*i.V«Ji.
\V|LL1AIV1>1_lBAKER.
THE UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA
LIBRARY
THE WILMER COLLECTION
OF CIML WAR NOVELS
PRESENTED BY
RICHARD H. WILMER, JR.
u
i^s ' '^
MOSE EVANS:
A SIMPLE STATEMENT OF THE SINGULAR
FACTS OF HIS CASE.
BY
WILLIAM M. BAKER,
AUTHOR OF " IXSIDE, A CHROXICLE OF SECESSION,"
"the new TIMOTHY," ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY IIURD AND HOUGHTON.
Cambribge: ®lie Hbcrsibc \}xc55,
1874.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
WiLLiA3i M. Baker,
ir the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
stvERsiDS, Cambridge:
BTEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BT
H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
TO
Mr. W. D. HOWELLS.
My dear Mr. Howells.
As this book was written in moments snatched from
that Profession which is the chief business of my life, it
has devolved — during its publication in the "Atlantic
Monthly" — a degree of labor upon you as Editor, which
I have all along greatly regretted.
Allow me, then, to inscribe the volume to you, in token
of my sense of your unfailing courtesy,
And to remain,
Very sincerely yours,
W. M. B.
**<Sntr crcatclf man tii Ijt^ trton imafic, tn ii)t imajsc at
6atf rrcatctr i^c Ijim; male anir female crcatcti |^e tijcm."
"For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse: could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference:
Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth —
Till at the last she set herself to man.
Like perfect music unto noble words;
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full summed in all their powers.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:
Then reigns the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:
Then springs the crowning race of Human kind ! "
MOSE EVANS.
I.
Just where the prairie fire did fiercest sweep,
The grass grows richest, green and strong and deep !
It was most unbusiness-like in me ! Yet I can-
not acknowledge it to be ungentlemanly, for I had
no intention of the sort. Shot enough, Heaven
knows, had come from my side abeady ; the shat-
tered houses all around us as I spoke testified to
that. My engagement to Helen Sinclair, resulting
in marriage that very noon, — I recall it as I write,
— itself would have prevented me.
" Allow me to say, General," that was all I did
say, "it was what your royalist ancestor did in
coming over from England ! "
It is to old General Theodore Throop of Charles-
ton, South Carolina, I make the miserable remark,
and in Charleston almost before the cannon are
cold.
But, please let it be perfectly understood, there
2 MOSE EVANS.
is to be no passing over, much less camping upon,
the battle-fields of the Rebellion in these pages.
I heartily agreed with Miss Sinclair that the man
must be very wicked or very weak who would hin-
der the hand that is so surely reclothing these torn
plains, and in every sense, with grass and grain.
I only record my blunder and the General's reply
for — reasons !
" Yes, sir ! " The General flushes, as he repUes,
not merely over his great face ; I see the glow run
far back under the white hair of his forehead, to
the very tips of the large hands rested on the head
of his yellow cane ! The heart leaves no inch of
the General's portly person untinged by its ex-
asperation. " Yes, sir ! And it was by Puritan
fanaticism he was driven across the Atlantic ! It
is the same thoroughly detestable Puritanism which
has ruined me, sir, compels me, sir, in my old age,
to go to even a ruder West. I tell you, sir ! " —
There is tremor as well as deepening color in the
grand old soul, as he rises from his seat and grasps
the ivory -headed cane as if it were a sword. " I
t^ll you, sir ! " —
Xow, what is the use ? The General was bom
in South Carolina. I was born, I am proud to say,
in New England. It is all over, — our being born
m
MOSE EVANS. 3
and the war. Besides, it neither merits nor de-
merits anything. Moreover, here is the present
and the future to be practically settled. I was a
land-agent at the time. I violate no confidence
when I say that I was, at that date, in charge of
the extensive affairs, since very lucrative, of the
Great Western Land Company, having been my-
self the author (a friend, " old New Hampshire,"
being, as you will see, the largest owner) of the
whole scheme. I frankly say, as land-agent I made
the acquaintance of General Theodore Throop,
and our conversation took place the first day I
approached him in reference to exchange of real
estate. I knew — who did not know? — that the
General was ruined in the ruin of Charleston by
the war. As I succeeded, to oiu' mutual advan-
tage, in afterward showing him, he could make far
more of property out West by setthng it than he
could ever hope for in relation to his Charleston
estate.
Of course the reader has read of the magnifi-
cent mines of marl opened since the war, but lying
undreamed of under the feet of the South Caro-
linians till then. It is like the gold and the silver,
and the value in the soil, nobler still, producing
such splendid fruits and crops, over which CaUfor-
4 MOSE EVANS.
nian aborigines and Spaniards wandered with idle
steps so long. Why should I have told General
Throop all my reasons for our bargain ? He
would have despised the marl as portion of the
new and detested era.
" Ever since I came here," I remarked to my
young wife, — bride, in fact, — the very evening
of my first conversation with General Throop,
*' those old lines have been ringing in my head, —
* Oh the holy Koman Empire !
How holds it still together,' —
miserable doggerel, and where did I get it from ? "
" Faust," my wife replies. *' He sings it, or
somebody does, in the wine-cellar."
" This Charleston suggests it less than does the
General himself, who is himself Charleston. Such
a steady grandeur in the General still, the inertia
of two hundred years of position and power I " I
go on to add.
" By the by, Henry, when and where did 7/ou
make acquaintance with Goethe ? " It is some
two weeks after this that my wife asks the imper-
tinent question, doing up or undoing down her
hair for the night at the glass as she does so.
" I perfectl}^ understand, Helen, the i/ozi of your
question," I make placid return. " I zvas a news-
MOSE EVANS. 5
paper-boy from ray sixth year ; did black boots,
even, I do believe. I told you the whole story.
Somehow, here, in my stay in your South, during
my little runs over Europe, I have gathered some-
thing besides money."
" You know perfectly well, Henry," — my wife
faces me in a magnificent back-ground of loosened
hair, — " that you are " —
" The exact opposite of General Throop. South
Pole and North Pole. Old era and new. The
largest good travel and reading have done me," I
add, " is that I have come to see things as they
exactly are ! "
" You do not know how struck I was, dear,"
my wife said, on this occasion, after certain en-
dearments which made it necessary to do all that
wealth of hair entirely over again, "with your
plans to buy up Charleston property at its lowest
ebb because " —
" The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide toward
flood," I add. " Yes, I possess the money-making
faculty, I do believe. And I happen, also, to
know that General Throop possesses, apart from
money and in himself, all the deference paid only
to money. There is a certain something, — a
James ^ladison, George Washington, — something
6 MOSE EVANS.
in the man Tvliich compels from all a respect be-
yond"—
" That is why I loved you, Henr^^ ; not your
having it, dear, your being able to see and ac-
knowledge it in our people. But it is to please
me you have made your home in Charleston ; all
that about business is only pretense."
But my wife was mistaken. General Throop
never had reason to regret our real-estate transac-
tions. I am living, as I write, in the former man-
sion of the Throops near St. Peter's Church in
Charleston. I remember so well the evening: I
first entered this house. My conversation with the
General, with which I begin these pages, was soon
after my making his acquaintance. During the
months after, it was long and hard work, — ex-
tremely delicate work on my part ; he came not
only to see the sound sense of my business sugges-
tions, but to take a liking for me. I wonder —
it flashes upon me as I write — if that was not
largely because of my sincere respect and admira-
tion for the General himself ; for I can make all
allowance for one who lived in a different era from
myself, — more than Oliver Cromwell made, I feel
sure, for Charles I. But is not this very making
all allowance for other people itself a part, not the
least excellent part of our neiv era?
^[OSE EVANS. 7
" Can you not take tea with us, Mr. Ander-
son ? " he said to me, at hist, during the conversa-
tion wherewith this narrative begins. " Let us
say on Thursday evening. Thursday ? No, that
is the Fast of St. Sebastian the martyr, — a mat-
ter of my wife's," the General explained, with a
slight flush. " Say Friday evening? "
Now, I knew it was to the General very much
as if an inhabitant of the Faubourg St. Germain
had made like request of a denizen of the Fau-
bourg St. Antoine. I was pleased at his liking
me. I hke the liking of any good man ; so I said,
" I thank you, sir, but it is not in my power."
And I suppose there was a flush on my face now.
" I am a married man, General, and Mrs. Ander-
son is with me at the hotel," I added.
" Ah, excuse me ! " in return. For here was
very grave matter. The General sat still in portly
body before me in my office ; really he was, on the
instant, in his gloomy old parlor, laying the mat-
ter before his wife and daughter, and there, ex-
cusing himself almost immediately, he was in per-
son two hours later.
" They will invite us, Henry," my wife said to
me that night. " I am glad of it, because I am
so tired of this soHtary hotel life. I knew Agnes
8 > MOSE EVANS.
Throop at school. But, especially since I married
you^ she lias to approach me first ; has to, if she is
an angel. Besides, it gives you a firmer position
in business. And then the Throops give admit-
tance to — Charleston ! " And if my wife kissed
me once, she did several times in the course of the
evening, singing her gayest songs at the piano, in
the hotel parlor, no one but ourselves being in the
room ; dressing herself more brightly than since
we came. Amazing the value women attach to
certain things ! If it had been ten thousand dol-
lars cleared in a transaction, my wife could not
have been more delighted.
" Because it shows I was right in loving you,
Henry," she explained. " I knew General Throop
would learn to know you. Did you tell him all?"
" There is nothing I am ashamed to tell him, I
am sure," I began.
" Because I am almost afraid, at last," my wife
said, more soberly. " You see, Henry, I know all
about the Throops. There are only three of them
now. Theodore, the only son, was killed by a
splinter of rock in Sumter during the siege. Mrs.
Throop and Agnes and — I suppose I should say
— Mr. Clammeigh make up the family."
" Mr. Clammeigh ! The lawyer ? " I ask.
MOSE EVANS. 9
"Tall, black-haired, exceedingly neat, very
composed, perfectly fitting clothes " —
" He is our legal adviser," I interrupt. " Very
silent and cold; such a gentleman as you will find
in the social circle of a wax-work exhibition."
" Yes ; oh, of course," my wife replies, in a per-
plexed way. '' I vnR tell you in a moment why I
happen to know him." — It is the strangest way
people have I (I make the remark here while my
wife hesitates.) You cannot mention Mr. Clam-
meigh's name, but somehow, after a curious si-
lence, there is somebody certain to say, " Now,
you may say what you please, but I like Mr.
Clammeigh ! " in a defiant way, as if some one
had attacked him. — " If he ever did anything
wrong I never knew of it. But somehow" —
And I saw that my wife, her hands resting upon
the keys of the piano was really looking at my
lawyer in the full-length portrait of the mother of
Washington hanging upon the wall before her and
over the instrument. '' They say they were en-
gaged before the war," she added, beginning a
low-tuned tinkling upon the keys as she said it.
'' Engaged to Miss Throop ? How do you know
anything "Ibout it? I do believe you ladies had
an instinct, through the globe, of the betrothal of
the Emperor of China."
10 MOSE EVANS.
" Women do not always tell everything, Henry,
"when it is a matter of feeling and has reference to
a man — I mean to another woman. Did I ever
tell you that I was at a convent school with Agnes
Throop ? " And my wife, as she said it, played a
little louder.
" I knew that you were born and educated in
South CaroHna," I said. " But why ? "
" Because of your birth in New England, your
— and my political opinions ! I said to myself.
Let the Throops find out who Mrs. Anderson is if
they wish to ; I do not care a picayune ! What a
fib ! Oh, I do hope, Henry, we shall be asked ! "
And my wife turns to me, actually crying. '^ I
love Agnes so, and we have not spoken to each
other since we left school. And now that we are
married, I want you to know her, Henry."
" Now that we are married ? "
" Because you would have fallen in love with
her desperately, but for that ! "
" What a foolish remark ! I beg pardon."
" Perfectly natural. Wait till you see Agnes,
and you will understand ! " my wife replies. I
did wait and I did understand !
" Did you observe anything when you first
mentioned Mr. Clammeigh, — in me, I mean ? "
MOSE EVANS. 11
my wife asked, after some long-continued tinkling
upon tlie piano.
" Your face was from me, but I imagined at
the moment you gave a little start," I said, won-
dering a little.
" Because," my bride replied, turning around
on the screw of the music stool, seat and all, look-
ing me full in the face, paling a little, but her
steady eyes of blue in mine, — '' because I once
supposed I was to — would — Henry, Mr. Clam-
meigli and myseK were once engaged to be mar-
ried ! "
I rather think the pain was greater than the
surprise on my part, and she saw it in my eyes.
" You remember, Henry, I told you of the fact
without the name," she went steadily on, her eyes
never leaving mine. ''I was very young, very
young I He is not a day older now than he was
then, looks exactly the same in every respect now
as then, — like a corpse ! No, I mean like a wax
imao-e in a show. Never mind how it began, nor
how it ended. He was teaching school near my
father's plantation then I I had to conceal it from
my father and brother, as they would have shot —
no, they had too much sense. I did love that
man then. I do not love him now." No special
12 MOSE EVANS.
emphasis, but exceeding meaning in the way the
words were spoken. " And I do love you, Mr.
Henry Anderson, land-agent, from New England,
with all my heart ! " And I was perfectly satis-
fied, seeing, as I did, the entire woman in those
loving eyes.
" It will be no barrier to our associating with
them," my wife said half an hour afterward.
" Mr. Clammeigh will know me. I know him.
Agnes Throop will not be disturbed by me in the
version of the matter her betrothed will hasten to
give her. He is an admirable law^^er, — not
before a jury, but for office- work, — which is all
you care about in him ; but it is strange. And,'*
my wife added, with clouded eyes, " the strangest
part of all is in the future."
" How do you know. Miss Medea ? " I ask.
" Wait, O Jason, and you will see ! " she replies.
It will sufficiently explain all this to say that we
were together in Paris before our marriage and
saw Rachel in the tragedy in question.
n.
The sturdiest Faith is born of deepest Doubt;
No Victory so complete as refluent Rout ;
Blood blendeth best with blood in battle poured ;
"What hands so clasp as those which drop the sword ?
In a week after the General's first allusion to
the matter Mrs. Throop and their daughter made
the formal call ; after due return of which we did
take tea with General Throop and his household.
" They thoroughly like you, Henry," my wife
said to me after both events. " General Throop
knows a genuine gentleman when he sees him, and
by the instinct of a gentleman. Agnes and myself
were, in an instant, as if we had parted only yes-
terday at the convent. And a true woman knows
a true woman too. I have never met a woman —
my mother died when I was an infant — to com-
pare with Agnes Throop ! "
Let me record it frankly just here : besides my
dear wife, Agnes Throop is to me the woman best
worth knowing of all the race. I hardly under-
stand more of her style of beauty than I do of her
14 MOSE EVANS.
dress, material and cut ; but I know there was a
peculiar loveliness in her — which I will not mar
by attempting to describe — as indescribable as is
the violet-characteristic of a violet, making that
flower to differ — shall we say from a dahlia ? for
my wife is a brunette. Mrs. General Throop is a
partial explanation of her daughter.
I understood all my wife told me of her as we
were dressing to go there to tea, in the first half
an hour after we were in the old-fashioned parlor.
It is down staii-s, as I write, curiously carved
marble mantel and all. If I live — it is Helen's
suggestion — till that next anniversary, I intend
to have that same mantel carefully taken down,
packed, and sent. But never mind about that
just now.
It was in the cool of an early autumn, and Mrs.
Throop was standing beside the mantel the even-
ing we took tea there for the first time, when
General Throop introduced me. Dressed in black,
jet cross upon her bosom, jet hair silvered with
the gray of her sixty years here and there. Of
course, if my wife had not prepared me for it, I
should have been unprepared. As it was, I
brought my business faculty into unconscious ex-
ercise as I often — invariably — do when d(5ahng
MOSE EVANS. 15
with a stranger, — yourself, if you will allow me.
It is experience, I suppose, but I make final
decision, in the ten minutes after introduction,
whether or no you are a trained swindler, or a rich
ignoramus, or an insolvent ne'er-do-well, or simply
what you say of yourself. So, when I met Mrs.
Throop I entrenched myself rapidly, before those
terrible eyes and her most peculiar manner, in
that way. Whatever we were saying with our
lips, what she said with those singular eyes was
this : " I understand you perfectly, sir ! you are a
New-Englander. You were caught by business,
when the war broke out, in Alabama. You hated
secession more heartily every day by reason of
being conscripted. You went through battles
without firing your gun, holding yourself only by
main force from shooting your own Confederate
officers. You are heartily glad Mr. Davis was
overthrown. You are speculating in land. You
love money desperately because it is power. You
have awful defects and " —
It was merely by way of parry, not thrust,
that I crossed swords with those inexpressible eyes
by saving, only with my eyes, to myself and to
her : ^' AU your life, madam, you were too rich,
and thus made selfish, — yourself became your
16 MOSE EVANS.
occupation and your weariness. The long siege of
Charleston and the killing of your only son has
kept you at such strain of nerves in reference to
yourself more than ever as that you cannot sleep
at night, — hovr intensely wide awake during the
day ! And you are a ritualist. I blame your
forms of religion for that no more than I do the
particular street a man in delirium of fever dashes
down, escaping from his chamber. Except this,
obeying a purer gospel, you would have gone ut-
terly out of and apart from yourself to the suffi-
cient Saviour, standing away from you, but bid-
ding you come, leaving yourself behind, to Him.
All your perpetual observances are but the work-
ings of the same unceasing introspection. By
long- continued, tensely strained gaze inward upon
your own soul you have grown into the second
nature of your exceeding insight as to the inmost
souls of others " —
I think I am a sensible, practical man. I do
heartily despise mesmerism and spiritualism, but I
have met Mrs. Throop ! I find I have to abandon
the making you understand anything about her.
Her soul had so worn the body threadbare, as by
perpetually grinding spirit against the flesh, that
she was to you almost purely a soul, having to do
MOSE EVANS. 17
only with the soul in you too. Yes, I will stop.
The reader who has met such persons will excuse
my failure in describing this lady. Mr. Clam-
meigh was a great relief that evening. If you
desire to interest a statue of Apollo in your con-
versation, your work is hard, — so steadily inter-
ested in all you are saying as to his eyes, so essen-
tially uninterested in you and all your fly-like
buzz as to his soul. Because I know land, know
cotton, by having come pretty thoroughly to know
the man who sells the same ! What did I care,
however, for Mr. Clammeigh's perfect propriety,
accurate excellence, gentlemanly reticence ? He
had to do our law work to our company's satisfac-
tion, or there were other lawyers. As to Helen ?
Here, too, being only a land-agent, having no fa-
cility with my pen, I cannot make you understand
how perfectly we understood Mr. Clammeigh. So
far as Helen or myself was concerned, he was a
corpse with all of the death of a corpse, but un-
touched, I do assure you, by one of the tears gen
erally dropped upon such !
And the reader must allow me to make an ex
planation here. I said I have no literary facility.
being merely a man of busiaess. Now a friend,
whose painful task has been to look over my manii
18 MOSE EVANS.
script, entreats me to correct my style, or at least
"put in more verbs." I have no objection to
verbs, none at all, if I but knew what verbs and
where to put them ! ^ly business correspondence
has not been considered uninteresting, — for the
matter, however, not the manner : please accept
this narrative in that way.
I am not dealing with characters, but actual
persons. I know I should let them live for them-
selves on these pages instead of trying to portray
them, but neither Mrs. Throop nor Mr. Clam-
meigh express themselves at all in their words ;
you had to know them in person. Therefore I
have a dozen times given up all idea of attempting
to make this narration. But how can I help my-
seK ? The whole affair is, in certain senses, the
most remarkable of my life ; it will cease to press
upon me when I have fairly written it out, — that
is, as well as I can.
" Did you observe our meeting ? " my wife asked
me afterward.
" No, I completely forgot about all that," I
said. " I was in the custody, at the moment, of
Mrs. Throop."
"We were both perfectly prepared for it, of
course ! " my wife said. " I merely remarked,
MOSE EVANS. 19
when introduced, 'We have met before, I believe.'
I thought his steady pallor turned a shade of yel-
low at first, I don't know. It is amazing how
keenly people can live and afterward utterly die ;
it almost shakes my belief in the immortality of
the soul," my wife added.
" His soul seems, at least, to have w^ithdrawn
itself from the surface," I said. " The hand of a
dead man has as little warmth and pressure. I
dare say you have prejudiced me. The man has
come to hide himself very perfectly in himself, but
it may be mere timidity ; a rabbit burrows as
deeply in its hole from fright as a robber in his
cave for ambush."
" Did you notice Agnes Throop ? " my wife
asks.
" How could I help it ? At least after I passed
from Mrs. Throop to the mere bodily presence of
her husband. She is more frail and more beau-
tiful than I had expected."
" But it was touching ! " my wife continues.
" I did not need that special tenderness in her eyes
and her kiss at meeting and parting, to see that
Mr. Clammeigh had told her everything. I was
more vexed and touched than I can say ! It Avas
so at the convent," my wife continues, after long
thought. " The girl bewitched those pallid old
20 MOSE EVANS.
nuns ; they crossed themselves and petted and
ahnost dreaded her. An unaccountable fascina-
tion of manner ? eyes ? — what is it ? "
*' iNIagnetism," I make reply, for I have not for
nothing heard so many lectures in Boston. " Ex-
cess of electricity. She has instant, ready, amaz-
ing s^^mpathy for almost every person she meets.
She is giving her soul away all the time. And
she requires and has everybody else's soul back in
return. If she was to spend an evening in one
of those five-acre parlors at Saratoga, every one of
the five hundred who were thrown with her would
say, — every man, child, even woman of them
would say, — ' What a charming woman ! ' I
would say myself that only love like hers could
melt that man Clammeigh. Ah, how she loves
him ! "
" I wonder, wonder, wonder," m}^ wife said,
dreamily, and explained by adding, " Oh, never
mind ! "
" Mrs. Throop," I say, as much to myself as to
my wife, " is what the French call — I know my
pronunciation is wrong — a. femme exalte e. Mad-
ame Roland in politics, Madame Kriidener in re-
ligion, possibly ^ladame Guyon in the same, Char-
lotte Corday in vengeance. In various forms it is
all Joan of Arc over and over again. I never had
MOSE EVANS. 21
exactly the same experience, — experience as to
another individual I mean. She was to me as if
my conscience had taken flesh and dress in her
person and stood before me."
" And therefore you made so clean a breast of it
at supper ? " my wife asked.
" Oh, in mentioning — incidentally and very qui-
etly, I am sure — that I was from New England ;
that, although you are from the South, you held
throuo-h the war the same Union sentiments as
myself ? Yes, I think it always best to have no
concealments."
"Frankness is your one weakness, dear," my
wife saw fit to reply.
" I have always found it best, in society as in
business, my love. It certainly places us all at
our ease with each other."
" And the General and yourself are going West
to look at land ? "
" Yes, the daughter naturally inherits from the
mother," I say, in continuance of profound philo-
sophical thought, and postponing, with a ges-
ture, my wife and her question, " the power of the
eyes without their ferocity, the fullness of" soul
without its violence. It is the father in her which
tempers the mother."
22 MOSE EVANS.
" You told me that General Tliroop realized
George Washington to you for the first time in
your life. And when I was so pleased, you told
me that Aaron Burr " —
" A New-Englander," I interpose.
" — had said AVashinixton was far from beini::
the demi-god people thought."
" And," I added, " that Adams had told a
friend, waving his hand, after dinner, toward a
portrait of the said Father of his Country, ' that
old wooden head made his fortune by holding his
tongue I ' A little stolid, not swift enough for
Wall Street, not having instinct for money as of a
rat-terrier for vermin. It was not on carrion the
eacjles of those davs fed, if thev were slow of wins:.
Behind the times General Throop certainly is, ab-
surd in his exasperation at the new era, intensely
prejudiced — I do believe, however," I abruptly
added, " if George Washington were to rise from
the dead, he would be elected president ! "
I could have proved the same, had not an old
and very black woman from General Throop's en-
tered our room at this moment with a courtesy as
deep as her bright-colored handkerchief head-dress
was high. She brought certain patterns of milli-
nery matters for Helen, and I wish I had let her
alone.
MOSE EVANS. 23
"Well, Aunt :\[ary Martha Washington," I
said, — for Helen had thus made her known to
me, — " how do you like the new things, aunty ? "
" They 're not the things, marster, only patterns
to make 'em with," she replies, seriously, for she
suspects me.
" Oh, I mean your being free and all that I "
And I wish, as I say it, that I had known better.
" I don't like them at all^ sir ! " she says, with
a grave gladness for the opportunity. " We were
chillern of body-sarvants of General Washington.
General Theodore Throop, he bought us at the
break-up there. All my life I 've sat in our church,
left-hand gallery. I 've heard a thousand sermons
proving we was chillern of Ham, made slaves by
our Heavenly Father ! I am religious, sir, I hope.
He permits these abolitionist fool folks and things,
black and white ! It 's sinful ! It won't be for
long" —
" Never mind, aunty ! " Curious the command
with which this Southern wife of mine checks her
on the spot. It lay in certain inflections of voice,
the heritage in the blood for generations. But the
black woman knows I am a Yankee, as marked in
her coldness to me as she is deferential to Helen
thereafter !
III.
He knew that a New "World there must be, and sailed,
The Old "World forsaking, he sought it, nor failed.
But, seeking and finding — in this was his gain, —
A nobler Columbus than sailed out of Spain !
Not three weeks after this, and General Theo-
dore Throop and myself were making together our
last day's ride before reaching the lands I was en-
deavoring to exchange with him for his Charleston
propert3\ So far as steamer and railway could
carry us on our journey we had gone. For the
last week the pre-locomotive horse had been the
only conveyance possible to the dense forests and
miry roads far west of the Mississippi. Roads,
horse, cabins, coarse food, shuck beds, people as of
a stone age prior even to the taming of horses, —
at all these I winced in sympathy with the aver-
sion, greater still, of the General. Not that he in-
timated it by a word. A hundredth part of the
annoyance then endured occurring before the war,
or even now in Charleston, would have kept him
an Etna in perpetual eruption. I could not but
MOSE EVANS. 25
admire, almost venerate and love, the thorough
gentleman in my aged companion. A removal
was essential to the support of wife and daughter.
Such a trip would have been the business of Theo-
dore the son ; possibly woidd have been unneces-
sary had Theodore lived. But Theodore was now
part of the dust — how wholly in vain ! — of Sum-
ter. The General rode by my side, feeble but
erect, and resolved to make the best of everything,
— an old soldier upon a campaign, a cavalier of
Charles and Prince Rupert retreating before the
Roundheads. And, riding with a Roundhead, too,
the old General clothed himself in endurance as in
his necessary coat of mail. Silent in regard to
bodily inconvenience, the negroes swarming about
us everywhere, less, with all his kindness, than the
other insects in his regard ; the war and its results
a powder-magazine between us from which we both
instinctively held back the torches of our tongues,
— these things excepted, my companion is as ge-
nial as when in his parlor at home. Only some-
how I am the host now in this very extensive par-
lor of the West, whose duty it is to entertain, —
as hard a business as devolved on Virgil playing
the host to Dante through Malbolge ; for we rode
upon a causeway through a vast swamp on either
26 MOSE EVANS.
side, every pool thereof venomous beneath its
green scum with snakes and terrible Avith alliga-
tors, nature itself turned vicious in the vines
strangling, anaconda-like, the decrepit trees, and
leaping through the air upon fresh victims. Xow
and tlien the crash of a falling tree sounding
through the slimy silence, decayed trunks falling,
on three occasions, across our very road !
"But some ten miles more to Browns town," I
say to the General as we ride soberly along through
the live-oaks craped in moss.
" Fifty, if necessary," the General adds, cheer-
fully, " although I am a little fatigued."
" And here comes some one who can tell us," I
add ; for during the last twenty miles we have not
been so certain we are on the right road. I turn
to speak to a horseman who has joined us, but am,
at first, too dazzled to speak. For, instead of some
rough backwoodsman, 1 behold a Philadelphia ex-
quisite ! The fool is yoiuig, and not bad-looking
in his waxed moustache, pomaded hair, broadcloth
suit, gauntleted hands, well-brushed hat a little to
one side. The instant I address him I am, in im-
agination, at the office of a first-class hotel in the
East, confronting the exceedingly cool clerk thereof.
And to him am I the dusty and tired and probably
MOSE EVANS. 27
disreputable and insolvent traveler, tlie nuisance
inevitable to his calling.
" I intended to ask about the road," I say, as
soon as I can adjust myself to the occasion ; " but
I see you are a stranger like myself."
" Road to Brownstown nine miles." And our
hotel clerk lifts his silver-handled whip to pass us,
with a contemptuous cut on the flanks of his very
bright bay, then consents to endure us, seeing the
road is so lonely. He had not looked at my com-
panion.
" Are you acquainted in this region, sir ? " the
General asks after some silence ; and I observe, on
the instant, that our new arrival recognizes in the
General a millionaire, pecuniary or social, and
modulates his entire tone and bearing. As I rein
my horse in from between the two that they may
ride together, I demand of myself : Culture, man-
ner, social position, — just how do these mold the
very body of a man or woman ? This old Gen-
eral wears them like the purple of a king, bowed
to as such, no man plainer in person or attire.
And what amount of dress or diamonds could
make this fop other than hunself? Yet it does
speak well for the fellow that he defers to, recog-
nizes, unbosoms himself to the old General. We
28 MOSE EVANS.
soon have his historv. He was born and has lived
all his life in Brownstown. His father and family
live there now. He lives there himself, a regular
physician. He is back but a few months from
medical lectures in Philadelphia. This whole re-
gion, sir, is a miserable wilderness, fit only for alli-
gators and negroes. He would not stay in it an
hour if he could help it. The people are disgust-
ing savages. He avenges himself " by dosing
them, sir, dosing them most deucedl}^ ! " only his
language is more highly colored as he warms to
the companionship. Incidentally, as cool matter
of course, he refers with contempt to Christianity
as an exploded superstition, a species of Buddhism
lingering for a little longer, chiefly in such be-
nighted regions, sir, as we are riding through. As
we journey rather slowly, the nine miles suffice to
reassure us as to the tremendous strides of science,
sir ; in the very foremost rank of which marches
Dr. Alexis Jones, — for the honor of his name, in-
tensely illuminated upon a cream-colored card, is
also intrusted to the General, who has slowly to
unbutton many wrappings to place the same in his
pocket. Here a sudden turn of the road brings us
upon a horse tied to a sapling a little off the edge
of the highway to the left ; the dismounted rider,
MOSE EVANS. 29
his saddle-bags at his feet, just turning from a
huge oak as we come upon him unawares, owing
to the mud which deadens the sound of our horses'
hoofs. The General and myself see nothing be-
yond this, merely bowing as we ride by. Dr.
Alexis Jones is both nearer to the person and
sharper-sighted ; reins up a moment, then rides
on, breaking into a peal of insolent laughter.
" Would you believe it, sir," he explains to the
General at last, " that fellow was standing by that
tree shavins: ! See the lather on his face ? Had
hung up one of those little round looking-glasses
to the bark by his knife stuck in. Was going to
black his boots, brush his clothes and hair, — saw
all the things lying on his saddle-bags. Put on a
clean shirt, too, sure as you live ! " But Dr. Jones
is far more profane than can be here recorded.
" You see ? He is fixing up before he goes into
Brownstown. Like a circus, wants to make an
awn-tray 1 Road so lonely, never thought any-
body would happen along, see ? " And as our
companion goes off into another fit of laughter. I
recall a certain hurried movement and shamefaced-
ness in the person surprised, who seemed from my
hasty glance to be a gentleman and very young.
" And I know who it is ! " Dr. Jones bursts out
30 MOSE EVANS.
a moment after, with an oath and a downward cut
of his whip-hand which causes his horse to bound.
" The preacher ! — See the black clothes and the
peculiar face ? " Dr. Jones is evidently speaking
of a species of being entirely distmct from, exceed-
ingly inferior to, himself.
The way remaining before we enter Brownstown
hardly suffices for even the rapid and condensed
information imj^arted in this connection. There
once had been a flourishing church in the little
town. No • regular minister had lived there for
years, — " dying out, gentlemen, the whole thing,
even here as everywhere ! " Terribly fallen the
membership had become ; horse-racing, gambling,
hunting on Sundays but varieties of the apostasy
into which the brotherhood had fallen, the very
officers of the church participants of the same.
" There is old Squire Robinson, very pillar of the
ex-church, worst of all. Nice time this preacher
will have there ! You see, that will be his home
while he stays, — yes, ivhile I " The securing of
a pastor being hardly by action of the apostate
church itself, said pastor more probably sent by
some Board of the denomination outside, " this
young fellow shaving there" is to be the pastor of
the scattered sheep.
310 SE EVANS. 31
" It will be fun alive," our friend adds, " to see
how the thing will work ! And the idea of his
actually stopping to fix up before meeting his
people, brushing up to go to Squire Robinson's ! "
Our friend sees a degi-ee of amusement in the
matter which we cannot appreciate until after-
ward.
" There 's about only one Christian — never
mind the women, their weakness, poor things ! —
in this Brownstown that has stood it out. New
Hampshire they call him, queer old soul ! I sup-
pose he came from there. Postmaster. Ofiice,
you know, in his store. Grim as death. And this,
gentlemen," — unspeakable scorn in our friend
as he waves his hand toward a neglected grave-
yard on the roadside as we enter the street of
stracrsrlino: cabins which constitutes the town, —
" this is our Laurel Hill, our City Cemetery.
Added dozens to its denizens myself since I began
my practice, — practice, you observe, practice ■
And this," halting his restless horse as we get
fairly into the ragged hem, so to speak, of the vil-
lage, and regarding the same with disgust beyond
^ords, — " this is our Philadelphia ! Our Conti-
nental Hotel is that long, low, double, villainous
old cabin on the right, with the tumble-down
32 MOSE EVANS.
porch in front ; Dick Frazier — sheriff also by pro-
fession, gambler and sot by occupation — hotel-
keeper. I hope to see you again, to show you our
churches, libraries, museums, galleries of art, Fair-
mounts, navy-yards. If you survive Dick Fraz-
ier ! "
I saw that the very horse of the man was rest-
less because laden with such an ass, glancing at
me with intelligent eye which said, " Is n't he a
fool ? How would ^ou like to carry him ? " The
offensiveness of the fellow being in manner more
than in words.
" And here," he continued, as a man rode
toward us from the village, " is a representative
specimen of our lovely city, — a genuine, una-
dulterated Brownstownian in the original package.
Hold on a moment, Evans," he added as the
countryman was riding by, " allow me to make
Mr. Mose Evans known to you, gentlemen ! I
will merely add," he continued, as the other
raised his hat to us, " that Mr. Evans is " — and
he spelled without pronouncing the word — "a
B-o-o-r. An I-g-n-o-r-a-n-t man. In fact, my
friend Mr. Evans is a f-o-o-1 ! " There was for a
moment a perplexity upon the wholesome face of
the person in question, — was it possible he could
MOSE EVANS, 33
not read ? — coloring and looking sharply from the
rascal to myself, followed by a glance of such
good-humored but absolute contempt for Dr.
Alexis Jones as he bowed to General Throop in
silence and rode on, that I was sorry he had not
shaken hands with me. I could have kicked the
puppy as, with a wave of his hat. Dr. Jones
turned down a side street and rode off ; but I was
busy, so to speak, in being ashamed to look the
old General in the face, the aspect of the town
was so particularly miserable. Yet I had told
him of it before ; and I recalled places up the
Ashley and Cooper, not many miles from sacred
Charleston even, as uninviting. But the brave
old soul winced nothincr at all. He was on a
campaign, and rode as steadily up to the wretched
old tavern as if it had been a battery !
Good climate, rich lands, navigable river rolling
lazy with excess of mud in sight, — yet a more
miserable town could not exist. I would cheer-
fully describe the scenery had there been any.
My field notes, for our company, of Brown County
are, " Land dead level. Sandier soil, post-oaks.
Bottom lands, live-oak ; soil, black, waxy, twenty
feet deep, very rich, but will bake and crack in
summer. Corduroy roads. Mud. AUigators.
34 MOSE EVANS.
Bayous full of * cotton mouths,' i. e. Tenomous
moccasin snakes. Crops, corn, splendid cotton.
Register A 1."
Personally, horror and loatliing of the place
seized upon me ; suicide even to sojourn there !
Brownstown was, in fact, the very corpse of a
town which had tumbled down and died in the
mud in a drunken fit ! It may be a singular re-
mark to make, yet if it were not so entirely unad-
visable to do so, I would like dearly, at this very
juncture, to give my views as to the resurrection
of the dead ! I do not mean the rising of dead
men from their graves unknown ages hence, save,
at least, so far as the doctrine to that effect is in-
cidentally estabHshed by another thing. Allow
me to state, as clearly as I can, that the thing I
refer to is the capability of their resurrection, and
complete and eternal transformation in the case of
persons dead and buried for years in a figurative,
yet good Saxon sense of the word ! I am greatly
pressed for time in our real-estate transactions,
could find no leisure or disposition to enter on this
narrative were it not for the remarkable illustra-
tion it affords in reference just to that ! See if I
am not right !
IV.
The cotton fields are grander far
Than cotton factories ever are !
Our bones are frail, our sinews slack,
The grander types are farther back !
" I SUPPOSE I do have," I wrote the week of our
arrival in Brownstown to my wife, " a quick sense
of the hidicrous, but I could hardly keep from
laufjhino^ outrio:ht that first morninsj at breakfast,
the idea of our George Washington being so ter-
ribly bitten of vermin ! Not that he spoke of it,
but I knew his experience during the night from
my own. Wherein does the nobility of this Gen-
eral Throop consist, that you reject any com-
parison of him to Uncle Toby, say, or to Mr.
Pickwick, on the instant ? The wearying jour-
ney, coarse food, miserable nights, with all the
tremendous work of creating a new Carolina for
himself out in these Western wilds, is enough to
daunt a man thirty years younger ; and the old
General has lost twenty pounds by the scales in
' old New Hampshire's store,' is pale, tremulous,
36 MOSE EVANS.
filmost tottering, but uncomplaining and a perfect
gentleman, — there is no other word ; command-
ing, by his very aspect, the hats off the heads and
the loose talk off the tongues of even the ' char-
acters ' of Brownstown ! It is what Falstaff said
of himself with a variation ; the General is not
only a gentleman himself, but the cause of gentle-
manliness in others ! We rode out to see the land
the General is exchanging his Charleston property
for the day after our arrival, three miles from
Brownstown, and upon the bank of the river.
We stayed all night, by the by, at the cabin, near
b}^, of a Mrs. Evans, a red-faced virago, not worse,
I dare say, than Queen Bess. The only member
of her family is her grown son, Ike Evans, or
Tom, or Bob, I have forgotten his name. He is
our guide among these terrible woods, — a sort of
mute, inglorious Milton ; for you have read of the
Oxford students who came upon that poet, when a
boy, lying asleep in the summer woods in his
yellow hair, and thought it was Pan. I will tell
you more about this Romulus and his she-wolf of
a mother, if I do not forget it.
" When, after riding over a few hundred acres
of lands, rich as cream, we lighted off our horses
and had our dinner upon a bluff of live-oaks over-
MOSE EVANS. 37
hanging the stream, I saw in his manner that he
had made up his mind — the General — to close
the bargain. One or two steamboats passed, as
we sat, hiden to the water's edge with cotton ; but
I think it was a remark made at breakfast by a
certain Odd Archer which went even further to
settle the matter. Odd is, as he himself told us,
' a jack-leg lawyer,' the wild son of a distinguished
minister of Georgia, a prodigal son heartily enjoy-
ing himself among the swine, and not having
the least intention of coming to himself. ' For
heaven's sake. General Throop,' he said, ' establish
yourself here, and give existence and tone to
society ! ' Dirty, drunken, worthless Odd Archer !
and yet, the indescribable freemasonry of gentle-
men between the General and the unprincipled
scamp the moment they meet ! Queer people,
you Southerners, Helen ! "
Thus far, and a good deal more, to my wife,
awaiting results in Charleston.
The fact is, the General and myself are the sen-
sation of the year in Brownstown. He is, in gos-
sip there which I could not help overhearing,
" the distinguished General Theodore Throop of
Charleston, South Carolina, here to buy and make
his home among us, sir ! " I am, " Oh, a Yankee,
38 MOSE EVANS.
anybody can see that ; but I am told, gentlemen,
a millionnaire, president of a new railroad to run
through Brownstown to the Pacific ! Besides, he
is in company with General Theodore Throop ! "
I must confess I did hear a certain Job Peters
reject this statement of Odd Archer, Esq., with
a certain " Er-r-r-r ! " like the strong purring
of a contemptuous cat, ending in an unwritable
"Ah-h-h, yah — yes ! May be so ! A dapper lit-
tle sand-peep of a New-Englander ! " For General
Throop is a much larger and more imposing pres-
ence, I will admit. I did not put Peters in my
letters to mv wife, but /do not mind such thincfs.
As to his remark in continuation, — " Yes, and he
has this big General from Carolina with him as
protection, darsn't come by himself ! " — of course,
that is not worth denying. For I could not help
overhearing Brownstown, as I sat writing in the
back room of — I cannot see the use of writingr
out his real name, when every person knows it is
old New Hampshire whom I refer to, jDOstmaster,
and proprietor of the one store in Brownstown, a
store " bound to have " for sale everything any
and every body could want, with extraordinary va-
riety of customers, — a little weazen old man in
a snuff-colored suit, small eyes that looked perfect
MOSE EVANS. 39
experience of men, large ears with very red tips ;
though a very miinimy of a man, yet Brownstown
shows well that he is industrious as a beaver,
shrewd as a fox, cool as a fish, fearless as a lion.
