LIBRARY 
 
 iversity cl Ca 
 
 IRVINE
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. J. H. WALWORTH 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE BAR SINISTER," "WITHOUT BLEMISH, 
 
 "OLD FULKERSON S CLERK," "THE NEW MAN 
 
 AT ROSSMERE," " SCRUPLES," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1889, 
 
 BY 
 O. M. DUNHAM. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. THE RECORD OF A DAY, i 
 
 II. A GIRL S FREAK, ... I7 
 
 III. MORE CRUELTY, 28 
 
 IV. Miss RAY IN A PREDICAMENT, 43 
 V. A LOYAL FRIEND, ----- 57 
 
 VI. A VISIT TO BRIARWOOD, - 75 
 
 VII. CONTAINS AN EXPLANATION, - - 90 
 
 VIII. BRIARWOOD UNDER THE SUNSHINE, - 101 
 
 IX. A PROVOST MARSHAL S REIGN, - 115 
 
 X. THE PROVOST S FRIEND, - 128 
 
 XI. HENRY MAKES AN ENEMY, - - 142 
 
 XII. MRS. WHITE TURNS DIPLOMAT, 154 
 
 XIII. THE PROVOST S MAIL, - - - - 168 
 
 XIV. ORDEALS, 182 
 
 XV. RUMOR ON WINGS, ----- 195 
 
 XVI. NELLIE MAKES A NEW FRIEND, 210 
 
 XVII. BETSY, - 224 
 
 XVIII. WHAT DID COME OF IT, - 237 
 
 XIX. SPECTER WINGS, 253 
 
 XX. NELLIE FINDS AN ASYLUM, - - 264
 
 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE RECORD OF A DAY. 
 
 ONLY a rumor! a faint, awe-struck whisper, 
 as illusive as the memory of a troubled 
 dream, as intangible as the breeze that rustled 
 in the restless leaves of the tall cottonwood 
 trees that grew where they listed round about 
 town ; but it was potent to bring all the 
 women and children of Baldy s Point together 
 into anxious and excited conclave. 
 
 No one could tell who first set the horrible 
 whisper afloat. Doubtless some bird of ill 
 omen ; for there were no mail packets in those 
 days, breasting the fierce current of the swollen 
 river as it rushed seaward with its annual spring 
 tribute of ugly black drift-logs; there were no 
 mounted couriers flashing into sight, with glit- 
 ter of saber and jingle of spur, to drop the seed 
 of weal or woe with hurried and indifferent 
 hand ; no newspapers, to keep tally with fate.
 
 2 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 Nothing to link Baldy s Point with the outer 
 world but a huge, sullen-looking gunboat 
 doing sentinel duty out there amid the racing 
 waters. It, on the one side; on the other a 
 townful of women living through empty, 
 objectless days waiting for that which never 
 came. 
 
 Into this stagnation somebody dropped three 
 thrilling words: "Lee has surrendered!" 
 
 The lips that repeated the fateful words 
 trembled with the burden of them, and the ears 
 that received them recoiled with pain. 
 Women derive a mysterious sort of satisfaction 
 from flat contradiction, quite as if the enuncia 
 tion of a negative proved a negative. 
 
 It was simply not so. It could not be true, 
 you know. They did not care in the least who 
 said so ; it was not so. They had prepared 
 their minds for every possible contingency 
 but that identical one. They hated the 
 starter of this rumor with rabid but, in view of 
 the difficulty of identifying him, necessarily im 
 personal animosity. Had they not given up 
 their husbands and fathers and sons and lovers 
 to ward off this very thing? (women argue 
 from the heart.) Such sacrifices as they had 
 cheerfully made could not possibly count for 
 naught. 
 
 Having made sure, individually, by mere
 
 BALDY S POINT. 3 
 
 force of reiteration, that there was absolutely 
 nothing at all at the bottom of this absurd 
 rumor, they rallied in force to discuss the prob 
 able effects of it upon the fortunes of Baldy s 
 Point. They had long since worn that much- 
 put-upon war aphorism, "Woe to the con 
 quered," to a verbal skeleton, but it was hauled 
 into service once more and its bones picked 
 with gruesome deliberation in order to decide, 
 if possible, what sort of woe might be in store 
 for them collectively. 
 
 The bird of ill omen that sowed the seed of 
 consternation in Baldy s Point that soft April 
 day sowed it so industriously that before ten 
 o clock every woman who could possibly get 
 away from her home duties was on the front 
 gallery of Sellers s store. 
 
 Sellers s store had this sudden prominence 
 thrust upon it because somebody had discov 
 ered a travel-worn freedman sound asleep on 
 one of the dusty, much-bewhittled benches that 
 stood on its gallery. Of course, this must be 
 the bird of ill omen. 
 
 Truth to state, as he lay there with an old 
 gunny-sack folded under his head for a pillow, 
 with a dingy bandanna handkerchief covering 
 all of his face but a yawning mouth, into whose 
 cavernous recesses flies of adventurous spirit 
 made frequent incursions with impunity; with
 
 BALDY S 
 
 his huge, upturned feet escaping from the 
 inadequate shelter of a pair of army boots, the 
 ornithologist would either have repudiated 
 him utterly or labeled him "Jail-bird." 
 
 He was still asleep when Mrs. Sellers, the 
 first to arrive, stepped up on the low gallery by 
 aid of an inverted dry-goods box at the yard 
 end of the store. The Sellers lived just back 
 of the store, in the prettiest cottage at Baldy s 
 Point. "Sellers s," standing as it did just 
 where the river road, and the "back-country" 
 road met in Baldy s Point, was a favorite loung- 
 ing-place for wayfarers. Nobody knew where 
 this particular wayfarer hailed from. 
 
 Mrs. Sellers did not attempt to arouse him. 
 He looked formidable. 
 
 She preferred waiting for reinforcements, 
 regarding him, in the mean while, from a safe 
 distance, with the cautious concern one be 
 stows upon an infernal machine presumably 
 loaded with death. 
 
 There was nothing doing in Sellers s store. 
 Over the slumberer s head hung a pretentious 
 and misleading sign "J. Sellers, General Mer 
 chandise and Forwarding Merchant," but for 
 nearly two years now the general merchan 
 dise had been reduced to a lot of hardware 
 under one of the counters, which nobody could- 
 find use for, and, being rather too cumbersome
 
 BALDY S POINT. 5 
 
 for stealing, it had offered no temptation to 
 transgressors. The dingy green wooden shut 
 ters, the bolting of which Mr. Sellers himself 
 used to see to every night, had been burned for 
 kindling-wood ever so long ago, and the "for 
 warding" business was carried on exclusively by 
 the rats between the deserted grocery depart 
 ment and their own abodes. The doors stood 
 open day and night, and Mrs. Sellers could see 
 from where she stood a starveling cow walk 
 boldly up on the back gallery to nose about the 
 spot where the bales of timothy hay, that were 
 bought up North somewhere, used to be piled. 
 Who will say the beasts of the field have no 
 memory ! She was quite sure there had been 
 no hay in that back gallery since that cow s 
 early calfhood. Perhaps if this man s horrible 
 rumor should prove true, Mr. Sellers would 
 soon be at home again, and the store be 
 restocked, and she pulled imagination up with 
 a jerk : was she really predicting pleasant possi 
 bilities on the prospect of Lee s surrender? 
 She blushed hotly at the enormity of her own 
 wickedness, and was glad there were no more 
 visible signs of it than her consciously pink 
 cheeks when Mrs. Davidson joined her, looking 
 anxious and white and plucking wildly at little, 
 close-clinging fragments of dough which orna 
 mented her hands.
 
 6 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 Mrs. Davidson was portly, and she panted as 
 she mounted to the gallery, talking as she 
 plucked at the dough: "I didn t even wait to 
 take my pantry apron off. You know since Amy 
 went to the Yankees I have every bit of my own 
 light bread to make. We would all die of 
 indigestion if I didn t. Who says Lee has sur 
 rendered? Perfectly preposterous, you know!" 
 
 "Nobody can find out unless it s this darky, 
 and I believe he s going to sleep forever." 
 The new word "freedman" was too clumsy for 
 Mrs. Sellers s untrained tongue. "Suppose we 
 wake him now," she added, tentatively. There 
 is strength in numbers. 
 
 Mrs. Davidson approving, a lively and pro 
 longed fusillade of "Uncle! oh, uncle! o-h 
 uncle !" was poured into both of the slumberer s 
 ears simultaneously, without the slightest effect. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph Baker arrived at this juncture, 
 and, with her usual readiness in expedients, 
 said, "Shake him." 
 
 She had her knitting in her fair hands, and 
 the shining needles continued clicking, what 
 ever she did. If gray yarn and knitting-needles 
 could have saved the lost cause, Mrs. Randolph 
 Baker alone would have been worth ten 
 thousand men. The town statistician essayed 
 to keep account of the socks and woolen com 
 forters she made, but gave up the onerous task
 
 BALDY S POINT. ^ 
 
 at the end of the first year of the war. Mrs. 
 Baker was Judge Baker s wife. She used to 
 set the fashions for Baldy s Point before the 
 war, and people had gotten into the habit of 
 looking up to her as good authority on other 
 subjects than dress; that is the reason why, 
 when she said, with that soft, sweet drawl of 
 hers, "Shake him," Mrs. Sellers and Mrs. David 
 son immediately cast about for a clean enough 
 spot on the shoulders of the sleeping monster 
 to seize him by. It was an undertaking that 
 called for discrimination. Fortunately, he 
 saved them the trouble by suddenly opening 
 his eyes to the peril of the situation and sitting 
 bolt upright, to glare at the rapidly increasing 
 group of women about him with an expression 
 of bewilderment bordering on terror. 
 
 They were all there, in fact, by the time the 
 man was well awake. Mrs. McCutchen, who 
 had sent three splendid boys to the army in Vir 
 ginia who had more cause for anxiety than 
 she? She brought the baby along with her. 
 And little Miss Mildred Miller, whose front hair 
 had turned gray, since restoratives had been un 
 procurable, and contrasted violently with the 
 brown braid on the back of the head ; and the 
 widow Barton, for whom the war had already 
 done its very worst ; and sweet-voiced, bright- 
 eyed Fanny Ray. Ah ! she was not patriotic.
 
 8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 She thought it all monstrous. The other wom 
 en viewed her with severe disfavor. 
 
 Each one had her own way of questioning 
 the man on the bench. He was a stranger ; the 
 only person in the whole town whose presence 
 could not be satisfactorily accounted for. 
 Hence he must be the one who had brought 
 the news of Lee s surrender. But though they 
 outnumbered him twenty-five to one; though 
 they exhorted, implored, defied, and badgered 
 him with all the ingenuity known to the sex, 
 they could extract nothing from him but the 
 stolid declaration that he "hadn t come no 
 furder n Watson s place, back on de bayer, en 
 was jus sleepin off de time till he could git t 
 see ef Mrs. Sellers didn want her spring gyar- 
 din spade up." 
 
 After making this statement almost as many 
 times as there were women to hear it, he got 
 up stolidly and walked away from them. Who 
 then ? 
 
 The heavy dews of the morning had long 
 since dried off the grass-grown levee that 
 stretched greenly along the front of the town. 
 The sun had mounted above the tops of the 
 trees that sheltered the Sellers cottage from 
 sight of the store, and still the women lingered, 
 restless, nervous, unsatisfied. From sheer force 
 of habit their eyes would turn toward the levee
 
 BALDY S POINT. 9 
 
 and their gaze be strained toward the distant 
 bend where it turned abruptly to accommodate 
 itself to the curve in the river. Vicksburg was 
 in that direction, and if anything more authen 
 tic than this unplaceable rumor was to come 
 to them that day, it must come from that point. 
 
 It grew hot on the gallery, and Mrs. Sellers s 
 hospitality led the way into the great, dusty, 
 empty store. It was uncheerful in there. The 
 post-office box, with its empty pigeon-holes, 
 adorned with the written names of so many 
 who had gone away never to come back again, 
 stared them in the face from one end of the 
 counter, and stirred up melancholy lines of re 
 flection. The dusty glass show-cases, with 
 nothing inside to show, were such sharp re 
 minders of numberless deprivations ! and how 
 much bitterer defeat would make it all ! 
 
 It was Fanny Ray, whose young eyes had 
 been trained to discern objects at long range 
 since her lover had gone to the war, who 
 brought them all back to the gallery in fresh 
 excitement : There was a man coming down the 
 levee ! She was sure it was a soldier, for he had 
 a soldier s cap on, and a canteen was swinging 
 across his shoulders. 
 
 A score of eyes followed the direction of her 
 index ringer. They mocked at her for pre 
 suming to see so much at such a distance.
 
 10 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 One saw only a mule, browsing on the short, 
 sweet grass of the levee. Another saw the 
 black stump of a tree that had deceived her 
 countless times before. Others saw nothing 
 at all. And even while they argued it, man 
 and canteen and soldier cap all slowly materi 
 alized before the eyes of the most skeptical, 
 and they held their breath while, with steps 
 that were each one taken with pain and diffi 
 culty, he came toward them slowly so slowly 
 that the fierce impatience that was consuming 
 them threatened to break all bounds. 
 
 It was but the wreck of a man who finally 
 stood before them doffing the wreck of a gray 
 hat to them with pathetic courtesy. The feet 
 that had brought him toward them at such a 
 laggard s pace were red and swollen and shoe 
 less. The gray trousers that flapped in frayed 
 fringes about his ankles were scarcely more 
 than unseemly rags. A beard of many months 
 growth hid the extreme hollowness of his 
 cheeks. His eyes glowed with the fires of fever, 
 and their expression was one of absolute despair. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph Baker, peering at him keenly 
 over the rim of her spectacles as he limped to 
 ward them, said, in a low voice: "I do believe 
 that s Henry White." 
 
 It was Fanny Ray who turned upon her in hot 
 indignation : "Henry White ! I should hate him
 
 BALDY S POINT. II 
 
 if he came home looking like that. He could 
 not look like this thing!" Her eyes flashed, 
 her voice, high-pitched in a key of resentment, 
 went further than Mrs. Baker s, found a mark, 
 and inflicted its wound. 
 
 The burning spot on the man s hollow cheeks 
 burned more redly. For a second his eyes were 
 raised in wistful survey of the fresh young face 
 and glowing eyes of the girl who was even then 
 mentally contrasting him with the erect young 
 soldier whose full, beardless face, simply 
 adorned with a sweeping mustache over the 
 upper lip, and whose laughing eyes, as pre 
 served in the photograph before which she had 
 even that morning laid her votive offering of 
 blue and white violets, belonged to the Henry 
 White of her adoration then were dropped 
 upon his swollen, shoeless feet in an attitude 
 of self-abasement. 
 
 No greeting! no waste of polite convention 
 alities. They did not even give him time to 
 reach the dusty bench that offered the extreme 
 luxury to his worn-out frame, before, in their 
 cruel haste, they hurled the question at him: 
 
 "Has Lee surrendered?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He said it doggedly, sullenly, indifferently if 
 you will. He had endured all he could endure. 
 He had exhausted all his emotions. No, not
 
 12 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 all. A flush of indignation mounted high into 
 his sunken temples as the tortured incredulity 
 of the women found heartless expression : 
 "He was a deserter." "He was a traitor." 
 "He said yes because he wanted it to be 
 true." "He had been skulking in the woods 
 until he did not know what the army was doing." 
 "It was not so." "How would he prove it to 
 them?" 
 
 Then he stood up on the gallery in their midst 
 and pointed with a long, thin, sunburned finger 
 toward the river. His arm and finger trembled, 
 either from weakness or emotion, as he held it 
 outstretched. He did not look at them. They 
 were women ; excited, unhappy, nervous wom 
 en. It was hard, though, not to rail out at 
 them for their cruel words. His burning eyes 
 were fastened on a black hulk far away, out in 
 the middle of the river. 
 
 "If it is true, the gunboat out yonder will 
 fire twenty guns at sunset. If it is not true, 
 you will know it then, and you will know, too, 
 that you were right in calling me deserter and 
 traitor. Will any one of you tell me where I 
 can get a drink of water?" 
 
 "Come with me," said Mrs. Sellers, in a 
 voice scarcely louder than a whisper, and she 
 passed out through the back door of the store, 
 with him limping slowly after her.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 1 3 
 
 It was the signal for a general home-going. 
 There was nothing to keep them any longer on 
 the front gallery of Sellers s store. They parted 
 silently. Not even yet would they admit it in 
 words. How long it would be before sunset ! 
 How should they fill up the awful hours 
 between? How readjust their lives to the 
 new conditions? How substitute despair for 
 hope without an outcry against Infinite 
 Justice? 
 
 Fanny Ray wasted no time in such vain 
 speculations. The war was over perhaps 
 and Henry would soon be coming home. She 
 would carry the wonderful news to others. 
 There were lonely women waiting and watching 
 for tidings all around and about Baldy s Point. 
 It took her scarcely longer to have her fleet 
 little mare saddled, to mount it, and start on 
 her errand of enlightenment, than it took Mrs. 
 Sellers to ensconce the tired man who brought 
 the great news to them in a comfortable arm 
 chair, while she went about getting him a lunch 
 eon ready in remorseful haste. 
 
 How brightly the sun shone, in spite of it all ! 
 What a riot of sweet sounds the birds were 
 making there in the woods, twittering and 
 yodling and nest-making and mate-hunting! 
 How springy the newly clothed sod under her 
 horse s hoofs ! What a waste of sweet scents
 
 14 J3ALDVS POINT. 
 
 from the dogwood trees that shed their snowy 
 bloom on the graves of last year s leaves! 
 What a heartless trifler Nature must be to 
 revel so in brightness and bloom at such a tre 
 mendous crisis ! The fish were springing up, 
 out there in the blue water of the lake, that lay 
 miles inland from Baldy s Point, in wanton 
 excess of sportiveness. All the sounds and 
 sights and scents of a fresh spring day enveloped 
 her. She saw three men fishing. She could 
 hear their careless laughter long before she 
 came in sight of them, for the button-willows 
 and sassafras bushes grew close down to the 
 water s edge. She knew who it was : old 
 Colonel Mason, and Jack Mason with his friend. 
 The two young men were home on sick 
 furlough. She reined in her horse to send a 
 thunderbolt hurtling into their midst : 
 
 "Lee has surrendered !" 
 
 To her horror she heard a fervent "Thank 
 God !" and saw an old man s head bared rever 
 ently in prayer. Then she remembered how 
 stubbornly old Colonel Mason had contended 
 for the hopelessness of their cause, and how 
 much bitter invective had been hurled at his 
 reverend white head therefor. She, too, had 
 hated him before this, but as she sped forward 
 she found the echo to that "thank God" bub 
 bling up from her own heart to her lips. The
 
 BALDY S POINT. 15 
 
 war was over Henry would come back thank 
 God! 
 
 She was going even then to carry the news 
 to Henry s mother. Together they would 
 watch the sun go down .that night. Together 
 they would endure the suspense of waiting for 
 those fateful guns. She was glad when the day 
 showed signs of growing old ; glad when the 
 sun sank on a level with the locust trees in the 
 front yard of the house where she sat side by 
 side with Henry White s mother, their hands 
 clasped, their hearts beating tumultuously 
 glad when it sank yet lower, tinging the pure 
 white blossom clusters of the locusts with a 
 touch of pale gold by way of parting benedic 
 tion ; glad when the shadows grew long on the 
 eastern side of the rosebushes that were bending 
 beneath their weights of close-folded buds; 
 glad that the hours of suspense were almost 
 spent. 
 
 It came at last the first gun. The touch of 
 gold faded from the locust blossoms, leaving 
 them pallid and cold. Perhaps it was only the 
 sunset gun, after all. It woke the echoes every 
 evening. Another. The two women saw each 
 other s faces dimly through a mist of tears. 
 The war had been no far-away, martial ab 
 straction to them. Their hearts were torn with 
 conflicting emotions. Another. The cup must
 
 1 6 EALDY S POINT. 
 
 be drained. Defeat was bitter. Again and 
 again, reverberating, remorseless, striking 
 heavily on quivering heart-strings, until the 
 twentieth gun was fired and the end had 
 come. 
 
 In the solemn hush that followed upon that 
 last report the soft click of an upraised latch 
 was audible, and there, limping slowly toward 
 them, weary and worn, was that "thing!"
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A GIRL S FREAK. 
 
 FOUR or five miles still further back than 
 the White place was old Major Wilson s 
 Cedargrove plantation. The far-reaching re 
 verberations of those twenty guns came to his 
 ears and set him wondering. There was no 
 one to tell him what it meant. He clutched 
 the arms of the big chair where he sat in 
 maimed helplessness with a fierce grip. For a 
 year now, he had been what he himself called 
 a "useless hulk." Like poor Ben Battle, of 
 immortal renown, a cannon-ball having taken 
 off his legs, he had laid down his arms. How 
 he would like to order his horse saddled that 
 moment and gallop in to Baldy s Point to find 
 out what those twenty guns meant ! What 
 account would he or old Commodore have 
 made of the twelve intervening miles of rough 
 country roads. He struck the floor savagely 
 with the clumsy wooden crutches that had 
 taken Commodore s place so far as any locomo 
 tion was concerned. In that maimed and help- 
 17
 
 1 8 SALDY S POINT. 
 
 less body the fires of a dauntless spirit burned 
 rebelliously. He had never been baffled in 
 all his life before that sudden, swift-rushing 
 ball had come on an errand less merciful than 
 death. 
 
 A girl s head was suddenly framed in the 
 open window behind his back "Did you 
 thump for me, father?" 
 
 "Did I thump at all?" the Major asked, turn 
 ing his head over his shoulder to look at her. 
 "It was just a sort of wooden expletive, I 
 suppose. Did you hear the guns, Amy?" 
 
 "What guns?" 
 
 "Upon my honor, girl 
 
 "I was turning my palmetto over in the back 
 room" Amy hurried to offer her apology; 
 there seemed a perpetual demand for apologies 
 in those days "and you know what a rust 
 ling it makes. I reckon that s the reason I 
 didn t hear them." 
 
 "You ll turn to a palmetto bush some of 
 these days," the Major said fretfully. "Bring 
 me my pipe, child, will you?" 
 
 "They sell well," Amy answered, turning 
 toward the interior, and reappearing presently 
 on the front gallery with the tobacco caddy and 
 her father s brierwood pipe. "I have an order 
 for two more hats after this one is done." 
 
 "Who from?"
 
 BALDY S POINT. 19 
 
 "Deacon Saunders and Elder Purly," she 
 laughed into his troubled face, and held a light 
 ed match so close to the grizzled mustache that 
 the Major threw his head back violently. 
 
 "Confound it, child, to set fire to my nose ! 
 There are some things a woman never can learn 
 how to do. I hope you find your nigger pat 
 rons good pay. It s all infernal nonsense, your 
 plaiting palmetto hats for every woolly head 
 in the quarters. If you were to sift the plant 
 ation in a lime sieve, you couldn t find five dol 
 lars cash." 
 
 "And couldn t use it if I did," Amy said 
 lightly, but a tired look came over her sweet 
 face. She did not propose to argue it all over 
 again with him. She never had let him know 
 how largely her distasteful work contributed to 
 his own comfort in those moneyless, meager 
 days. She stayed to see his pipe comfortably 
 aright, and then went back into the room where 
 her long coil of plaited palmetto lay, with its 
 unplaited ends in the basin of water by her 
 chair. She would rather take her work out on 
 the front gallery and sit with her father, but 
 the sight of it seemed always to irritate him. 
 She was learning to adjust her life to his 
 whims. Perhaps, some of these days, when he 
 had become more used to his helplessness, he 
 would be less irritable. She worked on indus-
 
 20 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 triously until it grew too dark to piece the ends 
 of the tiny strips of palmetto nicely, then she 
 went out, taking her low, armless rocker with 
 her, and sat down quite close to his side. He 
 put out a large hand and laid it on her head 
 caressingly. It was his way of apologizing for 
 having been harsh with her. 
 
 It grew dark soon on the Cedargrove gallery. 
 The yard was choked with foliage. No one had 
 paid any attention to trimming or pruning for 
 over three years now, and the house sat low on 
 the ground. A fitful breeze sifted through the 
 heavy foliage of the prides-of-China that stood 
 in a solid phalanx along the front of the yard 
 fence. It was their blossom-tide, and the 
 purple clusters that swayed from every twig 
 scented the air with cloying fragrance. Wher 
 ever the china trees were not, in the big front 
 yard, dark, conical cedars were ; and a partial 
 April shower that had scarcely passed beyond 
 the limits of the Cedargrove plantation had 
 sprinkled them and brought out all their resinous 
 sweetness. Thousands of fireflies flitted in 
 and out among their dark branches, with a 
 celerity that multiplied them into a shower of 
 stars. 
 
 "That would be a pretty sight to a stranger," 
 said Amy, by way of making talk. 
 
 "And that," the Major, answered with quer-
 
 BALDY S POINT. 21 
 
 lous inconsequence, as a full orchestral strain 
 arose from the throats of myriad frogs in the 
 horse-pond. 
 
 Amy laughed hopelessly. She had no 
 apology ready for the frogs. There was a loose 
 plank immediately under her chair which 
 creaked responsively to every pressure of the 
 rockers, but the frogs and that creaking plank 
 were practiced in concert, and excited no com 
 ment. The Major s mind had gone back to 
 those unexplained guns. Old Bose, the Major s 
 hound, came softly pattering through the hall, 
 and lay down at his master s feet with a sigh 
 of resignation. He had been prospecting around 
 the kitchen door with a view to finding out 
 when supper would be ready. The Cedargrove 
 cook was lacking in that punctuality which Bose 
 considered a prerequisite to happiness in this 
 world. A badly broken and sunken brick walk 
 led by a strait and narrow way between two 
 close-set rows of dark cedars from the front 
 gate to the gallery where the Major spent the 
 most of his life now. The sound of a hand on 
 the iron latch of the picket gate at the end of 
 this walk made Bose stir restlessly at the 
 Major s feet, and lift his head drowsily to send a 
 semi-hostile growl in the direction of the sound. 
 The front door was open, and the candle that 
 stood on the table in the hall sent a band of
 
 22 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 feeble light out into the obscurity of the yard. 
 Within this band of light presently the advanc 
 ing figure stood fully revealed. He was young, 
 and looked the athlete he was. From the 
 amount of mud that was spattered up to the 
 very top of his boots, which were worn outside 
 his blue cottonade trousers, it was evident he 
 had ridden far and hard. 
 
 "The substitute!" It was Amy who mut 
 tered these two words, with an infinite amount 
 of scorn, and suddenly vacated her chair, 
 slipping around the darkest corner of the 
 house so he might not be witness of her 
 flight. 
 
 The veranda ran around three sides of the 
 house, and all the windows were open to the 
 floor, so she had no difficulty in getting inside, 
 where she groped her way to a seat near one of 
 the front windows. She had caught some words 
 as she turned the corner of the house, which 
 made her eager to hear more, but as she never 
 had been able to treat this obnoxious young 
 man with any civility since he had gone into 
 the army as a paid substitute for another man, 
 been taken prisoner, and finally sent home 
 paroled (some even whispered he had taken 
 the oath), she preferred listening to him from 
 the shelter of the sitting-room curtains. 
 
 Before he was well up on the gallery she had
 
 JBALDY S POINT. 23 
 
 heard him ask her father excitedly, "Have you 
 heard the news?" 
 
 The Major leaned forward with breathless 
 eagerness to say, "No what?" 
 
 "Lee has surrendered." Unasked, the young 
 man flung himself heavily down in the little 
 rocker Amy had just vacated. He breathed 
 hard and excitedly, and took off his hat to mop 
 his forehead. 
 
 "Who says so, sir?" It was the roar of a 
 wounded animal rather than the question of an 
 eager man. 
 
 "Henry White." 
 
 Amy never knew exactly how she happened 
 to find herself back on the front gallery leaning 
 over her father s chair, supporting her trembling 
 form by pressing both hands hard down on 
 his strong shoulders. 
 
 The light from the feeble candle (her own 
 make from beef tallow molded in pieces of 
 cane root) fell full on the substitute s face. 
 It was not a mean face, as by rights it should 
 have been if half the things said about Cap Van 
 Dorn were true ; on the contrary, he carried 
 his well-shaped head rather defiantly, and the 
 eyes that left the Major s stormy face to revel 
 in the grace of Amy s attitude as she leaned 
 over the old man s chair were frank and fearless 
 and bright.
 
 24 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "Henry White," he repeated; "poor fellow!" 
 
 "What s the matter with him?" The Major 
 asked the question contemptuously, as if Henry 
 White s personal sufferings were a matter almost 
 too slight for comment in view of the greater 
 and more general disaster of Lee s surrender. 
 
 "Poor fellow! I guess he s just got home in 
 time to die." 
 
 "Can t you find a chair, child?" the Major 
 said, moving restlessly under Amy s leaning 
 weight. "Your hands are hot and heavy." 
 
 "Ten thousand pardons!" said Cap, springing 
 nimbly to his feet. "I was so absorbed by 
 my news that I forgot my manners." 
 
 "Keep your chair, Mr. Van Dorn ; I will 
 bring a chair." Her voice was scarcely more 
 than a husky whisper. She glided past him 
 and into the house, where she crouched down 
 in the gloom and listened for what was to 
 come. 
 
 The substitute resumed his seat and his nar 
 rative : 
 
 "Well, you see, I rode into Baldy s Point 
 after dinner to see if I could pick up any news, 
 and I tell you things were stirred up there. 
 Every soul I met wanted to tell me the 
 same story over: How a whisper of the surren 
 der had got out this morning nobody knew 
 from where, though they ve since found out
 
 BALDY S POINT. 25 
 
 that it came from old man Ben Dicks, Mrs. 
 Randolph Baker s carriage-driver he used to be, 
 who was out at the gunboat last night trading 
 lettuce and radishes for flour and tobacco, but 
 he was afraid at first to own up to it ; and how 
 finally Henry White limped into town just 
 about done up it seems he was discharged 
 from the hospital at Vicksburg and turned 
 adrift ; and how the women all pounced down 
 on him and abused him like all wrath when he 
 said it was true, and how none of them recog 
 nized him for Henry White small wonder, for 
 he looks about as much like he used to as I look 
 like that hound there at your feet, and how he 
 wouldn t give up his name at first because he 
 caught Miss Fanny Ray s words when she said 
 she d hate him if he came home looking like 
 that thing; and how Mrs. Sellers took him over 
 to her house and gave him some lunch and made 
 him rest, and how he told her first one who he 
 was, and how hard she tried to find some 
 sort of beast to send him out home on, and 
 finally found a mule for him, and all the 
 women 
 
 "Confound Mrs. Sellers and the mule and 
 the rest of the women !" the Major broke in, 
 tempestuously. "I want to hear about Lee 
 and the surrender." 
 
 Cap Van Dorn had his own reasons for being
 
 26 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 very patient with this irate veteran, over and 
 beyond the chivalric pity he felt for the man 
 who had been so suddenly stricken down from 
 a position of power and authority to that of a 
 helpless cumberer of the earth. He was Amy s 
 father ! 
 
 "I am afraid, Major," he answered, unresent- 
 fully, "you ll have to send for Henry White if 
 you want to hear anything more. I ve about 
 told you all I know." 
 
 "I ll do it, sir. Amy!" 
 
 Amy got up from her crouching posture 
 and fled toward the rear of the house. She 
 would not hear him yet awhile. 
 
 "Amy!" 
 
 There was no use affecting deafness any 
 longer. She reluctantly retraced her steps 
 toward the two men. 
 
 "Here I am, father." 
 
 "Hurry up supper, can t you, whik I write a 
 note to Henry White. You ll take it, Van 
 Dorn. I ll send Commodore over there for 
 him after breakfast to-morrow. If he s the boy 
 he used to be, he won t mind riding three or 
 four miles to accommodate a helpless old hulk 
 like me." 
 
 "But, father, he s not the man he used to be," 
 Amy began in a protesting voice, wishing from 
 her heart Fate had never put it into Cap Van
 
 BALDY S POINT. 27 
 
 Dorn s heart that night to come to Cedargrove 
 with this disturbing news. 
 
 But the Major had struggled to his feet and 
 on to his crutches, and stumped past her to the 
 little ink-stained writing-desk that stood in the 
 hall, and began his note with energetic deter 
 mination before she could think of any other 
 objection to offer. 
 
 And then the supper-bell rang, and she had 
 to invite the substitute in to their Confederate 
 meal of corn-meal muffins and fried pork and 
 sassafras tea without any sugar in it, and as 
 soon as decency would permit after it, the 
 Major, consumed with a frenzied hunger for 
 more news, had thrust his note into the young 
 man s hand and urged him to deliver it at 
 Henry White s door before he slept, and so 
 there was no help for it. 
 
 Her cheeks burned and her eyes flashed 
 that night as she thought of her father s impet 
 uosity. 
 
 "He ll think we are selfish brutes and he 
 engaged to Fanny Ray !" 
 
 The two clauses of her sentence had no 
 visible connection with each other.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MORE CRUELTY. 
 
 "[JAN NY RAY, turning her startled glance 
 1 away from the figure all tattered and torn 
 that came slowly limping toward the gallery 
 where she and Henry White s mother sat com 
 forting each other with mute caresses for the 
 first bitterness of defeat, saw something in her 
 companion s face that brought her to her feet 
 with a cry of pain and resentment. 
 
 Mrs. White had suddenly withdrawn the 
 hand that had been laid soothingly about her 
 shoulders, and, encircling her brow with it to 
 aid the failing sight of old age, was scanning 
 the advancing figure curiously. As the girl 
 looked at her she saw curiosity merge itself into 
 wonder, wonder into half-skeptical recognition, 
 then the great light of a mother s deathless 
 love dawned slowly in the faded blue eyes, and 
 illumined her whole face. She half rose to her 
 feet, only to fall back trembling. 
 
 "Mother, don t you know me either?" It 
 came in a \vail from the lips of the wreck as he 
 reached the foot of the front steps and stood 
 28
 
 BALDY S POINT. *$ 
 
 there irresolutely, with hands stretched plead 
 ingly toward the elder woman. He would not 
 even look at the younger one, but his hands 
 dropped heavily to his sides as she sprang 
 passionately to her feet in impetuous protest 
 against this cruel shattering of her beautiful 
 day-dream. 
 
 "It isn t Henry! It can t be Henry! It 
 shan t be ! He had better have died ! Ten 
 thousand times better!" With her hands 
 clasped to her face, resolutely determined not 
 to see in this poor vagabond the stately young 
 lover she had been so proud of, she turned and 
 fled, and at the second when the mother s arms 
 enfolded him in all his unsightly rags, holding 
 him close to her rejoicing heart, a door in the 
 upper hall of the house slammed violently, so 
 violently that the physically worn man trembled 
 at the loud vibration as he had never trembled 
 at the whistling of bullet or the shrieking of 
 shell. 
 
 More than an hour of almost wordless com 
 munion had passed between mother and son 
 when Mrs. White, caressing his long brown 
 beard with a trembling hand, said gently: 
 
 "Fanny did not recognize you, dear; small 
 wonder, this changes you so very much. I 
 must look up some of your old finery. I ve had 
 a time keeping the moths out of your clothes,
 
 3$ BALDY S POINT. 
 
 I can tell you. Tobacco became too costly, 
 and we couldn t get camphor for love or money. 
 Your Scotch tweeds are in a wonderful state of 
 preservation. They used to fit you beautifully, 
 too." The tears slowly welled into her gentle 
 blue eyes as they wandered over the shrunken 
 limbs and stooping shoulders of her boy, but 
 she did not let them fall. Her voice was quite 
 cheerful as she added : "And after you re 
 shaved, and gotten into civilian s clothes, we ll 
 have a good laugh at Fanny for not knowing 
 you. I ll tell Ailsy to keep supper waiting." 
 
