall be satisfied to have 
 secured her person and happiness by the 
 arrangement." 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 107 
 
 " I am sure," hesitated the widow, not 
 a Httle puzzled by this courtship of the third 
 person singular, and not seeing, for her part, 
 what she was to say, or what it all meant — 
 " I am sure you are very obliging; and Tim 
 and Lucy, and perhaps " 
 
 " Perhaps they should be informed," in- 
 terrupted Mrs. Sally, stringing these fragments 
 on a meaning of her own. ''You dear Em! 
 How prettily embarrassed! Mr. Newsants 
 ought to be a very happy man." At which 
 the widow looked down, blushing, more scared 
 and embarrassed than ever; and Mrs. Sally 
 fell to kissing her, as if that feature of the 
 queer courtship must be done by proxy too. 
 
 " But," she added, " I just knew you two 
 would suit; and I am so glad it has turned out 
 so well." After which she kept up such a 
 rattle as to leave the widow no time for re- 
 monstrance or reflection, until Mr. Newsants 
 took his hat, and with a stiff bow relieved her 
 of his presence. He had seemed the same 
 impassive watcher of the game; but out of 
 doors he stopped and breathed short, as if 
 he had been running. 
 
 "Your brother will be so glad!" began 
 her sister in law. 
 
 " But, Sally " interrupted the 
 
 widow. 
 
 " Of course he'll call to-morrow " 
 
 "But, Sally " repeated the widow. 
 
 " — and see vou alone," said Mrs. 
 Sally, 
 
108 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 " But I don't want to see him," cried the 
 widow. '* I want you to see him, and say 
 
 " Indeed, I'll do no such thing," said Mrs. 
 Sally, who knew very well the widow wanted 
 to revoke, but lacked the courage; '' and now 
 I am going to write your brother all about it." 
 
 Left to herself, the widow became frantic 
 with apprehension of being married, in spite 
 of herself, to the wrong man. I got a civil 
 note requesting me to ask Rev. Mr. Bland to 
 call, and a second missive went to Gwynn's. 
 It did not find Tom Gwynn, but it found the 
 only match for Mrs. Sally Sampson the coun- 
 tryside afforded — Nelly Gwynn. The strat- 
 egy of that young heroine, however, has noth- 
 ing to do with the Rev. Mr. Bland's experiences. 
 He was sufficiently moved by this second 
 request to order that the hog should be 
 butchered; that is, he sent for an expert to do 
 execution. 
 
 It only led to another disappointment. 
 The expert in this business was a shifty, tricky 
 old rogue, who lived somewhere up in Break- 
 neck Gap, known as Old Joe Bumponlog. 
 Indeed, I find so much to admire in old Joe, 
 I wonder I did not choose him for my hero 
 rather than the Chester White. Everything 
 that came to old Joe was a trade. If a cow 
 strayed into his bunch of cattle, he explained 
 that he had got her in trade. If an owner set 
 up an adverse claim, he was required to 
 identify the animal in beef; for old John had her 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 109 
 
 hide at the tan-yard in about the time it took 
 to take off his own ragged coat. Old Joe never 
 broke into houses, or waylaid travelers on the 
 highway; and he could barely write his own 
 name, much less forge another's. He just 
 traded — mostly in cows or beef cattle, though 
 he might deal a little in horseflesh, or even 
 poultry, if it came in his way. 
 
 He w^as always to be seen on the poor old 
 sore-backed horse, with a ragged flap saddle, 
 or driving a rickety old wagon with splints 
 out of the sides, and a bit of broken plank for 
 a tailboard. He would stop in the road to 
 pick up a horseshoe or a bit of bridle, which he 
 threw into the " kyart." Nor, to be candid, 
 was this thrift restricted to the highway. He 
 could do the same in your barnyard, content 
 even with waifs of more value, which he 
 " 'lowed warn't no use to nobody, nohow." 
 
 In season, he borrowed ploughs and hoes 
 and rakes, and kept them, by that curious 
 function of trade. He would have borrowed a 
 steam locomotive, if he could have found a 
 lender, and converted it into irrecognizable 
 value, by way of trade. He was much about 
 the court house, and could tell shrewd stories 
 of lawyers and judges, if he would; but these 
 experiences he was a little shy of revealing. 
 
 Old Joe had his weakness; he soaked. 
 That is the local definition. He carried a 
 flat green glass flask of the vilest distillation 
 in a ragged pocket, of which he partook raw, 
 without any vanities of water or ice, as he 
 
110 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 jogged along on his poor old jade. At times 
 this habit got the better of him, and he lay 
 snoozing in the mud, while the old horse 
 picked grass at the roadside, but never offered 
 to leave him. They were very much alike, old 
 Joe and the sore-backed horse. These slips 
 were not common. Generally he soaked and 
 kept his wits, picking up odd, out of the way 
 theories, which, by some mental process, 
 he appropriated to himself, as if he had got 
 them in trade. It often surprised strangers, 
 and even old acquaintances, how much there 
 was in that muddled old head. He had 
 theories of sowing and ploughing and har- 
 vesting and butchering and pruning and 
 transplanting, and the weather and the moon, 
 and the power of yarbs, in which, indeed, he 
 was quite a pharmacopoeia, and made you 
 think he might have been something if he 
 liked, only he didn't, except to be old Joe. 
 But at all times, drunk or sober, he was the 
 same sly, unscrupulous, but not unkindly or 
 ill-natured old Ishmaelite. His existence had 
 become a habit, if not a necessity, to the 
 neighborhood. He could physic a dog, take 
 the hooks out of a horse's eyes, or cure gland- 
 ers. He could make rabbit traps and part- 
 ridge nets, and his clumsy old fingers could 
 manage a salmon-fly that seemed bewitched, 
 it was so lucky. Besides all these, he was the 
 neighborhood butcher, by which your Southern 
 readers understand the one who undertakes to 
 supply fresh meat, and does not do it. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 111 
 
 To be entirely consistent, old Joe did not 
 come as he had promised; but Mr. Bland 
 was in earnest by this time, and renewed his 
 application until the slinking old pariah was 
 brought to book. Old Joe stopped and looked 
 at the brute, with his elbows in his ragged 
 pockets, and the stump of a whipstock pro- 
 truding, only to pronounce the hog too young, 
 and that the pork would be too green or 
 measly; of which the poor victim only under- 
 stood it would be highly improper to butcher 
 it. 
 
 " Wy, that air's a Chester White," added 
 old Joe. ** He ain't got more'n half his size 
 yit. Wait a bit; he'll be too big to git in a 
 door, an' meat enough to do ye more'n half 
 a year." 
 
 About the meat was all very well, but the 
 fable that the Chester White could not go 
 through any door was a greater miracle than 
 any recorded in Mr. Bland's Bible. It did 
 not have to lift now; it just brushed the door 
 off the hinges, and went grunting indifferently 
 through the splinters. It did grow. It swelled 
 visibly before his very eyes, like a blown 
 bladder. He and his daughter had given up. 
 If they heard the hog coming, they snatched 
 whatever could be saved, and fled. The 
 Chester White had taken the parsonage. 
 
 Good Mr. Bland never forgot it. He 
 carried the whole tremendous gross weight 
 of the hog on his conscience night and day, 
 and yet by no word or sign did he betray, 
 
112 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 even to his daughter, how cruel the burden 
 was, or what subject of meditation so en- 
 grossed his thoughts. She could but see the 
 change, but she put it down to any cause but 
 the right one. A weaker man would have 
 complained ; the minister gave no sign. 
 
 It might be too curious a specidation to 
 analyze his feelings at this time, but certainly 
 they were double. In one was the clear 
 commonsense view that regarded the matter 
 as certainly annoying, perhaps vexatious, but 
 too trifling a concern to entertain serious 
 thought over. The other felt the animal 
 to be possessed of the evil spirits once assigned 
 to such, and sent especially to try him. It did 
 try him. He felt that it had tested him in every 
 point in which he had felt strong, and he had 
 proved fragile as a reed. It rebuked him. He 
 began to think he had mistaken his calling. 
 There must be something inherently vicious 
 in one in whose hand so familiar and harmless 
 an animal became so terrible. As to trusting 
 himself with a horse, he did not dare think 
 of it. One brute was enough. A horse in 
 his hands would murder half the village. 
 
 He never forgot it. If he thought of his 
 views of the prophecies or of Dunhopen and 
 its fair owner once, he thought of the hog a 
 thousand times. He felt it always, and went 
 about thinking how its ravages had made the 
 villagers hate him, and talk ill of him to one 
 another. It was not fatal; it was not so kind. 
 It was like the itch — something to cause him to 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 113 
 
 be avoided, to be misjudged. It was some- 
 thing loathsome that isolated him from kindly 
 and familiar nature, and set him apart in a 
 kind of moral leprosy, and yet its absurdly 
 ridiculously insignificant character deprived 
 him even of the vanity of martyrdom. To 
 affect it would be equally profane and con- 
 temptible. He began to look forward to the 
 first frost of hog-killing time like a yellow-fever 
 patient in a Southern hospital; and he se- 
 cluded himself in the interval. It in no way 
 affected his sermons; probably because he 
 was unable to compose a sermon at the time; 
 but his prayers grew to be the fervent and 
 passionate appeals of a broken and contrite 
 heart. It was impossible to hear them without 
 being strongly, even painfully, moved. The 
 suspicion of Phariseeism, peculiar to a pure 
 and rigidly exact nature, was all gone. Wise 
 and good as he was, he was the humblest, most 
 penitent Christian in the congregation. At 
 length the frost came, with a cold snap, and 
 he sent for old Joe, and old Joe delayed. 
 But the preacher would put up with no procras- 
 tination in the matter. In rather more cheerful 
 frame of mind, he borrowed a neighbor's 
 horse, and set out in search of old Joe's 
 quarters. 
 
 He lived in a remote corner of Breakneck 
 Gap — a rocky ravine that turned a flare 
 edge over the hilltops from the village below. 
 His cabin stood shouldered against the cliffs 
 with Dame Bumponlog's wash kettle at the 
 
114 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 spring branch in the hollow. He found the 
 master of the house sitting on the stoop, and 
 opened the subject of his neglect. 
 
 " But ye ain't noticed it's light o' the moon/' 
 said old Joe. 
 
 " What has that got to do with hog killing ? " 
 asked the preacher. 
 
 " D'ye want the meat all for to run to lard .?" 
 was the Socratic rejoinder. 
 
 '' N-no," said Mr. Bland, " certainly not 
 that. Why.?" 
 
 *' Less'n ye kill an' cure in dark o' the 
 moon, the fat all runs to grease," was the 
 sententious reply. 
 
 " I don't understand," said Mr. Bland. 
 
 " The moon does oodles high-larnt men 
 dursn't know," said old Joe. " When d'ye 
 sot out seedlin's ? " 
 
 " In the spring, I suppose," said Mr. Bland. 
 
 " But what time o' the moon ? " insisted 
 old Joe. 
 
 " I don't set them in the moon," said the 
 other, quizzically. 
 
 " Ye put 'em out light o' the moon. Long 
 sass, light o' the moon; short sass, dark o' the 
 moon," said old Joe gravely. 
 
 " There is nothing in Holy Writ or common- 
 sense for the opinion," said Mr. Bland. 
 
 " Light, light," insisted the hospitable 
 Ishmaelite, as he proceeded to explain. " The 
 moon's loaded stone, you'll 'low ? " 
 
 *' Loaded stone!" repeated the puzzled 
 divine. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 115 
 
 '' Wot picks up nails an' needles," ex- 
 plained old Joe. " Chunks out'n it, airy 
 lights, has lit down onto the yea'th, an' 
 they're all loaded stones." 
 
 *' Oh, lodestone," said the preacher. 
 
 *' Ay. Loaded stone i' the moon draws 
 the water; you'll 'low that.?" insisted the 
 philosopher. 
 
 " You mean the tides ? " the minister ven- 
 tured to guess. 
 
 *' Yes, sir. An' it draws the sap into the 
 tree, and busts out in leaf, an' draws the 
 grease outen the fat, ef ye kill light o' the 
 moon," said old Joe; and he was going to set 
 forth his theory in detail, but Mr. Bland in- 
 terrupted him to insist on having the butcher- 
 ing done at once. 
 
 " I 'lowed you'd wait tell dark o' the moon," 
 said Joe; " but seein' as it is, I'll be down 
 to-morrornexday," running it curiously into 
 one word. " Ye done got the trough an' 
 kettles a'ready ? " 
 
 ''Why, no," said the preacher; "but I 
 suppose I can borrow." 
 
 *' Well, have the critter penned," said old 
 Joe, " agin I get thar an hour by sun." 
 
 Mr. Bland rode off, a little distrustful of 
 the penning, but satisfied withal. Then, 
 as his spirits rose in prospect of relief, he 
 laughed over old Joe's philosophies about 
 the moon, and being in high good humor, 
 ventured to call on the widow. I do not 
 know what passed, only Mrs. Sally found 
 
116 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 her yielding sister in law suddenly stubborn, 
 and like to take the bit in her teeth. In 
 desperation, she ventured to work upon the 
 widow's superstitious fears through table 
 tipping. It caused another urgent message, 
 and again Mr. Bland failed to appear. It 
 was only the masterly strategy of Nelly Gwynn 
 that finally routed the hitherto indomitable 
 sister in law. But the reader is more in- 
 terested in knowing what new development 
 robbed Mr. Bland of his courage in such a 
 crisis. 
 
 The household of the preacher were up 
 betimes. The hog was lured into a corner by 
 cabbage stalks and pot liquor, and duly 
 fenced in with rails and beams. The trough 
 and kettle were borrowed, and the water 
 heated. 
 
 Mr. Bland, in his study, had taken up 
 the subject of the prophecies where he had 
 left it when this huge incubus bore him down. 
 It was a bright, cool, fall day, just right for 
 pork butchering, and as he contemplated 
 regaining his popularity, he felt his hopes 
 and spirits rise. He had borne it all in silence 
 and without a murmur. Surely this world 
 does not know its martyrs or martyrdoms. 
 How the most insignificant trifle may cause 
 more settled, continuous wretchedness than 
 many great calamities! The crossness of 
 a husband, the peevishness of a wife, the pert- 
 ness of a girl, or, less than that, some petty 
 habit of eating or sleeping — all of these may 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 117 
 
 at some time play the part of the Chester 
 White hog, and be the pebble in the shoe 
 through all our daily walks. But Mr. Bland 
 had borne his cross, and the hour of relief 
 had come. He felt as if his nature was swept 
 and purified. He took up his theory at that 
 point in which, by incontrovertible mathe- 
 matic solution, he established an epochral 
 identity in the periods of prophetic weeks to 
 the equinoctial and solstitial points of the 
 Great Year, so to fix the apocalyptic dates 
 and periods with a precision and verity never 
 before attempted. Love and fame should 
 be his future handmaids. At the moment, 
 his daughter Estella came tripping into his 
 study to say that Mr. Bumponlog had come, 
 and wished to see him. He came down 
 smiling, in dressing-gown and slippers, with 
 a thought of quizzing this same learned 
 Theban a little upon his lunacies. 
 
 Old Joe was in shirt sleeves, a great wooden- 
 hafted knife in his hand. He spoke first: 
 *' You air a high-larnt man; I 'lowed you'd 
 better see this here critter you calls a hog." 
 
 What did the fellow mean.? But Mr. 
 Bland stiffened his cartilage to resist any 
 more humbugging, and followed to the pen. 
 
 " You 'lowed it were a hog," getting over 
 into the inclosure, and kicking the lazy brute 
 till it grunted and rose to its feet. 
 
 " A hog! " repeated the preacher won- 
 dering if the fellow would pronounce it a 
 rhinoceros, or the great behemoth itself. 
 
118 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 lying under the shady trees, whose nose 
 pierceth through snares. 
 
 " Yes, hoss," repeated old Joe, ** you 
 'lowed it were a hog. But it air a sow, an' 
 a brood sow at that. I 'low no man as is a 
 Christian, an' a preacher to boot, don't 
 'low for to kill a brood sow in litter. Why, 
 the meat 'ud be good for nuthin'; an' the 
 onnateralness on it! " 
 
 Mr. Bland was far too meek a man to insist. 
 '* No, no," he stammered, mechanically, ** not 
 if it would hurt the poor thing." 
 
 As old Joe gathered his knives and scrapers, 
 Mr. Bland stole back to his upper chamber. 
 He heard the rude fellow stop outside and tell 
 a villager how the preacher 'lowed for him 
 to come an' butcher a brood sow, and the 
 two burst into a great shout of laughter. 
 It would be all over town in ten minutes, 
 all over the country in a day. He would not 
 dare leave home. He was completely wrecked. 
 As we have suggested, it seemed to him too 
 foolish a thing to pray about, too absurd to ask 
 sympathy in; but as he realized the repro- 
 duction of such a creature, a sort of super- 
 stitious dread seized him. They would uproot 
 the village. It would cause him to be dis- 
 missed from the Conference, and driven into 
 the desert! 
 
 Through it all he knew this misery was 
 utterly absurd ; that he should pay no attention 
 to it; that no sincere man respected him less 
 because he was burdened with a troublesome 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 119 
 
 animal. Instead of relieving, it quickened 
 his misery to know it was absurd, extravagant, 
 and that he ought to shift it off, for he knew 
 by repeated trial that it stuck close as a cuta- 
 neous eruption that must run its course. 
 Before we condemn his weakness, let us 
 study some of our own petty troubles — habits 
 that have grown upon us that we ought to 
 shake off, and yet which we know have 
 stuck to us, and grown stronger for years in 
 spite of every resolution to rid ourselves of 
 them. 
 
 The next report was that Rev. Mr. Bland 
 was seriously unwell, and could not preach 
 the following Sunday. I called, and was 
 admitted to his study. He was sitting at 
 a table in dressing-gown and slippers. He 
 received me in a grave, quiet way, and when 
 I asked for his health, he hesitated, and said 
 he believed it was much as usual. After a 
 pause, he added, " I am thinking of resigning 
 the ministry." 
 
 I was thunderstruck. I had never met 
 any one who so completely filled my ideal 
 of the minister indeed. I hastily asked the 
 reason for his strange resolution. 
 
 " The apparent cause," said he, " would 
 appear too insignificant; but it is not that. 
 He has His way of trying us by means that 
 seem to our fallible judgment wholly inad- 
 equate; but they serve — they serve His 
 purpose. He has tried me severelv. I have 
 found myself deficient, sadly deficient, in all 
 
120 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 those things which become the gospel teacher. 
 I pray, William, that you may be spared the 
 bitterness of finding, after years of experience 
 in error, that you have mistaken your calling; " 
 and he leaned his head on his hand, and 
 seemed profoundly moved. I could not speak 
 from sympathy. 
 
 At the moment there was a touch at the 
 door, and the widow Griffin entered with 
 a salver and napkin. She removed the latter, 
 and showed a dish of delicious curds, and a 
 pitcher of thick sweet cream. 
 