" Old New Hampshire ! Now, that man ! " —
Odd Archer, the jack-leg laAvyer, explains to me
during our stay, on the front porcli of our hotel
this cool November noon, — " Oh, you have seen
him ! Blue steel ! Why, sir, I 've seen our boys
go in there during the war ! You see they had no
pay for a year, — Confederate money at that, —
no clothes, feet on the ground, half starved. Go
in his store, you see ! When a fellow asked to
look at a pair of boots, he always held on to one
while the fellow was looking at the other. ' You
let go ! ' fellow said to him one day, the counter
between them, you see. ' Why, you can look at it
just as well,' he said. Because, you see, the boys
had helped themselves out of stores in every other
town. ' You let go ! ' fellow said, aiming his re-
volver exactly between the old man's eyes across
the counter. And he never even winked, — old
New Hampshire, — holding on to the boot. AVell,
the fellow fired, just to scare him, missing his left
ear by an inch ; held on none the less ; there 's the
hole made by the bullet now I I saw one fellow
40 MOSE EVANS.
Tvalk in there one Saturday, — I suppose the fel-
low's wife was almost naked at home, — draw his
knife and hold it between his teeth while he just
took up an armful of bolts of calico piled on the
counter, and turn and walk out. Sir, that old
man was over that counter and after him ! Like
a hornet. Pulled away this bolt, that bolt, an-
other bolt, fellow walking fast as he could toward
his piebald mare hitched to a tree. The fellow
went home to his wife without one yard ; old New
Hampshire came in, piled u^d the calico again,
ready for the next customer ! A New-Englander,
I know," apologetically, " but you can't scare
him ! " Although I have left out the oaths of the
speaker, oaths uttered with relish and moral mean-
ing !
You understand how and why Odd Archer,
Esq., is the most purely wicked of all the men you
meet when you know of his parentage, — Satan
himself, because fallen forever from heaven ! If
there is a pecuharly disreputable thing in such a
man, it is the singular ease and suddenness with
which you find yourself an intimate friend in his
very familiar converse with you on the part of the
same, pulhng you on and off like an old glove !
And that disreputable scoundrel would talk about
MOSE EVANS. 41
his father, the distinguished minister, his wonder-
ful success in pastorate and revivals, his long-suf-
fering efforts to reclaim his prodigal. " No, sir ! "
he would add, " not a bit of it. I am a gone case,
past praying for ! " I am satisfied there is no
crime known to men the fellow would not have
committed with zest had it come in his way, greed
of the very wickedness involved for the very wick-
edness' sake. Singular world, ours ! Now Gen-
eral Throop was as pure a knight as Sir Galahad,
and how there could be that perfect understand-
ing between the two, as of born gentlemen among
peasants, is a matter which puzzles me as much
to-day as ever.
As to New Hampsliire, the postmaster, I saw he
was hardened to things as are the rocks of his own
coast to winter and the wash of wild waves. Sit-
ting in his back room, I often paused from my
writing at the rickety black desk, to listen to what
said wild waves were saying while the mail was
being opened, before, and after ; or while a heavy
ram held the assembled " crowd " from going
home. Socially, politically, morally, irreligiously,
a viler ton-ent of talk, especially when Odd Archer
is present, speaker, prompter, applauder, fouls no
kennel on earth. Now, as I came to know, there
42 MOSE EVANS.
remains in New England no more sincerely Chris-
tian man than is this old gentleman, — the very
life and soul and leader and purse afterward of the
Rev. Mr. Parkinson's church ; for it was the Rev.
]\Ir. Parkinson himself, fresh from his college,
whom we had come upon at his roadside toilet. I
suppose the old postmaster had, by long practice,
learned to abstract himself from the living mire
around him morally, as Archimedes did philosoph-
ically from the storming — himself the centre of
the same — of Sj^acuse. My theory is, he cre-
ated a New England for himself, of the space be-
hind his counter and of the small room back of
the store in which I wrote, and in which he slept
and had his meals; constructed a New England
out of himself as he sorted letters, made entries
on his journal, closed bargains, allowing all the
hatred of the government, the profanity and ob-
scenity, to dash unfelt, unheard, upon the granite
coast of his weather-beaten exterior. The Puri-
tan aroma was to him as its Cuban flavor to best
cigars, as its peculiar excellence to choicest brands
of wine, — the deeper and stronger in virtue of
long and close keeping. He had been away from
home so many years, a bewildered Rip Van Win-
kle he would have found liimself, had he revisited
MOSE EVANS. 43
the scenes of lils youth. I said to him one day, I
could not help it, " ]\Iy dear sir, you have come
not to mind all this ridicule of religion by these
reckless Brown County loafers, as natural to you
from them as cards, whisky, oaths, obscenity, the
crack of revolvers. Suppose you are East, and
hear a perfectly polished but far deadlier assault
upon your Christianity by ministers of the gosj^el
from the pulpit on Sunday, hailed with glee as
great by crowds there too. Heh ? Just suppose ?
You cannot suppose ? "Well, I '11 say nothing
about the eloquent and overwhelming disproving
there, by the very Rulers of the Synagogue, of
everything you hold dear. But it is a good thing
you landed so long ago from your iMayfiower upon
this remoter West ! "
Change the figure and say this postmaster flowed
hither as from the molten furnace of his Hamp-
shire home ; in that case he certainly has hardened
into cold steel among these molding sands ! If
he ever relaxes the corner of mouth, even, or of
eye, it is, at least, no man that knows it. Harry
Peters himself in his jolliest story is as much to
him, and no more, than yonder crow cawing from
the dead top of that girdled post-oak over the
way, in Dick Frazier's field, near the tavern. For
3
44 MOSE EVANS.
Harry is tlie joker of all the world lying around
Brownstown, — the Sir Charles Sedley, the Rev.
Sydney Smith, the Grimaldi, and the Dickens of
Bro^vn County. Brown County? Harry was
elected captain during the war, member of the
Legislature since, simply as being the most popu-
lar man known, on account of his fun ! Joking
and laughing is nature to Harry, as much as diges-
tion and sleep. A miserable merry-making it
would be considered if Harry Peters was not there.
The simple announcement on such occasions of
" Oh, yonder comes Harry Peters ! " by any one
on porch or at window, sent a laugh over every
face in advance. You said, the next time you
met him after introduction, " Why, how are you,
Harry ? " and from your heart, with warm grasp
of hand, as if you had known him and he you
from birth in the same village. I noticed it at
New Hampshire's store, that dull, drear^'- down-
pour of a fall day I was there. A duller, drearier,
dirtier set than sat on nail-kegs and tobacco-boxes
that hour, making the very weather dirtier, I never
saw. Suddenly, some one said in joyful accents,
" Hi, HaiTy ! " And the entrance of that lame,
pale-faced, stoop-shouldered, jeans-clad farmer, ex-
planter, was like a blast of oxygen from a blow-
pipe, every man wide awake, laughhig tilready '
MOSE EVANS. 45
" You never drink, Harry," I heard Odd Archer
say, with many an oath, " because you never need
it."
" Yes, private distillery in here, large supply of
best Bourbon always on hand ! " replies Harry,
his palm on his bosom. Nothing in the words, —
mere champagne froth ; not worth writing, any-
thing he said ; tone and manner and meaning all,
anci as impossible to define as any other magnet-
ism. I know a powerful preacher in New York,
whose hairs stand erect around his capacious head,
on exactly the same principle as with the dolls
having flowing locks which are insulated for that
purpose J it is excess of electricity in the one case
as in the other ! And Harry Peters is magnetic,
electric, tis the torpedo-eel is, fun and laughter the
special ppecies of his fluid I Nothing foul or pro-
fane, his fun is simple force of nature, no more
immoral or moral than lightning !
Rev. Mr. Parkinson having come, we have
church on Sundays thereafter. When the post-
master lifted the lid of his old desk, as I sat at it
in the back room, to get me letter-paper, I caught
a glimpse of a little, worn, old book therein. How
well I know what 9/ou are ! I said to myself on the
instant. ^Mainspring, disinfectant, companion, sole
46 MOSE EVAXS.
and sufficient, in this island among very foul wa-
ters. Judasa, New England, heaven. All this old
soul loves of past, future, present ! Merel}^ a little
black book ? Not a prophet or apostle, or least
Mary or leper in you, but is more of a li^dng asso-
ciate to this postmaster than all Brown County
can afford ! I wondered if, of Sundays and of
nights and of mornings before his store is opened,
my friend did not succeed in making out of that
dismal surrounding an actual New England for
himself, this living book assisting. Wondered if
he had a turkey there to himself Thanksgivings.
We won't mention Antaeus, if you please, strength-
ened by touch of his mother earth : certainly the
reviving force is from quite another direction in
this case. But this old soul's religion must be, if
figures may be multiplied, of a right royal Tyrian
dje indeed, which can strike its purple so into the
very fabric of the man. If some people are right,
will it not be a sad stain in him eternally ? But
then, you see, there is no Eternit}^ ! What is cli-
mate and soil at last ? South Carolina, for in-
stance, is nothing whatever, except so far as it is
— General Theodore Throop ! That State w^ill
yet be another individual altogether when we once
get at that bed of marl there six hundred feet deep
MOSE EVANS. 47
and liundrecls of miles long. Up to date Carolina
is General Theodore Throop or nothing. I suc-
ceed the General in Charleston ; am, I suppose,
the typical South Carohnian of the future. I do
wonder if, in the end, the entire Republic is to be
only one immense New England. I cannot say I
hope so, — in every sense, I mean.
As I came out of the post-oflBce, on my way
back to Dick Frazier's and General Throop there,
I stopped to shake hands with young Evans. I
have ah-eady alluded, in my letter to my wife, to
a sojourn with the General at his cabin near our
lands. Allow me to speak more particularly here
of the same ; permit me, in fact, to make a new
chapter of it, going back, therefore, a few days.
V.
Had the babe been housed within,
Eomulus had never been !
Had he sucked his mother's breast,
Rome had never reared its crest !
From between the she-wolf's paws
He gave the world its master's laws !
General Theodore ThUoop differed from
me as, I suppose, the South has differed, since the
world was created, from the North ; he was too
slow, as I was possibly too fast. I dare say the
General's established position for half a century in
the highest social circle of Charleston, had been
the molding influence in virtue of which the old
gentleman was such a Louis Le Grand in tones
and bearing, and stately but gracious inertia, even .
He rarely alluded to the subject, but, for him,
there was no future ; why should he hurry him-
self ? My wife says I cannot live except when in
motion, and am happiest when most driven, and it
did try me sorely to wait for General Throop ; or
would have tried me had not my Southern wife
accustomed me so long to waiting for her, never
MOSE EVANS. 49
up to the instant, I regret to record it of her, since
the ceremony of our marriage, when she kept ua
all waiting full twenty minutes behind time. As
we journeyed together, did business to large
amounts together, I knew all along his determina-
tions in matters, days before he had reached them
himself ; had said over and over to myself all he
was slowly going to say upon a subject a dozen
times before he had spoken. Yet I enjoyed the
venerable gentleman even while I inwardly fussed
at his ponderous pcopriety, and outran exceedingly
his cultured slowness. There are as true gentle-
men in Boston as the General, but he was of
another variety altogether: a huge water-melon
ripening asleep in the sun, as compared with a
seckel pear, small but closely buttoned up to the
chin in its perfect-fitting suit of brown and red:
say, rather, and be done with it, a pine-apple con-
trasted with a pippin, — but a pippin as from the
Garden of the Hesperides, of rarest flavor as well
as of royal size.
What I wanted to say, when I began all this,
was, that we two found it impossible to make our
trip between Dick Frazier'*s tavern in Brownstown,
and the General's proposed place down the river,
in one day ; the General being altogether too de-
60 HOSE EVANS.
liberate for that in waking, dressing, breakfasting,
riding, looking over the land, conversing about its
varied localities for corn and cotton, house and
gin ; and this explains how we came to ride one
afternoon up to the cabin of Mose Evans, whose
lands "joined on" ours, to stay, as Mose had
assured us we could, all night. Now ten million
people of our population, far from the worst of said
population, live in just such cabins. AVe ride up
to a rough paling fence, well whitewashed, as are
the cabin and the hen-coops, and the trunk of
every forest and fruit tree in the inclosure, the
spotless geese wearing the same livery, as they
string out of the front gate in the morning, and
back in the evening, from the river flowing im-
mediately before the house. Mrs. Evans had been
described to us as being a devoted mother, a model
housewife in point of neatness, but, alas, a woman
of temper most terrible ; our many informants m-
sisting specially upon this last feature of her char-
acter. I called General Throop's attention, as we
hallooed from our saddles and waited for a reply,
before dismounting, to the row of reddened bricks
from the gate on either side of the pebbled walk
to the porch ; to the brilliant tin pans sunning
upon thoroughly scrubbed shelves around the well
MOSE EVANS. 61
in the yard, the long pole thereof, as also oaken
bucket, seeming just from the same process. At
this moment Mrs. Evans appeared, knitting in
hand, upon the porch, and, with eyes shaded from
the setting sun by the stocking held in her hand,
bade us " light." It was so very easy, the way in
which General Throop conquered our dreaded
hostess upon her outpost and on the instant I
Before he was half-way up the walk he had taken
off his. hat. It v/as natural to him; it was not
natural to me following him, and I did not do it.
Had she been the wife of Washington, he could not
have been, and from sheer nature, more respect-
ful. "• Mrs. Evans, I presume ? " hat in hand and
with a grave inclination of his white head. And
when, in manner adapted to his own, she had
bidden us enter — "I am ashamed, madam, to
step with such boots upon your porch ! " For
steps of stone, pine floor, rude posts and railing of
the porch, doors opening upon it from the cabin,
the very pegs in the whitewashed logs from which
bags of dried seeds were hung, all were of almost
painful cleanness, the hide-bottom chairs pure and
white from incessant soap and sand. After our
weeks upon the road and at Dick Frazier's, the
snowy towels and tablecloth, especially the coarse
52 MOSE EVANS.
but very clean sheets and pillow cases at niglit,
were luxuries to General Throop I was glad of.
To me Mrs. Evans was simply a tall, well-looking,
neatly dressed female who had worried her hus-
band to death, and who might, unless Odd Archer
Und Brownstown had lied to me, drive us from
under her roof any moment by her termagant
tongue. People had told the General the same,
but, like all Southern gentlemen, he instmctively
invested every white woman with certain chivalnc
attributes of sister, daughter, wife, mother, ele-
vating her into an ideal being whom they call
Woman, a creation, like Dulcinea del Toboso,
having no existence outside imagination. In the
most natural manner, all the time of our acquaint
ance. General Throop idealized Airs. Evans, and
she was idealized ; that is, he assumed and she
accepted and acted upon the assumption, that she
was Woman.
Mose Evans observed it, at table, for I can read
men., though he was merely a big and very hand-
some and bearded boy. Had General Throop said
much about her admirable cookery, it would have
ruined all ; only a sincere word or two, his man-
ner, his evident enjoyment of his meals, did every-
thing. " He makes more work than all the rest of
MOSE EVANS. »53
the lioiisckecping," the mother said of her son in
the course of conversation, " always in the fields
with the hands, hunting and the like, he cannot
help muddying and tearing his things, I know.
But he does not haunt the town, never enters a
doggery, doesn't know a card, thank Heaven I
and, then, I will not have any woman to help
me ! " This last for reasons with reference to her
son, too, as I well knew. I wonder if people like
General Throop do really stop at and sleep upon
the surface of things as they seem to. " In these
days of the overthrow of everything," the General
remarked, amazingly brightened up after a very
substantial supper upon coffee, venison, and the
perfection of corn bread and butter, " my inten-
tion, ]\Irs. Evans, is to adopt the very life you are
now leading. That is, if I close with Mr. An
derson here." The General and myself had really
and finally reached certainty about that, only his
outer person, so to speak, had not yet arrived. " I
never talk pohtics," the General added. " There
are, in fact, no politics to talk. Victorious force
has destroyed all I hold worth living for. We
have entered, as did Greece and Rome, upon tne
era of miUtary despotism and all corruption. The
only glory is of gold, and that is evanescent !
54 MOSE EVANS.
Excuse me. ^Ve may, in case I should close with
Mr. Anderson, be neighbors. Mrs. Throop and
my daughter Agnes. My only son, Theodore
Throop, gave his life, at Sumter, for his country,
but I did not desire to speak of that. We bury
ourselves in these primeval woods purposely, the
world forgetting, by the world forgot. I hke your
son, madam," for that individual had gone to look
to our horses. " I pride myself, Mrs. Evans, upon
being a judge of character, and I am free to say,
he seems to me to be a thorouglily manly and
sensible person, as he certainly is most prepossess-
ing in his outer man. You should be, and doubt-
less are, very proud of him, madam ! "
Now, I knew Evans to be all of this and more,
but I could not have kept it from seeming flattery
if I had said it. The bearing of the stately old
soul gave such weight to all his remarks.
" He is all I have ! " was her only reply, and
she was halted, I saw, at the mention of that
daughter ! — with reference to any possible results
concerning her son, halted, like a female panther
guarding her cub. And I began to understand
this Xantippe, by help of what I had heard,
through and through ! — But I could have laughed
aloud. Miss Agnes Throop ! The flower and per-
MOSE EVANS. 55
fection of Charleston culture ; the belle of all its
beauties by their own confession. Agnes Throop
and this handsome boor ; Beauty and the Beast ;
heaven and earth are not more removed. " You
«eem to be pleased at something, sir ? " It was
the panther again, with her head ever so little
upon one side, a gleam of danger in her eyes, and
quicker knitting I
HoAV people do have to steer in the rapids of
life, barely grazing the rocks ! And the steering
is sometimes very like lying.
" Ah, General," I readily exclaimed, " Mrs. Ev-
ans has her household duties. Were you to se-
clude yourself from all the outer world, as you
threaten, you would have to take to books as some
persons take to drinking ! " And, to make my
blunder worse, I glanced around as I said it.
" Not one ! Except an old Bible, not one book
or paper in the house ! " Mrs. Evans said it out,
and I to myself in the same instant. I began to
take deeper interest in her !. It was not at all to
me, it was in subjection to the inquiring yet per-
fectly respectful " Ah ? " of General Throop, that
!Mrs. Evans gave us her version of their family
history. Not at once. Doubtless she brooded day
and night over her story, and it forced its way out
66 MOSE EVANS.
by a sort of fermentation diu'ing our after ac-
quaintance. But it was to my companion slie
always addressed lierseK, and to him exclusively.
He seemed, in some way, to liave brought back a
former life, as of ages ago, to her mind. One day,
during our many calls at her cabin, she showed us
her husband's daguerreotype. I had a suspicion
that it had lain unopened in the bottom of some
trunk until very lately.
" He was evidently, madam, a gentleman and a
scholar," the General said, after long and grave
inspection of the faded and old-fashioned picture.
" And he seems," he added as he returned to its
inspection, " to have been somewhat broken down.
Ill health, I presume ? "
The woman did not reply. I saw that she re-
frained by an effort from looking at me. Odd
Archer explained it all to me afterward, as we
shall see. Yet I must say here that he hated the
woman, connected, I think, as chief witness with
one of his manifold disgraces. I made allowance
for its being from him in all I learned from his
very unreliable lips. Yet Brown County agreed
the woman had worried and scolded the miserable
husband to death. Somehow she had embroiled
and broken him up along a series of downward
MOSE EVANS. 57
removals. AVliat books remained to him were his
only refuge. To give value to tliese pages, I would
like greatly to know whether they were sold for
bread, lost in their many moves, burned accident-
ally. It would be dramatic if Brown County was
right, but I do not certainly know, and therefore
cannot say, whether or no Mrs. Evans in her
storms of temper did really, as Brown County as-
serted, rend to fragments and burn the poor fel-
low's volumes to the very last leaf. From what
Chaucer makes his Wife of Bath confess of her
tempestuous course in reference to the volumes of
her bookish husband, I think this quite likely.
I had bought a picture or two, had heard Helen
and others talk, as well as listened to some of what
Ruskin has to say, enough to enjoy a little group-
ing of trees, cows, children — any light and shade
and life. Therefore I remember the morninjr after
our first nlMit at Mrs. Evans's double \o^ cabin.
As we afterward learned, Mose had got up about
midnight, watched from a tree a certain worn
ravine down which the deer came to drink in the
river at dawn, and returned by breakfast with the
antlered result. I could have painted it if I could
have painted anything, that morning scene. He
had hung the buck to a limb of a live-oak off to
58 3I0SE EVANS.
one side in the yard. From respect for Lis motli^
er's ideas of neatness, I suppose, he had disem-
boweled the beast before we appeared, so that no
reminder even remained, and was slowly flaying
the animal as it hung, replying, as he did so, to
the General standing by greatly interested ; for
there is an occult connection between chivalry and
hunting, since Esau. The General, his white hair
uncovered to the air, and aglow with the bright
morning, a sound sleep and hearty brealdast, was
admiring the young Esau more than his prey. Ko
wonder. I would n't have given the man a hun-
dred a year as entry clerk in our office ; but he
was worth thousands as a picture. He was in
leather from head to foot, the frins^e aloncr huntinor
frock and cape, and general neatness throughout,
telling of his mother. His old cap lay at the stock
of his rifle, which was leaning against the well
near by, and his uncovered head with its abundant
hair was as glorious as that of a god, the sun strik-
ing upon its gold. He seemed a model, in all his
vigorous frame, of absolute youth, health, strength.
It was the sneer of Brown County, the watch Mrs.
Evans kept upon Mose, and his consequent purity
in all regards ; and the complexion of the man,
the childlike unconsciousness of his manner, the
MOSE EVAXS. 69
infantile steadiness and clearness of liis brow, and
*)i liis eyes in yours — you see, I can no more paint
with pen than with brush I
" I never met a nobler youth in my life," the
General said, as we rode off about our lands.
'* He seems to me to be of the very chivalry of
nature. Good blood, rest assured. Possibly his
father may have come of some Carolina or Vir-
ginia family. Good material for a man if fallen
into the right hands. I intend to have him supply
us with game, if we close our matter, Mr. Ander-
son. I think he .would interest Agnes ; you know
we will not bring even our negroes — former slaves,
I should say — or our dogs, if we remove."
" I have puzzled myself," I replied, " as to why
his mother has allowed him to grow up untaught.
Jealous even of books, because she never opens
one ? Hating them as the preference of her hus-
band to her, his last resort from her ? Or sheer
indifference and brutal ignorance ! The only in-
tellect the woman ever had has run into temper;
vixen, virago, termagant, they tell me."
" I never allow myself, Mr. Anderson," General
Throop makes grave reply, " to speak disrespect-
fully of others. Therefore no one speaks, I be-
lieve, disrespectfully of me. Or, it is to their face,
60 MOSE EVANS.
when I must speak. Excuse me, as so much the
elder, but I never express myself with other than
respect of the aged, of the helpless, especially of
woman. You need not always speak, you know.
As I said before, yes, sir, her son is noble material.
But for what ? If there is a future for this most
miserable country, I do not know it ! "
VI.
Not with cathedral's granite fires
The heart flames up its loftiest spires.
God's husbandry is fullest done
■V\'here falls the rain and shines the sun.
Our grapes may be the hot-house yield,
But bread by harvests grows afield !
Its grandest gain your spirit doth
Attain amid the forest growth.
To wheat and oak and flower and you
Most life where freest falls the dew.
Where wind unhindered blows there most
Its Archetype the Holy Ghost !
In one point we were unanimous at the post-
office, that day I first met the worthies assembled
therein, and this was that we would all go and
hear the Rev. Mr. Parkinson preach next Sunday.
lie had come in for his letters while we were as-
sembled there, a pale, thin, long-haired, exceed-
ingly shy youth, fresh from the institution which
prepared him for the pulpit. So very long had
Brownstown been without the services of any min-
ister, of his denomination, at least, that he was
accepted as a novelty, an experiment, a mild sen-
62 MOSE EVANS.
sation, even. The members of liis cliurcli were
the richest men around, having been the first set-
tlers of Brown County. Doubtless no stricter
members existed when in the North Carolina from
which they removed ; but " things had got awfully
torn up," as the patriarch among them himself told
me, during the absence of a pastor — very much
so indeed if I was to accept the unanimous state-
ment of all I met.
Now, my host, Mr. Robinson, was a member
and officer of the church of which Mr. Parkinson
was the very youthful minister. He was a very
tall man, exceedingly stooped in his old age, and
answered to the title of Squire, Judge, Colonel,
General, Deacon, or Elder, as the case might be ,
and although not quite so bad as Odd Archer, yet
even he had fallen, unless greatly slandered, into
singular courses in reference to card-playing and
horse-racing. Sabbath having come, there was
quite a congregation of -us at church. And a
tumble-down old " cathedral '* it was ; for an
Irishman, in excess of native politeness, alluded to
it as such in my hearing the week after. A mis-
erable old disused dwelling it was, that Sabbath,
and has fulfilled before this, I do hope, what was
then its fixed intention of tumbling down.
MOSE EVANS. 03
" The entire Robinson connection are on the
ground," Odd Archer informed me before we
entered the house. " North CaroUna I See it ?
Stamped in strong family likeness : tall, red-
haired, sandy-complexioned, gaunt as their hogs,
long armed and legged, inflexible. As strong a
family likeness among them as there is in a boat-
load of clams — their very noses long and insisting
like those of the animals mentioned ! In fact,
they are Scotch-Irish, but sadly degenerate after
two centuries of emigration. Sir," Odd Archer
adds, " my father is to-day one of their most
eminent divines. He was out here once, preached
to them and to me. But it was too much for him,
these people and myself."
Yet this disreputable limb of the law is evi-
dently arrayed in the best suit of his shabby
black, to do honor to the day and place ; and in
certain curious aspects, tones, bearing, is as thor-
ough a gentleman as General Throop ; and with a
mutual bow, these two exchanged the civilities of
the hour before the General passed on into the
place of worship.
" A religious man, the General, I see," the
lawyer added. " A gentleman always is. AVash-
ii'gton was. I am a hopeless case myself, but I
64 MOSE EVANS.
can and Jo respect religion in others ! If tbej a*«
not actiially bringing my pet to cliurcli ! How are
you, Dob ? " For Dick Frazier, hotel-keeper and
sheriff, presses past us through the throng round
the entrance at this moment, with a man heavily
ironed. " Dob Butler," my informant explains,
" the worst desperado in all Brown County. You
see, he would n't stay in the jail, breaks out. It
is a good idea having him at church ; it rests Dick
Frazier and may do Dob some good. His case is
on at court next week. Oh, I will clear him I
No doubt about his guilt, murdered a teamster,
but he kept money enough to put him through !
How are you, Harry ! Now, Harry, be a gentle-
man. No fun here ! Dr. Jones, excuse me !
Pardon the liberty, but seeing it is Sunday and
church, you ought to have dressed up a little,
Doc."
" Only what I wore every day in Philadelphia."
Dr. Alexis Jones makes cool reply, for he is
dressed in the extremity of fashion.
" Is there not, excuse me, something offensive in
the air ? " the lawyer says, with his fingers to his
ruby nose ; " pity it should be under the church
— polecat, I 'm afraid ! "
The youtliful physician cannot but color a little
MOSE EVAXS. 65
at this reference to liis perfumery, and hastens to
turn the topic.
" But how smgular, gentlemen ! here in this
nineteenth century attending church ; so far as I
am concerned, as well be at a pagoda in Japan ! "
In fact Dr. Jones prided himself upon his unbelief,
as being the one precious possession which spe-
cially distinoruished him from and elevated him
« o
above the common herd, and made it prominent
accordingly, very much as he did his broadcloth
and jewelry. As the young man passes in. Odd
Archer, Esq., says, in a plaintive manner, " I can
stand a scoundrel, like Dob Butler in there, or
myself, but a consummate fool " —
At this juncture we are swept along with a
number of people, male and female, into the long,
low, dingy room used as a church ; and as nearly
twenty thousand of our best preachers labor every
Sabbath under like circumstances, along the line
of the nation's advance westward, let me review,
for my gratification if not for yours, dear reader,
this Sabbath service with Mose Evans, Mr. Rob-
inson, and the rest, Mr. Parkinson preaching.
Because there is a heroism in such service. Planks
have been so disposed upon hide-bottom chairs as
to make seats sufficient to accommodate the two
QQ MOSE EVANS.
or three hundred persons present, while the youth-
ful clergyman has his special chair beside a little
well inked and whittled school desk by the huge
fire-place at one end of the apartment ; to which
now this, now that member of the congregation
comes during sermon and stands beside the preach-
er, warming first one, then the other of his or her
feet, listenmg, somewhat in the attitude of a critic,
to the discourse in progress. There was a pun-
cheon plank, a foot or so off to the left from the
fire-place, which I heard Mr. Robinson warn the
young minister of before sermon, as sure to let
him through into the cellar below, if he should
step upon it. There were never less than seven
children running: about the room all throuorh and
through the sermon ; the number of smaller mem-
bers of the conm-ec^ation crvinsj at once I at-
tempted but failed to count, owing to inadequacy
of brains for labor so multiform. Besides, in
order to see his sermon, Mr. Parkinson had piled
two brickbats from the old hearth under each leg
of the little table before him, and was in evident
terror all alongr lest a touch of his hand should
topple the pulpit, and, with it, the entire service
and Sabbath, over, as actually did occur some
weeks after ! And the poor young fellow is as
MOSE EVANS. 67
thoroughly unfitted for his ministiy of such a flock
iis a man can possibly be. Yet I do not know !
He is as fair and frail as a flower, and his congre-
gation are robust, sunburned, hardened to work,
and, a good many of them, to wickedness. He
knows nothing about the world, and they know
nothing about books. Things they are accustomed
to as matter of course are repulsive and impossible
to him ! The exceeding contrast may have done
the people good, like that of a woman to a man !
But, oh, that sermon ! A plea for the personality
of the devil, I remember, making Satan very neb-
ulous, however, from excess of drapery. Perfectly
true in general and utterly false in particular,
merest moonshine as to practical effect upon the
people, who waited with waning patience for him
to get through. ]\Ir. Robinson was in a hide-
bottom chair to the left, tilted against the wall
upon its hind legs, solemnly and soundly asleep.
To do the preacher justice, he and his subject both
became more practical toward the close. And it
was Mose Evans, listening with large, earnest
eyes, like a big boy who really wanted to know
all about the matters concerning which the min-
ister spoke, who steadied him, until unconsciously
he stopped x>reaching and began to tell him, w
68 MOSE EVANS.
reply to his eager eyes, all the theologian himself
knew about it.
" For God's sake, Mr. Parkinson," I said to
nim afterward, when we had become thoroughly
acquainted with each other, " don't talk in ab-
stract essays to these folks. Your discourse is so
elaborate that, so to speak, it chills and changes
you into a sort of ecclesiastical automaton the
moment you begin to deliver it. Why clothe
yourself (for I want you to do good here) in such
a mannerism of starch and silk ? You are not a
medicine-man among savages, relying upon youi
feathers and paint to conjure them out of their
evil case ! These are common-sense, siiming, suf-
fering men and women. God has given you a
sufficient gospel to save them with. Use it, man !
Speak it out plainly, squarely, to the sio and need
of the congregation. Don't speak of your Creator
as ' the Deity.' And Satan is not ' the ethereal
effluence of essential evil ; ' call him the devil and
be done with it ! Whom are you so afraid of ?
They will respect you and listen to you and be
benefited by you as you fear no one but your
Master. Be as practical, Bible in hand, as if you
were driving a trade ! Odd Archer before a
jury, liar, rogue, lewd dog that he is, has a thou-
MOSE EVANS. 69
Band times your sense in his way of pleading his
cause " —
But never mind. To go back to the congrega-
tion, — the second object of interest at church was
old New Hampshire. Burdett, Seth Burdett, is
his name ; I should have recorded it before. To
the amazement of Brownstown he came out, the
old, hard, tough postmaster, in a new light alto-
gether that day. After giving out a famihar hymn
the young minister sat blushing and paling in the
silence which followed, broken as it soon was by
certain titterings among the young ladies present.
" If any friend can raise the tune " — the preacher
said, at last. I had not been to singing-school in
New England for nothing, and had already hit
upon Ortonville as the orthodox tune for the hymn
announced. But the postmaster was from New
England, also, and, to the profound astonishment
of all there, raised that very tune and in full voice
himself ! Like the others he was carefully attired
in Ills best, and was as practical, persistent, and
undaunted in leading the singing as in all else. It
was music from a stone Memnon indeed! His
voice was somewhat shrill, but not without a cer-
tain quaint and old-fashioned sweetness too, and
we all joined in when a verse or two had given the
world assurance of a tune \
70 MOSE EVANS.
I can see at tliis instant the horse-thief and
murderer — Dob Butler — sitting in his chains be-
side the county sheriff, Dick Frazier, in the far-
thest right-hand corner, the jail being too frail to
be relied upon for an hour, even ; how the clink,
now and then, of the fetters still sounds upon my
ear as during the sermon then, through all the
manifold noises of the years since !
Immediately in front of the minister were the
rest of the Robinsons, male and female, who all
seemed to me like a party of school children caught
in a melon patch, stealing, and who had made sol-
emn promise to do so no more.
I found General Throop talking with Mose Ev-
ans out of doors after service that day. He was
as carefully arrayed as his saddle-bags allowed,
but in coarsest jeans he would have been General
Theodore Throop and — Charleston — still.
It made a vast difference to Mose Evans, the
being dressed in his Sunday best, a modest suit of
gray stuff. He was twenty-three years old, as I
was told, of stalwart yet perfect proportions, with
abundant hair and beard, silken and of that pecul-
iar shade of gold called, Helen tells me, by paint-
ers, " lion's eye," — as handsome a man as I ever
saw in my life, his glory lying in his large, frank
MOSE EVANS. 71
eyes, sincerity, simplioity, absolute independence,
supreme liealth, cordial willingness to be hearty
friend or enemy, as you saw fit !
I was the more interested in him as his home
joined the General's estate, and he was being em-
ployed to oversee certain improvements toward
the removal of the family from Charleston — the
lands being yet exactly as they were left after
Creation and Deluge. I think it was the day after
that Sunday's service that Odd Archer remarked
to me, in continuation, " Mose Evans is, sir, a child
of nature ! As you will pay me no fee for lying
in the matter, I will add that the man is, from
sheer ignorance, I suppose, and lack of opportu-
nity, considered to be as immaculate as King Ar-
thur of the Round Table, — for I read a book
occasionally as variety to steady ^vickedness."
" Is he very poor ? " I began.
" Land ! " My informant's only reply, but ^vith
an emphasis.
"We spent a night at his cabin ; his mother
seemed to be " — I venture.
" Vixen. Virago. Termagant. Xantippe.
Should have been ducked to death as a notorious
scold years ago. Sir," my companion gravely
added, " it could be legally done in the river to-
72 MOSE EVANS.
morrow — statute law of old England never re-
pealed. She killed her husband. This way. He
was a professor in some Georgia college, years ago.
Like those dry old pedants, fell desperately in
love with his wife when a blooming girl, be-
cause, I suppose, she was so pretty and so igno-
rant. Mold her, you observe. Very soon she
broke him up in Georgia. They had to move
and move and keep moving, until they wound up
here, where he died. Sir, that poor fellow was
scientifically scolded to death ! I tell you, Mr.
Anderson, if Mrs. Evans had been a Madame
Brinvilliers or La Farge, and made daily use of
the lesser poisons of herb and crucible, it could not
have been accomplished more systematically. I
knew him. About his land titles. We lawyers
have to know everybody and everything. He had
been driven into a kind of dazed insanity long
before he died. His poor body held out longest,
being only the secondary object of her assault.
The son does not know how to read, sir ! "
" Mose Evans ? "
" Mose Evans ! Splendid specimen of a man as
I ever saw in a jury box, or on trial for murder,
yet cannot read. Owing to the peculiar unsettled-
ness of their life and to his remarkable mother, as
MOSE EVANS. 73
they say of Cornelia and Martha Washington ! I
do not know if there ever were other children, but
Mose is now her only child. She may love him,
for what I know, but he never learned to read. I
doubt whether she has ever opened a book since
she was a school-girl. Fact, sir." All of which
made me look with more interest upon Mose Ev-
ans, meeting liim next day down the river by
appointment in company with General Throop.
Although I did not know of it until long after-
ward, I will mention it here that the man had
begun to learn to read in those days. It was the
old postmaster who taught him, very secretly, in
the little back room of the old man's store, and at
mo-ht. I am certain his mother knew nothing
of it.
"This queer thing about it, sir," the lawyer
had told me in the conversation just mentioned ;
" it is the poor fellow's mother has kept him clear
of the women, virtuous and otherwise. I suppose
he dreads them all as he dreads her, knowing his
father's experience and his own. All the women
about admire him, but they are too much afraid of
his mother to speak to him, hardly ! "
Aside from the mere gossip of Brown County,
all this interested me to a singular degree. Fool-
74 MOSE EVANS.
ish as it may seem to you at this stage of my nar-
rative, I regarded Mose Evans as a species of nug-
get I had most unexpectedly stumbled upon ; and
I propose to be rigidly statistical and accurate in
regard to the man, as we all instinctively are
where gold is in question. As I write he rises be-
fore me, illumined by all the wonders which fol-
lowed ; yet, had any lunatic imagined them all,
and asked me if such things were possible of him,
I would have said, even before those remarkable
events took place, " Such things never entered my
mind, sir, but now that you have raised the ques-
tion as to their possibility, why, yes, sir, yes ! "
And I would have made the reply even with en-
thusiasm ! Looking back over the whole affair, I
do declare, as upon oath, before a notar^^ public,
that I regard Mose Evans as being the most re-
markable man I ever knew. What is more, dear
reader, I trust you will heartily agree with me be-
fore we part.
vn.
For transient guests, new wine in ready flasks:
For life-long friends, old wine from cellared casks !
The broker's window makes but small display,
In iron vaults liis bullion hides away.
The world is richer where the willows weep
In men, than where the eager myriads sweep
The ways, in ranks a living million deep !
At the time of which I would now speak, Gen-
eral Throop and family had arrived in Brown
County from Charleston, and were settled down in
their new home upon the bank of the river, a few
miles below Brownstown. The General and my-
self had carefully selected the site for the house.
I am satisfied that the General entertained some
vague idea of being the Romulus of a new Rome,
or rather, and far better, the founder of a new
Carolina, if not of a second Charleston, though
ages must roll away before his purpose could be
consummated. The glory of the place was in the
baronial old live-oaks, bearded with sweeping gray
moss, and extending their arms abroad over the
76 MOSE EVANS.
roof below, in perpetual benediction. There were
plenty of magnolia-trees scattered around the cot-
tage, as up and down the river for hundreds of
miles, laden in season with their yellow- white flow
ers, and intoxicating the air with perfume. A
paradise of a place, with its greensward, the broad
verandah having a swinging hammock for the old
General, in which he smoked the day through and
the year round ; smoked with set purjDose, as if he
would puff his soul and body, all his disastrous
past, blasted present, and hopeless future away, to
be lost and perish with the Confederate cause, as
the smoke from his white moustached lips did in
the air ! No syllable of complaint about his per-
sonal fortunes ; a vast deal, I confess, about the
Federal government, and the era of " ism and
rapid ruin over all the world ! "
" The very prosperity, sir," he often said to me,
'• of your country, — t/our country, for it is not
mine, — like that of Rome when it had fallen un-
der the despotism of its Caesars, is but the flush of
the fever which is destroying it ! " and much more
to the same effect.
Whenever I happened for the night at the Gen-
eral's, in my many land excursions here and there
over Brown County, I could not but observe the
MOSE EVANS. 77
Mary Martha Washington, their slave of whom I
have already spoken, — their slave on religious
principle, as sublimated by her delusion as was
^Irs, General Throop by hers. I was to the old
"' girl " a specimen of the terrible variety of my
race known as " an Abolitionist," alluded to dur-
ing all her life, only in dark and shuddering whis-
pers, as once the vilest and most venomous of
mankind, and endured by her now only mider
protest !
But I am speaking of the home of the Throops.
I had secured the services of Mose Evans as a kind
of overseer, while the building was being erected.
It was nothing but a pile of hewn logs, the cracks
between carefully " chinked and daubed," that is,
filled in with blocks of wood sawed for the pur-
pose, and coated with mortar outside and inside
alike. My " overseer " had given his heart to the
work during the months it was in course of being
constructed, before the arrival of the family, and
Brown County in general came to see, and con-
gratulated him upon the result. There were a
good number of rooms carpeted with India mat-
ting, a comfortably furnished library, the parlor
arranged as much like the one in Charleston as
Mose Evans could manage it, from plans furnished
78 MOSE EVANS.
by me. The whole place, in fact, was a spot to
spend a week of romance in, and then to weary to
death of, unless alive with some deeper interest to
you. The family were there simply as in exile,
confident of living and dying in banishment.
There was no possible reversal of their sentence ;
you would learn that much soon after your ac-
quaintance ! Knowing this, the household did all
that human beings in their case could do to feel at
home, and to be neighborly with all ; their culture,
however, marking them off as distinctly from the
families and persons around as if they had arrived
from another planet. I had ventured this last as-
sertion to vcLy venerable host, Mr. Robinson, one
day during my sojourn with him, in the emergency
of having no one else to say it to, only to be mis-
understood, my friend being deaf of outer and
inner hearing.
" Froni another plantation ? so they are ; sea-
island cotton place somewhere there in Carolina.
Twenty cents, I 'm told, when our best upland is
only ten ! Longer and finer staple, you see ! Gin
it with rollers instead of saws like us. Stuff it in
a long bag hung through a hole in the gin floor,
with a nigger and a crowbar, instead of a screw
and press like us. Sing'lar, is n't it ? "
MOSE EVANS. 79
Now I regret all the time I am writing, that,
being merely an overworked business man, I can-
not put upon paper the people inhabiting this,
theii- new home, at the time I would speak of, all
of whom I came to like almost beyond any persons
I had ever known before. Certainly, they were
to me a new and remarkable variation upon all
my previous experiences. There was, for instance,
the wife and mother. You have met invalids — I
select the gentlest term — like jNIrs. Throop, or
my effort to place her before you is utter failure.
Dickens would have run off with the comic side of
her singular character, Thackeray with the tragic ;
torn to atoms, the poor lady, in either case. Ah
me ! I close my eyes and see her now ! Nothing
but a matron in deep black, with the simple man-
ners of a lady, but with eyes which, with abnormal
insight, arraign you on the instant, read your soul,
condemn you, endure you merely for the present !