 "Let her alone!" 
 
 He said it so sternly that Mrs. White, who 
 had gotten up to go to see about the Scotch 
 tweeds and the supper, sat down again suddenly. 
 
 "Leave who alone Ailsy?" 
 
 "No Fanny Ray. Leave her where she is, 
 mother; we do not need her." 
 
 He said it very bitterly, but very firmly, 
 turning his eyes away from his mother s search 
 ing gaze. It troubled him, even though the 
 shades of night were fast gathering about them 
 where they sat, just where the two women had 
 sat and listened to the twenty guns at sunset. 
 "As for the Scotch tweeds and the supper, 
 that s all right, and the quicker I get into 
 them the better Ailsy will be pleased, I reckon. 
 If I remember, she was never noted for patience.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 31 
 
 But I insist that you don t disturb Fan 
 Miss Ray." 
 
 He got up to go to his own room. His 
 mother, moving by his side said, tremulously : 
 
 "One question, Henry. No other woman 
 She trembled at the anticipation of some 
 stranger, some girl she knew nothing of, coming 
 there to take the place she had yielded up un 
 willingly even to Fanny Ray, although she 
 had known Fanny from the cradle up. 
 
 "No, mother. There s no other woman in 
 volved. All through the war your image and 
 hers have been my inspiration and my solace. 
 Long after I was convinced of the hopelessness 
 of things, I ve looked forward to being com 
 forted for every loss and all the humiliation of 
 it by you and by her. I m afraid in my thoughts 
 it was always her and then you. Forgive me, 
 dear, if I m a trifle shaken by it. I ve pitied 
 the fellows who had no mother and no sweet 
 heart to go back to. But it will all come right 
 soon enough, I reckon. At any rate, mother, 
 I ve got you, and you ve got me," and he 
 halted there in the hall to give her a sup 
 plementary kiss. 
 
 "Fanny is devoted to you, son," his mother 
 said magnanimously. 
 
 "Was." 
 
 "The day never passes that she don t wreathe
 
 32 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 that photograph you had taken for her with 
 fresh flowers." 
 
 "She has been doing homage to a memory." 
 
 "Oh, but, dear, you ll soon be the same old 
 Henry." 
 
 "I hope not, mother. Indeed, if I have any 
 will power left in me I will not." 
 
 "Henry! I don t in the least understand 
 you." 
 
 "Perhaps not, dear: you will later on. I 
 believe I m too tired for a lengthy discussion 
 of anything to-night. If you ll lay out the 
 tweeds I ll join you again after I ve made my 
 self decent." 
 
 She turned and left him in his own bedroom, 
 after laying the tweeds to his hand. Nothing 
 in the room had been altered since that morn 
 ing when he had ridden away looking so gay 
 and bright and confident in his new gray uni 
 form. No one but herself had ever gone in 
 there, excepting, once or twice, Fanny Ray, 
 "just to have a good cry all by herself." Poor 
 Fanny ! she would like to go to her now and 
 comfort her for her disappointment. But Henry 
 had looked so very stern when he said, "Leave 
 her alone," that she really thought it best to 
 obey him. Henry had always been a trifle mas 
 terful, and she did not mean to cross him on 
 this the very first night he was at home. So,
 
 BALDY S POINT. 33 
 
 instead of turning upstairs to the room Fanny 
 always occupied when she came out to the 
 plantation, she went toward the back door, 
 and groped her way down the steps to the 
 kitchen, which set out in the yard quite a little 
 way. 
 
 Three years before, she would have rung the 
 little hand-bell that set on the sideboard in the 
 dining-room, for her cook to come to her for 
 orders. But things had changed considerably 
 in three years, and as Ailsy was very old, and 
 not particularly good-tempered at the best, 
 policy dictated her going down the back steps 
 and across the yard to where Ailsy sat in the 
 kitchen door smoking a very highly flavored 
 pipe, by way of solacing herself for the late 
 hour to which supper was being kept. 
 
 "What have you for supper, anyhow, Ailsy?" 
 Mrs. White asked in a conciliatory voice, 
 peering over her cook s shoulders toward the 
 spot where a red glow located the kitchen stove. 
 
 "De same ole sev n en six," Ailsy answered, 
 rising stiffly from the door-sill to knock the ashes 
 from her pipe. "Whar I gwine git enny fattnin 
 calf fur de progigal son on dis short notus?" 
 
 Ailsy had been around to the front gallery 
 and greeted the returned soldier as cordially as 
 was compatible with the fact that he was a "reb 
 solger" and she was a free lady.
 
 34 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "Fse got some okry coffee, en some homly, 
 en some corn dudgers. En them es thinks dey 
 kin beat ole Ailsy at mekin uv corn dudgers 
 is welcome t try." 
 
 "We couldn t add a few scrambled eggs, I sup 
 pose?" Mrs. White suggested, persuasively. 
 
 "We could, I "spose, ef der were any eggs t 
 scramble, but dey aint nary egg in dat safe, an* 
 I lows I ain gwine to dat hen-house to git bit 
 by no rattlesnake nor mocsun nuther, dis time 
 er night not fur Mars Abe Linkum hisseff." 
 
 Mrs. White disappeared noiselessly. The 
 grass and weeds in the back yard had been 
 running riot for months. There was no one to 
 mow them down for her. Ailsy s fear of rattle 
 snakes and moccasins was by no means ground 
 less. The poultry yard afforded them excellent 
 foraging ground. But if there were any eggs 
 beyond those rank weeds and matted grass, 
 they should be on the table by the time Henry 
 was ready to sit down to it. Provided with 
 the lantern she had taken from the kitchen 
 table, she sped with the swiftness of a girl 
 across the absurdly capacious yard. The grass 
 was wet, and her feet were only protected by a 
 pair of cloth shoes which she had made for 
 herself, stitching the new, clumsy "uppers" on 
 to a pair of old soles, and there was the possi 
 bility of snakes, that lent extra swiftness to her
 
 BALDY S POINT. 35 
 
 motions. She returned soon in triumph, and 
 laid the eggs before Ailsy, who looked from 
 them to her somewhat superciliously : 
 
 "Well, I lows you is in a hurry to spoil dat 
 boy. He do look like he need fat nin up, 
 doa, sho. Dat w at he git fer fightin ginst 
 Mars Abe Linkum." 
 
 "Never mind that now, Ailsy," said Mrs. 
 White quickly she had nearly reached the 
 limits of endurance; "just see that the supper 
 comes in hot, such as it is." Then, after giv 
 ing very minute directions for to-morrow s 
 breakfast, she hurried back to the dining-room, 
 to make the best of a poor matter there. She 
 looked at the meager appointments of the 
 table ruefully. It was furnished forth with 
 odds and ends. Everything had given out or 
 been broken or stolen since Henry went away, 
 and she hadn t cared at all for it up to that 
 moment. 
 
 "So fastidious as he used to be, too!" she 
 said aloud, disgustedly turning the cracked edge 
 of a saucer away from the door so it shouldn t 
 be the first sight his eye rested on when he 
 entered the dining-room. 
 
 "I ve had all that sort of nonsense knocked 
 out of me, mother," he said, very close behind 
 her, "and it s luxury just to be under the old 
 roof- once more."
 
 36 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "You won t think so when it gets to raining. 
 The roof leaks awfully, son. But it is nice to 
 have you back in your old place. I hope you ll 
 be able to eat our rough fare. I hear Mrs. 
 Davidson has biscuit and light bread whenever 
 she wants them, but goodness only knows how 
 she gets the flour. Some people say she trades 
 with the gunboat, gets old Manuel to carry 
 out butter and eggs in his own name to trade 
 it for flour and coffee, but I would hate to 
 think it was true. I d rather eat my bolted 
 corn-meal and burnt okra coffee forever than 
 to trade with the enemy. You were always so 
 fond of waffles, too. I came near forgetting 
 myself a little while back and telling Ailsy she 
 must have waffles for your breakfast. Dear 
 me, if I only could set the table I used to!" 
 
 He had come in very softly. He was 
 dressed in the old Scotch tweeds and luxuri 
 ating in slippers which made him feel quite like 
 a prince in the matter of habiliment. His 
 mother, hovering over the meager supper- 
 table, anxious to make the best of everything 
 for his sake, looking so much older and grayer 
 than when he had gone away from home, now 
 as ever self-oblivious and lamenting over his 
 enforced participation of the hardships that 
 had been her daily portion for years, assumed 
 the proportions of a heroine in his eyes, and
 
 BALDY S POINT. 37 
 
 before he seated himself at the table he 
 folded her once again in his arms. 
 
 "Darling mother, thank God I ve come back 
 to one heroine ! Thank God, you, at least, if 
 you have changed, have only become a truer, 
 grander, more adorable woman." 
 
 "You ridiculous boy ! me an adorable wom 
 an? Fanny ll be jealous. She s very fond of 
 you, dear; indeed she is. Now I ll tell Ailsy 
 we re quite ready for her." 
 
 His face had clouded stormily at mention of 
 Fanny s name, and he moved away from her 
 side silently, to take his place at table. He was 
 sick at heart. This was not the home-coming 
 he had been picturing to himself for many 
 months. He heard, without heeding, his 
 mother s plaintive complaint over Ailsy s tardi 
 ness in bringing him up the poor supper. He 
 saw, without sympathy, her look of discontent 
 as the muddy stream of okra coffee flowed slug 
 gishly from the spout of the coffee-pot. How 
 trifling all these little domestic affairs seemed 
 just then ! He remembered with shame the 
 importance he had once attached to a muddy 
 cup of coffee. What a worthless sybarite he 
 had been in those days of luxury and leisure ! 
 
 "You know, son," Mrs. White said plaint 
 ively, "we haven t seen a grain of real coffee in 
 two years. I m quite sure you can t drink this
 
 38 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 stuff." She came over from the head of the 
 table to put his cup down by his plate. Then 
 she sat down by his side. The length of the 
 table was too much space between them. 
 
 He swallowed the hot mixture heroically. 
 "It s ambrosia nothing short of it, mamma!" 
 He laughed, laughed into her anxious eyes for 
 her sake. How strangely it sounded to him and 
 to her ! Even his laugh was changed. Every 
 thing was changed. Nothing would ever again 
 be as it used to be. It was hard not to let 
 the tears come. While he ate, she poured a 
 plaintive stream of information into his ears. 
 How could she help telling him everything? It 
 was so sweet to feel he had come back to carry 
 the load for her once more. He listened very 
 patiently. The clattering sound of a horse s 
 galloping feet came in to them presently through 
 the open window of the dining-room. 
 
 "Some one riding a shod animal," Henry 
 said, putting the last of the scrambled eggs on 
 his plate. "I thought, from what Mrs. Sellers 
 told me, horses and mules were rather scarce 
 about here just now." 
 
 "They are." Mrs. White lifted the lid of the 
 coffee-pot to pry anxiously into its dark depths : 
 suppose Henry should ask for another cup of 
 the stuff! "I don t know of half a dozen 
 decent beasts left in the country. Cap Van
 
 BALDY S POINT. 39 
 
 Dorn manages always to have a horse to ride, 
 but then he has his own way of doing every 
 thing." 
 
 "That sounds like a slam at Cap. He used 
 to be a prince of good fellows, and a prime 
 favorite of yours. What has he been doing to 
 get into your black books?" 
 
 "Hello the house!" 
 
 "There! It s somebody for here." Mrs. 
 White put down the coffee-pot energetically. 
 Events were certainly crowding upon each 
 other s heels. The lusty. "Hello the house!" 
 was repeated before Henry had time to get to 
 the front door and respond : 
 
 "Hello yourself!" 
 
 "Has Mr. White gone to bed?" 
 
 "No. Who s that and what do you want?" 
 
 "It s Cap Van Dorn, and wait." 
 
 "He certainly must think you are anxious to 
 see him." Mrs. White had followed her son to 
 the front door, and made this comment in a 
 resentful undertone close at his ear. "I sup 
 pose he wants to resume the old footing before 
 you ve heard 
 
 But there was no time for anything more. 
 Cap Van Dorn had mounted to the gallery 
 almost at a leap. His voice was husky as he 
 said, "Old fellow ! dear old fellow !" and seized 
 Henry White s emaciated hands to wring them
 
 4 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 affectionately. "I know Mrs. White would 
 like to fling me over the garden palings," he 
 said in lighter vein, as he moved in with them 
 toward the interior, "but I assure you my com 
 ing here to-night was not a voluntary thing. 
 I happened to let out to Major Wilson that 
 you had gotten home, Hank, and nothing would 
 do but I must give you this note before I slept. 
 Why" he fumbled excitedly in one pocket 
 after the other. 
 
 While he was looking for the note, Henry 
 White was scrutinizing him closely. His 
 mother had already thrown out two hints that 
 Cap Van Dorn was deservedly under condem 
 nation in the neighborhood, but he had not 
 the air of a man who was conscious of deserving 
 such condemnation. He held his head as de 
 fiantly as of old, and Cap had always carried 
 himself proudly. His eye was as keen and full 
 as ever of "blue lightning," as the boys used to 
 call it. His hair was a trifle long, and he 
 looked rough enough with his trousers, the 
 fruit of the plantation loom, stuffed into a pair 
 of old army boots. 
 
 "Ah, here it is !" He laid the note in Henry s 
 hand. "And now I m off. No supper, thank 
 you, Mrs. White" this in response to a reluc 
 tant invitation. "Miss Amy was kind enough 
 to give me some before I left the Major s. I m
 
 BALDY S POINT. 41 
 
 not such a brute as to want to divide Hank 
 with you this first night. But I did think it 
 was worth my while riding a mile or two out 
 of my way just to shake the old fellow s hand. 
 You ll let me come over soon and have a com 
 prehensive talk-over with you?" Mrs. White 
 stayed behind this time, while Henry walked to 
 the front door, leaning on his friend s arm as in 
 the olden days. 
 
 It would go hard with him but he would sift 
 the charges against Cap very thoroughly be 
 fore casting him out of his affections. Had 
 the substitute divined his thoughts? It would 
 seem so. 
 
 "Henry," he said, very gravely, turning on 
 the threshold to rest both hands on his friend s 
 shoulders, "you re going to hear a lot of rubbish 
 about me. I m in bad odor in the neighbor 
 hood. The women quite hate me. And if 
 they were right in thinking what they do about 
 me, they would owe it to themselves to hate 
 me. It would have taken more words than 
 I cared to waste on the thing to set matters 
 right with all of them, so I ve just let it go. 
 But I don t want you to join in the hue and 
 cry against me until 
 
 "I ll never join in any hue and cry against 
 you, Cap, until 
 
 "Until what?"
 
 42 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "Until by your own confession you prove to 
 me that you are changed in character from the 
 old Cap Van Dorn I loved." 
 
 He could feel the quiver that passed through 
 the strong frame of the young man, but he 
 could barely catch the whispered "God bless 
 you, old fellow!" that fell huskily from his 
 lips, before he clattered down the front steps in 
 his clumsy boots, mounted his horse, and dashed 
 furiously back over the road he had come. 
 
 "Was it worth his while to interrupt you at 
 the first meal in your own home for that?" said 
 Mrs. White, looking resentfully at the note 
 which had been the cause of the okra coffee s 
 growing cold and the scrambled eggs clammy 
 and the corn dodgers petrifying. 
 
 "I m glad he came," said Henry, indifferently 
 gulping down the remnant of his unappetizing 
 supper in a way that made his mother gaze at 
 him in mute amazement. "And he used to be 
 so fastidious!" she murmured regretfully.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MISS RAY IN A PREDICAMENT. 
 
 MRS. WHITE had long since passed the 
 age when she believed it possible to sub 
 sist on the emotions. Fanny might be very 
 unhappy shut in upstairs there, but she must, 
 also, be desperately hungry by this time. She 
 wouldn t hurt Henry s feelings by seeming to 
 approve of "the child s nonsense," but so soon 
 as ever he should go to bed she really must 
 carry Fanny up something to eat. It would 
 be a comfort, too, to "have it out" with Fanny, 
 and show her how absurdly she was acting. 
 Then she wanted to complain to her of Major 
 Wilson s unreasonable request, that Henry 
 should come over there the next day. 
 Couldn t they let her have her boy all to her 
 self for one little day? 
 
 She found Miss Ray in a pathetic heap on 
 the bed. She had sobbed herself into a state 
 of exhaustion, and was looking excessively red 
 about the eyes and swollen about the nose. 
 
 "You know, my dear," Mrs. White began, 
 without preamble, "you are acting very un- 
 43
 
 44 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 kindly." She sat down on the side of the bed 
 and put her offering of cold corn-dodgers and 
 sweet milk close enough to Fanny s red and 
 swollen nose to have tempted her through that 
 organ if the viands had not been absolutely 
 odorless. "Of course, poor dear Henry does 
 not look as if he had jusj; stepped out of a 
 bandbox. And if you d spend nine months in 
 one of those horrrid military prisons, your 
 beard would be long and shaggy, too, and if 
 you d had to wear the same clothes for 
 
 "Hush! oh, hush! I ve been trying to for 
 get how he looks. He used to be the perfec 
 tion of neatness. Oh, I wish I had died before 
 he ever came home looking like that ! I am 
 never going to look at him again. I m going 
 home to-morrow before breakfast, and I m 
 going to to oh ! I wish there was a convent 
 somewhere, where 
 
 "A lunatic asylum, you mean," said Mrs. 
 White tartly. Her patience, which was enor 
 mous, was finally exhausted. She rose from 
 the bedside in angry haste, shaking it so that 
 the milk dropped over on to the corn-dodger, 
 which did not improve Miss Ray s Confederate 
 supper. 
 
 Up to that moment she had been steadily 
 reminding herself of the fact that Fanny Ray 
 had a great deal of excuse for feeling just as
 
 BALDY S POINT. 45 
 
 she did. Herself as dainty and pure looking 
 as a field-daisy, her returned lover s appearance 
 must have been an awful shock to her. Then 
 Fanny was very young, and had always been so 
 systematically indulged by her whole family 
 that she had come to look for like considera 
 tion of her wishes at the hands of fate. Fanny 
 herself had meant that Henry should go 
 off to fight the battles of his country in a beau 
 tiful new uniform and on a prancing horse 
 which he had done ; and to come back, after 
 annihilating the enemy, covered with gold lace 
 and glory which he had not done. And her 
 grief at the turn events had taken partook 
 largely of resentment. She had consumed the 
 evening drawing bitter contrasts between the 
 forlorn man who had come back, with the 
 buoyant youth who had gone away, and Henry 
 suffered by the contrast. 
 
 "I was going to tell you," said Mrs. White, 
 turning upon her as she reached the door, "that 
 Major Wilson has sent a note to ask Henry if 
 he won t ride over there to-morrow morning 
 and give him all the war news. It s natural for 
 the poor old man to be impatient to hear it 
 all, but he might have let Henry rest a little. 
 He s going to send Commodore over for him 
 to ride. I hope you won t be so foolish as to 
 take that long ride back to Baldy s Point on an
 
 46 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 empty stomach. I will see that you get some 
 breakfast as soon as Henry starts. Of course I 
 won t ask you to breakfast with him, under the 
 circumstances." 
 
 "I m going home before breakfast. He 
 must quite hate me by this time. But but 
 I could not help it." 
 
 It was the first glimmer of apology. Mrs. 
 White seized upon it eagerly. Things would 
 come right yet. She didn t want Henry to lose 
 Fanny. She had been training herself for 
 Fanny s mother-in-law for three years now, 
 doing a little incidental training of Fanny too, 
 and it would be a pity to have to commence all 
 over again with some other girl. Moreover, 
 the Rays were pre-eminently desirable connec 
 tions, and the Ray plantation, so far, had 
 suffered less than any place in the county. If 
 possible, she would much rather adjust matters 
 on the old basis. Good and gentle woman as 
 she was, Mrs. White was not devoid of a 
 modicum of worldly wisdom. 
 
 "I should hate for you and Henry not to 
 be friends, Fanny. You d better just come 
 down in the morning and make sort of light of 
 it, you know; your not recognizing him, you 
 know." 
 
 But Fanny had not passed her tragic years. 
 
 "Make light of it ! Make light of losing my
 
 BALDY S POINT. 47 
 
 bright, handsome, dashing lover! Make light 
 of having my cherished memory of him torn 
 up by the roots ! Oh ! you cruel, cruel woman !" 
 
 She had sat up among the pillows to hurl 
 this reproach at the age-hardened woman in the 
 doorway, and at its climax fell back among 
 them again, sobbing bitterly. 
 
 Mrs. White turned away from the room, and 
 shut the door behind her with a degree of 
 emphasis that was entirely wasted for lack of 
 somebody to appreciate it. Fanny was con 
 scious only of herself, and Henry was blissfully 
 unconscious of everything, wrapped in the pro 
 found slumber that came of extreme physical 
 exhaustion. 
 
 He was awake very early the next morning. 
 What a luxurious awakening it was, too ! Soft 
 pillows under his tired head, grown used to 
 prison hardships ; fleecy blankets over him 
 how superfine their excellence, by contrast ! 
 The tinted walls of his own bedroom, inclosing 
 him almost as in a welcoming embrace; the 
 old pictures, and the hanging shelves with his 
 own books on them, and the familiar majolica 
 vases on the mantel-shelf that used to get 
 crowded up to the brim with everything that 
 did not properly belong in a flower-vase, and 
 his old straw hat on the hook behind the closet 
 t door what luxury to lie there and renew ac-
 
 48 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 quaintance with it all ; with the many peaceful 
 sounds of early morning in the country floating 
 in to him through the open dormer window, 
 whose white muslin curtain was swaying softly 
 backward and forward in the fresh morning 
 breeze. It pleased him to call it his flag of 
 truce a truce to all the pain and the hardship 
 and the privations he had undergone so willingly 
 but so uselessly. He wondered why he did not 
 feel Fanny Ray s cruelty more keenly. Had he 
 become case-hardened? Had he been exposed 
 to the fierce heat of men s warring passions 
 with such effect that a girl s petulant outcry 
 against the inevitable failed to touch him? He 
 was quite sure he had been as faithful to the 
 memory of this girl as she could possibly have 
 been to his; and yet here he was, quietly 
 felicitating himself on clean sheets and soft 
 pillows and the peace of being at home once 
 more, in spite of the cruel attitude she had 
 assumed toward him ! If he had carried his 
 analysis a little deeper he would have discov 
 ered the great underlying imperative fact of 
 his own anatomy. He had been such an indi 
 vidual nonentity while a soldier that now, when 
 the strain was removed, nature asserted her 
 rights violently and would not be denied. 
 But he did not carry his analysis any further. 
 He heard the sound of a pacing horse, and
 
 BALDY S POINT. 49 
 
 turned over languidly on his side to wonder 
 why Major Wilson had sent Commodore over 
 for him at such a godless hour of the morning. 
 His bed was one of those immensely high, old- 
 fashioned four-posters that one has to climb up 
 into, and the windows of his room were open 
 almost down to the floor, so where he lay he 
 could command a long stretch of the green 
 and grassy road that skirted the front of the 
 plantation and led toward Baldy s Point. Into 
 his line of vision there presently swept the 
 pacing horse and its rider. It was Fanny Ray 
 carrying her threat of going home before break 
 fast into energetic execution. How prettily 
 she sat her horse ! It was her daring horseman 
 ship that had first attracted him to her. And 
 how .lithe and trim her form, with its sloping 
 shoulders and rounded waist ! Not even the 
 clumsy blue cottonade skirt and the rough 
 palmetto hat, tied down under her chin with a 
 faded piece of pink ribbon, could disfigure her. 
 He watched her until she was out of sight ; 
 then said, audibly, with a bitter compression of 
 his lips, "So endeth that chapter. The next?" 
 "Why shouldn t you go with me, mother?" 
 he said, an hour later, when the Wilson visit 
 came up for discussion. "You ll be lonelier to 
 day if I leave you than if I hadn t come back 
 at all."
 
 5 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "I was thinking that myself," Mrs. White 
 said ruefully, "but there isn t a mule or a horse 
 on the place, so far as I know." 
 
 "If I remember rightly, old Commodore 
 works as well in shafts as under the saddle. 
 We might go in the buggy." 
 
 "What buggy?" 
 
 "Why, your buggy, of course." 
 
 "Webb and Dilsy rode away in style to 
 Vicksburg in it a year ago." 
 
 There was no bitterness in her voice. These 
 things had come to be too much a matter of 
 course for resentment ; in fact, had furnished 
 food for half-hearted merriment during the war. 
 Webb had been her carriage-driver, and Dilsy 
 her chambermaid. She had missed them very 
 much more than she had the buggy. But she 
 would like to go with Henry. 
 
 "I tell you what we could do, son," she said, 
 rather timidly. "If you wouldn t mind driving 
 the dumping-cart, I could put a chair in it and 
 go nicely. I ve been wanting to get over to 
 the Wilsons for a month. Amy cures her pal 
 metto differently from any I ve seen, and I 
 want to show her how to make bluing out of 
 that miserable little yellow weed we ve always 
 thought the most useless thing in the world. But 
 perhaps you wouldn t like to drive the cart." 
 
 "Why not?"
 
 BALDY S POINT. 51 
 
 "It isn t very stylish, you know, and you 
 used to be so very particular about little 
 things." 
 
 "That was before I had any big things to be 
 particular about," he said, smiling gravely down 
 into her anxious face. "If you can stand the 
 dumping-cart, and Commodore can, I m quite 
 sure I shant object. Commodore used to be 
 quite a swell himself when the Major and he 
 were tricked out for a ride." 
 
 "Poor Major!" Mrs. White said it cheer 
 fully (the Major was an old story), and hurried 
 off to see about the dumping-cart and to 
 inspect the harness, which was, after all, but a 
 thing of odds and ends that sat clumsily 
 enough on Commodore s sleek body. 
 
 Never in her palmiest days, when stepping, 
 into her brett, drawn by the handsomest pair 
 of grays in the county, and further adorned 
 by Webb s imposing form on the high driver s 
 box, did Mrs. White make a greater display of 
 dignity than she did on that morning when 
 clambering into her seat in the dumping-cart. 
 Indeed, it was an occasion that demanded the 
 full exercise of all the dignity she could com 
 mand, for that wretched little darky, Tony, 
 who was holding the shafts down so that the 
 cart should not dump inopportunely, was mak 
 ing a very disrespectful display of his white
 
 52 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 i 
 
 teeth, and even Henry, who looked so much 
 handsomer this morning since he had shaved 
 off all that horrid hair on his face, leaving 
 only his long mustache, seemed inclined to 
 smile. 
 
 But it was very nice jolting along through 
 the sweet-smelling woods with him, and, her 
 tongue being once loosed by the exhilaration 
 of a change, she out-chattered the blackbirds 
 that ran from the peach orchard and flew 
 before them in black clouds as they advanced. 
 
 "Why!" 
 
 Commodore had shied violently and set her 
 to rocking in her splint-bottomed chair like a 
 vessel in a stormy sea. 
 
 "There s a side-saddle in the road," said 
 Henry, glancing down at the object which had 
 so alarmed Commodore. 
 
 "And it s Fanny Ray s!" Mrs. White 
 clutched the sides of the cart to lean over 
 and make sure. "Yes, there s no mistaking it, 
 it s Fanny Ray s." 
 
 "She has been thrown, then." Henry 
 dropped the reins and stood up in the cart to 
 look about him. The road was a plain wagon 
 road leading through the woods, at that point. 
 The trees crowded close up to it on either 
 side. There was nothing visible but a lean cow 
 biting off the succulent heads of some young
 
 BALDY S POINT- S3 
 
 cane shoots. He sat down with a sigh of 
 anxiety, and gathered up the reins once 
 more. 
 
 "Perhaps," said Mrs. White, consoling the 
 anxiety she saw in his face, "her girth broke 
 and she couldn t mend it. I think her mare is 
 perfectly safe, and she s quite capable of riding 
 on, just on her saddle blanket." 
 
 This was a cheerful view of the case, and 
 Henry got down from the cart somewhat 
 slowly and laboriously, for his feet were un 
 trustworthy yet, and, securing the side-saddle, 
 put it into the cart and drove on a little 
 further for, perhaps, after all, she had not 
 ridden home on the saddle-blanket. He drew 
 Commodore up with a violent jerk before he 
 had proceeded three yards further. There, 
 placidly nibbling the short grass along the 
 roadside, was Miss Ray s little roan mare, free 
 from bridle or bit. And there, sitting on a 
 fallen log, holding the bridle helplessly in her 
 hand, sat Miss Ray herself. She was intensely 
 pale when she first glanced up gladly at the 
 sound of wheels, but flushed crimson when she 
 identified the travelers. 
 
 Of all the predicaments for a woman to be 
 thrown into ! Fate certainly had a spite against 
 her! 
 
 "Are you hurt, Fanny?" Mrs. White projec-
 
 54 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 ted her voice shrilly ahead of her to ask 
 anxiously. 
 
 She did not answer. From under the rim of 
 her rough palmetto hat, whose shape had not 
 been improved by her fall, she was taking swift 
 mental note of several facts : Now that that 
 awful beard was gone, Henry looked a little 
 like his old self. He was shockingly thin, and 
 the Scotch tweeds hung on him baggily, but he 
 was very handsome yet. His eyes didn t look 
 bloodshotten and hideous as they had when 
 he had come limping into Baldy s Point. How 
 stern he looked ! Of course he hated her now, 
 and and he was going to spend the day at 
 Amy Wilson s. They were abreast of her now, 
 and he was standing before her repeating his 
 mother s question quietly. 
 
 "Are you hurt? You will let me help you, 
 I hope." 
 
 "My ankle turned under me as I fell, and I 
 can t stand up. If you will kindly catch and 
 saddle my horse for me, perhaps I can ride on." 
 
 "Nonsense ! it s not to be thought of, Henry." 
 Thus Mrs. White from the altitude of her chair 
 in the cart. "Just put her right in here. We d 
 be having her faint next. She doesn t know 
 anything about a sprained ankle ; she couldn t 
 put it in the stirrup. Fanny, do-don t act like 
 an obstinate child!"
 
 BALDY S POINT. 55 
 
 "Will you see first if you can stand up on 
 your foot?" 
 
 He offered her his hand ; she put hers in it. 
 She never once lifted her eyes to his face ; she 
 could not. It was all so strange and unreal ! 
 He and she meeting thus, touching hands thus, 
 talking thus, she and the man who had sworn 
 to love each other forever and forever. She 
 rose swiftly to her feet, only to fall back on the 
 log with a cry of pain. 
 
 "Pardon me, but we are merely wasting 
 time. I am afraid your judgment is at fault 
 again." 
 
 There was a strong infusion of bitterness on 
 the word "again." He held her hand firmly in 
 his grasp while, with his arm about her waist, 
 he half carried her toward the cart. Mrs. 
 White lent her two strong and willing hands to 
 the task of hoisting the young lady into the 
 cart from which she had considerately removed 
 the tail-board, and when all was done that cir 
 cumstances would permit of for her comfort, 
 Henry gravely resumed his place on the board 
 across the front of the dumping-cart, and shook 
 the rope-reins over Commodore s back. 
 
 It was a mute drive. An outsider would have 
 seen the element of the ridiculous largely pre 
 dominant in it all. But there were no outsiders 
 there, unless, indeed, it was Commodore, and
 
 56 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 this whole jaunt was a purely business transac 
 tion with him. 
 
 Mrs. White was thinking, comfortably, how 
 nicely Fate had arranged to bring these two 
 young people together again ; and now, barring 
 the pain in poor Fanny s swollen ankle, every 
 thing was as right as could be ; she was inclined 
 to be talkative, but met with no encouragement. 
 Fanny was thinking that it would have been 
 much kinder of that miserable little pony, 
 whom they had left in the woods to find her 
 own way home, to have killed her outright than 
 to have left her to be carried home in a dump 
 ing-cart by the man whom she had repudiated 
 and insulted twice in twenty-four hours. And 
 Henry was thinking that perhaps he ought to 
 be thankful for having found out the purely 
 selfish nature of the girl he had asked to be his 
 wife, before they had taken upon them those 
 irrevocable vows that bind so many uncon 
 genial spirits together for life. He was a poor 
 man now, and had absolutely nothing but him 
 self to offer any woman, and M ss Ray had 
 been very prompt in expressing an opinion of 
 that "self." It was a relief to all three of them 
 when the really suffering girl was finally trans 
 ferred from their keeping into her mother s, 
 and the cart was once more on the Wilson road.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A LOYAL FRIEND. 
 
 IIJT ITE folks cert n y is onreasonable. 
 VV Chile, does you know what day er de 
 week dis is?" 
 
 The cook at Cedargrove suspended the hand 
 scrub-brush with which she was vigorously 
 scouring her kitchen shelves, to make this 
 chronological inquiry of Amy, who stood look 
 ing at her with a queer admixture of apprehen 
 sion and resolution in her eyes. 
 
 "Friday," the "child" answered, with the 
 promptness of a well-regulated calendar. 
 
 "En does yer know what termorrer 11 be?" 
 
 "Saturday." 
 
 "Well, den, does yer know w at gwine happ n 
 de Sund y-day arter dat Saterday?" 
 
 Amy projected her mind forward by two 
 days, then said apologetically, quite as if she 
 stood self-convicted of an enormous share of 
 that "onreasonableness" which her cook had 
 divided impartially among w ite folks gen 
 erally : 
 
 57
 
 5 8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "Oh, I forgot! Protracted meeting begins 
 on Sunday." 
 
 "Kose you forgits. W ite folks mos genully 
 do forgits, dese days. But doa I ain forgit. 
 Dat w at I sumin all my Friday fur er-scourin 
 stidder Saturday, kase Fse got mo n nough t 
 do t morrer wid a starchin uv my w ite ruffle 
 petticoat en a-borrerin uv Sis Santhy s year- 
 rings t w ar t stracted meetin , en her livin 
 plum t yother side er place. Cert n y dese is 
 times uv refreshin , bless de Lam, en yhere 
 you come pest rin bout a puddin fur dinner! 
 W ite folk cert n y is onreasonable. W at good 
 pudding gwine do yo everlastin soul w en de 
 debbil summon you, tell me dat, chile?" 
 
 It had been a plea for the honored guest 
 that Commodore would presently bring to 
 Cedargrove in triumph. If she could have pre 
 vented the sending of that note by Cap Van 
 Dorn she certainly would have done so, but if 
 Henry White actually was imminent she 
 should like to make something of a festa of it. 
 There was no danger of his thinking she was 
 "making too much of him," for hadn t she been 
 the very friend to whom he had confided his 
 intention of proposing to Fanny Ray? How 
 old Henry had always seemed to think her! 
 He used to ask her advice as if she had been 
 years and years older than himself instead of
 
 ALDY S POINT. 59 
 
 one whole year younger. She supposed 
 motherless girls always were old. 
 
 These reminiscent thoughts chased each 
 other through Amy s brain as she advanced 
 boldly into the kitchen, resolutely unfolding a 
 piece of white tarlatan she had brought with 
 her. (The Major s daughter had moved all 
 her life in a very contracted sphere this to 
 account for the stress laid upon that pudding.) 
 She was going to beard the lion in his den. 
 
 "Aunt Melindy, I am going to make a Con 
 federate pudding for dinner. I ll bolt the meal 
 myself, and then" she stopped, aghast. What 
 was the next step? It was Melindy who had 
 first, by a stroke of genius, evolved a pudding 
 out of bolted corn-meal, and the secret was 
 locked up in her unpropitious breast. 
 
 "En den?" Melindy folded her shining arms 
 and smiled maliciously at the discomfited 
 novice. 
 
 "And then," said Amy, with a disarming 
 smile, "you are going to finish it for me. You 
 needn t bother about the white petticoat. I ll 
 give you one for Sunday, and" she hesitated. 
 It was possible to pay too dear for her pudding, 
 even if it was for the refreshment of a 
 returned hero. (She simply wanted him to feel 
 very, very welcome, you know.) 
 