 " 'Stella told me you were not taking any- 
 thing to eat," she said. " I know you were 
 fond of this; and you must eat it, for I made 
 it with my own hands." 
 
 He thanked her, and looked at her ear- 
 nestly. It made her blush and hesitate. 
 To cover her confusion, she went on: "I 
 have taken another liberty. 'Stella was much 
 annoyed by a hog you have in this little yard. 
 I made Ben take it in the wagon out to Dun- 
 hopen." 
 
 " Ma'am! " said he, starting up. 
 
 "But," said the frightened widow, '* he 
 can bring it back when you are well. 'Stella 
 told me you prized it very highly. It shall 
 be taken care of, or brought back, if you wish." 
 
 " No, no, thank you — that is, do as you 
 please. I beg pardon." He was very much 
 agitated. He walked up and down, stopped 
 at the dish of curds, and tasted it, and then 
 turned to the wondering woman, '' I beg 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH Ul 
 
 your pardon. I believe — I am sure — you 
 have saved my life, or at least my reason. 
 
 If the devotion of a whole life " 
 
 I don't know exactly what followed, for 
 I got an impression that there was one person 
 too many in the room, and could not resist 
 a suggestion that it was myself. But Rev. 
 Mr. Bland did not resign the ministry — at 
 least not at that time — and he did marry 
 the widow Griffin. 
 
A WESTERN SEERESS 
 
 TWO minds are said to be en rapport 
 when one reflects the other, independ- 
 ently of any artificial method of com- 
 munication, as the shadow in the pool reflects 
 surrounding objects. The process is ana- 
 logous to telegraphy, the brain being the 
 instrument, the consciousness the operator 
 or reader; and it requires, as in that physico- 
 mechanical art, two instruments — one to 
 originate the impression, the other to receive 
 it. In the cant phrase of the day it is called 
 clairvoyance, while it was known formerly 
 as second sight and by various other names. 
 The subject has received a fillip lately from 
 Mr. Brow^n's exhibitions of some curious 
 phenomena of thought-reading. The similar 
 exhibitions of biologists, mesmerists, and 
 spiritualists are more familiar, and are gen- 
 erally explicable under the broad philosophy of 
 humbug. But daily experience furnishes an 
 example quite as striking and far more 
 reliable. A casual remark elicits the sur- 
 prised rejoinder, " Why, I was just thinking 
 of that! " although no previous subject or 
 circumstance has led up to it. Such a coin- 
 cidence may, it is true, be purely accidental, 
 the range of ordinary thought, like the 
 vocabulary of ordinary speech, being very 
 
 123 
 
124 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 limited. But the equation of chances shows 
 that the concurrence should be infrequent, 
 while, in point of fact, it occurs not once, but 
 many times, in every man's experience. A 
 French philosopher seeks to explain such 
 phenomena by laying down this proposition: 
 *' Minds in habitual collision acquire a duality 
 of action, by which the sensorium receives 
 reciprocal impressions, independently of com- 
 munication through speech or sign." That 
 this explanation is sufficient I shall not under- 
 take to affirm: I merely cite it as the simplest, 
 and because the simplest the most probable, 
 elucidation of the mystery. The reports of 
 Mr. Brown's exhibitions speak of a light that 
 guides the medium to a concealed object. It 
 might be invidious to deny this statement, but 
 it is right to point out that this extraordinary 
 piece of stage furniture introduces a second 
 miracle, greater than the first — the appear- 
 ance, namely, of a third intelligence, the 
 light, with power to discriminate, and, more 
 extraordinary, to affect peculiarly the optic 
 nerve. Now, we can readily believe that a 
 sleeper or a blind man will become gradually 
 and indefinably conscious of an alien presence. 
 A like curious sensibility is exhibited by a 
 blinded bat set free in a room crossed with 
 wires; the bat will never fly against the wires. 
 The sleeper, the blind man, or the bat may 
 have a general consciousness of something 
 foreign, but it is too much to ask us to believe 
 that the object is perceived. I do not wish 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 125 
 
 to bring upon myself the censure of the 
 mediums and clairvoyants, as well as my 
 friends, the Spiritualists, for thus disposing 
 of that ghostly presence, the intelligent light, 
 although, frankly, I see a difficulty in the 
 existence here of a disembodied spirit deprived 
 of the peculiar and extremely complicated 
 machinery essential to protracted existence 
 at the bottom of the encompassing atmos- 
 pheric sea. I confess I am not versed in 
 ghostly anatomy; but I think, subject to cor- 
 rection, that the spirits would get drowned. 
 That is the practical way of putting it. 
 
 After the first difficulty of communicating 
 without the aid of arbitrary sound or sign 
 is removed, the obstacle of distance appears 
 to be illusory. There is no reason, apparently, 
 why areas of space should affect the process 
 more than in telegraphy. The current may 
 pass and repass as generously, obeying a law 
 of equilibrium in the minds affected. Of 
 this we have many historic examples. Plu- 
 tarch tells us that in the time of Domitian 
 the report of a battle in Germany was pubhshed 
 in Rome on the same day in which it was 
 fought. Pope Honorius performed the funeral 
 obsequies of Philip Augustus of France the 
 very day on which the king died. Froissart 
 relates how the Count de Foix was aware of 
 the defeat of John of Castile the day on which 
 it took place, " Saturday, the feast of Our 
 Lady, in August, 1385." I take the brief 
 account from the quaint old chronicler: " The 
 
126 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 whole days of Sunday, Monday, and the fol- 
 lowing Tuesday he was in his castle of Orthes, 
 and made such poor and melancholy meals 
 that not one word could be drawn from him; 
 nor would he during that time quit his cham- 
 ber or speak to knight or squire, however 
 nearly related by blood, unless he had sent 
 for him; and it also happened that he even 
 sent for some to whom he never opened his 
 lips during these three days. On Tuesday, 
 in the evening, he called his brother Arnold 
 William, and said to him, in a low voice, 
 ' Our people have had a desperate battle, 
 which has vexed me very much, for it has 
 happened to them just as I foretold at their 
 departure.' Arnold William, who was a wise 
 man and a prudent knight, well acquainted 
 w^ith the temper of his brother, was silent. 
 The count, anxious to cheer up his courage, 
 for he had too long nourished in his breast this 
 sad news, added: ' By God, Sir Arnold! it 
 is just as I have told you; and very soon we 
 shall have news of it. Never has the country 
 of Beam suffered so severely these hundred 
 years past as it has now in Portugal.' Many 
 knights and squires who were present and 
 heard the words of the count were afraid to 
 speak, but commented within themselves 
 on them. 
 
 '' Within ten days the truth was known 
 from those who had been in the battle, and 
 they jfirst told the count and all who wished 
 to hear them everything relative to their 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 127 
 
 disputes with the CastiKans and the event 
 of the battle of Aljubarota. . . . ' Holy 
 Mary ! ' said I to the squire, * how was it 
 possible for the count to know, or even to 
 guess at it, on the morrow after it happened ? ' " 
 
 A still more striking illustration of the 
 phrenography of one mind on the sensitive 
 electro plate of another occurs in Hugh Millar's 
 early reminiscences. His father was lost in a 
 storm off Peterhead, on the 10th of November, 
 1807. A letter had been received from him 
 on the 9th, and in the evening of the follow- 
 ing day the cottage door being unfastened, 
 Hugh, then a child of five years, was sent to 
 shut it. " Day," he writes, " had not wholly 
 disappeared, but was fast posting into night. 
 Within less than a yard of my breast, as plainly 
 as ever I saw anything, was a dissevered hand 
 and arm stretched toward me. Hand and 
 arm were apparently those of a female; 
 they bore a Hvid and sodden appearance; and, 
 directly fronting me, where the body ought to 
 have been, there was only blank, transparent 
 space, through which I could see the dim form 
 of the objects beyond. I was fearfully startled." 
 
 It will be observed that it is not the father's 
 form which appears; but his mind, looking 
 out in that ghastly night and storm, among the 
 whirHng elements and toothUke crags of 
 Cromarty Bay and headland, is reflected in 
 the child's, and brought out more vividly in the 
 chiaroscuro of the twilight. The black storm, 
 hideous night, and bellowing sea are vague 
 
us SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 concomitants, but more intense and vivid 
 in the father's mind is the drowning woman's 
 outstretched arm and hand, and this image 
 lays its print upon the sensitive brain of the 
 child. I do not think the fact explicable in 
 any other way. To treat Hugh Millar's 
 statement wdth scornful incredulity merely 
 suggests the weakness of the scientist. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that perils of the sea 
 appear to excite this sensitiveness in a peculiar 
 degree. An instance is mentioned by Dr. 
 Conolly, in which the condition last illustrated 
 was reversed. A gentleman in danger of 
 wreck on the Eddystone rocks actually saw 
 his family, according to his subsequent state- 
 ment, at the moment of extreme peril. In this 
 case we may suppose that his mind received 
 an impression from that of some member of 
 his household. 
 
 The same principle will serve to explain 
 the coincident dreams cited in wonderbooks 
 of spiritual science. Such is the case quoted 
 on the authority of Mr. Joseph Taylor. A 
 youth at an academy dreamed that he had 
 returned home, tried the front door, and, 
 finding it locked, entered by the back way. 
 Going to his parents' room, he said, " Mother, 
 I am going on a long journey, and am come 
 to bid you good by." To which she replied, 
 ** Oh, my son, thou art dead." He instantly 
 woke, and thought it a dream. But a letter 
 from home, in due time, inquired anxiously 
 about his health, relating a corresponding 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH U9 
 
 dream of the mother, the appearance of her 
 son, his remark, and her ejaculation of grief 
 and alarm, precisely as in the boy's vision. 
 Dr. Abercrombie says: " This singular dream 
 must have originated in a strong, simultaneous 
 impression on both minds, and it would be 
 curious to trace its cause." But on the theory 
 of sympathetic phrenography it is no more 
 curious than that two friends should concur 
 simultaneously in thought. The original 
 dream was possibly in the son's mind, and 
 reflected on the sensitive brain of the mother 
 till the excited response, in a return wave, 
 produced an impression on the son, and, 
 breaking the chain of thought abruptly, 
 caused him to awake. 
 
 The prophecy of future events would seem 
 to demand a different hypothesis. In the 
 former examples the subjective mind received 
 only an impression of what was actually 
 existing as a thought in the corresponding 
 brain. But as events of the future exist only 
 in speculation, the visions are mere guesses, 
 having no foundation in fact. Yet cases may 
 occur of an apparently prophetic character 
 which are explicable in the same way as those 
 of ordinary clairvoyance. One is cited by 
 Mr. Owen in his last interesting work on 
 Spiritualism. A gentleman designing to make 
 certain purchases selects in his mind the 
 dealer, price, and wares. This magnetic 
 influence — I use the term for want of one of 
 known accuracy — goes out, anticipatory, to 
 
130 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 the unconscious, sleeping mind of the shop- 
 keeper. He knows from it that at a certain 
 hour a stranger intends to come and purchase 
 of his stock. When this is verified the 
 dream assumes all the attributes of a prophecy, 
 but had the purchaser previously expressed 
 his intention, as, in fact, phrenographically, 
 though not in speech, he did, there would 
 have been no mystery beyond that of the mode 
 of communication. And in regard to this we 
 are surprised, not to learn that there is a certain 
 sympathetic mood of communication — for 
 that, in a very limited sense, may be familiar — 
 but at the extent and manner in which it is 
 developed. It would be too curious to ascribe 
 to accidental collisions in the magnetic gang- 
 lion of the cerebro-nervous system of the nat- 
 ural world the hideous Minotaurs engendered 
 in gross minds, and sent buccaneering on the 
 chaste seas of sleep, but it may avail to explain 
 certain mysteries of literary composition. 
 Phrases, apt illustration, nuggets of prose 
 and verse fall from the pen, not as crude ore 
 refined in the crucibles of thought, but coming 
 ready made and fashioned to the text. Thus 
 fruits gathered from our own garden wall 
 prove at last to be our neighbor's apples which 
 overhung the fence. As certain poetlings 
 are now at loggerheads over a question of 
 offspring, I tender this explication of a sym- 
 pathetic co-origin in lieu of a decision like 
 that of Solomon, which would give a separate 
 half to each claimant. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 131 
 
 It has been proposed to consider the sym- 
 pathetic-nervous condition as a sixth sense. 
 This theory might throw Hght on the present 
 subject, besides suggesting a solution of the 
 curious question of communication between 
 the lower animals. More than that: we shall 
 have reached a faculty bearing the same 
 relation to language that speech bears to the 
 art of writing. It does seem that the natural 
 power of communication should rest on some 
 wider basis than a mere convention to 
 accept certain signs as the expression of 
 thought. 
 
 An interest in the subject, apart from the 
 art of woven paces and waving hands, has 
 been revived in the writer's mind by the re- 
 lation of certain evidences of this sympathetic 
 power which occurred in a respectable family 
 in Bourbon County, Kentucky, between forty 
 and fifty years ago. The person who dis- 
 played this peculiar gift was Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Basey, and the facts are reported and firmly 
 believed by a large circle of direct and colla- 
 teral descendants. " Aunt Betty " was of 
 the strong old pioneer blood, of a perfectly 
 healthy habit and a certain brisk certitude in 
 her family aft'airs, and as free from any morbid 
 tendencies as could well be conceived. This 
 contradicts the modern mesmerist's usual 
 choice of a medium, but corresponds with the 
 ancient Greek's description of persons thus 
 endowed, as possessing " graceful features, 
 unblemished body, quick wit, and fluent 
 
132 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 speech."* These quaUties the good dame 
 had; and the impHcit faith with which her 
 visions were received will appear from the 
 incidents to be related, which may serve also 
 to recall the manners of a bygone time. 
 
 It was a raw winter night. Avalanches of 
 sleet swept down the gorges, and the wind 
 scuffled about the hilltops like Jacob wrestling 
 with the angel. Aunt Betty sat in the jowl of 
 the chimney, the big log fire sparkling in spits 
 of snow, and her busy needles twinkling like 
 cold fires over the big yarn stocking. Now 
 she pushed the jar of souring cream nearer the 
 heat, and now stirred the logs till a river of 
 sparks rushed up the broad vent. Her eldest 
 son, the farmer, sat opposite, reading. Sud- 
 denly the knitting dropped in her lap. 
 
 *' George," she said, " you must ride to W . 
 
 Your brother and his friends have got into 
 trouble, and they have shot a man — an 
 officer of some sort — among them." As 
 promptly as if in answer to a modern tele- 
 graphic despatch the young man mounted and 
 faced the night, heavy clay roads and rocky 
 fells, in a sweeping gallop. The sheriff had 
 been killed, and young Basey, in danger of 
 being arrested as accessory or as witness 
 against his friend, had gone into hiding. A 
 few weeks later Aunt Betty roused the family 
 with tears and lamentations. The fugitive 
 was dying of disease contracted by exposure. 
 He did die before any of the family could 
 
 *Apuleius' " Discourse on Magic." 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 133 
 
 reach him, although the attempt was 
 made. 
 
 The cotton gin had not at that time ciys- 
 taUized slavery into a system; increase of 
 slaves, like the filling of the poor man's 
 quiver, was a present expense certain, against 
 a contingent benefit hereafter; and the duty 
 of shifting for themselves fell on the heirs of 
 the house as they matured. Two sons of the 
 dame had settled in Illinois, but one of them 
 had recently returned home to be married. 
 The occasion was honored with feast and 
 frolic till the poultry yard lay knee deep in sac- 
 rificial feathers. The farmhouse, grown from 
 a log cabin by gradual accretion, sparkled 
 with light from open doors and many dor- 
 mer windows cocked over rambling roofs. 
 Carriages with steps that let down like a fold 
 of muslin, gigs on C-springs which the little 
 pink fingers got blue in holding to, wagon- 
 cribs of bouncing girls rosy and sweet as 
 apples, crowded the road in front, and busied 
 the bobbing negroes, alert for a dime. Lemon- 
 ade, egg-nogg, a mixture of weeds and whisky 
 called a " grass punch," but since renowned 
 as mint julep, and buckets of applejack, were 
 placed conveniently for the burly farmers, 
 who played " old sledge " — for the game in 
 which " the knave beats the ace " had not 
 yet come in — or locked horns over the bank 
 veto, old court and new court, and other 
 questions of the day. The supper-room glis- 
 tened in old silver, and iced cakes, cooked in 
 
134 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 the Dutch oven, not made of pasteboard and 
 shipped from the pastry cook's for show. 
 Dandies in high-collared, short-tailed coats, 
 gaiter-cut pantaloons, and pumps, frisked 
 with belles in low-necked, short-skirted frocks, 
 revealing the neat ankle in clocked stockings 
 and crossed shoe-tie, while the monstrous 
 shoulder of mutton sleeves gave a Cerberus- 
 like appearance to the upper part of the figure. 
 Minuet de la cour, quadrille, and Virginia 
 reel succeeded each other within ; on the porch 
 without the negroes, giggling and jigging, re- 
 sponded with shuffling flat feet to the notes 
 rasped forth by the deft bow of the fiddler. 
 
 In the midst of this high frolic. Aunt Betty 
 felt her absent son thinking eagerly, rapidly, 
 desperately with her mind, as with his own. 
 She addressed the happy groom in a sharp 
 whisper: "That man has shot your brother. 
 No, no: your brother has cut him all to 
 pieces — all to pieces. You must start for 
 Illinois to-night : your wife and I will follow. 
 Go — go at once." 
 
 It was certainly an occasion for hesitation. 
 Had any doubt been felt, the son would have 
 demurred, but there was none. The family 
 knew the infallible character of the mother's 
 premonitions. In half an hour the bridegroom 
 was mounted and on a rapid ride several 
 hundred miles to his brother's neighborhood. 
 
 He found the facts to be these: A popular 
 man, sturdy, hard headed, but not unkindly, 
 had taken deep offence at some word or act 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 135 
 
 of the Kentuckian's, and snapped a pistol at 
 him. Instantly he was in the claws of the 
 young tiger cat, and fell from his grasp hacked 
 and butchered. This was mere justifiable 
 homicide; but the times were critical, crime 
 frequent, the law inoperative, and society 
 had resolutely pronounced, " The next man 
 who kills another hangs." The prisoner was 
 remanded, rather for his protection than 
 punishment, and meanwhile the purpose 
 gathered head. Men looked askance at the 
 little stockade of a jail: " Perhaps this killing 
 was provoked. Likely — it always is. We 
 approve of law in a general way, but if the law 
 breaks down, then men must do justice them- 
 selves." That is the run of the argument at 
 such times. I have seen such a body of men 
 standing in the face of a drizzly March morn- 
 ing over the corpse of a poor, cruelly drowned 
 wretch, cold, impassive, resolute. All that 
 day on which the bridegroom reached it the 
 town was quiet, silent, Sunday like — very 
 few persons in the streets or at the tavern bar 
 or court house. As he entered the jail, a 
 Vigilant said, not unkindly, " His brother, 
 hey ? Say to him, if he wants any little thing 
 sot, to have it sot now : he won't have no time 
 to-night, nor yit to-morrer." 
 