" I myself used to sin like the rest of you," I have
actually heard her say in conversation, " but I
have got beyond all that. You are to me as I my-
self once was, therefore I know your very soul so
well ! I used all the forms and ceremonies ; there
in Charleston, not for myself, but for their influ-
ence on others. I do not regret being deprived of
80 MOSE EVANS.
tliem all here," for it was after her removal to the
West I heard her that evening, many evenings,
" since I had long done with them. Nothing in
Sabbath or Scripture, prayer or praise, of service
to me any longer. And how sorry, sorry I am for
the rest of you ! "
All that Agnes, so like and so utterly unlike her
mother, could do on such occasions was to say, oc-
casionally, ••' Oh, mother ! " " Now, mother ! " as
to an invalid, or simply to hang her head in shame.
The old General always gravely arose, when the
topic came up, and walked sadly from the room.
'' Our Theodore is, you know, Mr. Anderson, in
heaven, — killed in Sumter ! and I have so much,
oh, so very much more actual companionship every
day with him than I have with the General or
with Agnes here ! we two understand each other !
You, poor creatures, how I do know and pity
you ! "
And there was Mr. Clammeigh ! Once or twice
he came out from Charleston to see them. I
wish I could photograph him upon this page. Of
course, his connection with Helen — I refer to my
wife — prejudiced me. And why should I be so
drawn toward and repelled from that cold, correct,
polished, silent corpse of a man ? I am from New
MOSE EVANS. 81
England, not from the tropics, yet there is some
profound antipathy of our natures ; my fault of
excess, possibly, or his of deficiency. Lift a cab-
bage leaf and, in recoiling from the toad squatted
beneath, you recoE from Mr. Clammeigh ! sm.te
asunder a primeval rock to find a living frog seated
in its centre from the creation of the world, as in-
different to light as to darkness, to motion as to
rest - " Now, I Uke Mr. Clammeigh ! " ^^ Hy
should it always be said as in defense of the man ?
Hawthorne would analyze the inmost ice of this
heart ; I do not pretend to. About the only thmg
I know is, if Mr. Clammeigh dwells, we will say,
as at the North Pole, then Mose Evans has his
home at the South Pole ; never two men more ex-
actly the opposite the one of the other ! I have a
sense of relief as I cease in despair from saymg
anything more upon the subject. I do not under-
stand Mr. Clammeigh. Yet Mose Evans I do
understand, as I do, may I say, a section of knd,
or a summer morning ? The philosophy of it a 1,
I suppose, is that l^Iose Evans is simply and purely
nature, human nature !
Although it seems absurd to name Miss Agnes
Throop in the same breath with the untutored
backwoodsman in question, yet, if I ^as to say
82 MOSE EVANS.
that I never knew a manlier man than Mose Ev-
ans, I could add, and m the same sense, that I
never met a womanlier woman than Miss Throop.
Draped as she was from birth in the linens, silks,
ribbons of conventionalism, thoroughly enveloped,
as to her very soul, so to speak, in the subtler Valen-
ciennes of her peculiar breedmg, she was, as if in
virtue of her very refinement, so much the more
woman, simply woman ! Heaven knows what it
was in her that remmded one of Eden and Eve.
Small figure, dark yet ever variable eyes, hair of
the same hue, peculiar grace of manner, highest
cultui'e of tone and bearing, natural grace and
sweetness, — it is useless for me to attempt de-
scription, though all the army of nouns and adjec-
tives marched to my assistance ! I admire and love
my wife as well as husband ever did, or could, yet
next to her, I swear allegiance to this lady, be-
cause you can no more deny her being a queen,
than you can deny her existence.
*' I do thank you so sincerely, Mr. Anderson ! "
she said to me the day I dropped in upon them for
the first time after their arrival ; and, somehow,
in giving me her cordial eyes and hand she gave
me, if I dared to say it without being mismider-
stood, her heart and soul. " You and that Mr.
MOSE EVANS. 83
Evans have done so much more for us than we
could have hoped, and m such a short time, too.
It is a paradise of a place ! There is so much in
our taking a strong liking to a new home, and
from the very first ! "
But I cannot record the conversation. As much
in tone and manner as in words, she let me know
that she perfectly understood her new position and
intended to fill it. To make up to her parents
for wealth, slaves, health, lost son and brother,
Charleston, the whole world they had forever lost,
— this was the task she had taken upon her.
Task is not the word, nor duty, nor even pleasure ;
this was to be her glad life thenceforth ! Fascina-
tion ? And consisting as much in my weakness as
in her pecuhar power ? Perhaps so. Yet I insist
upon the fact that all persons coming under her
influence were affected, more or less, in the same
way. Not my own sex only, the other also, which
makes it the more wonderful.
vni.
Tou may 1o\'B your father, mother,
Friend on friend, your sister, brother,
Love like that a hundred other.
But Eve alone had Adam's kiss,
One Eve, one Adam ! More than this
Were watered wine, bewildered bliss!
For, when your highest love is won,
For first and last your love is done.
Thou God art Love, and Thou art One !
I WAS much occupied, after I had seen the
Throops fairly fixed iii their new home, with the
affairs of our company. I had to examine in per-
son large bodies of land, not merely in Brown
County but over the entire State. My wife has
hkened me to a sparrow-hawk. Certainly no fowl
of the air could come and go upon the wing more
irregularly, hardly more swiftly than myself. The
fact is, money was to be made, just there and then,
and a good deal of it. In consequence, I often
lost sight of the Throops, and for long periods at
a time, for I had to come and go, too, between
Charleston and Brownstown more than once at
MOSE EVANS. 85
this juncture. I made a rapid call upon the Gen-
eral whenever I possibly could, but my head-quar-
ters were chiefly, for land reasons, with Mr. Rob-
inson, patriarch as he was both in church and state.
On one of my rapid returns for the moment to
Brownstown, Odd Archer, Esq., had laid hands
upon me as I alighted in front of Dick Frazier's
hotel, from my mustang.
" Look here, Major Anderson," he said, " I 've
tre-men-dous news for you, sir ! It will astonish
you, sir, tough to astonishment as I '11 acknowl-
edge you are ! "
" That you have given up drinking, and the like,
Mr. Archer ? Yes," I replied, " I am astonished.
If it will only hold out." But I decline to narrate
what followed upon the part of the reprobate law-
yer. The fact is, I halted him in mid-volley, so
to speak, mounted my weary animal, and, caked
in mud, as well as ravenously hungry and dead
tired as I was, rode through the swamp and the
darkness to Mr. Robinson's plantation, miles out
of town. Upon some topics I " had to stand Odd
Archer," as the county phrase ran ; upon the sub-
ject of his remarks just then, " I could n't and
would n't and did n't ! " to use the same county
dialect.
86 MOSE EVANS.
Even when comfortably seated with Mr. Robin-
son, after a particularly hearty supper beneath his
roof, I shrank from asking questions. No ques-
tions were needed. The matter mentioned to me
by the lawyer was the epidemic astonishment of all
Brown County ; it was impossible for my host not
to speak of it. But I allowed him to approach it
in his own way. " Oh, yes," he said, " we all know
Mose Evans. Everybody hkes Mose, takes a fancy
to him from the first, like you. And it is nigh im-
possible to stir him up. But when he is roused !
You never heard, Mr. Anderson, of the thrashing
he gave Job Peters ? Oh, well, hardly worth
telling, at least not to-day, Sunday. Job did not
know, I suppose, about Miss Agnes Throop. Not
then ! He does now ! We all do now., of course !
Job whispered something about her to Mose ; he
will never say what it was, and no man dares ask
Mose. Only one blow ! Nary another ! I tell you
they were so long bringing Job to, with their buck-
ets of water dashed on him, that they began to be-
lieve Job had gone for good ! " To the place where
the bad Jobs go, I say to myself ; for we all know
Job Peters, too, as well as we do Mose Evans. Job
is the only brother of Harry Peters, the native Joe
Miller of Brown County, but " all the cussedness,"
MOSE EVANS. 87
Mr. Robinson remarked, " of the familv was in
Job." Harry's fun was enjoyed by the passing
object of it, most of any ; somehow Job's fun
was very apt to draw a blow in return, — a curse,
at least.
" There is one thing about Mose Evans will as-
tonish you," Mr. Robinson proceeds ; " I never
think of ^[ose, but as a great big promising lad.
\\1iy, Mr. Anderson, that man " —
'' Pardon me, I 've been told of it five hundred
times, — cannot read," I reply.
" And no better rider in Brown County," says
Mr. Robinson, " no better neighbor in a bear-fight,
no better shot, as good a planter, let alone being
too easy with his black ones."
" They told me, as I came through town " — I
interrupt, with considerable reluctance, too.
For so old a man, my host snatches the topic
from my lips with singular eagerness.
" It was the first day Father Hailstorm preached
after her people moved here," he said, filling bis
cob-pipe full again as for a good talk. " You see,
she came for the first time to our meeting that
day " — strong pull at his pipe — " with her old
father, the General there. What a powerful gen-
tleman he is to look at ; high-toned, too ! But,
88 MOSE EVANS.
fact is, sir, I never saw anytliiiig so wonderful in
her : a nice lady, a very nice lady, of course, but
more like a whiff of smoke ! My taste is some-
thing solid, substantial, healthy, stout, you see ! "
my informant added frankly, his wife quite over-
flowing two hundred pounds, and every freckled
daughter upon the ascending path to the same
avou'dupois, or more.
" That day there at church, it was Father Ran-
som preached ; I disremember what month, but it
was Ransom, sure ; Hailstorm, they call him.
That is the way I come to remember. She took
her seat upon the front plank, — lit on it like you
see a chip-bird on a twig, her father with her ; so
crowded, you see, no other place. I always set on
one side the stand, — keeps the folks in order
when they know I see every soul of them, — and
I thought of it the moment she came in. And so
you are that old General Theodore Throop and
his daughter, I said to myself, come out to get
better and better acquainted ? Glad to see you,
and not so glad either. Hailstorm ! I know you
won't believe it, sir, but I tell you the fact. One
day years ago when the folks started for church, I
stayed at home. I '11 bet you a bale, I said to
Judy as she got up on the horse-block, — we had
MOSE EVANS. 89
run down a little in our ways then, so long with-
out a preacher of our own denomination, — a bale,
I said, if I do not tell you, sitting here upon my
front porch, just as much of the sermon, a mile
away it was, as you do. See if I don't ! such a
tremendous voice he has, Father Ransom."
" I hope you lost your bale. Judge," I remarked,
Judge being the phase of Mr. Robinson's character
when spoken to just then.
"I do not approve of betting ! " as from the
bench, my friend gravely replied, in contradiction
to statements I had heard of him, " or they would
have had to pay ! You know wife and the girls
claim a bale each, of the crop when it goes to the
port. In county sales," by which my host meant
account of sales, " the price is given of their bales
separate ; for calicoes, ribbons, hoop-skirts, and
tilings, you know ! Of course I could n't hear un-
til the old man, a most an excellent man he is, got
warmed up. After that ? I managed even to
guess out the text ! "
" But about Miss Agnes Throop, Squire ? "
" What I 'm talking about ! " my friend Mr.
Robinson added. " It will kill you, I said to my-
self very first thing when I saw her take that seat
in reach of his very hand — so close I was afraid
90 MOSE EVANS.
he would strike her that way, too, when he got
a-oroin^. You see, the old man forgets ever;^i:hing
but the sinners and their danger. And " — my
friend continued after considerable pause — " we
do have some hard cases among us for sure ! And
he knows exactly how case-hardened they are ! I
tell you he mauls them ! And not one bit of use
their pretending to slip out to look after their ani-
mals I One good mile all around ! Unless them
fellows actually mount and ride for it, they can't
help hearing, — after the old man gets roused, I
mean ! A most an excellent man ; does his duty,
yes, sir ! And I 've noticed this," my friend pro-
ceeds after a serious pause, "this," — longer pause,
— oh, well, this : he tells them just what and who
they are, and, very plainly, pre-cisely where they
are going ! Makes that awful plain ! hair stand
on an end, you see. Not to say he ever shook us
of the Robinson connection much ; not of our de-
nomination, YOU know. If Brother Parkinson nor
no other of our own church had never come, we
never would have joined any church but our own.
That is n't our way, in politics or religion ! But
before he closes, — Hailstorm, I mean, — he al-
wavs speaks of the Saviour for every one of them
that will repent, and always in the lowest tones !
MOSE EVANS. 91
M-dj be lie is worn out, no voice left. But it is if
they repent and believe, — powerful plain upon
that if; weeping, too, and everybody else, for that
matter ! It may be because of what goes before,
but this last part of his sermon always brings
them ! I mean, does them most good ! "
" But, Miss Agnes Tliroop ? '* I have to add,
for my friend is gi'avely thmking of something
else.
" Oh, her ! That day ? Well, I watched her
ad he got a-going. She was actually frightened
for a while. His voice is tremendous ! And he
never preaches less than an hour and a half. She ?
Like a prairie flower in a whirlwind, sitting almost
in the whirl of his arms, most of his voice over her
head, somehow. Fact is, I forgot all about her as
he drew toward the close ; the old man was speak-
ing of amazing love to the worst case there, tears
running down his white beard, worse than the per-
spiration before ; we were all weeping, all except
myself, I believe. Oh, her ? I happened to notice
her as the old man fell back in his hide-bottom
chair, sermon done. She was crying, too, more
like a flower you have seen all beaten down and
drenched after a heavy shower. Not that I think
her what you would call pretty, mind. Too frail-
92 MOSE EVANS.
like, swinging on a stem a breath woulcl break.
Now, I like solid, well, fleshy " —
" I wonder when Mose Evans first saw her," I
said at this point. " When was it. General ? "
" That is what I 'm coming to, if you '11 owly
give me time," my friend makes eager reply.
*' That very day it was ! You see I always sit on
the right of the stand — a loose puncheon plank
there, and ever so manv children cominc: about
during preaching, to drink from the preacher's
water there on the stand. That day ^lose Evans
he got crowded on to the end of a plank seat, far-
thest end, not six inches to sit on, holding on by
gripping into a crack between the logs behind him
some way. Oh, I noticed Mose ! The instant
that Miss Agnes Throop came crowded along after
the old General, her head down, I noticed Mose
looking at her as any man would ; she a new-
comer, somehow not like our other girls, you see.
It was onlv that after she sat down ! " and the
narrator illustrated his meaning by a snap of finger
and thumb. " Oli, I saw it all ! She lifted up
her head and looked modestly about. The instant
her eyes fell upon Mose Evans " —
" Well ? " I demanded, after some silence.
" For mv life, I never could see, for mv soul I
MOiiE EVANS. 93
never can see, \vluit it is in her ! " my friend said
in accents of compUiint. " Eyes ? Yes. Every-
body 's got eyes. And I know hers are what
you \l call larger eyes than usual. Brown ? I be-
lieve they are brown eyes. And she 's so slight
put together, does n't weigh more 'n half of our
Betsy spinning in the cook-house back there all
the week. Poor thing ! Loss of their property
that wild brother of hers dead back in Carolina
pining, the girls tell me, for that chippy sort of ^
Clammeigh that came out to see her. Eyes ? Sha
seems all eyes, — the frailest thing ! "
" But about Mose Evans, Colonel? "
" Struck like by lightning, sir ! " (Gravest an-
imation.) " The girls say it is all my fancy. I
suppose I can see if I am seventy ! The moment
her eyes fell on that man's face, great big man as
he is, over a hundred and eighty ! — he was sit-
ting, ISIose Evans was, on less than half a foot of
the plank end, holding hard to the crack behind
him to keep that — the moment she looked him in
the face, that man, sir, great big fool that he is,
"wilted like — like — whether he was astonished,
scared. . . . You see, all his life Mose has lived in
the woods. If she is pretty, /cannot see, and all
even of the men folks say the same, so very much
9-i MOSE EVANS.
of it ! But that poor fellow fell in love with her
like falling down a w^ell ! I sat so near, happened
to be looking so close, the matter has made so
much talk since, I often think of it ; it was her
eyes, sir, and they hit and killed that man ! Xever
saw anything like it in all my life. A perfect fool
he has made of himself. I 'm as certain as a man
can be of anything, he never heard a sound of
Father Ransom's sermon ! Staring at first at her
as if he had never seen a woman before ! She is
not like the common run of girls, I acknowledge.
Soon as he saw how she colored up and turned
away, he was careful not to do that, only stealing
a look out of the corners of his eyes, his face to-
ward the preacher all the time, and no more hear-
ing that preacher " —
" I wonder if he ever" — I suggested.
" Went to their place there on the river ? " my
informant anticipated me. "No, sir! Nor ever
mentioned her name to a soul, that I know of.
He would n't have given Job Peters that blow, —
only one blow it was, whatever Job said, — if he
had stopped to think. For her sake, you see, he
would n't have done it. And he never annoys her
like by following her about. Mose Evans is as
high a toned a gentleman as I know ; owns thou-
MOSE EVANS. 95
sands of acres of best bottom lands. You '11 see
his brand of stock, an E in a circle, scattered fifty-
miles around. Pity lie never learned to read.
People laugh at Mose Evans, but they like him,
too, more even than they do Harry Peters ; you
see there 's a thousand times more in him ! It is
here as it always is where young people are, good
deal of courting going on. But not this sort!
IMose Evans is as still and silent about it as you
please, but it 's the most powerful sort of love ever
known in these parts! Because it has changed
Mose Evans so ! They say he is learning to read,
and if that young fellow had been off to college —
pshaw, not that ; look at that Dr. Alexis Jones !
I mean if he had clerked ten years in a dry goods
store, — it wouldn't have transmogrified him so,
as the boys say. All the women pity and despise
Mose Evans, only they can't help understanding
and not understanding it ! And Miss Throop 'II
never have him. That man 's no more to her than
if he was a big live-oak she happened to pass, no
more to her than a dog or an ox. She from
Charleston, and — he ? It would kill that proud
old General. And there 's that man Clammeigh,
too, out here once from Charleston. Out of a
bandbox. What a cool cowcumber sort of a fellow
96 MOSE EVAXS.
he is ! Rich, is n't lie ? Saw him at church, and
looks like it. But there's the bell for supper!"
my host adds, rising upon his very L)ng legs and
pu4:ting his cob-pipe on the joist over the door.
" I do believe it is actually killing ]Mose. Sounds
redickerlous ! A man could knock an ox off its
tracks with his fist. Man of strong sense, too.
Somebody ought to tell her, and stop it. They
seem to like you, INIajor Anderson ; suppose you
stop it. But, supper ; come ! "
In the course of conversation at table, Mrs. Rob-
inson tells me, at lengtli, of the black woman of
the Throops, who persists in considering herself
their property, because the Bible says she is.
" I tell you, Judy," my host breaks in with en-
ergy, "it is not that negro's religion at all. It 's
that ]\Iiss Agnes has bewitched her ! Slave ? Look
at that poor Mose Evans ! "
IX.
FalVn from its Maker's hand, so long ago,
And from such height, our world's descending rate,
Like a dropped star, is ever swifter still
And swifter. Swifter all tilings on it, too.
Haste to their close; and life, most swift of all.
Speeds every day unto more sudden death !
I WAS very busy in real estate here and there
over Brown County, for some weeks after Mr.
Robmson had told me of the disaster to ]Mose
Evans from the unconscious hands — I should
rather say ej-es — of Miss Agnes Throop. I can-
not reaill how long it was after said conversation
that I heard, as I rode into Brownstown one foggy
day, of the disaster, in a more terrible sense, to
the mother of Mose Evans. It was Dr. Alexia
Jones who told me of it, nearly ruuiiing me down
as I floundered along throHgh the mud, his " bright
bay " in a foam under him, a portentous case of
surgical instruments upon the pommel of his sad-
dle, lie told me the news without drawing rein,
and Dick Frazier informed me afterwards that the
98 MOSE EVANS.
doctor was only witlilield by a good deal of pro-
fanity and physical force on the part of Frazier
himself and others, from fleshing his maiden steel
upon the dead woman by carving her to fragments
in the interests of medical science !
" ^Irs. Evans is dead! — yes, sir, — as a ham-
mer ! " Dr. Alexis Jones said it, as he joined me,
wath the keen satisfaction which we all have in
telling news, bad as well as good ; and as if, in
some way, his personal importance was augmented
thereby. " Broke a blood-vessel in a dispute with
Odd Archer ! " he explained. " It was about
those cattle of hers he insisted were only strayed,
and she knew had been run off by Dob Butler,
that rascally client of his. What business had he
to be on her place talking about it ? The court-
room was the only place for any talk about that,
with judge and sheriff to keep the peace. Primed
himself, you bet, with some of Dick Frazier's
strychnine whisky before he went. You see, her
son, Mose Evans, has gone down to the ' Port '
Avith a load of cotton. Odd Archer knew that,
before he went to the house. But you must
excuse me ; post mortem.^ you see ; glad of the
chance ! " And, with a cut of his whip. Dr. Jones
added as he galloped off, " Nobody will ever know
MOSE EVAXS. 99
the facts. The coroner examined Arclier, of course.
Mere form ; tliey did n't pretend to believe the
man even under oath. A gentlemanly fellow ;
but who would ? "
From all I could learn, in the excitement that
followed the painful event, Mrs. Evans flew into
a violent passion during her conversation with
Archer about the cattle, burst a blood-vessel in
the torrent of her wrath, fell at his feet, the blood
gushing from her lips upon the well-scrubbed floor,
and died ! The lawyer rushed for his horse, send-
iucr into the house an old nec^ro man who was
chopping at the woodpile, no woman being about
the place, and put spurs for his — rifle ! Not a
moment of peace until he has that in his grasp,
armed with two revolvers as he already was. Be-
cause, having caused the death of the mother, it is
of the most pressing importance that he should
kill, and at the earliest moment possible, the son
also. The entire question, To be or not to be, was
with him. To shoot or to be shot. Brown County
w^ould very cheerfully have cast a unanimous vote
for the last alteniative in this case. Odd Archer
himself preferred the other, strange as it seemed
for even the owner thereof to care for so miserable
a life!
100 MOSE EVANS.
"Witli the ^vliole population, Archer included,
my interest was henceforth in Mose Evans ! Un-
der the circumstances it was impossible to put off
the funeral until the arrival of the son, and, Mr.
Parkinson officiating, in those indefinite statements
to which clergymen are compelled in many a like
case, the burial service was duly performed. It
was almost enough to cause Mrs. Evans to rise in
wrath from her coffin, — the confusion throughout
her house, the very abode, during her life, of neat-
ness and housewifely care. All the region round
about, male and female, children and grown per-
sons, flocked in to the funeral, bringing upon their
feet specimens of all the varieties of mud through-
out the county. They pressed to the coffin as if
to the side of a panther, if I may so express the
actual fact, — a panther long famous but killed at
last. And this was the long secluded and dread
mother of ]Mose Evans, he as universally liked as
she was feared ! No trace, however, of the wild
animal — universal disappointment in that — in
the face of the dead ! A sudden return in the
calm visage to something, even, of the girlish
beauty, I suppose, which had won the heart of her
husband from his books so many years before.
Under the reading of the Scriptures and the gen-
^rosE EVAXs. 101
oralities of ^Ir. Parkinson, tliere fell strange calm
upon the crowd. Old New Hampshire led the
6in<xingr with wonderful success, in virtue of the
voices of the many negroes crowding porch and
front yard.
AVe escorted the hearse, an ambulance of Dick
Frazier's, stolen, we all knew, from Confederate
supplies, to the cemetery in the outskirts of
Brownstown ; and, with the benediction over the
heaped grave, the mind of every person of the
crowd dispersing homeward ran into the same de-
mand, '' Mose Evans ? " The men present would
have consented to the hunting up and lynching of
Odd Archer, Esq., with the greatest pleasure, if
merely for the excitement's sake. But something
more than the unpopularity of the deceased pre-
vented that. Somehow, there was a unanimous
conviction that the absent son would be an}i;hing
but gratified tliereby. The absent son ! I doubt
if a person at the grave failed, as he stood there,
to say to himself, " Just room between her grave
and that live-oak for Mose." I knew the man
had to be shot as well as any there ! I had been
quartermaster, compulsory, in the Confederate ser-
vice during the war, in a certain city, and, while
there, had learned a lesson in human nature worth
102 MOSE EVANS.
interrupting my narrative for a moment to repeat.
A lady in said city was, or imagined herself to be,
insulted by a Mr. Jackson. As soon as her letter
detailing the fact arrived, and her husband could
get leave of absence from building torpedoes at
Savannah, he hurried home and shot his foe.
Hastening rapidly across the city to the office of
the dead man's only son, who had never even
heard of the insult, he shot him also. It is true
one of the flying bullets passed through the head,
by accident, of a youth of fourteen, the only sup-
port of a widowed mother, who happened to be
passing. " But then one has to be in a hurry at
times," Mr. Archer, to whom I narrated the cir-
cumstance one day, explained. " When you and
the other gentleman are both armed," he contin-
ued, '' if you have a little difficulty, you are com-
]Delled to shoot at the earliest moment, because
you know if you don't, he may ; best to anticipate
him, you observe ; procrastination is the thief of
time, and something over, in such a case ! If you
kill your man, of course you must kill his next
relative ; if you do not, you run the same risk
from him ; a fool could see that ! We may kill a
man or so, occasionally," Mr. Archer added, " but,
thank Heaven, we do not lie and cheat and steal
MOSE EVANS. 103
and poison people as is done elsewhere I " an em-
phasis npon the last word making his meaning
sufficiently clear.
jNIr. Archer would have admitted, however, that
I had shown Yankee energy, at least, in my con-
duct following upon the death of Mrs. Evans.
Leaving Brown County in going home from the
funeral, I had ridden fifty miles down the river by
daybreak of the morning after, to meet and warn
Mose Evans on his way home. The truth is, I
had come by this time to take an interest m the
man, certainly far greater than in any other per-
son native to that region. It was not merely our
being thrown together upon matters concerning
General Throop's new home, as well as land affairs
generally. There was a something in him I find
it impossible fully to express by the phrases sin-
cerity, frankness, genuine manliness. I had been
used all my life before to people who felt them-
selves very thoroughly informed in regard to all
things in heaven and earth, people who had read
books, heard lectures, seen sights ; people who,
young and old, male and female, were like so
many venerable Solomons, aged queens of Sheba,
knowing everj^thing, and impervious to surprise.
I suppose it was the zest of this ignorant man for
104 MOSE EVANS,
information, tlie fresliness of liis pleasure in all I
told liini of tlie outside world, as new to liim, al-
most, and as wonderful, as if I was on a visit to
liim from the sun. But you can find inquisitive
ignorance in Africa ; it was the original ore of the
race in Evans, something of the virgin gold of hu-
man nature in eye and tone and smile ! I do not
know wherein it lay, but General Throop, in his
heavier way, was as much, interested in him as
myself.
And so I went to meet and warn him against
Odd Archer, any letter or telegrams being out of
the question. It was the noon after the funeral,
on Friday, I remember, when I met my friend.
He was on his way home from the Port, the money
for his cotton in his belt. Just as I arrived he
was finishing his dinner on the grass beneath a
tree by the road-side, his horse grazing, roped to a
swinging vine near by. I had planned, as I floun-
dered along the miry road, what I would say. My
well-arranged words were, as is always the case,
never once thou^jht of when we met. He rose to
meet me, and had the whole story inside of five
minutes. As I spoke, he stood listening to me,
his full eyes in mine, erect as a statue, passing the
palm of his left hand from his lips down his beard
MOSE EVANS. 105
continiuilly Avhlle I spoke. Singular contrast of
my eager narrative to his quiet attention ! I
ceased my earnest admonitions as to the need of
caution upon his part, — ceased, because they
seemed childish before his grave composure. Be-
yond the first exclamation at meeting, I do not
recall his saying a syllable. As I finished, he me-
chanically drew first one and then the other re-
volver from its sheath by his side, sa^ that all the
caps were in place, and then put them quietly
back, and proceeded to coil in the lariat of his
horse, untying it from the vine and hanging the
coil b}" its thong behind the saddle. '* Thank you,
]\Ir. Anderson. If you will please ride on a little
I will join you after a while," was all he said as
he mounted. I confess I was almost angry, after
all my most fatiguing ride, too ! It was noon
when we thus parted, and the night was almost
upon me, riding slowly along in advance, before he
joined me. I wish I knew whether the man had
been weeping ! I studied his face as closely as the
gathering darkness allowed ; there was deep sor-
row, the simple bearing of a child in grief, but so
little to say, beyond thankuig me again for com-
ing ! He even asked me one or two questions
about General Throop and our land matters. I
106 ZIOSE EVANS.
mentioned casually tliat Mrs. Throop had been
prevented from attending the funeral, but that
General Throop and his daughter had been pres-
ent. The fact is, to General Throop ^Irs. Evans
had always been " woman." With myself, as with
Brown County, the phrase would have been wild-
cat, rather ! We rode together, now side by side,
then one in advance of the other, as the emergen-
cies of the miserable highway allowed, through
mud and darkness, and almost mibroken silence
at last, until ten o'clock, when we reached the
wretched roadside cabin in which we passed the
night.
I remember eating ravenously of the pork and
corn bread and " big hominy," which, with black
coffee, formed our supper that night. In spite of
my remonstrance my companion rolled himself up,
as soon as supper was ended, in his huge Mexican
blanket, and lay down upon the puncheon floor
before the wide fireplace, his broad felt hat over
his face. I did not hear him make the least mo-
tion through the night, and would be glad this
hour to know if he really slept during that dismal
time. As to myself I was so worn out, that, in
spite of pork and coffee, I slept like the dead, —
slept, although by some hurry in the making of
MOSh: EVANS. 107
the bed, tlio corn-cobs as well as shucks had been
left therein !
" Archer is a gentleman," I said to Evans as we
rode along next da}^ " and he will not fire upon
you from ambush. If I was you " — "I think I
know exactly what he will do, Mr. Anderson.
Excuse my talking so little. I am by myself in
the woods so much. I thank you for coming.
Heartily. I don't know, but I hope it has saved
the man's life. We will see now, any moment."
About four o'clock in the afternoon, our road
running beside the very edge of the river, my com-
panion broke the silence as we journeyed along,
by drawing up his horse and saying with less ex-
citement than when he had called my duller atten-
tion once or twice before to a deer in the woods, —
" Yes, sir. There he is ! " dismounting as he
said so. I was dreadfully excited, yet nothing
could be more chivalrous upon the la\vyer's part,
for it ivas the lawyer. He had tied his horse to
one side and stood in the centre of the road, rifle
in hand. I suppose he had taken for granted that
his adversary, duly warned, would have had a rifle.
To my surprise, as soon as the man saw Mose Ev-
ans advancing upon him without one, he deliber-
ately stooped to lay his carefully down upon a dry
108 MOSE EVANS.
tuft of grass beside the way, and then stepped
back into the open road, a revolver in either hand,
a long knife held by its blade in his teeth. As
General Philip Sheridan once told me of one of
his battles, " It was beautiful ! "
I caught my friend's horse by the bridle, think-
ing, a little nervoush^, of Helen and of coming
bullets. The parties advanced slowly upon each
other, durin;:: the whole affair neither savinoj a
" O I/O
single word. When within sixty feet of Evans,
Archer raised his revolver and began firing. I
heartily wish it was more theatrical, but I can only
add that it was all over, ignominiously over, in
much less than the proverbial fifteen minutes of
the battle of San Jacinto. iMose Evans had not
touched his own weapons. At the first report of
the lawyer's revolver, he sprang forward ! It was
as if he was upon his enemj" at one bound. Al-
though it ruins what little romance there is in the
matter, I believe Evans relied, unconsciously to
himself, upon the unsteadiness of Archer's nerves,
owing to his habits, in the aim he would take. In
the instant he had seized his puny assailant by
arm and leg, and hurled him into the river ! I
laughed aloud like an hysterical woman, — the
man flying through the air, the splash in the water,
was an ending so sudden ; such bathos !
MOSE EVANS. 109
"lie won't want to see me. You help liim
out," my friend said as he remounted. " Tell him
the thin"- 's over. He never meant her death, you
know. Good afternoon."
Even then, it flashed upon me as Mose Evans
rode leisurely away, and I said to myself, I sup-
pose the self-mastery of this child of nature is
what he has been learning his life long. In the
woods ? In his singular home, rather. From his
father's long endurance. From witnessing, all his
life, his mother's lack of self-control. How Homer
would have loved and sung him ! Leaving my
horse untied, I ran to fish the Liw^^er out, and a
dripping, bewildered, bemuddied wretch he was as
he emerged, by my assistance !
I do not understand human nature half as well
as I thought I did. I had counted upon his being
utterly crestfallen. Not in the slightest ! Before
he could get water and mire off his face he was
laughing and talking as if intoxicated. Possibly
he was. Then there was the reaction. Besides,
he knew that the circumstances of the case would
be known by all Brown County in two days, and
that such knowledge would restore him to the good
opinion thereof. " Laugh at me ? " he asked and
answered in a breath ; " of course they will ! It
110 MOSE EVANS.
will get into the papers and be the joke of the
State. Do you suppose I care ? Not a red ! No,
sir. ^Tiy, sir, the thing will help elect me next
time I run for office. Nothing makes people like
a candidate better, yes, and vote for him sooner,
than having a good joke upon him I '*
X.
Still to th' Archangel doth belong
His power once poured in joy and song,
And service far and swift and strong !
Though downward now his darkling course,
No pulse is slackened at its source !
The same Archangel as at first,
His pathway merely is reversed !
" When I hate a man, he always sickens and
dies," my disreputable companion added in irrele-
vant but unceasing continuation of previous re-
marks, as we rode into the outskirts of Browns-
town. " What I mean," he explained, " is that I
am particularly cared for ; like Napoleon, I have
a star." We had to enter town in our deplorable
nllcrht, and were fortunate in not reaching it until
dark !
• AVe certainly would have been a sight to see,
berauddied, as we were, from head to foot, and far
beyond the ordinars^ allowance even of that sec-
tion. I hated it as the worst part of the adven-
ture, having to pii53 the night with him ; but there
112 MOSE EVANS.
was no alternative, and so I dismounted with my
associate at the door of the tumble-down house on
the edgfe of the town, which the man called his
home, and which he invited me to enter with the
well-bred courtesy of a host to his guest, — a cour-
tesy wliich had, absurd as it may seem, its charm.
I did not see him drink an3^thing worse than black
coffee while we were there together. And, after
eating supper, such as it was, we sat the night
through, drjnng our clothes without taking them
off, at the fire which he had hastily made in the
desolate fireplace. I dare say it was merely the
animal spirits of the man, the most amazing, I
believe, I ever knew in any one, Harry Peters ex-
cepted ; certainly he kept the same afire with the
fuel of alcohol, — inferior to Harry Peters, his con-
versational rival, in that. Under the stimulus that
night, possibly, of nothing stronger than escape
from his " difficulty " with Mose Evans, his tongue
ran like that of one insane. I was glad to sit and
listen, if merely to escape getting with him into
his one bed.
Yes, all night did we sit there, and you must
allow my companion here the same liberty I was
compelled to yield him then and there. The fact
is, he realized to me much that I had read of
MOSE EVANS. 113
Aaron Burr. I wish you could see the man while
you hear him. Slight in buikl, like his father,
the eloquent divine ; not without a sinewy grace
of carriage and motion ; with finely cut features
and noble forehead, small but wonderful eyes ; a
fallen angel, worshiped and very heartily despised
by all Brown County. One night some weeks be-
fore, General Theodore Tliroop and myself, seated
unknown to liim in an adjoining room in Dick
Frazier's hotel, listened to his conversation for
liours, as, drunk enougli for it, he entertained a
bar-room of loungers. Wit, wisdom, folly, filth,
poetry by the page, deep metaphysics, anecdotes,
pathos, bathos, — it was wonderful ! Suddenly the
General and mj^self entered the room ; the instant
shame of the man, the intuitive gesture with which
he consigned his companions to the mire beneath
his heel, was equally amazing. The greasiness of
his shabby suit of black pervaded his entire per-
son ; a perfect blackguard, a perfect gentleman !
What perplexed me most was tliat a man witli
such memories could be so steadily and perfectly
hapjw !
He spoke of his late antagonist at last, as we sat
drying ourselves at the*fire.
" ^Ir. Anderson, look here," ran his torrent of
114 MOSE EVANS.
talk ; " Mose Evans is certainly a splendid-looking
chap, as far as that goes. I do not remember bis
ever being before the grand jury for stealing, gam-
bling, or anything of the sort ; althougli I do re-
member his serving both upon grand and petit
jury, if only from the fact that he has so invari-
ably found against me in my cases, and in one or
two instances more personal. I always challenge
him, sir, when offered. His mother was a violent
person. The entire countrj^ side had looked for it
for years when she broke a blood-vessel in that
dispute with me about those strayed cattle. I
learned, last night, before the boys took him out
and hung him for those horses, that Dob Butler
did steal her cattle as she said ; but how was I to
know then whether Butler had done as she said ?
It is very curious, sir ; a client may be the hardest
of cases, may know it is impossible for you to de-
fend him, know that his lawyer does not care a
drink whether the man did the murder, or what-
ever it was, or not, and yet that client will make
believe to the last, against dead evidence and to
his own lawyer, that he is innocent ! When it is
a woman, I do believe, whatever it is she has done,
she persuades herself thrdiigh and through that
she did not do whatever it was ! Yes, sir, if it
MOSE EVANS. 115
was the killing of her baby, or of her old and
helpless father, she thinks she had such good and
sufficient cause for it that she could not have
done otherwise — is an outraged martyr for being
troubled about it ! I have been a lawyer for years,
where human nature shows itself as it is I tell you,
and I have learned this of my female clients, they
have the least idea of the rights of other people,
the clearest sense of their own, of any persons liv-
ing. Upon the whole, you might have half the
money if you gave me a male client instead, if it
w^as not that the woman's lawyer always has the
jury, yes, sir ! " I am obliged to allow the inco-
herence and lack of punctuation and purpose upon
his part, if the reader is to hear Mr. Archer as I
heard him that night.
" I do not see," he resumed, " how I have got
off the track so. As to Mose Evans ? He aston-
ished me as he will the whole county. I half
thought, Mr. Anderson, the man an enormous fool.
Look here, say, I was one day selecting a pair of
boots, on credit, in New Hampshire's store. Miss
Throop was shopping at the counter. I had merely
bowed to her from the back room, — too much of
a gentleman to soil her with shaking hands ; what
do angels know of what we devils really are I
116 MOSE EVANS.
Evans had retreated into that den of a place with
me, when she came in, buying powder I remember
he was ; went away, at last, leaving the package
within a yard of a fire, hickory and sparking !
The man was dazed, dared no more look full at
Miss Throop than at the noonday sun ! But I
noticed ; we lawyers notice I I saw his eyes fasten,
like a hawk upon a chicken, on a piece of brown
paper slie had unwrapped from some gloves and
left lying on a bolt of calico upon the counter.
Actually stood there, when she was gone, to gather
up that paper in his hand, as cautiously as if it
was gold and he stealing, and slipped it into his
breast pocket !
" The fool, sir, walked away, leaving that pack-
age of powder under the flying sparks ! Suppose
it had exploded. Why, sir," — and I noted in the
reprobate now, as at all times, the perpetual refer-
ence and return he ever made to himself, what-
ever the topic ; as well as the unceasing allusion,
running, from force of training, through all his
thoughts to things supernatural, — " why, sir, the
projectile force of that powder ! It would have
blown some of us there into heaven, and onward
in heaven for ever and ever ; one man there in ex-
actly the reverse direction, and forever too. Heh ?
MOSE EVANS. 117
Oh, as to ]\Iose Evans, lie is — material ! I mean
for a drama, say. A sort of stuff, deep and strong
and very rude, out of which Shakespeare, for in-
stance, could make a hero. Books? I have in
Brown County a library of men, and I never
weary of reading them instead. Don't get sleepy,
Anderson ; what shall we talk about next ? How
will politics do ? " And with what inexhaustible
spirits the fellow proceeded to rattle on upon that
theme ! I heard little else all the time I was in
that section, yet I appeal to the reader if I have
not kept it out of these pages !
" But I would rather hear more in regard to
yourself," I said at last, for I was curious about
the man.
" About myself ? " he replied. " Oh, as to my-
self. First. I plead guilty to all you, Anderson,
all anybody, says against me. More. I am a
great deal worse. 'Shysters' I believe law^^ers
like myself in the great cities are styled. Let us
lump it and be done. I, Odd Archer, Esq., Mr.
Anderson, stand here up to — down to, rather —
anything the lowest lawyers ever do ! I want to
speak fact about myself as well as about others.
I am in that mood to-night. Next. I plead the
extenuating circumstance of talent and tempera-
118 MOSE EVANS.
ment. From my birth I was regarded as a cherub.
I am not, as you agree, Anderson, angeUc in other
than an infernal sense, now, but there are minia-
tures on ivory, — let me be rigidly truthful, a min-
iature on something, — proving my extreme love-
liness of eyes, hair, brow, complexion then. If
you were to compare child and man you would
exclaim, * Such a harvest from such a seed ? It is
impossible ! ' But, the fact shows it is possible.
More. The very nature of the germ, as in all
creation, is the cause of the result. Never mind
about my physical beaut}^. That has a terrible
deal to do with my after ruin, but, as is always the
case, the very things one cannot say, nor people
prmt, are the chief causes of matters ! Matters,
sir, perfectly explained by such things, but left
otherwise wholly unexplained !