 The shelves were scoured and the pans were
 
 60 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 all rearranged on them, and Melindy was at 
 leisure to conclude the bargain. Perhaps, 
 after all, a compromise was possible; she 
 beamed persuasively on the young lady. 
 
 "You ain got any coat, honey, you sorter 
 tired of, is you ? Dat black alpacker er yo n, 
 now, ud be de ve y thing t w ar to stracted 
 meetin . Wat yer tek fur it? Lindy ain 
 gwine t be hard on you." 
 
 "I hadn t thought of selling it at all," Amy 
 said, somewhat timidly. A decided refusal 
 might jeopardize the day s dinner fatally. "I 
 don t think it would fit you either, Aunt 
 Lindy. You re a good deal larger than I am." 
 
 "Mout be a leetle tight bout de wais , en 
 sorter choky bout de neck, but you kin fin 
 time t let it o.ut twix now en Sund y-day. 
 I se had a sorter hanker fur dat alpacker dis 
 long time. Zhere, you give Lindy dat piece er 
 talteten, eny you git back in de house en prink 
 up fer yo beau, en Lindy ll hev de bes dinner 
 in dat house you s eat dis many a day. I did 
 low t br ile dem chickins in de fatnin coop fer 
 you en yo pa s Sund y-day dinner, but I kin 
 git some mo fer dat. Clar out, chile !" 
 
 It was with qualified satisfaction that Amy 
 resigned the tarlatan to her cook and "cleared 
 out" to order. She knew the dinner would be 
 all right, but she also knew what a price she
 
 BALDY S POINT. 6 1 
 
 would pay for it. When Melindy should go to 
 meeting next Sunday it would be in her, Amy s, 
 black alpaca dress, and other requisitions from 
 her already depleted wardrobe. People were 
 already beginning to wonder how the Wilson 
 establishment was "kept going." The Major 
 disabled, no money coming in, no white man 
 to manage, only Amy to superintend and sug 
 gest, and (she could have added) to sacrifice. 
 
 But it was not of her sacrifices, past or im 
 pending, that she was thinking of as she walked 
 back across the yard. She went straight into 
 her own room to take one more furtive look 
 into the glass that always sent her away in a 
 humble frame of mind. She would like to 
 "prink" a little, as Melindy had advised, but 
 she must set the dinner-table herself to-day. 
 She could not trust Mandy to do it ; Mandy s 
 disposition of the knives and forks and salt 
 cellars was so absolutely original and in such 
 reckless defiance of all accepted manuals on the 
 subject. She wouldn t care to have Henry see 
 her at it ; he might think he was giving trouble 
 trouble, indeed ! How could he tell how 
 tumultuously her heart beat at the prospect of 
 seeing him again once more? She hoped she 
 could find a few yellow jessamine blossoms; 
 they would look so pretty mixed with 
 the white locust in a flat dish on the table.
 
 62 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 How faded and old that glass made her look! 
 Would Henry think so, too? She hoped Me- 
 lindy wouldn t send the chickens in half raw, 
 but the time had gone by when she dared give 
 advice. How would a piece of colored ribbon 
 at her throat and in her hair seem? If she d 
 only dared to give more explicit and positive 
 directions to her cook. She hadn t worn a 
 colored ribbon in her hair for oh, for ever! it 
 seemed so long since there d been any use of it 
 all ; father liked her just as well without. How 
 proud Fanny Ray must feel, now that the war 
 was over, and Henry back well, and into 
 this medley of reflections Mrs. White s plaintive 
 voice was projected as Mrs. White s mature 
 arms enfolded her affectionately. 
 
 "Here I am, my dear! I know you didn t 
 expect me too, but I just couldn t let Henry 
 leave me the very first day, and he said it 
 wouldn t do at all to disappoint the Major, 
 especially after he d taken the trouble to send 
 Commodore over for him, and so we just com 
 promised on the dumping-cart, and it s well we 
 did, for who should we find sitting on the side 
 of the road, with the bridle in her hand and a 
 sprained ankle, but Fanny Ray, and that s the 
 reason we re about an hour behind time, be 
 cause, of course, we couldn t leave her sitting 
 there, although, under the circumstances, it was
 
 BALDY S POIXT. 63 
 
 very trying to her, and to Henry too, but I 
 suppose Henry s learned to stand fire pretty 
 well, for he was just as cool as a cucumber, and 
 lifted her into the cart as tenderly as if she d 
 been his own mother with sprained ankle, 
 which ought to have made her feel like coals 
 of fire were being heaped on her head, but it s 
 hard to heap coals of fire on some people s 
 heads, for they won t stay heaped, and we just 
 stopped in front of the Rays long enough to 
 tell Mrs. Ray to put some balsam apple to the 
 ankle, and then drove right straight on here. 
 How very sweet you do look, Amy, never saw 
 a girl like you !" 
 
 Mrs. White had delivered her budget breath 
 lessly while getting out of her bonnet and 
 smoothing the thin, wavy hair about her deli 
 cate temples and shaking out the stiffly-starched 
 calico dress, which had not profited by the long 
 ride. Mrs. White was what people called "a 
 talker." Not that she devoted her life ex 
 clusively to that vocation, but when she was 
 in a good humor she generally found plenty to 
 say, and to-day she was in prime order for 
 talking. Henry s return, and the ride over the 
 country roads and through the wide fields 
 where the yellow camomile flowers and the 
 low-running sprays of the dewberry tenderly 
 the neglected furrows, had proved
 
 64 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 exhilarating. Happiness had loosed the flood 
 gates. 
 
 Amy looked at her in a puzzled way, waiting 
 patiently to ask : 
 
 "Why should Henry want to heap coals of 
 fire on Fanny Ray s head?" 
 
 "Oh, my child, Fanny has acted so ridicu 
 lously ! But it will all come right. Henry s 
 devoted to her and she to him. I could see 
 that in the remorseful way she looked at him 
 when he parted from her so coldly at her 
 mother s. You see, my poor, dear boy did 
 look worse than a runaway darky yesterday, 
 with his great ragged beard and his frazzled- 
 out uniform and his bare feet, and she didn t 
 know him, simply did not know him. There 
 was no put-on about it." 
 
 "Not know Henry White?" 
 
 The girl s eyes and voice were full of amazed 
 incredulity. What possible disguise could con 
 ceal his identity from her? 
 
 "But it will all come right," Mrs. White said 
 again cheerfully, taking a very much starched 
 handkerchief out of her pocket and rubbing it 
 vigorously between her hands by way of lim 
 bering it slightly before application. 
 
 "Yes, it will all come right." Amy repeated 
 her words in a mechanical way ; then, more 
 animatedly, "Now I must go tell Mr, White
 
 BALDY S POINT. 65 
 
 how glad I am he s gotten back home unin 
 jured. Think of poor papa ! I m afraid he 
 will have about a bushel of questions to answer 
 before he can satisfy father." 
 
 She moved toward the door with her arm 
 locked in the older woman s. She was tall and 
 slim and straight, and carried her head with 
 an erectness that was almost defiant, but the 
 defiance was absolutely contradicted by the 
 gentleness of her expression and the sweet sen 
 sitiveness of her pretty mouth. Just now her 
 eyes were unnaturally bright, and a vivid red 
 spot shone on either cheek. Mrs. White turned 
 to look at her inquiringly, laying a finger on 
 the wrist nearest her before delivering herself 
 judicially. The pulse was beating furiously. 
 "Amy Wilson," she said, severely, "you re hav 
 ing those horrid chills again. You re getting 
 one right now. I can feel the shivers running 
 through your body. Did you take those red- 
 oak bitters I wrote you about?" 
 
 "I ve taken nothing but bitters for years 
 past," Amy said, withdrawing her hand and 
 moving on by herself. 
 
 "Then I m surprised you are not stronger," 
 said Mrs. White, applying the preternaturally 
 stiff handkerchief to her nose with reddening 
 effect. 
 
 "So am I," said Amy quietly.
 
 66 SALDY S POINT. 
 
 But Mrs. White heard only what was said, 
 and continued, practically. "After you and 
 Henry have said howdy we will have to let the 
 men entertain each other, dear. I ve been six 
 months getting over here, and I ve got a lot to 
 see and to talk about, that they won t care to 
 hear. You really must tell me how you make 
 your starch. Mine is simply abominable. I 
 won t have any cuticle at all left pretty soon. 
 But I suppose, now that we re whipped, we ll 
 be able to get some of the necessaries of life 
 again. Did you hear about Tillie Mosby going 
 up to Vicksburg, on a government transport, as 
 soon as ever she heard Vicksburg had fallen, 
 and actually taking two bales of cotton on board 
 with her, and coming back just loaded down 
 with things to eat and to wear? They say she 
 bought a pair of shoes for every member of 
 that big family, and a whole bolt of muslin, and 
 Mrs. Mosby has had tea and sugar ever since. 
 Well, those that can enjoy things gotten in 
 that way are welcome to them, but I d rather 
 wait for the fight to be fought out before I take 
 any comfort of that sort. I d like to know 
 what good Oolong tea and crushed sugar and a 
 whole bolt of domestic would have done me, 
 before I knew whether Henry was coming back 
 or not, and then maybe with only one leg and 
 no arms. Thank Heaven he s come back with
 
 BALDY S POINT. 67 
 
 all his legs and arms and his faculties too, but 
 the Scotch tweeds do hang desperately baggy 
 on him, poor fellow ! and his cheeks are so 
 hollow you could lay a walnut in either one of 
 them. Henry, my dear, here s Amy. You 
 haven t forgotten Amy, but you can t call her 
 little Amy any longer." 
 
 It had been really necessary to attract his 
 attention. He was sitting facing the Major, 
 and, with his back to the front door, was trac 
 ing with a piece of chalk, on the gallery floor, a 
 diagram of the respective positions of Federal 
 and Confederate troops at the time of the sur 
 render. And Amy was so absurdly timid she 
 would have stood rooted to that door-sill for 
 ever before advancing another step. "Timid 
 ity" was what Mrs. White called it. 
 
 Her son had dropped the piece of chalk and 
 come forward promptly enough at her bidding. 
 Amy put out one hand hesitantly, then both, 
 eagerly, impulsively, and, as she held his, warm 
 and brown and muscular as they were, in a 
 firm, tight clasp, the tears welled slowly into 
 her eyes, and she looked at him through a mist 
 of divine pity. 
 
 How tall and stately and pure she was ! like 
 some perfect ascension lily that had bloomed 
 in an out-of-the-way nook. Time had dealt 
 very kindly with her. He felt old and rugged
 
 68 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 by the side of her, and very conscious of the 
 baggy tweeds. 
 
 "It is good of you not to have forgotten me," 
 he said, "or rather to have recognized me." 
 He bowed low over their clasped hands. 
 
 "We re so glad, so very glad, to have you 
 back again !" 
 
 Her "we" was comprehensive and imper 
 sonal. It had always been her aim to make 
 her intercourse with Henry White as imper 
 sonal as possible. She felt the necessity of 
 making it so now pressing more strongly upon 
 her than ever. 
 
 "Yes, but, Henry" the Major was gazing 
 steadily down on the chalky seat of war "how 
 in the mischief did Lee get there?" 
 
 He brought his crutch vigorously down on 
 the puzzling diagram, and held it there while 
 he waited impatiently for the young man to 
 return to his chair. 
 
 Tm afraid you will find father s grown to 
 be terribly tyrannical," Amy said lightly, mov 
 ing with him toward the Major and the dia 
 gram. She was not sure, if she stood still 
 another second, that more tears would not 
 come and crowd those that she had concealed 
 by the dropping of her lids into undesirable 
 conspicuity. 
 
 He looked so dreadfully worn ! The bitter-
 
 BALDY S POINT. 69 
 
 ness of defeat and disappointment had graven 
 harsh downward curves in the corners of his 
 mouth. He stooped, too, and he had once 
 been so very straight. Even its voice had lost 
 its clear ring; he spoke slowly and deliber 
 ately, almost languidly, now, quite as if he had 
 outlived all necessity for being brisk or posi 
 tive about anything. Yes, he was very much 
 changed. He looked stern, too ; there was an 
 almost severe look in his eyes and yet she 
 liked him better so. The light-hearted boy 
 Henry White had been left somewhere along 
 the line of march, and in his stead an earnest, 
 thinking, deliberating man had come back to 
 them. Would Fanny Ray think it an improve 
 ment? 
 
 He had bent once more over the diagram 
 with the chalk in his hand, not conscious that 
 the stately young girl who leaned over the back 
 of the Major s chair in apparent absorption in 
 his explanation of the disastrous finale to all 
 their hopes was, in reality, revising and amend 
 ing her own girlish estimate of himself. 
 
 Passive participation in the activities of 
 other people was not Mrs. White s forte. She 
 tired very soon of the chalked lines on the 
 floor and her own enforced dumbness, so she 
 proposed an inspection of Amy s poultry yard 
 and vegetable garden, to which proposition
 
 70 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 Amy yielded a reluctant inward assent, but 
 moved away with her promptly. 
 
 "I felt a little reluctant at asking you to 
 come over to me so soon, my boy," the Major 
 said, after the women had drifted away from 
 them, "but you can t imagine what infernal 
 torment it is to sit here and guess at what has 
 been going on, and not be able to lend a 
 hand." 
 
 "I think I can. I think I can imagine what 
 it would have been to me to lose my legs 
 in the very first engagement, and I don t think 
 you could ask anything of any one of the boys 
 that have grown up about you, Major, that 
 they wouldn t be glad to do. I m sure I can 
 speak for Cap and myself." 
 
 "I feel pretty sure of you, my boy." 
 
 "And Cap?" 
 
 He said it questioningly. Here was a third 
 fling at the boy of all others whom he used to 
 love and honor most. 
 
 "I m not so sure of him, that s all. I wish 
 you d bring me my tobacco box off the hall 
 table, Henry I m a useless hulk these days; 
 and if you ll open the table drawer you ll find 
 another pipe. Fetch it along. We ve got time 
 for a good smoke before dinner. Melindy s 
 so infernally slow, your opportunity for culti 
 vating an appetite is better than good. I m
 
 BALDY S POINT. 1\ 
 
 afraid Amy s inclined to indulge the servants 
 too much. They walk over her rough-shod." 
 
 Henry went after the tobacco box. He was 
 fully impressed with the fact that the Major 
 wanted to change the subject. He expected to 
 see Van Dorn again in a few days, and he 
 supposed then he would hear Cap s own version 
 of the strange attitude the neighbors had all 
 assumed toward him ; but meanwhile he would 
 like to get Major Wilson s version. Irascible 
 and high-tempered as the old man had always 
 been, he was honorable to the core, and what 
 ever version he gave, it was sure to be the one 
 necessity had compelled him to indorse. Cap 
 Van Dorn must have changed radically if he, 
 too, was not honorable to the core. He saw 
 the Major s pipe well alight before saying, with 
 a simple directness that did him honor: 
 
 "Major, I want to hear what this is about Cap 
 Van Dorn. My mother has thrown out some 
 damaging hints, and Cap himself, hurried as he 
 was last night, gave me to understand that 
 he was in bad repute in the neighborhood. I 
 wouldn t let mother explain. Blessings on 
 her, she s never been able to forgive any man 
 who ran less risk of being killed than her 
 precious offspring; as for Cap well, he, pre 
 sumably, would be a partial witness. I want to 
 hear your version of it."
 
 7 2 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "Version ! Why, confound it, sir, that s what 
 I haven t got. Wish I had. I hate to be 
 baffled. I hate mysteries of any sort. But 
 Cap Van Dorn s conduct has been and still is 
 the most baffling and mysterious thing I ve 
 ever had to cope with. That s what riles me 
 so." The Major puffed angrily and silently at 
 his short briarwood pipe for a few seconds. 
 
 "But what has he done?" Henry White 
 asked, resolutely. "That s what I want to get 
 at, and what I intend to get at." 
 
 "Well, you know Briarwood, the Van Dorn 
 place, is so tucked in, way back there on 
 Panther Bayou, that the very dickens might be 
 to pay without anybody being much the wiser 
 for it. It was when I came back all shot to 
 pieces that I found Cap Van Dorn s name was 
 afloat in a rather unpleasant way. People 
 said that while every man that could shoulder 
 a gun had hurried off to the war, Van Dorn 
 stayed behind like a skulking hound, and didn t 
 seem to have any interest in life but the crops 
 on Briarwood. But when, at the end of the 
 first year of the fight, it got out that he finally 
 enlisted as Amos Baker s paid substitute, the 
 racket was pretty lively, I can tell you. He 
 was back home in little more than eighteen 
 months after he left. Some say he deserted. 
 Some say he was taken prisoner and discharged
 
 BALDY S POfNT. 73 
 
 on taking the oath. Nobody knows when he 
 got back nor how. Like a thief in the night, it 
 looks like. Very few people ever get to Briar- 
 wood, but" the Major looked around cau 
 tiously. Amy s and Mrs. White s bonneted 
 heads out there near the calf-pen reassured him ; 
 notwithstanding which he leaned over and 
 dropped some words cautiously into Henry 
 White s ears. "People who have been in the 
 neighborhood say there s something wrong at 
 the Briarwood house. The Van Dorns were 
 always notoriously hospitable, but this one 
 never allows an outsider to sleep under his roof. 
 If he s compelled to give a traveler a night s 
 lodging, he puts him up in the overseer s 
 house, and you know the size of the Briar- 
 wood house as well as I do. And that s where 
 the mystery comes in. I don t approve of 
 mysteries or mystifiers, and the consequence 
 is I ve felt like having as little to do with this 
 young fellow as possible. I never like to hound 
 a man down on an uncertainty, and if Amy was 
 out of the question I wouldn t care whether he 
 came here or stayed away, for he s a bright 
 fellow and as entertaining as they make em. 
 But, as matters stand well 
 
 "He didn t use to be a coward," said Henry, 
 dwelling meditatively on his friend s strange 
 war record.
 
 74 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "No. He was as plucky as Julius Caesar 
 when he was a stripling." 
 
 "And he doesn t now carry himself like a 
 man burdened with a sense of shame or wrong 
 doing." 
 
 "No," said the Major again, "that s the most 
 confoundedly puzzling part of it. But when he 
 must know that there s no end of unfavorable 
 comment passing on him, why don t he come 
 out like a man and explain himself?" 
 
 "Perhaps he s not ready to do it yet." 
 
 "Ready! Yet!" 
 
 "No, sir; and until he does, I, for one, will 
 reserve judgment on my friend," said Henry, 
 loyally and lovingly.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A VISIT TO BRIARWOOD. 
 
 WHEN a man who has been virtually 
 drowned finds himself cast upon firm 
 ground panting and exhausted from contention 
 with the elements that have overwhelmed him, 
 his first sensation, presumably, is exclusively 
 one of absolute physical relief, and he quies 
 cently accepts the boon of life afresh. It is 
 only later on, when restored vitality brings 
 with it renewed critical faculty, that he begins 
 to analyze the situation and to search for the 
 underlying reason of the catastrophe, without 
 which the average man can never rest content. 
 In some such fashion as this the paroled sol 
 dier of the Southern army looked out upon 
 what was to them a badly battered world. In 
 the first bewilderment that followed upon the 
 close of the war, their attitude was one of ex 
 haustion and quiescence. They had buffeted 
 the waves and been whelmed by them, and 
 when there came an end to fighting and to 
 marching and to maneuvering and to hoping, 
 75
 
 76 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 it was more as if they were becalmed than at 
 rest in a peaceful haven. Only for a little 
 while, though; then they began to question: 
 What should they eat and wherewithal should 
 they be clothed, these shipwrecked mariners of 
 a lost cause? Where should they begin the 
 work of rebuilding their homes? On what 
 foundations should they lay the new structure 
 of their futures? Had the Israelites of old any 
 harder task? Looking around on his weed- 
 choked fields, fenceless and fallow; on his 
 cabins, given over to a sort of squatter sover 
 eignty, occupied by whomsoever chose to come 
 with a minimum of shabby furniture and a 
 maximum of mouths to feed and enter into 
 possession ; on his barns, guiltless of grain r and 
 his stables, of beasts, Henry White doubt 
 ed it. 
 
 Only a few lethargic weeks given to physical 
 recuperation and unprofitable brooding, and 
 he bestirred himself to the extent of deciding 
 that something must be done. What how- 
 were not at all clear yet. He was conscious of 
 needing somebody stronger than his mother, 
 more impersonal and helpful to consult with. 
 She took such a plaintive view of the situa 
 tion, and could see nothing but direct and dis 
 astrous bearing on her and hers. She was not 
 the one to show him how to wrest good from
 
 ALDY S POINT. 77 
 
 evil. Her tear-dimmed vision could not pierce 
 the overhanging clouds to their possible silver 
 lining. Fanny? He thought bitterly of her 
 defection at the moment of his sorest need. 
 He had not seen her since depositing her at 
 her mother s door. He did not care to go to 
 Baldy s Point to be lionized by the women, or 
 criticised and questioned by the men who were 
 gradually dropping back into the old places. 
 The Major? He was grown too irascible to be 
 a judicious counselor for a young man reso 
 lutely bent on adjusting his life to the new 
 conditions and letting his dead bury its dead. 
 Amy? She never once presented herself in 
 this mental review of possible advisers in so 
 stern an extremity. Amy was a good girl, 
 doubtless, and had grown to be wonderfully 
 pretty in the last few years, but what should 
 she know of the perplexities and trials incident 
 upon making a living for himself and his 
 mother, with nothing that he could call his 
 own but the land (that lay in a mass of tangled 
 neglect about him) and the tumble-down cab 
 ins in the quarters? Of all the names on this 
 small list of his possible counselors in this try 
 ing time, Amy Wilson s was the least available. 
 There was but one left Cap Van Dorn ; and 
 as the days went by, bringing no sign of Cap s 
 handsome face nor sound of his .cheery voice,
 
 7 8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 Henry White s heart went out to him with 
 irrepressible longing. 
 
 "I expect he doesn t feel very welcome 
 here," said Mrs. White. "I shouldn t wonder 
 if he had got hold of some of my speeches 
 about him. I wasn t mealy-mouthed about his 
 staying at home when all the rest of the boys 
 were gone, and he with not a thing in the 
 world to care for but just his lone self. I 
 expect if you want to see him you will 
 have to hunt him up. Not that I can 
 imagine what you want to see him for, 
 for if ever a young man did forfeit every 
 body s esteem, that young man is Cap Van 
 Dorn." 
 
 "I think I ll go to see him this afternoon," 
 Henry said reflectvely, ignoring the innuen 
 does he had grown accustomed to by this time, 
 "and I expect I d better make an early start, 
 mother. It s a good seven miles. But I can 
 walk it easily." 
 
 "I don t know what any one would want to 
 shorten the road to Briarwood for; they d 
 better block it up entirely, I say. Besides, it s 
 going to rain, Henry." 
 
 His mother stretched her hand out in hopes 
 of giving him ocular demonstration that it was 
 raining. 
 
 "A passing shower, perhaps. I don t think
 
 BALDY S POINT, 79 
 
 as much of a wetting as I used to, mother. I 
 think I ll go." 
 
 She had learned to respect without quite 
 understanding that new grave look in her son s 
 face. He never used to say what he would or 
 would not do so very positively. She was not 
 as happy as she felt she ought to be in those 
 early days of his return. She did not like his 
 absolute refusal to talk about Fanny Ray, for 
 one thing. Of course it would all blow over in 
 a little while, but she would like it to blow over 
 immediately. Fanny was such a very desirable 
 mate for Henry. And now here he was, going 
 off on a tramp through the woods, and it \vas 
 so dangerous in the woods in case of a storm, 
 and so many dead limbs on the trees, and if it 
 was to see any body but Cap Van Dorn she 
 shouldn t so much mind. Formerly, Mrs. White 
 would have given her son the benefit of these 
 perturbations, but she did not now. There 
 was something in the look of quiet endurance 
 that sat so pathetically on his young face, more 
 used to smiles and jests in the olden time, 
 that abashed her and frequently caused her to 
 curtail her criticism on the new order of things 
 and of everybody but poor Cap Van Dorn. 
 Nevertheless it was with a gravely disapprov 
 ing frown that she watched him pass out through 
 the front gate with that firm, soldierly tread
 
 8o BALDY S POINT. 
 
 and erect bearing which were the only ones of 
 his new possessions she looked upon as improve 
 ments. 
 
 Actually going to see Cap Van Dorn, whom 
 everybody else had felt compelled to drop, and 
 going on foot, and a storm coming up ! She 
 was quite sure it was going to be a violent 
 storm, and that it would overtake Henry in the 
 very thickest of the woods, where the danger 
 from dead limbs would be greatest. (This was 
 Mrs. White s way of comforting herself.) 
 Furthermore, Henry might get lost; of course 
 the roads had changed some. But it was 
 neither of the storm that might come, nor the 
 possibilty of any evil betiding himself, that 
 Henry was thinking as he found himself once 
 more following the narrow foot-path through 
 the woods which he and Cap had trodden to 
 gether so many times with their shot-guns on 
 their shoulders, only too alert to cock and fire 
 them if a woodchuck did but dare show its nose. 
 
 Things must be pretty bad at Briarwood for 
 Cap to shun him in this fashion. And he 
 couldn t rid himself of a desire to get at the 
 bottom of it. If everybody was right and Cap 
 was all wrong, he wanted to know it for him 
 self. If Cap was right and everybody else all 
 wrong, he did not intend to ignorantly array 
 himself with his friend s traducers. It was fresh
 
 BALDY S POINT. 8 1 
 
 and sweet in the woods ; he did not care very 
 much about reaching Briarwood before sunset ; 
 he d have the whole evening to talk with Cap, 
 for of course he intended to stay all night. He 
 had given his mother warning not to look for 
 him until after breakfast the next morning. In 
 the days toward which his thoughts reverted 
 inevitably on this the first occasion of his travel 
 ing the old path, whichever house had hap 
 pened to be nearest to them at nightfall fur 
 nished them food and shelter, his own or 
 Briarwood, and he was going to make Cap 
 understand that he was just as welcome at 
 Whitefields (Henry s own home) as he ever 
 had been. If his mother, good woman that she 
 was, had been helping plant thorns in poor 
 Cap s flesh, it was time he was pulling some of 
 them out. 
 
 He was too familiar with the road to take any 
 special heed to his steps. There was neither 
 novelty to invite, nor the striking beauty of hill 
 and dale that insists upon tribute even from 
 the familiar eye, around him. Only long green 
 stretches of a grass-bordered foot-path stretch 
 ing through several miles of unbroken wood 
 land, where the birds mated, nested, and tried 
 new wings unmolested every year. The trees 
 crowded upon each other so thickly that though 
 only the foliage of early spring clothed their
 
 82 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 branches, the sunlight came through softened 
 and mellowed. The silence was broken occa 
 sionally by the sound of a dry twig breaking 
 under his feet, or the scurry of a frightened pig 
 rooting restlessly under the dead leaves of the 
 last fall for a stray persimmon or acorn. Once 
 in a while he caught the plaintive note of the 
 wild turkey hen, and, with the impulse of boy 
 ish days, he would call back through his inter 
 locked ringers, in the cock s wilder note of invi 
 tation, that betrayed no human counterfeit. 
 How it all carried him back, and how every 
 step he made toward Briarwood strengthened 
 his desire to put things on the old footing with 
 its master! It gradually dawned on him that 
 he had been walking quite long enough to have 
 come in sight of the Briarwood gin-stack, or at 
 least old Sandy s cabin. Old Sandy used to be 
 the stock-minder at Briarwood, and his cabin 
 on the outskirts of these woods was a sort of 
 outpost to the plantation. He stood still to 
 take his bearings. There were no special land 
 marks he could recall besides those two, and, 
 turn which way he would, he could catch no 
 glimpse of either one of them. Thus brought 
 out of his reverie, he took note of the sudden 
 hush that seemed to have fallen upon the 
 world, and looked upward anxiously to where 
 he could catch sight of the clouds blotting out
 
 BALDY S POINT. 83 
 
 the bright blue sky. The leaves that had been 
 rustling musically over his head now hung mo 
 tionless upon their stems. The birds ceased 
 twittering, and -by the faint whir of wings he 
 knew they were flitting from tree to tree in an 
 ecstasy of alarm. These woodland signals were 
 all familiar to him. After all, his mother s 
 lugubrious prophecy was about to be fulfilled 
 and he overtaken by a thunder-storm in these 
 shelterless woods. He shouldn t mind the 
 wetting so very much, for he supposed Cap 
 could lend him some dry clothes, but he cer 
 tainly should like to know where he was. As 
 he grew more and more bewildered, he grew 
 excursive, and wandered tentatively into every 
 little by-path that promised to give him a 
 glimpse of the towering brick chimney to the 
 Briarwood gin-house. If he could only see 
 that, with its diamonds of black brick for a 
 crowning ornamentation, he would be all right. 
 He was entirely out of the beaten path, 
 when, with a grand discharge of heaven s artil 
 lery and a sharp, rattling volley of hailstones, 
 the thunder-storm burst upon him in all its fury 4 
 with the usual accompaniments of wind and 
 uproar. He buttoned his coat tightly over his 
 breast, pulled his hat firmly down over his ears 
 to secure it against the swirls of wind that 
 threatened to lift it from his defenseless head,
 
 84 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 and, with his hands in his trousers pockets, 
 plunged headlong and blindly forward. The 
 hailstones fell with smiting power on the ten 
 der foliage over his head, bringing it in a 
 shower of green shreds earthward with them 
 selves. The slim saplings bending before the 
 power of the storm swept his cheeks with their 
 cold, wet limbs, the path grew heavy and 
 sodden under his feet, and still no sign of old 
 Sandy s cabin or the gin-stack. Instead, with 
 an abruptness that almost made him start, a 
 brand-new fence impeded his progress. It was 
 a peculiar fence, unlike anything that had ever 
 been found necessary in that quiet neighbor 
 hood before. It was built of rude cypress slabs, 
 over five feet in height, and so closely planted 
 that the fence virtually became a wooden wall, 
 As he approached this formidable-looking 
 barrier to his progress, his surprise increased. 
 Beyond a doubt, that gray roof, with the four 
 outside chimneys clambering up its gable ends, 
 with its sloping sides pierced by the three dor 
 mer windows, that looked so familiar, was the 
 roof of the Briarwood house. There were 
 the four cottonwood trees that stood primly 
 in a row just in front of it, and the mul 
 berry at , the corner, whose shiny but for 
 bidden fruit had proven such a sore tempta 
 tion to Cap and to him in their reckless days.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 85 
 
 It was a queer fence for Cap to have drawn 
 about the old house, but he supposd it was 
 necessary for the protection of his gardens and 
 henneries and other possessions against the 
 lawless new tenants of the old cabins. All 
 these speculations as he cast his eyes to the 
 right and to the left of him in search of a gate. 
 He could tell from the position of the cotton- 
 wood trees inside that he had struck the rear 
 of the premises. The Briarwood house faced 
 toward the quarters and the big road. He 
 remembered old Mrs. Van Dorn had located 
 her home right on the edge of the woods for 
 the benefit of her stock and poultry. But a 
 gate seemed an impossible thing to find. He 
 supposed he must travel clear around to the 
 road side, or perhaps even to the front, before 
 finding one. He was so thoroughly drenched 
 now that it made very little difference to him 
 personally whether the rain fell or ceased to 
 fall. It ceased to fall with the suddenness that 
 had characterized its beginning. One or two 
 distant crashes of thunder, rolling majestically 
 off to lose themselves in a faint rumble, a sob 
 bing of the tired wind in the tree-tops, then 
 with a joyous flash the sun burst forth again 
 and spanned the old gray roof behind the cy 
 press palisades with a glorious rainbow. In one 
 spot two or three of the cypress boards had
 
 86 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 yielded to the pressure of the storm and lay 
 prone, leaving a gap quite wide enough for him 
 to pass through. What was the use of standing 
 on ceremony with Cap? He knew the back 
 yard at Briarwood as well as at Whitefields. 
 There was the old smoke-house, and the dairy, 
 and the hen-house, but the yard wasn t quite so 
 populous with darkies as it used to be. They 
 used to be visible at every turn, but now there 
 wasn t a living thing moving but one or two 
 lean calves, just coming from under the shelter 
 of the old smoke-house eaves to nibble the short 
 grass that looked so preternaturally green under 
 the rainbowed sky, and a few hens clucking en 
 couragingly to the broods, whose clustering little 
 yellow legs were all that was visible of them 
 from under the sheltering wings. It positively 
 began to be awe-inspiring, this absence of stir of 
 any sort. He d find Cap on the front gallery. 
 What a lonely spot it was, to be sure ! He 
 strode toward the back steps rapidly (his wet 
 clothes were beginning to feel rather chilly), 
 but as he reached the top one he stopped, and 
 for once in his life felt utterly unable to decide 
 whether he should fly or stand his ground. 
 
 The doors, both front and back, were wide 
 open, giving a full view of the grand old hall, 
 furnished just as Henry had remembered it all 
 his life, with the comfortable straw settee on
 
 BALDY S POINT. 87 
 
 the side where the steps climbed up to the 
 second story, and with the square table covered 
 with books just opposite it. There was Cap, 
 apparently sound asleep, on the settee, and, 
 sitting close by his head in a low rocker, so 
 close that by putting out her hand she could 
 lay it on the mass of curly brown hair that 
 clothed the sleeper s head, sat a young woman 
 whom Henry was quite sure he had never seen 
 before. An immense doll lay in her lap, and 
 all around and about the low, armless rocker 
 she sat in was a litter of doll s wardrobe and 
 other childish things. She was engaged at 
 that moment in arranging the tow curls on the 
 head of the waxen belle in her arms. Her 
 task absorbed her so completely that Henry 
 had ample time to note the slender grace of her 
 form, the refined contour of her face, and the 
 beauty of the hands that were busy with the 
 doll s toilet. 
 
 Something caused her to glance upward. 
 Her large blue eyes dilated like a startled 
 child s, her full, red lips parted to give utter 
 ance to a moan such as a frightened animal 
 might have made, she put one hand upon 
 Cap s sleeve and clutched it tightly, without 
 once taking her distressed eyes off the bewil 
 dered man in the doorway. 
 
 Her touch roused the sleeper. With a
 
 88 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 bound Van Dorn rose to his feet with an oath 
 on his lips. It died away as he recognized 
 Henry, and an expression of mingled pain and 
 perplexity swept over his handsome face, 
 which, now that he saw it for the first time 
 in daylight, looked old and careworn to the 
 friend who had forced an entrance for him 
 self. 
 
 He came forward with a fair show of hospi 
 tality, and offered his hand with a nervous 
 laugh. The pressure it received must have 
 given him a mute assurance that, in spite of 
 everything, some one still believed in him. 
 
 "How did you get in?" he asked, leading his 
 uninvited guest away from the hall out to the 
 chairs on the back gallery, talking with nervous 
 garrulity the while. "I ve got but one gate, 
 and the key of that is always in my pocket. 
 Ah ! I see !" his quick eye fell on the broken 
 slabs before Henry could explain. "Well, per 
 haps it is just as well as it is. I ve been want 
 ing to talk the whole mess over with you ever 
 since you got back, but well" he hesitated, 
 turned to the hall, and said, in an ineffably 
 gentle voice, "Poor little Nellie!" 
 
 But there was no one in the hall. The girl 
 with the great, tender blue eyes and the huge 
 doll and all the childish litter had disappeared 
 as if by magic. Van Dorn turned to his friend,
 
 BALDY S POINT. 89 
 
 and, laying both hands on his shoulders, said 
 in a serious voice : 
 
 "I m glad it s happened so. I wasn t strong 
 enough to ask you to come, but it s all for the 
 best. Yes, I m glad it s happened so." 
 