 "Is it that bad, Jerry ? " asked the bride- 
 groom,in his ruffles and fine, road-stained cloth. 
 
 " Bad enough, squire. I speak as a friend. 
 I wouldn't hurt a fly. Some of us tried, but 
 it can't be; it's done sot." 
 
136 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 He went in; the jailer was roughly polite, 
 but would make no assurance of defence. 
 ''It's just a shell," he said of the jail: *' a 
 yoke o' steers 'd pull it all apart." Nor 
 would he be bribed. " No, siree; that'll git 
 me into it 'stid o' him. Them boys is 'arnest. 
 Sorry to say, but it's night, and clean agin 
 orders. You must git outen this." 
 
 '' Let me speak to my brother alone. 
 You can stand outside the door if you like, 
 and lock it. There are some things a 
 man wishes to say he does not want over- 
 heard." 
 
 " In course, in course," said the jailer, and 
 letting him in, closed and locked the door. 
 After a while, getting impatient, he called 
 out that he " must get a light and inspect! " 
 
 " Never mind," was answered, " I am 
 coming; " and then within, " I will tell mother 
 and — all you have said. Good by!" and 
 the brothers embraced and parted. 
 
 The surly jailer saw the one come out, and 
 feeling the soft nap of the broadcloth in the 
 dark entry, said, " Now g'long, straight 
 forrard; " and the grieving brother plunged 
 into the dark, mounted and rode rapidly off. 
 
 " Gwine to the jedge's," commented the 
 jailer, listening to the sound of the horse's 
 feet. " That cock won't fight." 
 
 No, for no sooner had the rider disappeared 
 than the mob, knowing his influence and 
 energetic character, proceeded to the 
 task. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 137 
 
 " If he has a dozen hours to get his friends 
 together, there will be a fight over it," said the 
 leader; " we must avoid that." 
 
 Jerry, the ostensible leader and chief exe- 
 cutioner, headed the assault; the door was 
 sprung ; the passage entered, then the cell. On 
 a low settle that served for a bed, his elbows 
 on his knees, the palms down, his shoulders 
 rounded and his head bent forward, sat the 
 prisoner. Two torches drowned out the feeble 
 light cast by the poor tallow^ dip on the Bible 
 he had been reading. The leader of the mob 
 spoke. The prisoner quietly raised his head 
 and looked at him calmly, indifferently in the 
 face. All heroic things are simple. It was 
 the bridegroom brother! 
 
 The mob knew and personally liked him. 
 '' Where is your brother.? " 
 
 " Gone," he replied, coolly, apparently 
 comparing the toes of his boots. There was 
 refreshing strength in his very placidity. 
 
 "Hell! How'dhegitout.?" 
 
 *' Walked out, as I will if you have no use 
 for me. 'Tisn't a flowery bed of ease, Jerry, 
 as the hymn book says; " and the new Damon 
 drew up his tall form and shook himself like 
 a horse in his saddle trappings. 
 
 " No, it ain't," said Jerry, reluctant and 
 hesitating as he peered ridiculously about. 
 
 " Come, you haven't anything against me," 
 said the bridegroom, advancing. *' I got here 
 before you, and the bird is flown; that is all; " 
 and he walked out. 
 
138 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 In this case the condition of the clair- 
 voyante in the midst of the described gayety 
 refutes the theory of the pseudo-Platonists, 
 that the bodily senses are closed to external 
 objects, as in sleep, while the reflective and 
 discursive faculties are still awake and active, 
 and the spiritual faculty is excited to the high- 
 est state of energy.* Rejecting this fallacious 
 division, which assumes to create a difference 
 by giving different names to one faculty, we 
 arrive at the truth — that only when the 
 attention is fixed or excited is the phenomenon 
 observed; and this brings it under the common 
 law applicable to ordinary perception. 
 
 The relation that follows belongs to that 
 history of adventure in the Southwest which 
 must one day form a chapter in our national 
 annals. 
 
 As early as 1823-24 the commerce with 
 Santa Fe, El Paso, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, So- 
 nora, and Lower California — a small, trick- 
 ling stream that preceded the great freshet 
 we all remember — required treaty protection 
 from the United States Senate. The trade 
 was estimated at a hundred and ninety 
 thousand dollars per annum, carried on by 
 caravans of eighty or one hundred men, who 
 exchanged calicoes, bread, and ammunition 
 for furs, mules, and bullion. Gregg estimated 
 the product of the placer mines in 1832-33 
 at about eighty thousand dollars per annum. 
 
 Smith's •' Bible Dictionary," art. Prophet. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 139 
 
 One of Aunt Betty's brood of pioneers had 
 been hunting on the Arkansas, Canadian, and 
 South Red rivers, salting, packing, and ship- 
 ping the buffalo beef, at Nacogdoches prin- 
 cipally. Rumors of gold washings came 
 through the fur companies, and the trains of 
 pack mules, hardy trappers, and strange 
 stories of huge stone cities fired the ardent 
 imaginative pioneer blood, and led the youth 
 to incur the perils of wild tribes that infested 
 the curious natural platform lying beyond the 
 Mississippi. That plateau, bounded by the 
 ocean, the peaks of Wind River chain and the 
 southern isthmus, is the cradle of the Aztecs. 
 Fremont's Peak, the boss of a huge buckler, 
 rises over an expanse as varied as the symbols 
 on Achilles' shield, whose " utmost verge 
 a threefold circle bounds." Cis-Mississippi 
 is the heir of sunken Atlantis, dowered in its 
 wealthy watersheds of primordial rivers, with 
 buried mineral (gold) and fertile treasure. 
 Trans-Mississippi, if not older, is different in 
 its physical history. A great ocean projected 
 from the latitude of the Southern Gulf to the 
 Arctic, and a wide shallow sea lay west of the 
 river line, its bottom a huge metamorphic 
 biscuit, slowly cooking and slowly cooling. A 
 giant left hand, the finger tips at Santa Fe, 
 the shoulder of the thumb at Mexico, the 
 hollow of the palm at Chihuahua, was put 
 under the cake, lifting it slowly, an inch in a 
 thousand years. The plateau made by the 
 undulating flattened crest of the Sierra Madre, 
 
140 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 the true divortium aquarum, retains the hand- 
 mark in an elevation of 7,047 feet at Santa Fe, 
 7,990 at Mexico, 4,476 at Chihuahua, and a 
 gradual slope to the small of the palm at the 
 Mississippi. It is the largest plateau in the 
 world. The diluvial water running off dur- 
 ing the elevation carved out valleys, leaving 
 that flat normal surface in huge llanos. Nor 
 was the biscuit so carefully handled as not to 
 crack in five great ranges; and we may infer 
 that a subsidence followed, which brought in 
 the water, widening the valleys and cutting 
 the sharp bluffs of the llanos in the lower 
 strata. Life rushed in and fed the new land 
 abundantly. The salt brine seethed, moist- 
 ened the grand galvanic plates, and generated 
 magnetic electricity, disengaging sulphuretted 
 hydrogen, sulphuric ethers, and acids from 
 mineral, animal, and vegetable decay. These 
 sulphurous elements tainted the biscuit, and, 
 giving a new character to the strata, added 
 an acrid bitter to the water veins, like nothing 
 so much as an excess of soda in bread. This 
 soda biscuit is enormous, a series of gypsum 
 strata extending from the network of Boggy 
 Creek to the Rock of Zuni. 
 
 The topographic features are more the 
 work of erosion than upheaval. The normal 
 surface is preserved in the tablelands, plated 
 with dolomite and containing characteristic 
 Inoceramus, Gryphea, Ostrea, Pecten. These 
 plains are bounded by sharp bluffs, and where 
 they are scattered over the huge slope the 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 141 
 
 view resembles ice-cuttings in the glacial har- 
 vest on Northern lakes, slid in huge cakes 
 on the smooth, polished, frozen water surface, 
 their regular edges glittering with prismal 
 white, yellow, and red. The largest of these 
 superincumbent tables or cakes is the Llano 
 Estacado, or Great American Desert, having 
 a thin carpet of grama grass, Tripsacum 
 dactyloides . Others lie adjacent in hummocks, 
 pyramids, tetons, the writing of the strata 
 showing an identity of origin and constitution. 
 The diluvial and alluvial of subsidence and 
 elevation have left aroyos, or pool-beds, salinas, 
 smoking hills and salt lakes. 
 
 This plain of the flattened Mexican Andes, 
 like its Asiatic counterpart which cradled the 
 Aryan, has controlled great national move- 
 ments by its physical character. That the 
 Aryan emigrates by parallels of latitude is an 
 axiom, but the axiom must be modified to 
 isothermal parallels to make it general. The 
 Aztec, obeying the same climatic law, crosses 
 the plane of Aryan emigration at right angles. 
 Following the high, flattened crest of the Mexi- 
 can Andes, the star of his empire took its way 
 southward, planting its strange, majestic stone 
 cities along the Rio del Norte and the Gila 
 to the Valley of Mexico and the shores of the 
 Pacific. When the huge fabric of that Indian 
 civilization in its spread broke by its own 
 weight, and crumbled in the strange interne- 
 cine strifes of disintegrating peoples, so well 
 illustrated in the warring cities of Italy after 
 
142 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 the fall of Rome, hostile tribes were found 
 everywhere, the chase their sport, war their 
 passion. The preserved memorial of their 
 ancient civilization is in their temple-building, 
 modes of interment, fire, or phallic worship, 
 and, strange to say, a legal-tender currency 
 (shell-money) accepted over a greater spread 
 of territory than that over which our green- 
 backs prevail. 
 
 With this synoptical view of the physical 
 character and history of the country into which 
 Aunt Betty's youngest son, the Benjamin of 
 her hopes, was pushing his fortunes, we can, 
 perhaps, dispense with the usual geographical 
 details, which too often convey nothing definite 
 to the mind. 
 
 The boy added to his love of adventure the 
 fair hopes of a lucrative trade among the 
 Pueblos and half-breed Spaniards. Bit calicoes 
 brought a dollar; beads, glass trinkets, leaden 
 images, at a penny a gross, brought their 
 weight in gold-dust; furs, bullion, mules were 
 cheap for barter, and the last carried the 
 stock back to the settlements and paid all 
 expenses. If those at home could judge 
 from the mirror of the mother's spirits, the 
 journey was exhilarating. At times she said 
 that the trading party had set out too late, 
 that her son frequently urged them forward, 
 but that the party seemed indifferent, and 
 delayed for hunting or Indian trade days 
 and weeks. Once she spoke of an adventure 
 in the snow, and what seemed to be an attack 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 143 
 
 upon a deer-park or fortification made in the 
 snow by the bucks against the wolves; but 
 the impression was vague and unsatisfactory. 
 But there came an evening over her log fire 
 in the late autumn when the tears rolled down 
 the kind, gray cheeks and shone on the bright 
 steel needles. The depression continued for 
 days, during which she spoke only at intervals, 
 describing what she felt or saw. The reader 
 will gather it better from a connected account. 
 It was a dark, cloudy evening, the air of 
 that moist, mephitic quality that forebodes 
 snow or rain. The campers were on a tongue 
 that jutted out from a high, level plain, 
 against whose abrupt cliffs the black surf of 
 mist beat like a heavy atmospheric sea. The 
 broad depths of level, sinking in horizontal 
 gloom, were broken by the line of a creek 
 that wound through a rocky dell under steep, 
 overhanging sides, worn in hollow caverns. 
 To the view above, it was an irregular crack in 
 the plate, in which the black green of cedar 
 and pine foliage was obscurely visible. South- 
 ward lay the bed of diluvial valleys, with 
 island-like pyramids and knots of Cottonwood 
 stretching far and wide below. The clouds 
 banked the sky in great blue-black welts that 
 drew a sharp mural escarpment above the 
 horizon. The sun had dropped below that 
 black wall, but all above it, and bringing out 
 its solid, rocklike embankment, rolled up 
 great torrents of angry fire, as if the world 
 beyond was burning with intense destructive 
 
144 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 fury. By degrees, between ascending cloud 
 and descending sun, columns of mist, like 
 great rolling black smoke, overspread the wall, 
 obscured its sharp crest, and hung down like 
 huge black sacks of storm. The close, me- 
 phitic air was perceptible to Aunt Betty's 
 sympathetic nerves as she sat by the great 
 log fire. 
 
 But there was an unformed, indefinable 
 foreboding in her mind, the reflection of her 
 son's apprehension, occasioned by the Indan 
 signs seen that day. He knew well that to 
 meet Indians on the Plains so late in the 
 season meant a desperate battle for food. 
 
 At nightfall the snow came — soft, white, 
 illuminating. It saved them: in the open 
 plain, now light with that soft, cold, brilliant 
 white, the black bodies of the savages were 
 plainly visible; but it did not prevent an attack. 
 On the contrary, they made one of those 
 desperate, energetic, persistent assaults which 
 characterize the warfare of the North American 
 Indians, the first natural warriors in the 
 world. Go where you will — to the African 
 Bushmen, Caffres, Bedouin x\rabs, Tartars, 
 Kabyles, Otaheitans, Australians — the only sav- 
 age that will desperately and perseveringly 
 charge and recharge fortifications is the Ameri- 
 can Indian. He does not do it often, it is true, 
 but he will do it on occasion, and with a fierce in- 
 trepidity which no disciplined valor can surpass. 
 
 Such an attack was made now, but the whites 
 were prepared and better armed, and fought 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 145 
 
 from the corral as a fortification. The savages 
 were bloodily repulsed, and a little after 
 midnight disappeared altogether. A discus- 
 sion followed as to the possible renewal of 
 hostilities, the majority arguing against it. 
 Aunt Betty's boy and a Canadian voyageur 
 of the party contended that the very despera- 
 tion of the first assault indicated a second. 
 " The Indians," said the former, " were 
 probably starving; the traders' provisions were 
 necessary to life." The voyageur referred to a 
 desperate attack of the Crows a few years 
 before on a stronger party, which had been pro- 
 longed and persisted in for days. " These," 
 said the leader, " are Kioways or Comanches, 
 and not so plucky." 
 
 However, it was thought prudent to wait 
 a day and study the country, but events pre- 
 vented any exploration. All that night the 
 snow fell — not in flurries, but steadily. In 
 the morning the whole country was sheeted. 
 Aunt Betty's boy probed it: " This snow, 
 which saved, will ruin us. We must clear a 
 field, or the Indians will attack under a sure 
 cover." 
 
 A snow plough is no elaborate work. Holes 
 let in the sideboards of the wagon for plough 
 handles and thills or gearing, and the machine 
 is made. A dozen of these swept the field in a 
 frolic. The snow was banked up about the 
 corral with salients and lunettes. They had a 
 snow-fort, with a clear glacis and open field. 
 But still the clouds wove that thick, moist, 
 
146 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 treacherous cover. It came in great clots 
 and wefts, falling heavier and heavier. Any 
 plan of exploration to discover the track of the 
 Indians was out of the question. They could 
 only wait, and as they waited the snow fell. 
 
 " This cursed snow is fighting against us," 
 said Aunt Betty's boy. 
 
 *'Who cares.?" said the leader. ''The 
 Indians are gone, we have lots of rations; 
 let it fight." 
 
 But Aunt Betty's boy did not believe the 
 Indians were gone. The Indians were hun- 
 gry, and must have food. The snow was 
 fighting for the savage, and he was a soldier, 
 in his way. The boy measured the new snow 
 on the glacis — six inches. By morning it 
 would be a foot or eighteen inches. It was 
 now nightfall of the second night. When he 
 came down after circling the camp the leader 
 was nodding at the fire, and all but the sentries 
 rolled up in their blankets. The trees and 
 umbrage were knolls of snow, the black maw 
 of the creek bed was wiped out. It looked 
 like one smooth plain above and one below, 
 and the jagged cliffs were all rounded and 
 softened. 
 
 By and by the sentries came trickling in — 
 not to stay, but to warm themselves and 
 gossip a little. After a while they returned to 
 their posts. Presently they trickled back 
 again, and every time more trickled and their 
 stay was longer. At last they were all at the 
 fire, chewing, smoking, tiring one another 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 147 
 
 with sympathetic yawns and sleepy talk. 
 Aunt Betty's boy shifted uneasily, went out, 
 and circled the little fort again. He saw no 
 signs but one; the snow was ten inches deep, 
 and falling like great white cloths, one after 
 the other, one after the other — so busy and 
 yet so deadly silent. He went to the captain 
 and said abruptly, " The snowfall will cover 
 an attack now, and it lies over a foot deep. 
 The men must be waked and the snow ploughs 
 geared up." 
 
 ** Bosh! " repeated the sleepy captain, pee- 
 vishly. ** Who bosses this ranch ? You are 
 scared; go to bed. There aren't no Injuns in 
 fifty mile o' here; none ain't been seen for 
 twenty hours and more." 
 
 " They will be on us by morning," said 
 the boy resolutely, " and in this snow we'll 
 have no more chance than a baby in bed. 
 Get up and do your duty." 
 
 ** D — n my duty ! " said the captain. '* You 
 had better mind your own business. ' A 
 baby in bed,' indeed! well, go to bed, baby." 
 And, having chuckled over that retort, he 
 rolled himself up in his blanket and snored. 
 
 The sentries, all lying round the fire, heard 
 what was said. The boy turned to them and 
 asked, " Will any of you fellows help to gear up 
 and clear away the snow ? " 
 
 They looked at one another. " Our watch 
 is about out; suppose you try the relief.^" 
 was the conclusion. 
 
 When that came the proposal was made. 
 
148 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 " And why didn't them fellows do it ? " 
 growled the relief. " I'll be shot if we do." 
 
 Having settled that, and the posts on the 
 glacis being cold, they sat down over the fire 
 to a game of " old sledge." 
 
 Then Aunt Betty's boy went to the voy- 
 ageur, who had shared his apprehensions. 
 The man only said, *' Go away; I am sleepy." 
 
 After that the boy went out again, and re- 
 turned. He then led out his horse, wounded 
 in the night fight. There was a great sob in 
 his throat, for it was a home-bred filly, but he 
 blew off his emotion as men and whales do, 
 and drew his hunting knife across the poor 
 creature's windpipe. She fell with a dull thud. 
 
 " Hello! what are you doing thar. Ken- 
 tuck ? " called a voice from the card players. 
 
 " Putting her out of her misery," said 
 Kentuck, briefly. 
 
 ** And what are you a-butcherin' of her 
 for.^" queried the other after a pause. 
 
 '* Shet yer head, Piute," interrupted his 
 card partner. *' Don't ye see he's gwine to be 
 askinnin' of her.? Play!" 
 