" If any ladies were here to-night," the man
continued, rising to his feet, as if from involuntary
respect to the very imagination of such presence,
" if I dared venture to say such things to the sex,
I would remark to them — no, sir, not even in
imao"ination ! But as to all this talk about women
becoming lawyers, sitting on the jury and the like,
I will say it to you, Anderson ; will you tell me
how it would do to have them in the box, on the
MOSE EVANS. 119
bench, in view of all the ugly matters necessaiy to
be laid before tlieni there ? I am told they are
going as doctors into dissecting rooms and hospi-
tals, but the loathsomeness of heart and soul laid
bare in the court-house is a thousand times worse I
Now I am nothing, Mr. Anderson, but a black
guard lawyer, yet I can imagine a pure and beau
tiful girl, say my sister, or my betrothed. Do you
suppose me such a villain as to be able to look her
in the soft, innocent eyes, and state and develop
and urge the vile facts which make up so many
cases in court ? If any man, lawj^er or otherwise,
tried it in the presence of a lady of my acquaint-
ance, I would smash his jaws ! I have been forced
occasionally, by circumstances, such as the grand
jury, judge, and the like, to drop my profession for
a time ; that would make me drop it forever I Yet
stop a moment, sir ! As darkness ceases only by
presence of pure light, this occurs to me, possibly
woman's purity must come into such close contact
with foulest darkness ! If the darkness is ever to
go ! If so, woman's purity must be intensely pure I
I do wonder, Anderson, and I never thought of it
before, if woman, in virtue of being distinctively
woman, is the reserve remedy for the world ! You
Yankees, sir, laugh at Southern chivalry. It has
120 MOSE EVANS.
gone out, sir, with the Confederacy. Five hun-
dred thousand men were killed in the war. It has
thrown up their value too much. Not in the eyes
of the other sex alone. We men have come to
rate ourselves too high. Kow can it be, sir, that
with a higher estimate of woman, upon other
grounds, a nobler chivalry is to come in ? Heh ?
But, how we have rambled in our talk ! Fact is,
I 'm not a coward, but I 'm glad that thing with
Evans is over. I see day is breaking. I must
have a drink. I will go to Dick Frazier's and
have him send your trunk, so that you can dress.
It does n't matter about me. What a storm of
curiosity and talk there will be over my fight with
Evans ! You won't see him in town for davs. I
like it ! It may elect me to the bench I That
Evans, by the bye, has brain enough to go to Con-
gress, if he knew it. For lack of education he is
and will be a clod-hopper all his life. What a
splendid leap he made on me ! I 'm glad I did not
hit him. I tried my best to do so, I assure you ! "
XI.
The minted ores do not compare
"With ores that still unminted are;
Nor iron whirring in the wheels
To iron which the earth conceals;
Nor Shakespeare to the Shakespeare stuff,
The race possesses full enough,
True Shakespeare still, though in the rough !
However much of an adept I may be in my
jotting down field-notes while riding over our wild
lands, and plotting them out accurately afterward
for our company, I have no imagination. I dare
say it would make me no better as a business man
if I had. Any value in what I say lies in simple
narration of fact. Take, for instance, a certain
rainy day I spent in the store of New Hampshire,
my old postmaster, philosopher, and friend. That
day forces itself upon my pen ; I cannot get past
except by recording it. I think it was some three
weeks after the funeral of Mrs. Evans and the en-
counter between Odd Archer, Esq., and her son.
I am making out a map from field-notes for our
company, in the back room, but the crowd in the
122 MOSE EVANS.
store increases to such an extent, and the fun be-
comes so uproarious around Harry Peters, that I
give it up. It was for men land was made, and
I turn from the lesser to the greater, going in and
making myself at home among them upon a soap-
box, which affords me also something to whittle at
as I sit. My friend the postmaster is the only
silent person in the store. I call him my friend,
not merely because we are partners in land ; some-
how, as perfect an understanding exists from the
first, between the old gentleman and myself, as
between Odd Archer, Esq., and General Throop,
our basis being business, theirs mere sentiment. I
observe that the postmaster is doing up coffee, the
supreme luxury there next to whisky, in pound
packages, against a drier and busier day. While
he does this he is evidently deep in the interior
counties of New England — deaf to all the con-
versation and laughter, very often quarrels a score
strong at a time, and fast and furious, raging
around the coast, so to speak, of his placid ex-
terior.
Tliere is Harry Peters as prime promoter of the
laughter. He is only a poor planter, limp, lame,
weighing under ninety-five pomids, yet Shake-
speare was not more entirely monarch of his
MOSE EVANS. 123
adoring friends at a revel than is Harry of Lis as
assembled in the post-office. Odd Archer is pres-
ent, of coui-se, and as usual, whenever these tsvo
are togetlier in a crowd, there is sure to be strong
rivah-y between them ; the lawyer having plenty
of talent, stores of knowledge, curve, so to speak,
and trick of culture, reinforcement of alcohol, but
all in vain against merest nature and genius in his
clod-hopping rivid. It is, on their lesser scale,
Ben Jonson as beaten by Shakespeare.
When I took my soap-box Harry was just fin-
ishing some tale of fun. If it was not a recital of
the ducking of the lawyer at the hands of Evans,
it was something, possibly, more grotesque still,
the life of that member of the bar furnishing mate-
rial ample and ever renewed. The incidents were
very ludicrous, whatever they were, and Harry,
judging from the effect, could not have told them
better to save his life ; but, amid all the shouts
of laughter, the postmaster steadily puts up his
pound packages as if there was not a soul in his
store beside the owner thereof. No one addresses
himself to my old friend, but I note a peculiar
glancing at him, now and then, on the part of all.
Something is in hand in reference to him, and I
therefore observe more closely, as he is evidently
124 MO^E JSVAXS.
unconscious of everything but coffee. And, now,
Odd Archer launches into a narrative. It is of a
pecuharly horrid murder which had come under
his knowledge, described with wonderful power,
and I forgot ever^^thing in the terror and wrath
aroused in me as in all there by the narration, in
which the lawyer evidently does his best. I ob-
serve, in the curdled silence which follows, a curi-
ous glancing, yet again, at the keeper of the store.
Had he actually been in Brazil at the moment,
gathering the coffee from the tree, he would not
have been more unconscious of things, so far as
the least movement of mouth or eyelid is con-
cerned. After a disappointed pause on the part
of the crowd, Harry begins the story of the loss of
his children, two little girls and their brother, in
the " Bottom." Of course those present know all
about it, for it was, the winter before, the sensa-
tion of the county, but they listen with hushed
eagerness to the wonderfully perfect narration of
the father, as he lives over all the anxiety and
agony of the mother and himself during those four
days. I find myseK with moistened eyes, as well
as the rest, actually exclaiming aloud with the
others when the starved little ones are found !
When we recover ourselves enough to do so, I
MOSE EVANS. 125
observe tliiit all eyes are glancing again, although
covertly, at the postmaster, so far as outer appear-
ances go as wholly unconscious of them and of all
their talk as before. With his little, close-cropped,
white head on one side, he is putting up bags of
coffee, that and only that !
I understand why Odd Archer had stepped over
to Dick Frazier's for a drink, when he begins
again, with renewed energy. It is an assault upon
the Bible, cool, argumentative, very able indeed at
first, quickening into bitter, blasphemous, ferocious
fury as he proceeds. I had heard before that of
all men a minister's son, when wicked, had the
greatest power of blasphemy known, an energ}^ of
moral effect therein terrifying the weaker among
his wicked associates ; because the entire belief
and meaning derived from previous training is put
into the oaths I By this time I have come of
myself to understand that, by plan beforehand,
regular assault has been made, for the last two or
three hours, upon old New Hampshire ; heavy bets
pending, I afterward learn, upon moving him to
do or say something, show in any way some emo-
tion ! The frantic violence of the lawyer as he
ceases shows his consciousness of defeat. Tlie old
man has paused once or twice from scoop and
126 MOSE EVANS.
scales and coffee sack, even looked full in the face
of the reprobate •v\4iile at the white heat of his
harangue, but it was exactly as if the lawyer was
not there at all : the pause was merely to tap his
forefinger over his pursed-up lips, as, with eyes
closed now and then, he was calculating profits, I
suppose, his head to one side.
Odd Archer ceases, exhausted, and universal
lauor-hter and scoffinor sets in at the defeat of the
two champions. It is " in full blast," according to
Brown County parlance, but there is instant hush
thereof, and all movement, even, an-ested, as Ag-
nes Throop suddenly enters the door from the
rain, and stands at the counter asking for letters.
What heavenly beauty and purity and grace !
Nothing but a simply dressed young lady, with
shrinkiniT eves, and cheeks in which the soul
comes and goes, yet these men are painfully aware
on the instant that they are scoundrels, boobies,
louts ! Every man, as soon as he recovers himself,
manages to slip away. In ten minutes every soul
of them is gone, really kicked out of her presence,
and by himself ! I tarry by her side, heartily
ashamed of my previous company, with the usual
salutations ; but I curiously note that the post-
master is no more moved by the presence of this
310SE EVANS. 127
perfect jewel of her kind than he was by the men
who have gone. As I pass out of the door on my
way to the hotel, I notice that Miss Agnes has
come to town in a buggy which waits for her at
the sidewalk. ^lary Martha Washington, who
has driven her young mistress in, acknowledges
my good-day with severe respect, bringing to my
mind her confidences to my wife long before in
Charleston.
" I was trained, INIiss Helen, to believe the Bible
is God's Word. If I know anything, it is that it
is clear agen the abolitionists. Two things I never
can stand, abolitionists an' free niggers. I 'm too
old now, to change ! I can't give up my rehgion ! '*
*' I was taught, Henry, as this old aunty was,"
my wife took occasion to explain at the time ;
*'and slavery -z^as no sin at all. But the Bible
nowhere commanded us to hold slaves ; no neces-
sary connection between the two whatever."
" My dear Helen," I made reply, " a century or
so ago one of the godliest ministers of New Eng-
land sent a barrel of rum over to Africa and ob-
tained a slave therefrom in exchange. No argu-
ment for the divine life of Revelation more self-
evident than the way in which, slow and silent and
steady, yes, and omnipotent and irresistible as God
128 MOSE EVANS.
who gives it, the gospel purifies itself, age after
age, from the merely human elements incrusting
but wholly separable from it ; elements which are
part of the gospel only as my clothing for the
nonce is part of me. No more, I should rather
say, than as the hindering vapors of our atmos-
phere are part of the sun. Plenty more of the
human to be purged away yet from our skies, but
I do not think it will endanger the sun ! "
All this, however, is purely incidental. In the
moment of speaking to the colored woman seated
in the buggy, I observe Mose Evans standing off
by himself near the door of the office through
which Miss Throop has entered a few moments be-
fore. I turn to shake hands and say a few words
about business. To my surprise he takes my hand
mechanically, but seems scarcely to recognize me,
although his eyes are in mine when he speaks ; for
that is a peculiarity of ]\Iose Evans, the putting
his entire self into his eyes full in yours when he
addresses or listens to you. Hence I say to my-
self as I leave him, I wonder if the man can be
drunk ? But, looking back after I have gone a
little distance, I see that he has walked steadily
enough to his horse tied to the rack across the
street, and is in the act of mounting. Then all
MOSE EVANS. 129
tk'it old ^Ir. Robinson had tokl me flashed upon
my mind I Agnes Throop I The absurdity, stu-
pidity, insanity of the man ! I have to stop once
or twice before I reach Dick Frazier's to think over
what INIr. Robinson had said, I had so promptly
and utterly rejected it all at the time I " I thought
I understood human nature!" I complain to my-
self. "Yes, but this is the very sublimity of —
of" —
XII.
'• Tliou fool, the seed " — how rings the cry —
" Is quickened not except it die,
Except it die! Except it die ! "
I HASTEN to speak of the next time I saw Mose
Evans. I am, in fact, eager to do so. The cir-
cumstances were so remarkable.
Some months had rolled by since the day I had
seen him hesitating, as if in a dazed condition, at
the door of the post-ofl&ce. I had gone back to
New York and Charleston since then. After set-
tling up certain business there, I was on my way
back again to Brown County, accompanied by
Helen, my wife, who this time positively refused
to be left behind. And thus it happened she was
with me that day I reached Bucksnort, a particu-
larly unpleasant town, at the hotel in which our
stage stopped on its way to Brown stown. It was
in that hotel we found ]\[ose Evans, and in what
condition !
I recall perfectly how we came to know of it.
Helen and myself had arrived an hour or so before
MOSE EVANS. lol
sapper. While seated thereat, the stage arrived
from Brownstown, and the hungry passengers
poured in upon us, seated at the supper table. I
noticed the lawyer, Odd Archer, among the rest,
and very drunk. I do not know whether he recog-
nized me, but it would have made no difference.
I suppose it was a continuance of what had been
going on in the stage before, but I observed that
he, in a drunken way, forced the possession of the
seat next a modest-looking country girl, one of the
passengers, nearly opposite Helen and myself.
Even before the touch of Helen's elbow, I fancied
the animal was insulting the shrinking girl, who
was too diffident to do more than draw as far away
from him as possible. I hesitated to believe that
the man could have degenerated so rapidly from
what I had known him to be in reference to
women, as to be guilty of any disrespect to a fe-
male even in his deepest drunken degradation. A
fleshy old man who had come with them was
seated at my side. As he was whispering to mo,
'• I would not notice him. He 's been drunk all
along," I observed a gross insult toward the girl
upon the part of the law^^er. I grasped a tumbler
of milk to hurl it, and Avas grasped in the same
moment by my own cooler sense in the person of
132 MOSE EVANS.
Helen, my wife, barely in time I IIow very much
better ! A whisper on ni}^ part to the negro band-
ing me the wholly indigestible biscuits, a hasty
exit of the same, the hurried appearance of the
landlord, himself guilty of worse things every day.
Sober during that special half hour, so as to make
no mistake in taking the money for supper, the
landlord saw the situation at a glance, and was
filled with virtuous wrath ! One good grasp upon
Odd Archer's collar from behind, and he had
dragged him off his seat to the side door, and
hurled the limp wretch like a half-filled bag of
meal out of the entrance and far into the night !
It is often so much better to have certain thinsfs
done for you by others than to do them yourself !
You can remain quiet, and they can do them so
much more thoroughly, too ! And but for this, I
should not have known Mose Evans was in the
house ; would have gone on to Brownstown, —
Mose Evans to another city, too, quite another,
neither Brownstown nor yet Charleston I It was
from the landlord, after thanking him, supper over,
for his conduct, that, in the course of conversation,
I learned Mose Evans was up -stairs.
• " Mighty sick. Colonel Anderson, I tell you I "
The colonel being instant brevet for my thanks ;
MOSE EVANS. 133
and my friend wiped the honest sweat of his late
exertion from his exceedingly red face, as he told
me this, hearkening, with his bushy head a little
on one side, for any groans from the direction in
which the ejected man had disappeared through
the night, as assurances that he had not been act-
ually killed by his fall from the battlements of
light.
Yes, there in the corner of an upper room lay
]\Iose Evans ! Wrecked like some huge Spanish
galleon, and upon the most dismal and desert of
all inhospitable islands ! Too short and too nar-
row, at least for him, the unpainted bedstead
creaked and threatened to tumble at every turn of
the writhing sufferer ; its cords so loose that the
thin mattress bulged do^vnward to the floor; no
possibility of lying in it unless coiled up like a ser-
pent in a bushel measure. Although the sick man
is consuming with fever, no one has thought to lift
a window to assuage his burning, by letting in the
at least milder fever of midsummer which is upon
the world without ; has not cared, even, to move
the bed out of the corner between two walls with-
out a window. And there lay my poor friend with
hair, beard, parched lips, delirious brain, a St.
Lawrence upon his gridiron ; rather, a soul in hell
for the pencil of Dord and the pen of Dante !
134 MOSE EVANS.
But, in God's mercy, there is ever a Beatrice,
too, for sufferer as for poet. I had, of course, told
my wife the whole story long before, so that I had
but to take her into the room and say, " Helen,
dear, Mose Evans ! " for her to understand the
entire affair. She had entered the western wilds
with me, burning silently for some opportunity to
show how heartily she could do and endure toward
the making with me there of the immense fortune
in lands which I had in view.
I must add that, largely to her clear intuition in
business, we have done, by the bye, very well in-
deed, ours being considerably more than the six
feet by two of soil usually assigned by moralists,
with the three -score and ten of years, to mortals.
Amazing, the despotism of a young and lovely
woman, especially if in the interest of the sick ! In
two hours Helen had revolutionized this " Buck-
snort Travelers' Rest," as our Hotel was mis-
named. Such obedience our landlord, rapidly re-
turning to his c<?ndition of normal drunkenness,
had never shown to his pale-faced and miserable
wife. The two or three pert mulatto women
about the hotel sufficiently explained, apart from
the drink, the pallor and emaciation of tlie nomi-
nal mistress of the house. Wives have like expe-
MOSE EVANS. 135
riences the world over, but I dare not say a syl-
lable here as to the effect upon a Southern wife of
a negro concubine ; yet I will record how I loathed
that Helen should even superintend the labors of
such helpers for the sick man ! But she did not
know ; and at last we had the sick man bathed,
clothed in clean linen, with hair and beard combed,
upon the best bed in the coolest corner of the only
decent room in the house, — our own ; and in con-
sequence, he was soon sweetly asleep. " He looks
like a dying lion, Henry," my wife whispered, as
we rested at last by his bed. " Say a wounded
gladiator," she continued. "A woman might envy
him those masses of beautiful hair. But, have
you not romanced a little about him ? "
'' Listen to the simple facts," I said, " and see if
it is not nature itself, like Chevy Chace and the
Vicar of Wakefield ! " and I went over again the
story of his parentage, utter seclusion in the woods,
amazing ignorance, termagant mother.
" Ah, Henry, it is his desperate falling in love
with Agnes Throop which interests you so in him,
and I don't blame you ! " said my wife. " I dare
say she was to him as the first European woman
was to the savages of America when she landed.
Ever read, dear, that old story of Inkle and Ya-
136 MOSE EVANS.
rico? The amazement of wonder and love with
which the savage girl adored and clung to the god
in flesh from Europe ? "
*' Yes, and, if I am only a land agent, I remem-
ber, too, that the god was a dastardly scoundrel,
sold the girl " —
" Never mind about the rest," Helen adds has-
tily. " As to Agnes Throop, you are right ; the
thing is too preposterous even for romance, the
man is deranged. Agnes Throop ! And such a
person as this ! Insanity ! Besides, you forget
there is another lover, ' a priory attachment,' as
Mr. Weller said."
" Yes, i\Ir. Archibald Clammeigh," although I
doubt if that gentleman would care to be an-
nounced to an audience, say, as the next speaker,
in exactly the tones in which his name was now
mentioned.
And so we sat comparing the two men in si-
lence. I dare say the long and singular suffering
of the one lying before us helped our illusion, for
such a colossus comes down with a crash when it
does fall. The poor fellow was sadly reduced in
flesh. Of course it was all imagination on our
part that the traces of suffering upon his face were
softened by a pui-ity and patience greater still.
MOSE EVANS. 137
Romeos and King Leai-s, Cordelias and Ophelias,
never had, you know, any more existence than the
Ariels and the Pucks ! Or, if they did have, they
have gone out forever with Shakespeare and stage-
coaches. Or, is it so ?
'' But, you observe," I thought aloud to Helen
after a little, " that is the trouble with this poor
fellow. He has never lived in Mobile, or wintered
at the Pulaski House in Savannah, to say nothing
of the lesser civilization of Fifth Avenue, or Bos-
ton. The man," and I pointed to him as if he
were that far off, " actually lives in the age of —
Elizabeth ? Why, Helen, he is a contemporary of
Abelard. For anything he ever saw, or knew, I
do not see why Mose Evans is not of the age of
Achilles, even Abel." I frankly confess here that
I did garnish my conversation when with my wife
' more freely from such reading as I have had than
I thought expedient generally and elsewhere. She
liked such things, you observe, at least I supposed
so: one should not be forever and everywhere
merely a land agent.
" It is all because you think he is so desperately
in love, dear," slie now replied, " nor, even then,
would he seem so much to others. We have n't
been long married, you know I " She said it, but
did n't mean it, of course, my wife.
138 MOSE EVANS.
" And Mr. Archibald Clammeigli, we are under
no illusion as to him, genial, generous soul of honor
that he is ! " I say. " What a singular coinci-
dence, the conflict of two such opposites for such
a woman," I add, saddened by the moan of the
sleeping man. "Everything," I continued, after a
pause, " birth can do for a man has been done for
bis Grace the Duke of Clammeigh ; no birth at
all, hardly, in the case of this hap-hazard native of
the wilds. Thorough education, and no educa-
tion. European travel, and never out of a cypress
swamp. All that wealth and society can do for
the one, and this man as ignorant of civilization
even as Hercules ! " I lower my voice, under the
finger of Helen laid on my moustache, to add, " I
may be romantic, being lately married and to a
witch, but, think of Agnes Throop, of her Charles-
ton betrothed, and — look at this man ! " Because,
there was that in Mose Evans which deeply im-
pressed us ! As to ]\Ir. Clammeigh, he would have
passed out of my mind like the dead, had he not
been our company's Charleston lawyer. But it
was his relation to Agnes Throop which brought
him, at this singular juncture, so vividly to mind.
At this moment the invalid stirs, moans, mur-
murs, without opening his eyes.
MOSE EVANS. 139
" Cologne, if you please."
"Can you guess why ? " I whisper to my wife
as she bathes with cologne brow, hair, beard ;
" the silliest thing in the world ! "
" Agnes ? "
" And he had never even heard of it before."
" How do you know ? "
" As 1/ou know it ! The mother in me, I sup-
pose."
But here the Bucksnort doctor enters the room,
bringing an aroma of whisky and tobacco. He
has beard of matters, and is a little awed by the
change of things, in the scrupulously dignified
stage of intoxication. From him we learn that
Mose Evans has been sick three weeks, consumed
by fever, would not take the physic, not the least
hope now of his recovery.
I could not but be struck, as the doctor spoke,
with one thing which I had observed often before :
here was a regularly educated physician, and, I
dare say, from the East years before, yet he had
fallen into the jerky dialect of the region as com-
pletely as had Dob Butler, or Odd Archer, Esq.
I sometimes fear my long association out there
with such people has affected even my manner of
speaking. But then, you know, Paris has its
140 MOSE EVANS.
peculiarity of speech, so has Edinburgh, possibly
Boston.
" Has he talked much in his delirium ? " I ask.
The bloated Galen looks at me with curiosity, and
replies, " Not one word ! Can you explain it ?
Old friend, I see. It relieves nature, talking does,
like weeping, for instance. Not one word ! So
much the worse for him ! Veiy remarkable case !
The man evidently has some trouble, but has bot-
tled himself up, hermetically sealed himself! I
wonder what it is ? Killed somebody, I suppose !
Humph ! He '11 soon be out of the reach of the
law, or Judge Lynch ! "
I assure the doctor, as we converse, after a while,
in the hall outside the room, that he is mistaken
in his conjectures, as I tell Helen afterward that I
will myseK make the doctor false in his prophe-
cies ! Please Heaven !
" I said he did not talk, I mean about himself.
One queer, very queer insanity he had," the doc-
tor proceeds to inform me, and the remembrance
seems to sober him a little. " He got some of the
young fellows hanging round to read his Bible to
him when he first lay sick. Grown man, fine-look-
ing man like him, and I suppose can't read " —
great contempt.
MOSE EVANS. 141
Simple truth obliges me to repel this last asser-
tion, ^lonths ago Mose Evans had acquired that
useful art, and had been engaged a goodly part of
every day, as well as far into the night, in devour-
ing, as the old postmaster told me, all the gram-
mars, geographies, histories New Hampshire could
obtain for him from the East by mail. Giving to
the work the energies of manhood, as well as an
intellect far beyond the average, it was incredible,
old New Hampshire told me, the progress he
made. The sick man had his visitors read to him
for their benefit ; even had he been strong enough
for the exertion, they would have howled at the
suggestion of having the Bible read to them by
him, or by any other man.
" Preachers are scarce articles in this region ! "
the doctor continued. " It was very kind in the
young fellows to read the Bible to him. They
got so ashamed of it at last, however, everybody
laughed at them so, you know, that they could not
stand it, gave it up ! And that poor fellow would
persist in saying his prayers, sometimes kneeling
in his bed when he could not get up, clasping his
hands over his beard so, and saying them to him-
self when he could n't kneel even in his bed. The
room had always been full of men smoking, play-
142 HOSE EVANS.
ing cards, before, to keep him company, you see.
Oh, they left ; could n't begin to stand it ! "
" Was that his insanity ? "
" Not so much that. This. He made me
promise him I would let him know in time before
he died. ' What for ? ' I asked, after I had prom-
ised. ' You are a hard set about here,' he said.
' I know you won't care for anything I can say
now.' I do believe," the doctor added, " the man's
intention was to have in all the people about the
place and give them a regular sermon. Singular
notion, was n't it ? Actual fact, sir !
" The only way I can explain it," the doctor
continues, opening, as he speaks, the door of the
room across the hall from which we had rescued
Mose Evans, " is that it was in this room, his room
till you moved him, that it all took place ! "
" What took place ? "
" You have n't heard ? Why, this ! There
had been a wonderful time of it at a camp-meeting
out of town, ever so many of the boys up at the
altar. Some of the men here said it was time to
stop it. So they held a regular sacrament service
in this room, singing, praying, preaching, tobacco
for the bread, whisky for the wine, just for dev-
iltry ! At the close of it, tlie make-believe par-
MOSE EVANS. 143
son's revolver went off by accident, shot the next
man through the heart ! He was laugliing when
he fell, and the bother was, they could n't get the
laugh out of his face ! A laughing corpse in his
coffin ! It broke that crowd up quicker than any
benediction you ever heard. It was the day your
friend got here. I suppose he meant that ! Only,
he was crazy from fever and his trouble, whatever
it is. But won't you go down town and take a
drink ? The water about here is limestone, and
will be sure to derange your bowels ; come ! "
To a degree wholly beyond my control, my
experiences were, as you have been pained to ob-
serve, chiefly among the lower elements of the
Southwest at that day. If you suppose, therefore,
that the same are other than the weaker and
lesser, as well as worse, portion of the population
there, you are greatly mistaken. No more culti-
vated and thoroughly excellent peoj^le in every
sense, than are to be found even in the Brown
Coupties of the Southwest ; pure jewels, the
brighter for their very setting, in many cases. I
have had wide experiences, and must add that, if
driven to choose between the log-cabin and the
brown stone front for sterling goodness, I regard
myself as safest in selecting, like Portia's lover,
the less imposing casket of the array.
XIII.
The boomerang th' Australian sends,
The bomb which to its zenith tends,
The stream which to Niagara flows,
The wind which into cyclone blows,
Like comets at per'helion swerved,
All Force at last is duly curved ;
And, rounded as is life from sleep,
Its utmost energy doth keep
Ketuming from elliptic sweep !
Helen agrees with me when we talk over those
days at the Bucksnort Hotel, as we often do, that
it was the most remarkable thing we ever knew !
You are thoroughly informed in regard to Ignatius
Loyola lying wounded to death in his tent, with
his volumes of the Lives of the Saints ? Well,
you know what came to him, and to the world up
to date, of that ! Joan of Arc among her sheep,
INIohammed in his cave, are but the same story
over again. So of the remarkable revolution in
this Titan of ours, this prehistoric savage. I
abhor mere rhetoric, but I would like to speak, if
I could, of the soul of this child of nature, seething
and surging in him, as fresh and wild and forceful
MOSE EVANS. 145
as did the conflicting elements of cliaos when God
first began to move upon it. The fact is, the
awakened nature of the man had so wrought upon
his body, even, that the backwoodsman was but a
huge infant, exhausted as by crying — for the
individual in question is too matter-of-fact to be
at all rhetorical about ! I do believe another day,
possibly hour, and Helen and myself would have
been too late. But we understood him, handled
him, saved him as a mother would a child ! May
I be allowed to remark that we have both had, in
consequence, a firmer faith than before, in a prov-
idence as special to us as is our care toward and
over our little children.
" The boys there at Brownstown used to say
old New Hampshire was so mean he 'd weaken his
well water before he 'd give a feller a drink, and
it was a lie : well, I 'm as weak as that water ! "
Mose Evans said to us, as his good morning, about
ten days after we had taken him in hand. " Take
a patent as a scarecrow, heh ? "
And he was a sight to see ! Like all his com-
rades out West, wont to sleep on the prairie, or
upon a blanket spread out on the puncheon floor
of the cabin before the fire, Mose Evans used no
pillow or bolster — lay perfectly flat upon his
146 iMOSE EVANS.
back ill bed ; a cause, by the bye, of his erect car-
riage and open chest, some of us narrow-breasted
men and women Avould do well to remember.
Very prostrate he was, the yellow beard flowing
like an inundation over the blanket drawn up, out
of respect to Helen, to the chin. Set like a pict-
ure in the mass of hair and beard, his emaciated
face — eyes large and hollow, brow broad and
white — resembled rather some medallion of a
former age. " I am alive ! " It ^j^as gravely an-
nounced by him that morning after certain hope-
ful salutations and suggestions on our part. " I
intend to live ! I am going to get well. I am
going to live more than I ever did before. You
will see." It was not merely the child-like grav-
ity of the statement. I am far from denying that
Mose. Evans was grateful to Helen and myself. I
do not remember his saying so, we all took it for
granted. But there was this as part of the amaz-
ing change in the man since I had last seen him.
He had been simply an intelligent, kindly dis-
posed Ne"wfoundland dog when General Throop
and myself had first met him, long before, at his
cabin and elsewhere about Brownsto^NTi. You
would have had the idea of him then as of a mag-
nificent ox that would not hook. Once or twice
MOSE EVANS. 147
General Tliroop had rested his rifle, for the Gen-
eral's hands trembled those days a good deal, upon
Mose Evans' oaken shoulder to shoot, when we
were out early of mornings after wild turkeys, and
he was nothing on earth but a log, a walking
stump, to us and to himself then, at best merely
" noble material for the making of a man," as the
General had often remarked to me. Then ! not
now !
" Old New Hampshire often talked to me that
way," Mose Evans continued, the morning of our
conversation with him, but without a particle of
explanation. " Not when any of the boys were
about. No. When I sat on a nail-keg by his
counter, Saturday nights, every soul drunk and
gone home. He had his little bit of a Bible in an
old desk of his in the back room. Boys called
that room New England, — fully as big, they said.
That Saturday night special ! Yes, locked up and
had me back there ! Never laughed in his life,
they say. How that old man's tears did run
down, that night ! Hailstorm ? Yes, he can
pray some. Two good miles, if the wind lies, or
is in your direction, they say. The postmaster
only whispered. But it sounded to me louder
than Hailstorm ! "
148 MOSE EVANS.
" Don't you tliink you are talking too much ?
You know you are very weak. You can say all
you like another time." It is Helen's soothing
suggestion. And let me uncover part of this
photograph by adding, for what it is worth in the
interest of simple truth, Mose Evans had eaten
his breakfast just before ! Lest that is not under-
stood, I will add that breakfast meant, w^ith Mose
Evans, coffee ! Coffee, without milk, and more
cups than I like to say. As in every cabin in his
region, Mose Evans's old black and battered coffee-
pot never was cold day or night, the year around.
Vilely inhospitable the meanest there, if they did
not offer you a tin cup of coffee before you had
been in the cabin or camp twenty minutes. Ori-
ental hospitality in two senses of the word. It
strikes me as a question here whether coffee had
anything to do with the death of Mose Evans's old
schoolmaster of a father ; with the terrible temper
and final bursting of a blood-vessel on the part of
his mother ? I do not know. Nor ^do I know
whether it affected Mose Evans in his feeHng and
talk that day. I only mention it as a part of the
evidence for the jury, as a la\vyer would say.
Coffee, too, is one of the implements made by
Infinite Love for its uses, as much so as wheat.
MOSE EVANS. 149
" * You get converted, Mose, and get New
Hampshire's property,' the boys said," our patient
continued, paying attention only by resting his
hollow eyes upon my wife's face whenever she
spoke ; and then, turning them away, he persisted
in looking toward the future, and altogether over
our heads. " They were mistaken ! What did I
want of his money ? What did I want to buy ?
Land ? It belongs to me now up and down the
river so far I never even try to stop people split-
ting their rails off of it, making their clapboards,
and the like ; squatting on it, for all I know.
Stock ? I never get a chance, even with my
brand, at half my colts or calves. Nothing I
wanted out of his money, that /know of ! Then,
I mean.
" Strange how it all came, like Muscadine
grapes, in a bunch," our sick man continued after
some minutes of thought. " There is Mr. Parkin-
son. My father, too, he must have talked to me
when I was a child. Pre-haps. And Hailstorm.
Only there was too much thunder for the light-
ning. Then he always cried so at the end, washed
you away like, a fellow would run for shelter.
Little I could understand of Mr. Parkinson when
I first knew him. He was like that fool, Alex
150 MOSE EVANS.
Jones, with his doctor's talk, every word a yard
long. Green from their school, both of them. I
managed to understand as he got warm, toward
the close, moonshine done and day come. When
he stopped preaching, began talking to me, I could
understand. I do believe that parson went hunt-
ing with me, camping out at night on purpose.
Never mind about all that ! " I had never heard
the man talk as much in all our intercourse before.
It may have been his physical weakness, the tran-
sition state, the desperate emergency of the poor
fellow !
" And, then " — Mose Evans got so far after a
silence, onl}^ to stop. You will say I write ro-
mance, a thing I detest. Suppose you had seen
the color suffusing his face, the light breaking in
his eyes and over his entire manner as he lay
there, the man so small yet so large !
" Then, she came." Helen said it for him after
a pause. " Agnes Throop. I have known her for
years," my wife added. " And, although Agnes
is a lovely girl in some resjDects, I do not believe
in her as some people do ! " Quietly and firmly.
I suppose Helen said it as a medicine. Sincerely
thought it, for no woman is deluded about any
other than a man. The Martha of Goethe was no
MOSE EVANS. 151
more infatuated about Margaret than was Mephis-
topheles.
" Yes, ma'am, she came," Mose Evans said after
a long pause. I cannot describe tone or manner.
It would have hurt Helen if it had not amused her
so, the man's utter folly, that her eyes filled with
tears of pity, respect, affection, for the sick sim-
pleton ! In Agnes, Helen felt it was her sex this
Scandinavian of thousands of years ago so adored.
The woman's eyes rested a moment on me, saying,
Ah, Henry, if you but believed in me like that !
But then, I am of this nineteenth centuiy. I have
business that drives me like a mule from morning
to midnight, — occupies my time so. This Mose
Evans had nothing whatever to do, had no more
idea of time than people had in earlier ages, than
a Bedouin has now. And it was his first love.
" Yes, she came, ma'am." A contempt for all
my wife could say or know of Agnes Throop, as
he repeated the words, which was simply perfect.
If there had not been a soi-t of grandeur as mat-
ter of course as morning in it, I declare I would
have been irritated at the way in which this man
ignored Helen and myself I Had Helen and my-
self been but a brace of babies, he, lying upon his
bed, could not have had less reference to us in all
152 MOSE EVANS.
his words and manner. The man spoke, felt, cer-
tainly afterward acted, as from depths in himself
with which we had nothing to do. There was a
look in his eyes as entirely over our httle heads
and far away as if we were weeds about his feet !
" It all came together," he added after a while.
" I was, before it all — What was I ? I was like
a bear asleep all winter in a hollow tree. Worse.
Never mind, it all happened together, like spring !
Old New Hampshire. Mr. Parkinson. Perhaps
my mother's going ; I never thought of that be-
fore. I never knew there was a world we are
going to Hve in after this ! " turning his eyes upon
us, with peculiar emphasis upon the I ; "a real,
sure enough world after this, and one that 's go-
ing to last for ever and ever. An actual, sure
enough God, a real person, mind, like you and me.
Greater, of course, than us, as the sky is greater
than a prairie. I never once thought of such a
thing ! As to what they tell me that God Al-
mighty did, coming into this world on purpose for
such a thing, say, as I was, living here, dying here
— never mind ! That is just the thing I can't
talk about, for one. But, it was the finding my-
self out, as well as Him, I look at ! It is the com-
ing all on a sudden to know who I am ! What I
MOSE EVANS. 153
may be yet, here in this world. And in that other
world for ever and ever ! This man, 77ie! " and he
lifts his eyes solemnly to us, quietly pressing his
hand, already lying there, upon his bosom as he
speaks.
*^ My dear Mr. Evans," my wife endeavors. '' If
you talk so much you will have brain fever again.
You are as weak as water ; you said so yourself.
Do stop and go to sleep a little."
" Let me tell you, ma'am," Mose Evans said,
slowly, after listening with his large eyes. ^' Once,
why that is another of the things that came to-
gether. I 'd clean forgot it ! About a year ago,
a tree fell on me. At night. I had cut it down
for the bear in the top. It pinned me down in
between some rocks, no man with me, nor like to
be. I was held down flat, could n't stir, like I am
in this bed. My mind was that much the more
quick. I thought more and brighter than for
years, all in the six hours before Harry Peters
happened along, going to a wedding in the Bot-
tom. I know I am — as weak! But if ever I
had horse sense, it is to-day. Oh, well, I won't
talk. But I have laid out on the prairie August
nights, a coal or so of fire down in a hole by me,
and my coffee-pot on that, for fear of drawing Ca-
154 MOSE EVANS.
manches, — laid flat on the grass looking up at the
skies, thinking what a tre-mendous creation it is,
Tvho made and keeps it going, all He did and is
doing for me, who I am and what I may yet be !
And then, yes, she came ! I had been months
studying such matters, never dreamed of anything
of the kind before. That Sunday at church, the
day Hailstorm preached. I was sitting there !
I 'd no more idea ! She was cominsc in. I looked
up just as a horse would do from his trough. The
moment I saw her she — she i^roved it all ! ''
It is a pity, the reader may have said before
this, that the Mr. Anderson who tells us this story
could not make his fiction more probable. How
is it possible, you say, that a man born and living
all his Hfe in a swamp, and unable to read, could
use the language put in Evans's mouth ? Mr.
Parkinson, Helen, and myself have discussed that
objection, for the manuscript has been read aloud
at my house of evenings, while Mr. Parkinson was
East soliciting money for his church in Bro-svns-
town. AVe have altered and corrected our state-
ments in so many ways, to secure even verbal ex-
actness, as to weary me to death, for one, of the
whole undertaking. In the very nature of the
case we did not take down the exact syllables from
MOSE EVANS. 155
the lips of any of the parties of this simple narra-
tive. Yet we have init their meaning, their in-
tent, in words as near those they used as we can
remember !
But how little can you, reader, understand of
Mose Evans lying there, not seeing his face, hear-
ing his voice. I cannot help if facts seem improb-
able to you because I am not Dickens in the de-
. lineation thereof. As a commonplace man of the
Avorld I will say this, however, that I, who person-
ally knew Mose Evans, understand better than
before the revolution befalling, say, Luther in his
cell. Heaven uses not coffee nor wheat nor the
other agencies to which I alluded merely, it uses
every one of us for some purpose ; why not this
Agnes Throop, as a force silent as that of the mag-
net, if you say so, for the lifting of this inert mass
of a man ? I do not think that the run of a year's
transaction, of our land company, for instaiy^e,
either embraces or explains the entire universe.
Tilings happen I The life of Saul of Tarsus before
and after proves that something must have taken
j)lace during his trip to Damascus, — something
out of the common ! Poor Sir John Falstaff,
to change the illustration exceedingly, learned
whether or no Prince Hal's coming to the crown
156 MOSE EVANS.
left said Prince as he was before ; some change
between Gadshill and Agincourt ! I did not mean
to tire you with all this ; surely you have known
instances convincing you that a man is capable of
a revolution, as well as France.
" Mr. Evans " — my wife begins, during the
conversation from which I have wandered.
" Mose Evans," that invalid corrects her, very
respectfully.
" Mr. Mose Evans, I want you to listen to me,"
my Helen proceeded to say with the firm sweet-
ness which will characterize, I suppose, the entire
faculty of woman physicians and surgeons coming
in.
" Yes, ma'am." For the patient is perfectly
powerless, big as he is.
" I do not want to pain you," my wife proceeds,
" but my husband here has told me the whole
story of your infat — your fool — your mistake.
So far, I mean, of course, as Miss Agnes Throop is
concerned. A great, strong man like you should
be ashamed of yourself ! If this goes on it will
derange, or kill you. I would not be a baby if I
were you ! Now I want to cure you. I can cure
you of your madness. But you have talked too
much to-day. We will speak about it again to-
MOSE EVANS. 15T
morrow, when you are stronger. Good-by, now.
Come Henry."
" As you please, ma'am," our sick man says, we
rising to leave, and says it very composedly.
^' It is positively provoking ! " Helen remarked
to me that afternoon in our own room, when I had
come in from a little business I had down street.
" That Mose Evans of yours is a perfect fool !
Agnes Throop is no more an angel than I am.
I'll cure him ! But it provokes me, how set he is
in his ignorance. Did you notice how cool he was
when we left, as if it did not matter what I could
say
■ ?"
XIV.
He joumers to Damascus Saul,
He journeys from Damascus Paul !
Yet all his days the man is twain ;
Both Saul and Paul he doth remain.
" Oh wretched man ! " from each he flies —
" Who shall deliver me? " he cries;
A dual man until he dies!
Since that night when our landlord flung Odd
Archer from the supper-room, he had passed as
completely out of my mind also as he then had
out of the door. When my wife and myself came
from Evans's room, after our conversation just
recorded, the door of the apartment immediately
across the hall, and from which we had rescued
our poor friend, happened to stand open, and I
caught passing sight of some one in the same bed
from whose slough Evans had been plucked ; and
at the same moment a well-known voice ex-
claimed, —
" I say, Anderson ! Colonel Anderson ! " for I
had every grade of title out West, according to
my standuig with the person speaking. So, let-
MOSE EVANS. 159
ting Helen pass on, I halted a moment m the
doorway. Merely the tip of his dissipated nose
appearing among the disordered bed-clothing, —
Odd Archer, of course !
" You here ? " I demanded.
" Had a fall. Arm broken. As if you did not
do it ! " the lawyer remarks.
'' I do it ? "
" So the landlord tells me. You might have
known I was not responsible. Threw me out of
the room. The landlord tells me he was too late
to stop you. What was it ? "
Without replying, I went below in search of
said master of the house. It was of no use. He
was but beginning to sober with- view to supper
money from the coming stage. Besides, I passed
his pallid wife on the stairs, and had neither heart
nor revolver for any " difficulty " with the man.