 But he did not look it. He motioned Henry 
 toward one of the big gallery chairs, and, turn 
 ing away from him, walked to the end of the 
 gallery, where he played wild havoc with a 
 clambering cypress vine, whose ambitious ten 
 drils gave fleeting occupation to his nervous 
 fingers. Henry watched him with affectionate 
 concern. He was quite sure Cap was absolutely 
 indifferent to the tendency of those vagrant 
 tendrils. What was it he found it so hard 
 to unburthen himself of? 
 
 "Never mind that vine, Cap," he said pres 
 ently, in a decided voice; "it can wait, and I 
 can t." 
 
 "You re going to stay all night?" Cap said, 
 questioningly, coming over to him quickly. 
 
 "I thought I was when I left home but " 
 
 "You doubt your welcome?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Don t, old fellow. Dear old Hank! stay 
 if you can stand it."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CONTAINS AN EXPLANATION. 
 
 OTAND what? 
 
 O He had not asked the question ; had only 
 meant to do so, when there arose on the quiet 
 air a sound that made him turn toward Van 
 Dorn in startled surprise, only to see him bury 
 his face, white and drawn into lines of pain, in 
 his outstretched hands, and cower, as it were, 
 under that terrible sound. It was a wail, low, 
 long, plaintive, increasing slowly in volume 
 until it reached a shriek of agony and culmi 
 nated in a paroxysm of the wildest moans and 
 sobs. The old house, with its thin wooden 
 partitions and loosly hung doors, permitted the 
 soul-sickening commotion to fall distinctly on 
 the ears of the two men sitting there on the 
 gallery, filling one of them with amazed curi 
 osity, crushing the other one under a sense of 
 his own powerlessness to assuage. A woman s 
 voice, commingling soothing words and gentle 
 tones with each outbreak, came out to them 
 alone. The sufferer, whoever he or she might 
 90
 
 SALDY S POINT. 9! 
 
 be, was not alone or friendless. Van Dorn 
 removed his shaking hands to say : 
 
 "You don t know what it is, Henry, to go 
 through life feeling like a murderer! I do." 
 A perceptible shudder ran through his strong 
 frame. 
 
 "Who is she?" Henry White asked. He 
 was too much confused for comment. It was 
 an inconsequent reply, but those tortured 
 shrieks must issue from the sweet red lips of 
 the girl he had seen in the hall, and the entire 
 situation was bewildering to him. 
 
 Cap sat with his eyes fixed on the rain- 
 soaked yard where the calves were lazily nib 
 bling the short Bermuda grass. A look of 
 stolid endurance had come into his handsome 
 young face. It was. as if he had nerved him 
 self for an ordeal. 
 
 "She s always that way after she s been 
 frightened," he said presently. "You startled 
 her. She never sees anybody but Mammy and 
 me. It s Nellie Hail. Poor little Nellie! and 
 I m more of a murderer than if I d killed her 
 outright." 
 
 "Nellie Hall!" Henry repeated the name 
 reflectively. Evidently it conveyed no im 
 pression. 
 
 Then Cap braced himself to tell all there was 
 to tell of the inexplicable in his life for the past
 
 92 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 few years, all that had exercised the neighbors 
 so variously and left him branded with the 
 stigma of cowardice and treachery. 
 
 "This sword has been hanging over me ever 
 since I was about thirteen years old, Hank, 
 but it is easy work righting off trouble when 
 it s at a distance and may never come any 
 nearer. I thought, maybe, you d remember 
 the name at least. Her father overseed for 
 father only two years. But now I come to 
 think of it, it was just about that time you 
 went to school with the Ray boys out at 
 Baldy s Point and got so thick with Fanny Ray 
 that you didn t have eyes or ears either for 
 anything else. By the way, I suppose there s 
 been no end of Othello and Desdemona pas 
 sages between you and her since you came 
 home a laureled hero." (He was consciously 
 fencing.) 
 
 "There s been no very soft passages," Henry 
 answered curtly. "But I m more interested in 
 what you were going to tell me than in any 
 thing else just now. 
 
 Then Cap took the plunge in dead earnest 
 and went on almost breathlessly until he had 
 reached the end. 
 
 "It s a pretty dark chapter out of my life, 
 Hank, and as long as you can t possibly help 
 me I don t see much use in boring you with
 
 BALDY S POINT, 93 
 
 it. If you could have helped me, old fellow, 
 I wouldn t have shunned you as I have done 
 since you came back home." 
 
 "Who knows? Perhaps I can help you," 
 Henry said, leaning forward to rest his hand on 
 his friend s knee. 
 
 "Thank you, Hank; you ve helped me 
 already, I believe. But as for her" he 
 stopped ; the moans were growing slighter and 
 further apart "Mammy has given her her 
 opiate poor little girl, poor little Nellie!" No 
 pen can describe the infinite pathos he laid 
 upon those words. "She ought to be in some 
 good woman s keeping, but well, let me begin 
 over again. 
 
 "You don t remember father s overseer, Hall, 
 I reckon. He was a gruff sort of fellow, that 
 none of us liked much. I know I used to won 
 der if he didn t beat his wife, she had such a 
 thin, pinched, white face, and such a scared 
 pair of eyes. His little girl, poor little Nellie 
 in yonder, was all the child they had, and she 
 was such a pretty, gentle little thing that 
 mother used to have her up to the house a 
 good deal, and made a sort of pet of her. I 
 didn t see much of her in those days, for when 
 I wasn t at my books I was well, pretty 
 much everywhere where there was any mischief 
 to get into. Boys are brutal things by nature,
 
 94 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 Hank, don t you think? I remember the 
 delight of my life was to cut teeth and eyes 
 and a nose into a big pumpkin, hollowed out 
 for the purpose, to put a candle inside, wrap a 
 sheet all around me, and, with this illuminated 
 ghoul s head held over my own until my 
 rsacally little arms ached with the weight of it, 
 invade the quarters at night and scare all the 
 little niggers into fits. It was prime fun, for it 
 never did them any harm beyond a squawk or 
 two. But one night, after a decidedly success 
 ful round as a ghost, one of the boys sug 
 gested I should scare the overseer s family, and 
 I quite relished the idea of giving old Hall a 
 turn. I saw only a moment s fun in it, you 
 know, miserable little fool that I was; and so 
 I wrapped my sheet about me, after seeing to 
 the candle inside that accursed pumpkin head, 
 and I crouched under the overseer s windows 
 to give them a little fright. I don t think I 
 thought of Nellie at all, or if I did, I never un 
 derstood what a delicate, nervous little creature 
 she was. I heard them all pushing their chairs 
 back from the supper-table and walking toward 
 the sitting-room. I could hear Nellie s little 
 feet coming with a skip toward the window 
 where I was crouching. She was a happy little 
 thing, and the overseer and his wife just adored 
 her. I rose suddenly from my crouching
 
 BALDY S POINT. 95 
 
 position. The overseer s house sat low on the 
 ground. My shoulders and the hideous face 
 came just above the window-sill. I ll never 
 forget the shriek of terror that broke from the 
 child s lips! I ve heard it often enough since, 
 God knows, but that night it curdled the blood 
 in my veins. I flung the infernal nonsense 
 aside and tore into the house to try to explain 
 to her. There was no chance to do it. She 
 was writhing in convulsions in her mother s 
 arms. She was very ill after it. There s no 
 use going over the whole miserable business. 
 Her mind is a wreck. She s stopped mentally 
 just where she was then, at seven. The over 
 seer and his wife hated me small blame to 
 them. The mother was a Kentucky woman. 
 She went back home with the child to see 
 what change would do for her. The father 
 stayed behind, swearing that if he could he 
 would inflict some harm on me yet. I didn t 
 blame him. But I didn t see very well how he 
 could wring any satisfaction out of me for the 
 ruin of his home. I would have given it vol 
 untarily if he could. Father insisted they 
 should let him pay Nellie s expenses in some 
 sort of institution for the afflicted. He got 
 curses only for his offer. When I went off to 
 college the cloud seemed to lift a little, or 
 
 o 
 
 perhaps it only floated a little higher up and
 
 9 6 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 farther off. After Mrs. Hall left for Kentucky 
 with Nellie, we could never hear anything direct 
 about her. Hall stayed in the neighborhood 
 only a year. Then he, too, drifted out of 
 sight, hating me as fiercely as ever. We heard 
 he had gone to Kentucky to rejoin his wife. 
 You know people of that class have an idea 
 that disgrace attaches to the mentally afflicted. 
 I can only account for Hall s reserve about 
 this whole matter on that score. As far as I 
 can discover, he never spoke of it to any one in 
 the neighborhood ; but then he was surly and 
 secretive by nature. He was deep, too. You 
 remember how father and mother went, within 
 a few weeks of each other, just as the war 
 broke out? Father was a stanch Union man. 
 He never entertained the slightest hope of 
 success for the Confederate arms. I was tele 
 graphed for from college when Arkansas se 
 ceded. I gave Yale up with a groan. I found 
 things in a sorry enough fix here at home. 
 Some fellow in New Orleans had gotten hold of 
 the mortgages on the place and was putting 
 on the thumbscrews. War times put a stop to 
 all legal proceedings ; but father was worn out 
 with the struggle to keep me at college and 
 the place from going to the dogs at the same 
 time. He didn t live through the first year. 
 It was hard on me, Hank, to see all of you
 
 BALDY S POINT. 97 
 
 fellows going off, in your gray coats, to fight, 
 with all the girls in tears over you, and I left 
 behind like a skulking hound. Before father 
 died he tried to make me swear I wouldn t so 
 
 o 
 
 into the secession movement. He cast the 
 horoscope of its future pretty .correctly. I 
 made him no promise beyond saying that 
 mother s comfort should be my first care in life. 
 But she followed him so soon that there wasn t 
 much left to do for her. It wasn t more than 
 a week after I d laid her to rest by father, out 
 there in the garden, that I got a queer sort of 
 note from Louisville. It was signed with a name 
 I d never heard, but it read as if it might be 
 true, and I couldn t rest without trying to find 
 out whether it was or not. I ll show you the 
 note to-night. It told me that Nellie Hall, 
 whose mind I had shattered, was in Kentucky, 
 in a most desolate condition. Her mother was 
 dead, her father was somewhere in the army, 
 nobody knew where, and the people Nellie was 
 with were tired of her and treated her very un 
 kindly. I had just been getting ready to go 
 into the army. Not that I was fired with any 
 rebellious zeal, but I hadn t anything special to 
 live for, and I felt something like a skulk. 
 It was just about that time that a lot of our 
 rich fellows were paying for substitutes. I 
 couldn t get any money on the strength of
 
 98 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 cotton, for we couldn t sell it, and I didn t have 
 a cent in the world. If it was anybody s place 
 to look after Nellie Hall, it was mine. Baker 
 wanted a substitute just then. I took his 
 money to use for poor Nellie. I would get to 
 Kentucky and put her in some asylum and pay 
 for her with Baker s money. I knew my name 
 would ring in the county, and it has. I didn t 
 have any difficulty finding her. The person 
 that wrote the letter had given me directions 
 enough. But I did have difficulty in finding an 
 asylum. It was war times, and everything in 
 the wildest disorder. They told me she was 
 a troublesome inmate in any family. The 
 slightest agitation threw her into one of those 
 terrible commotions, such as you ve just heard, 
 although at other times she was just like a 
 sweet, docile child of seven years old. I paid 
 them to keep her when I was ordered off with 
 my company. 
 
 "I had the devil s own luck in my first en 
 gagement, Hank; was taken prisoner. Had 
 rather been shot outright. When they turned 
 me loose on parole I traveled straight back to 
 Kentucky to look after poor Nellie. Things 
 had gone from bad to worse. The people had 
 used my money and were tired of her alto 
 gether. Refused flatly to keep her any longer. 
 What could I do? Money gone, that helpless
 
 BALDY\S POLVT. 99 
 
 child on my hands; really a helpless child, but 
 in appearance a beautiful young woman. I did 
 the only thing I could do. Brought her here, 
 hunted up my old Mammy, told her the 
 whole story, and thanked God for the boon of 
 her great mellow heart. As soon as things are 
 settled I ll put her into an asylum. It will go 
 hard with the poor little thing, for she is as 
 happy as the day is long with her dolls and 
 with Mammy and me. She is fond of me, 
 Hank; think of it! Loves me as a child of 
 seven years old would love a father who had 
 been good to her always. Loves me the 
 creature who wrecked her life, and if I could I d 
 keep her always near me ! Poor, poor little 
 Nellie!" 
 
 He had told the whole story through bluntly 
 and hurriedly, and now sat with his head rest 
 ing on the tall back of his chair, in utter mental 
 exhaustion. 
 
 "Why didn t you tell mother about it?" 
 Henry White asked, breaking the long silence 
 that followed upon Cap s hurried recital. 
 
 A bitter laugh was all the answer he got. 
 He hung his head abashed. Perhaps Cap had 
 heard of his mother s harsh restrictions. It 
 was Cap s turn to comfort. He did it in his own 
 fashion. 
 
 "Don t think I m finding fault with anybody,
 
 100 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 Hank, your mother least of all. There d be 
 small satisfaction in it. I know I m held up to 
 scorn in every household, and I ve just got 
 mule enough in me to make me rebel against 
 explaining my position to everybody. I ve 
 sometimes sat in the gallery here alone, at 
 night, without even a star to keep me company, 
 and dreamed a foolish dream. I ve thought of 
 finding some good, sweet, strong woman who 
 was made just to bless a home ; and I ve fancied 
 myself loving her with the sort of perfect love 
 that casts out fear and enables a man to bare 
 all his life and his soul for inspection. And 
 I ve thought of telling her all about Nellie, 
 after asking her to be my wife, and of hearing 
 her speak brave, comforting words in which she 
 has promised me to help and care for the child 
 whose life I wrecked. Ah ! I could worship a 
 woman like that." 
 
 "If you could find her," said Henry, with 
 bitter skepticism in his voice. 
 
 "I know a woman who would do that, and 
 more too, for the man she loved," said Cap, in 
 a resonant voice. 
 
 "Her name?" 
 
 "Amy Wilson."
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 BRIARWOOD UNDER THE SUNSHINE. 
 
 IT was as if Nature had repented her of her 
 dark mood and was bent upon making the 
 sons of men oblivious of her stormy outburst, 
 she wore such radiant smiles the next morning; 
 and Briarwood received the full benefit of her 
 joyous rebound. 
 
 At least Henry White thought so as he lazily 
 opened his eyes and ears to the outer world 
 once more. Through the one organ he saw the 
 old place regilded ; great bars of gold lying 
 slantingly across the short grass whenever a 
 crevice occurred in the tall cypress fence or fell 
 in checkers through the leaves of the trees 
 that bordered its eastern side. The ground 
 was purple with the wreck of china-bloom that 
 yesterday s storm had beaten eastward, and 
 the clambering jessamine vine, which had grown 
 so luxuriantly all these neglected years as to 
 hide every vestige of the clumsy wooden trellis 
 that had supported it in youth, flung its sweet 
 yellow sprays across the window-sill of his bed- 
 
 101
 
 102 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 room in refreshed beauty, holding still in its 
 amber cups a few glittering raindrops. The 
 balm of a thousand flowers was afloat on the 
 fresh morning air. Through the other he 
 caught the tuneful rivalry of a mocking-bird 
 that swung in joyous freedom from the top 
 most tendrils of the yellow jessamine vine and 
 pitted its voice against Nellie s caged canary, 
 that was splitting its little throat with glad 
 thanksgiving for the light of the world. Above 
 the song of the mocking-bird and the canary 
 rang the short, swift strokes of an ax almost 
 beneath the bowed shutters of his bedroom. 
 He looked out to see who it was that Cap 
 admitted for this muscular exercise. 
 
 It was Cap himself, with no coat or vest or 
 hat on, standing one foot planted on the long 
 ash log, his broad chest heaving and falling 
 with the swinging of his ax, whose shining 
 blade flashed in the sunlight every second, 
 sending the huge white ash chips scattering far 
 and wide, only to be brought thriftily together 
 again in Mammy s blue check apron, as, with 
 bowed back but patient industry, she followed 
 closely in the wake of the glittering ax. 
 
 "What a handsome fellow he is! He 
 oughtn t to find it hard to win Amy Wilson," 
 Henry said to himself, standing there behind 
 the bowed window-shutter with the hair-brush
 
 BALDY S POINT. 103 
 
 in his hand, "and it s a pity she can t know all 
 about him and Nellie. They say the avenue 
 to a woman s heart is most direct through her 
 sympathies. Provided always that she has any." 
 
 At which idea he laughed aloud with that 
 incipient skepticism which disappointed youth 
 sets down as final and everlasting. He was 
 thinking of Fanny Ray. 
 
 "When did you turn hewer of wood?" he 
 asked later on, joining Cap out at the wood-pile, 
 and obtained a precarious seat among the piled- 
 up logs of wood. 
 
 "About the same time that I began to pad 
 dle my own canoe," Cap said, leaving the ax 
 sticking in the log, while he hunted for a hand 
 kerchief to dry the clinging rings of hair on 
 his wet forehead. "You see," he continued, 
 "Mammy and I do it all inside the fence. We 
 don t want any disturbing elements about Nel 
 lie, and free niggers are a very disturbing 
 element." 
 
 "I should say so," said Henry, contempla 
 tively breaking off a splinter to chew, while he 
 pursued the subject. "And that brings us to 
 the real object of my intrusion. I ve got to 
 cope with that very element, and don t know 
 how to begin." "Don t call it intrusion, old 
 boy." Cap flung his ax aside he was quite 
 sure Mammy had plenty of fuel to get break-
 
 104 SALDY S POINT. 
 
 fast with and took his seat beside Henry on 
 a wood-pile. "I can t say how much relief last 
 night s talk gave me. Poor little Nellie ! you 
 won t see or hear anything more of her while 
 you stay. She always sleeps late after Mam 
 my s has to give her a sedative. She s a docile 
 child always." 
 
 He shook himself, as if by a physical effort 
 putting away from him every gloomy reflec 
 tion, and waved his hand with a broad sweep 
 of his arms as he said cheerfully : 
 
 "You see the sun does shine, even on Briar- 
 wood." 
 
 "And gloriously, too," said Henry. "Such a 
 day as this makes a fellow want to start his 
 plows going, and all that, you know." 
 
 "If he s fortunate enough to have any plow 
 to start," said Cap, with a laugh. 
 
 "Haven t you?" 
 
 "That s what I m going to find out as soon 
 as Mammy gives us some breakfast. You ve 
 happened here on an important day for Briar- 
 wood. The contract is to be signed." 
 
 "And what does it amount to?" 
 
 "Nothing; absolutely nothing, my dear boy. 
 It is an imposing ceremony that imposes upon 
 no one, but leaves the party of the first part 
 and the party of the second part just about 
 where it found them."
 
 BALDY S POINT. 105 
 
 "The problem with me is, how are we to live 
 while we are. getting things under headway- 
 mother and I. You look pretty snug here be 
 hind your high palisades, but Whitefields has 
 gone all to pieces. You see, mother s been the 
 only white creature on the place for four years 
 now, and they ve made firewood of the fences 
 right before her face, and killed the stock, and 
 played the very deuce generally." 
 
 "No worse than on the places where there s 
 been a man." 
 
 "The Wilsons seem to get along some way 
 or other," Henry said, argumentatively. 
 
 "It s all owing to her." Cap rose suddenly 
 from the stick of wood he had been resting on, 
 and reached for his hat and vest that were 
 hanging on a limb of a china tree near at hand. 
 His face flushed suddenly, and there was a 
 bright light in his eyes. "It hurts me," he said 
 "to see such a heavy weight laid on a woman s 
 shoulders and not be able to lift it. Miss Amy 
 keeps the whole thing going, and the Major 
 don t even know it. Come, let s go into the 
 garden and see if there s any radishes big 
 enough to eat. I d like you to enjoy the fruit 
 of my industry. I make the garden myself 
 nowadays, and Mammy pays me the highest 
 compliment she can by saying I make as good 
 a one as old Turner used to make. You re-
 
 106 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 member Uncle Turner. He s pelted you and 
 me out of his turnip patch many a time." 
 
 They had reached the garden by this time, 
 and Cap walked straight toward the radish bed, 
 with the directness of a man with a practical 
 end to attain ; but Henry, carried backward on 
 the stream of time by the familiar old garden 
 that had been the greatest charm of Briarwood 
 to him in his boyish days, wandered away from 
 him toward the fragrant violet borders that had 
 always barred off the flowers from the veg 
 etables. The borders were there still, but 
 radical changes had been made in the ragged 
 and irregular old flower-beds. There were 
 trim, tiny little beds there now, intersected by 
 short walks, and bright spring annuals were 
 aflame in every corner. 
 
 "This is Nellie s garden," said Cap, coming up 
 behind him, with his hands full of long crimson 
 raidshes, to which the rich soil clung in brown 
 flakes. "She spends some of her happiest hours 
 out here. She likes to work in it herself, and 
 she fancies she is the sole author of this bright 
 ness and bloom. Her pride in it is real pretty 
 to see. Mammy and I never let her see us 
 tending it. She spends the most of her time 
 indoors with her dolls. It was fortunate for 
 her that mother had locked away all of sister 
 Annie s toys and dolls when she died. I don t
 
 BALDY S POINT. 107 
 
 know what Nellie would have done without 
 those dolls. Come in to breakfast; I see 
 Mammy waving for us. We never ring a bell 
 here; Nellie can t endure the sound of one." 
 
 He led the way out of the garden. He had 
 grown tall and stalwart so tall that he had to 
 bend his head to pass under the old cedar trees 
 that grew by the garden gate. There was some 
 thing infinite touching to Henry in Cap Van 
 Dorn s atonement. His strength was made 
 subservient to Nellie s weakness, his rational 
 desires yielded to her most irrational whims. 
 In her helplessness she was strong, and in her 
 feebleness she ruled him with autocratic 
 severity. "It s all I can do for her," he said 
 very frequently. It was a pathetic household 
 that Briarwood sheltered in those days: a young 
 man, with all the impatient longings and puls 
 ing ambitions of his years ripe within him, 
 bending uncomplainingly beneath the burden 
 of a joyless seclusion, not even allowing himself 
 to reflect upon the possibilities of his life if he 
 could but order it for his own interest ; a young 
 girl happily unconscious that she was a burden 
 to the friend whom she adored with the trusting 
 affection of the childish years that were to be 
 hers for all her earthly pilgrimage; and a 
 faithful old negress hovering above them both 
 with maternal tenderness and sleepless vigilance.
 
 Jo8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 They stopped at the cistern between the 
 house and the garden, and Cap held the 
 radishes under the spout while Henry pumped 
 the water over them. 
 
 "It takes me back to old times," said Van 
 Dorn, looking up with his bright smile, "to see 
 you at the pump-handle, Hank; but these are 
 honester radishes than the ones we used to 
 steal from Uncle Turner." 
 
 "I doubt," said Henry, dropping the pump- 
 handle to help twist off the green tops of the 
 rosy radishes, "if anything will ever again have 
 the relish that all things had in those days." 
 
 "You re getting hungry," Cap said. "I know 
 it by the tenor of your remarks. I always take 
 my most melancholy views of life on an empty 
 stomach. The future is a blank to the unfed." 
 
 Mammy had celebrated the unusual occur 
 rence of company to breakfast by a grand cu 
 linary display, and the sun was a good deal 
 higher overhead before the two men passed out 
 through the gate in the tall fence, whose key 
 Cap withdrew from the lock, and turned their 
 steps toward the quarters, where all the new 
 hands and Cap were to come to some sort of 
 an agreement touching the year s crop. 
 
 "You see, I ve got as much to boast of as you 
 have in the way of wreckage," said Cap lightly, 
 as they passed through the fenceless fields, by
 
 BALDY S POINT, 109 
 
 the blackened heaps of the gin-house that had 
 been burned by orders of the military, up 
 through the quarter lot where cabins without 
 front steps, cabins with no chimneys, and 
 cabins in every conceivable stage of degeneracy 
 swarmed with a motley crowd of strange ten 
 ants, who had come from no one knew whither, 
 with no definite object in life but to get close 
 to some white man who would feed them for 
 the possibility of a return in labor. 
 
 "How are you off for teams," Cap asked, 
 with neighborly interest, the question doubtless 
 being suggested by the disreputable appearance 
 of a blue-bodied wagon, guiltless of one hind 
 wheel, that impeded their progress just then. 
 
 "Three mules and one dumping-cart," Henry 
 answered, curtly. 
 
 "Which is vastly better than three carts and 
 no mules. That s my fix. That s the reason 
 I ll have to make easy terms with these fellows. 
 The most of them have mules. Stolen, 
 doubtless, but one can t afford to inquire into 
 the antecedents of every mule that feeds at his 
 corn-crib these days. Who are your mer 
 chants?" was the next question in his cate 
 chism. 
 
 "Haven t any yet, but I suppose there ll be 
 no difficulty on that score." 
 
 "None whatever. It s simply a matter of
 
 HO SALDY S POINT. 
 
 self-preservation with the commission mer 
 chants. They can t exist without our cotton, 
 and we can t make cotton without their assist 
 ance. They ll advance you all you need to run 
 the place : pork and meal and corn." 
 
 "And what is mother to exist on? I can t 
 feed her on corn as I would the work-mules." 
 
 "I know of one way to make a little ready 
 money," said Cap reflectively, "and not such 
 a bad way either, if you ll pocket your pride." 
 
 "I haven t any to pocket. I d turn stoker if 
 anybody would employ me." 
 
 "I don t think they would," said Cap, dis- 
 couragingly, slowly passing his hand along 
 Henry s arm. "You haven t got the muscle. 
 I would like to have taken hold of this thing 
 myself, but I couldn t leave Nellie. It s rather 
 confining." 
 
 "What is it? Don t be afraid." 
 
 "It s keeping the toll-gate on the plank road. 
 It s close to you there. The plank road is a 
 good source of revenue to its projectors, and 
 I know they re on the lookout for an honest 
 man. But then Miss Ray might object. The 
 position is not one of aristocratic exclusive- 
 ness, you know." 
 
 This was not his first attempt to bring the 
 conversation around to Fanny Ray. He was 
 at a loss to understand Henry s dumbness on
 
 BALDY S POINT. ill 
 
 the subject. Why should they not talk about 
 Fanny? He very seldom went out to Baldy s 
 Point of late, unless urgent business compelled, 
 and when he did no one volunteered to post 
 him in local gossip. He was under a cloud 
 wherever he went, and was fully aware of it. 
 Henry s reply, which came quite deliberately, 
 left him as much in the dark as ever. 
 
 "I ll risk disapproval. What does it pay? 
 It s worth looking into." 
 
 "I think so myself" they had reached the 
 dark crowd about the overseer s house gallery 
 by this time "and if you ll wait until I ve 
 expended all my wisdom on these enlight 
 ened sons of labor I ll tell you all I know 
 about it." 
 
 Henry waited, locating himself a little apart 
 from the master of Briarwood, who, with the 
 verbose and confusing contract, over which he 
 had expended so much brain effort, spread out 
 on the table before him, applied himself to the 
 stupendous task of evolving order from chaos. 
 
 Stupendous, indeed, where the contracting 
 parties represented on the one side a mass of 
 dense ignorance, distrust, inexperience, and 
 thriftlessness ; on the other, inexperience, youth, 
 and bewilderment. Cap read through the long 
 series of agreements on the part of the parties 
 of the first part (who were numerous and stolid)
 
 H2 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 and the party of the second part, in a slow, clear 
 voice, carefully eliminating all the large words 
 as he proceeded. The parties of the first part 
 knitted their dark brows sagely and exchanged 
 wise glances of caution with each other. They 
 were free now, and they owed it to themselves 
 to see that no white man got the better of them 
 just because he could "figger" and they could 
 not. The parties of the first part outnumbered 
 the party of the second part forty to one, so 
 the balance of wisdom must be on their side. 
 There were women there, with babies in their 
 arms and tired little toddlers clinging to their 
 ragged skirts, who were "going to have their 
 own say" in this matter. There were quiet, 
 age-bowed men there, to whom freedom had 
 come to late to possess any stirring power. 
 They missed the fostering care that had 
 sheltered them all through life, and the old eyes 
 that were fastened on the young face of the 
 contractor were full of wistful inquiry con 
 cerning the future. There were youths there 
 to whom the few years since emancipation 
 meant all of life, and who found it difficult 
 yet to discriminate between liberty and license. 
 There was strength and feebleness, docility and 
 ferocity, good-natured acceptance and dark dis 
 trust, all elbowing each other about the small 
 table where, erect and outwardly composed, the
 
 BALDY S POINT. 113 
 
 young master of Briarwood faced them, with 
 the depressing inner consciousness that upon 
 this turbulent, restless, untrustworthy mob 
 he must depend for his subsistence weighing 
 heavily upon him. 
 
 He finished reading the contract amid a dis 
 tinct buzz of discontent. 
 
 The murmur was taken up, and swelled into 
 a loud protest. Perhaps only a small propor 
 tion of them knew the original cause of dis 
 satisfaction. It was conveyed to them by one 
 of the younger men who faced angrily toward 
 the crowd about the gallery. 
 
 "Van Dorn s contrac promises to give us 
 one third uv all de cott n we makes, folks. Mr. 
 Dempsy Bass, jus back yhere two miles, he 
 promises his folks one-fo th. Them that likes 
 the figger three better n they does the figger 
 fo kin stay whar they s a mind to. Es fur me 
 en my squad, we ll try the one-fo th man. 
 Come on, Lindy." 
 
 He shouldered his way violently through the 
 crowd, calling to his own immediate family to 
 follow. They all needed a leader of some sort ; 
 must have one, indeed. They were a lot of 
 blind children groping their way along an un 
 tried road. 
 
 In less than five minutes Van Dorn and his 
 guest were entirely alone on the gallery. The
 
 l4 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 unsigned contract lay on the table between 
 them. They looked at each other disgustedly. 
 Then the ludicrousness of the situation came 
 uppermost, and they laughed boisterously. 
 
 "What will they do now?" Henry asked, 
 turning his gaze in the direction of the retreat 
 ing crowd. They were more of a novelty to 
 him than to Cap. "Will they go to Mr. 
 Dempsy Bass s?" 
 
 "Perhaps so, perhaps not," said Cap, folding 
 up the rejected contract ; "more likely they 
 will sit down again in my quarters for another 
 week to talk about it, while I feed them, until 
 they make up their minds, or think they have 
 made them up. Let it go for tc-day. I want 
 to talk to you about that toll-gate business."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A PROVOST MARSHAL S REIGN. 
 
 BALDY S POINT was in a state of violent 
 commotion. In point of fact, that was 
 coming to be the normal condition of what 
 was, usually, an abnormally serene locality. 
 So many unprecedented things were happening 
 within its sleepy purlieus, mostly things of 
 such an unpleasant description as to cause Mrs. 
 Judge Baker to say: "It really did seem as if 
 the war had just begun instead of having just 
 ended." Which was virtually true so far as 
 the non-combatants of Baldy s Point were con 
 cerned. 
 
 There was the Provost Marshal, to begin 
 with. He was decidedly the most unpleasant 
 thing that had happened for a long time, and a 
 thing altogether without a precedent. 
 
 When it first became known that a Provost 
 Marshal was established at the Mimms House, 
 people looked at each other stupidly and asked 
 "what he was there for." Some were even so 
 very ignorant as to inquire what a Provost 
 Marshal was. The more knowing ones defined 
 "5
 
 Il6 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 him so glibly as to arouse suspicion of recent 
 consultation with the dictionary. These de 
 clared that a provost was a sort of inferior 
 judge who took cognizance of civil causes. 
 The linguist of Baldy s Point declared the word 
 to be of French origin, and was really quite 
 fluent in the matter of roots and derivations, 
 but his erudition went for naught. Nobody 
 seemed to care anything about the origin of 
 the word. It was the man who wore it as a 
 sort of insignia of office that excited their live 
 liest interest. The combination of the words 
 provost and marshal had a military ring about 
 it, and the people of Baldy s Point were sick 
 nigh unto death of the very name of military 
 anything. There had been a tremendous revul 
 sion of feeling since the time, just a little over 
 four years before, when they had sent their 
 military forth with a great fanfare of trumpets 
 and a superb recklessness in the matter of flow 
 ers and predictions. The result had been dis 
 appointing. 
 
 What the real official duties of the Provost 
 Marshal who was stationed at Baldy s Point 
 might have been closely and clearly defined to 
 be will never be known. Perhaps he was 
 meant for a beneficent institution during those 
 chaotic days when there was neither judge nor 
 jury qualified to act intelligently in the small-
 
 BALDY S POINT. 117 
 
 cst matter of dispute, and at a time when 
 hordes of newly emancipated slaves were tent 
 atively trying to discover for themselves the 
 full meaning and scope of the large liberty 
 that had suddenly been intrusted to their igno 
 rant keeping. 
 
 What his duties practically proved to be 
 would have worn Atlas himself to a skeleton, 
 but the people of Baldy s Point had no sym 
 pathy to spare for the man who was to all 
 intents and purposes "put over them." Hap 
 pily for himself and the country, the Provost 
 Marshal proved to be an ephemeral expedient. 
 
 The one under which Baldy s Point groaned 
 temporarily did not suggest the ephemera 
 personally. On the contrary, he had the very 
 solidest and most permanent appearance phys 
 ically. "Not bad looking," was the reluctant 
 verdict of the men who gathered in diminished 
 numbers on Sellers s gallery those days. The 
 new official was compelled to walk three or 
 four times a day by this inquisitorial as he went 
 to and from the Mimms House to his office in 
 the Court-house. 
 
 Decidedly not bad looking. On the contrary, 
 handsome; with a striking military carriage 
 and a well-set head, and a pair of keen gray 
 eyes that rested placidly on the group of men 
 on the gallery as he passed them, ready to
 
 1 1 8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 accept any token of civility that might unex 
 pectedly be accorded him, but not at all press 
 ing his claims in that direction. 
 
 But they were sore and moody, these men, 
 smarting under defeat, and, beyond the scant 
 courtesy of a bow, were not inclined toward 
 conciliation. He represented the power under 
 whose triumphant hand they lay vanquished 
 and helpless. 
 
 It was before him, the Government s ac 
 credited representative, that every man of 
 them who would be reinstated to his rights of 
 citizenship must appear as a suppliant and 
 ask pardon for the deeds done in the spirit of 
 rebellion in the years just gone by. 
 
 New ideas must have to grow before their 
 intrinsic value becomes perceptible (in which 
 respect they somewhat resemble new potatoes), 
 and the idea that they had all been plunging 
 blindly toward an abyss from which Providence 
 had hurled them backward, bruised, bleeding, 
 exhausted, but saved, had not yet even sprouted 
 in the brains of the men of Baldy s Point. 
 
 That the Provost Marshal had a name which 
 was his own, and not government property, 
 everybody knew, for the post-office was kept on 
 one counter in Sellers s store, in the notion 
 department. It consisted of a box full of pig 
 eon-holes, open in front and behind, so that
 
 BALDY S POINT. 119 
 
 every man might help himself to his own mail 
 without "bothering" Sellers or his one clerk to 
 leave off the drawing of a quart of molasses or 
 the measuring of a dress pattern of calico. No 
 one, of course, ever saw or cared to see the con 
 tents of any pigeon-hole but his own, but every 
 one knew that the Provost s name was Wesley 
 Ford, and that he received a lot of letters 
 by every mail. But this private name was 
 practically useless to its possessor for the time 
 being. He had no social existence for Baldy s 
 Point. 
 