 Aunt Betty's son disappeared. The moist, 
 soft dusk of snow and mystery came down 
 and enveloped him utterly. The last seen of 
 him has been said. How or by what means he 
 disappeared from that circle of twenty feet, 
 became absorbed in the dense, unutterable 
 gloom of nothingness, was unknown. The 
 incidents of the battle, of the camp, all the 
 details, and more than are given here, were 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 149 
 
 preserved and published. A broad noon 
 sun was poured upon every transaction up to 
 that point; and then suddenly the boy is 
 snatched up from the body of his slaughtered 
 horse, and is gone! The subsequent tragedy 
 of the camp was known, in much of its detail, 
 also; but the fact about Aunt Betty's son, 
 Kentuck, was only inferential, and that in- 
 ference was — death. Doubted for years by 
 those who hoped against hope, and then con- 
 firmed by the strong concurrence of every 
 absolute test and fact possible, save one. Op- 
 posed to this was his mother's single word: 
 she felt that her son was not dead. 
 
 A year later a broken, half-wild white, 
 thrown from tribe to tribe like a fire bucket 
 over a surging mob, told the story of that 
 night's disaster. Soon after Kentuck began 
 to skin his horse this man had to go out of the 
 camp. He asked one and another of his 
 friends to accompany him. Busy at their 
 cards, all refused. Kentuck made no answer 
 at all; he was busy about the horse. The man 
 had hardly got beyond the glacis before the 
 attack began. The Indians had burrowed 
 under the snow, through the soft snow-walls, 
 and burst upon them. He could see the 
 slaughter from his gloomy hiding, and mark 
 the men as they fell. There was no resistance; 
 it was butchery. 
 
 The story was published, copied into the 
 Kentucky papers — some old men may re- 
 member it — and the man was sought out by 
 
150 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Aunt Betty's family. He gave the details 
 as they are given here, verifying Aunt Betty's 
 vision, and explaining parts of it. Asked 
 about the fate of her son, he assured them that 
 he must have been one of the first victims, 
 and that his escape was absolutely an im- 
 possibility. He was in the circle of light, 
 inevitably seen, and as certainly slain. There 
 was hardly a possibility that even one sleeper 
 escaped by being away from the light, but no 
 possibility for the rest. The evidence was as 
 strong as Nature and circumstance could 
 make it. 
 
 Yet Aunt Betty persisted that he was not 
 dead; she felt that he was alive. For a few 
 years this strong faith, in connection with her 
 established correctness, affected the incredulity 
 of the family. But year after year passed, 
 and not a word or a sign came to justify her 
 persistent faith. Then the day arrived when 
 she must lay down this burden of life. In 
 Christian resignation she accepted that, as 
 she had accepted all the duties of life and 
 fulfilled them. But even in her last hour she 
 repeated her assurance that her son was alive. 
 If he came back some day, as she believed he 
 would, she wished the undying love and bless- 
 ing of the dying mother to be given to him. 
 
 The Mexican war and General Kearney's 
 expedition opened up that strange country; 
 the gold was found in California; adventure 
 was quickened. Then, after seventeen years 
 of absence, brown, hale, hearty, a fine, middle- 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 151 
 
 aged man, apparently well to do, rode up the 
 tanbark road and alighted. It was the long- 
 lost son and brother. 
 
 His story of his escape, adventures, and settle- 
 ment was a strange one. When he found 
 that his companions disregarded his warning, 
 he hesitated what to do. His mind was 
 divided, one half grieving for the horse and 
 all it represented to him, the other eagerly 
 searching the void for means of escape. He 
 had read or heard of a man's hiding in the 
 hollow of a buffalo from the burning prairie — 
 an idle story, perhaps, but suggestive. But 
 could he get into the cavity after removing 
 the entrails ? He would try. He was slender, 
 supple, small of his age. The horse was 
 disemboweled, and the intestines buried in the 
 snow. When it came to the effort, to making 
 his bed in that raw, reeking flesh, his sensi- 
 bilities revolted. He did not believe it was 
 possible, physically or morally. The gap 
 was too small, the hollow too horrible. Then 
 he heard the warwhoop, and, to use his own 
 words, he '* jumped in like it was a church 
 door." Over him reeled and staggered that 
 short, sharp, bloody massacre; it was done 
 almost before he had time to think; and it 
 was still dark. The closeness suffocated him, 
 the reek and fresh gouts of blood sickened 
 and nauseated him. Then came thirst — 
 deadly, hot, fierce thirst — licking up the 
 blood in his veins with a tongue of fire. He 
 could hear the shouts and orgies of the 
 
152 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 savages, and knew that after plundering they 
 were eating, gorging, and maddening them- 
 selves on the traders' whisky. One drunken 
 savage stumbled over the poor brute, and lay 
 snorting, his drunken breath actually filling 
 the nostrils of the prisoner a few inches from 
 him. Fortunately his companions hauled 
 the savage away by the heels, and mad, burnt 
 up with fierce, intolerable thirst, Kentuck 
 thrust out a hand and gathered the bloody 
 snow. How deliciously cool it was! He 
 fed his ravenous passion at intervals, and as 
 he did so he became conscious of an external 
 warmth. The sweat poured from him and 
 drenched him, for the vital heat of the poor 
 animal had been preserved by the occupant 
 of the carcass hours after. 
 
 It was afternoon before the Indians gathered 
 the spoils and left, burning what they could not 
 carry, for they would not encumber them- 
 selves with the wagons. They never do. 
 When finally he ventured out, it was night. 
 Cooking portions of the horse, and taking as 
 much of the flesh as he could carry, he set out 
 on the Santa Fe trail. The other fugitive had 
 returned to the settlement; the Kentuckian 
 went forward, chiefly because the Indians had 
 taken the contrary route. 
 
 The details of his subsequent adventure 
 must be omitted. He reached Santa Fe, and, 
 after knocking about for some months, took 
 service with a Spaniard who had been governor 
 of the province when under Spanish rule. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 153 
 
 His courage and activity, in contrast with the 
 lethargy and unthriftiness of the Pueblo slave 
 and half-breed, won him favor; and when 
 the Spaniard's pretty daughter returned from 
 the convent of Our Lady of Sorrows, she 
 shared in her father's partiality. The con- 
 clusion tells itself. The young man had 
 written, but in the disturbed condition of 
 Mexico the letter was lost. At a remote 
 hacienda on the Gila there was no opportunity 
 to communicate overland. 
 
 In a review of these incidents the question 
 asked by the writer will occur to the reader: 
 If such a power existed, why was there no 
 revelation of the son's affairs in the long in- 
 terval, beyond the mere fact of his existence ? 
 No satisfactory answer was given, but this 
 may be surmised: An acute exciting cause is 
 necessary for a well-defined impression, and 
 none seems to have occurred in the son's life 
 after his escape. Secondly, phrenography 
 belongs rather to pictorial representation of 
 scenes and ideas than the art of oral or written 
 communication. Its analogy is rather to 
 photography than telegraphy. Without some 
 conscious effort on the part of the son to 
 present his thought in a mood to identify his 
 location, the discovery would be difficult, if 
 not impossible, and the involuntary character 
 of the phenomena puts such an experiment 
 out of the question. It is curious to remark 
 in the close that while the optic nerve is some- 
 times sympathetically excited to a high degree. 
 
154 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 the sense of hearing does not seem to respond 
 with equal facility. Yet the masculine and 
 vigorous genius of the author of Jane Eyre 
 has seized upon the analogy with such force 
 and simplicity of application as to cause its 
 tacit admission within the possible pale of 
 sympathetic communication. 
 
 After all, what mystery is there in it beyond 
 the mystery of our daily lives ? It is to our own 
 ever-quick, responsive nature we owe all 
 knowledge, and the question is less of per- 
 ception than interpretation. As parts of one 
 grand economy nothing happens foreign to it, 
 were we but skilled to read the delicate in- 
 strument whose graphic finger is on our pulse 
 and brain. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 BOOK II 
 POETRY 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Written for and dedicated to the Episcopal Church, 
 Richmond, Va., A.D., 1866 
 
 A wonderful fable, first told when the earth 
 
 Was glad in its primeval hours. 
 While the birds were first trying the carols of 
 mirth, 
 
 And the land was so proud of its flowers. 
 All the crowns of the stars, as they sparkle, were 
 new. 
 
 In the newly spread heaven above. 
 Ere life was a struggle to rend and to rue. 
 
 And was perfect in lessons of love. 
 
 Now this wonderful Fable was told in the days. 
 
 When everything bright had a voice 
 To sing the unsyllabled anthems of praise. 
 
 To the full, as the angels rejoice; 
 And the skies and the seas and the earth and the 
 air 
 
 Were the symbols by night and by day. 
 Of a love that was perfect in a world that was fair 
 
 And proof against Death and Decay. 
 
 For this glorious fable was spoken to show 
 
 How that God, in each wonderful change, 
 Created in recreating below 
 
 All the Good, with economy strange. 
 It was told of a bird, like a beautiful dawn, 
 
 Freshly painted with pencils of light. 
 When down from the heavens, the curtain is 
 drawn 
 
 Of the shadowy glory of Night. 
 
 157 
 
158 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Its wings were the symbolized passion of Love, 
 
 Folding close the beloved to the heart ; 
 Or in spreading, to rise to his Temple above, 
 
 Where God holds the portals apart. 
 At twilight, at morning, by noonday or night, 
 
 It arose from Earth's velvety sod. 
 And the people who looked on its wonderful flight 
 
 Felt their souls rise with it up to God. 
 
 This bird, we are told, when its days here below 
 
 Were all gathering fast to the close, 
 Plucked twigs of the spicewood and fruit from the 
 bough 
 
 And the petals that fall from the rose, 
 And heaped them together, with wonderful art, 
 
 In the form of a funeral pyre, 
 When folding its wings, on the love-brooding heart. 
 
 It was burned in the odorous fire. 
 
 But more wonderful still, as the story is told. 
 
 From the ashes that sank in perfumes. 
 The bird rose again with the purple and gold. 
 
 And the flash of the flame in its plumes ; 
 The fire, instinct in its wonderful form, 
 
 Shone out in each feather and line, 
 And the breath of the spice and the rose's young 
 charm 
 
 Around it swam bravely and fine. 
 
 And still; though the fable's as old as the hills. 
 
 Its lesson can never pass by; 
 For every eye brightens and every heart fills 
 
 At the thought that the right cannot die. 
 And the Southerners look on the ashes and feel, 
 
 That again, as the fable has shown. 
 We shall find in the pyre of fire and steel 
 
 A country and church of our own. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 159 
 
 ADONAIS 
 
 Thammuz came next behind, 
 Whose annual wound to Lebanon allured. 
 The Syrian damsels, to lament his fate, 
 In amorous ditties all a summer's day. — Milton. 
 
 Shall we meet no more, my love, at the binding 
 of the sheaves. 
 In the happy harvest field as the sun sinks low ? 
 When the orchard paths are dim with the drift of 
 
 falling leaves, 
 And the reapers sing together, in the mellow, misty 
 eves, 
 Oh! Happy are the apples when the south 
 winds blow. 
 
 Love met us in the orchard, ere the corn had gath- 
 ered plume, — 
 Oh! Happy are the apples, when the south 
 winds blow; 
 Sweet as summer days that die when the months 
 
 are in their bloom, 
 And the peaks are ripe with sunset like the tassels 
 of the broom, 
 In the happy harvest fields as the sun sinks low. 
 
 Sweet as summer days that die at the ripening 
 of the corn, — 
 Oh! Happy are the apples when the south 
 winds blow — 
 Sweet as lover's fickle oaths, sworn to faithless 
 
 maids forsworn. 
 When the musty orchard breathes, like a mellow 
 drinking horn, 
 Over happy harvest fields as the sun sinks low. 
 
160 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Love left us at the dying of the mellow autumn 
 eves, 
 Oh! Happy are the apples when the south 
 wind blows: 
 When the skies are rich and fading, as the colors 
 
 of the leaves, 
 And the reapers kiss and part, at the binding of 
 the sheaves, 
 In the happy harvest fields, as the sun sinks low. 
 
 Then the reapers gather home from the gray and 
 
 misty meres. 
 Oh! Happy are the apples when the south 
 
 winds blow; 
 Then the reapers gather home, and they bear 
 
 upon their spears 
 Love, whose face is like the moon's fallen gray 
 
 among the spheres 
 With the daylight's blight upon it as the sun 
 
 sinks low. 
 
 Faint as far-off bugles blowing, sweet and low the 
 reapers sung. 
 Oh! Happy are the apples when the south 
 winds blow; 
 Sweet as summer in the blood, when the heart is 
 
 ripe and young, 
 Love is sweetest in the dying, like the sheaves 
 he lies among. 
 In the happy harvest fields as the sun sinks low. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 161 
 THE STAB 
 
 Of sudden stabs in groves forlorn. — Hood's Eugene Aram. 
 
 On the road, the lonely road, 
 
 Under the cold white moon, 
 Under the ragged trees, he strode; 
 He whistled, and shifted his heavy load; 
 
 Whistled a foolish tune. 
 
 There was a step timed with his own ; 
 
 A figure that stooped and bowed ; 
 A cold white blade that flashed and shone, 
 Like a splinter of daylight downward thrown — 
 
 And the moon went behind a cloud. 
 
 But the moon came out, so broad and good, 
 
 The barn cock woke and crowed ; 
 Then roughed his feathers in drowsy mood, 
 And the brown owl called to his mate in the 
 
 wood. 
 That a dead man lay on the road. 
 
 CATALINA'S BETROTHAL 
 
 My lover lived by sea and shore; he sailed the 
 
 Spanish Main — 
 Oh! The long round wave comes rolling up 
 
 to shore 
 From Port-au-Prince to Barbadoes, and fair 
 
 Cadiz, in Spain. 
 Oh! Summer keep your summer seas until he 
 
 comes again. 
 For loud the wild winds rave and cry like ghosts 
 
 about the door. 
 
162 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 We said the Creed to Festa's wont; we danced the 
 bolero — 
 And the long round wave comes rolling up to 
 shore. 
 Genita frowns, Pepita pouts, because he loves 
 
 me so; 
 He told me so a hundred times, before I let him go, 
 For loud the wild winds rave and cry like ghosts 
 about the door. 
 
 With purple dyes and scented wood, the ship 
 went down the bay, 
 And the long round wave came rolling up to 
 shore 
 As sinks the light below the sea, I saw it sail away 
 To bring me silks and Spanish lace against the 
 wedding day. 
 And loud the wild winds rave and cry like ghosts 
 about the door. 
 
 I told the padre how the winds come crying every 
 
 night, 
 And the long round wave comes rolling up to 
 
 shore ; 
 He gave me three novenas for a southwind low 
 
 and light 
 That clothe the silken seas in lace and veils of 
 
 Spanish white. 
 But loud the wild winds rave and cry like ghosts 
 
 about the door. 
 
 And all night long Los Nortes came; I heard 
 them shriek and cry. 
 And the long round wave come rolling up to 
 shore ; 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 163 
 
 And fearful things, far out at sea, that neither live 
 
 nor die 
 Laid their long wings along the hills and beat the 
 
 sea and sky, 
 And loud the wild winds rave and cry like ghosts 
 
 about the door. 
 
 I heard a ship, gun after gun, through all the 
 
 stormy night — 
 And the long round wave come rolling up to 
 
 shore; 
 And something, like a bird, that comes with breast 
 
 and wings of white. 
 To wives of sailors lost at sea, against the window 
 
 light. 
 When loud the wild winds rave and cry like 
 
 ghosts about the door. 
 
 I chose the dress he loves the best, the window 
 opened wide. 
 And the long round wave came rolling up to 
 shore; 
 I knelt before the crucifix, as if close by his side. 
 While something seemed to speak for him, I 
 answered like a bride, 
 And loud the wild winds rave and cry like ghosts 
 about the door. 
 
 I heard the neighbors at the church, through all 
 
 the storm and strife, — 
 While the long round wave came rolling up to 
 
 shore ; 
 At mass before the uprisen Host who is the Lord 
 
 of Life, 
 
164 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 I knew He heard the words that made me wedded, 
 
 widowed wife. 
 And loud the wild winds rave and cry like ghosts 
 
 about the door. 
 
 And though they frown to hear me say: He sails 
 
 the Spanish Main — 
 And the long round wave comes rolling up to 
 
 shore; 
 I know my life is like the sea: below its cross of 
 
 pain, 
 It keeps its treasures hidden close until he comes 
 
 again, 
 And loud the wild winds rave and cry like ghosts 
 
 about the door. 
 
 THE LIGHTHOUSE ROCK 
 
 Over the shingle, and over the main. 
 
 The wave breaks over the I^ighthouse rock; 
 
 A lady there lived ; the beauty of Spain ; 
 
 The South brings sorrow; the West brings rain. 
 
 But the dead can never come back again, 
 When the wild sea chickens begin to flock. 
 
 Over the Shingle in Sixty Nine, 
 
 The wave breaks over the Lighthouse rock; 
 The sun came out of a bath of wine. 
 And the reef was ragged and jagged and bare, 
 With a scowl on the sea and a fit in the air. 
 
 And the wild sea chickens began to flock. 
 
 The wind blew East, and the rain was black; — 
 fhe wave breaks over the Lighthouse rock; 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 165 
 
 And a ship came in, on the starboard tack. 
 But the wind came South and the rain was white, 
 And the ship was a spHnter of chips that night, 
 Where the wild sea chickens begin to flock. 
 
 Over the shingle and over the sand ; — 
 
 The wave breaks over the Lighthouse rock; 
 
 A corpse took hold of my lady's hand. 
 
 It said, " You have come for your salvage, ma'am; 
 
 The South brings sorrow, and here I am. 
 Where the wild sea chickens began to flock.'* 
 
 She made him a shroud of her satin gown, — 
 The wave breaks over the Lighthouse rock; 
 
 She brought him in state, into Lighthouse Town; 
 
 This was my husband, cruel and cross. 
 
 The South brings sorrow and Life brings loss. 
 When the wild sea chickens begin to flock. 
 
 Over this dead man's ship they passed, — 
 The wave breaks over the Lighthouse rock; 
 
 They kindled corpse candles over the mast. 
 
 But the Magdalene Sea, on its christen trough, 
 
 Has scoured my sins and his sorrow off. 
 When the wild sea chickens begin to flock. 
 
 He lies like a noble man, brave in the shroud — 
 
 The wave breaks over the Lighthouse rock. 
 But the heart within me is glad and proud. 
 For this is the salvage I ought to him. 
 Of the keeper who lets his lamp burn dim. 
 When the wild sea chickens begin to flock. 
 
 For Death brings the dead love back to life — 
 The wave breaks over the Lighthouse rock, 
 
166 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 And I am this dead man's own true wife; 
 For the mad sea, sick of my passion and pain 
 Has brought me my first love back again, 
 When the wild sea chickens began to flock. 
 