And the landlord was, in a sense, but telling the
truth ; he had been but the tongs, so to speak,
with which I had disposed of the obnoxious indi-
\adual. I had no intention at all, when I left his
room, of seeing Archer again, but, on second
thought, it does not do for a man in business to
cut himself utterly off from any other man about
him whatsoever. There is no telling, in reference
160 MOSE EVANS.
even to the most despicable or insignificant person
living, but that, and at any moment, he may be-
come, in the rapid and unexpected complications
of business, a dangerous enemy or a powerful
friend. Much, too, as I detested the miserable
scamp, for my soul I could not help liking him.
" You did perfectly right," he said that same
night, Tvhen I had told him the facts of his con-
duct. " A woman ! And in the presence of your
wife ! I deserved all you did, sir, and more,
though I would rather you had done what you did
with your own hands. They put so much strych-
nine in the whisky. General Anderson ! A
woman ! And unprotected ! I was deranged.
No, sir, you could not have done otherwise. I
knew the landlord lied, or I would not have called
you, — would have shot you as soon as my arm
had healed. Very strange, how pervasive you
Northern people are ! You were present when
Mose Evans had that difficulty with me, you re-
member. Permeating ! Pervasive ! Now the
bars of slavery are down, I suppose you Yankees
will New Englandize the continent ! "
" Certainly ! We landed at Plymouth to do
that. And we intend to hammer and shape
America according to our notion, that we may rev-
MOSE EVANS. 161
olutionize, with this repubUc, the whole world ! "
I repHed, for the vivacity of the man was infec-
tious. Are the springs of his unwearying, inex-
haustible happiness in his body or mind ? I asked
myself. It was phenomenal that this wretch, who
should be the most miserable of men, was always
as radiant, to outer appearance, at least, as an
angel ! There he lay, battered, bruised, burned
out by alcohol, undermined in his very marrow by
debauchery ; possessing hardly a penny in the
world, certainly not a friend who would give a
copper to have him live ; blasted in every memory
of the past, with no gleam of hope for the future ;
yet his rat-like eyes were glittering with joy as
well as life ! I know no more, at last, of human
nature than I do of Sanskrit ! It takes the Being
who made the heart, the most wonderful of all his
worlds, to understand it !
How the man rattled on ! He did not care in
the least which way the conversation turned.
*' Yes," he said, after speaking upon almost every
other topic, falling back at last, as he invariably
did, in the end, upon himself and his own experi-
ences. " I was a remarkable child. I told you so
before. You know the children of distinguished
ministers always are more bright, petted, accu.'>
162 MOSE EVANS.
tomed to society, than average children. The
trouble with me was that my father, being so very
distinguished as the pastor for thirty years of a
leading city church, was too much a great divine
to be a father at all. A purer-hearted, more un-
selfish, more affectionate, more perfectly exem-
plary man, even in his securest privacy, never
lived. But what time did he get, do you suppose,
Anderson, to be a parent ? The tinkle of his
door-bell was almost as unceasing: as that of a
sleigh in mid-winter. What a Noah's Ark our
house was I Book agents ; people in the pressing
interest of a hundred societies ; persons coming to
be married, and, at least by the proxy of their
friends, to be biuied ; husbands requiring a ten
minutes' conversation, lasting an hour, to the
effect that if their pastor did not see and talk to
their wives, they could stand it no longer, and
there must be a separation ; and wives, staying
twice as long, to urge the same, with floods of
tears, about their husbands. Young men in refer-
ence to young ladies — stop ! I bear in mind per-
fectly a young lady who laid before my father,
never noticing me playing dominoes under the
parlor table, this case in regard to her betrothed :
' John wanted me last night to lay my hand on
MOSE EVANS. 163
our parlor Bible, and solemnly make oath that I
loved him. Now, my dear pastor ' (I remember,
Anderson, what a modest, beautiful, lady-like girl
she was, and how eagerly she looked at my father
through her tears, her veil on one side), ' dear Dr.
Archer, my mother is dead, and pa don't care ;
ou(/7it John to ask me that ? He knows I love him
with all my heart, but he says he cannot marry
me unless I will sivear I do ! I never swore in
my life ! Child as I was, the embryo lawyer in
me was aware it was only a trick of the scoundrel
to get off from his engagement because her father
had lost money, or he had found a richer girl ! "
and here Mr. Archer paused, only to begin again.
" When a man has a household, Anderson, of two
thousand souls, — souls^ mind, — and has to fit
them for eternity as well as for time, how can he
devote himself to his two or three children ?
When the children of such a man turn out well,
as they very often do, the most effective piety of
the distinguished father lies in accomplishing that I
I don't want to bore you to death, Anderson," he
paused again at this point to remark.
" Oh, go on, I am quite interested," I said, for
I had no desire to talk ; the velocity, so to speak,
of the man wearied me from trying to say any-
164 MOSE EVANS.
thing. And I am satisfied the acquaintance of
General Throop and myself had unloosed in him
thoughts which had been repressed for years in
liis Brown County burial. " Even leave out all
my father's engagements," he continued ; " take
his choir, for instance ! The bellows-blower out
of sight is not the only person of whom no one
knows or cares, by whom, really, all the music is
produced. It is the pastor, sir. Musical people
are so sensitive ; only by unceasing and most deli-
cate tact did my father prevent harshest discord
around the organ. And religious people, sir, are
the most tensely strung of all people ; only by the
perpetual power of a deeper piety did my father
control and impel them, controlling to impel. I
must and will say, as an entire outsider, Anderson,
that piety is a force ! We have enough of science
among the politics, and receipts for making best
butter in our papers out there, for me to have
read something upon the subject. Not having a
particle myself, I know religion to be an actual
force ; a something which hurls that old New
Hampshire, for instance, — my father, too, during
all my knowledge of him, — as I hurl a brick !
The unscientific thing about it is, you cannot cor-
relate it with — I mean it never runs into greed,
MOSE EVANS. 165
ambition ; physical energy, apart from and dead
against these. The philosophers trace all known
force, don't they, to the smi ? Here is an ac-
knowledged force, seems to me, traceable to, and
demonstrating the unknown and the unknowable
God. See, Anderson ? "
I merely assented by a nod, and he was off
again.
" Because, you know, life, vegetable and ani-
mal, the highest force with which we are ac-
quainted, is precisely that force which science fails
to track and comprehend. Now religion is but a
sort of stronger life from God. There is gravity,
too, which contradicts all laws of correlation and
conservation. Scientists say gravity, holding and
hurling all worlds from a central sun, in vii-tue of
its attraction, — attraction, mind, — is at once the
strongest, broadest, most incomprehensible force
known. They had better class the direct power
of the Deity upon the soul with gravity, say, and
let it alone I But I am talking about myself, a
subject which I understand, however, far less than
I do science even.
" The trouble is, I was lost among my father's
crowd — two thousand — of children. The patri-
arch Jacob was not a circumstance to him. He
166 MOSE EVANS.
would have me in his study, at my book or blocks,
while he was at his sermon for Sunday. As he
warmed to it, I was out of existence to him. He
was very eloquent, and I have watched him write,
how often ! All cool and concordance at the
beginning of a sermon, tearing up sheet after
sheet and starting again, then the pen would
begin to fly, the light would come to his eyes, he
would repeat aloud while writing. Sometimes I
have stopped from my play to wonder at him
writing hke lightning, with the tears rolling down
his cheeks and dropping upon the paper as he
wrote. Often he would straighten himself up in
his chair, both hands stretched out in earnest
argument, the pen in one of them, and say to me
building houses across the floor, ' O undying soul !
how can you resist the logic of love omnipotent as
that ! ' or something of the kind, his face aglow
Hke that of an angel. Suddenly a tap at his door,
and our black Corrilla would peep in and say,
' Oh, Mass Austin, I 'se so sorry, but gen'l'man in
parlor, say lie must see you, on'y five minits ! '
When I add that, arrested in mid career, my
father, the tears still wetting his cheeks or the
light of victorious argument sparkling in his eyes,
would say, ' Oh, bother I ' it was not in anger, but
MOSE EVANS. 167
in pure sorrow ; and it was beautiful, — for I was
glad to run down with liini, — yes, beautiful, his
courtesy, even cordiality, to a perfect stranger,
demanding, very often, that he should subscribe
for one of those gorgeously-gilded wood-illustrated
good books, for which a minister has as much use
as a skilled carpenter has for a toy saw ! Even
when my father would lie on the lounge in the
sitting-room, on the rare evenings he did not go
out, in the brief intervals between visits, while
he played with his children, his mind was on some
pressing case in his church, or he would keep
saying to us seated on his knees, ' Yes, darling, oh
yes,' while he jotted down a memorandum or so
for his next sermon. His church prospered, but
his children perished ! "
" Eli, as of old ! " I interjected here.
" And I Hophni and Phineas rolled into one,
yes ! " and the lawyer turned himself a little in
his rat-like burrow among the dirty bedclothes to
continue, " only it was an over-occupied Samuel,
in this case, not Eli at all. Samuel's scoundrel
sons were judges, you remember, that is, lawyers
fully developed, overturning by their rascahty the
theocracy of the Hebrews and bringing about a
monarchy instead I
168 MOSE EVANS.
" The other guilty party," he added, " was my
equally innocent mother. All along she had her
hands full, if merely to keep our heavy expenses
in such bounds as not to worry her husband, for,
like all eloquent men, he had an insufficient idea
of the immortal value of a dollar, a soul being,
instead, his standard. She was an invalid, too.
Besides, she died when I was ten, — absorbed
herself then among the church in heaven as my
father was in that on earth ! Well for church,
well for parents, but what about me ! Look at
the influence of Miss Throop upon Mose Evans !
I tell you, Anderson, I never had the firm white
hand of a pure woman upon me, since my mother
died : and God in heaven knows the sort of in-
fluence the other kind of women exert, as power-
ful in another direction ! "
There was so long a pause here that I supposed
the man had exhausted himself. He winced a
little as he raised his arm, encumbered by splints
and bandages, with his other hand, and added after
a while, —
" Oh, never mind the dirty details. Paul said.
By the grace of God I am what I am ; and I was
just about saying, By lack of the grace of God, I
too am what I am ! But I am as under oath to
MOSE EVANS. 16^
speak actual fact, and, jack-leg lawyer, disreputa-
ble, intemperate, and ever^^thing else that I am
to-day, I know, as well as a man can know any-
thing that, with all my capacity and opportunity,
I could and should have been very different from
what I am. I do not understand why Heaven left
me to the grip of evil influence when I was such a
mere child, ardent, ignorant, wax to the handling,
— all I am to-day the growth of that ! Sparks
which should have slept in the soul for ten years
longer, blown by the lips of our negroes into con-
suming fires — poor, miserable, utterly helpless
child ! " The man was weeping, pathos in his
tones and manner such as I fail to be able to de-
scribe. Some moments passed before he contin-
ued more gravely, " ^lind, sir, I am speaking
solely of myself ; mine may be an exceptional case.
Nor would you have ever heard me say all this if
I had not been trapped so in this sick-bed " —
strong profanity — " and nothing to do but talk.
Yet I know, as well as you, sir, that the unmiti-
gated scoundrel I am to-day is, at last, of my own
making ! Any jury, any God, would hold me
personally responsible and punish me, and justly,
as all my conscience agrees ! I do not understand
beyond this why, while I take an interest in every
170 MOSE EVANS.
other client, — the greater the scamp the deeper
the interest, — of m^'self, Anderson, as my worst
client, I am tired to death and throw up the case !
Why, sir, I am as thoroughly disgusted with my-
self as you can be."
"And yet," I remarked after a long silence,
*' you are so strangely happy, Mr. Archer, gener-
ally, at least " —
" Temperament, sir ! Talent, — if I dared say
it, — genius, sir ! and, did you know it ? the high-
est genius is merely spinal disease : Robert Hall,
for instance. Dare say, sir," he added, " Satan
himself, by yery force of character, has a certain
sort of joy ! People fling me off from them with
a shudder, as they would a clot of filth from their
hand ! I am so mired through that it is impossi-
ble the hand of my mother can ever touch me
again. I dare not kill myself ; I was taught to
believe about the after life, that I shall be for
ever and ever myself still, you observe ! Drunk ?
"What is left me but to get the drunkest drunk
possible ? With all that, you say true, I am al-
ways happ3^, very happy even while miserable.
Genius, sir, is joy ! an infernal sort, I acknowl-
edge, in my instance ! "
And yet, when I hailed the opportunity and was
MOSE EVANS. 171
about to enter upon conversation which might pos-
sibly benefit him — •
" Bah ! " he suddenly exclaimed with total and
inconceivable change of manner, " what a fool I
am ! you a land agent and brought to tears, and
that by a jack-leg lawyer ! How do you know I
liave n't been merely lying to you to kill time.
But, as a gentleman, I have n't. The man is dead,
let us talk of something else !
" Now, Anderson," he continued, every trace of
seriousness gone, happy as a lark, the facile face
overflowing with vivacity, "you have been in Car-
olina so long, I wonder you have not asked the
Brown County news. I am just from there, you
know."
" General Throop and family are well," I re-
plied ; "I have had a letter to-day from him ; "
for I saw, as even his own father would have seen,
that it was useless to try to talk seriously to him
then, and bided my time.
" iSIagnificent man! Reminds one, with his
portly person and white head, of a magnolia !
Mrs. Throop," the lawyer continued, '' is a lady.
I am surprised she does not leave religious fanati-
cism to Northerners — ah, excuse me. Our South-
ern ministers, at least, are as orthodox as they are
172 MOSE EVANS.
eloquent ! Miss Throop I respect and admire too
much to approach. Have you any such ladies
North, sir ? Ah, excuse me, Mrs. Anderson " —
"Is a Southern lady, Mr. Archer ; but you
speak," I continued with heat, " without the slight-
est knowledge of the North. I decline to converse
upon the subject ! "
" Pardon me," my companion replied with
his indescribable air of good breeding, although
swathed to the chin in the bedclothing, " it is im-
possible for me to offend upon that theme. I may
not have told you, but I studied law at Cambridge.
Besides, many of my friends in Carohna are mar-
ried to ladies from the North. Ladies more beau-
tiful, intelligent, charming in every sense, I never
met. I am compelled, however, to add, neither I,
nor you, sir, ever met a lady of the remarkable
magnetism, if I dare so speak, of Miss Throop,
South or North. My only objection to the North-
ern ladies married South, whom I met during the
war, was the excess, I almost said exceeding vio-
lence of feeling against their former section ; inva-
riably so, and surely they are not to blame for
that ! But, pardon me. Did General Throop say
anything," he continued, " about Mose Evans ? "
And, as he says it, the speaker reverts from the
MOSE EVANS. 173
man of breeding and society to the " low-down "
law}^er in the cross-examination manner of the
question.
*' Merely that he had made himself very useful,
so useful that he regretted he had so suddenly left,
because, the General supposed, of his mother's
death, though taking place some time before.
Harry Peters rents the place," I added, and de-
sired to change the subject. I had no intention
this slippery person should be mixed up in Mose
Evans's matters if I could help it. " How is Mr.
Parkinson ? " I asked.
" Terribly in love with Miss Throop. He had
better make up his mind to one of the fat Miss
Robinsons. All he has to do is to marry her part
of the plantation and be comfortable for life. Do
you know how Mose Evans was taken sick ? " the
lawyer asked eagerly.
" Some form of typhoid " — I began.
" Shows the difference between us. You look
at men only with reference to land. Well you
came when you did. Drugged, sir. It was well
known the man had money when he left Browns-
town. Has n't he told you how he was waylaid
along the road ? Narrow escape, I tell you. That
is why I came down. No one can help liking the
174 MOSE EVANS.
man. If, after that matter with his mother, I
could " —
" Drugged ? "
" By a Methodist preacher. Of course he was
not a preacher of any sort ; a brother of Dob But-
ler. Oh, I know him ; have defended him, too,
you see ; dressed up in a long coat and longer face
for the purpose. They found out Mose Evans was
a religious man. That rascal actually read Script-
ure, sang hymns, and prayed with him ! There
is an organized gang of them," the lawyer lowered
his voice as he said it.
" But the landlord never told me," I began.
" Why, sir, that is one reason," Mr. Archer ex-
plained, with a smile at my simplicity, " he was so
very willing to pitch me out at your suggestion.
So far as a fool can be a villain, he is one of them.
This house is one of their head-quarters. They
did their level best to banter Evans into cards ;
they would have cleaned him out in one night.
Then the mock preacher slipped some drug into
Evans's coffee, while waiting upon him so kindly.
If they had not overdone the matter in their eager-
ness, by putting in too much, and he had not had
the constitution he has, it would have killed him ;
fortunately it drove him only into fever. We
3I0SE EVANS. ITo
lawyers know everything and everybody. If you
have money, Anderson, don't be brash about it. I
know your wife is a great protection, — they al-
ways respect a lady, — but be careful. If they
rob and murder you, no hope in your last moments
anybody will be hung. They will employ me, and
I am sure to get them off ! " I saw nothing at all
witty, however, in the lawyer's fun, " the crack-
ling of thorns under a pot," which wearied me,
and so I rose to go. I ' had wakened the man's
memory of early days into a flood which cared
nothino- as to the way it ran, so that it could be
allowed to flow on. Besides, it was getting late,
and Helen would be uneasy.
" Hold on. Major Anderson," he begged, as I
got up from beside his bed.
" You must excuse me, Mr. Archer, it is nearly
eleven " • —
'' Stop a moment. It is about Mose Evans I
want to speak. Things have happened on the
Throop place. He will never tell you. You
know Job Peters? "
" As General Throop's overseer, I think I know
all you can tell me," I said, for I hated to have
him speak upon matters which I was coming to
regard as sacred, beyond the handhng of even
Helen, my wife.
176 MOSE EVANS.
" Be a sensible man, Anderson, and stop," the
man said without a particle of merriment. " Lift
a fellow up ; I want to talk to you ! "
I had tended •in hospitals during the war, —
about half a century ago, it seemed to me, — so
that I did not shrink Avhile the man clasped his
unbroken arm around my neck and I lifted him as
well as I could out of the hole of his bulging bed,
propped him up with the bolster doubled over
behind his back, and laid his splintered arm upon
the dirty pillow before him. Unrequested I wet
the end of a towel and wiped his face, brushing
back from his fine forehead the hair with, I am
compelled to say, a clothes brush, which I found
on the washstand.
" Thank you. Slight-built men, like you and
myself, make splendid nurses. I once knew a
doctor, red-headed, feminine, not longer than your
little finger " —
" But about Mose Evans, Mr. Archer."
" Yes, Job Peters was hired, as you are aware,
by the General, to manage the freedmen. You
know Job, Anderson, Harry Peters's brother ? He
could n't rule the freed blacks with the cowhide as
of old, so he tried sarcasm ! "
" Sarcasm ? "
MOSE EVANS. I'^T
"His bitter fun, you see. One wouldn't sup-
pose the negroes would care for that, but," added
the lawj-er, " I declare I honor them for it, they
did. It was worse -his words -than persim-
mons before frost ; bitter, stinging, never ceasing.
' How many lumps of dirt in your cotton basket
to-day, Mr. Samuel ? ' 'Ah, 3In. Julia Jones, a
lady of color, and have to work, heh ? ' ' You
coming to me for pay, Mr. Walter? I thought
you had concluded to be governor of the State .
■ Nonsense like that to the hands, and always at it !
Not in fun, no laugh about it, bitterly; and thmgs
^orse than that ; they can't help having been
made free, poor wretches ! It was not fair m Job.
They got worn out with it at last — his fun.
First thing you know, General Throop,-of
course he had only Job Peters's storj-, - was out
one afternoon among the blacks at the gin, in a
passion. The General can't reconcile himself to
the change, it is the world upside down to him ;
he is getting suddenly infirm, too, and tremulous.
Broke his gold headed cane over the head of the
foreman of the crop before he knew it. If the
negroes had not respected the old General so,
there would have been trouble right then. I sup-
pose one of the ladies must have been frightened
178 MOSE EVANS.
and sent over to him as the nearest person ; but
Mose Evans came in after supper. Mr. Parkinson
told me about it. The General was in a bad
humor, and Job Peters was the same, as he always
is. In the presence of the ladies, too. The hands
had struck work, you see, — gone !
" ' You ought never to strike a negro on the
head. General,' Job Peters was saying, ' It
breaks your cane and does n't hurt him. " I always
strike for the shins instead ! ' But Job lied ; he
is a coward — can hardly walk under the revolvers
he wears in the cotton patch, since the blacks
were freed.
" ' What do you say, Mr. Evans ? ' the General
asked.
" ' I would try and strike between,' Evans said,
smihng.
" ' AVhat do you mean by that ? ' Job roars out,
for he had had one or two difficulties with Evans
before. I suppose Mr. Parkinson put it into bet-
ter words than Evans could use ; but he told me
Evans said he would try to handle them by their
heart, better feelings, nonsense of that sort. I
suppose Peters saw it was all over with himself, so
far as overseeing those negroes was concerned, and
pitched in, as the boys say. In the very supper-
MOSE EVANS. 179
room with the old General and the hidies ! The
ladies told Mr. Parkinson next day, and he told
me. By the bye, Anderson, I do believe tliat Mr.
Parkinson is trying to convert me, he stops to talk
with me so often," the lawyer pauses to explain ;
" but the parson said it was beautiful. You see,
Evans is very strong, as cool as he is strong. He
took Peters in his grasp, — you remember my
case, Anderson, — one hand over his foul mouth,
like a little baby, and walked him quietly as he
could out of the house, out of the front yard, out
of hearing. I do not know, paddled him well,-
I suppose, when he had him out of hearing.
There has been no Job Peters on the place
since ! "
" But who is overseer ? " I inquire of the law-
yer, doubting, for the first time, if I had not had
more reference to my own interest than that of
General Throop, when I effected our exchange of
Charleston and Brown County property; at last,
1 may know myself less than I do any other
acquaintance !
'' Overseer ? Mose Evans ! It was not his
seeking. He got me to draw up the lease with
Harry Peters for his mother's place, now his, of
course ; and," Mr. Archer added, " I knew what
.180 MOSE EVANS.
he meant by employing me. He knows it was not
so much my fault, at last, that about his mother.
The lease is for years. He intended leaving as
soon as he could settle up his mother's estate ; for,
I tell you, sir, she held liim and everything else,
those strayed cattle, for instance, in her grip,
while she lived ! General Throop was left so
helpless, you observe. The ladies, too. He took
a room at his old home, with Harry. Harry
thinks the world of him, especially since his
trouble with Job. The old gentleman is so feeble.
Whatever he may have been when they were
slaves, so bewildered about the negroes now they
are free, that he turned the whole plantation over
to Evans. This made it necessary Mose should
be at the house a great deal, reporting the day's
cotton picking, ginning, pressing, contract kept,
contract broken, and the like. I only know he
got in the General's crop. Saw it to the mouth,
— mouth of the river, our port, you know. Sold
it and bought the General's supplies."
I rose to my feet w^ith deeper sympathy for
poor Evans ! It was not his fault — so closely
associated mth the family — even if he knew all
the time of Mr. Clammeigh's engagement. Apart
from that, how could he hope to be considered in
MOSE EVANS. 181
any other light than as an exceedingly ignorant
although very useful Brown County boor, by the
young lady in question ? I did not mention the
fact to the la^vyer, but it all came back upon me
at the moment, and I will state it here, even if
Helen sees it and I die. I refer to the last day I
was in Brown County before returning to Charles-
ton. I had called at General Throop's to bid
them good-by. The General was asleep some-
where, my visit being in the afternoon. Mrs.
Throop, if she was not superior to such weakness,
sleeping, too, I suppose. Agnes Throop saw me
as I alighted from my horse ; she seemed always
watching for rescue. Clammeigh, I 'm afraid.
But she dropped her sewing and came out in her
morning dress to meet me ! The live-oaks with
their swinging moss were so sepulchral ; the house
was so silent and utterly lonely ; she had no
brother ; her parents were wholly unable to sym-
pathize with her, by reason of age and peculiar-
ity I All that poor, frail girl had on earth was —
Clammeigh, a thousand miles away in Charleston,
a million of miles away in the depths of his in-
tense selfishness, if she knew it.^ That man was,
after her parents, all she had on earth to love, her
entire soul flowing to that cold individual as the
182 MOSE EVANS.
Gulf Stream, they say, flows to the Polar Sea !
How she hurried out to meet me on that occasion,
her dark hair parted simply upon her pure fore-
head, all her soul in her eyes, the perfect grace
and culture of the accomplished woman with the
simplicity of a child, holding both her hands out
to me as I ascended the steps ! I have before
recorded something of her greetmg when I first
saw her after she arrived at her new home ; it was
her way to every one she imagined had done her a
kindness. I speak of it again because of her utter
loneliness in the world, which, I suppose, made
her all the more eager, unconscious to herself, for
sympathy ! I had no time to enter the house,
could only leave my regards for her parents, take
both of her hands once more in mine, to say
good-by. O beauty, grace, jDurity, sweetness !
O magnetism, mesmerism, witchcraft ! O friend-
ship with lines not more exactly defined between
itself and love, than are the stripes of a rain-
bow from each other. And, O Helen, Helen !
Heaven knows how thoroughly I prefer and love
you, my o^vn wife, in comparison with every other
woman I ever knew. You understand the sin-
gular, yet wholly unconscious power of Agnes
Throop ! Hence the depth of our interest in poor
MOSE EVANS. 183
Evans. Notliing more absurd, and perfectly nat-
ural, too, than his infatuation !
I know I am as cool a man of the world as any
in Boston or Wall Street ; but, you observe, peo-
ple do not generally think and feel aloud, as I am
doing here. The only way I can interest anybody
in this bald narrative of mine is to write out, as
nearly as I dare, according to the actual facts;
having no art, I can merely give nature !
" Do you know why Evans left ? " the law^-er
halted me again as I was leaving.
" Not fully ; why do you ask ? " I replied.
" They are a frail class of persons, the Throops ;
physically, I mean," he replied. *' The father and
mother by age ; all of them by reason of long suf-
fering. I think they could not but respect, igno-
rant as Evans was, his sturdy strength of body.
They have lived in our artificial society there in
Charleston, — do I not know Charleston ? — are
bewildered by the change, and they came to es-
teem the stroncr common-sense of the man. He is
so silent, too ; he does not make himself more
ridiculous than he can help by blunders in gram-
mar and the like I Handsome, now, is n't he ?
Mr. Parkinson is jealous of him ; ever know any-
184 MOSE EVANS.
thing so preposterous ? Of course, Parkinson is
out of the question, to say nothing of that Mr.
Clammeigh from Charleston — but, Mose Evans !
One thing, Mr. Anderson, I know, as a lawyer,"
the man continued; *'it is partly land, specula-
tion in land, sir, not wholly Miss Throop, which
brought Clammeigh to Brown County when he
came. I happen to know. I 'm sorry they are to
marry."
" So am I; but why did Evans leave ? " I de-
mand as I open the door to depart.
" We legal men are on the watch in regard to
everything, by force of habit, even where no fee is
in question," Mr. Archer replied. " It was un-
gentlemanly, I confess, but I learned from the
negroes about their place that Evans left suddenly
one day. He had brought out their mail matter
to the Throops, and their people think he brought
them a letter that day which made trouble. I
have racked my brain to conjecture whom that
document could be from. I mean, to produce any
such effect upon Evans. I cannot imagine ; and
have given it up ! He employed me about that
lease, but has had no intercourse with me apart
from the silent eloquence, if I may so speak, of
that. Do you suppose I would have come here,
MOSE EVANS. 185
learning of his peril, but for my regard for the
man ? BroAVii County never understood him ; less
of late than ever before. Mr. Parkinson suddenly
called upon him, a few Sundays before he left, sir,
to lead in prayer. It was at a sort of conference
meeting in the church, General Throop and his
daughter present. Mr. Parkinson dare not ask
himself his full motive in requesting him to do so,
old New Hampshire having been the only member
of his cliurch he had called upon previously. The
eyes of every person present were upon Mose
Evans on the instant; they could not help it.
Strange as it may be, I was there ; my eyes could
detect no confusion in his face ! A slight suffusion
of surprise, and he quietly arose ; and a better
prayer, although brief," — and the lawyer con-
signed himself to perdition in default of truth
upon his part, -^ '* I never heard ! "
" Well, I must say good-night," I began.
"I was at the fence of General Throop's place,"
Odd Archer continued, "about the time Mr. Clam-
meigh, then on a visit to them, was leaving for
Charleston. I sat on my horse, merely asking to
see the General at his gate. It was about a tax
claim, and the General had never invited me to
visit them. Evans was buckling his saddle-girth
186 MOSE EVANS.
to ride somewhere when the General came out to
US, bare-headed, Clammeigh and Miss Throop with
him, to tell him good-by. ' I thought,' Clam-
meigh said to Evans, drawing on his gloves as
he spoke, his saddle-bags over his arm, ' that I
had told you to have my horse ready ! ' Oh, it
was nothing worth telling," Mr. Archer added ;
" merely that, and the amused expression upon
the face of Evans as he lifted his hand to his hat
in salutation to the General and his daughter, and
rode silently away, was beautiful ! The sudden
glance of the lady, too, from the one man to the
other!"
" And now, I will say good-night."
" Good-night, sir," the lawyer said, slipping
himself down into his bed and more into a posture
for sleep. " I said Mose Evans left suddenly. It
was not suddenly. He made his preparations to
leave silently but deliberately. He has some
grave purpose. I wish I knew what. I chanced
to be going into town that day and passed him on
the road. He had the aspect to me as he rode
away, of a lawyer going to the capital to take his
seat upon the bench ! Good-night I "
XV.
" I gained my wondrous skill,"
The artist said when asked,
"Not, as you say, by will
Through years severely tasked ;
That but their tool, ray makers were
Rage, Hunger, Failure, and Despair ! "
It was on "Wednesday that my wife and myself
had our interview with Mr. Evans, as abeady nar-
rated. Certain matters of my own prevented our
entering his room again until the afternoon of the
Sabbath following. During the interval he had
improved greatly, and, although still confined to
liis room, received us dressed and seated in an
enormous chair used for shaving purposes, which I
had secured from the shop of a negro barber across
the street, less by money than by saying it was for
a sick man. It is impossible not to appreciate the
warm-hearted sympathy with suffering on the part
of people of color, and the hearty satisfaction of
the barber, as he shaved his dissatisfied customers,
seated uncomfortably in an ordinary hide-bottom
9
188 MOSE EVANS
chair, was to me half the pleasure of my toilette
when I dropped in for that purpose.
" Must n't cuss so, massa ; s'pose you was sick ! "
was the emollient the smiling barber applied, with
his lather, to each remonstrant. " Chair good
enough ; sit still, massa, or you mought get cut ! "
Wlien we first entered his room, I confess I
could not help laughing aloud as I saw our inva-
lid, still very feeble and hollow about the eyes and
cheek, seated in his stately chair, his head resting
upon the support behind. My wife looked indig-
nantly at me, for she knew I was thinking of the
poor fellow as awaiting at her hands worse sur-
gery than any that chair had ever held victim for
before. By way, I suppose, of chloroform before
operation, my wife, after I had read, at Mr. Ev-
ans's request, a certain passage of Scripture, sang
us a number of the hj^mns common among the
blacks ; sung in a low voice, they were that Sun-
day afternoon, the sweetest music I ever heard !
" I ought to know them," she said, after she
liad sung '' Swing low, sweet chariot ; " "I don't
feel no ways tired ; " winding up in triumph with
" Mary an' Martha have just gone along." " My
mammy rocked me to sleep singing them when I
was a baby in her arms, there on the plantation.
MOSE EVANS. 189
I have heard them all my life, as our people sang
thera in their meetings, and over their wash-tubs.
Except at church, they never sing them, or any-
thing else, now. I '11 sing one more. We have
all heard it often. It is the hymn Henry says he
will have sung to him when he is dying. Listen,
Mr. Evans, to ' Roll, Jordan, roll ; ' for I want to
have a good talk with you when I am through."
Helen was seated upon one side of the sick man
and I upon the other, and there was a long silence
after she had ceased singing. I think even her
heart was softened.
" I was wishing to speak to you," she began at
last.
" Yes, ma'am." Mose Evans turns his eyes
upon her respectfully.
" It is in reference to Miss Agnes Throop."
The eyes remain fixed upon hers, but the respect-
ful interest has singularly changed into a species
of indifference.
" If you please " — he requests.
" I have none with me," Helen replies with
some severity, divining his meaning ; " here is
lavender ; " and ^Ir. Evans submits to a sprink-
ling of the same upon hair and beard, no more to
him than so much water
190 MOSE EVANS.
" I think I can save you from a ruined life,
from great unhappiness, at least," Helen proceeds.
*' What I say may hurt you veiy much. Are you
strong enough ? "
" Yes, ma'am," with the smiling indifference as
of a grown man when being treated like an infant.
My wife's pride is touched. She grasps her knife,
so to speak, with positive pleasure. Plunges it
in!
" I have known Agnes Throop all my life. She
is a good girl, a sweet girl. But that is all ! She
is not an angel of God. You are mistaken en-
tirely, — nothing unusual in lier at all. There are
many women more beautiful, as you would know
if you had seen more of the world. I could tell
you even of many serious defects in her char-
acter ! "
Now, it mav be ricjht for doctors, female ones
too, to fib. But I was surprised at this ! I
studied, from the other side, the broad, open face
of her patient as she spoke.
" Yes, ma'am ! " Because of his lack of cul-
ture, everything the man thought or felt came to
his face, and now there was nothinfj there but
entire indifference. If mv wife had stated that
4/
the afternoon sun he saw out of the window was a
MOSE EVANS, 191
turnip, instead, which a boy had thrown into the
air, he would have beheved it as much. Mose
was a grand object, invalid though he was ; that
about shoulders and face which reminded one of
the bust of a Roman emperor. And marble he
certainly was to her statement.
" Yes, ma'am."
" And I must tell you this, also ; " my wife is
more quiet as she becomes more cruel. " Miss
Agnes Throop is engaged to be married to a Mr.
Archibald Clammeigh of Charleston, South Caro-
lina. He is a lawyer, a gentleman of education.
He has traveled over the world. He is handsome,
veri/ rich. And she loves him. I know her well,
she loves him with all her heart ! So, you see " —
"Yes, ma'am." Marble. With merely this
difference, one simple question, that asked as if
the reply made no difference. " Does he love
her ? " The man put such a meaning in that
word ** love ! " I could have laughed at the way
it hit Helen. She colored with confusion. Know-
ing that detestable Clammeigh as she did.
" Apart from that, Evans," I add, " as I hap-
pen to know from the person himself, ]\Ir. Parkin-
son, too, is ardently in love with Miss Throop.
Do you not see how foolish you are ? Even leav-
192 MOSE EVANS.
ing Mr. Clammeigli out of the question, do you
suppose you are a match for a gentleman of edu-
cation like that minister? Besides, he will see
her every day, man, while you are far away and
entirely forgotten."
And, yet, in reply to all this I had from Mr.
Evans merely a composed " Yes, sir."
" I have merely to add this," Helen continued
after a while, with dignity; "my husband esteems
you as an honest man, sincere, well-meaning " —
" Yes, ma'am."
"But you are more ignorant than you know.
General Throop is of one of the first families of
Charleston, and very proud. Now, you see how
impossible it is. You might as well fall in love
with the moon. You can never marry Miss Agnes
Throop ; be a sensible man, Mr. Evans. Never 1 "
" Yes, ma'am." And not a shadow upon the
marble of his face. If Helen had been imparting
to him the most miinteresting, or the most delight-
ful news in the world, you could not have told
which it was, from his countenance at least ; and
a more expressive one in telling of or hearing
about a bear fight, for instance, I never saw.
" And, now," very soothingly on the part of my
wife, " you know we are your friends, we wish to
MOSE EVANS. 193
save you from misery. I tell you only the truth.
What," after some considerable pause, " do you
think of it ? "
It "would have been better if Helen had not
asked, but, owing to her sex, she was curious.
Mose Evans sat with his eyes respectfully in hers.
At the question, with the simplicity of a child, he
quietly replied, " You have never loved, ma'am.''
I was angry with the fellow, but I could have
laughed — did laugh, I believe — outright. It
smote Helen full in the face. She positively
crimsoned.
" You forget, sir," she said at last, with entire
dignity, "that I am married — that this is my
husband."
" Yes, ma'am. Beg pardon." But it was evi-
dent that the man had nothing to take back. He
was so very ignorant, you see.
It was Sunday afternoon, as I have said. It
occurs to me as I write, that the day, our having
read the Bible together, Helen's songs of worship,
our intending soon to part, all these were not
without their influence, in addition to his terrible
illness and near escape from death, upon our
friend. We had enjoyed a quiet time all these
days in our upper rooms of the " hotel." The
194 MOSE EVANS.
lumbering old stage, dnven by profanity, — the
motive power, it seemed to me, of all the ox,
horse, mule machinery out West ; they added its
pressure to mill sluice, and steam, even ! — rolled
up to and away from the front porch every even-
ing about six, disgorging its passengers for supper
and re-engorging them thereafter, replete with
coffee, pork, and hot biscuit ; exceedingly hilarious,
in consequence thereof, generally at the expense of
hotel and landlord, for the next ten miles ; deeply
dej)ressed, also, in consequence of supper, all night
and until after breakfast next day. I had ridden
— how often ? — in the same. In and out of the
front porch flowed and ebbed, at periods as de-
fined as the tide, the population of Bucksnort.
The landlord got drunk and got sober as by a law
of nature. His miserable wife showed her heart-
broken face once or twice a day in our rooms, to
see " how you all are getting along, and if there is
anything I can do." The flaunting concubines of
his seraglio, black, yellow, ash-colored, were in
and out of the rooms and halls with that peculiar
impudence of manner which we would think a
woman would shrink, in virtue of her very sex,
from showing toward a wife, and a heart-broken
and helpless wife, at that ! I could not help
MOSE EVANS, 195
observing how the women of whom I am speaking
sent scorn and defiance to her ears, even when
out of sight, in their shrill songs from the wash-
tubs and clothes-lines in the back yard, — songs
offensively religious. And so we lived in our
•world, and all the rest of the hotel in theirs,
meeting only at the table for meals ; my appetite
holding out longer than Helen's, but getting so
very tired at last of the monotonous sameness of
an indigestibility of fare, the one law of which was
-fry!
I say it was, I suppose, all the peculiar influ-
ences upon Mose Evans combined, possibly the
feeling of some explanation as due my wife, that
caused him to say w^hat he did before we parted
that Sunday night. We had risen to leave.
" I am," he remarked, " as you say, ma'am, an
ignorant man ; not a more ignorant man alive, I
suppose," he said, as if stating the time of day,
*' but there are some things I do know ! "
I am no stenographer, and can but report his
ideas as nearly in his words as I recall them. He
continued slowly, steadily, " AVhat you say about
her not being so much at last is only this. I don't
know what she is to others. I know what she is
to me. I never thought God Almighty could
196 MOSE EVANS.
make such a person as she is — never mind ! I
can't tell why, but I can't talk about that at all.
What I look at is the hand He who makes us has
had in it. It is like a camp-fire you see a-making
on a cold, ramy, pitch-dark night in the woods :
there 's the blaze, and there 's the face it lights up
so of the man building the fire ! I mean Him ! "
as with a gesture of the eyes upward, " and it was
not my doing, that trouble with Job Peters, and
having to be in their house so much. I might
have gone off, outlived it all, but for that ! As to
the gentleman from Charleston. TVell, I 've seen
him. He is all you say. May be so ! But what
I look at is this, he is n't fit ; not for her ! The
hardest thing, you said, ma'am," looking full at
my wife with serious eyes, " was that she loves
that man. May be so ! But people change when
they come to know. She is all the same to me,
whether she ever changes or not. I can no more
help it than I can help living, no, nor than I can
keep from dying when that comes. I '11 tell you
what I am going to do about it," he went on to
say, after withdrawing his eyes from those of my
wife and reflecting for some time, then raising
them again to hers, " and then 1 11 tell you why.
I was on my way when I was taken down. I have
MOSE EVANS. 197
fixed with old New ILimpsliire about my property,
how he is to send me money. For I 'm going off
to try and learn something. Then I 'm going to
travel about, for years, perhaps. New Hampshire
has given me letters and directions. If any law
comes up about the property, he has my power of
attorney. He '11 have you to help him, sir. But
don't fuss with that Odd Archer. You are certain
to kill him, if you do, and I would n't, if I was
you. While I am gone, who can tell but matters
may change ? I 've never spoken to her, about
myself, hardly, in my life; never dared to. I
mean, nothing of all I feel. But she may hear,
somehow. Anyway I can do nothing but what I
am doing ! And now, I '11 tell you why I 'm go-
intr to do what I said." It was after some silence,
and in lowered tones, that he continued, " I 've
never said a word of what I 'm telling you to a
Boul before. I hope I never will have to again as
lon<^ as I hve. I think about Httle else, but it is
the hardest thing to say out I ever knew. If it
was n't my sickness, your talk with me, the Sab-
bath, the singmg, and all, I would n't have opened
my hps about it. But, it all happens so !
" You see," he continued, at last, with the frank
eyes as of a child in mine, not my wife's, " I 've
198 MOSE EVANS.
lived, as I 've found out for tlie last year, among
people almost as ignorant as the brutes, to say
nothing of those among them that are wicked.
You know, Mr. Anderson, how Bro^yn County
people talk about their Maker, ' the good man,'
' old Marster,' and the like. I alwa^^s knew we
had a Maker, but I never knew God was such a
man, too, as Jesus Christ ! I have come to know
He is ; and how amazing it is to me to know it, I
can't tell you. And I never knew such a woman
could be as she is. But I know now there is such
a woman. It may not be right for me to put even
her beside God, but she is so to me ; I can't help
it." A lonsr silence after this.
" What I want to say is even harder to say,"
he added at last. " Because people always talk
about a man loving a woman as if it was a joke,
nothing except to laugh at, to make fun over.
With me it is nothing in that way, nothing at all !