 Another one of the disagreeable things over 
 which Baldy s Point was in a state of ferment 
 ation was the remarkable stand Henry White 
 had taken. It was "possible for people to be 
 genteel, even if they were wrecked all to 
 pieces" ; and yet there he was, turned toll-gate 
 keeper, actually sitting in a little, miserable 
 sentry box, a sort of rain shelter merely, and 
 taking the toll from every passer-by with as 
 stolid a face as if he had been born and reared 
 in that coop he spent the day in ! Mrs. White 
 was "perfectly wretched" about it. And it was 
 said he actually took his dinner with him in a 
 tin pail, like any common laborer. Mrs. White 
 said he had gotten some nonsense in his head 
 about paying as he went, and he was going to 
 get the commission merchants to supply his
 
 120 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 hands but not himself. What a perfectly 
 absurd position for a young man who had been 
 brought up as Henry White had ! 
 
 Some people said it was moroseness, that 
 the breaking off of his engagement with Fanny 
 Ray had something to do with it. But that 
 theory did not hold good in face of the man at 
 the toll-gate; he did not look morose, only 
 quietly determined to do without flinching 
 what he had undertaken to do. He had a lot 
 of books in the shanty, and writing material, 
 and as he was almost within sight of the front 
 gate at Whitefields, it was no great undertak 
 ing, the coming down or the going back. But 
 Mrs. Judge Baker s voice was against the whole 
 proceeding, and consequently all Baldy s Point 
 decried it. It had a leveling tendency, and 
 anything that tended toward obliteration of 
 the old social lines was to be discouraged. 
 Henry White s unreasonable conduct, and the 
 daily doings and sayings of the Provost, were 
 about as much as Baldy s Point could cope with 
 at one time. At least, that was the general im 
 pression until, one day, it was surprised into 
 the knowledge of its own greater capacity for 
 excitement. 
 
 The Provost, it was reported, had called at 
 Judge Ray s, asked for Miss Ray, and been 
 received !
 
 BALDY S POINT. 121 
 
 There was absolutely nothing now left for 
 Fanny Ray to do to insure the uncorking of all 
 the vials of wrath and the emptying of their 
 contents upon her reckless head. What were 
 Judge and Mrs. Ray thinking of to permit 
 such a thing? Hadn t Fanny done enough al 
 ready, in that matter of cruel treatment of 
 Henry White, to disenchant all her old friends? 
 Why should she fly in the face of the com 
 munity in this manner? Mrs. Baker voiced the 
 whole neighborhood in querulous inquiry. 
 Disenchant was the word. The Judge s 
 daughter had been a sort of local queen before 
 these troublous times; so daintily pretty, so 
 saucily self-assertive, so winsome in her affec 
 tionate out-going to all her friends. But she 
 had changed a good deal in the months that 
 had come and gone since her cruel reception of 
 her unrecognized lover, and only when she 
 mounted her spirited little mare for a lovely 
 little canter through the woods was she seen 
 away from home of late or did she seem at all 
 like the old Fanny. She had grown to be very 
 cold and distant and indifferent to everybody, 
 which made it all the more incomprehensible 
 why the Provost Marshal should have felt 
 warranted in calling at the Judge s home and 
 asking to see Miss Ray alone. There was no 
 getting around the fact he had done so, for the
 
 122 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 Rays Mollie, who opened the door to him and 
 carried the message to Miss Fanny, passed by 
 Mrs. Baker s five minutes later on her way to 
 Sellers s store to get a pound of bicarbonate of 
 soda, and stopped to tell Mrs. Baker s Phemy, 
 who was leaning over the front gate with the 
 front door mat in her hand, which she was 
 going to beat against the gate-post after a 
 while. Mrs. Baker shook her head solemnly 
 when Phemy told her about it a trifle triumph 
 antly, and secretly hoped that Mrs. Ray would 
 be able to explain it away. It was that same 
 afternoon that Mrs. Baker found she had en 
 tirely forgotten the new stitch in double cro 
 chet that Mrs. Ray had taught her, and she 
 went over to take another lesson from her. 
 Everything looked as quiet as usual at the 
 Judge s. The Rays was one of the few homes 
 at Baldy s Point that had not a decidedly war- 
 scarred aspect. Mrs. Ray was out on the back 
 gallery, superintending the building of a feed 
 coop for her young chickens. The Judge was 
 there, too, with his spectacles pushed far up on 
 his bald forehead ; apparently he was superin 
 tending Mrs. Ray and the builder of the coop. 
 Fanny she had seen as she passed by the parlor 
 door, sitting at the piano with a long trail of 
 pink muslin lying all round the piano stool. 
 How slim and white her neck looked coming
 
 HALDY S POINT. 123 
 
 up from its pink frills ! She made Mrs. Baker 
 think of an azalea, there was something so 
 purely transparent about her cheeks and her 
 extremely pretty ears, behind which her hair was 
 pushed with utter indifference to effect. Noth 
 ing coarse or sordid had ever forced itself upon 
 the Judge s daughter for consideration, and if 
 the two doting old people out on the gallery 
 there could help it, it never should. She was all 
 that was left them out of a large family of chil 
 dren, and hence was the recipient of much 
 injudicious indulgence. Mrs. Baker found out 
 a good deal during that visit. She found out 
 how to make that double stitch in crochet. She 
 found out the very best way to make a chicken 
 coop so that the young chickens could partake 
 of their rations unmolested by voracious 
 feathered adults; she found out that the hands 
 on Henry White s place were in a state of ab 
 solute mutiny, because he would not include 
 whisky among his supplies ; she found out that 
 Amy Wilson had actually turned dressmaker 
 for the people on the Wilson place, and was 
 wearing herself out rising early in the morning 
 and sewing late at night, to keep the Major 
 from finding out what she was about. She 
 found out that Cap Sutton had the best pros 
 pect of anybody in the county for a full work 
 ing force, since he had changed his contract
 
 124 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 from one-third to one-fourth of the crop (which 
 had occasioned much triumph in his quarters); 
 she found out, in short, a little about every 
 one of her neigbors, and rejoiced or regretted 
 as the character of the information demanded ; 
 but what she did not find out was why the 
 Provost Marshal had called on Fanny Ray and 
 why Fanny Ray had received him instead of 
 the Judge, who evidently had been about the 
 house all day, for here he was late in the after 
 noon still in his house slippers, and his neck 
 was guiltless of a cravat. She stepped into the 
 parlor on her way back toward the front gate 
 after an hour s stay. Fanny got up respectfully 
 and inquired solicitously after the dear old 
 lady s health, looking at her very sweetly with 
 those great innocent eyes of hers. But Mrs. 
 Baker left the house feeling baffled. 
 
 The entire Ray family escorted her hos 
 pitably to the front steps; the Judge in his 
 slippers, that slapped the floor noisily at every 
 footfall, Mrs. Ray with her hand full of ten- 
 penny nails that she had gathered up thriftily 
 to put back in the tool-chest, and Fanny in her 
 trailing pink organdy, that was a trifle out of 
 date, but immensely becoming to her delicate 
 style of beauty. 
 
 "Poor old lady!" Fanny said, with a low 
 laugh, as the gate closed on Mrs. Baker. "I
 
 BALDY S POINT. 125 
 
 hate to inflict unnecessary suffering, but she 
 couldn t be trusted." 
 
 "No, indeed," said Mrs. Ray, in fervent 
 acquiescence; "it would never have done in 
 the world." 
 
 "As it is," said Fanny indifferently, "all 
 Baldy s Point will share her pangs before 
 night." 
 
 The Rays house overlooked the Court 
 house Square, so that every movement of any 
 importance that agitated the little town was 
 apt to fall directly under their supervision. As 
 they stood there they saw a saddled horse led 
 across the square by the boy who acted as 
 hostler at the Mimms House on the rare occa 
 sions when there was need for such a func 
 tionary. He hitched it to a ring in a tree 
 just outside the Court-house yard, and left it 
 there. 
 
 "I do believe he is a man of his word," said 
 Fanny, surprisedly. An interested look had 
 come into her languid eyes at sight of the 
 horse and man, and now she stood there watch 
 ing for the sequel. She turned away v/ith a 
 satisfied air when, after a little while, the Pro 
 vost came out from his office, and, mounting, 
 rode away at a brisk gait. 
 
 "He rides well," said the Judge, bringing his 
 glasses into position to look after the young
 
 126 SALDY S POINT. 
 
 man ; "and I suppose it was necessary. But 
 deuce take me if I don t wish it could have 
 been managed otherwise. It s a bitter pill. 
 It looks like surrendering twice over." 
 
 "I know it is," said Fanny, standing before 
 him and smoothing the wrinkles out of his 
 forehead with two little slim fingers, "and that 
 was the reason I would not let you have any 
 thing to do with it. I told him, truthfully, 
 that you knew nothing of my intention ; and 
 I told him, also, that he must name his price." 
 
 "What did he say to that?" the Judge asked 
 quickly. 
 
 "Looked black and turned red," Fanny said, 
 with her slow, lazy laugh, "and said he would 
 name his price when he had earned it, and I m 
 quite sure he will." 
 
 "Look here, Fanny" the Judge laid his 
 heavy hands on her shoulders "let there be 
 no mistake on that fellow s part, nor on yours 
 either. If he thinks that because you ve found 
 it necessary to make use of him you are going 
 to open this house to him as a visitor, he s 
 mistaken, that s all. He s a handsome dog, 
 but" 
 
 "And you are a very fooHsh papa," said 
 Fanny, dropping her arms from his neck lan 
 guidly and turning away from him with a 
 frown.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 127 
 
 "Don t cross her, Judge," said Mrs. Ray im 
 ploringly; "it don t take anything these days 
 to give her a turn. She looks like wax 
 now." 
 
 And the Judge meekly promised to be very 
 circumspect.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE PROVOST S ERRAND, 
 
 WHEN the Provost Marshal rode out of 
 town that morning, followed by a good 
 many curious glances and wondering conject 
 ures, it was not of the girl standing there on 
 the Judge s gallery that he was thinking, or, at 
 least, if it was, it was only for a very little 
 while. He took note of her presence there, 
 cuddled close up to her father s side, and said 
 to himself that she looked like some delicate 
 wild-flower growing close up to the roots of a 
 gnarly old oak, the physical contrast between 
 the two was so great, and he smiled slightly to 
 think that she should be watching him to see 
 if he did what he had promised her to do. 
 
 You haven t much confidence in me yet, lit 
 tle girl," he said, under his breath, as the bridle 
 path brought him close enough to necessitate 
 the lifting of his hat to the Rays, "but I bide 
 my time." 
 
 It occurred to him that Miss Ray had shown 
 considerable independence in doing what she 
 had done that morning, and he honored her for 
 128
 
 BALDY S POINT, 129 
 
 it. The more he analyzed it the more dis 
 tinctly difficult to do it appeared to him. He 
 thought he knew of only one other woman 
 who could have done an awkward thing with so 
 much grace. 
 
 When he did stop to think of it he saw her 
 coming swiftly toward him where he sat stiffly 
 enough in the parlor of her quaint old home, 
 amid the materialized fancies and traditions of 
 several generations of Rays. He was glad to 
 think the accumulated treasures of that stuffy 
 old room had escaped harm. If he had not 
 been there simply on sufferance, he would have 
 liked to inquire into the history of some of the 
 curious things that crowded the tables and the 
 etageres and the broad, low mantel-shelf. But 
 Miss Ray had come quite promptly, and had 
 looked at him inquisitorially for a second with 
 pure searching eyes, as if she wanted to decide 
 for herself what manner of man he might be, 
 and then, with singular straightforwardness, 
 but not without a tremor in her girlish voice, 
 had told him why she had sent for him ; had 
 told him how she had a very dear old lady friend, 
 who was a widow, and whose only son had very 
 foolishly leased his place out to the hands, and 
 had gone to keeping a toll-gate ; and how some 
 body had told her that her dear old lady friend 
 was in great distress because of certain threats
 
 13 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 she had heard made against her son, at which 
 he only laughed ; and of how she, Fanny Ray, 
 having heard that he, the Provost, could do 
 just what he pleased with the freedmen, had 
 sent to request him to use his influence with 
 the people out at Whitefields. How prettily 
 she had flushed, as, twisting her handkerchief 
 into a rope, she had gone on nervously : "Of 
 course you understand, Mr. Provost, that I 
 am doing this entirely unsolicited. No one, 
 not even papa, knows that I wrote a note ask 
 ing you to come over here. But but Mrs. 
 White s son is such an exceedingly obstinate 
 young man that he would let them kill him 
 before he would yield a point, and and that 
 would be so very sad for poor Mrs. White, you 
 know." 
 
 "To have her son killed, you mean?" This 
 with a grave smile. 
 
 "Y"es," said Fanny, giving one more nervous 
 twist to her tortured handkerchief, as she vailed 
 her pleading eyes under down-dropped lids. 
 
 "Quite so. But I don t imagine things are 
 that bad," he had said, and had informed her 
 that his practice was to receive formal com 
 plaints from employer or employed at his office. 
 
 "But Hen Mrs. White will never com 
 plain. And I I want to engage you to go 
 out there."
 
 BALDY S POINT. 131 
 
 "You mean," he had said, "looking black and 
 turning red," as she had truthfully reported, 
 "that you wish to pay me to go out to your 
 friend s plantation as a sort of regulator." 
 
 "Yes, just exactly," she had said, very 
 eagerly, evidently pleased with his ready grasp 
 of her idea, and he had told her stiffly he would 
 name his price later on, and had terminated 
 the interview somewhat abruptly. And here 
 he was actually going on the errand she had 
 sent him about. It occurred to him that these 
 Southern women had a rather cool way of 
 ordering men to do their bidding, and he was 
 to a degree surprised at his own docility. But 
 he said, searching for an excuse for himself, 
 this widow s case does sound rather forlorn. 
 He was too entirely outside the social circle of 
 life at Baldy s Point to have ever heard the 
 story of Fanny Ray and Henry White. If the 
 owner of this Whitefields place was a woman, 
 and alone, perhaps his merely riding through 
 the quarters and speaking a few quieting words 
 to the malcontents might mend matters for her. 
 It was worth "a trial. 
 
 "For Ann s sake, " it occurred to him, he 
 would like very much to make a friend of the 
 Judge s daughter. "Ann" was the Provost s 
 wife, and he was very much in love with her. 
 Too much in love with her to subject her to
 
 I3 2 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 pain when it could possibly be avoided. And 
 then, in his vision of fair women, the Provost 
 turned from the review of his visit to Fanny 
 Ray to welcome a demure little image that 
 was seldom out of his thoughts. "She s as 
 plucky as Julius Caesar," he said to himself, not 
 thinking of Fanny Ray, "but this sort of thing 
 would break her down in a month." He did 
 not specify what this sort of thing might mean. 
 Fanny Ray s good will, once he should have 
 earned it, opened up a possible avenue of hap 
 piness. The Rays occupied a social eminence 
 that no one had ever disputed. Whoever they 
 indorsed, the people of Baldy s Point accepted 
 without question. And the Provost Marshal 
 was inwardly resolved that they should indorse 
 his wife. That was the price he was going to 
 put on his extra services in behalf of that 
 lonely old lady out at Whitefields whose case 
 excited Miss Ray s sympathy so warmly. The 
 Provost was young, and this, their first separa 
 tion, was hard on Ann as well as himself, and, 
 as his fancy traveled much faster than the 
 hired nag that paced dejectedly through the 
 wooded road between Baldy s Point and 
 Whitefields, he had selected a building spot 
 and erected a pretty Queen Anne cottage on it, 
 and trained a Lamarque rose all over its front 
 porch (he loved these rich, luxuriant climbing
 
 BALDY S POINT. 133 
 
 roses ; Ann had never seen anything like them 
 up there in Vermont), furnished his home from 
 parlor to kitchen, and eaten several satisfactory 
 meals in its pretty little dining-room (which 
 was to overlook a bed of tuberoses and glad 
 ioli), with Ann sitting opposite him in a white 
 dress with Southern roses in her belt (it was 
 always blossoming time in the Provost s fancy), 
 long before he reached that portion of the 
 plank road where were the gate and the shanty 
 in which Henry White had elected to begin his 
 career as a bread-winner. The dull thud of his 
 horse s lazy hoof-beats upon the plank road 
 had formed a sort of accompaniment to this 
 pleasant reverie. The horse knew the road so 
 very much better than he did that his hold 
 upon the bridle had been merely nominal. 
 The animal s sudden stoppage was meant 
 merely to inform his rider that they had 
 reached the toll-gate and common honesty de 
 manded a halt, but it shattered the Provost s 
 reverie and sent his vision of Ann and the 
 Lamarque roses and the pretty dining-room 
 spinning, bringing him back with a jerk to the 
 errand Fanny Ray had sent him on. He 
 looked up and drew a long inspiration of aston 
 ishment. Coming toward him from his seat by 
 the little table, which was scarcely more than a 
 plank knocked up against the side of a venerable
 
 134 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 spreading sycamore tree, was a young man who 
 certainly did not suggest the typical toll-gate 
 keeper. The Provost s surprise was so extreme 
 he would really have liked to whistle. He 
 wondered if Miss Ray hadn t made a serious 
 mistake in supposing that this broad-shouldered 
 fellow, with his clear, fearless eyes and square, 
 resolute under-jaw, was not quite equal to 
 taking care of himself, his plantation, and his 
 mother too, without any outside interference. 
 But the girl had said his life was threatened, 
 and he only laughed at the threats. He re 
 called the intense look of anxiety in her eye 
 as she had told him that. Her interest in the 
 old lady out at Whitefields had suddenly be 
 come altogether explicable. It certainly would 
 be a pity for this fine-looking young fellow to 
 come to grief for want of a friendly warning. 
 But would he take that friendly warning from 
 him? That remained to be seen. 
 
 "Mr. White, I believe," he said, feeling in 
 his vest-pocket for the toll, which Henry stol 
 idly pocketed with a curt 
 
 "That is my name." 
 
 The Provost dismounted. There was no use 
 waiting for an invitation, even if the keeper 
 could have divined his intention. He felt 
 dubious about riding on through the gate and 
 over the Whitefields place without previous
 
 UALDY S POINT. 135 
 
 parley with its owner. What he had meant 
 for a kindness to an old lady might be mistaken 
 for an impertinence by a young man. He had 
 a mistake lodged in his brain about this toll- 
 gate keeper, and had concluded he was either a 
 lazy drone who preferred this sluggish sitting 
 at receipt of custom to the most arduous duties 
 of the plantation, or else he was a man broken in 
 health by the war and unfit for anything more 
 active. Whether or not Fanny Ray was re 
 sponsible for this error he could not decide. 
 
 The Provost was not a timorous man, and, 
 having made up his mind that it was the thing 
 to do to talk plainly to the master of White- 
 fields, he went at it boldly enough, helping 
 himself to a seat on the cypress block by 
 Henry s table under the sycamore. There was 
 a great litter of cypress splinters all around the 
 sycamore tree, and a small pile of clumsily made 
 shingles near them. A glittering draw-knife 
 rested on the cleft of another block of cypress 
 close by the one on which he had seated him 
 self. He glanced swiftly from the draw-knife 
 to Henry White s hands. It was pathetic. 
 But he admired him all the more for it. 
 
 "I hope you won t look upon me as an inter- 
 meddler, Mr. White," he began, somewhat 
 hurriedly, "but the truth is, I was about to take 
 a ride over your place."
 
 I3 6 JBALDY S POINT. 
 
 "It s not much to look at," said Henry, 
 flushing hotly but keeping his voice well under 
 control, "but doubtless you d find a good many 
 there to welcome you." This with cool sar 
 casm. 
 
 It was the Provost s turn to grow red, but he 
 was not easily turned from a purpose once 
 formed. 
 
 "You won t mind my saying that I ve heard 
 there s a good deal of dissatisfaction on your 
 place, and I d like to help mend matters if 
 you ll permit me." 
 
 "I suppose there s plenty of dissatisfaction on 
 every place," Henry answered bluntly, stooping 
 over to pick up one of his rough shingles to 
 use his pocket-knife on. "I m only on the place 
 at night and very early in the morning, but I 
 didn t know things had come to such a pitch as 
 to demand your intervention." 
 
 "It scarcely amounts to intervention," said 
 the Provost, equably; "I only aimed at preven 
 tion." 
 
 "Prevention of what?" Henry pushed his 
 broad-brimmed straw hat far back on his head 
 and fixed his eyes coldly on the Provost. 
 
 "Prevention of harm to you. You are not 
 unaware of threats 
 
 "No. I am not unaware of them. What 
 then?"
 
 BALDY S POINT, 137 
 
 Wesley Ford leaned forward earnestly : "I 
 implore you not to rebuff me. Whether it is 
 right or wrong that I should have gained such 
 an influence over these ignorant creatures, you 
 know that I have it. I will serve you, if you 
 will let me." 
 
 "The best service you can render the neigh 
 borhood will be to run some of these fellows 
 out of the country. They are fire-brands. As 
 for the rest, I m quite capable of managing my 
 own place, thank you." 
 
 "Would you mind giving me the names of the 
 men you consider at the bottom of these local 
 disturbances?" 
 
 "Not at all. Henry Robinson 
 
 "Wait a moment, please." The Provost felt 
 in his pocket for his memorandum book, only 
 to find it was not there, fumbled for a piece of 
 paper, and finally found he was reduced to using 
 the blank page of a letter which he drew from 
 its envelope, laying the latter on the little table 
 by his hat. "Henry Robinson," he repeated, 
 using his pencil rapidly. 
 
 "Daniel Forman," said Henry, briskly. 
 
 "Daniel Forman down." 
 
 "And Peter Johnson. They are the three 
 men who are perpetually inciting the rest to re 
 volt, and who have given expression to a lot of 
 rubbish. If I were to attend to all the stuff
 
 I3 8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 I hear from the quarters, I d have no time to 
 attend to anything else." 
 
 (A strong puff of wind sent the Provost s 
 hat spinning on the table and swept the 
 envelope out of sight among the litter of 
 the cypress splinters and shingles at his 
 feet. He put the hat on his head for 
 security, but gave no thought to the empty 
 envelope.) 
 
 "And you ve no objection whatever to my 
 visiting your quarters?" 
 
 "It s a matter of no moment whatever," said 
 Henry icily, "only you are not to permit them 
 to think you come as a mediator between me 
 and them. I ve taken a stand that I mean to 
 maintain if the stars fall." 
 
 The Provost put his written list back into 
 his pocket. He had no desire to argue this 
 young man out of any of his convictions. He 
 was a long way from Baldy s Point and the 
 day was dying fast. It was gloomy enough 
 out there by the toll-gate after the sun set. In 
 fact, long before its last rays faded from the 
 tallest tree-tops the shrill cry of the cicadas 
 filled the air, and the loud drone of the insects 
 smote on the stillness, and myriad black-winged 
 bats came out of the hollows of the trees and 
 circled close overhead, searching for their sup 
 pers in mid-air. The Provost shivered slightly
 
 BALDY S POINT. 139 
 
 as he stood up to go, and buttoned his coat 
 across his chest. 
 
 "Don t you find it deucedly dismal here all 
 day?" 
 
 "It s not especially cheerful," said Henry, in 
 a tone that discouraged further discussion of 
 his private affairs. And then the Provost 
 turned toward his horse, who had bitten off all 
 the sassafras shoots within his reach, and was 
 now eying him in a mildly disapproving way. 
 
 "It is so late that I think I shall Wait until 
 to-morrow," he said, as he sprang into the saddle. 
 
 "As you please," Henry answered indiffer 
 ently, and turned toward his shanty to gather 
 up the dinner-pail and the books which came 
 with him and went with him to and from the 
 house every day. The gleam of something 
 white on the ground near where the Provost 
 had been sitting caught his eye as he came out 
 again from the shelter. He stooped to pick it 
 up. It was the empty envelope. There was 
 something strangely familiar in the formation 
 of the letters in that superscription. He 
 looked at it fixedly. Once upon a time that 
 handwriting had been very familiar indeed. 
 He might possibly be mistaken ; so many 
 women wrote just alike. It was a hand-deliv 
 ered letter; there was no stamp on it. He 
 turned the envelope over. He thought he
 
 14 SALDY S POINT. 
 
 knew beforehand what he should find on the 
 flap. The letters F. M. R. were inextricably 
 entangled on it ; not inextricably to him, how 
 ever. Each letter stared him in the face in 
 cruel confirmation of the fact that Fanny Ray 
 had found occasion to communicate by letter 
 with the Provost Marshal, whom all her old 
 friends held in such base disesteem. 
 
 He sat there for a long time staring at the 
 envelope that told so much that it was a pity it 
 could not have told more. He was conscious 
 of a dull sort of surprise at himself. He 
 thought he had gotten entirely over his fancy 
 for this girl, who had flinched from his side 
 when he needed her the most. He didn t be 
 lieve he would have cared a rush if any of the 
 other boys had won her brittle affections; but 
 this this was too much. He sat there ponder 
 ing over the bitterness of it until the cicadas 
 wearied of their shrill calling to each other, and 
 the flutter of bats \vings grew louder and 
 closer, and the distant lowing of the cows 
 grew nearer and nearer, and the occasional 
 hoot of an owl mingled with the other voices 
 of the night, and the stars came out overhead, 
 and the day was dead. 
 
 Then he got up and turned his face toward 
 the house reluctantly. He wished he could 
 sit there till he felt stronger. "But mother
 
 SALDY S POINT. 14* 
 
 will be worrying," he muttered, peevishly. He 
 felt so old and tired to-night, so inexpressibly 
 weary of everything. What was he struggling 
 for, anyhow? 
 
 As he passed out of sight beyond the toll- 
 gate, a man came from around the corner of 
 the shanty and followed slowly in the same 
 path. He was a powerful negro; so dark of 
 hue and carelessly outlined in his shabby 
 clothes that he was but indistinctly defined 
 against the gloomy background of the trees. 
 
 His ax was slung over his shoulder, and on 
 its helve swung the tin dinner-pail that he had 
 taken with him that morning when he went to 
 his rail-splitting. His head was swaying angrily 
 from side to side, and occasionally his powerful 
 fist was raised and shaken in the diretion of the 
 receding form. 
 
 "So mine was the fust name. Henry Robin 
 son heads the list, do he, boss? Well, w en dey 
 runs me off n dis place it will be fur somethin ; 
 en you won* git much satisfacshun out n it." 
 
 He laughed aloud, and an owl, overhearing, 
 answered him with a shrill screech of diabolical 
 mirth.
 
 >> 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HENRY MAKES AN ENEMY. 
 
 THE hours which Henry White spent in the 
 shanty by the toll-gate were by no means 
 his most unhappy ones. There was an element 
 of peace and quietness in his life there which 
 entered into it nowhere else, and which was a 
 veritable balm of healing to the inward soreness 
 that plagued him yet. Strictly speaking, his 
 days were spent at the shanty, not in it. It 
 was scarcely more than a place of refuge for 
 him and his books when it rained. 
 
 The great sycamore tree that spread its 
 branches over an immense area, sheltering the 
 shanty as it sheltered everything else that 
 came within its radius, sheltered him also, and 
 under its outstretched arms he worked and read 
 and projected and remembered. Worked, 
 with stubborn revolution and awkward zeal, at 
 the tough cypress blocks out of which the pile 
 of clumsy shingles was so slowly evolved. He 
 had a boundless contempt for those shingles of 
 his own making. They were to re-roof the 
 old house with, and he rather dreaded the 
 142
 
 BALDY S POINT. 143 
 
 moment when they should come for the first 
 time under his mother s critical observation. 
 "She s so used to the old ways," he said to him 
 self, excusing her while he eyed an especially 
 uneven shingle with a. scowl of disapproval, 
 "that she can t seem to make allowance." But 
 the old roof leaked badly, and after these 
 shingles, which he was making with his own 
 red and blistered hands, were actually nailed 
 on, he supposed the result would be as satis 
 factory as if they had been turned out by ex 
 perts. Read, with divided attention and wan 
 dering mind, the books that had been his de 
 light and refreshment in the old times, but over 
 whose classic pages now there was thrown the 
 dark tissue of each day s bewildering condition 
 for his mental distraction. Projected idle 
 plans for the future, which were principally 
 noticeable for their lack of firm foundation and 
 as proofs of youth s incurable propensity to try 
 to bend fate to its will. Remembered well, 
 principally he rememberd his defeat in love and 
 war. But, as he pertinaciously refused to look 
 backward, it was only at occasional periods of 
 spiritual lassitude that Memory, getting the 
 better of Resolution temporarily, used the lash 
 mercilessly. 
 
 Against the huge trunk of the sycamore, with 
 its blotch of white and brown bark, he had
 
 144 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 nailed the semicircular boards that served him 
 as dinner-table, writing-desk, and tool-chest. 
 Through the green canopy of broad leaves he 
 could look up to the deep blue sky and soar 
 above the clumsy shingles and the wearisome 
 plantation accounts and all things mean and 
 small for a second at a time, which was clear 
 gain. In its branches the birds of the air rested 
 and twittered and caroled, and had come to 
 look upon him as such an innocuous specimen 
 of humanity that they consented affably to par 
 take of his luncheon, even contending with 
 really human acrimony over the crumbs that 
 fell from his table. In return for this casual 
 refreshment they sang for him. And to the 
 man so lately come from the din of artillery 
 and the rattle of musketry and the shock of 
 arms, the sweet, inconsequent, fragmentary 
 notes that sifted from myriad bird-throats 
 down through the interlacing leaves of the syc 
 amore were inexpressibly pleasing. The birds 
 were never disappointing, he said to himself. 
 Yes, it was very pleasant down there at the 
 shanty, and he was never especially glad when 
 the sun dropped low enough to send golden 
 shafts of light slanting through its lowest 
 branches to illumine the rough exterior of the 
 shanty, and the violet-tinted vistas of the woods 
 turned to black, and mystical shapes and
 
 BALDY S POINT. 145 
 
 shadows danced therein. He could not feel 
 especially glad, for then he must go back to the 
 home and hear from his mother every little de 
 tail that had annoyed her throughout the day. 
 And there was always a great deal to annoy 
 her these days, and she was unsparing of detail. 
 He thought he had done the very best he 
 could when he leased the place out to the 
 hands and "turned in" to make personal ex 
 penses at the toll-gate. But she differed with 
 him. Mrs. White differed with almost every 
 body in those bewildering days. She differed 
 with fate primarily, and all the rest followed 
 as a matter of course. 
 
 The keeping of the toll-gate only lasted from 
 sun to sun. Travel to and from Baldy s Point 
 was not so brisk but that the gate could be 
 locked at nightfall and opened again at sunrise. 
 The plank-road was an institution that had 
 been necessitated by the impossibility of land 
 ing cotton over the impassable swamp roads. 
 It was principally used for teams and vehicles, 
 and no teams or vehicles were apt to want to 
 traverse the impenetrable woods in which it ter 
 minated six miles beyond Whitefields without 
 the light of the sun to guide them. This 
 being the case, Henry White had a few hours 
 of every day and evening to devote to the 
 affairs of the plantation.
 
 146 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 His mother was untiring in her vigilant es 
 pionage of the "new people" in the cabins, 
 between whom and herself there was no bond 
 save that of self-interest. Henry sometimes 
 wondered if she did not expend all her energy 
 in garnering up complaints against them. On 
 this special evening he almost prayed that he 
 might find things quiet up at the house. He 
 did not feel sure of himself. That envelope, ad 
 dressed to the Provost Marshal in Fanny Ray s 
 handwriting, was lying in his inside coat pocket 
 over his heart. He marveled at the tumult in 
 his blood which it had excited. 
 
 "Anybody but her!" he said over and over 
 again, as he strode toward the house. "An 
 accursed interloper our enemy she s insulted 
 the whole community by having anything to 
 do with him." 
 
 He was quite sure he was no longer in love 
 with her himself. Oh, no! If there was any 
 thing he was sure of, it was that. He 
 walked very slowly toward the house ; he 
 knew of no special reason why he should hurry 
 home. Things had improved somewhat at 
 Whitefields since that day when he had stag 
 gered up the broken brick-walk, unrecognizable 
 in his tatters, toward where his mother and 
 Fanny Ray sat watching him. He had himself 
 patched up the fence and cut down the weeds
 
 BALDY S POINT. 147 
 
 and replaced the broken bricks with whole 
 ones, followed about by his mother uttering 
 little ejaculations of despair and plaintive pro 
 tests against the evil days she had lived to see. 
 He had improved a good deal himself, in many 
 ways. But they were all new ways. 
 
 Mrs. White herself could never be brought 
 to admit that anything at all was improved at 
 Whitefields. 
 
 "We are going from bad to worse, son, 
 every day," was the melancholy formula with 
 which she generally wet-blanketed any cheerful 
 prophecy for the future he might venture 
 upon. 
 
 "How could she help repining?" she asked, 
 in angry response to some very distinct pricks 
 from her own conscience. "Henry was all she 
 had in the world. She loved him better 
 than she did all the world put together. 
 He was actually demeaning himself to the 
 ranks of a day laborer, and she was expected 
 to look on and smile approvingly, which 
 was asking her to turn monster." That was 
 one view of the situation. She looked at him 
 with an anxious gaze this evening, as he came 
 heavily toward her with his shotgun resting 
 on his shoulder and his dinner-pail swung 
 across its muzzle. How extremely listless his 
 entire aspect! And how deliberate his steps!
 
 148 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 It was almost as if he came toward her reluct 
 antly. Mrs. White sometimes had intuitions, 
 but she did not always profit by them. 
 
 "You are late, son," said she, in her sweet, 
 plaintive voice* standing at the head of the 
 steps to meet him. 
 
 "A little," he answered, taking off his hat as 
 he stooped to give her the kiss she had always 
 exacted at his goings out and comings in ; 
 "but you haven t been worrying about me, I 
 hope." 
 
 "I m always doing that," she said, with un 
 smiling veracity, "but it doesn t seem to mend 
 matters much. It all passes for a weak wom 
 an s unreasonableness. I suppose I am 
 foolish." 
 
 He moved silently on into the hall, where he 
 stood his shotgun up in the corner by his rifle 
 and placed his tin pail on the hat-rack. The 
 hat-rack was one of the few ante-bellum articles 
 of furniture at Whitefields that had not gone 
 to ruin. It was an absurdly large affair of 
 carved rosewood, with marble slabs, and beveled 
 mirrors, and lacquered sea-shells to hold drip 
 ping umbrellas, and all the rest of it. Henry s 
 battered tin pail, with the top crushed in, 
 was offensively duplicated in the plate-glass 
 mirror. It was as if Mrs. White was being re 
 minded twice over of her son s descent to the
 
 BALDY S POINT. 149 
 
 ranks of the day laborer. She took it up with 
 a significant little twitch, and, holding it rather 
 unnecessarily far from her, moved with it 
 toward the back gallery. 
 
 "There are no ants in it," said Henry, whose 
 preference always was to turn these dumb 
 protests of his mother s into jest. 
 
 "I wasn t thinking of ants," said Mrs. White, 
 following him into her own room, where he 
 had gone to "freshen up" a little for supper, 
 "but the little while you are at home with me, 
 Henry, I prefer not being reminded of your 
 degradation." 
 
 "I m sorry you will persist in taking such an 
 uncomfortable view of the situation, mother, 
 but I declare I don t see how I can convert you 
 to my way of thinking." 
 
 "It s not what I think of the whole thing 
 that matters/ said Mrs. White, entirely effacing 
 herself by an accent, as she turned toward the 
 closet to get out a fresh towel for him, "but it s 
 the excuse it gives these new people for speak 
 ing impertinently of you" she laid the fresh 
 towel close at hand for him. She never neg 
 lected the slightest thing that would make 
 Henry comfortable. "Why, really, Henry, 
 they don t seem to think you are a bit better 
 than themselves since you ve taken to going off 
 every morning with your tin pail on your arm,
 
 15 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 and only this noon, when I told that outrageous 
 Henry Robinson 
 
 The wash-bowl came down on the marble 
 slab of the wash-stand with a crash. Henry 
 had lifted it high in two shaking hands and 
 dropped it. It lay in many pieces on the stand 
 and on the floor. Mrs. White looked from her 
 son to the broken bits of china. His face 
 wore a dark flush, and before he buried his wet 
 head in the towel she caught a gleam in his 
 eyes which she had never before seen there. 
 Some of his comrades on the battle-field 
 had. 
 