 When the winds blow into the harbor mouth; 
 
 The wave breaks over the Lighthouse rock; 
 As the rain turns white on the windy South, 
 Like a ghost of the Earth or a wraith of the air, 
 Is the cry of a lady, with snow-white hair. 
 
 The wild sea chickens begin to flock. 
 
 THE TWILIGHT OF THE HEART 
 
 When Day is dying in the West, 
 
 Through shadows, faint and far. 
 It holds, upon its gentle breast, 
 
 A tender, nurseling star; 
 As if to symbolize above, 
 How shines a pure young mother's love. 
 
 I watch the sun depart; 
 A whisper seems to say. 
 
 So comes the twilight of the heart, 
 More beautiful than day. 
 
 The listless summer sleeps in green. 
 
 Among my orange flowers ; 
 The lazy south wind steals between 
 
 The lips of languid hours; 
 As if Endymion, lapped in fern. 
 Lay dreaming of the Moon's return. 
 
 The long years seem to part 
 Like shadows cold and gray. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 167 
 
 To show the twihght of the heart 
 More beautiful than day. 
 
 Old hopes and wishes seem to breathe 
 
 The gentle evening air, 
 Of Love and Sorrow, laid beneath 
 
 A faded fold of hair: 
 Life had no other love to give, 
 Love had another life to live, 
 
 In valleys far apart. 
 In which the poets say 
 
 There is a twilight of the heart 
 More beautiful than day. 
 
 I seem to see the smiling eyes 
 
 That loved me long ago. 
 Look down the pale and tranquil skies, 
 
 In all the afterglow; 
 The still delight; the smiles and tears 
 Come back, through all the silent years, 
 
 In which we are apart 
 As if they came to say. 
 
 Now is the twilight of the heart 
 More beautiful than day. 
 
 THE REAPERS 
 
 When the tired reapers, with fragrant sheaves. 
 Come out of the corn as the sun goes down, 
 
 And the sky is rich as the falling leaves. 
 In crimson and purple and golden brown, 
 
 I sit in the mellow and marvelous eves. 
 
 And watch as the loom of the sunset weaves, 
 Its cloth of gold over country and town. 
 
168 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 And I think how the summers have come and gone, 
 Since we saw the shuttle, across the blue, 
 
 That wove the colors of dusk and dawn, 
 Where the musk of the sleeping roses flew, 
 
 On the wings of the southwind, over the lawn. 
 
 And the waning shadows were longer drawn. 
 And the sun was low, and the stars were few. 
 
 When Love was sweet in the lives we led, 
 As the leaven that lives in the latter spring; 
 
 To grow in the flowers, the books we read, 
 The romp and rush of the grapevine swing; 
 
 In words and work, to be filled and fed. 
 
 On brooks of honey and wastel bread 
 
 And sung in the songs that we used to sing. 
 
 And out of the shadows they come to me. 
 As flowers of the spring come, year by year; 
 
 The lovers we had, when to love was free; 
 The stars were few and the skies were clear. 
 
 And we knew it was happiness just to be 
 
 In a world so gracious and fair to see. 
 
 While the weary reapers were drawing near. 
 
 Though the red and white roses have lost their 
 leaves. 
 
 In the ashes of summers of long ago. 
 They come in the mellow and marvelous eves. 
 
 With the harvest of love that we used to sow. 
 As rich as the garlands the sunset weaves. 
 When the tired reapers, with fragrant sheaves. 
 
 Come out of the corn and the sun is low. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 169 
 THE OLD CANOE 
 
 Only an old canoe 
 
 Hewed out of a cypress log, 
 
 Half sunk in a saw-grass bog, 
 
 And suncracked through and through. 
 
 In the live-oak crotch on the bluff, 
 
 A lookout scans the horizon 
 
 Of sallow saw-grass; but deep enough, 
 
 In the channel, to swim a bison. 
 
 A bow shot south of the slough, 
 
 There is many a wattled hut and thatch ; 
 
 Cornfield, melon, potato patch, 
 
 Rots with the old canoe ; 
 
 Dead as the bones that lie 
 
 In the shell marl, under our feet. 
 
 By the thousands, withering white and dry, 
 
 In their chalky winding-sheet ; 
 
 The graves of a nation lived all through 
 
 That left no sign but the old canoe. 
 
 Over fifty years ago, 
 
 The women came wailing, two by two. 
 
 To see the tall warriors, all arow. 
 
 Follow their chief to the war canoe. 
 
 That lay by yon little sedgy shelf. 
 
 And watch the rowers row; 
 
 The paddle swing, like the heron's wing. 
 
 The young chief going to give himself, 
 
 A hostage, for Philip the King, 
 
 And his squaw must watch at the live oak crotch, 
 
 For a word that a bird of the air will bring. 
 
170 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Coo-a-coo-chee has broken his parole; 
 
 Slipped from a casemate and out of a porthole, 
 
 His fetters left for the next deserter. 
 
 But, after he passed, 
 
 Was a shuddering shriek like the cry of murder, 
 
 And the hoofs of riders riding fast. 
 
 And when he came in the war canoe, 
 
 The robe of scarlet, purple, and blue, 
 
 Of the King in Hamlet, was dabbled red 
 
 By a new wig torn from an actor's head. 
 
 As they sat at feast of the ripened corn 
 The wise old Philip spoke of ease 
 And of peace, beyond the narrow seas, 
 But Coo-a-coo-chee was full of scorn. 
 Of the White's man's cunning to deceive, 
 And the squaw wife waiting at his side. 
 Looked down and said, *' How can we leave 
 The grave of the little one that died ? " 
 
 But Coo-a-coo-chee had broken his parole ! 
 Recaptured under a flag of truce. 
 The fetters clink for the long gun barrel ; 
 Shot pouch, moccasin, deerskin trews. 
 He lies in irons in Tampa Bay, 
 His captors warning him every day 
 To send for his people. Thereto he said, 
 " If my people listen to hear my word 
 The rattle of my chains is heard; 
 And they will not heed, they are afraid. 
 Then said the White Chief,* " Choose you, men; 
 In forty days, if they come again, 
 And bring your warriors, war shall cease; 
 You and your people shall go in peace. 
 If not, at the end of the fortieth day 
 You hang at the yard-arm in Tampa Bay. 
 ♦General Jesup, U. S. A, 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 171 
 
 Once more and no more, the old canoe, 
 By winding waterways, goes and comes. 
 It bears a people away from their homes, 
 Like Charon's ferry that bore the shades. 
 Out of the old life into the new. 
 And was left adrift in the everglades. 
 
 But fifty years ago! 
 
 And the shell marl under our feet. 
 
 Still keeps the dead in its winding sheet. 
 
 In the places they used to know. 
 
 The saw grass, bright as a basket of gold 
 
 Still holds the picture it used to hold ; 
 
 The slough, bayou, and the river. 
 
 And the wreck of the old canoe. 
 
 But the forms of life and love it knew 
 
 Shall it know no more forever; 
 
 And the low, white vapor curled 
 
 Over empty village and open graves. 
 
 And the cry of the silly, whimpering waves 
 
 Is like the end of the world. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 
 
 The changeful skies; earth's varied stores, 
 Have each a quiet way of speech, 
 
 In soft, deceptive metaphors. 
 
 That sweet as loving kisses teach. 
 
 And when the tranquil tropic air 
 A burst of fragrance overwhelms. 
 
 I think how northern trees grow bare. 
 Save where the ivy clots the elms. 
 
172 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Like soft gray glass, the atmosphere 
 
 Lies over mellow tilth and fallow; 
 The little brook is dusky clear 
 
 Across its agate-colored shallow. 
 
 Through woodlands, where the shadow weaves 
 
 A gleam of purple on the ground, 
 The children gather painted leaves. 
 
 And hear a sweet, inconstant sound, 
 
 As if the hollow wood was breathing, 
 
 Or see the highway's line of dust, 
 A silvery mirage softly wreathing. 
 
 By orchards sweet with apple must. 
 
 The evenings linger, long and cool. 
 
 Like brooks that loiter as they go. 
 Where laggard waters love to pool, 
 
 And listen to the underflow. 
 
 And saffron shadows, still and bright. 
 Like pictures seen through colored glass, 
 
 Have touched with pale, unreal light, 
 The undertones among the grass. 
 
 With summer's wan and dying look, 
 
 Ere frost, in her familiar woods. 
 Has locked the windows of the brook 
 
 In gray and glassy solitudes. 
 
 Like some fair soul that doth forbode 
 
 The gentle parting of the seals. 
 Yet lingers smiling on the road, 
 
 To speak the cheerful hope she feels. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 173 
 
 Even as the last light ebbs away 
 
 I linger by the pine and palm, 
 To see the night rise cool and gray 
 
 And nunlike, through the depths of calm. 
 
 Nor pause to ask how many times 
 The roses leaved to make so sweet 
 
 September, here among the limes. 
 
 Or there where fall and summer meet. 
 
 AN OLD GEORGIA MANOR HOUSE 
 
 In the awful hush of the midnight. 
 
 The doors slam; and to and fro, 
 From chamber to chamber and up the wide stair. 
 
 The noiseless dead people go. 
 Who lived in the house and were laid in their 
 coffins 
 
 On the oak trestles below. 
 
 The gray-haired veteran of Eutaw 
 
 Who shouldered his musket and marched; 
 
 He lay on the trestles in buckle and band. 
 And his white frill ruffled and starched. 
 
 His poor pinched features sharp in the dark. 
 And his blue lips shrivelled and parched. 
 
 And the swart young soldier done to his death, 
 
 In the night, by his own hand; 
 The blood trickle staining the linen cloth. 
 
 And the wretched bloody brand. 
 And splotching the floor, till they clouted it up 
 
 In the soaking, clotted sand. 
 
174 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Poor little babes ! Such small weak things, 
 Whose death cuts deep and sharp. 
 
 Had they but lived to be gray old men, 
 And elders, down in the dorp, 
 
 Could have told of the pilgrims who founded the 
 home. 
 In the day of Oglethorpe. 
 
 But the black shut chambers are hushed 
 
 All night, till the swathed moon. 
 Looks in the South windows, to see all clear. 
 
 And drive off the gray raccoon, 
 That thieves, in the shade of the old log walls, 
 
 By broad-bladed axes hewn. 
 
 Then the rocking-chair rocks and the doors slam, 
 
 The clock ticks loud and low; 
 It seems to talk to the ghosts downstairs; 
 
 Its gossip is heavy and slow. 
 Of what has been done since they went to bed. 
 
 In the graveyard down below. 
 
 The house dog hears them and howls 
 
 From his kennel under the sill; 
 Like the shuffle of feet that carry a corpse. 
 
 Blow the dry leaves harsh and shrill, 
 And a death cloud wraps up the moon, 
 
 Like a dead face stark and still. 
 
 But the gaunt pines, hoarse and low. 
 
 Like conventicles sour and grim. 
 With cloaks of gray moss over their heads. 
 
 Like soldiers of Hampden and Pym, 
 Thunder low basses the whole night long. 
 
 Of an old Moravian hymn. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 175 
 OVER THE SUGAR KETTLES* 
 
 De Lo'd, He in de cane row, gittin' out decane. 
 (Solo.) 
 Oh! Sinner! Oh! beware {chorus of all hands) . 
 De debbil in de cane stock, all his might and main . 
 (Solo.) 
 Oh, Sister! Don't you care! 
 
 De Lo'd, He got de cane knife cuttin' of de hill, 
 Oh! Sinner! Oh, beware! (Chorus of female 
 voices.) 
 T'row 'em on de hoss ca't; tote 'em to de milll 
 Oh! Sister! Don't you care. (Chorus of male 
 voices.) 
 
 Put 'em in de cane mill ; mash 'em mighty fine. 
 
 Oh! Sinner! Oh, beware! 
 Massa! How de juice run, Jesus make de wine. 
 
 Oh ! Sister ! Don't you care. 
 
 Mash 'em into burgass; t'row 'em in de flame, 
 
 Oh! Sinner! Oh, beware! 
 Jesus wid de drip spoon, scum away de shame. 
 
 Oh! Sister! Don't you care. 
 
 Bimeby, de bead come! Sugar in de gourd, 
 Oh! Sinner! Oh, beware! , 
 
 Make de milk an' honey fo' de chillen of de Lo'd 
 Oh! Sister, don't you care. 
 
 ♦Colored hands made a frolic of sugar making at night, 
 singing old hymns like 
 
 " Where Oh! Where is good old Daniel ? 
 Safe over in the Promised Land." 
 
176 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 THE ANGEL OF THE TWILIGHT 
 
 When the long evenings slanting grow. 
 In crystal rafters over the beach, 
 The roofs of Heaven are almost in reach, 
 
 As I think of my sorrow of long ago. 
 
 Once more an old grief comes and wrestles. 
 As Jacob wrestled at Jabbok's ford; 
 A dumb resistance, with never a word, 
 
 But the shadow burthening down the trestles. 
 
 And a long foreboding that seems to grieve, 
 Like the soldier who over his pallet hears. 
 The whisper of patient suffering years. 
 
 Before he is used to the empty sleeve. 
 
 As I kissed and cried over a cold, still face. 
 In her bridal robes, on her bridal bed. 
 And ever repeated. She is not dead; 
 
 She will come out of her nestling place. 
 
 With flashes of laughter and wreathing arms. 
 The maiden blush on cheeks of the wife; 
 She will come back to me, life in life. 
 
 In the dower of womanhood's bridal charms. 
 
 Or a coming step, I whisper is hers. 
 
 She sings the songs that she used to sing; 
 
 She comes like the blossom exhaling spring 
 Through the violet beds and the clover furze. 
 
 And the sweet, still dream shall her vigil keep, 
 The whole night long, as she nestles near, 
 Her warm breath fanning my cheek and ear. 
 
 As she lies in my loose light arms asleep. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 177 
 
 If I seek her by day, with the voice or hand, 
 It ends in a doleful even song, 
 Or the tale of an ancient forgotten wrong. 
 
 To children who do not understand. 
 
 But after the twilight sheds its bloom. 
 Far over the meadows about our home. 
 The unseen angel may go and come 
 
 And roll the stone from the mouth of the tomb. 
 
 She comes in the dews of a paradise, 
 
 A holy blessing about me steals; 
 
 I feel her presence as one that feels 
 The glow of light upon closed eyes. 
 
 So when the evenings slanting grow. 
 In crystal rafters over the beach. 
 The roofs of Heaven are almost in reach. 
 
 As I think of my sorrow of long ago. 
 
 THE LONG DREAM 
 
 The summer will come with a fresh perfume. 
 
 Where all the brown leaves are lying. 
 And the windy air, through the blush and bloom j 
 As a shuttle flies through a silken loom. 
 In the delicate foliage plying. 
 
 The morning will gather its beauty anew. 
 
 As sweet as in ghlhood's promise; 
 Of green and golden, and rose and blue. 
 To weave fresh violets out of the dew. 
 
 As bright as the ones stolen from us 
 
178 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 As I lie at ease, in my long repose, 
 
 All the beauty about me woven. 
 Like the cunning of sense, as it inward flows, 
 I shall feel in the blush that brightens the rose, 
 
 And the germ when its husk is cloven. 
 
 And the rootlets find their way underground 
 
 Through the toils of a season's malice; 
 Till I know how the coil of sense is wound 
 To the far-off stars, in the depths profound, 
 Where Earth seems a golden palace. 
 
 But you will not know of the watch I keep. 
 
 Where the flow of the senses all pass. 
 Like a dreamer, who hears the stir and creep 
 Of the wind, as he lightly lies asleep 
 Under the broad-leafed catalpas. 
 
 U. S. M. PASSENGER STEAMER 
 
 Mississippi River, A.D., 1855-'61 
 
 Where the black bayou pools 
 
 In flags and cypress stools, 
 
 It drops a dusky halo 
 
 In the opalescent shallow 
 
 That crowns, with somber dimness, 
 
 A steamer's hulk and chimneys; 
 
 As if the crevasse had caught her, 
 
 Docked in her coflSn, and hurried her. 
 
 In the arms of the pitiful water, 
 
 Into her grave and buried her, 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 179 
 
 The pastel painting mould, 
 
 In colors of slime and ooze, 
 
 Has laid their delicate hues 
 
 In panels of greenish gold; 
 
 And the vines, in the grand saloon. 
 
 Have woven a silk cocoon. 
 
 Like beds of the butterfly moth; 
 
 But the gray moss, has, over all, 
 
 Drawn a funereal pall 
 
 Of satiny, velvet cloth. 
 
 How changed, since the flying swallow tail 
 
 At her flagstaff was symbolical 
 
 Of the Pride of the river, chiding 
 
 The fat salt marsh of the bayou. 
 
 When the lords of the South came ariding 
 
 From the Gulf to the Falls of Ohio, 
 
 On business lively as pleasure ; 
 
 And the wealth of the gilded cabin 
 
 Was rich with a richer treasure 
 
 Than the Roman stole from the Sabine. 
 
 What has become of her master ? 
 What has become of her men ? 
 The damask and lambrequen 
 Ormalu and alabaster.^ 
 Her nostrils breathing benzen 
 When throes of her mighty engine 
 Made the chandeliers clink and shiver, 
 To the throttle's hollow diphthong. 
 And the coils of the sinuous river 
 Unwound like a flying whipthong. 
 As she blew a smoky streamer. 
 That pictured, photographic. 
 The bends of the river traflSc, 
 In the nose of a rival steamer. 
 
180 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 What if some night-worn pilot, 
 
 By New Cut, or low sand islet. 
 
 Hears the capstan song of her dead men; 
 
 The pant of her pistons churning. 
 
 The pat of her buckets turning, 
 
 And the long, slow cry of her lead men. 
 
 While he sees her headlight burning 
 
 In the bends of the old dead river. 
 
 As of old the bold Sir Bedivere 
 
 Saw the White Barge of the King come ; 
 
 And he swears a prayer or two. 
 
 Not for the national income. 
 
 Less than the Evangelists 
 
 Would care or dare e'er to. 
 
 Look at her strange passenger lists 
 
 Or the marvelously splendid 
 
 Cargos, she used to deliver. 
 
 On the banks of the old dead river. 
 
 The day of her glory ended 
 
 Captain and capstan song. 
 
 And the phantom she chased so long. 
 
 Ended her noble winnings, 
 That once set the river atalking. 
 The junk shop has scored her innings. 
 And the fungus is doing her caulking. 
 But the tall magnolias above her 
 Hang, like a mourning lover, 
 Dropping white immortelles 
 In the long, unbroken swells. 
 That picture, in polished emery, 
 Cut water to cabin spar. 
 Clear as a widowed memory, 
 The days before the war. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 181 
 ALWAYS 
 
 Let the plover pipe to his mate in the weeds; 
 
 The hart and the hind go play, 
 But the fowler lurks in the marshy reeds, 
 
 And the huntsman hides in the bay.* 
 
 The salmon may leap in a fringe of froth. 
 And the trout in the lake may laugh; 
 
 But the fisherman's net will have them both. 
 And cruel the barbed gaff. 
 