It is the most solemn, most sacred thing I know,
and what I am tr^Hng so hard to get to say is this.
If such a person as God can love me as I 've come
to find out He does, then she may too, some day.
I can't tell how all this sounds to you, but it is
what I mean."
It was so much in the manner of the man ! "I
MOSE EVANS. 199
have fixed matters, as I said, with old New Hamp-
shire," our friend conckided, ''although you two
are the only ones I 've spoken to about all this.
I 'm going far away, to try and see what I can
make of myself. All along I 've known almost as
Httle about myself as I knew about the One that
made me. Who can tell what I may not make
of myself yet ? I don't know, but I can try and
see.
" I saw a picture last summer in Boston," I re-
marked to Helen that night in our own room, for
she seemed to have nothing to say, " of a mission-
ary preaching to the natives of some newly dis-
covered continent or other. The painter had
placed a savage chief in the foreground, listening
to the missionary. It was admirably done — the
wide-eyed wonder of the savage, at what was be-
ing said I This religion of ours is as old and as
familiar to us as the sun. Suppose you had seen
the sun to-day for the first time ? We are a sort
of Chinese, my dear ; things have always been, we
think, as they are to-day, will go on in the same
old round for ever and ever. The gospel is as new,
really, to Evans, as it would be to any other of
the aborigines. How was it that night to the
shepherds keeping watch over their floclvs?"
200 MOSE EVANS.
But my wife lias no remark to offer, and I add,
after a little, " This religion of om's has lifted
some of the race from a very low estate. We
know it will elevate the noblest of us to a far
higher level yet. If it can lift the race, I do not
see why it cannot lift a man. Heh ? '*
" I am quite tired to-night, Henry,'* was all my
wife replied, " let us go to sleep."
XVI.
"We are the self-same coal," —
The Diamond made reply, —
" Oar difference this : the whole
Weight of the world did lie
For ages on me ! Differing grade
Is differing pressure on us laid! "
" You are quite poetical ! " my wife remarked
to me one day after we had readied Brownstown,
for I was compelled by pressure of business to bid
Evans good-by, at daylight, the morning after the
interview with him just described. Perhaps there
is some such scant streaking of gold through my
quartz, for my dear mother up there in New Eng-
land had once published a thin volume of poems.
Helen's exclamation, I will explain, followed upon
my saying that Agnes Throop was Uke a pearl set
in ebony.
It was suggested to me by a doleful September
day we had spent, Helen and myself, at the
Throops, after our arrival from Bucksnort, and
202 MOSE EVAXS.
parting with Archer there, and Evans, the latter
going East, the former to go — more rapidly, I
supposed, if that were possible — to the bad. My
wife and myself were to be in Brownstown but a
short time, her presence as well as my own being
needed there to certain signatures before a notary
public; signatures, on her part, at least, effected
just as well in Charleston ; but come with me she
would. *' I want to be with you, Henry. They
are so lonely, too, the Throops ! " she said.
Lonely ! Neither they nor we thought of it in
all the first eager conversation after we arrived ;
but it was terrible, that last September "Wednes-
day. We sat in their parlor, we tried the front
porch, we wandered under the great trees of the
yard, and we came back and gave up escaping
what, I fear, was nothing but miasma, and so took
to our big rocking-chairs upon the front porch, —
piazza, rather, as it extended the entire length of
the house. It was Mrs. Throop, however, who
made the day and the scene positively weird !
"I sit here sometimes for hours," she said,
*' gazing upon the river, rolling along its liquid
mud, like our turbid lives. Turning a little this
way, now a bend toward the other side, now a
little more and now a Httle less overhung by those
MOSE EVANS. 203
great live-oaks with their trailing moss ; only the
muddier when there is a freshet " —
*' A boat now and then, mamma," Agnes insists,
in the quiet but continual protest I had observed
in her from the first, against the gloom of the
household. Helen said even Mary ISIartha Wash-
inf'ton, their self-sacrificed slave, seemed darker
than before. But as to Agnes, there was that in
her which showed that something beyond all this
had befallen her since we last met ; some terrible
blow had fallen, was expected to fall — I knew
not what. I could not say in what respect, if any,
it had affected her outer bearing. The calamity,
whatever it was, had smitten deeper than that.
"Yes. A boat!" Mrs. Throop continued, in
sentences singularly detached. " Loaded to the
water's edge with cotton. A shower of sparks
always falling upon the bales from the smoke-
stacks ! I often sit at my bedroom window, some-
times wrap myself up and come, while you are all
sleeping, and sit for hours watcliing the steamboats
as they pass. It is a striking but most mournful
scene, especially at midnight. All the negro crew
are then on the bow, singing and dancing, the
boat so apt to strike a snag, or catch on fire, or
blow up, the next moment ! An emblem of the
world ! "
204 MOSE EVAXS,
But it was the great, sad eyes, the wailing in
the tones of her voice, which gave such sepulchral
power to wh^t Mrs. Throop said.
" I blame myself, madam," I interposed with
some emphasis, "for inducing you to leave Charles-
ton. There at least " —
" Charleston ! Charleston ! " But how can I
give the inflections of the poor lady's voice as she
turned those eyes upon me ! Dressed in black for
Theodore, and everything else in the world, —
emaciated until her eyes seemed all there was of
her. " Charleston I "
" Mrs. Throop knows," the General here re-
marked with his peculiar courtesy of manner when
any lady was in question, " that I have no sympa-
th}^ with her religious views. While the Creator
leaves us in this world I think He means we
should care for and be interested in it, as He will
desire us to be interested in the existence after
tliis, when He has placed us there. I agree that
an accursed military despotism has superseded
American freedom ; I know that universal corrup-
tion reigns in a Congress once adorned with the
presence of a Hayne, a Randolph, a Calhoun ; I
know that free negroes and their baser white alHes
swarm " —
MOSE EVANS. 205
" Dear father ! " It was with her hand upon
his arm, with imploring eyes in his, that his
daughter said it. My wife reminded me after-
ward how near to him the poor girl seemed to
keep, all the time. As to the mother, I had ob-
served her sitting off by herself in the parlor, or
upon the porch, her eyes upon the flowing river,
remaining for hours as motionless, as far as I could
see, as though she were indeed dead. No trace of
insanity except in the self-contained isolation of
the poor lady from all the world, the lingering of
a soul in the frail body long after it had drained
to the dregs all the bitterness of death. Had she
been indeed a disembodied spirit, she could hardly
have been more separate from, as she was sacred
to, her daughter. Her father was really all that
daughter had left to her, beside her betrothed, on
earth ; in the absence of Mr. Clammeigh she clang
exclusively to him. No wonder. He seemed even
more portly of person than before, but there was
an ashen something in his face, the whiter for the
flushes of red to the very roots of his still whiter
hair when he became excited, which he very often
did, for he had grown very tremulous since I last
saw him.
" I merely mention what all the world knows,"
206 - 210 SE EVANS.
the General continued. " It is inevitable to every
other nation as it was to Greece and Rome. But
to think of a nation living less than a hundred
years ! The South was the only conservative
element. Had it pleased Heaven to spare the
South " —
" You acknowledge the hand of Heaven, in
spite of yourself, my dear ! " ]\Irs. Throop said
it in a manner, the deadly calm of which was
worse than her husband's excitement. " I passed
through it all so long, long ago, the lower stages.
Agnes will tell you, Mr. Anderson, I have not at-
tended service, have not sung a hymn, have not
other than merely heard Scripture read at our
family worship, since I came. I am as entirely
done with all that as is our Theodore. I cannot
plant my feet upon your world again, even with
all my effort to do so. IMy husband is wiser than
he thmks. I do not speak of political matters.
So far, every nation of history has run its little
career, and died, even as each of its people has
lived his or her lesser life, and perished. This
nation but ripens fast, in the hot summer of its
wonderful prosperity, toward a rotting and a ruin
more terrible and complete than the race has ever
before known. It is the last nation of history.
MOSE EVAXS. 207
With it, Heaven's long experiment, under tlie eyes
of a wondering universe, in reference to the human
heart, will have been accomplished, and the world
itself will end ! "
'' Dear mother ! " her daughter attempted again.
" I rarely say so much, Agnes," Mrs. Throop
continued, "and I desire merely to add this:
God's purpose with the race before the flood ran
through thousands of years; we well know the
disaster in which that culminated and closed. So
of the patriarchal period which followed. The
disastrous ending of the Jewish dispensation I
need not mention. The result with the Christian
church cannot but be the repetition of the invari-
able tragedy ! Our INIaker is eternally the same.
From beginning to end of time, the human heart,
too, is the same."
"But that other life, dear mother?" Agnes
says, in the silence which follows upon the calm
certainties of this Cassandra.
" Yes, Agnes. Thank God ! And that better
life is eternal. Would God I were there ! "
(" It is with ;Mrs. Throop as it was with Cow-
per at Olney," my wi!e said to me afterward.
" Poor, sick Cowper ! As if all the blessed crea-
tion were really what it seemed to his sorrowful
eyes ! "
208 MOSE EVANS.
" How like Agnes Throop is to her poor
motlier," I replied to Helen, " and how superior !
With all her delusion, I do believe the mother
acknowledges to herself her own weakness as con-
trasted with the stronger, happier child, — the
weakness, not only of sickness as contrasted with
health, of soul, but of a feeble piety to a more
vigorous and beautiful, because more genuine ! ")
" Mother — Helen ! " Agnes Throop exclaimed,
as her mother sank again into silence, and Avith
the happy face of a child, her finger lifted,
" Hsten ! Did you ever hear such a concert I "
" Mocking-birds ! " JNIrs. Throop replied, for
all the air was full of their noise. " Mocking^ in-
deed ! They are like so many scoffers ! I do not
blame you, ]\Ir. Anderson, about our leaving
Charleston ! You had," her eyes on mine, and
reading me through and through, " your o^vn
objects in making the bargain. But Charleston
has no existence. Our Charleston ! Our friends
are killed, or removed, or bankrupt, or actually
taking part in the negro rule. Worse there than
here ! Our frail bodies still live, Mr. Anderson ;
really, we are as dead as is Theodore in Sumter ! "
But Agnes had stolen in to her piano, and, not
to break too rudely upon the mood of her parents,
MOSE EVANS. 209
was singing, in a low voice, the old, old war songs,
My Maryland ! — The Bonny Blue Flag.
" You Northern people must make allowance,"
she said to me standing beside her as she finished
Dixie, with a curious twitching about the lips even
while she smiled. I suppose it was because she
had seen no one to whom she could talk for so
long ; possibly it was to interest and entertain me
as she best could. I never knew her to speak so
freely.
" We at the South had our enthusiasm, Mr.
Anderson, too ! You forget we believed in our
side as much as you did in yours ! Oh, the ban-
ners we ladies made, the music we practiced, the
sewing of uniforms, the rush and hurry and pride !
I remember all my life the drum beating every
night when St. Michael struck nine, and the
patrol marching the street to arrest any negroes
without a pass ; it was nothing but the roll of the
drum and the march of soldiers now, to defend all
we had ever known and loved ! How it would
thrill us, on Sunday, the calm, solemn, convincing,
most eloquent sermon ! i\Iy father would say
afterward at dinner, ' Oh, yes, the doctor was able
and eloquent, as usual, but it was like demonstrat-
ing the noonday sun.' How can a person be more
210 MOSE EVANS.
positively certain of anything than we were of the
righteousness of our cause, so clearly based upon
the very Word of God I And, then, the prayers,
deep, humble, confident, for the blessing of
Heaven upon our efforts to defend our homes
against the godless infidelity of agrarianism and
aboUtionism ! We never could understand the
Korth, i\Ir. Anderson ; you ought to remember
you never could understand us ! To this very day
— but I am wearying you so ! "
" Not at all, I like to hear you ; besides, I will
want you to hear me about another matter after
a while," I said.
She looked at me and colored, seemed vexed,
even. She contmued, more eagerly because of
that very thing, too absurd to thmk of for a
moment.
" I cannot speak about the siege and fall of
Charleston, it would take too much time. And I
cannot speak of my brother Theodore Throop, my
only brother, my noble and brave brother, so full
of promise ! Ah, those days he would hurry in
from duty, all brown and dusty and hungry ! He
was in Sumter from the first, you know. He
would kiss us all round, tell us how the Yankees
kept pounding away in vain, assure us they could
MOSE EVANS. 211
never talvO Sumter ! And so he would luugli,
cram Lis haversack ^vith everything to eat he
could lay his hands on, kiss us good-by, and run
to catch his boat. And you people of the North
never did take Sumter ! Nor ever would, if the
war had lasted till now ! Nor ever would have
taken Charleston, if there had been a South Caro-
linian at Atlanta ! I could tell you the opinion we
in Charleston alivays had of that poor Davis " —
" We won't differ about A«m," I said.
" I was speaking," she continued, " of my
brother. We used to lie awake all night, it seems
to me, until we got so used to it, all of every night
listening to the storm breaking upon Sumter, re-
membering he was there ! At first we would
wince and shudder at every peal, knowing about
whom the shot struck, never thinking, hardly, in
comparison, of the shot and shell and crashing
houses in the city. We wore into being used to it,
Mr. Anderson. But never one moment would we
have had him elsewhere ! We were glad we had
son and brother to be there ! The cause is lost ; I
sometimes fear we may have been mistaken about
it. But we were not so sad as you may think,
Islv. Anderson, that terrible Thursday when my
brother's shattered body was laid in the sacred
10
212 MOSE EVANS.
dust in Sumter. To this day there is a glory and
a beauty about his gallant death which is to us a
halo around his memory forever."
" You remember," I said, " the lines, —
*' * Though love repine and reason chafe,
There comes a voice without reply,
'T is man's perdition to be safe
"When for the truth he ought to die ! '
although, of course, I am compelled " —
" To say," she finished my protest for me,
" that you regard our cause as being, really, the
reverse of the truth. AVell, it was the truth to
us!"
" I have sometimes given money to objects
which I thought at the time were deserving," 1
said, " and I could not wish the same back again
in my pocket even when I had learned that I was
mistaken ; the intent on my part was none the less
sacred from recall or regret for that ! "
" And we would not take back Theodore if we
could ! " she replied. " The truth is, I never took
the interest in the Confederacy as a political ques-
tion that most of our ladies did. It was Theodore,
all Theodore to me. Oh, Mr. Anderson, if you
had but known him, so beautiful, noble, full of
enthusiasm ! He cared for our independence, was
MOSE EVANS. 213
ready to die for it ; I cared only for liiin ^ He
was but a little older than myself ; we loved each
other so much ; besides my parents, he was all I
had in the world ! I cannot speak of him ; but I
will say, Mr. Anderson, never on earth, never, did
men and women more thoroughly believe in the
righteousness of their cause. Surely none have
ever proved their belief more perfectly by struggle
and suffering ! One great republic is better, but
it will never be at its greatest, sir, until it is not
afraid to remember with regret, even with honor,
the gallant youth who gave to their mistake, if it
be mistake, their all of conscience and blood and
soul ! I have not talked of all this to any one,"
she added, " since we left Charleston. It is what
was said on the porch that caused me to do so.
Let us talk about something else. But I do think,
Mr. Anderson, our country is a poor republic so
long as it is afraid to weep for its Southern sons
too ; afraid to drop flowers even upon their dust.
Yet what do I care for it all ! I 'm miserably
selfish, and it is my dead brother I think about."
AVith an instant alteration of manner, "It is our
music has melted me so. Let us change the sub-
ject." Saying which she turned to her piano, and
caUing out, " Don't be angry with me, pa ! " to
214 ZIOSE EVANS.
her father seated outside, played and sang, a little
mockingly, a verse or two of the Star Spangled
Banner.
Helen had the excellent sense to help her to the
utmost. They played together a duet of the old
school days, with plenty of breaking down and
laughter. One or the other playing or singing, we
had all the absurd, sentimental songs, grave and
gay. Even Helen, who knew of other accomplish-
ments of mine, but not at all of this, was electri-
fied when I took my seat at the piano, and, to the
jingle of its chords, gave them The Fine Old
German Gentleman ! If Mrs. Throop did not
laugh, the General certainly did, for I watched
him out of the corner of my eye as he sat smoking
without. When we had seated ourselves to sup-
per, at last, we were all in better spirits than that
cemetery of a home had known since it became a
home at all.
" I do not object to being happy," Mrs. Throop
explained from her seat at the table. " We will
be happy in heaven forever. But not here. It
will be very soon. If it were not that the idea
was held by low people elsewhere, I would believe
that this world not only ends, as I said, but is
soon to end. We have nearly done with it ! "
MOSE EVANS. 215
" I have not, mamma ! " It was Agnes, with
all of her old days in her face, who said it. "I
love you and pa, as you are now, dearly. I love
flowers," her eyes sparkling as she spoke. " The
sinfjino: of a little bird exhilarates me like an
opera ; at the first burst of sunshine after days of
darkness, I waltz around the room as if I was at a
ball. I love music with all my soul ! "
" No wonder," I interjected ; " you would make
your fortune in opera ! " and felt, the instant I
said it, how eternally I did think, as Helen says I
do, about the money value of everything.
" I love — thank you, Mr. Anderson," she said
— " horses and cows. A brilliant moonlight puts
me beside myseK. I love housekeeping and scold-
ing. I don't care for company as I used to, but
see how these friends being with us has set me
talking. It is foolish, but I do love fine laces and
cashmere shawls, beautiful dresses and diamonds.
I love — love — everything and everybody ! "
" I saw you looking at her, INIr. Anderson," my
spouse remarked to me in the first instant of oui
being alone together afterward, "as if she was
something wonderful."
And so she is ! Beautiful as an angel, but not
at all in the sense wherein the comparison is com*
216 MOSE EVANS.
moiil}^ used ! I did not say this aloud, but Helen
Kpoke for us both : —
" Could anything be more simple than her dress,
manner, whole bearing ? She is as transparent as
a child, but such depths, too ! She is saved by
what there is in her of her father, from the excess
of sensitiveness inherited from her mother ; yet
she is so utterly alone in the world, and thrown
upon herself ! It is almost a pity she has given
herself to such a thing as music for recreation —
music exclusively. And her long, long suffering
since the war began, no wonder it has so intensi-
fied her. Do you not think, Henry " —
" Think what ? " I ask, Helen pausing so long
before saying more. She added at last, —
"I do not like to speak of such things. She
never, of course, alludes to the subject with me.
But do you not think a person can go to extremes
in devotion, even ? She is, never mind how I
came to know, as simple, as earnest, as trustful in
her religion as in all else. No one could be more
silent as to such matters, yet I do know that Mary
never sat, in her home at Bethany, more — can I
say really ? — at the feet of Christ ! In these late
years I am satisfied He is to her the most actual
friend living. Is there no such thing as too much
MOSE EVANS. 217
faith ? Coleridge says there is as miicli danger of
o^/ft'r-worldliness in some Christians as of this-
workUiness in the case of people generally."
'' Did he ? " I reply. '' Well, I know this. It
is merely through a certain peculiar period she is
passing. If she is to live, and live to be a whole-
some wife and mother. Heaven will see to it that
there shall be, in due time, enough of earth,
enough of the purely human, to balance matters.
This is merely, I say, a particular period, such as
in some form we all pass through, although it
leaves us the better for it forever ! "
" My mother wrote no poems," Helen said with
a smile, " but I will venture to say this : A dia-
mond is no more self-luminous than any other
clod. The difference lies, I suppose, in the trans-
parency, that is, the power of receivmg and
transmitting light ; and in the keeping one's seK
in connection — is it not so? — wilh the One who
is the Light ! "
XVII.
The ghosts which haunt this world are not
The spirits of the huried dead ;
Tet ghosts there are, the ghosts of what
Have yet the walks of life to tread !
The vague, phantasmal shapes are we,
But shadows of the men to be ;
Made men, and not unmade, by death,
Then first inhaling fullest breath,
" We shall be like Him ! " Scripture saith,
Helex and myself were, of course, the guests of
tlie Throops during our stay in Brown County,
and it was, as well as I can now remember, the
morning after our music, that ]\Iary jMartha ^yash-
ington had succeeded at last in getting my wife oS
to one side, to communicate something she had
evidently been eager to say to her from the
moment we came. Yielding to some pretext of
the old woman in regard to a hatching^ out of
thirty-six chickens by a guinea-fowl, Helen had
gone with her after breakfast to a remote poultry
yard, to find and admire — nothing of the kind.
" De best way is to wait in dis place till we hear
dat old guinea's potrack I " the faithful servant
MOSE EVANS. 21 D
said when they were safely out of sight and hear-
ing from the house. " And oh, Miss Helen, I
must talk to you I What is we goin' to do ?
Marster General he can't hold out much longer.
Old missis is clean crossed over Jordan alread}",
'cept her poor body. I 'm mighty 'fraid somethin'
gone wrong about dat Mars' Clammeigh. I
nebber thought he was one of us born at de Souf
anyhow. Dat Mr. Parkinson, he is in love so he 's
lost flesh. He 's too flimsy like. He a minister
an' dar'sn't preach one sermon against dis fool
freedom de debbil an' de abolitionists set up.
Phew ! " Strong contempt. " It 's a man^ a
strong, loving man. Miss Agnes needs. I thought
Mars' Evans was too low down once, but bress
your heart, ]\Iiss Helen, dey moved from de East,
Car'line, I believe. How dat great, strong man
loves her I At de first of his coming on de place
he loved her so he could n't look her in de face,
got pale, trembled when she spoke to him."
*' I 'm sorry to hear it," Helen said.
" You wait. Miss Helen. I do wonder whar
dat guinea-fowl gone ; hear her potrack, potrack
torectly. You see he overseed de hands. De men
hands. You would n't believe it, Miss Helen, but
dem fool women say dey ain't hands, dey is ladies^
220 MOSE EVANS.
ladies ob color ! Refuse to go into de field ! O
my hebbenly Marster, de folly of dis freedom 1
What wid dem fool niggers, and what wid me
after dem, Miss Agnes has had a time ! "
" I thought jMr. Evans was overseer," Helen
said.
" So he was, so he was, Miss Helen," the
woman eagerly replied. " De men never worked
better in dere lives. I mean till dose fool women
broke off work, stayed at de quarter, breshin' dere
heads all day wid dere wool-cards ; de men didn't
half work after dat. Even dat ^Mr. Evans was
put out, it was so new to him. One night he was
in de ' gret house ' after supper, talkin' wid ^Mars'
General about it, we was all so put out what to do.
" ' You manage de men, Mr. Evans,' my Miss
Agnes said, laughin' as she used to do in Charles-
ton, ' I '11 manage de ladies,^ Ladies ! You see,
Miss Helen, de crop Jiad to be picked, right away,
heaviest crop of cotton I ever see. Well, Mars'
Evans he was at de quarters when she come. It
was de berry next moniin'. See ? Bell just rung
to go to de field. Dat young missis of mine ! she
had put on an ole straw hat, had a woolsey dress
on, all gathered up in de skirt, cotton basket, an'
her dinner in it I All de fool women came out to
MOSE EVANS. 221
see. ' Now, women,' she said, laugliin', ' we 's all
free, free as de air, but dat cotton's got to be
picked. Fm goin'. Who '11 go with me ? ' You
see, Miss Helen, it was de wai/ she said it ! Lor'
bress you, I shook both fists at dose niggers,
snatched basket out ob de hand ob de foreman ob
de crop, an' followed my young missis. Better
believe dei/ did ! Dat Mars' Evans, I thought de
man would hab — would hab ! He took off his
coat, folded it up carefully, laid it on de top rail
ob de fence — an' picked ? I should t'ink so !
But he kept wid de men on dere side ob de field,
he dar's n't come near us. And dose women
picked as Hebben made um to pick ! I 'clare
before Hebben, Miss Helen, what ^vid her talkin'
and laughin' an' pickin' ahead of de field, an'
bettin' me she 'd hab de heaviest pick ! — I 've
fixed her up for many a ball, say nothin' of
church, in Charleston, but she nebber looked so
hebbenly pretty ! An' she slipped me off home to
hab extra supper for dose niggers ! No trouble
after dat ! Whar can be dat guinea ? You hear
a potrack ? "
" If I was in your Miss Agnes's place, I would
be very angry at you if you thought I could love
a Brown County overseer ! " Helen said. *' I 'in
ashamed of you, aunty ! "
222 MOSE EVANS.
The old woman had reference to a power su-
perior to that of General Throop, when she repUed
solemnly, " Ole Marster has fixed who she sliall
marry ! I don't know anything about it, more
dan you, honey. When dis world was made dere
was no woman for Adam, de first man you re-
member, an' so he had to make a woman for
Adam. I nebber saw de man yet was good
enough for my Miss Agnes ; my young Mars'
Theodore said dat a thousand times before he was
killed. But God can make somebody 'pressly for
her ! I nebber 'low myself to t'ink it can be dis
Mr. Evans, 'cept dat he is bein' made out ob de
berry dust ob de ground for somethin'. You can't
tell how he has changed under Miss Agnes, like
linen bleaches in de sun. Ebberybody respects
an' loves him. An'," continued the woman, " dat
man is marster., if she is mistress ! Lor', Miss
Helen, we broke down in de deep mud, ]\Iiss
Agnes and I, drivin' back in de ole buggy one
day, long ago, from Brown st own. In de deepest
part ob de cypress swamp. ]\Iars' Mose Evans he
come alon^r on his horse, — he nebber was near
her, but then he nebber was very far away from
her, somehow, — jumped down, an' begged her to
let him take her out. She got angry, tossed her
MOSE EVANS. 223
head dls way, turned as red ! Refused, said I
could help her, slie could wait till her pa could
come. * Mr. Evans, remember your place, sir ;
you shall not do it ! ' she said, proud as could be I
She was drippin' wet, night was fallin'. Mars'
Evans never said one word, put his strong arms
around her like a baby, carried her to de side ob
de road where his horse was, put her on behind de
saddle on his overcoat, managed some way to get
on before her, she had to hold on him ; left me to
follow after dem on de buggy horse. Bress your
soul, Miss Helen, she 's mistress, but he 's marster^
sure ! "
Helen told me all this, in substance, out at the
front fence, as I was mending a martingale before
mounting my horse, the same day, to ride over to
Harry Peters', now living, as I believe I have said,
at Mrs. Evans' old place near by, and acting as
General Throop's overseer.
" Did you ever know such a lonely house, Cap-
tain Anderson ? " he asked me after we had fin-
ished business that day. " I go over and am as
funny as I know how to be. iNIiss Agnes laughs,
but it is a terrible strain upon her, the situation.
Puss — I mean my wife — makes butter expressly
to take over. Mrs. Throop is a ghost. Actually
224 MOSE EVANS.
a ghost, sir, lingering out of the grave a little ; but
my wife, afraid of her mother, loves Miss Agnes
as if she was her own child ! Oh, I know Evans
is out of the question, perfectly ridiculous of
course. Not even may be so ; May bees of that
sort don't fly any month of the year. But I do
wish ! You know he boarded with us. AVhy, sir,
he was at it from before dav to breakfast, soon as
supper was over till I don't know when, for my
wife and I go to bed at dark almost."
" At what ? " I demand ; " you were speaking
of Miss Throop."
" And so I am now ! " Harry Peters con-
tinues, with as much heat as a man who was al-
ways " in fun " could feel. " At it ? At all of it.
Studying, Major Anderson, studying ! He kept
himself supplied by mail, I suppose, through old
New Hampshire in some way, with books. It was
like feeding wheat into a threshing machine, —
kept the mail busy ! I 've heard of school-marms
before, but Miss Throop 's the most powerful one
I ever came up with. You see how crazy these
poor, deluded negroes are to learn to read ; and
what freedom is to them, that lady is to him.
None of us ever joke him about her ; Job tried
that. He never mentions her, nor speaks to her,
MOSE EVANS. 225
hardly, so far as I know. But she is to him like a
bright spring day to a planted field ; the soil 's
deep, you can hear the corn grow I " And there-
upon Harry Peters gives me the story of the
revolt of the women, not at all as a joke, for it
was the great trouble of the day over the entire
South.
I rode over the General's plantation with
Harry, the General too feeble to accompany us,
that day. I was glad to do so. The fact is, I
was becoming seriously uneasy as to matters.
One thing I resolved npon, and that was to see
Mr. Clammeigh upon the subject, delicate as it
was, the day I reached Charleston. But I was
glad to learn all I could from the overseer. Dis-
trusting Miss Throop's betrothed as I did, I con-
fess I derived some comfort from what Harry
Peters told me about Mr. Parkinson. " He comes
to see me every few days," that gentleman said,
while we were having a smoke upon his front
porch after a good dinner. " I had supposed Mose
Evans was the most desperately in love of any
man I ever knew, until I came to see how Mr.
Parkinson suffered. It is worse for the minister,
because he sees her every few days ; besides, they
are nearer to each other, Miss Throop and him-
226 MOSE EVANS.
self, than poor Evans can ever dream of being.
He is her minister, too, and has her respect and
confidence, as he has that of us all. I suppose it
is because of his being slight-built and high-strung
that he loves her so. My wife — - you know how
full women are of their mischief - — always brings
in her name when he is here, just to see how pale
he gets, and how eager he is. But I don't think,"
my host adds, as he fills another pipe, " that he is
her equal, either I "
" Why not ? " I demand.
" I like Mr. Parkinson as a man and as a min-
ister," Harry Peters adds, " and nothing is more
important than religion. But, the faidt of his
training, I suppose, the man runs too much in
that ; knows nothing, cares nothing for politics,
farming, country gossip, men, women, and chil-
dren. He 's too narrow, too one-sided. It makes
his religion too spiritual. He 'd have more prac-
tical influence upon every- day people if he ate
more pork and corn-bread, and talked more about
cotton and cattle. And then he is too much like
Miss Throop ! "
" Like ]\Iiss Throop ? " I ask.
" I mean he is too nice and slight, too fine and
lady-like. A woman likes a man to be a man,
MOSE EVANS. 227
just as a man likes a woman the more slie is a
woman. For a man of his make pretty Molly
Robinson is the very wife. Plenty of land, too,
and it 's just what he has n't got. If he owned a
thousand acres or so of good bottom land, he
^vould light down on it out of the air, don't you
see ! But he would no more look at little Molly
Robinson, than Miss Agnes would think of Mose
Evans ; he 's determined to have her or die.
They say she is to marry a gentleman from
Charleston, or he will get her yet ; see if he
does n't."
At this juncture, my host branched off into one
of his funniest stories, his nice wife seated knit-
ting, and, I had almost said, purring in her little
rocking-chair close to his side, she was so gentle
and kitten-like and loving — " Puss " being her
name, and continually used. I liked Harry Peters,
thoroughly enjoyed the oxygen of the man, if I
may so speak,- but I forget what it was we all
laughed so heartily about that day. I want to
add here, however out of place, what !Mr. Parkin-
son said to me when he was East soliciting funds
for their church, afterward. Circumstances had
thrown us into very confidential intimacy then, or
he never could have said, as he did, ''It seems a
228 MOSE EVANS.
sinorular remarK to make, sir, but I have come to
believe that a man can cast himself too passively
upon the bosom even of his God I Our Creator
wants a man to be manly ! Of course you will
understand. One thing I do know, there are cases
where He refuses to answer importunate prayer by
anything in return, outer or inner, — repels, casts
off the suppliant. Not only because that suppliant
is selfish in his seeking, but whining and whimper-
ing and indulging in a sickly sort of dependence,
when he ought to stand up like a man, bear ter-
rible trouble silently, and do known duty stoutly,
whatever the duty may be ! "
But I never dreamed of mentioning that remark
a moment ago ; certainly the maker thereof had
improved into a sturdier and far more happy and
effective man than he had promised to be before,
when he thus opened his heart to me ; that being
itself, however, a lingering of his former weakness.
For my part, I am perfectly willing to be the
friend confided in : but not the friend, of the two,
who confides, not if I can help it. I know the
world, unfortunately, too well !
It was hard work to get away from Harry
Peters's fun, and, more pleasant to me still, his
v-ife's perfect enjoyment of it. I was just in time
MOSE EVANS. 229
for supper at General Throop's, and went to bed
as soon after as I politely could. Not that I waa
unusually fatigued after my ride about the planta-
tion, talking with the hands here and there over
the same all day, as well as with Peters ; the fact
is, I was seriously perplexed. You observe, I had
a hundred other matters besides, pressing upon me
for decision ; many thousands of dollars involved.
I was glad to get to bed.
It was as natural, under the circumstances, that
Helen and Agnes should have sat far into the
night, all the rest of the household vrrapped in
sleep.
" My heart yearns over her as if she were my
own and my only sister," my wife said to me when
at last she came into our room. " My knowledge
of the world, as compared with hers at least,
makes me feel much older. I do so desire to help
her ; and how can I, unless I know how matters
stand in regard to that — Clammeigh ? I heard
many hints before I left Charleston of a new flame
of his, a certain Cuban heiress. One thing I know :
his handsome mansion there is being remodeled and
made ready for — something. Agnes well knows
it is my sincere affection for her, not mere curiosity,
which makes me anxious to find out when we are
230 ZIOSE EVANS.
to have lier in Charleston as Mrs. Clammeigh, or
whether there is any possibility of her becoming
— the idea ! — Mrs. Parkinson, instead."
" Or whether," I interposed, " there is any
chance for j^oor Evans."
" Nonsense ! " my wife replied, with such en-
ergy that I will stand aside and let her take my
place as narrator of all that occurred between
Agnes and herself. Understand distinctly, it is
not myself, but Mrs. Anderson, who thus pro-
ceeds : —
" I would so dearly love to see you married,
Agnes," I said at last. " In certain senses of the
word your betrothed — may I speak of him, dear ?
— is a superior man " —
" There is the most singular weakness in me,
Helen dear," she replied. " That word ' superior '
brings it to mind. I never told a soul before ;
it is a species of hallucination. Do you know, I
cannot remember when I did not consider myself,
I am ashamed to say it, somehow a being superior
to those around me. It is an odd deficiency in me,
but I have always felt as I suppose a princess born
to a throne does. It is in my blood. Except
towards my parents, dearly as I love every one,
conscious as I am of my folly, even when I feel
MOSE EVANS. 231
most humble I have an absurd sense of condescen-
sion I I dare say I am to be empress of a star in
the other world. If I were married to a king to-
day, I would wear crown and robe and hold
my court as if I were, for the first time, in my
true place. A singular fancy, is n't it ? "
" And you would make a most gracious majesty,
dear," I said. '' But to be a queen there must be
— unless you are of the vixenish sort, like Eliza-
beth — a king. Your parents, Agnes, are not as
strong as they were, Theodore is gone, and they
may be taken, dear. Persons of your sensitive
nature, so tenderly shielded all your life from the
world, need a protector. And, Agnes dear, we
will be so glad to see you married."
" I suppose suffering has made me too sensitive,"
she replied. " And, at last, it lies so much in the
individual who suffers, Helen, not in the sort or
degree of the trouble. There is Mr. Harry Peters,
our overseer," she said, evading me still, and she
seemed resolved to keep as far off as she could
from not only speaking but thinking u^oon the
subject. I was the more resolved to know cer-
tainly if I could. And therefore I listened but
in part to her as she continued about Mr. Peters.
" The funniest man I ever knew," she said.
232 MOSE EVANS.
" Papa and I dined there one day by special invi
tation, and it was all very grand. They had soup
and fish fii'st. As their girl was bringing in after-
ward an enormous turkey, she tripped a.vl fell,
and dashed it full in Mr. Peters's face. I thought
— suppose it had been papa at the head of his
table ! how I trembled ! But Mr. Peters only
laughed ; laughed and made us laugh by his funny
ways, till it seemed the best joke in the world !
His dear little wife thinks it is all so amusing, and
you couldn't help enjoying their enjoyment. He
has done papa good like medicine ; I never knew
him to laugh so since secession. When we were
threatened with cotton worms, Mr. Peters turned
that into a joke. When his children were lost in
the swamp, he was, his wife told me, certain of
finding them, keeping the household and all the
searchers in high spirits till they were found, and
then he cried like a woman, even while he was
laughing more than before. He is the brightest,
most joyous person I ever knew, and nothing but
a poor, lame, sickly overseer ! That Mr. Archer
is so happy because he drinks, but Mr. Peters
is"
" ^^Tiat kind of a person, Agnes, was that Mr
Mose Evans ? " I began.
310 SE EVANS. 233
"In a moment Helen. I think I am exactly
like ]Mr. Peters. By nature. But, Helen dear,
God alone knows how I have suffered. It was not
merely our long and terrible time in Charleston
throuorh the siefje. I do not believe we had one
night of sound sleep during all those terrible —
centuries they seem to me now. Nor was it the
loss of property and the breaking up of the largest,
certainly tlie most refined, at least the dearest
circle of friends heart could desire. It is such a
strange feeling, too, to have lost your country.
Papa feels that everything one calls country is as
utterly lost as if it had been swallowed up in the
sea ; he is the resident to-day — not citizen — of
that nation in all the world which he likes least.
There is our removing, too, to such a region as
this ! And then, do I not know, my father and
mother must soon go, and leave me alone in the
world ! So far as this life is concerned there never
was a person more entirely without a future ! Oh,
Helen, if God had but spared Theodore ! Did j^ou
know him, Helen ? It was my being his own sis-
ter made me fancy myself a princess ; I worshiped
him as my king, for he was a king. The most
beautiful, the noblest ! — and, oh how glad I am,
for his dear sake, that he is dead ! I wake, dear,
234 MOSE EVANS.
and lie and listen to the great river flowing by, and
the heavy breathing of the wind rising and falling,
as in sleep, among the live-oaks, lifting and let-
ting fall their long gray moss ; so far away, alone,
alone ! "
After some silence she added, " I saw a lovely
little flower by the roadside as I got out of the
buggy at our gate, coming back from church last
Sunday, and I put a stick of wood on either side
of it to protect it. When I went on Monday to
transplant it, I found the poor little flower, crushed
down in the print of a mule's hoof ! Oh, Helen,
doesn't it seem sometimes as if God didn't care
what trod upon 3^ou ! I am tempted at times to
think I 'm no more to Him than a Jamestown weed,
any vile thing that chance wheel or hoof may
trample into the mire ! It does me good, Helen,
to know it is a Father who strikes me so hard.
But when I know that God is also a man, who
allowed Himself to be trodden down under wicked
feet, his greatest glory and happiness afterward
and forever because of that^ I have only to feel
that He is with me in all that happens, and I am
singing again like a bird ! "
As I kiss her cheek, down which the tears are
silently flowing, I whisper, " I asked you about
MOSE EVANS. 235
^Ir. Evans, dear, because we met liim as we came
here," and, drawing her closer to me as we sat in
the dimly lighted room, trying to put her in my
place when at the hotel, I told her the whole story
of our meeting Mose Evans on that occasion. I
did not leave out one thing ! I do not know how
I worded it, but I told her that there was no say-
ing what such a person as Evans might become.
And I told her of the quiet, silent, desperate de-
termination of that foolish, foolish man ! Once or
twice she tried to turn the conversation, but I can
be as self-willed as anybody, when I exert myself.
I left nothing unsaid. When there was nothing
more to he said, she only kissed me and replied,
" You must be so tired, Helen dear. It is after
midnight. What a shame in me to keep you up
so ! You will find a lighted candle and a cross
husband in your room. Good-night, dear. May
you have pleasant dreams, — daring the nighty
too ! "
I could but return her good-night kiss and leave
her. What else could I do, Henry ? She is the
most complete combination of opposites I ever
knew. She is more dependent upon others, jQt
more self-reliant, than any other person I ever
met ; so impulsive and unreserved in tempera-
11
236 MOSE EVANS.
ment, yet so silent where her inmost heart is con-
cerned. These years of bitter trouble have in-
tensified all that is beautiful in her nature. Her
passion for music, too, — spending whole days at
her piano, Aunty Washington tells me, — has had
the same effect. Perhaps, too, if I had her child-
like temperament and her terrible trouble, I might
have the same simple faith. I do believe her
deepest wants are so entirely satisfied by it that
she feels far less than she otherwise would the
need of any other, but trusts Him as an actual,
living, real Friend, the wisest, strongest, most
sympathizing Person in the universe, — all the
world, all her future, completely in his hands !
XVIII.
" No sails on all the main there be " —
" And yet your ships shall come from sea! "
" All earth lies frozen, bare, and cold " —
" Your violets blue shall burst the mold ! "
" Dense darkness dyes all earth and skies " —
" Yet none the less the sun shall rise ! "
" My dead are dead! I weep in vain " —
" More beauteous for that bitter rain,
" Your dead, poor heart, shall live again ! "
Many a month had passed since the visit of
Helen and myself to the Throops in their home
out West. I was engrossed, meanwhile, in busi-
ness so extensive, increasing, and pressing, as to
keep me almost continually upon the wing be-
tween Charleston, New York, St. Louis, and San
Francisco. Even during my periods of rest in
Charleston, it was rarely I could get home fi*om
our office to Helen until near midnight. Very
often my wife would wake up only enough to say,
" And here you are at last, are you ! You are
killing yourself, Henry. But I have not been
thinking about you. Oh, Henry, how lonely, how
238 MOSE EVANS.
very lonely Agnes must be ! " Generally I was
too tired to do more than assent to this, and go to
sleep. Even when Helen read to me, as I ate at
table, Agnes Throop's letters, I did not listen as I
should, especially as some letter in reference to
land was sure to be pressing upon me for an
answer just then. The fact is, I was making hay
while the sun shone, knowing that the market was
sure to slacken ; and slacken it did, or I never
could have found time for these pages, I assure
you. It was the same with my correspondence so
far as Evans was concerned. All these days he
was stud^^mg at a certain venerable college at the
East. Every time I saw the tops of its buildings
from the car windows, when journeying in that
region, I would say to myself, " The next time I
come this way I will certainly stop ! " Yet I
never did. Because I never could. Perhaps it
was because I was compelled to write such tele-
grammic letters in reply, that his were so brief.