 "Really, Henry, if I didn t know better I 
 would say you did that on purpose," she said, 
 lifting her skirts high and stepping carefully 
 over the wet place on the carpet to pick up the 
 fragments of china. 
 
 "I will do that, mother, if you will wait a 
 second," he said, emerging from the towel with 
 humble apology in his looks, but with no 
 attempt at an explanation. 
 
 "It doesn t in the least matter," said Mrs. 
 White, in an injured voice. "So long as you ve 
 come down to eating your dinner out of a tin 
 pail, I might as well come down to washing my 
 face in a tin basin. That bowl" (with plaintive 
 emphasis on the pronoun) "was of real china, 
 and almost as old as you are. There he is
 
 EALDY S POINT. 151 
 
 again !" Mrs. White s tone and expression 
 changed suddenly from injured acceptance of 
 the inevitable to active animosity. From her 
 position at the wash-stand she could see the 
 kitchen door. Into its dark recess a tall form 
 had that moment been engulfed, but not so 
 quickly that she had not identified it. 
 
 "There who is again?" Henry asked, rising 
 from the floor with his hands full of broken 
 china. 
 
 "That Henry Robinson. He comes to the 
 kitchen as regularly as Where are you going, 
 Henry? My son, come back. Don t you know 
 you must use a little policy with these creat 
 ures?" 
 
 But he was gone, and, as she stood there 
 trembling, the sound of angry words and high- 
 pitched voices came up to her from the yard. 
 She could hear Henry s voice raised in com 
 mand. She could hear a sullen retort. Then a 
 sound of scuffling feet and a gurgle of resist 
 ance, as of some one denied the free use of his 
 tongue, and a little later on the slamming of the 
 gate. Henry came back to her presently, look 
 ing white and exhausted. 
 
 "What have you done?" his mother asked in 
 a frightened whisper. 
 
 "Put him out the gate for to-night," said 
 Henry, readjusting his cravat before the glass
 
 152 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 with trembling hand. "To-morrow I ll get out 
 a writ of ejectment for him." 
 
 "Pray don t be rash, Henry," Mrs. White 
 said, anxiously. "You know there s no end to 
 the mischief these creatures can do." 
 
 "Yes, I know it; I ve just been reminded of 
 it. But it won t do to let them think you re 
 afraid of them. I ll go in the first thing 
 to-morrow and see Miss Ray s friend." 
 
 Mrs. White repeated the closing words of his 
 sentence like a mystified echo "Miss Ray s 
 friend !" 
 
 "Yes, the Provost Marshal," said Henry, now 
 gotten to the end of his immense stock of 
 patience. He had found life a very bitter thing 
 all this day. Fate had been pricking him with 
 her sharpest thorns, and the result was that 
 his overtaxed nervous system yielded to the 
 strain, and he hurled one embittered reproach 
 at the woman who was such a large integer in 
 his present unhappiness. 
 
 The envelope burned in his pocket; he 
 plucked it out and cast it down before his 
 mother. 
 
 "Miss Ray s friend," he repeated "the gen 
 tleman who has his heel on the neck of all her 
 old friends, but receives notes from her." 
 
 Mrs. White was frightened and stilled. She 
 had never seen Henry quite like this before.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 153 
 
 His eyes were positively black from passion. 
 She wished she had never mentioned that affair 
 of Henry Robinson. But how could she tell 
 that Henry had come home ready for an explo 
 sion? Deaf! how irascible he had become! 
 She was actually getting to be afraid to open 
 her mouth ! Life wore a decidedly uncomfort 
 able aspect at Whitefields that night for the 
 mother and son. But there was no self- 
 reproach in Mrs. White s reflections.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MRS. WHITE TURNS DIPLOMAT. 
 
 WHEN Henry, the next morning at the 
 breakfast-table, proposed to his mother 
 that she should ride in with him to Baldy s 
 Point, she put the coffee-pot down with a 
 hasty thump and looked across at him in un 
 disguised surprise. It was so very unex 
 pected, you see. Since he had become "a 
 day laborer" (Mrs. White frequently scourged 
 herself with those words as she would with a 
 knout), whenever actual necessity compelled 
 him to go to town to see about a supply of 
 meal or pork, or something of that sort for the 
 plantation, he had generally saddled his horse 
 before breakfast, and, gulping that meal, had 
 dashed in and back again quite as if he were 
 under a severe wage-master who was likely to 
 dock him for loss of time. But here he was 
 actually proposing to take her with him in the 
 buggy. Her buggy was one of Henry s im 
 provements. He had tinkered at the old one 
 and painted it and furbished it, "for all the 
 world," she said in mournful notes of enforced 
 154
 
 BALDY S POINT. 15$ 
 
 admiration, "as if he d been born in a carriage- 
 maker s shop." 
 
 "It s that matter of the china bowl," she said 
 to herself, once more taking up the coffee-pot 
 after she had given him an eager assent. "No 
 doubt he feels badly enough about it, and 
 wants me to look for its match." While he, 
 to whom the bowl was already an effaced 
 accident, was wishing it was not necessary to so 
 encumber himself on his errand to the Provost 
 Marshal. 
 
 But the man with whom he had come in con 
 tact the night before was little better than a 
 vicious brute when thoroughly aroused, and 
 might put some of his many threats against 
 himself into execution during his absence. He 
 would feel safer to take his mother along. 
 
 The ride to Baldy s Point was accomplished 
 in almost unbroken silence. Mrs. White was 
 inclined to look upon it as an intervention of 
 Providence in her behalf. Ever since Henry 
 had thrown that crumpled, empty envelope 
 down before her in such a blaze of passion, she 
 had been longing for an opportunity to inter 
 view Fanny Ray. She took quite a hopeful 
 view of that fierce outburst of wrath on Henry s 
 part. It must have had its rise in jealousy, 
 and if jealousy were still possible, then love 
 was by no manner of means extinct. A load
 
 156 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 was lifted from her heart. Never for a moment 
 had she lost sight of her darling scheme to 
 bring these two together, but Henry s awful 
 and stubborn silence on the subject had baffled 
 her up to this moment. 
 
 She felt frequently in the little satchel she 
 carried in her hand to make sure that the tell 
 tale envelope had not taken fresh wings to 
 itself and flown out of her reach. She meant 
 to lay it down before Fanny Ray, with dra 
 matic suddenness, and ask her to explain it. 
 She was not quite sure yet how this was to 
 eventuate in a reconciliation, but once let these 
 two foolish young people understand that 
 memory occasionally busied herself about their 
 affairs, and things would work around all right. 
 
 Mrs. White had boundless theoretical confi 
 dence in the ability of Providence to adjust 
 matters here below, but she was never averse 
 to lending Providence a helping hand ; so, while 
 she leaned placidly back against the freshly 
 upholstered cushions of the renovated buggy, 
 she was arranging every detail of the coming 
 interview with Fanny. While he, leaning 
 slightly forward as he drove as rapidly as his 
 horse could be induced to get over the heavy 
 swamp roads, was thinking of nothing on earth 
 but the bitter necessity of going to this Provost 
 Marshal with his complaint and demanding the
 
 BALDY S POINT. 157 
 
 removal of his obnoxious tenant. The chief 
 bitterness of it lay in the fact that only yester 
 day he had informed this intermeddler that he 
 was quite able to attend to his own affairs, but 
 he had, since making that bold assertion, been 
 openly defied by the negro, who had said, 
 insolently, that there was "but one white man 
 in the country who could make him budge, and 
 that man wasn t named White." 
 
 "Of course he meant Wesley Ford," said 
 Henry to himself, giving the unoffending ani 
 mal between the new shafts of the old buggy 
 several entirely uncalled-for reminders that he 
 held the whip-hand of him at least. 
 
 "Where shall I put you down, mother?" he 
 asked, as they finally trotted into Baldy s Point 
 in fine style. 
 
 "At Sellers s," Mrs. White answered, briskly. 
 "I ve got to look for some lima beans and okra 
 seed, and I want to see if he s ordered that 
 churn from New Orleans I wrote in about ; and 
 I ve got a few new potatoes for Mrs. Sellers 
 under the seat here. And you can take me up 
 here too, son," she added, clambering stiffly 
 down from the tall buggy on to Sellers s gallery, 
 assisted by Henry and Sellers and the clerk. 
 " I m not in visiting rig to-day. Give Mr. 
 Sellers the potatoes from under the seat, 
 Henry."
 
 158 SALDY S POINT. 
 
 She was gone ; had disappeared within the 
 store. She did not tell him that she knew of a 
 straight and narrow path that led directly from 
 Mr. Sellers s cow-lot into Judge Ray s back 
 garden. There was always a picket off some 
 where in the fence that divided the Sellers 
 property from the Rays . Neither Mrs. Ray 
 nor Mrs. Sellers would have entertained the 
 idea of a perfect fence for one instant. It was 
 the greatest convenience in the world, that hole 
 in the fence, when Mrs. Ray wanted to send 
 over to Mrs. Sellers for a cup of yeast to start 
 her own with, or Mrs. Sellers wanted to slip 
 through to hunt the nest of that perverse 
 turkey-hen that showed such an incurable 
 preference for the Rays orchard over its legit 
 imate and carefully prepared nest in the cav 
 ernous depths of a recumbent sugar hogs 
 head. 
 
 Until this unhappy estrangement between 
 Fanny and Henry, Mrs. White had been in the 
 habit of driving boldly up to the Judge s front 
 door and calmly announcing her intention of 
 spending the day, sure always of a turbulent 
 welcome from the Judge down to "Major," 
 Fanny s big black Newfoundland dog, who 
 knew her quite well ; but the front door of the 
 Ray house faced immediately on the Court 
 house square, where Henry had gone to inter-
 
 BALDY S POINT. 159 
 
 view that terrible Provost Marshal, so she must 
 approach Fanny surreptitiously. 
 
 She was compelled to take Mrs. Sellers par 
 tially into her confidence, for what excuse 
 could she offer for plunging straight through 
 her premises via the cow-lot ? Mrs. Sellers was 
 the most tractable of mortals, and when she 
 gathered that Mrs. White wanted to see Fanny 
 in "hopes of adjusting that unhappy affair," 
 she herself piloted her visitor through the back 
 premises down through the cow-lot, and gave 
 her a cordial I envoi in shape of a vigorous 
 squeeze through the aperture. Mrs. White was 
 a taller and a larger woman than either Mrs. 
 Ray or Mrs. Sellers, and when her chin and her 
 knees were brought into violent and sudden 
 juxtaposition by the exigencies of space, and 
 it was found necessary for Mrs. Sellers to eject 
 her forcibly, as it were, into the Ray orchard, 
 she felt very surreptitious indeed. 
 
 Miss Ray, curled up in the hammock on her 
 father s back gallery at that moment, was 
 quietly crying to herself. She felt miserably 
 nervous and unstrung. There was that affair 
 of the Provost Marshal. She knew it, or she 
 rather, had been discussed in every house at 
 Baldy s Point before this. But that was not 
 what had brought her to the point of tears just 
 then. She had taken that step after advising
 
 160 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 calmly and deliberately with her own con 
 science. That was the only counselor she ever 
 treated with marked consideration. She was 
 quite sure she had done right so far, but there 
 might be consequences. In fact, she had just 
 seen something that made her think there was 
 already a sequel to that visit of the Provost 
 Marshal s to Whitefields, and she felt a sicken 
 ing sense of responsibility for everything just 
 then. Sitting at the sewing-machine which 
 stood by the front window in her mother s 
 room for the best light was in that corner 
 she had seen a familiar object, three familiar 
 objects in fact, advancing up the road that 
 led straight by the Judge s door before cut 
 ting across the Court-house square to the 
 county offices. The three familiar objects 
 were the horse that Henry White was driv 
 ing, the buggy he sat in, and the man himself. 
 She closed her eyes at the first glimpse of them, 
 and felt ashamed of the hot rush of blood 
 that dyed her very neck crimson. 
 
 Had some miracle been performed, and was 
 Henry coming to tell her he had forgiven her 
 heartless foolishness and that he loved her yet? 
 And was he coming to take her on one of those 
 long, delicious rides that he and she used to 
 take so often, bowling along the river bank 
 below Baldy s Point, with the green rampart of
 
 ALDY S POINT., 161 
 
 the levee studded with wild camomile on the 
 one side of them, and the tender fringe of the 
 button-willow and the elder-bushes on the 
 other? Ah! what sweet visions came from out 
 the past to meet her in that one second of 
 wondering uncertainty ! No, he was not com 
 ing to her. He had driven past the house 
 without one sidewise glance, had turned his 
 horse s head across the square, and was soon 
 engulfed by the opening and shutting of the 
 big Court-house gate. 
 
 It was then that she had stolen away from 
 the sewing-machine with a sudden plea of head 
 ache addressed to her mother, who was cutting 
 out something big and white and intricate on 
 the bed, and who had her mouth too full of pins 
 just then to sympathize or to advise. She was 
 half frightened. Suppose this sudden descent 
 upon the Provost meant mischief! How did 
 she know that Henry White might not have 
 come there to give him his opinion about his 
 meddling propensities! And supposing they 
 should both get angry, and from rude words 
 come to something worse and it was all her 
 fault ! Small wonder the tears came hot and 
 fast and readily. 
 
 She heard some one come almost stealthily 
 up on the back gallery, but she was too 
 absorbed to open her eyes and see that it was
 
 162 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 not Mrs. Sellers. Mrs. White really did ad 
 vance with unnecessary caution. This whole 
 proceeding was so enveloped in secrecy that, 
 although it was high noon, with a brilliant sun 
 overhead, and the mocking-birds that always 
 rested in the crape-myrtle tree by the Rays 
 back gallery were singing away in that tireless 
 fashion that belongs to them exclusively, she 
 felt all the sensations of an inexperienced bur 
 glar as she placed her foot on the gallery floor 
 and struck a loose plank which gave a most 
 unseemly report of her presence and made her 
 start violently. 
 
 "Fanny," she called softly, advancing on the 
 recumbent figure in the hammock. "Fanny, 
 dear!" 
 
 Fanny opened her eyes suddenly, and the 
 next moment was sobbing hysterically in Mrs. 
 White s arms. 
 
 "I ve only a very few moments, dearie," said 
 the older woman, smoothing the hair softly 
 back from the girl s flushed temples, "but I 
 want to talk to you quite alone. Suppose we 
 run down to the orchard, then I can slip back 
 through the fence and be waiting at the Sel- 
 lerses for Henry, and nobody ll know. Henry 
 has gone to see the Provost." 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Fanny, not waiting to 
 get anything to throw over her head, only too
 
 BALDY S POINT. 163 
 
 eager to hear what Henry s mother might have 
 to say. Perhaps it was a message ! 
 
 Mrs. White s prepared programme had 
 slipped her memory entirely. She was flurried 
 and hurried. Suppose Henry should come 
 back to the store in a great haste to start home, 
 and no one be able to tell him what had 
 become of her, and she be finally compelled to 
 substitute a full-blown falsehood for the nebu 
 lous prevarications which good women some 
 times convince themselves are necessary and 
 blameless ! 
 
 It was past the time of orchard bloom, and 
 the sparse showing of apple and peach and 
 apricot trees which the Judge nursed with such 
 assiduity were bending beneath an unusual 
 promise of fruit. She stopped under the 
 shade of a peach-tree, and, hastily rummaging 
 in her hand-satchel, brought out the condemna 
 tory envelope. 
 
 "Fanny, darling," she said, in a voice that 
 trembled somewhat from the excitement of 
 the occasion, "I don t in the least know how 
 this fell into Henry s hands, and I m quite sure 
 you d never do anything that a young girl 
 could not do with perfect propriety, but, my 
 poor boy, oh, Fanny ! he s been in such a way !" 
 
 Fanny took the envelope wonderingly. Then 
 a radiant gleam came into her eyes.
 
 1 66 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 This is for your comfort, not for his. Swear to 
 me you ll not breathe one word of this to him." 
 
 "I can t," said Mrs. White, looking anxiously 
 upward to see if the sun had altered its posi 
 tion materially since she had come into the 
 orchard. 
 
 "Can t what? Can t swear?" 
 
 "Can t tell Henry. Oh, Fanny! he s grown 
 so stern and exacting of late ! Why, I hardly 
 know my own child. I d never dare to own 
 that I d been near you." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 Miss Ray did not seem to be very much dis 
 composed by this information. She could cope 
 with anything in her old lover but frozen indif 
 ference. Once the idea gained ground in her 
 mind that she still had possession of his heart, 
 let her tenure be ever so slight, she composedly 
 assured herself that she could enlarge that 
 tenure at will. How much brighter the world 
 had grown of a sudden ! 
 
 "I must be going now," Mrs. White said, 
 twining her arms around Fanny s slim waist. 
 "Henry will never spend one unnecessary 
 moment away from his work. He came in to 
 see that Mr. Ford about that Henry Robinson." 
 
 Fanny breathed freely. Then it was not a 
 personal encounter over there, such as she 
 had nervously pictured to herself ! Then they
 
 BALDY S POINT. 167 
 
 kissed each other fervently, these two woman 
 who had one common love between them, and 
 Mrs. White walked away rapidly toward the 
 opening in the fence, but Fanny stood quite 
 still under the peach-tree tearing the envelope 
 into small bits. 
 
 "Henry White jealous! Delicious!" 
 She said it aloud, then laughed for very glad 
 ness at the thought, and turning slowly back 
 toward the hammock, she flung herself into its 
 meshes and dreamed the whole bright morning 
 away in sweet imaginings of what might yet be.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 THE PROVOST S MAIL. 
 
 mail that the Provost Marshal helped 
 -I himself to out of the pigeon-hole in the 
 box on Sellers s counter the next morning 
 contained a letter which set him to pondering 
 deeply. It also opened up some very bright 
 possibilities, which he was almost afraid to 
 welcome too eagerly, for fear of their turning 
 into disappointing impossibilities. He had 
 grown a trifle morbid since his separation from 
 Ann, and had formed a habit of accusing Fate 
 of malice prepense where he was concerned. 
 
 The letter in question was from his wife, and 
 one paragraph in it surprised him immensely, 
 and set him to maneuvering energetically 
 
 "Among the names you mention as those 
 of the principal people in your neighborhood," 
 Ann wrote, "I see those of Major Wilson and 
 his daughter Amy. Can it be my very own 
 cousin, Amy Wilson? But they lived in New 
 Orleans. Mamma s only sister married a Mr. 
 Wilson (he might have gotten to be a major, 
 you know, during the war), and her name wa? 
 168
 
 BALDY S POINT. 169 
 
 Amy. I ve seen my Aunt Amy. Mamma and 
 I visited her once in New Orleans, and I used 
 to be perfectly happy at her house, though a 
 little bit afraid of her husband, Mr. Wilson. 
 Amy my cousin Amy, I mean used to come 
 on here from Troy, where she was at school, to 
 spend her holidays with us. She was an angel. 
 Do find out immediately if these Wilsons are 
 the same people, for if they are I will not 
 consent to remain away from you another 
 month. You tell me you could not subject 
 me to the coldness and dislike that are your 
 daily portion ; but I do not believe even this 
 terrible war could have altered my darling Amy 
 so that she would not make me welcome. I 
 am going to write to her myself by this same 
 mail. If there s a mistake, and the Wilsons 
 you speak of are not my Wilsons, I m sure they 
 can t execute us for the mistake. I m going to 
 board with them." 
 
 As the Provost folded up this surprising 
 document, he said to himself that "perhaps 
 Ann had been a little hasty." He was as 
 morally sure as a man could be of an unseen 
 thing that the same mail which brought his 
 letter from Ann had brought one to this Miss 
 Wilson, whom he had never seen, but of whom 
 he had heard such remarkable things. Should 
 she really prove to be Ann s cousin, how much
 
 17 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 pleasanter things might be made for that dear 
 little patient woman waiting up there in Ver 
 mont for him to say "Come." When it had 
 seemed utterly impossible to have her with him 
 he had cultivated the stoical element in him 
 self; but now that Fate seemed smoothing the 
 way for him so unexpectedly he yielded to the 
 impetuous element in him. The impetuous ele 
 ment in him carried him to Judge Ray s door, 
 where he asked boldly "to see the family." 
 
 Mrs. Ray came in, but reported the Judge 
 as being too busy to be disturbed. "Would 
 Mr. Ford state his business through Mrs. 
 Ray?" 
 
 Mr. Ford flushed to the temples. Mrs. Ray 
 had three anxious little puckers on her forehead 
 which always deepened into furrows in mo 
 ments of perplexity. "It might really be dan 
 gerous," she said to herself, "to slight this 
 young man." The Provost felt in his pocket 
 for Ann s letter. He wished he had dared to 
 ask for Miss Ray alone. She was "broader" 
 than these old folks to whom she belonged. 
 
 "I merely called this morning, Mrs. Ray," he 
 began, with an unfortunate stiffening of man 
 ner, "to ask a few questions." 
 
 Mrs. Ray s anxious puckers deepened per 
 ceptibly. She was a timid soul. "At best," 
 she hastily considered, "questions were entang-
 
 BALDY S POINT. I?! 
 
 ling, and answers compromising." She only 
 saw, in the extremely erect young man before 
 her, a Government official, who might or might 
 not be about to entangle her in some damaging 
 admissions, from which not even the Judge, 
 with all his legal lore and natural acuteness, 
 could exculpate her. And Mrs. Ray could 
 imagine no higher degree of perplexity. Come 
 what might, "that man" should extract nothing 
 but the vaguest generalities from her. 
 
 "Do you know the Wilsons who live back 
 here somewhere out on the plank road, Mrs. 
 Ray?" he asked, putting his finger on the name 
 of Wilson in Ann s letter, as he fixed the 
 Judge s wife with a rather unnecessarily intense 
 gaze. 
 
 "Which Wilsons? There s no end of Wik 
 sons in this county. There s old John Wilson, 
 the blacksmith, and a lazier mortal never 
 lived it puzzles me to know how he does 
 keep from starving and the Wilson girls, 
 whose father was a steamboat captain about 
 twenty years ago and Lawyer Wilson, but I 
 expect there s more Wilson than lawyer 
 there" (Mrs. Ray evidently purposed making 
 up in volubility what she might lack in explic- 
 itness but the Provost brought her up with a 
 "round turn," so to speak). 
 
 "I mean Major Wilson, who lives on his
 
 172 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 plantation back here somewhere in the swamp, 
 with his only child, a Miss Amy Wilson." 
 
 Thus forced into a corner, Mrs. Ray said, 
 shortly: "Yes, I know them; what then?" 
 
 "Did they ever make their residence in New 
 Orleans?" 
 
 Now, Mrs. Ray knew as well as she knew 
 anything in the world that it was only after his 
 wife s death that Major Wilson, turning away 
 in bitterness of spirit from the rush and clamor 
 of city life, had established himself personally 
 on the plantation and turned "Amy out to skir 
 mish for herself," as he had expressed it at the 
 time. But how did she know what this man 
 had gotten hold of against the Major, who may 
 have been whatever you please before the war, 
 but was down now, and she was the last person 
 to give him another blow? 
 
 She "supposed Major Wilson might have 
 had business in New Orleans, as every cotton 
 planter had, when they d had business any 
 where. She knew very little of their affairs." 
 
 "Could you give me his wife s maiden name, 
 Mrs. Ray?" The Provost asked this, taking 
 out his pencil, which made the Judge s wife 
 feel quite as if she were giving her deposition, 
 and for all she knew she might be helping to 
 take the very roof from over Amy Wilson s 
 head.
 
 BALDY S POINT. i?3 
 
 She wished from her heart the Judge had 
 come in here, or even Fanny, either one of 
 whom could manage this man better than she. 
 She was sure she was being interviewed for 
 some sinister motive. 
 
 "Mrs. Wilson s maiden name?" she repeated, 
 reflectively. "Mrs. Wilson s maiden I ve 
 such a wretched memory." 
 
 Fate favored her at that moment. Fanny 
 had fully intended making her appearance in 
 the parlor before Mr. Ford s departure, but as 
 she did not intend he should presume too far 
 on yesterday s accommodation, she timed her 
 arrival to suit herself, and when she did come 
 in she was habited and hatted for her usual 
 morning s gallop on horseback. The day must 
 be very bleak to induce her to forego this 
 pleasure. She meant he should see her preoc 
 cupation. 
 
 "I am very much obliged to you, sir," the 
 said, standing before the Provost with her long 
 skirt gathered up in one little gauntleted hand, 
 "for what you did yesterday. You told me 
 then you would let me know later on what 
 price you put on your services. It was very 
 good of you." 
 
 Wesley Ford withdrew the hand which he 
 had involuntarily extended, and looked down 
 on her silently. "So slight and tender looking,
 
 174 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 and yet so coolly insulting," was what he was 
 thinking. Then, with the disappointment of it 
 all sweeping away his better judgment, he 
 spoke hot, passionate words that showed these 
 two women the human side of this Govern 
 ment tool. 
 
 "I came here this morning, Miss Ray, to 
 name my price for services rendered, as you 
 are pleased to put it ; but since I ve come I m 
 quite convinced it would be entirely too high, 
 in your estimation, so I prefer naming none 
 
 "It s for me to judge of my own ability to 
 pay," she said coldly, raising her head slightly, 
 and looking at him calmly as he stood flushed 
 and uncomfortable before her. 
 
 "You shall judge then, and if I ask too much, 
 you can simply order me from your presence." 
 
 "He is going to propose to her, right here 
 and now," Mrs. Ray said to herself, violently 
 perturbed over such unprecedented impudence. 
 "I m quite sure the Judge will have to come 
 in, after all." 
 
 "I came over here this morning," said the 
 Provost desperately, "to ask a few simple ques 
 tions about some of your neighbors. I ve 
 grown used to being misunderstood every time 
 I open my mouth, but suspicion of me doesn t 
 always crop out as plainly as it has here this 
 morning. I wish I could convince you people
 
 BALDY S POINT. 175 
 
 that I want to be of service to you if you will 
 let me." 
 
 "Did you want to be of service to the 
 Wilsons?" Mrs. Ray asked with a suspicious 
 ring in her voice. 
 
 "No. My inquiries concerning the Wilsons 
 were altogether selfish. I wanted to find out 
 if Miss Amy Wilson is or is not a cousin of my 
 wife s." 
 
 "Your wife s !" 
 
 Quite as if the possession of a wife was the 
 last thing they would have accused the Pro 
 vost of. 
 
 Why should both women have voiced their 
 surprise simultaneously? 
 
 "Yes," he went on hurriedly, thinking more 
 of Ann s wishes just then than of anything else 
 in the world. "She writes me that if this Miss 
 Amy Wilson is her cousin, she feels quite sure 
 she will not be averse to receiving her under 
 her roof, even if she is the wife of a despised 
 and condemned Federal official, and I thought 
 perhaps Miss Ray would be kind enough to 
 discover for me how Miss Wilson felt on the 
 subject. I had even dared to think perhaps 
 you would give me a letter of introduction to 
 the young lady. My wife seems to think she 
 is an angel." 
 
 "She is," said Fanny, confidently. Her feel-
 
 I? 6 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 ings toward Amy Wilson had undergone a tre 
 mendous revulsion since Mrs. White s visit. 
 And now here was the Provost owning up to a 
 wife, and seeming to be really fond of her, too. 
 What a queer turn things had taken ! 
 
 "I tell you what I will do," she said, nodding 
 her little plumed riding-hat sagaciously, as she 
 smiled pleasantly up into the young man s 
 flushed face. "I had just come in here to tell 
 mamma that I intended riding out to see Amy 
 this morning. You may go with me, and then 
 I know Amy and the Major will receive you 
 kindly. The Major is my most constant 
 adorer." 
 
 "Will you do that?" he asked eagerly, but 
 Mrs. Ray looked dissatisfied, and fidgeted 
 openly. 
 
 "You don t like it," said the Provost, turning 
 suddenly upon her and driving her to equivo 
 cation. 
 
 "Fanny is not equal to so long a ride on 
 horseback. She s not as strong as she thinks 
 she is." 
 
 "I will bring my village cart if I may?" 
 
 Mrs. Ray was silent. On the one hand was 
 the shocking scandal of having Fanny drive 
 through town in a village cart by the side of 
 the Provost Marshal ; on the other was the 
 danger of offending this potentate. If the
 
 BALDY S POINT. 177 
 
 Judge only wouldn t shift everything on to 
 her shoulders ! Fanny was silent, too. If they 
 went on horseback, she had meant to go by a 
 bridle-path through the woods, a short cut to 
 the Wilsons . If she went in the village cart, 
 they must go by the big road, and, Henry 
 White must exact toll of them. Her evil 
 genius whispered to her that to go in the village 
 cart by way of the plank road would inflame 
 Henry s jealousy to the pitch of expression. 
 "Once bring him to say something" was her 
 process of reasoning, and she could speedily 
 adjust matters. 
 
 "I will go in the village cart," she said, a 
 trifle nervously, for it certainly was rather a 
 daring thing to do, "and I will change my 
 habit while you are getting it ready." 
 
 "Fanny!" This exclamation came from Mrs. 
 Ray as Ford bounded away in boyish eagerness 
 to get the gig. 
 
 "You are quite right, mamma; I don t 
 believe I am equal to the ride on horseback, 
 and I had positively made up my mind to 
 see Amy to-day. So don t say a word, 
 please." 
 
 Her eyes sparkled ; a bright spot of red 
 burned in either cheek. The determination to 
 bring Henry White once more to her feet as a 
 suppliant was intoxicating. She was rapidly
 
 I?8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 losing sight of every argument against this 
 expedition. 
 
 "Then to think, mamma," she said, "how im 
 mensely this may benefit the Wilsons. If this 
 man should turn out to be a connection of 
 theirs, of course he will take right hold and 
 help that poor darling Amy, who is wearing 
 herself to a shadow. And how anxious he 
 seems to have his wife with him ! I suppose 
 he s human, if he is a Provost." 
 
 She rushed off to rid herself of her long 
 habit, and was standing waiting on the steps 
 when Wesley Ford drove up to the front gate 
 in the smart little vehicle which, with its 
 glittering harness and fast trotter, was the envy 
 of all the unmarried youths of Baldy s Point, 
 and an offense to their elders. 
 
 They were gone, and it was irrevocable, and 
 Mrs. Ray went back into the house with tears 
 of mortification in her mild eyes and a surging 
 wish in her gentle heart that Judge Ray might 
 be a little more like other men. 
 
 As for Fanny ! 
 
 The sense of adventure and of daring was 
 uppermost for the first half of the drive. She 
 was excited, and laughed and talked with al 
 most hysterical vivacity. This reckless mood 
 was vastly becoming to her physically. Wesley 
 Ford had always thought her rather dull of color-
 
 BALDY S POINT. 179 
 
 ing and abnormally quiet. But this merry girl! 
 If she should only " take to him," what good 
 comrades they would be ! It was of Ann he 
 was thinking, even while lending an attentive 
 ear to the incessant flow of comment and ques^ 
 tion from Fanny s lips. She talked as if she 
 were afraid to be silent. A tremulous dread of 
 the moment when the gig should come to a 
 standstill, and Henry White demand his toll, 
 seized upon her, and when the tall-posted gate 
 loomed in sight, and she knew that little shanty 
 under the sycamore must be where Henry 
 stayed, the vivacity forsook her. She grew 
 as mute as a frightened bird in view of a 
 coming storm, and the pretty color all for 
 sook her cheeks. As a tall form rose from 
 somewhere behind the sycamore tree and 
 advanced toward the gate, a violent trem 
 bling seized upon her and she gave a little 
 audible gasp. 
 
 "You are ill; shall I turn back?" asked Wes 
 ley Ford, looking at her with concern, as the 
 tremor of her frame conveyed itself to his 
 senses. She looked at him imploringly and 
 framed the words, "No; go on," with her 
 lips, but no sound came from them. It was at 
 this moment, when their eyes were fastened 
 upon each other with an intensity born of the 
 occasion,- that Henry White first recognized
 
 I So BALDY S POINT. 
 
 the inmates of the buggy. They were quite a 
 little way off yet. He was a prompt tollman, 
 and never delayed a passenger at the gate. He 
 was thankful for the short space that inter 
 vened before the moment when Ford halted 
 his horse and felt in his pocket for the toll. 
 Fanny leaned forward breathlessly! If he 
 would only look at her! She could not speak! 
 But if he would only look at her he would 
 see all he could not help seeing the plea for 
 forgiveness, for it was there in all its fullness in 
 her eyes and in her heart ! But he did not 
 look at her. He looked beyond her. There 
 was murder in his heart, but he made the cor 
 rect change for the Provost Marshal with a 
 steady hand, and stepped backward for them 
 to pass on with outward composure, never once 
 letting his eyes drop from the Provost s face 
 to the white cheeks and quivering lips of the 
 girl by his side. 
 
 He stood there until the vehicle had passed 
 entirely out of sight ; then a fierce trembling 
 seized upon him, and he shook like a man 
 in an ague. The sun blazed fiercely down 
 upon him as he stood leaning against the 
 gate-post for support, but he did not feel it. 
 The clouds of dust raised by the rapidly rolling 
 wheels of the gig settled about his hat and 
 beard, but he was unconscious of it. This
 
 BALDY S POINT. l8l 
 
 sound of the horse s feet died away in the far 
 distance, and still he stood there. 
 
 "God!" he said, under his breath. "And I ll 
 have it all to go through when they come 
 back! Curse him ! Curse her! The wanton 
 ness of her cruelty is monstrous! What is she 
 made of?" 
 
 He went back to his work ; to his shingle- 
 making. He forgot to eat his luncheon out of 
 the tin pail that day. He forgot to open Plu 
 tarch, which he always did at his noon resting- 
 time he forgot that he needed rest. He only 
 saw Fanny Ray sitting there by the side of 
 the Provost Marshal, beautiful, cruel, merciless ! 
 It shamed him to realize that he loved her 
 dearly yet.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ORDEALS. 
 
 YES, he had it all to go through with again. 
 It was nearing the time to close the gate 
 for the day when he saw the swiftly advancing 
 clouds of dust which rolled up so much quicker 
 in the wake of the Provost s fast trotter than 
 for the slower-moving teams of the natives, and 
 braced himself for the ordeal. For it was an 
 ordeal to have to listen again to the noisy 
 clatter made by Ford s iron-shod throughbred 
 upon the planks of the road ; to stand again in 
 readiness for the trim trap whose burnished 
 side and bright red wheels flashed with such an 
 insolent show of prosperity in the slanting rays 
 of the sun that was setting behind them ; to 
 look once more over and beyond Fanny Ray 
 to receive his toll from Wesley Ford s detested 
 hand ; to be conscious of every curve of her 
 form, of the downward sweep of her long 
 lashes, of the firm compression of her lips, even 
 of the rigid clasping of her little gloved hands 
 about a huge bunch of flowers she had 
 brought back with her, and yet give no sign of 
 182
 
 BALDY S POINT. 183 
 
 how hard hit he was. Yes, it was an ordeal, 
 but he came triumphantly out of it. He stood 
 like a graven image close enough to her to 
 have laid his hand upon her head in bane or in 
 blessing. He even managed to answer some 
 remark of the Provost s about the heat of the 
 day, which had been little better than one long 
 throb of agony to him, with a fair show of out 
 ward composure. There was no mute pleading 
 for recognition this time on Fanny s part. She, 
 too, had been bracing herself for this return 
 ordeal all through the morning hours that 
 Wesley Ford and Amy Wilson had consumed 
 establishing kinship and discussing arrange 
 ments for Ann s comfort. She was glad their 
 absorption in the novelty of this discovery had 
 left her so completely overlooked ; glad that 
 the Major s confinement to his bed with an ague 
 had relieved her of the necessity for chattering 
 in the magpie fashion she always exercised 
 for his benefit. She was being sorely punished 
 for her foolish attempt to stir up the embers of 
 a dead love by applying the live coal of jealousy 
 to it. "Henry White cared no more for her," 
 she told herself in rash bitterness, "than he did 
 for the dead leaves of the forest. He despised 
 her. She despised herself. If she could only 
 stay out there with Amy, and not go back at 
 all ! But that would be acknowledgment of
 
 184 SALDY S POINT. 
 
 defeat. He would think she was afraid to face 
 him again, and, however true it might be, she 
 was not going to acknowledge it, even tacitly. 
 And the Provost ! He, too, might suspect 
 something if she declined to go back just as 
 she had come. There was nothing for it but 
 to play her game of hazard out. If only once 
 he would have looked at me, he could not have 
 helped seeing!" That was all her heart s re 
 frain. 
 