 The eagle may lift, like a rising shout, 
 
 To the very deeps of the sky. 
 But the whistling bullet will find him out, 
 
 Though he be ever so high. 
 
 If ever the blue sky wears a sun 
 
 That is glad in the light of day. 
 Then the sorrowing stars come, one by one, 
 
 And gather his glory away. 
 
 Or, if ever the heart is rich and strong. 
 
 As a bridegroom's first caress. 
 The Death grief comes with its cruel wrong, 
 
 And robs us of happiness. 
 
 Let the plover pipe to his mate in the weeds. 
 
 The hart and the hind go play. 
 But the fowler lurks in the marshy reeds. 
 
 And the huntsman hides in the bay. 
 
 *Bay is bayou, a Florida word for a cypress swamp. 
 
182 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 BLINDFOLDED 
 
 Two little white hands close over my eyes, 
 Tresses of brown hair touching my cheek; 
 
 A mad, merry voice in my ear, laughing, cries, 
 Who is it holds you now ? Answer me quick ! 
 
 Do I not know them ? The bonny red lips ? 
 
 Trim little waist in the calico gown? 
 Eyes and long lashes, where tremblingly slips 
 
 The lovelight so bashfully, tenderly down. 
 
 Do I not know them ? Ay, Love, I was blind 
 Ere the pretty ringed fingers came over my eyes 
 
 With a way of their own that has taught me to find 
 Every time that they touch me a sweeter sur- 
 prise. 
 
 CASTA DIVA 
 
 Cold, in womanhood's chaste deceit; 
 
 Passionless, pure, and singing alone. 
 Ere the wild white summer has reddened the wheat, 
 
 And the musk of the locust bloom is blown, 
 A slim cold sybil, singing of Death, 
 
 And Love and Honor and Duty; 
 Chiding the air with her fragrant breath. 
 
 And making a sin of her beauty. 
 
 Though her lips be sweeter than flowers of wine, 
 
 When it beads in the crimson sheath of glass, 
 If she loves me not, what pleasure is mine ? 
 
 It is but a violet hid in the grass. 
 To the wanton bee in his gold lace coat. 
 
 Whose violin wings are tuning. 
 In many a cooing and amorous note, 
 
 The bee to the blossom crooning. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 183 
 
 For she comes like the Morning's misty cloud 
 
 That leaves its print on the garden bed ; 
 On the Burgundy roses, grown more proud, 
 
 And the pink carnations, a deeper red ; 
 She goes, as sweet to the finger tip, 
 
 In her beauty, stately and chilly; 
 But for the geranium red of her lips, 
 
 As the white of a cold, still lily. 
 
 Oh! sweet cold victims, withering sweet, 
 
 The pale, pure flowers her fingers hold. 
 Plucked ere the honey was made complete, 
 
 In orchids, roses, and marigold. 
 Till she seems a sin, as her fingers mix. 
 
 The cold of her beauty rebuking. 
 The passion flowers and kiss-me-quicks, 
 
 That her eyes are overlooking. 
 
 Oh! sin of being so sweet a thing; 
 
 So passionless pure in her cold content, 
 A chill denial of sweetheart spring 
 
 And out of her beauty, insolent; . 
 A slim cold sibyl singing of Death 
 
 And Love and Honor and Duty, 
 Chiding the air with her fragrant breath 
 
 And making a sin of her beauty. 
 
 FLORIDA DAWN 
 
 The moon is low in the sky. 
 
 And a sweet south wind is blowing. 
 Where the bergamot blossoms breathe and die; 
 
 - In the orchard's scented snowing; 
 But the stars are few, and scattered lie, 
 Where the sinking rooon is going, 
 
184 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 With a love sweet ache, a strain 
 Of the night's deHcious fluting 
 
 Stirs in the air, with as sweet a pain 
 As the flower feels in fruiting; 
 • And the night air blows a breath of rain. 
 Over buds and tendrils shooting. 
 
 Sweet as the wedding oath. 
 
 Of the light and shadow sworn. 
 
 As the mist, like a great white cloth. 
 
 Draws out of the orchard and corn. 
 
 Out of her chamber, blush and loth. 
 
 Like a bride comes the dewy Morn. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF MELODY 
 
 The glitter and flush of beautiful hands 
 
 Over murmuring ivory keys ; 
 And a voice like ripples o'er rushes and sands, 
 
 Caught up by the freshening breeze. 
 That gathers and sparkles and flows from her lips. 
 
 Like the bubbles of pink champagne. 
 Till a thrill of elysium, the senses eclipse. 
 And the soul floats down, like unpiloted ships. 
 
 On the waves of the sweet refrain. 
 
 And the flash of the hands; the flow of the voice; 
 
 And the charm of the beautiful eyes. 
 Though fair as the songs in which angels rejoice, 
 
 In the purples of Paradise, 
 Have an echo of something the spirit once heard 
 
 Falling low on the listening ear. 
 When the first triumph of melody stirred, 
 Before ever music had wedded the word, 
 
 In the songs of a different sphere. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 185 
 
 BABY AND MUSTARD PLAYING BALL 
 
 Noon in the tropics, blue and bright, 
 Under the palm tree, stands upright. 
 The dew of the rainbow burns in the glare. 
 That leaves a dazzle and flash in the air; 
 And the breath of the fragrant mouth of June 
 Is sweet in the spices of afternoon. 
 Under the shaddock and lemon trees, 
 Grandpa dozes away at ease; 
 The partridge pea, in its crimson hood. 
 Is scattered about, like drops of blood 
 It slips in his slumber, and interweaves 
 A dream of the arrows parting the leaves; 
 And the gallant fellows who fell with Dade 
 In the reddened grass of the Everglade; 
 And the Colonel-Governor going to dine. 
 With his own blood red in the cups of wine. 
 
 The Ponceana, in panicles. 
 
 With a bu-d of Paradise plume and bells, 
 
 Is steeped in sun, and the petals hold 
 
 A tiny edging of scalloped gold. 
 
 Where the Cape Jesamines' scented snow. 
 
 Breathe a fragrance across the glow; 
 
 And the spice of the oleander flies 
 
 Under the lids of his sleepy eyes, 
 
 And the cypress vine has blown a score 
 
 Of scarlet bloom on the puncheon flow; 
 
 Over the porch and the rustic hall, 
 
 Where Baby and Mustard are playing ball; 
 
 Baby, a round little one-summer man. 
 
 And Mustard, a pickle of black and tan. 
 
186 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 A bright little rustic scene it is, 
 Of tropical beauty and homely bliss. 
 The sun-burnt Baby, as brown as a nut, 
 Tosses the ball in the broad log hut ; 
 And Mustard catches it, hand over hand. 
 And rolls outside with a bump on the sand, 
 While Grandpa dozes, and inly grieves. 
 In his dream, of the arrows parting the leaves, 
 While Baby backing on limber wrist. 
 Keeps holding the bone-rattle fast in his fist ; 
 And over the stoop with a stumble and fall. 
 For Baby and Mustard are playing ball. 
 
 Chubby and Saucy, my brave little man. 
 Collar and towsle the Black and Tan, 
 For he can bound and bounce like the ball, 
 While you, my little one, have to crawl. 
 Where the flowers and foliage fence you in 
 The porch, with the yellow jasmine. 
 But outside meadows show daflfydowndillies, 
 And all the lake margin is white with lilies, 
 Where the shadows of flying paroquets. 
 Green and gold, in the quivering heats. 
 Seem to plunge in the water, and skim. 
 By a cool delightful under swim, 
 Far under the nosing alligator. 
 Whose bubbling spine along the water 
 Startles the shadowy white Ergette 
 Out of the border of emerald wet. 
 While Grandpa dozes, and dreams again 
 That the old wound opens a fresh red stain ; 
 And knows not Baby has, on all fours. 
 Crept and tumbled quite out of doors. 
 Nor heeds the mockingbird's mimic call 
 Of Baby and Mustard playing ball. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 187 
 
 Spirea japonica, princess feather, 
 Dahlias and asters crammed together; 
 Lilac, laburnum, virgin's grace, 
 The passion flower in blue and lace. 
 Catch-fly, cockscomb, crimson ruffed; 
 Portulacca and candytuft; 
 Orchids, pinks, and anemones, 
 Myriad of phlox and argemonies. 
 Marigold, heartsease, violet. 
 Verbenas, pansies, and mignonette. 
 Sensitive plants and the rose of Sharon, 
 Adam's needle, and rod of Aaron, 
 Growing together, the wild and tame, 
 And more that the florist cannot name, 
 For every spear-grass shows a comb. 
 And weeds in flower are quite at home, 
 A jolly playground this for the man. 
 Playing at baU with the Black and Tan, 
 And Mamma away at her spinning wheel. 
 When Grandpa, shuddering, seems to feel, 
 The Indian's arrowhead scrape the bone, 
 And wakes with a sobbing sigh or groan. 
 Half conscious of all he sees or hears 
 Through the whispers of dropping conifers; 
 Wakes with a sudden glance and call 
 To Baby and Mustard playing ball. 
 
 For Baby, with crablike lurch and crawl. 
 And frisky Mustard have lost the ball. 
 Where out of the portulacca bed. 
 There shoots a cone-shaped scaly head. 
 The red blood curdles; the hard bones quake 
 At the skirr of the deadly rattlesnake. 
 Not a foot from the baby's chubby fist 
 
188 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 His clinched corals and limber wrist 
 Too late for help! No bullet could fly, 
 Before the little one has to die! 
 Oh! God of Mercy, how dread a screen 
 To draw before that beautiful scene. 
 All life and loveliness. At a breath 
 The shuddering horror of sudden death. 
 
 A little white dove whose tender plumes 
 First beat the air into feathery flumes 
 Plucked by a cruel hand, and the spit 
 Sent quivering, bleeding, quite through it; 
 A little white bud that is pulled apart 
 To the pink of its innocent, little heart, 
 That might have given us joy, we know, 
 Had it been left alone to blow; 
 All cruel things that we do each day. 
 Sum and complete themselves, by the way. 
 The coiled snake with its cusped fang 
 Out of the portulacca sprang. 
 
 Careless, unconscious, brave little one; 
 Tawny and ripe in the Florida sun; 
 Chubby and naked, with nutlike fist, 
 He strikes with a baby's random wrist. 
 And the coiled snake back in collisive battle 
 Strikes his poison fang — in the baby's rattle. 
 
 Te Deum Laudamus; a baser cause 
 Has roused and centered people's applause. 
 When a shouting army, in rank on rank. 
 Has crowded the churches just to thank 
 Their God, with a vocal and brazon din, 
 That He has permitted us all to sin. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 189 
 
 But stop, and stifle your glad surprise. 
 A Florida rattlesnake never flies ; 
 The beauty of swiftly recovered coil, 
 Sudden and smooth as the glide of oil 
 And the shuddering beat of that deadly hum 
 Is the rattlesnake's sallying tenor drum. 
 
 Courage, little one, chubby and tough! 
 But surely now, you have done enough; 
 Not with your baby and naked hands 
 To grapple the speckled thing in the sands. 
 While Grandpa's shout and Mamma's scream 
 Burst like life in a startled dream. 
 Too late! But Mustard has heard the call 
 And goes for the snake, instead of the ball. 
 
 Tug and twist; and a sudden jerk. 
 Bravo! Mustard has done the work; 
 Limp, with life beginning to fail, 
 Down to the tip of its rattle tail. 
 While Grandpa powders away at its head. 
 And slaughters — the portulacca bed. 
 
 And this, I gather, will do for all. 
 Of Baby and Mustard playing ball, 
 In the fragrant Florida afternoon. 
 And the juicy beauty of spicy June. 
 And like the snake, to end with a tail. 
 One dog in the world there is : Not for Sale. 
 
 Jesus who loveth and chasteneth; 
 Some to Mercy and some to Death; 
 Blessed are they who receive His grace 
 And in their little ones see His face. 
 
190 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 THE MOORINGS 
 
 Moored out in the bay! 
 And slowly under her keel, 
 The long wave seems to feel ; 
 To crawl and feel its way, 
 As if her stem might rip 
 The smooth photogeny, 
 Of the picture of the ship 
 In the hollow of the sea. 
 
 Only twice a day 
 
 The short tide comes and goes. 
 
 Crunching under her toes. 
 
 Muttering and coughing; 
 
 And, lazily enough, 
 
 About her, in the offing, 
 
 The sun and shadows luff. 
 
 About the great white ships; 
 The burly tugs and ferries; 
 The fishing smacks and wherries, 
 And the little sandy slips. 
 She sees their shadows clear. 
 By one, by two, by three, 
 Appear and disappear 
 In the hollow of the sea. 
 
 What has become of her master, 
 What has become of her men ? 
 Shall the bo's'n never again 
 Beat up to quarters, or cast her 
 Dipsy lead in the shallow. 
 To a sort of nasal tune. 
 Larded with talk and tallow 
 In the bight of the afternoon ? 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 191 
 
 Shall one never see 
 Her as she used to be, 
 One solid sheet of bloom, 
 From her foretop studding sail 
 Down to her channel rail ; 
 Aft to her spanker boom. 
 Fore to her flying jibs, 
 Flower out her ribs. 
 White as a lily buds, 
 Out of the salt sea suds ? 
 
 Shall she never salt her 
 Timbers in old traflfic, 
 Down the coast of Afric, 
 Sailing from Gibraltar 
 Round by Mozambique? 
 Shall she never speak 
 Sampan rafts afloat; 
 The lean-toothed sloop of war ? 
 Or home bound, the Pilot Boat, 
 At the break of the harbor bar ? 
 
 Or when the scuds of clouds 
 
 Blacken the night with rain. 
 
 Feel her timbers strain 
 
 From truck to futtock shrouds 
 
 To run the sharp blockade. 
 
 With the Federal gunboats at her 
 
 Bursting a cannonade, 
 
 In the hiss of the driving water! 
 
 Never! Her day is over. 
 Of war and tempest and gain. 
 No more shall the lusty strain 
 Start in the old sea rover; 
 
192 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 The crack of the canvas snapping, 
 The shouts of the men; the souse 
 Of the salt brine barking and flapping 
 And poppling under her bows. 
 
 Never! Her rotting brails 
 Sag down from the yard ; 
 The mildew is on her sails ; 
 The shellfish crusts a shard 
 Over her copper legging, 
 As, limed in the ooze she waits, 
 Like Belisarius begging 
 At the conquered city's gates. 
 
 THE NORTHERN SNOW 
 
 An exile to the pine and palm, 
 
 I see the far-winged summer brood, 
 
 In azure depths of endless calm 
 Above a spice-breathed solitude. 
 
 And ample breadths of bloom unfurled. 
 As sweet as that voluptuous South, 
 
 When Antony gave the Roman world 
 For Egypt's Cleopatra mouth. 
 
 All things of sound and sense appear 
 To breathe of nothing but content, 
 
 As if, unheeded through the year, 
 
 The vagrant seasons came and went. 
 
 Yet often, when I hear the rain. 
 In fleecy vapors whisper low. 
 
 Like ghosts before my window pane. 
 My heart would leap to see the snow. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 193 
 
 To see across the frozen meres 
 
 In chalk and crayon's black and white, 
 
 The river hills through atmospheres, 
 Wind-blown, in dazzle points of light. 
 
 The smothered roofs that lie below 
 The little wreaths of thin blue smoke, 
 
 Where dodder holds handfuls of snow 
 Above them on its mother oak. 
 
 In smooth white level lies the croft, 
 A mound of snow, the boxwood shines 
 
 Still sweep the trowels, white and soft. 
 In sloping curves and sweeping lines. 
 
 Soft flurries, as a shadow blurs 
 The page in passing, light and fleet, 
 
 Of soft warm faces wrapped in furs. 
 Of faces passing on the street. 
 
 I see them through the falling rain. 
 
 Through all the years that lie between 
 Like ghosts before the window pane 
 
 Among the musk and evergreen. 
 
 Old boyhood friends ; the fair young wife 
 Who watched with me, so long ago, 
 
 As if across another life 
 
 Among the softly falling snow. 
 
 While yearning under pine and palm 
 
 The winds do chide uncounted hours. 
 Whose unspent summers dull the calm 
 . In soft still utterances of Flowers. 
 
194 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 TROUT FISHING 
 
 'Tis twenty years! Do you remember. 
 When, boy and girl, we stole the skiff, 
 And went afishing one September? 
 The lake so clear, it was as if 
 Upborne on Love's delicious leaven. 
 We floated in a pure midheaven, 
 With clouds of lilies for a border. 
 The fragrant summer seemed to ache, 
 In blossom, for dear passion's sake. 
 Excessive with its sweet disorder. 
 In you, too, was the fond distress, 
 Of flush and fear and happiness. 
 Caresses by caress unhanded, 
 Till fingers mated on the rail, 
 I thought the very trout could feel 
 The double spoil was caught and landed. 
 
 Alas! that Love, which we remember. 
 Blush-ripe, as all those wanton weeds. 
 Should be a blossom of September, 
 Born guiltless of the promise seeds; 
 A dying thing, whose only duty 
 Was clothing Life in forms of beauty. 
 For though I held you in my arms. 
 As full of honey, in your charms. 
 As when the trefoil holds the clover. 
 Your fingers, tutored in a thimble, 
 In playing trout, were found so nimble, 
 You caught the fish, and cast the lover. 
 
 Yet often, since we slipped the books. 
 To play for life with baited hooks, 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 195 
 
 In pools less pure, do I remember 
 That fragile blossom of September, 
 Born guiltless of the promise seeds — 
 A dying thing whose only duty 
 Was clothing life in forms of beauty, 
 As a pretty novice in her beads, 
 With heaven above and heaven below it; 
 Our lives have grown to other needs; 
 Our boat lies rotting in the weeds 
 And we can neither raise nor row it. 
 
 THE OLD MILL 
 
 Live and Die; Live and Die! 
 
 And all the weary, weary years go by; 
 
 And the quaint old mill stands still; 
 The sun-mixed shade, like a spotted snake. 
 Lies haK hidden in the bosky brake. 
 
 And half across the rill. 
 
 The summer comes, and the winter comes; 
 The flower blooms, and the striped bee hums, 
 
 And the old mill stands in the sun; 
 The lichen curls from the walls aloof. 
 And the rusty nails, from the ragged roof 
 
 Drop daily, one by one. 
 
 The long grass grows in the shady pool. 
 Where lazy cattle used to come to cool, 
 
 And the rotting wheel stands still; 
 The gray owl winks in the granary loft. 
 And the sly rat slinks, with a pitpat soft. 
 
 From the hopper of the quaint old mill. 
 
196 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 The mill wheel clicked and the mill wheel clacked, 
 And the groaning grooves once creaked and 
 cracked, 
 
 And the children came and played; 
 The lazy team, in the days of yore, 
 Munched their fodder at the old mill door, 
 
 And drowsed in the grateful shade. 
 