About all I could get from them was, that what
time he was not upon horseback there, or in the
gymnasium, he was in New York, Boston, or
Philadelphia. I had a sense of keen regret at
this, until we got as clerk a graduate from the
institution, perfectly unfitted, I am obliged to say,
MOSE EVANS. 239
by his books and dyspepsia, for business, who ex-
pL\ined matters. It was only the exercise Evans
took, coupled, I suppose, with his power of pro-
found sleep, which enabled him to master his
amazing amount of study, and keep up, in all, I
had almost written, its splendor, his ^agorous con-
stitution. " I had no personal acquaintance with
him," Parker, our clerk, told me. " He is a man
of fine presence, but somewhat reserved, and he
was simply one among several hundreds of us
there." Parker added that he, Parker himself,
was, — and I feel satisfied it was so much the
worse for him in a business point of view, — a
student taking the regular course, while Evans
took an optional and irregular one, Parker being a
" CHo " too, whatever that means, w^hile my friend
was a " Whig." Very soon I turned over, not the
letters merely, but the entire correspondence with
Evans, to my wife, whose interest in him seemed
to have wonderfully increased of late. Although
she gave me items now and then from his letters
while he was at the college mentioned, and after
he went to Europe, she never had one at hand
when I did have time to read it. My general im-
pression was that she slipped them into the en-
velope conveying her o^vn epistles to Agnes
240 MOSE EVANS.
Throop. To this day I do not know whether
Evans made allusions in them to Agnes or not.
My wife was quite silent upon the subject. And
so months, and months upon months, fled away ;
it is impossible for me, without referring to
memoranda, to say how many. "Which prepares
my way to tell of what comes next in order among
the events of this statement of facts.
It is very singular ! — I mean how persons come
upon each other, compelled unconsciously the one
toward the other by some secret magnetism. The
first time I was in New York, for instance, the one
man, of all the million there, who knew me,
slapped me upon the shoulder as I stood at the
window of a broker's office in Nassau Street.
Since I became superintendent of a Sabbath-
school in Charleston, I have never entered a
theatre but once. I was in Boston, and I dropped
in to see the Black Crook, solely to be able intel-
ligently to warn our young people against such
things. Only one person was North from our
school, a young man, and I had not taken my seat
before he rose from the next chair exclaiming,
" Why, Mr. Anderson, how did you know I was
here ? " I merely took his arm and led him sor-
rowf ully out, and he cannot understand it to this
day.
MOSE EVANS. 241
It was such an accident in regard to the Scotia,
I happened to be spending three days at our office
on Wall Street. Our treasurer had remarked
casually, " I see the Scotia is signaled," and his
remark came back to me as, many hours later, I
was crossing to Jersey City. Our ferry-boat was
passing under the stern of the great steamship ; I
was envying the passengers clustered along the
railing, saying to myself. Please Heaven, a little
more money made, and Helen and I will take the
children with us and see how the .Old World looks
these days !
At the instant one of the gentlemen on board,
standing with a lady beside him apart from the
rest, leaned over the railing, lifted his traveling
cap to me, calling down at the same time, " Good
evening, sir. All well ? " and pointed me out to
the lady, doubtless his wife, as he replaced his
cap. I knew immediately that it was some officer
in the Confederate service who. had known me
during the war. As many of them as could do so
had gone across the Atlantic. I have no time to
talk about that just now, but certainl}^ their mis-
taken rebellion was the most magnificent mistake
in point of dimension, desperation, and utterness
of disaster, history has ever known, and I have a
242 MOSE EVANS.
hearty liking for the men, greatly as I rejoice in
their defeat. So I said to myself of this instance,
Glad enough you are to get back, I '11 be bound ;
glad and proud by this time in your inmost soul,
that your foolish swords failed to hew this con-
tinent into miserable fragments !
I suppose I had the eternal instinct — surely it
is of God in us all — toward the returning prodi-
gal as the crowd rushed ashore pell-mell from the
ferry-boat. I acknowledge it did occur to me
that my friend, whoever it was, might want a
home upon some of our lands, like General Throop,
for instance. But my chief reason, thank Heaven,
was to have again in my own one of those cordial
hands ! There is Helen, too, and Agnes Throop,
— they may know his wife ; at least there will be
an item for to-night's letter home. I need not,
howcA^er, have made such short work, on my way
to the Scotia's dock, of the business that brought
me over from New York. When I got to the
picket paling, I had no card of admittance and
had to wait without while the steamer was slowly
warped ashore by cable and capstan. But my
friend was as eager, if less demonstrative. His
wife still beside him, he stood upon a coil of rope
on the quarter-deck, searching for me with his
MOSE EVANS. 243
eyes among the struggling crowd outside the pick-
ets. It took him but a few moments to succeed in
that. Now, I firmly believe if you were to see an
inhabitant of Mars through a telescope, you could
tell his culture and breeding on the instant. Cer-
tainly you would have had no trouble as to decis-
ion in this case, — something in the very gesture
and bearing of the person, Heaven knows what !
As he sees me he lifts his cap and waves it, which
I acknowledge by lifting my hat upon the end of
my umbrella and bobbing it to him above the
heads of the crowd about me.
And now followed the deliberate bringing ashore
of the trunks and the ranging of them on the floor
within the pickets, in lines and by the hundreds,
for the inspection of the custom-house people. I
was diverted from all this, however, by a party of
well-dressed Frenchmen waiting within the inclos-
ure, near the fence dividing me from them, for a
passenger aboard. Before their friend could come
ashore they laughed, gesticulated, chattered, as I
had previously supposed impossible to man ; but
when that friend climbed down to them in some
wholly impossible way from the vessel, freshly
charged with the peculiar electricity of Paris, the
kissing, shrugging of shoulders, chattering all at
244 MOSE EVANS.
once, indescribable to-do, was painfully suggestive
of Darwin !
My attention, however, was called off by my
Confederate officer, whom I had forgotten, but
who had come ashore unseen and now very quietly
put his hand through the pickets.
" Mr. Anderson, glad to see you ! "
The words were spoken with genial warmth,
yet as quietly as if we had parted only the day be-
fore.
" How are you, general — colonel " —
I actually stammered and hesitated, blushed I
dare say, as I gave my hand through the bars. A
large man, military bearing, plaid cap, gray over-
coat, magnificent beard of golden hair, glad to see
me, with all his soul in his noble eyes, yet so en-
tirely self-possessed, in contrast, at least, with
those Frenchmen making such fools of themselves.
" Why, I never dreamed " — I began.
" And you had my letters from Germany ? "
So cordial, yet so quiet !
Mose Evans ! But why should I have been so
completely taken aback ? Possibly because I had
not the least idea of meeting him. It was so sud-
den. The man was so utterlv changred, yet so en-
tirely the same ! But, I demand of myself, even
.yOSE EVANS. 245
then, why should I have that instant sense of
being so many inches shorter, so many pounds
lighter, than my friend ? Such a queer fancy of
being quicksilver in contrast with bullion ? I am
so frank with Helen, I told her even this, weeks
after. " You are of wholly different build and
birth, Henry," she said. '^ You certainly had the
part of mercury toward him, if you say so, separat-
ing him from his dirt ! " Married people grow to
think together, and I had made the same reflec-
tion. Only it was not true. It was Miss Agnes
Throop. I have made Helen a Yankee girl, and
Helen says she has made me into a Southerner.
Why, the power of the Founder of our faith is but
the influence upon you, sir or madam, of one per-
son upon another ; only that His is infinite influ-
ence !
I had spent so much time of late among the
hurried inhabitants of Wall Street, that the con-
trast of Mose Evans to them was the more re-
freshing, the immediate comparison of my friend
with those effervescing Frenchmen making his
quiet of manner, I suppose, the more striking.
His trunk was entangled among hundreds of
others nearly, yet, conversing with me meanwhile
ahnost as undisturbedly as if we were alone to-
246 MOSE EVANS.
getlier in some secluded spot, he stood like a statue
amid the hurry and fuss and confusion until his
turn came, and nothing more easy and smooth
than his management of matters during the search
of his trunk by the officials. I think it was by
reason of his steady mastery of himself. Besides,
he was so perfectly well, so exceedingly strong and
happy ! " And, now, if you please, this one ; it is
a lady's," he said to the custom-house officer, pro-
ducing the key of a very cathedral of a trunk,
next his, as he spoke, avoiding casting his eyes for
a moment in that direction as the lid was being
hfted.
" I saw you beside her on deck, Mrs. Evans, I
suppose. Allow me to congrat " — but I think
he could not have heard me, those Frenchmen
were so noisy, as he merely paused in mid act
from stroking his beard with the palm of his left
hand, and looked at me. Under sudden impulse
I appointed to meet him that evening at a hotel in
the city, and, elbowing my way out of the crowd,
I lef t ; my feeling was exactly as when great Con-
federate news arrived where I was in the South
during the war, and I kept from knowing it as
long as I could.
" I am so very glad," he said, " to see you,"
MOSE EVANS. 247
and he took my hand in both of his, yet once
more, when we met again in the parlor of the
hotel. It was unnatural or natural in me, as
you please ; I suppose my business has made it
my instinct ; but how sharply I watched hiin as
he took off his orange peel of a cap, for he had
just come in, laid off his gray coat, passed his
hands over his head, face, voluminous beard, and
then took my palm in his own again.
" Oh, over Germany, the Alps, Italy, France,
England, of course, Scotland, Ireland," he an-
swered to a question of mine about his travels. If
there had been the least affectation in him ! The
smallest beginning of boastfulness, even the shade
of an uneasy feeling ! There was disquiet on my
part. I am satisfied he must have observed it ;
even that did not disturb his childUke calm. He
was so entirely certain, so profoundly happy ! At
least, if one's outer man is any reliable evidence
thereof.
" Now for a bath," he said, after we had chat-
tered for some time about everything the world
around except what I was mainly interested to
know, " and then, dinner."
I almost blushed at myself in my mirror in the
act of dressing with unusual care. Why should I
248 MOSE EVANS.
not keep on my business suit of Scotcli gray, since
it was merely with Mose Evans I was to dine ?
He was not in the parlor of the hotel when I came
down, for there is something of the slowness of
General Throop in every Southerner I ever knew,
and I was glad that I had no demorahzing suspi-
cion of being ill dressed, when I found m my cor-
ner of the parlor several of the passengers by the
steamer, evidently from among the best people!
AVhat a transforming power in leisure and money,
clothing, education, travel, freedom from consum-
ing care, I said to myself of the gentlemen and
ladies present, recalling to mind that I had never
seen in the House of Lords, when in London,
or out of it, a superior if equal type of people.
My attention was, however, immediately fastened
upon the person who was, as naturall}^ as Victoria
in her drawing-room, the queen of this assembly.
And it was a lady so much of the English style
of beauty, such impressiveness of size, contour,
bearing, as that it was impossible to say whether
she was matron or maid ; little over twenty in
either case. There was something in her perfect
repose as she sat upon the sofa amid her volumes
of silk — lavender color, I believe it was — and
lace, her hands lying in mutual embrace upon her
MOSE EVANS. 249
lap, the cool gray of her singularly open eyes, the
motionless poise of her erect head, — something
that reminded one of an Egyptian statue. Im-
pressive is the word, and a more impressive
woman I never saw in my hfe. Had he been
Prince Albert in the queen's drawing-room, my
friend could not have been more completely at
home with all when he entered, well dressed, but
without the least remainder of courtier or fop.
"Were it not that there was no least intention of
the sort on his part, there was the graciousness of
blood in the cordial way in which he came first to
me to shake hands and then turned with me, as I
rose, to her Majesty, the queen upon the sofa.
'* I have often spoken of you to her. It is at
her request," he whispered, as he led me forward.
" Allow me " —
It was the sudden and insufferable nuisance of
the gong in the corridor, and not any embarrass-
ment upon my part, which prevented my catching
one syllable of what followed. *' If you will ac-
cept Mr. Anderson's arm," he was saying, as the
gastronomic thunder rolled away do^vn the valleys,
so to speak, of the hotel, " I will assist your father ;
he is used to me you know," and I observed the
old gentleman upon the sofa beside her seemed a
confirmed invalid.
250 MOSE EVANS.
" You cannot think how kind he has been to my
father," my companion said, as we took our seats
at the table set apart in the dining-hall for our
company, to whom, as we were seating ourselves,
Mr. Evans introduced me. " We met in Egypt.
My father had a passion to ascend the p}Tamids,"
the lady continued. " ]\Ir. Evans would hardly
suffer the Arabs to touch him ; he almost carried
him up in his arms. Mr. Evans is ver}^ strong."
And well I knew she intended to say " large," but
was withheld by her social tact, although I am not
considered what is usually styled a small man, I
hope. A higher instance of social poise, yet power,
I never met in a woman ; besides, I was wonder-
ing, as we sat, if the diamond ring upon her finger
meant marriage or not. Just then her father said,
in a querulous way, from the other side of her,
"Edith, my dear!" and my companion had to
listen to certain remarks from a spectacled, and,
I dare say, quite distinguished German across the
table, and translate them, not worth uttering in
the first place, to her father. When that father
interrupted us in the parlor after dinner, in the
same way, in reference to a French and copi-
ously moustached politician present, I began to
fear it was a weakness of the old gentleman, rhe
HOSE EVANS. 251
more so as he seized speedy occasion to tell me
that his daughter was equally conversant with
Spanish and Italian. Certainly she was as uncon-
scious of possessing any special accomplishment in
the matter as she seemed to be during the music
she favored us with that night. I am not myself
fond of brilHant performance either with the piano
keys or the voice, yet I do admire all along the
subtle and exquisite mechanism of the effort, not
the result at all ; it is the marvelous machinery
producing the result which I encore.
" You cannot think how embarrassed I was all
the evening," I said to Evans when he was in my
room next day.
"At what?" my friend demanded in his even
wav. Now I was not afraid of Mose Evans at all :
preposterous indeed if I should be ! " Because the
gong," I said, " drowned somewhat my introduc-
tion to the lady. I could not well ask her if she
was your wife. To this moment I do not
know " —
I was surprised at the sudden and strong color
suffusing my friend's whole face as I rattled on ;
less of modesty it seemed than of anger. He sat
looking at me, as the color died away from his face,
almost curiously, as if he doubted his ears or my
sanity ; at last he replied, —
252 MOSE EVANS.
" I had hardly expected it of you, ]\Ir. Anderson.
Of you^ — knowing the facts of my history as you
do!"
There was quite a silence. I was nettled by
the tone and manner of the man ; angry, I sup-
pose, chiefly at myself. " The lady, Miss Edith
Livingstone," he said after a while, " lives near
this city. We met at Cairo, afterward at St.
Petersburg. She was traveling with her invalid
father, and I had the opportunity of being of some
small service in Paris and London. She has no
more idea of anj^thing of the kind," color rising
again, "than myself." I hardly thought it wise
to tell him so, but if that thoroughly accomplished
woman of the world did not have some thought of
the kind, I am mistaken. Nothing in the least
unmaidenly, of course ; but there was a certain
something in the cool gray eyes and in the move-
ment of those clasped hands, when my friend came
and went during our few days at that hotel ! I
have mentioned the matter to Helen, yet we may
both, it is true, be mistaken.
Strange to 'say, my new friend, so thoroughly
ni}^ old friend, also, was far more at ease with me
than I was with him. I rejoiced in and yet re-
sented the culture of the man. There was, in
MOSE EVANS. 253
comparison with myself, a size, a steadiness, an ab-
solute confidence, a measure of youth yet seniority,
which amazed, at least impressed me almost to
irritation. Yet, as we sat late into the night over
our dessert that day, dining together in my parlor
at the hotel, he was, for all his perfectly cut broad-
cloth and snowy linen, and easy use of napkin and
fork and waiter, merely — Mose Evans ! When I
say he was utterly changed, and was not altered
in the least degree, I suppose the explanation Hes
in his being a simple development of the inner man
along the lines of his nature, which I knew before.
I do wonder if it was because he was born South ?
— such a singular reminder he was of General
Throop. Our waiter, colored, took for granted
that he was the chief of the two ; certainly from
no assumption upon my friend's side. It is a
trifling thing to mention, but, as we sat down to
dinner, he glanced inquiringly at me, and, as I was
about to ask what he wished, he bowed his head
and said grace. Up to that moment I think our
waiter had regarded him as a person of distinction,
a millionaire most likely ; not so certain of it
after that, I fear.
My having been over the same ground myself
made it more easy and interesting, — our talk of
254 MOSE EVANS.
his travels, — but he had taken Europe more
slowly and thoroughly than I ; every edifice, pict-
ure, opera, king, queen, peasant almost. And all
along he had asked me after but one person by
name, — my wife. I suppose he rested upon my
assurance at the outset that '' all are well."
I hke chess, — that is I like to make moves in
matters generally, so I ventured to ask, as we con-
versed, about the beauty of women over the water ;
in Ital}^, for instance.
" I had letters of introduction from Bof^ton,
partly through our old friend the postmaster,
partly from acquaintance made while studying,"
he told me, " to people in London, and one or two
in Paris. I was fortunate in making friends. I
liked the ladies, but the men more ; it merely hap-
pened so, I suppose."
" You do not ask about Miss Throop," I said,
almost irritated ; abruptly, in fact.
" No. Because I know already. Perfectly,"
he said immediately, with the face of a child. " I
always knew. At least, after the first moment in
that old barn of a church." Was this — insolence ?
I have to do some singular things in land matters,
— so, I dared it.
"Have you heard of Mr. Clammeigh's mar-
MOSE EVANS. 255
riage ? " I asked, in a low, sympathizing, impres-
sive manner, very seriously indeed.
" No ! And he is married, is he ? But you
know I never knew much of him." Entire uncon-
cern. I looked at my friend with pain and sur-
prise in every lineament of my face. " You knew
Mr. Clammeigh was engaged to Miss Throop. I
had supposed the news of his marriage would —
would " — and how keenly I watched him !
" Ah, yes ! " he answered on the instant, the
gladness all over his face only brightening as he
spoke, and with a motion of his right hand to his
inner breast pocket. " It reminds me, I want to
show you, ^[r. Anderson ! I could not find it in
Paris ; found it, at last, in Vienna ; the very thing
I knew must be somewhere. Our ring. But it is
going through the custom-house."
*' And you think I deceive you ! " I hesitated
at the familiarity, but went on. " My poor, poor
fellow ! " The exclamation jarred us both a little,
and Mr. Evans colored, but added, not the shadow
of a fleeting doubt on his face, " Oh, excuse me ! I
did not catch your meaning. I was thinking of
that ring. You did it very well. What a come-
dian you would make. But, not exactly ! It is
with me about that as it is, if you will excuse me,
256 MOSE EVANS.
about smuggling. I am no better than otber
people, but it is so thoroughly against one's self to
try to cheat and lie — I mean with those officials.
They would have seen it in my eyes, all over me !
And a something for her. I would as soon have
dij^ped the diamond in mire."
" And you do — not — believe — that — Miss
Throop — is married ! " I gazed pityingly upon
my friend as I said it. If there had been but a
doubt, merely the least questioning in his eyes
whether I was jesting ! Not a bit of it ! Nothing
but sunny and entire certainty there ! And so we
left the question ; he was not interested in it.
" You seem to be so happy," I said in a turn of
our conversation, and with ominous accent.
" Am I ? I never thought of it. It is my
thorough health, I suppose," he rephed, " caused
by perpetual change of scene and air. I think,
too, I have more faith and the repose of faith than
some persons."
" Faith ? "
" I hesitate to speak of it even to you. But,
over there," with a gesture toward the Atlantic,
" they are chattering, in all languages, about there
being nothing at last but law and force. Now I
believe," he added with the candor of a child,
MOSE EVANS. 257
" there is a Person to match this universe. He
was a revelation as wholly new to me as was Miss
Throop ; and I rest in her as I do in Him."
" It was a vast change for you, from your cabin
to — the whole world ! " I remarked, I remember,
during the evening.
" Not so much as you would think," he replied.
" Certainly, not so very great a change as I had
anticipated ; and really it is but a small globe at
last, is it not, ^Ir. Anderson ? You can sail about
it in three months, can flash your telegram around
it in a minute. Smaller than I thought. Apart
from their houses and clothing, people, too, are
very much alike ; don't you think so ? "
" There is something singular in the matter of
inheritance," my companion remarked after a turn
in the conversation. " My poor father was a very
bookish man, I was told, as well as a person of
great refinement. Now I do believe that intuition
is merely inherited experience. I have been read-
ing a great deal, very rapidly because every
volume seemed oddly familiar from the first, as if
I had certainly read it before. So of painting,
music, science, even, as far, at least, as my limited
knowledge of them extends. It is as if it all was
258 MOSE EVANS.
already lying dormant in me, easily wakened.
Singular, is n't it ? "
And so we drifted this way and that ; talked
Brownstown thoroughly over. Hah, — I think of
it only as I now write, — the Confederate oflBcer
of my imagination did want land at last ! " What
I fully hope she will consent to," he had casually
observed, " is to leave Brown County. I do not
care to live there because I think she will prefer
to go where I was not known before. I have
thought of the northwest, of our spending our new
life in a new world. What do you think, Mr.
Anderson ? "
There is nothing m luck, nothing outside of
experience and readiness to handle whatever mate-
rial you have. I am sure nothing could have been
more natural in this case. I represented large
bodies of land in California, and Mr. Evans owned
land like a Texan JEmpressario, in Brown County.
Affairs were put in train then that resulted in
exchanges of lands with which we are not dis-
satisfied so far. All this has slipped from me
without my intending it, but if the reader imag-
ines that he can now anticipate all that is to
follow, let him not be too sure ; events do not
befall in sober narration like this as they do in
fiction.
MOSE EVANS. 259
" You know what a long infancy I had," my
friend said in connection with our land talk that
night. " And I have been reading, seeing, hear-
ing, growing, I hope, of late. Well, I am young,
strong, eager for work. I will find what I can do,
so that it is work and plenty of it ! " And I can
say this, at least, that Mr. Evans is to-day second
to no man in our land company. Frankly, as a
*' man of affairs " I never met his superior ; and
why not say so ?
I had him down on Wall Street next day. Our
people thought, at first, he was an English cap-
italist. I was a little annoyed, amused, gratified,
and perplexed at it, but my being his friend was
considered as a sort of feather in my cap. Mose
Evans ! As I used to know him in Brown
County ! Miss Throop's influence, of course, — I
heartil}^ assent to that, knowing her so well, even
though failing so painfully in making her known
to the reader. Yet I ask of the reader, even if a
lady, could anything have been made of this man
if it was not in him from the first ? It is not out
of a cockle-burr that an oak grows ; now does it ?
I wish somebody, not a divine, would write an
argument, as I have said before, for the resurrec-
tion, based upon a man's capacity for the same,
illustrated by facts, on this side death !
12
260 MOSE EVANS.
We had some singular talk together that night,
which I TTOuld like to detail, but I feel it is not
proper. My friend assumed all along the influence
upon himself, modest as he was in speaking about
it, of two persons, the one being as real to him as
the other. The first was simply a man, who, he
heartily believed, is also God. The other was a
woman. Say he mistook actual facts as to the one
and the other, — if I do not add that they were liv-
ing persons, both, to him, I fail of the truth. Cer-
tainly, real or unreal, they made him all he was I
I suppose it is sheer force of association, but this
reminds me — I am glad I did not forget it — of a
letter my friend found waiting him in New York.
He read it to me the day he went West, a week
after his arrival from Europe, compelled sorely
against his will to remain as long as that arrang-
ing exchange of land. In looking over it then I
inadvertently, from force of habit when a doc-
ument was in my hand, put it into my breast
pocket. It was memoranda rather than letter
from old New Hampshire, the Brown County
postmaster. I found it yesterday among my
papers, looking for a deed. I transcribe only the
last part.
" You will have heard of Mrs. Throop's death.
MOSE EVANS. 2G1
Her husband always sends for his mail, is very
feeble and broken. Wife's death, I suppose. ISIiss
Throop in deep mourning as usual at church, looks
very worn, yet helps our singing.
" Dick Frazier is dead of drink, which reminds
me that you ask after ^Ir. Archer. I infer that
Mr. Anderson when here had serious conversation
with him, as at Bucksnort. Also, Mr. Parkinson.
From the fact that he took to drink more desper-
ately afterwards. He was in my store since then,
upon New Year's Eve. Bought a box of caps.
' Hunting ? ' I asked. He never uses a gun except
when he is expecting a difficulty. ' Would you
like to know ? ' he asked. His manner was unlike
what I ever saw before. Pale. Haggard. Des-
perate. I told him I would. His manner of
cursing me was smgular. There was no one else
in the store, it was so very late. I attempted to
reason with him. He renewed his profanity,
including his Maker and his parents in the same.
I am but a small man, quite old and feeble since
we parted. I placed myself between Mr. Archer
and the door. He attempted to force his way by.
Struck me violently. I grappled with him. He
is not strong. Had the door locked and him in
my back room. He blasphemed and broke down
262 MOSE EVANS.
in an agony of weeping. He had intended to
shoot himself, as I supposed. Had he intimated
it I knew he would not. I am satisfied that the
residence here of General Throop and family has
had much influence on him. I will not detail our
conversation. I did not speak of his father or
mother. Nor of church. I spoke, as well as I
could, of another Person. I am satisfied that
other Person was in the room and helped me.
And helped him. He spent the night with me.
AVe have had much conversation since. He has
ceased from evil courses. Seems changed. I do
not know. Has never even pretended to stop
before. He intends to study, for the ministry. I
suggested Andover. He said the grace of God
might enable him to endure the Yankees since the
war. He feared not, however. Thought it safest
not to risk it ! He studies instead at Columbia.
If he holds fast to his Helper he will stand. If he
does not he vdll not. I have great fears as to the
result, but cannot tell. Good-by."
As to myself I had not sufficient belief in the
possibility of the lawyer's reformation to give it a
second thought, and hasten to record my parting
with Evans at the office of the hotel.
"You are exposing yourself, my friend," I said
MOSE EVANS. 263
with all sincerity as we shook hands, " to a ter-
rible disappointment. Your very certainty of
success will make it more disastrous ! "
''I will take the risk," he added with hearty
assumnce as he held my hand.
Could there have been, I asked myself as I
stood there, any engagement before he left Brown
County ? Could anything have resulted from his
correspondence with my wife while away ? Noth-
ing of the kind so far as I knew, nothing what-
ever ! I was seriously offended on Miss Throop's
behalf. " Unless she has pledged herself, do you
think your confidence of success wholly respectful
to Miss Throop ? " I began.
"You could not doubt my deepest respect for
her, to save your life," he replied. " As to my
confidence, as I told you the other night, it rests
in her as it does in my Maker. She will under-
stand me, perfectly ! " And, with another cordial
shake of the hand he was gone. Upon the whole,
I would have said nothing of all this to him, had
I known he was such a — what is the word !
XIX.
Its hue and fragrance somehow slips
From fruit -nhen it has reached the lips.
Far less his thought in marble wrought
Than what the sculptor's soul had sought.
The bride, however lovely, seems
Not quite the bride vou clasped in dreams !
The Indies of Columbus were
Not his great Indies in the air !
Their glory infinitely more
Than after he had leaped ashore !
For never can your hand contain
That which you hold within your brain,
And less your soul must still disdain !
Several weeks, I do not know how many, had
passed away since my friend, — I confess I hesi-
tated to speak of him since our meeting and part-
ing in New York, even to my wife, as Mose Evans,
— had gone West. No letter had arrived for her
from Agnes Throop. You who are reading these
lines may feel \eYj certain as to the result, but
Helen and myself, knowing the parties so much
better than yourseK, were not certain by any
means ; far from it ! And if you, respected reader,
MOSE EVANS. 265
find yourself wholly mistaken in the result in ques*
tion, I think you will gracefully acknowledge it ia
not for the first time.
I remained silent, waiting anxiously the solving
of this, as we always are of some one of the un-
ceasing succession of conundrums coming up before
and pressing upon us for solution, our life through.
We were too deeply anxious to say much to each
other upon the subject, Helen keeping up, when-
ever the matter was alluded to, something of her
disdainful attitude. We all know that a woman
holds to an opinion with a hundred times the grip
of a man, unless where her heart is concerned, in
which case she is far more eager to give up than
she was, in the first place, to grasp ; glad that she
has something to give up. Well I knew from her
silence all along, still more from her dissent and
criticism after I had told her of my meeting with
Evans in New York, that she believed in that
gentleman with all her soul, was eager as a child
for his success. She had asked me with much un-
concern for the one message I had from our friend
after his arrival at Brownstown, — " My deai
friend," it ran, " I have arrived safely. I have
seen her. I will vn-ite," — with the hope of
squeezing, so to speak, more meaning out of the
266 MOSE EVANS.
message as by very pressure, T suppose, of re-
peated perusal.
Our suspense was not, however, to last without
end. I was in our office in Charleston one after-
noon, when who should enter, with his usual eager
step, but the Rev. Mr. Parkinson.
'* I am East to solicit help toward building our
new church," he said immediately after asking as
to the health of my family. " You may hate to
hear it as heartily as I do to mention it. But I
am compelled to get aid, and I speak of it at once
so as to have an unpleasant subject stated and
done with ! "
" I do not see why I should hate it," I said.
" But, never mind about that. How is General
Throop ? "
" Had you not heard ? He is dead ! He died
very suddenly," my friend replied. I was shocked,
for death is something wholly unnatural to us, at
last ; we had every reason to expect it in this case,
yet it is always a surprise. In the eager question-
ing and reply which followed, I learned that Gen-
eral Throop had fallen, struck bv death, one after-
noon. There was something rumored about an
altercation on the part of the General with Dr.
Alexis Jones, who had mismanaged the case of a
MOSE EVANS. 267
sick negro on the place, as bringing about his
death. " The family were very reserved upon
the subject," Mr. Parkinson said.
" The family ? What family is there beyond
Miss Tliroop ? " I began.
" Considering the circumstances, she is in excel-
lent health. Do you know," he said Avith some
abruptness, '' that I am married ? that I have my
bride with me ? " and he turned some shades paler
as he said it, for excitement assumes that livery in
the case of persons of his temperament.
" Bride ! " I am certain I put too much aston-
ishment in the exclamation, for my friend grew
paler still. " Can it be possible " — and I h?.d the
sense to stop. My visitor understood me none the
less. " It is not Miss Throop," he said. " I es-
teem and admire Miss Agnes Throop very greatly,
but," and he added it with a degree of self-respect
which wonderfully became him, " I have done far
better, for myself I mean, — yes, and for her, —
than that. Surely you know who it is ? Come,
guess ! " with eager eyes. I knew politeness de-
manded I should say, and on the spot, " Oh, Miss
Smith, of course, and a charming lady she is ; let
me congratulate you I " but, as I journeyed on the
instant over the length and breadth of Brown
268 MOSE EVANS.
County, in swift and eager searcli, I could not im-
agine anybody.
" Is it possible you do not remember Mary
Robinson ? tliey called her Molly ! " he said.
" Why, my dear sir," I exclaimed, " you can-
not mean little Molly Robinson, that rosy-cheeked
dumpling " —
"The very same," he said with satisfaction.
" Indeed ! I used to kiss her when I stayed
with her father — Judge, General, I mean Squire
Robinson. I beg your pardon, she was merely a
child ! " I exclaimed.
" Not sixteen w'hen we were married, and she
is a child, a mere child still, the merest child in
the world ! " and it was extraordinary the glee
with which the young husband said it, rubbing his
hands.
" Yes," he said as we hurried to the hotel.
"We had just risen from dinner when I left her.
She never was away from home in her life before.
I would not be surprised if she has had a good cry
since I left, she is the merest child, you know I I
bought and left with her all the picture papers I
could lay hands on before starting I "
My friend would not allow me to wait in the
parlor, but hurried me up with him to their room
MOSE EVANS. 2G9
upon the highest floor, for hotel clerks can tell
their grade of guest, city or rural, on sight, and
we burst in upon the bride to find her in a situa-
tion vastly more m keeping than if expecting us
in parlor and in state. The little room was in
utter confusion, clothing, picture papers, plates of
fruit, a great paper of candy, too, I remember,
strewed about on table, chair, and floor. Perched
upon tlieu* great traveling trunk stood INIrs. Par-
kinson, hucfijinG: a cat to her bosom from the as-
saults of a poodle barking furiously below. " She
ivould have that dog, I got it for her as we came
along," my companion had explained the barking
as we opened the door. " My dear, this is your
old friend, Mr. Anderson," he said, and she stooped
down to be kissed as of yore when I apj)roached.
For she was nothing but a cliild, plump, her hon-
est, somewhat freckled face round and full as a
May moon, an abundance of brown hair down her
back in the confusion of the moment, small and
merry eyes, beautiful teeth, her dress a little short
for a maiTied woman, but that may have been ow-
ing to her pedestal — you can see scores of just
such girls at Sunday-schools in country neighbor-
hoods, without exaggeration, several millions of
them, in fact, plentiful as daisies and buttercups !
2T0 MOSE EVANS.
But I was far more interested in lier husband's
beautiful illusion in reference to her than in her-
self ; you can witness the same — I did not say
(Musion — in the case of many a pale, bookish
man. But I am bound to say that Mr. Parkinson
was vastly improved since that day I first saw
him when shaving by the roadside. He was in
stouter health, sturdier, manUer in every sense.
I did not enjo}^ oui- merry greeting and after
conversation as much as I otherwise would, on
account of conjecturing how Helen would like the
matter.
My wife, I knew, understood how to manage
matters far better than myself. Besides, they
woidd have to get ready to go to my house. Bid-
ding them good-by, in twenty minutes I was at
my ofl&ce and had sent our messenger boy home'
with this note : " Dear Helen. Mr. Parkinson
and hride are at our old hotel ! Have them to
tea." I sat in my office-chair imagining my wife's
bewilderment, the meeting and all, laughing as I
had not laughed for months.
Somehow, exert myself as I will, Helen always
gets the better of me, always ! When I entered
our sitting-room I found the newly married pair,
apart from a little shyness in their strange
MOSE EVANS. 271
surroundings, peacefully at home with Helen.
Largely on account of my wife being in such
excellent spirits, evidently relieved in mind. A
moment's reflection explained why, and I won-
dered I had not thought of it before. As I
entered, Mr. Parkinson said, " I was just teUing
Mrs. Anderson about General Throop's funeral !
I was speaking about the grief of the negroes. He
had never o^vned those Brown County people, you
know, yet they felt he was their natural master ;
on both sides they had been used all their life to
the relation of slave and master as to nature itself.
No monarch more feared and respected than that
stately old gentleman by the entire county ; it was
the largest funeral ever known.
" Mr. Parkinson tells me Agnes bore it better
than he could have hoped," Helen began.
" Much better ! " our guest said, paling a little
I imagined, and hastening to say, " I did not like
to marry so soon after the funeral. I suppose I
am somewhat impulsive, but we had made all our
arrangements to be married, and 1 was anxious to
be abroad in search of funds for our new church.
And Molly here had never been out of the county.
I was eager to show her the world. Harry Peters
was greatly missed at the wedding, for he would
272 MOSE EVANS.
not come, sending his wife instead. They ought
to build the church themselves, I know, but I
shrank from pressing it, as, I dare say, I should.
I do not mean to urge the matter upon any one.
To tell the truth, I hate to beg ; I am the poorest
person, for such business, Hving ! "
They were our guests for some weeks, the bride
remaining with us while Mr. Parkinson journeyed
around upon his mission in other places. But
Helen gave up, as well as myself, obtaining any
final information in reference to Agnes Throop, to
whom my wife had, of course, written in condo-
lence immediately, urging her to make our house
her home. " As to Mr. Parkinson's wife," Helen
said to me the moment we were alone together,
" she is a good, simple country girl. You need
not have looked at me on Sunday when I spoke of
my headache. I could not have accompanied her
to church in that fearful white hat ! How per-
fectly ^Ir. Parkinson has succeeded in deluding
himself ! " For the young husband had theorized
his heart into entire sincerity in the matter !
" Nothing more natural than that," Helen ex-
plained to me. " He is a person of highly imag-
inative temperament, as you know. His failure in
reference to Agnes, his daily association with Miss
MOSE EVANS. 573
Molly as her father's guest, too — nothing more
natural, foolish as it seems ! "
*' She is so young, so uninformed in regard to
everything ! " he said to Helen and myself one
confidential evening when his wife was out of the
room. " She is like the whitest and softest of
wax in my hands. If it is a glorious thing to be
an artist and to carve an ideal nymph, or queen of
wisdom or power or love, how much nobler to
mold a living soul, to form and inspire an im-
mortal for eternity ! It came to me, — I boarded
at her father's joxx know, — as a mere fancy. I
was sitting on their front porch one afternoon
when she came in from school, — her hat in one
hand, her books in. the other, her hair down upon
her shoulders, — all glowing from her walk. I
never was so lonely in my life, so desponding, I
fear. As she came in, the idea flashed upon me,
merely as a beautiful fancy at first, you observe.
It slowly grew to be a glorious reality before I
knew it ! I do believe if you were to ask ^lolly
the distance, say, to the moon, she would reply, I
have n't the least idea ! I intend to teach her
Latin myself ; I have bought the books already.
I am advertising for a music teacher, some lady to
play upon our melodeon at church, to return with
us ! "
274 MOSE EVANS.
" You have talked with her about it ? " asked
my wife without a smile, and with a measure of
sympathy of manner for which I kissed her after-
ward.
" Of course ! We talked of nothing else before
we were married. Of nothing else, I assure you,"
Mr. Parkinson said eagerly. " Very often since !
She is perfectly willing I The best-natured little
darhng you ever saw ! I love her with all my
heart, for what I am to make her. And she loves
me far more than brides generally do, having some
idea, at least, of all I will be to her ! "
We sincerely liked Mr. Parkinson, but I fear
we encouraged him to open his whole heart in
reference to Mrs. Molly, in order to learn the
sooner what he knew in regard to Agnes Throop
and Mose Evans.
" I know none of the circumstances of Mr.
Evans's first visit to General Throop's after his
arrival," Mr. Parkinson said at last one evening.
" There was much confusion ; all my conversation
with Miss Throop was, of course, in regard to her
sudden and terrible loss. I know you have been
anxious to have me say more about her and Mr.
Evans, but we have talked since I came so much
in regard to my plans for the church, and specially
MOSE EVANS. 275
about Molly. Besides, to tell the truth, I was so
taken up then, as I have said, with our getting
married " —
" You have seen Evans ? " I asked.
" Oh, certainly. He and Harry Peters had
charge of the funeral, we were all so very busy.
He seemed to me to be much improved ! "
I think our cfuest was somewhat ashamed of
saying so little on that occasion, for it must have
been the next evening at tea, he gave us an ac-
count of his first meeting with Evans.
" It was at their place, a day or two after the
General's death," he said, " Miss Agnes was in
her own room. I was seated beside the body,
which had been prepared for burial. I was look-
ing at the face of the dead, and thinking. Did
you ever notice the aspect, Mrs. Anderson, of
dignity in the countenance of the dead ? I was
never so struck Avith it as in the instance of Gen-
eral Throop. There was the grave, set, imperial
something in the countenance of the grand old
man, as of a monarch. It was Mr. Evans re-
marked all this to me as he seated himself by my
side that day. I recall his remarks now, but I
must say my attention was diverted at the mo-
ment entirely from the dead to Mr. Evans him-
276 MOSE EVANS.
self ! I confess I was greatly struck by the
transformation ! Knowing, as I did through our
old postmaster, that he had long been a hard
student, I expected great change in him, of course.
He had been abroad, too. You cannot tell how I
look forward to that some day with Molly I I
know," he added, with changing color, " that you
are laughing at me with all your kindness. But
just wait and see ! "
"We men, Mr. Anderson," he added, " of slight
build, cannot help envying stronger men. At
least, a person of somewhat feeble physique from
under exercise and over study, like myself, cannot
but admire any person of Mr. Evans's health and
vigor. He came into the room that day where I
sat beside the dead, in such a glow, I had almost
said glory, of full hfe and energy, not at all bois-
terous, saying little, very quiet — there is such
e^ddence of reserve of power and happiness ! I
wish I had such stamina, constitution ; heartily
wish it, I confess ! "
" Do you know, Mr. Parkinson," my wife asked,
" if they are to be married, jVIiss Throop and Mr.
Evans ? " We had to find out some time.
Our friend dropped his eyes to his plate as we
sat after our tea, then raised them to my wife's
^fOSE EVANS 211
face and gravely made answer. " No, madam, I
do not. Owing in part to the hurry of funeral
and wedding and — other matters. I esteem and
honor Miss Throop," he continued after some
silence, " as we all cannot help doing. Her pe-
culiar trials also have been such. She is so
singularly alone in the world, too. I have spoken
of Mr. Evans coming suddenly upon me. It was
the strong contrast in him, that hour, of vigorous
life side by side with the aged and the dead ! The
whole place, with its loss and sorrow and seclu-
sion, even before death arrived, was like a sepul-
chre. Miss Throop, I say it sincerely, was like
the angel at the sepulchre, full of life herself, but
her work there ended with the death of her
parents. All the circumstances help Mr. Evans,
— are as shadow and background to him, so to
speak ! "
" And you think Mr. Evans — one ca7i7iot well
call him Mose Evans now — improved ? " my wife
asked, as she drew Molly to a seat beside her upon
the sofa ; " you know I have not seen him since
we parted at that roadside hotel after his sick-
ness."