 "I thought all of you people in the country 
 here knew each other from the cradle up, just 
 like one big family, you know," said the 
 Provost, moving the silken lash to his smart 
 buggy whip idly along his horse s glossy 
 flanks. 
 
 "You mean Mr. White and me?" 
 
 They were beyond the gate now, and the 
 Provost wanted to talk. Everything had 
 turned out so very pleasantly about Ann s 
 cousin, Amy Wilson. He was rather inclined 
 to think with his wife that she was an angel, 
 she had said with such sweet readiness that she 
 would talk over with "papa" the matter of 
 taking Ann as boarder, and was quite sure he 
 wouldn t object. He was experiencing a social 
 reaction. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I didn t feel at liberty, you 
 know, to introduce you."
 
 BALDY S POINT. 185 
 
 "I did I do know him that is I used to 
 know him. We were good friends once but I 
 made him very angry and and he don t seem 
 to forgive me. It was all my fault I acted 
 outrageously." 
 
 She had not meant to say this much. She had 
 not meant to say anything, poor child ! but she 
 was entirely too miserable to weigh her words 
 or her actions judiciously. Wesley Ford s face 
 was full of comprehension and sympathy, so 
 were his next words, which came from him 
 rather bluntly : 
 
 "Oh ! I see and I beg your pardon. I m 
 afraid the day s been a hard one on you. If I d 
 known 
 
 "Don t," said Fanny, with a passionate 
 gesture. "I did it of my own accord, and on 
 purpose." 
 
 They rode on in silence for a little while after 
 that outburst of hers. The Provost had pleas 
 ant food for reflection, and proceeded to 
 mentally compose a letter to Ann, in which he 
 told her all about her delightful cousin, Miss 
 Wilson. He wished the mails came to and 
 went from Baldy s Point a little more fre 
 quently. He would not be able to post his 
 letter for two days to come yet, but he would 
 write it that very night. He had just affixed 
 the "yours adoringly" to the letter when Fanny
 
 186 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 leaned forward suddenly with an exclamation 
 of impatience. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked, rousing himself to 
 the fact of her presence with apologetic haste. 
 
 "I ve dropped my shawl. Mamma would in 
 sist I should put it on as soon as the sun set. 
 I am sure it was on the seat a moment ago, but 
 I can t find it now." 
 
 He laid the reins on her lap and sprang out 
 of the gig. "He s as gentle as a dog," he 
 called back, taking sudden thought of her 
 possible fears. They had left the shanty be 
 hind them more than a mile. It was com 
 pletely hidden from sight already, for the road 
 made a decided turn soon after leaving the 
 gate. The shades of evening fell early in that 
 bit of primeval forest where the mighty oaks 
 and pecans and cottonwoods clasped arms in 
 the upper air and conspired together to shut 
 out the light of day from the road that grov 
 eled at their feet. When the rapid clatter of 
 the horse s hoofs was suddenly stilled it grew 
 oppressively quiet, and the sleepy twitter of 
 young birds in a nest close over her head came 
 distinctly to Fanny s ears. She must have 
 dropped the shawl further back than she had 
 at first supposed, for the Provost s form was 
 swallowed up in the short, dark vista of the 
 road behind them with startling suddenness.
 
 tiALDY S POINT. 187 
 
 If she only hadn t mentioned her loss at all! 
 How very crookedly everything in life was 
 going! The tears came -into her eyes. She 
 wiped them away and sighed. The Provost s 
 horse turned his head backward over his mas 
 sive shoulder to demand an explanation of this 
 uncalled-for stoppage, and echoed her sigh pon 
 derously. The mosquitoes gathered pestilently 
 about his sensitive ears. He stamped im 
 patiently upon the planks under his feet, and 
 sighed again. Fanny spoke soothing words to 
 him, and leaned over the dashboard to give him 
 a reassuring pat on the back. A dog barked 
 in the distance ; it made her feel immensely far 
 away from every place and everybody. To her 
 over-excited fancy it seemed hours since Wes 
 ley Ford had sprung from the gig to go in 
 search of her shawl. Suppose he should go all 
 the way back to the shanty and 
 
 On the quiet evening air a shot rang out ! 
 Clearly, loudly, terribly near; only one. The 
 horse started violently, gave a fierce snort of 
 terror, then stood quivering in the shafts. He 
 stood fire well. He had carried his master all 
 through the war. The girl who had been kneel 
 ing to reassure him sprang to her feet with a gasp 
 of horror. She uttered no sound. She only 
 strained her frightened gaze backward to pierce 
 the shadowy gloom of the road she had trav-
 
 i8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 eled. There, coming rapidly toward her, not 
 directly, but with swaying, staggering steps of 
 a drunken man, was the Provost Marshal. His 
 face was as white as the little cashmere shawl 
 which he had found and was now holding 
 tightly pressed against his side. She could see 
 its livid pallor with terrible distinctness as he 
 staggered toward her, bareheaded. He tried 
 to smile as he reached her and groped for the 
 sides of the gig with the touch of a blind man, 
 but it was a ghastly failure. "I ve been shot ! 
 Can you get me home?" 
 
 He spent all his strength to say it. She 
 reached out to him her two trembling hands. 
 Supernatural strength was given to her in that 
 moment. How much of it was will-power on 
 his part, how much the power of desperation 
 on hers, she never could tell. He was there, 
 in the bottom of the gig, with his unconscious 
 head pillowed on her feet, and she urging the 
 horse over the road in frenzied leaps before (so 
 it seemed to her) the reverberation of that 
 awful sound had died away in the echoing 
 woods. 
 
 He had spoken but once after she had gotten 
 him into the wagon: "It was an accident 
 of course," he gasped, then he had grown still. 
 So still she could not tell whether it was a liv 
 ing man or a corpse she was carrying back to
 
 BALDY S POINT. 189 
 
 Baldy s Point with all the frantic speed she 
 could inspire by voice and whip. 
 
 Of course it was an accident ! Of course it 
 was an accident. She said the words over in 
 gasps. She repeated them again and again. 
 It was all the comfort she could extract out of 
 life. She said them aloud, shrilly, as if she 
 wanted to impress it upon the trees that saw it 
 all, and the cold, unsympathetic stars that 
 came out overhead in the pale evening sky and 
 looked down on her so unpityingly. She felt 
 something warm and moist trickling over her 
 feet. It was the life-blood oozing from Wes 
 ley Ford s side. She gave one appalled down 
 ward glance at it that white, still form there 
 that uttered no moan of pain, no whisper of 
 reproach ! The snowy cashmere shawl had 
 turned to a bright crimson shawl. She lashed 
 the horse into quicker bounds. On he dashed, 
 flinging white flecks of foam back against his 
 heaving flanks. She closed her eyes and shud 
 dered. If only those tightly compressed lips 
 turned up toward the silent stars would open 
 and repeat those words once more: "It was 
 an accident of course." She wanted to hear 
 him say that it was not Henry White who 
 had done this dreadful thing. On through 
 the darkening woods, where the close-crowd 
 ing roadside weeds slapped her on the cheeks
 
 19 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 with damp, ghostly fingers ; out into the open 
 road that ran along the river front, where it 
 grew lighter and she could see the roofs of the 
 houses in Baldy s Point rising grayly in the 
 near distance ; faster and still faster, past the 
 long, whitewashed fence of the last plantation, 
 before you reach the town, where the Cherokee 
 roses flung their white sprays like spirit arms 
 upward and outward over the roadway, into 
 Baldy s Point, where the lights were already 
 glimmering in some of the windows. She 
 drove staring straight before her. She turned 
 aside mechanically for the few teams she 
 encountered. She saw without seeing how 
 their drivers all turned to stare wonderingly 
 after her. She noted, without caring, how the 
 man on Sellers s gallery stood up to look after 
 her as she dashed past them, never once draw 
 ing breath consciously until she found herself 
 in front of her father s gate, and saw him and 
 her mother and some other people, she never 
 knew who, hurrying toward her with fright 
 ened faces. 
 
 Then, relieved of her ghastly responsibility, 
 she flung the reins up wildly and sprang from 
 the vehicle into her mother s arms. 
 
 "It was an accident," she cried, with chatter 
 ing teeth, turning toward the men who were 
 crowding about the gig. "Do you hear me?
 
 BALDY S POINT. 191 
 
 An accident ! He said so," then oblivion came 
 mercifully to her relief. 
 
 Before the forest echoes aroused by that 
 ringing shot had fallen asleep again, a man 
 stepped from behind the shelter of a clump of 
 sassafras bushes and walked rapidly toward the 
 shanty. He looked neither to the right nor to 
 the left. He stopped like a startled animal 
 when he heard the roll of wheels and swift 
 clatter of the horse s feet, and stood listening. 
 It died away in the distance, and he went 
 crashing through the underbrush again with 
 long, swinging steps. 
 
 It was the man Henry Robinson, who had 
 passed over the road only that morning driving 
 an ox wagon upon whose creaking body all his 
 worldly possessions were piled high. His wife 
 and children had walked sullenly by his side. 
 He had been ejected, legally and in form, but 
 he recognized no man s right to send him forth 
 into the world to look for another resting-place 
 to start afresh, and he had breathed dire threats 
 of revenge into Henry White s indifferent ears 
 as he passed through the toll-gate that morning. 
 
 "I only done w at I tol m I d do," he said, 
 swaying his head from side to side like an infu 
 riated wild beast, as he went crashing through 
 the undergrowth. "He would have h it. I gin
 
 I9 2 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 him far warnin , en his own gun sarved me a 
 good turn. But I gin him far warnin . I tol 
 im I d do it." 
 
 He walked more slowly as he neared the 
 shanty. There was no one there to molest, but 
 a wave of superstitions terror swept over him 
 at the idea of having to place Henry s gun 
 back in the shanty where he had stolen it the 
 night before. There must be nothing found 
 about him that could fasten this night s work 
 on him. He had lain cramped and hidden 
 behind the sassafras bushes since noon waiting 
 for the moment of his revenge; had even 
 fallen into a deep, sluggish slumber that had 
 been broken only at the moment that Wesley 
 Ford had stooped to pick up the shawl from 
 the roadside. He had planned his attack with 
 cool diabolism. When Henry should have 
 locked the gate and started homeward, nothing 
 would be easier than to shoot him in the back, 
 replace the gun in the shanty, and rejoin his 
 family, whom he had left at the next planta 
 tion. At the first moment of awakening he 
 experienced a little surprise at seeing his victim 
 so immediately opposite his hiding-place. He 
 leered upon the stooping man vindictively. 
 "Huntin for yo gun, is you? Well, den, tek 
 it." And, rising to his knees, he had sent that 
 ringing shot home with fatal aim.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 193 
 
 Henry White, sitting on the cypress block 
 that served him for a chair when at work on 
 his shingles, with his head bowed on the rude 
 table before him, heard the shot without mov 
 ing a muscle. It was the idle pastime of every 
 idler in the country now to shoot in season and 
 out of season at anything or nothing. Every 
 negro carried his gun, and every gun was in 
 active, bootless use. 
 
 He found it almost impossible this night to 
 go home and face his mother. She had such a 
 persistent way of trying to ferret out the causes 
 for every shade of pallor in his cheeks, or 
 unusual display of reticence on his part. And 
 to-night of all nights it would be hard to listen, 
 as he surely must, to every particular of Henry 
 Robinson s exodus. To-night of all nights it 
 would be hard to ignore the littleness and the 
 sordidness of this new life of his. He could 
 not go to meet it. 
 
 The moon came to the aid of the stars pres 
 ently, and did her very best to illumine the 
 spot under the sycamore where he sat brooding 
 sullenly. It was a very feeble illumination, 
 however scarcely more than enough to out 
 line his drooping form to the man who, after 
 softly dropping the gun inside the shanty 
 through the window, stole as noiselessly as a 
 panther around toward the sycamore, meaning
 
 I9 2 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 him far warnin , en his own gun sarved me a 
 good turn. But I gin him far warnin . I tol 
 im I d do it." 
 
 He walked more slowly as he neared the 
 shanty. There was no one there to molest, but 
 a wave of superstitions terror swept over him 
 at the idea of having to place Henry s gun 
 back in the shanty where he had stolen it the 
 night before. There must be nothing found 
 about him that could fasten this night s work 
 on him. He had lain cramped and hidden 
 behind the sassafras bushes since noon waiting 
 for the moment of his revenge; had even 
 fallen into a deep, sluggish slumber that had 
 been broken only at the moment that Wesley 
 Ford had stooped to pick up the shawl from 
 the roadside. He had planned his attack with 
 cool diabolism. When Henry should have 
 locked the gate and started homeward, nothing 
 would be easier than to shoot him in the back, 
 replace the gun in the shanty, and rejoin his 
 family, whom he had left at the next planta 
 tion. At the first moment of awakening he 
 experienced a little surprise at seeing his victim 
 so immediately opposite his hiding-place. He 
 leered upon the stooping man vindictively. 
 "Huntin for yo gun, is you? Well, den, tek 
 it." And, rising to his knees, he had sent that 
 ringing shot home with fatal aim.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 193 
 
 Henry White, sitting on the cypress block 
 that served him for a chair when at work on 
 his shingles, with his head bowed on the rude 
 table before him, heard the shot without mov 
 ing a muscle. It was the idle pastime of every 
 idler in the country now to shoot in season and 
 out of season at anything or nothing. Every 
 negro carried his gun, and every gun was in 
 active, bootless use. 
 
 He found it almost impossible this night to 
 go home and face his mother. She had such a 
 persistent way of trying to ferret out the causes 
 for every shade of pallor in his cheeks, or 
 unusual display of reticence on his part. And 
 to-night of all nights it would be hard to listen, 
 as he surely must, to every particular of Henry 
 Robinson s exodus. To-night of all nights it 
 would be hard to ignore the littleness and the 
 sordidness of this new life of his. He could 
 not go to meet it. 
 
 The moon came to the aid of the stars pres 
 ently, and did her very best to illumine the 
 spot under the sycamore where he sat brooding 
 sullenly. It was a very feeble illumination, 
 however scarcely more than enough to out 
 line his drooping form to the man who, after 
 softly dropping the gun inside the shanty 
 through the window, stole as noiselessly as a 
 panther around toward the sycamore, meaning
 
 194 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 to take a short cut across the fields back to his 
 family. He could not go by way of the plank 
 road. // was lying there, stark and still ! 
 
 The night winds stirred the branches of the 
 big sycamore with a soft rustle like the sweep 
 of spirits wings; they parted to let a broad 
 beam of pallid light rest upon the bared head 
 and folded arms of the tired young wrestler 
 with Fate beneath them. The negro stood 
 rooted to the spot. His heavy under-jaw fell 
 like the jaw of a dead man. His huge frame 
 trembled. He staggered backward, voiceless 
 from terror, turned, and, with never a look be 
 hind, fled, like one pursued, from the ghost of 
 his victim.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 RUMOR ON WINGS. 
 
 /^RUESOME whispers were afloat in the air 
 \J about Baldy s Point. Surely the night 
 winds and the bats and the hideous black- 
 winged, gray-hooded birds of prey that perched 
 upon the tall gate-posts and cast sinister 
 glances from their red-lidded eyes down upon 
 Henry White, as he listlessly turned the key in 
 the padlock and took his heavy way homeward 
 that night, must have conspired together to 
 carry the news of the Provost s mishap into 
 every household. How else, in the absence of 
 telephone or telegraph or any of the modern 
 contrivances for scattering the seeds of weal or 
 woe, could Amy Wilson have gotten hold of 
 it before she slept that night? 
 
 It, that gruesome whisper which meant so 
 much more to her than it could possibly mean 
 to anybody else, came to her after it had taken 
 on huge dimensions: "The Provost Marshal 
 had been shot." "He had been shot near the 
 shanty by the toll-gate." "Shot by a ball from 
 a Winchester rifle."
 
 I9 6 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "No one had any provocation to shoot the 
 Provost but Henry White." "The Provost 
 had driven past the shanty with the gate 
 keeper s old sweetheart by his side." "Henry 
 White was the would-be assassin." The chain 
 of evidence was absolutely without a missing 
 link. And as each strong, perfect link was 
 forced in upon her consideration with merciless 
 disregard for her quivering nerves, the Major s 
 daughter lifted her heart heavenward in an 
 agony of prayer for mercy. 
 
 They had not meant her to hear it at all, 
 those two men who told it in whispers to each 
 other that night in the Major s garden. It 
 came to her as a dramatic finale to a day full 
 of unusual excitement and usual discomfort. 
 
 When she had turned indoors that afternoon, 
 after standing on the step of the Provost s vil 
 lage-cart to give Fanny one more kiss and to 
 assure the Provost, for the third time at 
 least, that she would "talk to papa about 
 Cousin Ann just as soon as his fever left him 
 and his poor dear head was clear enough for a 
 business talk," it was with an uncomfortable 
 sense of being terribly behindhand with a lot 
 of work that must be finished before she slept. 
 
 The Major s bedroom opened on to the front 
 gallery. She peeped through its bowed shut 
 ters to see if the noise of the wheels and voices
 
 BALDY S POINT. 197 
 
 had disturbed him. He was still lying with his 
 face turned toward the wall. That last dose of 
 morphia had stood her in good stead. What if 
 he should have wakened while Fanny and the 
 Provost were there, and she have had to 
 explain matters, at the risk of one of his awful 
 outbreaks? 
 
 If now he d only sleep on one little hour 
 longer! She never dared bring her work into 
 his presence. His wrath would have been ter 
 rible, too terrible to be evoked carelessly. So 
 to the little gallery room that was the hottest 
 place in summer and the very coldest in winter 
 she confined every detail of the dressmaking 
 business, that was really growing to respectable 
 dimension. Flushed and hurried, she opened 
 its door now. 
 
 "You s got back, is you? I se ben stan in 
 yhere nigh on to haf n hour to see ef my coat s 
 gittin done. Marfy Ann ax me to tol you she s 
 spectin uv hern too t night. We both lows to 
 w ar em t marrer. Seems lak w ite folks is 
 mouty liberate these days. En day ain over 
 p tickler bout der premiss nuther." 
 
 "I ve been interrupted by company to-day, 
 Cynthy," said Amy, threading a needle hastily, 
 "but I promised you and Martha both that you 
 should have your dresses, and I intend to 
 finish them before I go to bed to-night. Could
 
 I9 8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 you send Launce up for them, say about ten 
 o clock?" 
 
 "I s pose I could," her dusky patroness said, 
 reflectively. "Launce ain t always to be 
 pended on, en you promiss me en Sis Marfy 
 Ann that dem coats should be finish dis 
 mawnin*. Mawnin is mawnin , en night is 
 night." 
 
 "I didn t know then that papa was going to 
 be sick, nor that company would be here," 
 Amy answered, with patient dignity, not at 
 tempting to refute the logic of disappointed 
 vanity. She could not afford to give offense to 
 this customer. She was the leader of fashion 
 at the quarters, and was profitable if not pleas 
 ant. She had taken up the brilliant organdy, 
 whose much beflounced draperies were destined 
 to add materially to Sis Cynthy s rotundity, 
 and was sewing with bent back and intent eyes. 
 She would rather "Sis Cynthy" should go back 
 to the quarters and let her finish her task with 
 out supervision. 
 
 "You gwine put tapes in the inside fer a tie 
 back." 
 
 "Oh, yes!" 
 
 "En a tail. I al ays laks a tail to my coats." 
 
 "There s plenty of train." 
 
 "You couldn low me to try de bes 1 on w ile 
 I m here, could you now, honey? Yer see, ef
 
 SALDY S POINT. 199 
 
 h it don t fit snug I am gwine be satisfy, dat s 
 all bout it. En my ole man, he say, ef he s 
 willin t pay for havin my coats made cord- 
 in to style, he wants to see de style, dat s all 
 bout it." 
 
 " I think you will like it, Aunt Cynthy, 
 but" 
 
 "Don Aunt me; I ain none er y aunt 
 ner yer uncle nuther. I se jus Mis Cynthy 
 Drake, dat s all about it." 
 
 Amy succeeded in convincing Mrs. Cynthy 
 Drake that much precious time would be con 
 sumed in trying on the basque of the organdy, 
 and she yielded the point, substituting therefor 
 much crude advice concerning its construction. 
 
 "Member, now," she said finally, turning 
 back on the threshold to deliver her parting 
 injunction, "me an Sis Marfy Ann spects to 
 w ar our new coats t morrer. A bargain s a 
 bargain. I gwine send dat boy Launce up for 
 em twix nine and ten, en ef he don fotch em 
 bofe back wid im bofe, min you well, den 
 you knocks a doller off. Dat s all about it." 
 
 "You shall have them, if I bring them up 
 myself," Amy said desperately, trembling with 
 the indignation she dare not give vent to. 
 
 There was nothing for it but to endure. With 
 the commission merchants supplying only the 
 bare necessities of plantation life, where was
 
 200 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 anything to come from but from her own 
 labor, and what avenue was open to her but 
 just this one, bare and narrow and distasteful 
 as it was? 
 
 "What would poor papa do without his 
 papers and his pipes and his little necessary 
 indulgences?" she muttered, wiping away a few 
 tears of wrath that clouded her vision and 
 dropped upon a big pink peony on Sis 
 Cynthy s organdy overskirt. She always re 
 minded herself of the Major s forlorn helpless 
 ness when outraged pride threatened to get the 
 better of her. But just now there was one 
 strand of a brighter hue running through the 
 dark woof of her days. It was Cousin Ann. 
 Things would work more smoothly if they 
 could take the Provost and his wife to board, 
 and what a personal comforter Cousin Ann 
 would be to her, provided always the years had 
 not marred her nor altered her sweet spirit ! 
 She was threading her needle for the third time 
 only since Mrs. Drake had swept majestically 
 out of the gallery room, when a dictatorial 
 thump, thump, thump, brought her to her feet 
 once more with an irrepressible sigh. 
 
 It was the Major s cane that made the three 
 thumps which was the established signal be 
 tween them. He wanted her. She glanced 
 carefully over her dress to see that no tell-tale
 
 BALDY S POINT. 2OI 
 
 scraps were cleaving to it, and stuck all the pins 
 and needles that garnished her bosom back in 
 the cushion. 
 
 "Hanged if I don t believe you spend your 
 life pottering around those rose-bushes, Amy ! 
 If we could eat or wear roses I d see some 
 sense in it." 
 
 Thus the Major testily, as Amy presented 
 herself, carelessly stripping the wrinkled under- 
 leaves off a full-blown moss-rose. It was one 
 of hef pretty fictions. She was always "just 
 in from the garden," or else had run out to 
 the poultry yard to see the young chickens, or 
 something airy and pleasant and easy. 
 
 "You ve had such a nice morning!" she said 
 soothingly, putting the moss-rose in a wine 
 glass and locating it where he could see it with 
 out even troubling to turn his head. 
 
 "Oh! I have, have I? Yes, I quite enjoy 
 being drugged to sleep and laid on the bed like 
 a dead man. The sensation is enjoyable in the 
 extreme. What time of day is it?" 
 
 "Nearly supper time; and Aunt Melindy 
 promised to have your chicken soup ready the 
 minute you waked up." 
 
 "Blast the chicken soup, and Aunt Melindy 
 too! Do you suppose because I ve had a 
 leg shot off I m going to live on slops all the 
 rest of my life? Tell Melindy to bring me a
 
 202 JBALDY S POINT. 
 
 broiled chicken and some baked potatoes and 
 hot biscuit and coffee. When you get me 
 down to chicken broth you can take my head 
 for a football !" 
 
 Amy went silently out to give this revised 
 order for supper. She knew Melindy would 
 rebel ; but there was that jet collar she d been 
 trying to coax from her so long that would 
 bring her to terms. She wondered drearily if 
 it would be possible now to finish the two 
 dresses waiting there in the gallery room. 
 Perhaps he would go to sleep again after a 
 good supper. 
 
 She gave her order, placated the cook, and 
 returned to the Major s room with no outward 
 sign of the inward turmoil that was making her 
 dubious just then about the desirability of 
 existence at all. Her sweet face wore a pathet 
 ically patient look always of late, but to-night 
 it was paler than usual. 
 
 "Come here, my daughter." 
 
 The old "war-horse," as the people about 
 Baldy s Point called Major Wilson, stretched 
 out a brown, sinewy hand toward her as she 
 re-entered the room. She was not unused 
 to these sudden changes in the domestic 
 barometer. 
 
 "I m a brute, child, ever to say a harsh word 
 in your hearing, my little saint, my lily-pure
 
 SALDY S POINT. 203 
 
 Amy ; but you don t know what it is, child, to 
 have all the strength and ambition and activity 
 of your best days seething in your heart and 
 brain, and be clogged with a dead body. 
 How much better for you and for me both 
 if that bullet had hit my heart instead of my 
 legs!" 
 
 Then she had to turn comforter; had to 
 assure him how desolate life would be to her 
 without him ; had to cheer him and scold him 
 and lift him up out of the depths, and give of 
 her vitality to supply all that was lacking to 
 him, and but one Eye saw it all. That eye 
 was not the Major s. 
 
 He grew more placid after Melindy had 
 brought his supper in, and Amy had poured 
 out the coffee for him, and mashed his potatoes 
 and seasoned them just to his taste. And by 
 the time he got to his pipe after supper, and 
 Amy brought the backgammon board and 
 played just badly enough to give him every 
 game, he grew absolutely cheerful. He played 
 and smoked himself into a slumberous condition 
 about eight o clock; and Amy felt really 
 wicked to think she could take satisfaction in 
 such a direction. 
 
 He smiled benignantly up into her face as 
 she stooped to give him a good-night kiss, and 
 laid fatherly injunctions on her.
 
 204 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "Now, then, straight to bed, daughter; no 
 star-gazing, no novel-reading." 
 
 "No star-gazing, no novel-reading, father; I 
 promise." 
 
 At last she was at liberty (?). In and out of 
 the pink peonies, across great green garlands 
 of muslin vines, the needle flew and the scissors 
 snipped. It was hot there in the little gallery 
 room, and the lighted lamp attracted myriad 
 moths and mosquitoes and bugs. The moths 
 fluttered with fatal persistence about the flame 
 of the lamp, until, scorched and shriveled, they 
 ceased to struggle, and lay motionless upon the 
 glass chimney, helping to obscure the light. 
 Great shiny brown bugs came through the 
 window with a buzz, thumping and bumping 
 blindly about the low ceiling and narrow walls 
 until they fell into the great coils of her hair or 
 inside her collar, and made her start with a 
 nervous tremor. Tiny insects, small and gray as 
 the sands of the sea, swarmed in clouds above her 
 bent head and settled in drifts upon the table 
 about the lamp. A bat lost his way, and, flut 
 tering in through the window, circled around 
 and about the lamp that was growing dimmer 
 every second from its incrustation of insects 
 and moths. But her promise was given, and, 
 great as her physical horror of a bat had always 
 been, her moral distaste for a broken promise
 
 ALDY S POINT. 205 
 
 was still greater. She unpinned her collar and 
 loosened her heavy hair. It was hot, and she 
 was tired. But she never stopped once until, 
 neatly folded and pinned up in two towels, 
 Mrs. Drake s and "Sis Marfy Ann s" dresses 
 lay on the bed ready for delivery. The clock 
 struck half-past nine. Launce would be here 
 directly. She must sit up for him. She moved 
 from her place by the work-table, where the 
 moths and the bugs were cremating themselves 
 by thousands, to a rocking-chair close by the 
 window. She leaned her head against the 
 window-sill. How it ached, and how tired 
 she was ! The large back yard was enveloped 
 in gloom. The kitchen lay like a block of 
 wood, windowless and doorless, under the star 
 less sky. She heard an owl hoot in the woods 
 that came pretty close up to the yard fence on 
 one side, and another one answered it. A soft 
 splash in the water of the slough down there 
 at the foot of the garden was followed by the 
 trombone of a bullfrog. She wished Launce 
 would come, so that she could lock up the 
 gallery room and go to her own sleeping-room, 
 next to the Major s. She was afaid she would 
 sleep so heavily that she might fail to hear him 
 if he was restless in the night. 
 
 She must have been very tired. She sat 
 there with folded hands and head resting on
 
 206 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 the window-sill waiting for Launce until She 
 sat bolt upright. She was in total darkness. 
 The clock was striking eleven. She sprang up 
 and lighted a match. The lamp stood there, an 
 evil-smelling thing, choked to death by the in 
 sects. The towels were still on the bed. 
 Launce must have come and found her asleep. 
 That would never do. Cynthy s wrath was 
 something not to be encountered lightly. She 
 had said she would deliver the dresses herself 
 rather than disappoint her patrons, without 
 meaning in the least so to demean herself. 
 But as things had turned out well, fortunately 
 Cynthy s cabin was very close at hand. The 
 people up in the quarters never went to bed 
 until long after midnight; she had but to run 
 down through the garden and call for Launce to 
 come to the fence and get the bundles. Rain 
 had begun to fall since she fell asleep. She 
 could hear the soft patter of it on the leaves 
 and grass out there in the invisible yard. She 
 slipped into rubbers and put on her waterproof, 
 more for the protection of Mrs. Drake s and 
 Sis Marfy Ann s finery than for her own. She 
 gathered the towels under the waterproof and 
 stole from the house as secretly and softly as if 
 she were about to decamp with the pink- 
 peonied organdy and leave Sis Cynthy in the 
 lurch.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 207 
 
 Her rubber slippers on the rain-soaked ground 
 made her progress absolutely noiseless. She 
 knew every path in the garden as well in that 
 pitchy darkness as in the most dazzling sun 
 light. She would go through the bean arbor 
 that was the shortest way to Cynthy s cabin. 
 The lima beans grew in thick masses all over 
 the trellis-work of the arbor; the darkness was 
 its densest in there under the dripping vines. 
 She stopped involuntarily ; then crouched 
 breathlessly. She heard voices in there under 
 the lima beans. Men s voices ! Evidently they 
 were talking on some subject that filled them 
 with suppressed excitement. She sank down 
 on her knees among the wet roots of the beans 
 to listen, with every sense alert. Those were 
 the days when men and women needed to be 
 alert, if never before. 
 
 "Yes, sir" surely that was Launce s voice ; 
 doubtless Cynthy had sent him, but he d never 
 gotten any farther than this. "Shot him ! 
 Shot him lak a dog. The Provy, he were 
 riding long peaceble-lak wid the Jedge s 
 daughter; you know him I mean White and 
 her use t be sweethearts en, sir, he ups en 
 shoots him in de back wid that er new sorter 
 rifle er his n, en then puts de rifle back in de 
 shanty en walks off home same es he done 
 shoot a wil hog. But he done wake up de
 
 208 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 wrong man dis time. Henry Robinson, him, 
 you know, White put off n his place, he sent 
 me out here t tell you he wants you, brer Dan l, 
 to meet him at de Webb place twix dis en 
 sundown t -morrer. Henry jes lef my cabin 
 fo I start fer de house." 
 
 "What he want wid me?" she heard Daniel 
 ask. 
 
 "What he want wid you? He want you t 
 holp us settle wid Mr. Henry White. He done 
 lord it long nough now, en we gwine mek him 
 onderstan dis is a free country at las ." 
 
 "W at you gwine do wid him?" 
 
 Launce laughed. It was not a mirthful 
 sound. "Come en see. I promise you one 
 thing: he ain likely t shoot no mo Winchister 
 rifles at no mo Provys arter we get frew wid 
 him." 
 
 "Is you be n to Briarwoods?" she heard 
 Daniel ask, and Launce answered promptly : 
 
 "No, we s fraid to trus de news dat fur. We 
 don wan Cap Van Dorn to git to nosin roun . 
 We gwine mek quick work en shu work ob dis 
 job, you yhere me, Dan l." 
 
 Amy had heard him, if Daniel had not. She 
 
 rose slowly to her feet, making no more noise 
 
 than some timid wild thing rustling the leaves. 
 
 Cynthy s wrath had sunk into absolute insig- 
 
 ..nificance. What should she do? Who should
 
 BALDY S POINT, 209 
 
 she go to? Had Henry White done this base 
 thing? Oh! what a black, black world this was 
 getting to be ! Who would show her any 
 light? Who would guide her through this be 
 wildering labyrinth? She never knew how she 
 got back to the house ; how she prepared her 
 tired body for rest ; how or when she finally 
 flung herself down for a few hours rest. She 
 was conscious of but one longing, and that re 
 solved itself into one determination. As soon 
 as the first streak of daylight came, she would 
 saddle her horse and gallop over to Cap Van 
 Dorn s. Cap would know what to do.
 
 w 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 NELLIE MAKES A NEW FRIEND. 
 
 HO can minister to a mind diseased? 
 Who will undertake to trace its workings 
 intelligently, to satisfy its longings, to calm its 
 restlessness, or to limit its desires? 
 
 It was with a growing sense of his own inade 
 quacy to such an undertaking that Cap Van 
 Dorn kept his tender watch and ward over poor 
 Nellie Hall. He was quite sure that neither he 
 nor Mammy would knowingly leave undone 
 anything that could make her comfortable or 
 happy, but perhaps they were bungling. How 
 he wished he could take counsel of some sweet, 
 wise woman ! Such a woman as Amy Wilson, 
 for instance. Amy, gentle, dignified, serene, 
 always rose before him when he thought of his 
 own need for a counselor. Very often of late, 
 when he came in from the field, Mammy would 
 tell him that "the child had been frettin , and 
 she couldn t pacify her no way." And there 
 was a new look of wistful longing in "the 
 child s" beautiful eyes that quite perplexed 
 him. 
 
 210
 
 BALDY S POINT. 211 
 
 "We don t understand her, Mammy," he 
 would say, distressedly ; "she s getting beyond 
 us, I m afraid." And Mammy would assent 
 with a sigh. What else but assent had Mammy 
 ever given to her "w ite folks"? He began to 
 look forward anxiously to the taking off of this 
 the first crop he had planted since the war. 
 As soon as it was shipped, and he could draw 
 on his commission merchants for a little money, 
 he would take Nellie to an asylum. He wished 
 he could advise with somebody about it. He 
 wanted she should have the very best. 
 
 They would indeed have thought Nellie was 
 "getting beyond them" if either of them, he or 
 Mammy, had been on the alert the morning 
 after this talk about her ; but Mammy was in 
 the kitchen, at the remote end of the big back 
 yard, and Cap was sound asleep when she came 
 out of the room, walking very rapidly, tying 
 the broad muslin strings of a big garden hat 
 under her chin as she walked. Cap s coat was 
 hanging on the hat-rack in the hall. In the 
 free-and-easy life of the plantation his coat was 
 donned and doffed about as regularly as his hat. 
 Who can tell how she had worked herself up to 
 this pitch of independent action? or why she 
 craved the larger liberty of the fields and woods? 
 She slipped her hand promptly into the right 
 pocket and brought out the key to the gate.
 
 212 ALDY S POINT. 
 
 With one furtive glance over her shoulder in 
 the direction of the kitchen, and another to 
 ward Cap s closed door, she almost ran down 
 the brick walk, between the rows of Chinese 
 privet, and fitted the key into the lock with 
 fingers trembling from nervous excitement. 
 