 But the miller died, the good wife died, 
 And the children all went far and wide; 
 
 From the playground by the dam; 
 Their marble ring is grass o'ergrown. 
 As the mossy foot of the old gravestone. 
 
 Where the old folks sleep so calm. 
 
 Yet the miller's son, in the city thick, 
 Dreams that he hears the old mill click, 
 
 And sees the wheel go round ; 
 And the miller's daughter, through her half-shut 
 
 eyes, 
 Can see her father, in his dusty guise. 
 
 And the place where the corn was ground. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF THE CONFEDERATE 
 DEAD 
 
 Read before Camp 54, Confederate Veterans , 
 June 17, 1900, at Orlando, Orange Co., Fla. 
 
 Sons of the old heroic South! 
 
 Uplifted on her warriors' shields, 
 
 In the dun smoke of the cannon's mouth 
 
 Over a hundred battlefields 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 197 
 
 Honor and Welcome! Here you are. 
 Who, in courage and comradeship, 
 Ere beard had grown on cheek and lip. 
 Followed yon flag through four years* war. 
 In battle and bivouac. 
 
 Though no more, 
 She calls her children, man by man, 
 To tread war's dreadful threshing floor; 
 No more those colors in the van; 
 Rich as the mists of morning, drawn 
 Across the sunbeam's triple bar. 
 Forebodes the war clouds' stormy dawn; 
 The batteries burst; the prickly jar 
 Of musketry; the rolling fire. 
 The battle yell, and slow retire 
 And rally of the stubborn foe. 
 Dissolving like the Northern snow, 
 In frozen clots, that will not flow, 
 As in the fire and sweat of blood 
 Our flowers of victory burst the bud. 
 And now as long as lives endure 
 The memory of that glorious past, 
 While comrades' names grow fewer and fewer 
 Shall answer the roll call to the last. 
 
 Born of Hope in a valley of tears. 
 It marshaled the Southern cavaliers 
 Over many a slippery field of blood, 
 Under Lee and Longstreet, Jackson, Hood. 
 It rode with Ashby, Stuart, Forrest, 
 A rallying point when need was sorest; 
 In Shiloh's battle where Johnston died. 
 In the arms of victory, and astride 
 Morgan and Mosby's plump of spears. 
 
198 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Tumbling army trains by the ears. 
 
 A welcome beacon that flashed and swam 
 
 Over Hill's red shirt, at Antietam; 
 
 Or punctured, riddled, split in half 
 
 A symbol still on its broken staff, 
 
 As when Joe Johnston's whip-poor-wills 
 
 Were whistling in the Georgia hills, 
 
 And the fierce light of war's rivalry 
 
 Fell broad and bright on the Southern Cause 
 
 To show that our Southern chivalry 
 
 In the manner of moral training was 
 
 All that a manly race should be. 
 
 Whose type is the stainless name of Lee, 
 
 For every thread of the banner wove 
 
 By woman's hands and woman's love, 
 
 Consecrated her soldier's cause 
 
 Till all that is noble in Life, it was. 
 
 The staff is broken; the bayonets rust; 
 And Honor sleeps in heroic dust. 
 That moulders on many a battlefield 
 With the broken sword and shattered shield. 
 The ramparts pressed by her soldiers' feet 
 When the bay was crushed by a hostile fleet 
 And our cities smitten with iron sleet. 
 Have sunk in deserted weedy ponds. 
 Green with the cannons' mouldering bronze. 
 But the swelling spirit that reached the sky, 
 Was the seed of God and cannot die. 
 A cause may fail in the civil strife. 
 But never the spirit that gave it life. 
 
 Sometimes quarrying in the rocks 
 That have survived the earthquake shocks. 
 And nations sunk into nameless dust; 
 We find, on the solid upturned crust. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 199 
 
 The print of a fern leaf's filmy web 
 
 As perfect in delicate spore and neb, 
 
 Fibre and meshes, as when it grew 
 
 A breath of the summer's sun and dew, 
 
 Thousands of centuries ago, 
 
 While mountains have melted away like snow. 
 
 So wonderful are the ways of God, 
 
 Who keepeth His record in the sod, 
 
 Although a name be writ in the sand 
 
 As the frame of a brave heroic deed, 
 
 Like His seal in the rock of the fragile weed, 
 
 'Tis the letter of His own hand. 
 
 While grass grows and the waters run 
 In the light that lives in the Southern sun, 
 The very ground, like a written scroll. 
 Scarped and terraced in ditch and knoll. 
 Shall mark the places of battles won; 
 And trench and pit, like a soldier's scar. 
 Shall be memorials of the war. 
 As close as a closely written page. 
 In letters of war in its wasting fever 
 Engraved in lead in the rock forever 
 The tale of the South's Heroic Age. 
 
 Queen of the South! our native land 
 Crowned in summits of jeweled snow 
 From the shouldering hills to the silver sand 
 In the golden bowl of Mexico, 
 She gathers and scatters with liberal hand 
 An hour's wealth in each fruitful minute 
 With a bounty that has " No winter in it.'* 
 Wherever she presses her sandaled feet 
 The flower blooms and the air is sweet. 
 With pomegranate musk and orange bloom 
 
200 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 As vases of roses fill a room. 
 
 Our nursing Mother though laws forbid 
 
 The Cause we love, and the deeds we did 
 
 Under her flag and in her name, 
 
 All we fought for is just the same. 
 
 In whatever color invasions come, 
 
 The men who fight 
 To the bitter end for the hearth and home, 
 
 Are always right. 
 
 At The Graves. 
 
 With arms reversed and muffled drums 
 The old victorious army comes 
 From Manassas and Bentonville 
 To those who are survivors still. 
 The order of the day is read : 
 " Camp 54 to bury the dead." 
 The ghostly drum beat in our ears, 
 The cavalry bugle ebbs and swells, 
 Eyes dim with unforgetting tears. 
 We scatter the holy asphodels. 
 
 THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE DOE 
 
 A Legend of Spanish Florida 
 
 How sweet above the placid Ays, 
 
 The rainbow mists dissolve and shiver, 
 
 When first the morning's early rays, 
 In shifting colors, clothe the river. 
 
 The wild hydrangeas nod and dip; 
 
 The water lilies choke the shallows ; 
 The spider sails his painted ship 
 
 In archipelagoes of mallows. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 201 
 
 The spoonbill blushes to the quill. 
 In mid leg musings in the water; 
 The trout, in parlors cool and still, 
 |\Lies hidden from the busy otter. 
 
 The jasmine bugles blow a rhyme. 
 Across the wind and water vagrance, 
 
 As if distilled in bowls of thyme 
 
 An ancient love song turned to fragrance. 
 
 And all is fair as in the days 
 
 When, slim and feathered, like her arrows, 
 The White Doe saw, across the Ays, 
 
 The Spaniard riding down the narrows. 
 
 Old ways go out, as seasons fall, 
 The rosary drives the zuni feather; 
 
 But Love's the cord that runs through all, 
 And holds the beads of prayer together. 
 
 Pea-blossoms blew, and trumpet flower; 
 
 The spring was sweeting for the farmer, 
 When to her door, in evil hour. 
 
 The Spaniard rode in shining armor. 
 
 He wore the Pine and Paroquet 
 
 Embroidered on his shield and pennon. 
 
 The golden spurs were on his feet. 
 His bugle baldric white as linen. 
 
 He kissed the gourd she held to him. 
 
 Their hands, their lips were pressed together 
 
 He crossed the ford where lilies swim, 
 And vanished like a floating feather. 
 
202 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 She heard his carol faintly float 
 
 Away across the border sedges, 
 And die, on many an amorous note, 
 
 Along the rivers willowy hedges. 
 
 A kiss ! How small ; how sweet a thing ! 
 
 It thrilled her, like a field of clover. 
 That feels the lips of light in Spring, 
 
 And breaks in red and white all over. 
 
 She saw him, as on placid Ays, 
 
 The rainbow mists dissolve and shiver, 
 
 When first the morning's early rays 
 In shifting colors clothe the river. 
 
 He could not be a mortal born; 
 
 He came so strange; he shone so brightly; 
 His wonder steed ; his bugle horn ; 
 
 His bearded lip that kissed so lightly. 
 
 Wherefore she built herself a shrine 
 To Phoebus and the Zuni feather. 
 
 And sang the Paroquet and Pine 
 
 In cooing hymns to summer weather. 
 
 Now in those days sought bigot Spain, 
 From Cofachi to Carlos hatchee, 
 
 By cross and fagot, to restrain 
 The worship of the Apalache. 
 
 The wild knight of the Paroquet, 
 
 Would God, he met our good Sir Walter, 
 
 Like levin bolt and scaur in wheat, 
 O'erthrew in scorn her simple altar. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 203 
 
 When kneeling at his feet she prayed ; 
 
 God man, or God, or more than human! 
 " Save me from shame, a simple maid, 
 
 For you are strong, and I am woman." 
 
 In vain she prayed. But now to June 
 By Zodiac paths of stars ascended; 
 
 The Sun, throned high in Afternoon, 
 
 Looked down the radiant deeps, offended. 
 
 As berries are of blossoms reaped 
 
 By force, transforming and impassioned, 
 
 To silver hoofs her hands were shaped, 
 And in the Doe her form was fashioned. 
 
 But as the caitiff knight drew off, 
 Apalled by such metempsychoses ! 
 
 The sunbeams smote his metal coif. 
 And coiled him like the rod of Moses. 
 
 " Blind to Love's voice, accursed Thing ! 
 
 Your portion be to guard and follow, 
 Until the shifting season's bring, 
 
 A mate for her who loves Apollo. 
 
 Three hundred times the orange bloom 
 Has blown in bubble gold its juices; 
 
 Three hundred times in song's perfume 
 The jasmine bugles sounded truces. 
 
 And still the White Doe wears the form 
 And nature of her timid fashion; 
 
 The rattlesnake still sounds alarm. 
 And all who see her burn with passion. 
 
204 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 But when her lover shall appear, 
 Once more will rise the Zuni feather. 
 
 The corn grow fuller in the ear, 
 
 And Red and White lie down together. 
 
 The Ays: There has been confusion in identify- 
 ing this river of the old chronicles. In the Ap- 
 lachi, the meaning Ays or Aisa, is a deer, by which 
 the region now known as Orange County was 
 meant. The river was probably the Oklewaha, or 
 the Kissiommee, later names given by the Seminole. 
 
 The Zuni feather was a symbol of religious 
 mystery. 
 
 The esteem in which this noble adventurer 
 was held by the Indians, no less than his cotem- 
 poraries in Europe, is shown in Hackluyt, the 
 compte rendu and Kingsley's essay. His name 
 was the promised refuge from oppressions of 
 Spain until it passed into a sort of myth or super- 
 stition. 
 
 To hunt the White Doe is to go on an unat 
 tainable pursuit. 
 
 MILKING TIME 
 
 The Sun is low and the sky is red. 
 
 Over meadows in rick and mow; 
 And out of the lake-grass, overfed. 
 
 The cattle are winding slow. 
 A milky fragrance about them breathes, 
 
 As they loiter, one by one. 
 Over the fallow, and out of the sheathes. 
 
 Of the lake-grass in the sun; 
 And hark, in the distance, the cattle bells, 
 How drowsily they steal; 
 16, Redpepper, Brindle, Browny, and Barleymeal. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 205 
 
 From standing in shadowy pools at noon, 
 
 With the water udder deep. 
 In the sleepy rivers of drowsy June, 
 
 With the skies above asleep; 
 Not a leaf astir on orange or oak, 
 
 And the palm flower thirsting in halves, 
 They wait for the signs of the falling smoke 
 
 And the evening bleat of the calves 
 And hark, in the distance, the cattle bells, how 
 
 drowsily they peal ! 
 16, Redpepper, Brindle, Browny, and Barleymeal. 
 
 Oh! wife whose wish still lingers and grieves. 
 
 In the chimes that go and come; 
 For Peace and Rest in the twilight eves. 
 
 When the cattle are coming home ; 
 How little we knew, in the deepening shades, 
 
 How far our ways would lie; 
 My own alone in the everglades. 
 
 And your home there in the sky; 
 And how I would linger alone in the old fa- 
 miliar peal, 
 16, Redpepper, Brindle, Browny, and Barleymeal. 
 
 THE BURIED HOPE 
 
 Fold down its little baby hands; 
 
 It is a hope you had of old. 
 Fillet the brow with rosy bands. 
 
 And kiss its locks of shining gold. 
 Somewhere, within the reach of years. 
 
 Another hope may come, like this. 
 But this poor babe is gone in tears. 
 
 With thin, white lips, cold to thy kiss. 
 
206 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 In summer, a little wreath of flowers ; 
 
 In winter, a little drift of snow; 
 And this is all, through all the hours. 
 
 Of the promise perished long ago. 
 So every heart holds one dear grave. 
 
 Close hidden under its joy or care, 
 Till over it winds of memory wave, 
 
 And lay the little headstone bare. 
 
 THE BERGAMOT BLOSSOM 
 
 We had no other gifts to give. 
 But just one withering flower; 
 
 We had no other lives to live, 
 But just that one half hour; 
 
 So small, so sweet, its freight of musk 
 
 Makes fragrant all life's after dusk. 
 
 For this, the summer toiled and spun. 
 With fairy fingers silken shot. 
 
 Till moonlight's milky threads had run. 
 In the scented, creamy bergamot. 
 
 That gives one dear, remembered hour, 
 
 The fragrance of the orange flower. 
 
 Through love and parting this remains 
 A memory, like a faint perfume. 
 
 More dear than all life's loss and gains, 
 About a withering orange bloom. 
 
 Whose fading leaves of dusky green. 
 
 Do say how sweet life might have been. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 207 
 IDLE WORDS 
 
 Oh! say not idle words are like 
 
 A wind track on the sea, 
 For oft a wandering chord may strike 
 
 The heart's deep mystery; 
 And tears, that prayers could not call up. 
 
 Flow, as if strangely stirred. 
 The fountain of the heart's full cup 
 
 Ran over at a word. 
 
 For idle words that fell unwatched. 
 
 May rise in after years. 
 With feeling song has never matched. 
 
 And eloquence of tears. 
 May breathe a thought whose lightest tone. 
 
 From coldness or the grave. 
 Brings one whose life or love alone 
 
 We would have died to save. 
 
 Then think not idle words are lost. 
 
 For oh! they may return. 
 With feeling time has guarded most 
 
 Within her sacred urn; 
 They fall, like Undine's, careless tears 
 
 Among the Danube's whirls. 
 To be regained in after years, 
 
 A diadem of pearls. 
 
208 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 Paul Hamilton Hayne : Obiit. July 7, 1886 
 
 No battle note or pomp of arms reversed; 
 
 No tuck of drum shall be his last requiem. 
 But in our hearts his memory is hearsed, 
 
 And in our love we build his mausoleum. 
 
 The pure in heart ! As little children hear 
 
 In the still night the purling of some fountain 
 
 Lulling their dreams, come like the messenger 
 Whose feet are beautiful upon the mountain. 
 
 So, to Life's troubled dream, his songs have given 
 Preludes of higher themes, as if the proem 
 
 Of songs the great archangel sings in heaven 
 Lived in his verse, and made his life a poem. 
 
 JIMMY'S WOOING 
 
 The wind came blowing out of the West 
 
 As Jimmy mowed the hay; 
 The wind came blowing out of the west, 
 It stirred the green leaves out of their rest, 
 And rocked the bluebird up in his nest, 
 
 As Jimmy mowed the hay. 
 
 The swallows skimmed along the ground. 
 
 As Jimmy mowed the hay; 
 The swallows skimmed along the ground 
 And rustling leaves made a pleasant sound. 
 Like children babbling all around, 
 
 While Jimmy mowed the hay. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 209 
 
 Milly came with her bucket by — 
 
 And Jimmy mowed the hay — 
 Milly came with her bucket by, 
 With wee light foot, so trim and sly, 
 And sunburnt cheek and laughing eye, 
 
 As Jimmy mowed the hay. 
 
 A rustic Ruth in linsey gown — 
 
 And Jimmy mowed the hay — 
 A rustic Ruth in linsey gown ; 
 He watched the soft cheeks changing brown. 
 And the long dark lash that trembled down. 
 
 Whenever he looked that way. 
 
 And Milly's heart was good as gold. 
 
 As Jimmy mowed the hay; 
 Oh! Milly's heart was good as gold, 
 But Jimmy thought her shy and cold ; 
 And more he thought he never told. 
 
 As Jimmy mowed the hay. 
 
 The wind came gathering up his bands. 
 
 As Jimmy mowed the hay. 
 The wind came gathering up his bands. 
 With the clouds and lightning in his hands. 
 And a shadow covering all the lands 
 
 As Jimmy mowed the hay. 
 
 The rain came pattering down amain, 
 
 Where Jimmy mowed the hay; 
 The rain came pattering down amain. 
 And under a thatch of the laden wain, 
 Jimmy and Milly, a cunning twain. 
 
 Sat sheltered by the hay. 
 
210 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 For Milly nestled to Jimmy's breast, 
 
 Under the thatch of hay — 
 For Milly nestled to Jimmy's breast, 
 A wild bird fluttering home to nest. 
 And then, I swear, she looked her best, 
 
 Under a thatch of hay. 
 
 For when the Sun came laughing out 
 
 Over the ruined hay; 
 And when the sun came laughing out 
 Milly had ceased to pet and pout. 
 And twittering birds began to shout 
 
 As if for a wedding day. 
 
 FALLEN LEAVES 
 
 The dying summer had spilled its blood. 
 
 Oh ! the beautiful weather ! 
 On all the oak leaves in the wood, 
 
 As we went out together. 
 
 The partridge sprang from the yellowing corn. 
 
 Oh! the beautiful weather; 
 And sang the song of a bridal morn. 
 
 As we went out together. 
 
 The wind came gathering up her band. 
 
 Oh! the fickle weather! 
 Like mourners following, hand in hand. 
 
 As we came home together. 
 
 The red leaves tumbled among the rocks; 
 
 The cruel, cruel weather, 
 Like birds shot bleeding out of flocks. 
 
 As we came home together. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 211 
 
 The cold rain sobs on the fallen leaves 
 
 And over the sodden heather; 
 A lonesome heart that sighs and grieves 
 
 Knows it is wintry weather. 
 
 COASTING FROM BARBADOES 
 
 Coasting from Barbadoes ; 
 
 My love is a bed of roses; 
 
 Coasting from Barbadoes, 
 
 As the pomegranate evening closes, 
 
 She comes, with her maids, to the leafy coves. 
 
 Smooth in the shallows, and sweet as cloves. 
 
 Where the shade all day reposes. 
 
 Coasting from Barbadoes, 
 
 She bares her feet in the sand, 
 
 And the sweet girl laughter comes and goes 
 
 Back from the sea and land. 
 
 It comes to the ship in the violet dusk. 
 