" I knew him well before he went," our guest
answered, " and T could not have imagined it even
278 MOSE EVANS.
of him ! He is as modest, I may say as simple, in
his mode of thought and feeling as ever. He had
little to say except in reply to questions, but I was
impressed with the force because of the freshness
of what he said. I had asked him in one of our
few interviews, I remember, as to the leading
preachers in the East and in Europe. ' It seems
absurd for a person like myself,' he remarked, ' to
say such a thing, but it is a fact, and you cannot
imagine how it has comforted and assured me,
being what I am. What I mean is this. I at-
tended service in a different place every Sabbath I
could in America and Europe, and I found that
the praise, for instance, in the most successful
churches of whatever sect, was as that of children
together, simple and heartfelt. Exactly the same
with the preachers who su^ay and impel the
masses ; in every case it was as a strong child, if I
may so speak, talking in simplest words to the
understanding and heart of children ! I have
thought,' he continued, ' a good deal about the
Greeks lately. What purely human beings they
were, lo^dug art and beauty and strength, so given
to bathing, feasting, fighting, sunshine, the open
air, loving and hating and thoroughly enjoying
themselves like beautiful children. When soul
MOSE EVANS. 279
and body are at one again, as they were in Eden,
Greek and Christian thoroughly reconciled, then
conies the millennium. And the millennium has
arrived already to every one who, at the cross,
makes unconditional surrender of himself and be-
comes as a little child ! I felt,' he added, ' that it
was not such a hopeless thing with a man like
myself, at last. I found that plain, childlike com-
mon-sense held the money of the world, and is
rapidly coming to hold and wield all political
power. Look at a picture or statue,' he added ;
' listen to a leading scientist ; it is the same ! ' "
" Ah, Mr. Parkinson," my wife said, after we
had left the tea-table for the parlor, drawing Mrs.
Parkinson nearer to her as they sat on the sofa,
" that was merely an effort of Mr. Evans to make
the world into his own image. You are, like my
husband here, perfectly infatuated about your Mr.
Evans, with his external improvement, and that
lying largely in his better clothing ; abundant
jewelry, too, I have not the least doubt. It is not
so with us women ; we have intuition, insight.
That is my comfort in regard to Agnes Throop :
she is too much like her mother to be deceived by
externals, I am sure " —
Mr. Parkinson was regarding Helen as she
280 MOSE EVANS.
spoke with eagerness so peculiar that I thought it
well to say, " I do not think it respectful in you
to your sex, Helen, to speak of — was it not ? —
their instinct ! "
" Insight, Mrs. Anderson said," our friend cor-
rected me, " but it is instinct with Mose Evans.
It would be more respectful to him to speak of a
planet as true to its sun, in referring to his con-
nection with Miss Agnes. It is nearer the truth
to say his devotion to her is as that of a noble
animal to its owner ; the idea, even, of any other
woman has never entered his mind ! " Tliere was
so much in the tones with which ]Mr. Parkinson
said it ! " I do not know how Miss Throop will
like one thing," he added after a little. " Our
friend does not bemoan the Confederacy, although
he abhors the injustice, in many respects, of the
North ; and suffers with the . South in its defeat.
All this wretched devastation of greed and igno-
rance, Xorth and South, he told some of us one day
at the post-office, is but a transition period to such
a oneness of prosperity and nobler freedom and
civilization as none of us can yet understand. He
is a child, too, in his perfect faith in our future ! "
" Just like your Molly," my wife said, '' for I
am tired of Mr. Evans. I am so glad you brought
MOSE EVANS 281
her with you, Mr. Parkinson. She has been every-
where over Charleston with nie, and I have given
her ever so much matronly advice. I think you
and she have done wisely," my wife added, with
a degree of conviction at which I winced a little.
*' I am sure she will make you," Helen added with
singular warmth, " a' wife true and good ! "
" I see that she is asleep," Mr. Parkinson said,
looking lovingly upon his bride. With her head
resting upon my wife's shoulder, the poor little girl
was sound asleep, sure enough. It may have been
the alterations made by my wife in the arrange-
ments of the child's hair, the style and color of her
dress, possibly the exchange of her set of jewelry
for a much more costly but modest set, — Helen
retaining the bride's as a keepsake in exchange,
she said, — but she was improved, no denying
that. Her perfect childishness, too, as to being
married so soon and to such a man, one could not
but take an interest in this brace of babes in the
wood. She would outgrow her form of childhood ;
her husband would never get beyond his ! As you
would have acknowledged had you heard him then
and there. He hoped to make a sort of evangelical
Paris of Brownstown, whose lady of leading cul-
ture and Christian influence was to be the round
282 MOSE EVANS
and wholly unconscious Molly sleeping so sweetly,
ber careless head upon Helen's shoulder !
I ventured to ask him in regard to Odd Archer.
Sure enough, as New Hampshire had informed Mr.
Evans in his letter, the lawyer seemed, at least,
to have reformed. " He has made some of the
most eloquent temperance addresses ever heard,"
Mr. Parkinson told us. " After some hesitation,
we have even called upon him to lead in our
prayer-meetings. Impossible for a man to speak
more earnestly and effectively ! He has given me
new ideas as to the best way of preaching, alto-
gether, I assure you ! But " —
"Yes, but," I echoed — " 5w^ .' " and Helen,
too, shook her head in concert with us.
" He is stud^dng for the ministry at Columbia."
Mr. Parkinson added. " So far he has stood iBrm.
I have a good deal of hope, but, I am ashamed to
say, very little faith. ' I would a little rather he
was safely dead,' Harry Peters said."
However, up to the date of this writing, so far
as I know, INIr. Archer stands like rock, and we
can at least leave him in the existing halo of hope.
But from the bottom of my heart I, for one, do
wish we had a more honest faith in Him whose
life and death and life again in this world it is to
MOSE EVANS. 283
save, a loyal and entire faith that lie can and does
siive any and every man who puts himself in his
liands, body and soul, for time and eternity, from
everything and thoroughly ! Possibly if we im-
maculate people had such belief in Him for the
desperately hopeless cases, such sinners might have
tlie same, as being the current religion, for them-
selves !
This is all incidentaL It made but an eddy in
our talk, which lasted till very late that evening.
We dropped the lawyer out of our conversation,
but not more utterly than ^Ir. Parkinson did Miss
Throop. She e\'idently was, like Madame Roland,
the beautiful heroine of an extinct era ! — so far,
at least, as he was concerned.
And so our guests came and departed. It is an
easy matter to imagine our deep anxiety in refer-
ence thereafter to our friends West ; so anxious
were we, in fact, that we ceased almost altogether
from conversation, Helen and myself, upon the
subject. She relieved her mind by writing every
day or two to Agnes — like her sex. I presume I
w^as true, likewise, to mine, in leaving Evans to
write or not exactly as ho saw fit ; and in plung-
ing myself all the deeper into my own matters,
especially as real estate was beginning to look up
again.
13
XX.
" I smite so hard," the heavy hammer said,
" Because your grain is iron and not lead! "
" Ye strain my wheels, among them fiercely rolled,"
The engine groaned, " because your bars are gold ! "
" Thou art a god." you cry, " so strong and stern ! "
" I am," he says, " because with SAveat I earn
In you, like statue wrought from hardest stone,
• My image, through all ages to be known
My masterpiece, my xery son, mine own ! "
I HAVE run many risks in my diversified life.
Sometimes it was on water. At times it was, and
in more senses than one, by reason of the pecul-
iarity of my business, and very literally, on land ;
to say nothing of peril to life itself during my
toils, compulsory, in the service of the late la-
mented Confederacy. But I do say that I never
undertook adventure quite so hazardous as I now
do, in my mode of closing this narrative. The
truth is, I should not have undertaken it, not hav-
ing, to say the least, the necessary time from other
and pressing and very different engagements. I
MOSE EVANS. 285
had, even, contemplated abandoning the task alto-
gether ; possibly would have done so although at
this eleventh hour, for the present, at least, had
not the recent letters to my wife from General
Throop's daughter occurred to me. From sheer
habit which I have taught Helen as to documents,
these letters have been carefully filed away, and
they lie before me now, beautifully written, but
crossed and recrossed as is the habit of the sex.
They can but slay me — I refer to Helen, who is
on a brief visit to her relatives to exhibit our latest
baby, and Agnes — when they find it out; but,
I have read it somewhere, and say it here to soften
their coming wrath, Happy even death inflicted by
hands so fair! Moreover I will carefully omit,
from the copying of the letters, all I can of the
correspondence, for my sake as well as theirs I
I should explain that matters may appear a
little confused at the outset of what is here copied.
It is always confusion where the heart precedes
the intellect, which is why woman is so much bet-
ter adapted to heaven and to home than to any-
thing else.
" I am, this most beautiful morning, Helen dear,
the happiest woman living," this first letter runs.
" I am to-day as radiant as an angel in heaven, so
286 MOSE EVANS.
far as happiness goes. I say this to explain why
I write so freely, and we who have known each
other all our lives, have sympathized in our ten-i-
ble sorrows, certainly can feel with each other in
our joys ! Who would have supposed the languid
brunette you are, Helen, would have made so
spirited a woman. It was your marr^^ing a New
Englander. What noble children yours are ! They
are already urging him to run for Congress, and
when he is elected I will get him to have a law
passed that all marriages shall be illegal except
between Northerners and Southerners ; will speak
to him about it this very afternoon as we ride to
the post-office ! I cannot help it ! It is change
of chmate, I suppose, change only less than from
earth to heaven in every respect. The day, too,
is so brilliant, the very birds twitter and wheel
about in the cloudless hght as if they were beside
themselves ; I must write, too, as I please ! And
before I forget it, do invite Mr. Archer to visit
you in Charleston. In his worst days he was al-
ways of good blood ; he will make one of our
most eloquent divines ! I do believe it was be-
cause our dear, disagreeable old postmaster felt
assured of this, at last, that he consented to die in
his attack of pneumonia ; what a grim yet sincere
MOSE EVANS. 287
Christian he was ! I wonder if he allows himself
to show any outer interest in what he sees and
hears there I In heaven, I mean. But he must,
I know, for we will all be transparent to each
other there, translucent to the light which falls
upon us from God ; just as I am this radiant day !
You know he left enough to the church to build a
handsome edifice and parsonage. There are some
things I could tell you, Helen, about that excellent
^Ir. Parkinson ! I am so glad he has found such
a nice little wife and that he has settled comforta-
bly down ; he has certainly done a world of good
there. Was it not strange, the legacy of the dear
old New Hampshire to me^ when he hardly seemed
to know of my existence ! Yet we did endure
actual poverty, Helen, and for years. One can
neither eat nor wear land, you know. That was
merely a portion, the smallest fraction of the long,
long, long suffering, even from the beginning of
the war. I suppose my gladness is reaction after
so much, so very much pain, Helen ! I do not
want to tire you, but let me write, please, if it is
only to calm myself. I can write from this dis-
tance, although I know I could not talk with you,
were we together, with the same freedom.
" It was terrible as death, our loss of Theodore,
288 MOSE EVANS
then our breaking up from Charleston and moving
West, the ending of the world to us ! Death itself
closes all, and this was the having to live on for
3' ears, alive yet in the utter wreck and dust of the
grave ! First, there was that gloomy old home
of ours below Brownstown, old, at least, in the
bearded and decaying live-oaks and the loneliness !
The muddy river, the cypress swamp behind us,
the dense forest, the very magnolias with their
oppressive perfume, the heavy fog covering the
world almost every morning like a shroud ! We
lived in miasma, in contrast with which this pure
mountain air is like that of Paradise. Then we
had so much trouble with the freedmen, at least
until he took charge. Except when Mr. Anderson
and yourself visited us, there was not a soul with
whom we could associate, Mr. Parkinson excepted,
— I mean with sympathy and pleasure, — and day
after day for so very long. Next, and all the time,
there was — you knew of it, Helen — my great —
trouble ! I was so young and ignorant when it be-
gan r If I had a story to tell your little Henry, dear,
I would take him on my lap and do it in this way :
Once on a time there was a certain young woman,
— not a man as the books have it, — who carved
out of pure, cold, beautiful white marble the statue
^fOSE EVANS. 289
of a god. Her name was Pygmalia, not Pygma-
lion at all. She was very young, and very foolish,
and very skillful with her chisel because she wanted
a god to worship, and worked with all her ardent
heart. It was a shame, but her statue seemed so
beautiful that she loved it as if it was a living god.
She found out afterward that the great God him-
self can and does make, and alone makes in his
own time and way, the only objects that are really
worthy of our love. But that was afterward, I
say. I will add nothing about the incense, the
tears and prayers, nor of what sort was the sacri-
fice she consumed before it. But, in this case, the
statue never came to life, is merely marble still and
forever. That is all ! It was not the fault of the
statue !
" And I will tell you here, Helen, a thing you
never knew before. It happened when he and I
were East — we were so sorry we could not run
down to see you, dear, that trip ! We were stay-
ing at a hotel in New York, we were in the parlor,
just going out. Suddenly thet/ came into the room,
Mr. Clammeigh and his wife. Some power, with
far-reaching hands, brought us all together in that
way ! The two men stood for the moment side by
side, by His placing ! It is not what I thought
290 MOSE EVANS.
of the unspeakable contrast. It was not what she,
poor thing, thought of it, for she is also a woman,
and they did not even pretend to marry from love.
I would have cheerfully taken what the little bell-
boy, handing them the key of their room at the
moment, thought of the two men in contrast !
Ague in comparison with health ; yes, ague, pallid,
feeble, shrinking, beside noblest manhood in su-
preme vigor of body and soul I He could no more
help himself, Helen, than the coal on your hearth
can keep from growing ashen when the strong smi
shines full upon it ! And I could not but be aware,
too, of my husband's eyes, on her, on me !
" As it is only for your reading, Helen, I might
tell you how people looked at us in the cars, in
hotel parlors and dining room ! It was at him,
Helen, my man of men ! Who could believe that
even the Creator could work, at least m this world,
such change in a human being, and that person
remain the same! And change, through awful
suffering, in me, Helen. My only beauty, the
overflowing of my great gladness ; if there was
but more of my father in me to weigh down the
mother I inherit !
" My mother ! That was the next in our terri-
ble chancres. Before we left Charleston she had
MOSE EVANS. 291
abandoned almost everything to me, but she was
never out of her mind, dear, if you ever feared so.
It was years of intense, unintermitting affliction
wearing upon a nature too sensitive at the begin-
ning. You know the sainted dead are utterly
withdrawn from earth, and us, although they love
us still. Really, my mother died with Theodore !
They neither read the Scriptures nor pray in
heaven ; she had heaven, if I may speak about
such a matter, so steadily before her that she im-
agined herself done with all the means of approach
thereto. Her death was a shock, and yet nothing
could have seemed more natural, even beautiful,
when we found her that morning not awakened
out of her sleep, nor to awaken until another voice
than ours shall break her slumber. I cannot speak
of what followed upon that !
" Our home seemed afterward, as you may sup-
pose, yet more like a cemetery, the great oaks clos-
ing nearer in upon us still with their drooping
boughs and long gray moss. Oh, the sense of
separation ; the loneliness ; the slow-footed hours ;
the sleepless nights ; with the winds sighing among
the trees, often the weeping clouds ; the round of
weary household affairs, day after day, and for
what ? I look back with amazement that I could
292 MOSE EVANS.
have endured it all and live. Yet I did endure it.
Along with unspeakable despair there was unceas-
ing hope, actual gladness. When I had time I
sang at my instrument, sang, sang ! I was in such
continual practice that I was not conscious half the
time of the keys as I sang, especially with earliest
waking, and every evening before the lamps were
ht ; and very often they were not lit except for
prayers and to go to bed. There was I far from
all the world, no one left me but Aunty Washing-
ton our one slave, — surely Heaven allowed her to
fall into that delusion in kindness to us, — and my
father ! I cannot write any more to-day.
" I ceased writinsj vesterdav, Helen, and for
more reasons than because the weary days in
my ' moated grange ' had come back to my mind
so vividly ! To-day I have sat for hours by my
open desk at the window, trying to think when it
all began ; I mean about him ! I have often tried,
but I cannot remember. I recall, of course, a day
at the old church, the first day I was there, when
I saw him as I did the rest, merely a good-looking
country youth. When they told me, laughingly,
the effect I had on him, it amused rather than
pleased me. Afterward the mention of the matter
wearied me, I was tired of the nonsense ! Then,
MOSE EVANS. 293
when you, Helen, and your husband spoke of it, I
was deeply offended ; you regarded me, I thought,
as fallen mdeed from former days !
" After that, without his seeking, he was much
upon the place ; came, in fact, and by a process as
certain as summer, to have sole charge of our plan-
tation, my father had become so feeble. Neither
my mother nor my father ever dreamed, as you may
well imagine, of such a thing ; they fully believed
— but I cannot speak of that ! Should anything
happen to them they relied entirely on that ! I
knew the deep and silent affection, devotion,
rather, of the man, but not in any way from him.
Had he said anything, done anything, I would
have ended the matter instantly. I wonder if he
knew it, or was it, as it was, the instinctive noble-
ness of his nature ! If he had been a coward as
well as a country youth, had been sentimental,
maudlin, pining, I would have laughed at and de-
spised him ; but with all his simple manhood he
was, Helen, so calm, so strong, had mastery of
himself as well as our freed-people, so quiet yet
complete ! When it was urged upon him by my
father, he took charge of the place only after my
father had made him full and distinct promise
that the plantation should be absolutely under his
294 MOSE EVANS.
control. He held and managed it with a hand so
gentle and yet so strong, that no one ever thought
even of raakinsj a su^i^jxestion. I knew that he
loved me with all his soul, yet I knew he would
not allow even me to interfere. I grew to respect
him, Helen, as one does nature, so serene yet sov-
ereign ! And I had despised him because he was
inferior — God help me I — to my marble god,
marble so symmetrical, polished, beautiful !
" I had a last letter from him one day, Helen,
and it happened it was this other that brought it
from the office and handed it to me. I was at the
front gate waitmg, and with certainty, for a letter
from Mr. Clammeigh, when he arrived with it
from town. Part of the marble of the writer was
that he had never prepared me for what was to
come, or in the bUnd excess of my devotion I did
not see it. The letter struck me like a dagger. I
never yielded before, nor after ; but it was follow-
mg upon so long a strain, I was so entirely alone
in the world, it was so sudden ! I believe I fell.
I was told he took me in his arms like a babe, his
beard over my breast as he bore me into the
house. Not the ' great house ; ' he had the singu-
lar thoughtfulness for my poor father, to carry me
around it and into Aunty Washington's cabin.
MOSE EVANS. 295
Beside lier and himself no soul has known of that
until now ; I could not tell even you, Helen, when
you were with us.
" It chanced that the crop was all in. That
very day he arranged with my father, as you
know, that Harry Peters, our next neighbor,
should manage our plantation as well as his own,
which he had leased to him. It was the afternoon
of the day following. I would not have spoken to
my mother, had she been alive. I had gone to my
piano, partly from force of habit, largely in very
desperation. It was all over in an instant. He
merely stood beside me and said, ' Miss Agnes ! I
have come to bid you good-by.'
" I did not cease playing, but looked up. . He
stood there with the innocent and steady eyes of a
child in mine.
" ' I am learning, you know,' he said quietly.
' I wanted to say that I know what I am as well
as you. I want to say this, too : I love you, — I
must love you forever, even if I am only what J
am.'
" That was all. I did not cease pla}^ng for a
moment ; it must have been the last sounds he
heard as he rode away. I was too stunned, then,
to be capable of feeling ; stunned by other things ;
296 MOSE EVANS.
and I want to say this, and just here : I know
nothing more of it all, Helen, than I do how the
little seed begins to grow deep down in the earth.
It was there long before I knew it, had life and
gi'owth and color before I was conscious it existed !
I had your letters. I had his absence ! I love,
Helen dear, for the first time in my life ! Before,
it was half uneasy apprehension ; now, I give my
whole heart with certainty of my perfect safety in
loving, I ' rest in my love,' in the delicious words
of old. But I hear the sound of hoofs, on the
gallop, Helen ! He is coming, and I prefer him to
you, dear, a million times over ! Good-by ! "
So much for these two letters !
XXI.
The eagle's daring wing at last would flag,
• Did it not reach and rest upon its crag ?
Broad day would slay, did not its dying light
Lapse like a wave upon the shore of night.
And always peace, until the world shall cease,
Shall end in war, as war shall swoon in peace.
No calm hut into storm doth rouse at last,
As storm doth sob into a calm its blast.
The soul, too, has its landing places, where
To halt and rest on its ascending stair.
CUmb, soul, to heaven -thy final rest is there!
u It seemed to me after Mr. Anderson and
yourself had left us," this next letter runs, - as if
not so much weary weeks, months, years, but cen-
turies rather, were rolling over my head. Our
solemn home was like a great clock whose pen-
dulum had ceased to swing. Time itself had
stopped ! The last relative left on earth to occupy
my heart or my hand was my father. My great
recnret was that he left me so little to do for him.
My mother's death had whitened him, so to speak,
as with a sudden winter. Although more excit-
298 MOSE EVANS.
able, he grew more still and silent as he became
more feeble. I will always have the sincerest
regard for our overseer, ]\Ir. Harry Peters, and his
excellent little wife ; they had given up their own
home near by to live with us these days, and Mr.
Peters overflowed as steadily as a mountain spring
with his humor. It was only at times he. could
interest my father, at my request, in the affairs of
our plantation, for he had long since turned over
the freedmen to themselves and to Mr. Peters lq
disgust. For months before his death I never
knew him to open a paper. Ever since I can
remember he had read the " Charleston Mercury,"
and the extinction of that journal was to him the
going out of the last orb of light in a sky of other-
wise utter darkness ! I so dreaded the stagnation
of mind into which he might fall that I got J\Ir.
Peters to tell him of evenings, as we sat together
upon our front porch, the last items of political
news. My dear father would sit and smoke, his
beard grown so long and white, as Mr. Peters
read, wholly unmoved and uninterested as to
events in the Northern States, at Washington
even. The Federal government and people were
more foreign to him than China or Beloochistan.
It was only when ^Ir. Peters recounted some fresh
MOSE EVANS. 299
injustice of the North, and its consummation at
the South, that he would express, as of old, his
deep indignation, Mr. Peters most heartily concur-
ring with him ; for my dear father was held, you
know, Helen, in profound reverence and venera-
tion by the entire county ; they wanted to send
him, at one election, to the Legislature, and
thought that much the more of him for the loath-
ing and contempt with which, under existing cir-
cumstances, he rejected the suggestion. And so
he slept and waked, ate and conversed, confining
himself gradually to the place, and at last to the
house, so utterly alien to the present, so wholly
wrapped up, almost even from me, in the past !
" I occupied myself as fully as possible in house-
keeping, poor old Aunty Washington at my side
all day, and / had no trouble with the freed
women, — it all lies so much in putting yourself in
their place, being patient and kind as if they were
still your slaves. Tlien I would throw myself, as
I have said, into music as if I was in ti-aining to
bo a prima donna ; and I really have perfected
myself, Helen, to a degree wliich has made our
home out here the happier for it, if anything could
make it happier. All at once I took to reading
aloud to my father of mornings. Not fiction or
300 MOSE EVANS.
poetry. jMy own experiences made these seem
pale and poor in comparison. I wanted to get
into another world, as it were, so I read history.
I happened upon the years of strife between Eliz-
abeth and Mary Queen of Scots, I being a third
and vastly wiser queen, forever coming between
the other two to set them right. I do think it
consoled my father a little as to the Federal gov-
ernment when I told him that, as the history
showed, the race and the reformation seemed
given over then of Heaven, and wholly, into the
hands, as if it was a bonnet or a ball-dress, of two
such squabbling milliners. The reading helped us
both, helped my dear father in regard to the past,
helped me in reference to the future. Besides, I
would not tell you, but I will write it, and for
your eyes, not your husband's, I constructed, all
along as I read, a king for myself out of such
material as the men of those days afforded, the
courtiers and polished gentlemen of tlie time sup-
plying me extremely little of it, I assure you. In
fact, all my world had crumbled into chaos and
was very slowly changing and reforming, as if
during centuries on centuries, just then. God has
finished it for me, at last, dear, and I know He
pronounces it very good, for oh, Helen, Helen, it
MOSE EVANS. 301
is beyond my poor pen to say how mucli, how very
much my new world is better than my old !
" I was occupied, too, with keeping in excellent
health, for my father's sake and for the sake of
my — future ! AVhenever I could I walked and
walked. Several times during the week I would
have Aunty Washington drive me to the post-
office for your dear letters. As if I did not fully
know that he knew every line he wrote so politely
to you was intended for me, and, really, for me
alone, Helen ! And I slowly began to answer
them, every one. Not that I ever actually wrote
a syllable, as you and he well know ; but, begin-
ning with a cold line or two, I wrote at last sheets
on sheets of replies, as I walked and rode and sat
at my piano ! It is the greatest pity they are not
in real writing ; I would love dearly to read them
over to him now ; would like so much to see how
matters in regard to him began and grew and
took the hues of life ; for I do solemnly assure
you, Helen, I have no more idea when it was nor
how it was, than has either he or yourself !
" Every Sunday, through the rain even, I rode
to church to hear Mr. Parkinson. Because I knew
he would miss me so, but more especially to let
liim see that it could never be ! I was so sorry
302 MOSE EVANS.
for him then. But, dear, how could I love him ?
He was part of the poetry and fiction from which
I shrank. I was so weary of it all, if it were only
that we had just come out of the terrible epic of
the war and the siege of Charleston. What I
thirsted for was, not wine, but simple water from
the rock ; I wanted to get down out of the air
upon the earth again. What I craved was nature,
reahty, fact. I am so glad he has married that
good little Molly Robinson. She is as like to a
thousand other country girls as one blackberry is
to all the rest, but she will be the very wife, true
and strong and sensible, that he needs. And I am
so glad that, instead of molding her as he imag-
ines he will into his ideal, she will steadily and
very sweetly make him forget that such an ideal
ever had place in his imagination. How wonder-
fully wisely, dear. Heaven orders all such things ;
and not in the least as we arrange, because so much
better ! Speakmg of Molly reminds me of Mr.
Peters's odd little children. When Mr. Peters
began to live with us I took such a fancy to them.
They had been lost once in the ' bottom ' for days,
and I think their experience has changed them for
life ; they were so quiet, with such wondering and
sorrowful eyes, the mice hardly more stealthy and
mute. I was glad of it on account of my father.
MOSE EVANS. 803
" I can almost hear you say, ' You provoking
thing, why do you not go on to tell about jMr.
Evans ? ' Did you ever hear, Helen, about people
who never opened a letter from their dearest friend
for days on days, reserving it, tantaUzing them-
selves with the future enjoyment of it ? Be pa-
tient, dear, I want to tell you about Mr. Harry
Peters. You know all the negroes ceased to laugh
and sing over their work and when cooking and
eating together almost all night in their cabins, as
they used to do before freedom brought all the
care and weight of themselves upon them. After
Mr. Peters came he got them to laughing and sing-
inc^ asain almost as much as before— he was so
full of his fun, and his dear httle wife of her re-
sponsive laughter, as much of an accomplishment
in her as music, and far sweeter and more natural.
He always had some funny kindness to show me.
One day he brought me a tin bucket of — tad-
poles ! ' I wanted you to watch their legs come,'
he explained. So I poured them into an old fruit-
dish of glass, one of the few relics left by the can-
non and shells of the siege.
" ' Not a single sign of any legs as yet,' he said,
' only head and tail. Y^et you wait, Miss Agnes,
and as sure as you live the legs do come ! Things
804 MOSE EVANS.
don't stay as they now are forever. Changea Jo
happen ! Without the seeking of those tadpoles
God gives them what they need. If we could only
float about and wait as they do ! ' There was
more in the merry eyes and manner of the man
than in his words ! I thought of my own helpless-
ness, it flashed upon me about him. By Mm I
don't mean Mr. Peters. I laughed and laughed
until Mrs. Peters and I cried for company. Now,
worms browsing upon green leaves while their
wings were forming within, to break forth some
fine day into radiant butterflies, would have been
more poetical. But one is so very familiar with
that ; the ugly tadpoles were more in keeping with
my matters. I laughed every day as I leaned
over them swimming around and around in their
world of water in the bowl on one end of my piano,
as the people in the other world lean over and look
and, possibly, laugh at us. I even told my father
about it, and he used to smoke his cigar and watch
them himself in his silent way. It did us good,
and their legs did come ; I saw the whole tran-
sition ! A ludicrous medicine, but it did us good !
" So did Aunty Washington. You know the
freeing of the slaves was merely the success of ir-
religion to her, the overturning of the Bible. It
MOSE EVANS. 305
was like Philip of Spain, in my history, and the
insurgent reformation. Aunty Washington would
have had her race back into their normal and
Heaven-ordained slavery if she could, was as
bigoted as an inquisitor in her views of religion
and heresy, her horror being at the * fool talk ' of
the negro men, her double horror at the infatua-
tion of the freed women. It was all I could do to
keep anything like peace upon the plantation ; she
took an aversion to Mr. Parkinson, even, because
he neglected in his preaching so fundamental a
doctrine as that of slavery. Dr. Alexis Jones, the
foppish young doctor, you remember, Helen, was
liked by her because they agreed in the matter.
It is hardly worth writing, but he argued from the
researches of some Philadelphia Dr. Brown, I be-
lieve, that the blacks were not human ; the hair
being oval like that of animals, under the micro-
scope, ' trichometer,' he called it, not round like
that of the whites ; but I would not mention this
if it were not what followed from it, for she only
knew he was pro-slavery and would have him as
her physician ! I had no idea of writing so much ;
it is the climate, the weather, my husband ! And
I have been much more eager to speak of him al]
this time than you can possibly have been to hear.
306 MOSE EVANS.
" How slowly ray tliouglits turned to him dur-
ing all those long, long ages of time, as it seemed !
He was away at college, in Europe, learning so
much and so rapidly ; and I was in my school, too,
learning and unlearning even more. But, oh the
Buffermg, Helen I Mamma had said to me, * I used
to think, Agnes, that even the infinite God would
grow tired with inflicting so much pain upon his
creatures during so many ages ! But we will soon
know the meaning, love ! ' Her ideas, however,
were more general, Helen, than mine. I have to
centre my heart upon some one person, and it
helped me to submit, knowing the Father that
held the rod. But when I came to know the Son
that stooped by our side, and for our sake, to the
same terrible blows, I could endure it better !
Some awful necessity of pain when even the Eter-
nal God stoops to suffer it, for us and with us !
We will soon understand, it is eternity without
paiu, Helen, dear !
" Sometimes I would say, man bom of Mary,
why not some little touch of womanly tenderness
to me alone in the world ! But, as I asked, it was
like a mother's palm upon my head, Helen, the
actual pressure of his peace ! He was with me !
I trembled sometimes in the hush and throbbino:
MOSE EVANS. 307
sense of his actual presence ! No fanaticism, dear,
fur I would bathe ray face afterward and go out
and feed the chickens, visit the cabins, do house-
hold things, with a positive happiness which could
not have sprung merely from mthin me, no mate-
rial there for it at all !
" You see how I shrink from telling about the
end! I cannot speak of my growing affection; it is
a mystery sacred even to myself ! Now and then a
half-word from the old postmaster about him.
Plenty of letters concerning him from yourself —
I say nothing of the letters of his you forwarded ;
I will love you, darling, as long as I live ! — and
Ur. Hariy Peters was, in his way, the ally of the
absent. I stood by him, I remember, one day,
where the hands A^ere digging yams ; for I stayed
in the house as Uttle as possible, was over the
whole plantation and in all weather, and took my
father, if I could, with me; though time stood
still, I must be in motion, or die ! ' See this yam,
IMiss Agnes,' he said, holding up a potato which
was half mud. ' Too muddy to touch. Now,
see ? ' and he washed it in the bucket of water
standing by, with its gourd, for the hands,^ and
then held it up perfectly clean, as beautiful in its
way as an orange. ' A man may be born,' Mr.
808 MOSE EVANS.
Peters went on to say, ' may live all his life in a
cypress swamp, and be clean from the mud himself
all the time. Father Hailstorm said last Sunday,
we will be dug out of the dust one day clean as
you please ; on the last day I mean ! ' For mat-
ters changed after we came, Helen, and Harry is a
' shouting disciple ' now ; full and purified oppor-
tunity he has, these days, for his singular humor !
And, by the bye, in the absence East of good ^Ir.
Parkinson with his bride, it was Father Hailstorm
who married us ; only Harry Peters and his wife
being present, for, with one soul beside, all Brown
County must have been invited or mortally in-
sulted at not being ' norated ' to be present !
" I cannot hasten as I would ; my mmd came so
slowly, in fact, to centre upon him ; it was cen-
turies, Helen ! But it came, that day, that ter-
rible yet happy day, at last ! Aunty Washing-
ton's latest folly, poor soul, was her faith m Dr.
Jones. We feared he was experimenting with her
as he would have done with a dog. It was on his
last visit to her cabin he persisted, I remember, —
please have patience with me, Helen, — in telling
me how his Dr. Brown of Philadelphia had writ-
ten to him for specimens of the hair of all the
Indians possible, to be put up in quills duly
MOSE EVANS. 309
labeled, and he laughed about entering into com-
petition Avitli Indians, themselves too actively en-
gaged already in a collection of human hair !
Nonsense, but it all comes back so vividly I must
write it to have it out of the way. The negro, he
urged, was but a species of beaver ; he had the
tolly to tell me that Aunty Washington need not
concern herself about her soul ; ' Has none,' he
said, ' any more,* he added as he rode off, ' than
any of the rest of us ! ' Pardon my recording such
folly.
" She died before he was out of sight, died,
Helen, as true to us and to her old-fashionecl
religion as any martyr of us all. I was worn out
the next day, for she could not endure one of the
' colored ladies,' as she called them, near her when
she could help it. I had been beside the dead all
night. It was the gloomiest of days. It seemed
as if the live-oaks had come yet closer about the
house, to droop their mournful moss like crape
over the dead. The air itself had halted, as it
were. The river ran sullenly through the heavy
silence. Except one or two very old negroes tend-
ing young turkeys in the yard, all the people were
in the field, for Mrs. Peters had gone to her own
kouse with her children for a few hours, after
810 MOSE EVANS.
helping me with the dead. It was the deliberate
doing of God, the arrival of such an hour, Helen !
I had reached at that moment, the deepest point
of descent into the dark valley. My soul, partly
in consequence of my reading about Queen Eliz-
abeth, — the history did me that good, — had
reached its strongest strength as by pressure of
supreme strain. But the body was faihng ! It
seemed to me I could not bear a straw's weight
more and live.
" It is as if it took place yesterday. About four
o'clock that dreadful afternoon I heard a noise!
When I heard the front gate open and fall to in
'the dead silence, I knew it was not my father, for
ho had ridden to town, for the first time in
months, in vague idea of seeing Dr. Jones, though
what for he could have told no more than myself I
And Dr. Jones need not have fled the county, as
he afterward did ! Every one knew how very
heavy, tremulous, feeble my father had grown !
God forbid I should ever see that silly young
physician again, but I do not think my father
could have lasted, if he had not met him, much
longer.
" I was sewing at a white band for poor Aunty
Washington, not weeping, too exhausted for that,
MOSE EVANS. 811
fiot tliinkliig, or foelhig even ; in the condition, I
suppose, of the dying daring the one moment
before entering upon eternal life. The front gate
fell to upon its latch and all my soul returned
again as from its lowest ebb I I knew who it was !
I was calm, far more so than I am while I write,
Helen. In one moment ! And during that mo-
ment the centuries had rolled away ! Were gone
forever and ever ! I rose and went out upon the
porch. I knew him and did not know him as he
stood there. On the instant of seeing him it was
with me as when you look at an object in a
stereoscope, first a blurring as by the slow blend-
ing of the two objects which are the same into
one. One ! It was but a moment, Helen, and
the rude countryman of the centuries ago is
blended into and forever lost in the noble Chris-
tian gentleman of to-day ! But an instant, and
we were to each other, and forever, as if we had
known and loved each other all our lives. Nat-
ural ! It was so perfectly natural ! As it will be
at death to us and our friends in heaven forever,
after the first moment or two. Yes, natural as
trees and sky and every other daily matter ; not
rapture, nor astonishment, simple, sweet nature,
and matter of course !
312 MOSE EVANS.
" I acknowledge I do not know liow or when
we would have first met had it not been as it was.
He stood there, his hat in his hand, cahn, strong,
confident, like some royal duke ; don't smile,
Helen ! In that one first glance I saw all he had
gained during absence ; observed, even, the slight
band of red upon his brow from the pressure there
of his hat.
" ' Please do not be alarmed,' he said, ' but your
father needs your care ; ' his manner expressed all
the rest. You have heard it over and over again,
Helen. My father had met Dr. Alexis Jones on
the road coming to our house. I do not know that
he said a syllable to exasperate my father when
they met. I do not know what my father may
have said to him, for he was greatly angered at
his treatment of our poor servant ; and then he
was so shaken and feeble ! He had fallen from
his horse. Dr. Jones was off his horse too, trying
with terrified face, his lancet in his hand, to lift
the poor body from the mire, when he rode up
from his long absence ! It was near the door of
Harry Peters' house, and now, there at our gate,
was Mr. Peters' ambulance, and laid along in it
and covered with a blanket, was my last relative
on earth — and dead !
MOSE EVANS. 313
" It relieves me to write it, Helen ! I was gUul
wheu Mr. Peters had gone home to bring his wife
back, and he and I were left alone upon one side
and the other of the lounge on which they had laid
my father. I was not afraid, with him there, to
uncover after a while the face of my, and his,
dead. You know, Helen, the noble bearing of my
father, and now his whole aspect was nobler than
ever ; the set face of a king throned forever far
above the wreck of South, or North, or the world,
or — of himself ! You know, dear, I never speak
upon such matters to any one, but I can write it ;
could it have been ordered better ? The terrible
preparation in botli of us, my husband and myself,
going before ; the pain, in my case who needed it
most, continued to the last degree I could endure
and exist, and then ? That when, in my father,
my last hope was gone, with my dead father he
should come ! That, of all the world, he only
should be there to aid me with my poor father as
with the hands of a son ! In the same act, Helen,
he had brought me the last of all I had loved most
dearly, and the first of all I now love, love, oli
how much more ! I suppose it will be that way at
death ; when I let go hereafter my husband's hand
in dying, it will be to clasp, as I do so, the hands
814 MOSE EVANS.
again of fatlier, mother, Theodore, in heaven ! Is
it morbid, my talking so much of death and the
other Hfe ? You know we do die as well as live,
and that there is another world as well as this !
and I dare say I will soon grow out of this period
of my life, and become worldly enough.
" I spoke of heaven ! I tremble at my happi-
ness, Helen. He has come as I write, to the gate,
riding his horse, leading mine saddled for our
afternoon ride to the post-office over the prairie.
I will seal this without reading it and take it with
me, for we gallop together eyerj afternoon we can
through the pure, bracing wind, to the next town
for our mail, the very brooks we leap our horses
over sparkling with secrets of the silver and gold
below the soil. How my blood bounds, and, he
says so, my cheeks glow, and my eyes brighten !
It is not fever but pure health, even if I laugh
so much, have so much of nothing to say ! Oh,
beautiful world ! Oh, beautiful God ! My eyes
dim with happy tears ; God has been, in and by
all my pain, too, so very, very good ! I have
called to him to wait only a moment while I beg
of you, Helen, to look through my glad eyes at
the glorious landscape in tliis oiir new home.
Brown plain, glittering river, snow-capped moun-
MOSE EVANS. 315
tains in the distance, atmosphere pure and brilliant
and laughing with life. The people, too, are free
and strong and impulsive as I am. But ^\hat do I
care for anything else ? There he sits upon his
horse at the gate, Helen, in the glory of his pure
and niiifrnificent manhood, modest as a ^Yoman,
wise and good and true ! He is going into hard
work. It may be at railroads, or mines, or
schools, or politics if necessary, — pure and strong
enouirh even for that ! — whatever is best. For it
is Eden, a new world ; for a new man and a new
woman ! We are very happy ! I know that it is
as natural to our veins, after our long winter, as is
its exuberant life, when spring comes to oak and
to rose-bush, even if other winters are sure to
come hereafter ! Strange as it seems to say, part
of the solid ground of my happiness is in knowing
so well how he will enduie calamity when it
comes, as in some form it must come to us, too, in
the future as in the past; endure it as the cliff
of rock endures the sea ! No, rather as a child,
grown strong enough in virtue of all that has gone
before, endures the dealing of one whom he has
thoroughly found out to be his personal friend.
And next to that other, Helen, I love this man I
Love him, Helen, love him, love him ! If I could
316 MOSE EVANS.
only tell you, not merely wi'ite you, how I love
him ! I love, Helen darling, as I will love ray
Saviour and him in heaven eternally ! Because
by these two I have been made all I am. By the
one infinitely more than by the other, but the kind
of influence the same in both — the almighty in-
fluence of love ! And he believes the same of me,
as if my poor hands had ever lifted him from such
a cypress swamp as his hands have lifted me ! I
respect and esteem your admirable husband, my
dear ; but mine is a grand duke, an emperor " —
And here I do sincerely think it is time to stop
copying her letters ! My nerve fails, lest Helen
should suddenly return and should arrest it all.
It is very hazardous ! Women like to have their
husbands do things without consulting them, at
least as variety to steady obedience ; and a man
must assert himself occasionally, beard some sort
of giant, storm some species of batter}^ if only to
reassert his ante-marital manhood. My pen, how-
ever, is hastened by the fear that Helen may have
some feminine presentiment of what is being done
in her absence, and hurry back. Allow me, then,
to resume and complete my task lest such a
catastrophe to this narrative should befall. The
entire venture is out of my hue of business al-
5WSE EVANS. 317
together. I am not as concerned about the opin-
ions of the reader as I am in reference to what
these two ladies will think of my mode of closing
this simple narrative. Opinion of the reader ?
I make no pretense as to my way of relating
matters, and what to anybody is the opinion
people have of facts ? You might as well speak of
their opinions about iron or coal or land. Which '
reminds me to state that I intend to make it con-
venient to be at our company's office on Wall
Street about the time the final chapters of this
narrative are due in Charleston ! I am safe, for
the present, from the friends in California ; unless,
indeed, as is sure to be the case sooner or later, I
fear, we have him in Congress ; in which case
there will be one man, at least, stanch as oak in
Washington even !
Few readers of this narrative, to close with due
solemnity, but must have heard something of the
circumstances therein recorded, which got into
certain papers both South and North. If we will
wait awhile, unless I greatly mistake, we will all
of us hear plenty more about him. About him, I
mean, and I inscribe it here in no sense as an
epitaph, whom I designate in these pages as —
MosE Evans.
.^
RARE BOOK
COLLECTION
THE LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA
AT
CHAPEL HILL
Wilmer
80
3^S^^
m