 Like slips of orange and landward musk. 
 
 Of Indus and Sarmacand. 
 
 Coasting from Barbadoes, 
 
 Oh! ripple that left the ship. 
 
 You will toy and play on the buds of rose 
 
 And die on her fragrant lip ; 
 
 But what has a reefer who sails the sea 
 
 To do with such a beauty as she; 
 
 A delicate Eden slip ! 
 
 Coasting from Barbadoes 
 A fin's flash in the dark! 
 
212 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 A waister cries, as it dips and shows, 
 " Lower away for the shark! 
 But a reefer plunges before he speaks. 
 And rises among the girlish shrieks. 
 Nimble and lithe and stark. 
 
 Coasting from Barbadoes, 
 
 The tall ships come and go, 
 
 As I think of the time I plunged and rose 
 
 In the round little cove below. 
 
 Snatching a wife from the hungry bay, 
 
 A blush of love in the dying day, 
 
 Of the summers of long ago. 
 
 THE PHANTOM TRAIN 
 
 At the dead of the night, the dead of the night. 
 
 There's a sound along the rails, 
 The clank and creak of a whirling crank, 
 
 Like the flapping of iron flails. 
 
 With the long low roll that heralds a storm, 
 
 Over sunburnt fields of grain ; 
 With the sullen roar of rain in the wood 
 
 Comes the invisible train. 
 
 It stops nor stays by station or town. 
 
 But sweeps, in its viewless flight. 
 To a city whose beautiful walls are hewn 
 
 From the splendid quarries of light. 
 
 Unseen, from the silent land it comes. 
 Where the mists lie, low and deep. 
 
 In the beating pulses like muffled drums, 
 ^Ybile the passengers wake or sleep. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 213 
 
 And dream till the morning white and cold 
 
 Comes out of the shining east 
 And breaks the Lazarus sleep of night, 
 
 With a touch as of God's high priest. 
 
 THE TRANSIT OF VENUS 
 
 And as we walked, that summer night. 
 She chided me, because I told her*; 
 
 Oh! kiss me, love, beneath their light, 
 Before the moon and stars are older. 
 
 Was it to see the bridegroom moon 
 Fill all the skies with loving splendor, 
 
 She raised her eyes, that night of June, 
 So darkly gray and brightly tender. 
 
 For as the moonlight kissed those eyes, 
 And drew its scarf about her shoulder, 
 
 We tasted dews of Paradise, 
 
 Before the moon and stars were older. 
 
 THE PARTING SOUL 
 
 Kctrat KaXos *A8<i)ns ctt' (opecri 
 
 — Dirge of Adonis. 
 
 Alas! poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio, 
 A fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy. 
 He hath borne me on his back a thousand times. 
 — Hamlet, Act V, scene i. 
 
 Last night, by some unconscious sense, 
 
 I felt the spirit leave the clay ; 
 
 Before my sight, this body lay, 
 In all its helpless impoteiicet 
 
214 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Around me swam all sweet desires 
 Of life fulfilled, and at an end, 
 I saw the past and present blend 
 
 In one, like flames of wedded fires. 
 
 No more to do : All work was done. 
 
 Henceforth my spirit clove through space. 
 And stood with Wisdom, face to face. 
 
 With all its final conquests won. 
 
 No more removed, but purified, 
 
 It joined the conscious chain of sense, 
 That springs from All-Intelligence 
 
 In the I am, uncrucified. 
 
 A larger influence moved it on. 
 
 Above the plain of Pride and Pelf, 
 In that complete increase of Self, 
 
 That gathers all, through all, in One. 
 
 It had no need to speak or move; 
 It had no wishes to fulfil. 
 For all things lay within its will, 
 
 And all of love, for it was Love. 
 
 But there the helpless body lay. 
 
 How pitiful! How cold and pale! 
 The fetters and the broken jail. 
 
 All windowless, and cold and gray. 
 
 No more to ache or grieve or cry. 
 
 No more to suffer or to think; 
 
 No more to eat or sleep or drink; 
 No more to wake; no more to die. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 215 
 
 And yet how pitiful it was; 
 
 The blue white lips and stiffened form, 
 That once had been so sweet and warm, 
 
 Within its little round of laws. 
 
 I almost wished to die for it. 
 
 For it had been so true to me; 
 
 So free of gall or jealousy; 
 So full of laugh and simple wit. 
 
 And now! A poor weak thing like that, 
 
 Believed unworthy of the light; 
 
 And to be hidden out of sight; 
 A trampled clod; a bruised mat. 
 
 A lump of clay; a thing rejected. 
 
 Or fit to feed the garden mould. 
 
 And grow again, in green and gold. 
 Of its sweet nature imperfected. 
 
 Not to be thought of or compared. 
 But look you, now: I can remember. 
 Some twoscore years ago, the ember 
 
 Of baby life became ensphered. 
 
 And all the days of childhood hide 
 In efflorescence, happier. 
 With this, my little playmate here, 
 
 Than I could tell you, if I tried. 
 
 Those poor cold feet of straitened look 
 Have climbed the apple trees for me. 
 And I scarce higher than your knee. 
 
 Or, barefoot, paddled in the brook. 
 
216 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Those arms have clasped a mother's breast; 
 
 That tongue about a father's knee 
 
 Has prattled of the life to be, 
 So sweet, although so poor at best. 
 
 That cold and unresponsive brain 
 
 Has, through the ever-quenched eyes, 
 Its service borne, to make me wise, 
 
 In cells and chambers full of pain. 
 
 And just for what ? Not Self, but me ! 
 
 Some idle honor lost or won. 
 
 Enough to know its part was done, 
 And I was happy, just to be. 
 
 How wan the poor thing is. I would 
 That I could close the cold, sad eyes 
 That never more will see the skies, 
 
 Or kiss the lips so shrunk and blued. 
 
 I do not praise its form or grace, 
 
 Or make it other than I see; 
 
 Worn out in service, all for me; 
 And dear because she loved its face. 
 
 Pale Self, I kiss thee, so subdued, 
 Lest of thy heart, some bitter herb 
 Should grow up rankly, and disturb 
 
 Man with infused ingratitude. 
 
 Of all that's true, thou wert the truest; 
 
 Of all that's kind, thou wast most kind; 
 
 My perfect image was thy mind 
 In what I am, and what thou knewest. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 217 
 
 Now to be rich and strong and use 
 The general gift of conscious sense, 
 That runs through Nature, I go hence, 
 
 Half traitor; then a voice said : Choose! 
 
 All things flow out from God and back, 
 In one full circle. Nothing grows 
 But in the current Life that flows 
 
 From Him; and yet there is no lack. 
 
 And as my married lips in breath, 
 Kissed the cold clay, the life insped, 
 And like a whisper, something said : 
 
 This spirit was not ripe for Death. 
 
 THE GOLDEN WEDDING 
 
 Come, sit thee down, my gentle love, 
 
 So many Mays have come. 
 And gone, since those old courtship days, 
 
 Before we made our home, 
 I hardly realize the doubts 
 
 And fears that vexed me then. 
 Is there no echo in your heart 
 
 Of those old days again ? 
 
 How long we were apart. It seemed, 
 
 So strange to come together; 
 The long sad miles that lay between, 
 
 Of fair and stormy weather; 
 The letters often read, and words, 
 
 So precious to the heart. 
 And now! It is as strange to think 
 
 We ever were apart. 
 
218 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 I see some broken trinkets yet 
 
 Given in those sweet old days, 
 You cherish them as if they were 
 
 Links of that time always. 
 I saw you yesterday take up 
 
 An old gift of those years, 
 And kiss the faded face and frame, 
 
 With strange and tender tears. 
 
 And this poor picture of yourself, 
 
 Worn on my heart so long; 
 The memory of the day 'twas given 
 
 Is sweet as some old song. 
 Some sweet old song, that's incomplete. 
 
 In notes and broken bars. 
 As if a half had gone to heaven, 
 
 To sing among the stars. 
 
 The first kiss trembled on your lip. 
 
 So maidenly and shy, 
 You blushed and trembled so; as if 
 
 Its sweetness made you die! 
 For all your color fled again. 
 
 So sweet it was, and fleet. 
 Yet say the poets what they may. 
 
 This last is just as sweet. 
 
 For all that was, and all that is, 
 
 And all that is to be. 
 Are parts of that one whole, our lives — 
 
 Made one to you and me; 
 And if I loved you so of old, 
 
 You'd scarce believe, before; 
 Yet now believe me: Every day 
 
 I've loved you more and more. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 219 
 
 Pray God, it may be to the last. 
 
 The two lives grown in one, 
 Like some fair plant that every day 
 
 Grows upward to the Sun; 
 So nearer heaven may we grow. 
 
 With tender ties unriven, 
 Till ripe, the harvests gathered in 
 
 And garnered up in Heaven. 
 
 SOUTH FLORIDA NIGHT 
 
 The rain floats off. The crescent moon 
 
 Holds in its cup a round of dusk, 
 Like palm buds, in the month of June 
 
 Half breaking through a vernal husk. 
 While breathes a low, sweet undertone 
 
 Like brooks that grieve through beds of fern. 
 As if, by curve and pebble stone. 
 
 The moon had spilled her silver urn. 
 
 Night blooming agaves part the sheaf. 
 
 To catch the light, distilled in showers. 
 Till, overflowing cup and leaf. 
 
 Each cluster breaks in midnight flowers. 
 Like merchants breaking kids of nard, 
 
 And jars of olives, desert born, 
 Pineapples lift a prickly shard. 
 
 And show the seeds of fragrant corn. 
 
 Like Hebrew maids, the citrons hold 
 Their pitchers to the vapor spring. 
 
 And fill the hollow rinds of gold, 
 With midnight's musky offering; 
 
220 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 So once, I think, Earth knew her Lord, 
 In lands, like these, of palm and vine, 
 
 When midnight gave the sweet accord 
 That turned the water into wine. 
 
 THE GREEK BOW 
 
 Iliad Book IF, v. 104-131 
 
 After Athena had spoken, his mind was given over 
 
 to folly. 
 He stripped the sheathe from the bow, he had got 
 
 from a wild, leaping Big Horn, 
 Lying in wait, he had shot it himself, as it came 
 
 down the rocks. 
 Right through the chest and straightway it had 
 
 fallen headlong down from the cliff; 
 And the growth of the horns from the head was 
 
 a spread, fully, of sixteen palms. 
 
 The bowyer, horn-polishing artist had fitted them 
 
 well together. 
 Smoothly wrought to the finish and furnished with 
 
 golden tips. 
 Stooping down, as he bent the bow, he held it 
 
 inclined to the ground. 
 While his valiant comrades surrounding, held 
 
 their shields upright before him 
 Lest any other warlike sons of Mars, the Greeks, 
 
 should spring up, 
 Ere ever the martial Menelaus, son of Atreus was 
 
 arrow shot. 
 Uplifting the lid of the quiver, he selected an 
 
 arrow out of it ; 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 221 
 
 One that had never been shot, a winged venom- 
 cursed, full of pain. 
 He fitted the notch of the piercing arrow even, on 
 
 the bowstring; 
 And prayed to Apollo, the Lycian born god of the 
 
 Archer, 
 Offering an illustrious hecatomb, firstlings of 
 
 lambs on his altar. 
 As the ox hide sinews drew together the stiff tips, 
 
 held by the middle, 
 He brought the string to his breast, the iron head 
 
 to his bow hand. 
 As soon as the stiffening fibres wrenched the great 
 
 bow round as a circle. 
 Loosed from his thumb, the string snaps loud, 
 
 and the leaping arrow, 
 Whistling sharp at the mob, flies hissing with 
 
 angry venom. 
 Not then did the blessed immortal gods forget thee, 
 
 oh ! Menelaus ! 
 First and chiefest, the ruthless destroyer, daughter 
 
 of love, standing 
 Before thee, fended off lightly, the sharp pointed 
 
 arrowflights' deadly minations; 
 Brushing it back, lest it touch the skin, much as a 
 
 nursing mother 
 Brushes a fly from the child that lies in her lap 
 
 in a pleasant slumber. 
 
 THE LITTLE FAULT 
 
 Dear eyes that wear the long regret 
 
 For something missed, that should be ours, 
 
 As if the part of life that set 
 
 In me to music, like the flowers, 
 
222 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 In the expected hush, grew less 
 And lost the accent of the psalm; 
 
 Even while your wistful eyes express 
 A faltering hope in what I am, 
 
 That seemed so near; so bright and sure, 
 Had I been something less, or more. 
 
 In vain, I try to drive them back, 
 
 These vague misgivings of the heart. 
 In others' eyes we see the lack 
 
 Is something wanting on our part 
 And nothing, that the world can give. 
 
 Can ease the heart's reproachful strife, 
 At losing that for which we live ; 
 
 The bloom and poetry of life. 
 That seemed so near; so bright and sure, 
 
 Had I been something less or more. 
 
 You could not seem more beautiful. 
 
 Nor I more worthy in your eyes. 
 Yet doubts the heart will overrule. 
 
 In which a vague disquiet lies; 
 And questions come, unasked, unsought, 
 
 As weapons, with unfitted helves. 
 Is Life less Royal than we thought ? 
 
 Or is its failure in ourselves ? 
 It seemed so near, so bright and sure, 
 
 Had I been something less, or more. 
 
 A little flaw! We know not what 
 That takes the beauty from the flowers, 
 
 In all we see, that this is not. 
 
 The perfect life that should be ours, 
 
 Which through all change keeps still in sight 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 223 
 
 As clear as shadows in the glass, 
 Life's fair Ideal, framed in light. 
 
 Through barriers that we cannot pass ; 
 And yet so near, so bright and sure; 
 
 Had I been something less, or more. 
 
 PHILO-PCENA 
 
 An incident of the Battle of Chaplain Hills (Perryville) 
 Ky., fought by Federal and Confederates, Oct. 8, 1863. 
 
 The orchard lands of Perryville 
 Were sweet in must of aftermath; 
 
 The dust lay thick on Chaplin Hills, 
 On country road and bridle path. 
 
 The brooks were withered at their springs,* 
 And, sapless as the falling leaves, 
 
 That spread their wan and sallow wings 
 Through all the dry October eves. 
 
 She stood beside the old well curb. 
 
 As sweet in maiden innocence 
 As the fragrant pennyroyal herb 
 
 That filled the corners of the fence. 
 
 " Give me a drink." She lifted up 
 One hand to shade an upward look. 
 
 And one to reach the small tin cup 
 That hung from its accustomed hook. 
 
 *It was this unusual drouth in Kentucky, precipitated 
 the fight for water, for which neither general was prepared. 
 
224 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 Her eyes were bright, her Hps were red, 
 Her gentle voice was sweet and low. 
 
 " Give me one kiss for Love," I said, 
 " Or just for luck, before I go. 
 
 " My friends are waiting at your gate, 
 The rolling drums, the bugles bleat; 
 
 On yonder hills the reapers wait 
 
 To sheaf and bind life's ruddy wheat." 
 
 She did not speak. Her downcast eyes 
 Were steeped in dews of sudden pain. 
 
 As gray as when the summer skies 
 Are shadowed by a sudden rain. 
 
 She kissed me once; she kissed me twice; 
 
 She laid her fragrant lips to mine 
 And answered with a faltering voice, 
 
 That thrilled me like the musk of wine. 
 
 And blushing under bated breath. 
 
 She whispered me, that they were given 
 
 One kiss to grace a soldier's death. 
 
 And one for Christ's dear love in Heaven. 
 
 Life has no richer gifts to give. 
 And no regrets can spoil the hour. 
 
 In which the grace that let me live 
 
 Till then had reached its perfect flower. 
 
 To Honor and to Christ she prayed, 
 And out on yonder battle plain. 
 
 Red Honor's lips kissed every blade. 
 
 And Christ's dear blood has blessed the 
 slain. 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 225 
 
 For, though war's sickle clave the land, 
 When all the ruddy harvest's done, 
 
 The dead that fell, on either hand, 
 
 In Christ's dear blood shall all be one. 
 
 " UNDER THE ROSE " 
 
 A Platonic Kiss 
 
 You kissed me, as if roses slipped 
 Their rosebud necklaces, and blew 
 
 Such breaths as never yet have dipped 
 The bee in fragrance over shoe, 
 
 While rose leaves of their color stripped 
 Themselves to make a blush for you. 
 
 Nor chide with such a cold constraint, 
 As if you laid the rose in snow; 
 
 For this the summer stores her paint, 
 The dappled twilights overflow 
 
 With motley colors, pied and quaint. 
 For kisses that in flowers do grow. 
 
 Nor pout and tease : you did not mean 
 So sweet a thing. Abide this test: 
 
 In open markets grades are seen 
 
 Of good and bad, in price expressed; 
 
 The buyer's purse must choose between; 
 But when we give, we give the best. 
 
 Yet if that color, sweet as bees. 
 Of flower flushes teases, see 
 
226 SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 
 
 How we can pluck such thorns as these, 
 That bleed in blushes, easily; 
 
 For kiss me, sweet, just as you please; 
 I'll take it as it pleases me. 
 
 AFTER DARK 
 
 When Twilight gathers in her sheaves, 
 And wheeling swallows skim the flume. 
 
 The ploughman, turning homeward, leaves 
 His plough mid-furrow in the broom. 
 
 And through the melancholy eves 
 
 The orange drops its milkwhite bloom. 
 
 The old delights that go and come 
 Through sorrow, in the falling dew. 
 
 Like waves that wore a wreath of foam 
 The darker that the waters grew. 
 
 Flow round my solitary home 
 
 At evening, when the stars are few. 
 
 So, sad and sweet as bridal tears 
 For broken homes, to see withdraw 
 
 The child we love, have gone the years 
 We climbed the frosty hills, and saw 
 
 Descend on all the frozen meres 
 
 The sunlight breaking through the thaw. 
 
 Like one who in the driving snow. 
 
 When all the untrodden paths are dim, 
 
 Hears far-off voices, faint and low. 
 Across the woodland calling him, 
 
 I hear the loved of long ago 
 Singing among the seraphim 
 
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH 227 
 
 And as the soft, dissembling light 
 Falls, shadowing into dusky red, 
 
 I think how beautiful the night 
 With gathering stars is overspread. 
 
 Like seeds of many an old delight 
 
 Through sheaves of sorrow harvested. 
 
 FLORIDA INDLVN LOVE CHANT 
 
 My love is like the cocoa in the saw grass, 
 
 As the beauty of the reed is to the betel palm. 
 
 The fairest show her more beautiful. 
 
 She rises betimes in the morning; 
 She bathes in the beautiful water; 
 She lies in the beds of the lilies. 
 
 She bakes fresh fish in the ashes; 
 She broils a broad platter of venison ; 
 She gathers sweet honey and apples; 
 
 She is sweeter than honey or apples ; 
 She is fairer than plumies* or lilies. 
 I love her and live in her beauty. 
 
 *The Ponceana