 "The blackberries are ripe," she said with a 
 little exultant laugh when she found herself 
 outside the tall fence, for what must have 
 seemed, to her disordered fancy, the first 
 time in her life. Only for a moment she stood 
 irresolute, glancing now toward the quarter lot 
 where the blue smoke was curling skyward from 
 few chimneys only, then toward the dense 
 green woodland growth that flanked Briarwood 
 on the south. "The blackberries are ripe," she 
 repeated gleefully, and, leaving the gate yawn 
 ing wide open behind her, she sped away in 
 that direction like some fleet-footed wild thing 
 returning to its native copse. 
 
 The ground was wet from last night s rain, 
 and the dampness soon soaked through the 
 thin soles of her shoes, making her shiver. 
 The heavy, black soil clung to her feet, forcing 
 her to go more slowly and cautiously at each 
 step; but in spite of these minor discomforts, 
 every few moments that little exultant laugh 
 rang out on the quiet morning air as she re 
 peated with childish glee, "The blackberries
 
 BALDY S POINT, 213 
 
 are ripe." Looking to the right and to the left 
 of the brambly road for confirmation of this 
 assertion, she passed on out of sight of the 
 house. Her crisp white muslin dress gathered 
 defilement from the dewy bushes and the 
 sodden earth. She looked down on its soiled 
 hem with disgust. Mammy prided herself on 
 keeping "the child" arrayed like the lilies of 
 the field. The briary branches of the black 
 berry bushes that filled the fence corners 
 clutched at her sleeves with their sharp thorns, 
 and held her garments in a destructive embrace. 
 A frivolous young sapling snatched at the big 
 bow on her straw hat, and essayed to lift it 
 from her head ; she only laughed with an exult 
 ant sense of freedom, and ran on and on, fol 
 lowing no pathway, slipping through openings 
 that scarce a rabbit could have penetrated, 
 shoving the branches recklessly aside with her 
 tender hands, uttering little moans and excla 
 mations when the thorns pierced them, but 
 joyous, free, exultant with it all. 
 
 The wild Cherokee roses peeped at her from 
 their brambly fastnesses. She took off her hat, 
 and, swinging it across her arm by the tied 
 strings, she gathered great handfuls of them 
 and crushed them ruthlessly into her hat crown. 
 The sweet-fern trailed its pink blossoms in a 
 tangle of beauty low on the ground ; she
 
 214 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 plucked them up energetically, and piled them 
 on top of the roses. At every step some 
 bright-eyed wild flower, refreshed by the rain 
 and the dew, lifted its head daintily for her con 
 sideration. She greeted them with a shout of 
 welcome like old friends found again, or gazed 
 at them a second in mute absorption as if she 
 were trying to place them somewhere within 
 the scenes of her treacherous memory. Pres 
 ently her hat was full to overflowing; the 
 green vines trailed over its brim and clung 
 about her arms. Vivid spots of flame-color 
 bloomed in her belt, and at her throat the pale 
 blue fringe flower clustered thickly. No 
 thought of the alarm at the house, no fear at 
 finding herself alone in the dense woods, no 
 consideration of heat or hunger, marred her ex 
 quisite enjoyment of this new-found freedom, 
 absolute and untrammeled. She had made a 
 discovery. The world was not a little square 
 plot of grass, bounded on all sides by tall, ugly 
 cypress slabs. It was a boundless world, a 
 world of green trees and blue skies and singing 
 birds and sweet scents, and it was her world, 
 all hers! She had forgotten all about the 
 blackberries, so many sweet scents and sounds 
 lured her on, on who cared whither? Not 
 she ! Now to the east, where she paused, en 
 tranced, to listen to the mocking-birds who
 
 BALDY S POINT. 215 
 
 were greeting the rising sun with a grand burst 
 of melody ; now, to the west, where she stood 
 with folded hands looking with childlike de 
 light at the long, slanting rays of white light 
 that pierced the branches behind her and 
 illumined the path before her; now when she 
 caught the gleam of a spot of brightness that 
 she must add to her hoard ; now with a resolute 
 effort pressing through the thick undergrowth, 
 to find herself again in the commonplace, ugly 
 wagon road. Bedraggled, torn, scratched, bare 
 headed, but with a starry gleam of excitement 
 in her beautiful eyes and a flush on her pale 
 cheeks that made her lovelier than ever, with a 
 light spring she leaped across the narrow ditch 
 that bordered the wagon road, then with a wild 
 scream of terror she clasped her hands and 
 stood as if turned to stone. 
 
 Simultaneously with Nellie s leap across 
 the grassy ditch Amy Wilson s horse gave a 
 plunge of terror that almost unseated his rider, 
 and then began a series of curvetings that 
 seriously interfered with his mistress s inten 
 tions of getting to Briarwood and back home 
 before breakfast. Even while she leaned for 
 ward to soothe him with her hand she was 
 gazing with indignant wonder at the apparition 
 which had caused his terror. 
 
 A beautiful young woman, daintily clad, gar-
 
 2i6 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 nished with wild flowers, straying about in the 
 woods close to Briarwood ! This, then, was 
 the mystery of Cap Van Dorn s life ! A hot 
 blush of shame swept over her pure face. 
 Could she even hold parley with such a man? 
 The two girls stood with gaze transfixed : Amy 
 taking swift feminine note of the soft rounded 
 cheeks, the glowing eyes, and the rich mass of 
 golden hair that helped make that girl standing 
 there, with her arms full of wild flowers, so ex 
 quisitely pretty; Nellie mute from the sudden 
 terror of this unexpected encounter, and yet 
 not turning away from this steady gaze with 
 the timid fright strangers always inspired in 
 her. Instead she came a step forward, lifted 
 her hat toward the girl in the saddle, and, with 
 a seraphic smile, said in her soft, plaintive 
 voice : 
 
 "You are pretty. I love you. You may 
 have all my flowers. The blackberries are not 
 ripe." 
 
 This was the tableau that met Cap Van 
 Dorn s amazed vision as he came crashing 
 through the undergrowth at that moment, and 
 jumped the ditch just where Nellie had jumped 
 it. Mammy had given the alarm, and he had 
 tracked the pretty runaway by the impress of 
 her little soles in the heavy soil. 
 
 "Nellie!"
 
 BALDY S POINT. 217 
 
 There was reproach and relief and anxiety in 
 that ringing call which came slightly in advance 
 of his broad shoulders, but no shame. Amy s 
 quick ear noted that much with relief. 
 
 "And you, Miss Wilson? Why, what a 
 strange rendezvous." He said it with a nerv 
 ous laugh, simply because he must say some 
 thing, and all the possibilities of this encounter 
 were crowding thick upon him. 
 
 "Who is she? I like her. She is pretty. 
 She may have all my flowers." This from 
 Nellie, but Amy looked down upon them both 
 in simple wonderment. 
 
 Then Cap spoke hurriedly, almost roughly : 
 
 "Don t be afraid that accident has thrown 
 you into company you would not choose to 
 keep, Miss Wilson. The child who is offering 
 you her flowers and her adulation is one that 
 won t have to change much when she s taken 
 up to heaven. Come, Nellie ; you oughtn t to 
 have run away and given poor Mammy such a 
 fright." 
 
 But Amy addressed him with sudden imperi- 
 ousness. 
 
 "Help me down, Mr. Van Dorn, and put 
 your your 
 
 "Friend," said Cap, with stout defiance. 
 
 "Friend," Amy repeated, looking at him 
 with eyes full of candid trust, "in my saddle.
 
 2l8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 I was going to your house to tell you of some 
 thing terrible that has happened ; but your 
 she has wet feet and does not look strong. 
 She can ride. You can ride, can you not?" 
 
 "Nellie is her name." His voice was infi 
 nitely gentle now. It had all come about so 
 suddenly, so strangely. He knew that in the 
 few moments the three had been standing 
 there, this woman, whom he loved so very 
 dearly, had thought the very worst thing possi 
 ble of him, and had veered instantaneously into 
 a remorseful attitude. "Nellie s sweet face 
 did it," he said to himself; "no one could look 
 in those eyes and believe harm of her." 
 
 "You can ride, Nellie, can you not?" Amy 
 was leaning toward her from the saddle, now 
 looking at her with friendly eyes. It was the 
 first woman s voice, except Mammy s, that had 
 addressed words of kindness to her in all the 
 years that had come and gone since her 
 mother s death. It affected the afflicted girl as 
 sweet music might have done. A great tender 
 light came into her eyes, only to be quenched 
 in a mist of tears. Her lips quivered for a 
 second, then they were wreathed in smiles. 
 Such pathetic little smiles sadder than tears 
 by far. 
 
 Cap Van Dorn s voice was husky as he said, 
 looking from the sweet girl-face over the knot
 
 &ALDY S POINT. 2ig 
 
 of blue fringe-flowers up to the one in the sad 
 dle that was the loveliest on earth to him: "I 
 think the Lord sent you to us this morning, 
 Miss Wilson, and if you ll let me put Nellie up 
 behind you I m afraid to trust her on the 
 horse alone I ll walk alongside and tell you 
 all about her. You needn t be afraid. You 
 know I would not put anything close to you 
 that an angel might not come in contact with 
 safely." 
 
 Amy had no answer to make to this. She 
 was spreading the little square shawl that had 
 been about her shoulders on the horse s back 
 for Nellie s comfort. Then Cap lifted the little 
 runaway into position and showed her how to 
 clasp her arms about Amy s slim waist. For 
 one foolish second he envied the child, who 
 clasped her arms about this new friend with a 
 strange readiness for her, who shrank from 
 strangers with such sharp pain. Cap walked 
 alongside, ready to succor Nellie in case of 
 need. "I feel so thankful," he said, as the 
 little cavalcade started forward, "that you ve 
 taken some things for granted. You haven t 
 waited for me to convince you that it was all 
 right." 
 
 "Her face did that, I think," said Amy, "and 
 I m afraid we ve all been rather unjust to you, 
 Mr. Van Dorn."
 
 220 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 A little laugh from Cap made her add, 
 hastily : 
 
 "But doubtless it has been your own fault. 
 You have been so defiant." 
 
 "I love you. You may have all my flowers, 
 and Queenie too." A soft cheek was laid on 
 Amy s shoulder, and these words almost whis 
 pered into her ear. 
 
 "Poor little Nellie!" said Cap. "You ve 
 quite captured her, or she never would have 
 offered you Queenie. That s her favorite doll." 
 
 "Tell me all about her," said Amy, in a low 
 voice; "that is, if you dare with her so close, 
 for I can only ride to the gate. I must be 
 back home for breakfast. I would like to know 
 all you are willing to tell." 
 
 In as few words as possible Cap gave Nellie s 
 history. He had often planned to do this very 
 thing, but never in this hurried style. It did 
 not occur to him to think strangely of this sud 
 den appearance of Amy s. She was a great 
 horsewoman, and the two plantations were 
 only a few miles apart. In his wild delight at 
 having her there, close to him, close to poor 
 little Nellie, he had forgotten entirely that she 
 said she had something terrible to tell him. 
 She was there with him. God had sent her 
 direct to him. His horizon seemed expanding, 
 the bright possibilities of his future rapidly
 
 3ALDY 1 S POINT. 421 
 
 multiplying. She had listened to him very 
 attentively while he had been giving her 
 Nellie s story, and when he saw her press a 
 caressing hand upon the little briar-scratched 
 ones that were clasped with interlocked 
 ringers about her waist, and heard that aud 
 ible "poor little Nellie" fall so tenderly from 
 her lips, heaven itself seemed opening before 
 him. 
 
 They had reached the gate by this time, and 
 Mammy was standing there 5 stupefied and inert 
 from sheer amazement. With a laugh, Nellie 
 stretched out her arms to her, and Cap, lifting 
 her down gently, turned to offer the same 
 assistance to Amy. 
 
 "No," she said, drawing her breath quickly, 
 "I am not going to leave the saddle. Send 
 them in the house, please. Something terrible 
 has happened. Have you heard about Mr. 
 White?" 
 
 (Mammy was already half-way up the walk 
 with Nellie, whose wet feet excited her live 
 liest terror.) 
 
 "No." 
 
 The shining portals that had seemed to 
 open before Cap Van Dorn s longing eyes 
 but a second before closed with a harsh grating 
 sound. His voice sounded chilled. 
 
 "He has shot the Provost Marshal," said
 
 SALDY S 
 
 Amy breathlessly, "and to-night the negroes 
 have conspired to be revenged on him " 
 
 "Good God!" 
 
 Then she told him how she had heard it, and 
 how it had been kept from his plantation on 
 purpose, for fear he might give his friend warn 
 ing. 
 
 "We must get him out of the county, right 
 off." 
 
 "Yes, that is the only way. But you are the 
 only one who can do anything with him." 
 
 "What in the I beg your pardon how did 
 he manage to get himself into such an infernal 
 mess." 
 
 "Jealousy." 
 
 "Jealousy?" 
 
 "Yes. He, the Provost, was in a buggy with 
 Fanny Ray." 
 
 "And Henry White shot him while he was 
 in the buggy with Miss Ray?" 
 
 "Yes," said Amy, recklessly giving her only 
 version of the story. 
 
 "Then he is a brute, and deserves the worst 
 that could befall him." 
 
 "This from you? I thought you were his 
 friend." 
 
 Cap ground a circle in the hard-beaten ground 
 under his feet with his heel, in impotent pro 
 test. This was hard to stand.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 223 
 
 "I m his friend," he answered sullenly, not 
 looking at her, but at her horse s pointed ears. 
 "Enough of one, at least, to haul him out of 
 this mess if I can. But there s Nellie. I 
 daren t leave her in the house alone at night 
 with things stirred up ?n this way." 
 
 "You can trust her with me, can t you?" 
 
 He lifted his eyes to her face and let them 
 rest there. She might be in love with Henry 
 White, but, with all his heart and soul, he, Cap 
 Van Dorn, the despised substitute, must for 
 ever adore her. She flushed to her white tem 
 ples under that burning gaze, and went on hur 
 riedly : 
 
 "I think she would be happy with me. I 
 will go home and tell papa all about you and 
 Nellie and you can bring her and Mammy over 
 later in the day. Then you will be free. And, 
 Mr. Van Dorn" leaning down from the sad 
 dle, she stretched out her hand impulsively 
 "please say that you forgive me all the silent 
 injustice I ve heaped on your defenseless head." 
 
 She had drawn the glove from her hand. It 
 lay there slim and white and pink-tinted in his 
 clasp. Cap bared his head and lifted it rever 
 ently to his lips. 
 
 "Be a friend to poor little Nellie," he said, 
 "and I will forgive you ten thousand times 
 over."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 BETSY. 
 
 ONE reason why the people in the White- 
 fields quarters were so rejoiced over the 
 ejectment of Henry Robinson and his family 
 was that Betsy, his wife, was well known to be 
 a Voodoo Queen, and they were all afraid of 
 her. In point of fact, it was owing to his 
 wife s mysterious powers of revenge and pun 
 ishment that he had so long pursued his iniqui 
 tous courses with impunity. What satisfac 
 tion would there be in "lawing" him about a 
 stolen heifer or a misappropriated shote, or 
 charging him with the theft of their poultry, 
 when his wife was the acknowledged possessor 
 of power to shrivel their flesh, consume their 
 bones with invisible fire, or to hasten the day 
 of decay and corruption for them in any other 
 shape her witch s fancy might give preference 
 to? Hadn t Mandy Wane found a knot of 
 "hoodoo" feathers in her pillow the very week 
 after she told Henry Robinson to his face that 
 he had stolen her red rooster, and had Mandy 
 ever been free of the face-ache since? And 
 224
 
 BALDY S POINT. 225 
 
 didn t evil-looking bottles, tightly stoppered 
 with corn-cobs (doubtless they were evil-smell 
 ing too, only no one would trust themselves 
 close enough for olfactory tests), locate them 
 selves, without visible agency, under the front 
 steps of every cabin where a grudge against the 
 Robinson family had been openly expressed? 
 
 Henry himself stood more in awe of his mate 
 than is quite compatible with conjugal felicity, 
 and although himself the beneficiary of her 
 accredited standing with the powers of evil, he 
 was never quite sure when the atmosphere of 
 his own home might become too heavily im 
 pregnated with sulphur and brimstone for his 
 own personal comfort. Betsy was a gaunt 
 female, taller than her lord by several inches. 
 Nature and art had combined to give her a 
 sinister exterior that found no correspondence 
 in her simple soul. Her eyes were what are 
 called "wall eyes." So utterly and incurably 
 perverted were they that they naturally sug 
 gested the Evil Eye. The loss of one large front 
 tooth completed her facial qualifications for the 
 distinction that had been thrust upon her. Her 
 taste in dress was a complete departure from 
 the love of the barbaric that characterizes her 
 race. Betsy affected black, and with her scant 
 black alpaca clinging closely to her bony anat 
 omy, and a square of the same material bound
 
 226 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 about her head, she was certainly an un 
 canny object to behold. Her reputation as a 
 witch was her stock-in-trade, and not even to 
 the sharer of her life s woe or weal would Betsy 
 ever have acknowledged her own absolute igno 
 rance of all the charms and secrets of the black 
 art, whose supposed possession made her such 
 a power in the land. 
 
 It was this ungracious personality that con 
 fronted Henry Robinson in the gray of the 
 dawn that same morning. He had been indus 
 triously engaged all night, careering from one 
 plantation to another, sowing the wind that 
 was to result in a whirlwind of destruction for 
 Henry White. Perhaps he had not cast a single 
 thought backward at the forlorn cabin on the 
 Webb place where he had unceremoniously 
 dumped Betsy and the children down, before 
 hurrying away to slake his thirst for revenge. 
 He had scarcely expected to find her astir at 
 this very early hour of the morning. All his 
 plans were arranged, and things worked 
 smoothly enough since the swift-flying news 
 of the Provost s injuries had relieved him of 
 his ghost fright. 
 
 "Dat was a miss shot," he had said to him 
 self, with a gasp of astonishment at the turn 
 events had taken, then applied himself 
 promptly to telling the story of finding Henry
 
 BALDY S POINT. 227 
 
 White s rifle, minus one cartridge, lying in the 
 shanty that night. So far nothing but horrified 
 credulity had been accorded his statement. 
 
 He was tired when the dawn came and found 
 him approaching the tumble-down cabin he had 
 taken possession of. All he wanted to do now 
 was to throw himself in the gallery there and 
 sleep away as many of the hours as possible 
 before the night should come again, when he 
 must assume the leadership of the party that 
 was going to "raid" Whitefields. 
 
 " What you doin up dis time uv day?" he 
 asked, gruffly, standing face to face with Betsy, 
 gaunt and solemn, waiting for him there on the 
 gallery. 
 
 "I ain tech a piller t night, Henry," she said, 
 querulously. 
 
 "What fur you don ? Ain de house good 
 nough fer yer?" 
 
 "Henry" (she fastened him with her erratic 
 eyes), "thar ain no jestiss in it. You hear me, 
 dar ain no jestiss in it." 
 
 "Ain no jestiss in what?" 
 
 She stood there with her long, lean arms 
 dropped listlessly before her. Her black-tur- 
 baned head was silhouetted against the white 
 washed wall of the cabin behind her. She let 
 her eyes wander past him as they turned slowly 
 in the direction where Henry White s shanty
 
 228 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 lay beyond the trees. There was no grace, but 
 there was a certain moral majesty, in her atti 
 tude far beyond the comprehension of the 
 trembling wretch before her. 
 
 "Thar ain no jestiss in it, Henry Robinson, 
 an evil days 11 come on you ef you don men 
 yo ways. You done it yo seff, Henry, you 
 knows you done it ; an now you s aggin de 
 folks on to hu t a w ite man kase he drive 
 you off n his place. Thar ain no jestiss in it, 
 Henry Robinson." 
 
 Her husband s knees trembled beneath 
 him. He dropped heavily on a rickety bench 
 that stood on the gallery. He would ask her, 
 if he could only swallow that lump in his throat, 
 how she had found out about this thing. But 
 where was the use of questioning a woman who 
 was in league with the devil? Or how could 
 he divine that Betsy, marveling at his sudden 
 departure from the cabin the day before, had fol 
 lowed in his wake to see "what he was up to." 
 She had reached the spot just in time to hear 
 that shot, and to see Henry hurrying toward 
 the shanty with the gun in his hand. She had 
 not prearranged any dramatic representation 
 of her facts. She had simply meant to reason 
 with him, and to tell him she had heard of his 
 plan to "raid" the whites; but, seeing the light 
 of superstitious terror spring into his eyes, she
 
 BALDY S POINT. 229 
 
 seized the reins of power with no uncertain 
 hand. Erect, immovable, gaunt, she looked 
 straight before her as she said again : 
 
 "Thar ain no jestiss in it, Henry Robinson. 
 En I sees the evil days comin on you ef you 
 don ondo w at you s done. I sees de flesh 
 droppin fum yo bones en de strength goin 
 out n you day by day. I sees de blight settlin 
 on yo co n patch an de drowf sumin uv yo 
 subsince. I sees yo chillun dyin uv de chol- 
 ery en de roof over yo head flamin up ag in 
 de midnight sky." 
 
 "Shet up, Betsy, fo Gawd s sake !" 
 
 But Betsy would not " shut up," and so he 
 buried his huge head in his trembling hands 
 and tried to exclude the voice of prophecy. 
 
 "I sees you gittin t be a ol man widout nuffin 
 but enemies t hate en spise you. I sees de 
 mocksin snakes er crawlin en squirmin* bout 
 yo cabin flo , wid no Betsy nor no Pete t skeer 
 em way. I sees you 
 
 An undeniable snore arrested the flow of her 
 eloquence. Betsy was sharing the fate of all 
 domestic prophets ; she was without honor. 
 Henry was sound asleep. The prophetess 
 dropped into commonplace soliloquy with ludi 
 crous promptness: 
 
 "Clar fo goodniss, ef I cyarn skeer him into 
 it, I ll do it my lone seff."
 
 230 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 What Betsy meant to do her "lone seff" she 
 did not confide even to the gray, still morning 
 air, but turned sullenly indoors, and, returning 
 with a pillow, she nudged her husband into a 
 state of sufficient activity to induce him to 
 stretch himself at full length upon the bench, 
 where he was soon sleeping heavily. 
 
 "Now, stay dar tell I wants you t wake up," 
 she muttered, looking down upon him for a 
 second as if she wanted to make quite sure, be 
 fore taking the next step, that his senses were 
 fast locked in slumber. 
 
 He was still sleeping when, fully an hour later, 
 Betsy, mounted on a harness-scarred mule, upon 
 whose back she had hastily strapped Henry s 
 own saddle, halted at the back door of the 
 cabin to lay her injunctions on a lot of sleepy- 
 looking children that were crowding about its 
 threshold dumbly wondering what this matu 
 tinal display of energy on their mother s part 
 might mean: 
 
 "You, Pete, ef yo daddy wake up fo I git 
 back, tell m der warn a dus uv meal in de house, 
 en I gone wid a peck er sweet taters out to Sel- 
 lersis to trade fur some. En you, Mandy, you 
 lif de lid" off n de skillet on de hairth, en you ll 
 fin some co n-bread en bacon for you-alls brek- 
 fus; en de fus one I heers on pesterin dat bowl
 
 BALDY S POINT. 231 
 
 of sour milk in de cupboard, w en I gits back I 
 skin im, dat all !" 
 
 She was gone; and Pete and Mandy, lux 
 uriating in an unwonted sense of freedom from 
 parental restraint, immediately proceeded to 
 examine into the condition of the forbidden 
 bowl of sour milk. 
 
 "Dar ain no jestiss in it," Betsy said aloud, 
 as her mule shuffled slowly along the sloppy 
 road. "Henry won never prosper tell he men 
 he s ways. De Lawd done laid a junction on 
 me. I bleege t go." 
 
 It was but a short ride out to Baldy s Point 
 from the Webb place. It was still very early 
 morning when she reached Sellers s store. 
 Sellers s new clerk was just taking down the 
 heavy wooden shutters when she passed it. 
 Her trading could wait. She d get the meal 
 as she came back. All her aim now was to 
 secure a private interview with Miss Fanny Ray. 
 
 This was not as easy as she had at first sup 
 posed it would be. She presented herself, 
 gaunt and somber, in the door of the Judge s 
 kitchen with such suddenness that Aunt Dinah, 
 who was just lifting a lid off the stove to start 
 the fire, dropped it on the brick floor with a 
 tremendous clatter, and started back in affright. 
 She was morally sure Betsy had come there 
 "to kunger her w ite folks vittles."
 
 232 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "Howdy, Dinah?" Betsy said, in tones of 
 affability that were rendered null and void by 
 her sinister glances. 
 
 "Howdy, Betsy? How s yo folks?" Dinah 
 said, with propitiatory politeness. But Betsy 
 had no time to waste in the idle interchange of 
 social amenities. 
 
 "I want to see Miss Fanny," she said, almost 
 authoritatively. 
 
 "Miss Fanny?" Dinah repeated, with as 
 tonishment. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, you cyarn do it. Miss Fanny s been 
 in her bed ever since dey tuk her out n dat 
 cyart bout as dead as tudder one." 
 
 "Is de Provy dead?" Betsy asked, anxiously. 
 
 "No, bless de Law . De doctor say he gwine 
 pull frew yit. Dey got de ball out las night." 
 
 "I want t see Miss Fanny," Betsy repeated, 
 stolidly. 
 
 It required more moral courage than Dinah 
 was possessed of to deny a witch any demand, 
 reasonable or unreasonable. She turned toward 
 the house perplexedly. She declined the re 
 sponsibility of a second refusal. 
 
 "Tell her it s Betsy Robinson, en she say she 
 mus see her," Betsy called after Dinah, emphat 
 ically, as she waddled toward the house. 
 
 She grew tired of waiting, and quietly fol-
 
 jBALDY S POINT. 233 
 
 lowed in the wake of her embassadress in time 
 to hear a weak, querulous voice say : 
 
 "Tell her I wont see her; I m sick." 
 
 "Yes, you will, missy," Betsy answered for 
 herself, boldly pressing forward until she stood 
 by Dinah s side in the darkened chamber. "En 
 you won think me sassy nuther, we n I git frew." 
 
 "You go, Dinah," she said, in authoritative 
 tones. But Fanny sat up in bed preparing for 
 an angry protest. Betsy looked at her with a 
 distorted glance. 
 
 "Don t be afraid of me, sweety; you ll be 
 glad I came fo I git frew. Only Dinah mus 
 clar out." 
 
 "Go, Dinah," Fanny said, pushing her hair 
 back behind her ears and staring wonderingly 
 at this strange visitor. "I m not afraid." 
 
 "I wouldn t hu t a ha r uv yo head, sweety," 
 Betsy said, then stood mute until Dinah s 
 heavy footfall died away in the direction of 
 the kitchen before she began abruptly : 
 
 "He was yo sweetheart, honey, warn he?" 
 
 "Who are you talking about? That poor 
 man in yonder?" 
 
 "I mean t other one, Miss Fanny. I mean 
 de one dat folks say done dis deed." 
 
 Fanny s blanched cheeks and lips frightened 
 her; she came nearer and said anxiously, al 
 most imploringly:
 
 234 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "Don t faint, missy. Thar s work fo you t* 
 do to-day. Please, ma m, don t faint." 
 
 "I m not going to faint. Go on." 
 
 "He didn t do it, missy. De folks all say he 
 done it. He didn , sweety. I was in dem 
 woods. I see Henry White sittin under the 
 sycamo tree es white en es still es a ghost, 
 just fo dat shot was fire . I hear dat shot 
 who gwine say who done it? But Henry White 
 never done it, missy. I want de folks to know 
 dat I darsent come out plain, Miss Fanny, but 
 I knowed you wouldn tell on me, en I wanted 
 you t know yo sweetheart didn have de 
 Provy s blood on his hands. But, missy, de 
 folks think he done it all de same, en dey gwine 
 mek it hot fer him dis ve y night. Thar ain no 
 jestiss in it, Miss Fanny, en I wanted to let 
 wi te folks know. But you won t tell on me?" 
 
 "Who are you?" Fanny asked, leaning ea 
 gerly forward toward the gaunt black form 
 this woman who had lifted such a load from 
 her breast. 
 
 "I ain gwine tell you. I don want you t* 
 know. I wan you t write somethin on a 
 piece uv paper en gin it t me. I ll tell you 
 what to write. En I ll put it whar it ll do good. 
 You won t tell on me, missy." 
 
 "What are you going to do with it, and what 
 must I write?" Mechanically Fanny had risen
 
 BALDY S POINT. 235 
 
 and seated herself before her writing-desk. 
 What spell had been laid upon her to make 
 her under such docile obedience to this weird 
 visitor? She had said she knew Henry White 
 had not done this thing, and Fanny was ready 
 to fall down and worship her for the boon of 
 these words. 
 
 "What must I write?" she repeated, looking 
 at Betsy eagerly. 
 
 "Put it in yo own words, but tell him he 
 mus n stay at home t -night. De folks is 
 gwin t pester him. Dey means harm. Put it 
 in w ite folks words, honey : if it sounds lak 
 nigger nonsense, it won* do no good. He ll 
 think somebody want to skeer him, en he s 
 a^mouty obstinit man, he is dat." 
 
 "What are you going to do with it?" Fan 
 ny s cheeks were aflame. A feverish light was 
 burning in her eyes. She dipped the pen into 
 the ink, and drew a sheet of paper toward her 
 with a trembling hand. 
 
 "I gwine see dat he gits it," said Betsy, with 
 emphasis, "en I gwine see nobody don know 
 dat he gits it but me. Mek it strong, missy. 
 He s mouty obstinit. Put it in w ite folks 
 words." 
 
 "Yes," said Fanny, with a little catch in her 
 breath, "I ll make it strong." Then she 
 bent her head as if she would hide the swift-
 
 236 AALDY S POINT. 
 
 rising blushes from this sinister-eyed woman 
 who stood with folded arms looking down 
 upon her. 
 
 "You are in great danger. You are wrong 
 fully accused of this thing. If you love 
 anybody, leave the neighborhood immediately, 
 and stay until your friends can explain mat 
 ters. Papa telegraphed for Mr. Ford s wife 
 this morning. I wish I could hear you say, 
 before you do go, that you forgive me all I 
 have made you suffer. Whether you are 
 angry with me yet or not, do not, I implore 
 you, neglect this warning. 
 
 "F. R." 
 
 It was a reckless thing to do. What would 
 come of it?
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WHAT DID COME OF IT. 
 
 THE lights and the shadows that chased 
 each other across his own private and indi 
 vidual horizon that day were things to be 
 remembered for all time by Henry White. 
 
 It was in utter unconsciousness that he had 
 become the pivotal point for so much sup 
 pressed excitement since he had locked the toll- 
 gate the night before, that he unlocked it the 
 next morning. No rumor, even, of the Pro 
 vost s mishap had found its way to the quiet 
 home behind the locusts. There was no one 
 to tell him save those who were implicated in 
 keeping it from him. His mother and he had 
 dragged out the evening heavily enough. He 
 was glad he had not found her in one of those 
 loquacious moods. He could have stood 
 almost anything better, that night, than a 
 demand for responsiveness. 
 
 As it was, she sat there in subdued nervous 
 ness, computing all the possible evil that might 
 follow upon Henry s summary action in the 
 matter of the ejectment, while he was trying, 
 237
 
 238 JSALDY S POINT. 
 
 by sheer force of will, to convince himself that 
 life was not the leaden-hued thing it seemed. 
 
 What a dreadful procession of to-morrows 
 stretched ahead of him ! all to be endured or to 
 be met as man meets the shock of battle. If it 
 were not for her, that loving, querulous, un 
 wise mother, in whose sunken white temples 
 the blue vein-tracery was growing more pathet 
 ically conspicuous day by day, he would turn 
 his back on it all, and start afresh somewhere, 
 where his past could not hold him in such a 
 death-grip. 
 
 That was the thing of all others he most 
 longed to do that night. Perhaps it was 
 because he had deserted her for a few seconds 
 that, when the clock struck nine, and they 
 could decently essay to drop the vail of obliv 
 ion on all the worries of the day, he wound his 
 arms about his mother, and kissed her good 
 night twice affectionately instead of only once 
 in his usual perfunctory manner. 
 
 "These are lonely days for you, mother, 
 while I am down at the gate. Can t you think 
 of some one you would like to have stay with 
 you? Some one who would perhaps be glad of 
 the home comfort of Whitefields, poor as it is 
 nowadays?" 
 
 She looked at him wistfully, and then made 
 another one of her mistakes.
 
 BALDY S POINT. 239 
 
 "Nobody but Fanny, dear. She and I al 
 ways got on so 
 
 But there was no one to hear the close of 
 her sentence. With an oath, the only one 
 that had ever escaped his lips in her presence, 
 he turned passionately and left her. 
 
 The tears sprang into her eyes. Her lips 
 quivered like a child s. 
 
 "What had come over Henry? She was 
 actually getting to be afraid of her own child !" 
 
 He begged her pardon the next morning very 
 contritely, when he took his tin dinner-pail from 
 her hand ; and she, oblivious of everything but 
 the worn look of his young face and the great 
 black circles that sleeplessness had drawn about 
 his dear eyes, begged his in return, so the rec 
 onciliation was complete. 
 
 A solemn hush still rested over the little 
 shanty when he came in sight of it. There was 
 not even a bird-note to break it. His long 
 hours of solitude there in the woods were 
 bringing to him what he called primeval 
 instincts. His hearing was growing marvel- 
 ously acute. His eyes were gradually acquiring 
 the power of discerning objects at a much 
 greater distance than ever before. This partic 
 ular morning they discerned a small white ob 
 ject lying on the board under the sycamore 
 tree. He quickened his steps perceptibly.
 
 240 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 What was it, and how came it there? It 
 seemed to him that he was still at a great 
 distance when this marvel dawned upon him. 
 It was a letter, and he knew from whom. It 
 was Fanny Ray s handwriting. But it was his 
 name, not the Provost s, that was written on 
 the little square envelope which he took up 
 so wonderingly. He remembered, afterward, 
 that he had removed a little piece of brick that 
 had been used for a paper-weight. He sat 
 down on the cypress block by his rude table 
 and held the letter a long time unopened. 
 Why should he be in haste to open it? Doubt 
 less it would but reveal another phase of heart- 
 lessness in the woman who wrote it. He must 
 make himself understand that he had fully 
 fathomed Fanny Ray s shallow soul. He won 
 dered why the letter was not damp with the 
 dews of night. He wondered how it had gotten 
 there. No one from Baldy s Point could pos 
 sibly have come out so early. He wondered 
 why it was there at all ; and then, as deliber 
 ately as if he were holding an account of sales 
 in his hand, he took his knife from his pocket, 
 opened the small blade and slipped it under the 
 flaps of the envelope almost reluctantly. This 
 was his way of holding himself well in hand. 
 It was a species of self-discipline. 
 "At las !"
 
 BALDY S POINT. 241 
 
 His woodcraft did not bring that whispered 
 exclamation of relief to his ears, nor did he 
 hear the scurrying of Betsy s feet as she stole 
 swiftly away from the spot where she had been 
 keeping watch and ward over the letter. He 
 was oblivious to everything but the few words 
 that lay revealed before him. 
 
 Words of warning, words of penitence, words 
 of kindness from Fanny Ray to him ! O miracle 
 of sweetness and light ! He took in confusedly 
 the words of warning. Doubtless she had 
 heard the stupid threats of that desperado, 
 Robinson, and, woman-like, thought they 
 meant something. But that she should care to 
 warn him ! That she should embody a plea 
 for pardon in that hasty note ! That she 
 should care whether harm came to him or not ! 
 
 A sun-burst of light came down through the 
 branches of the sycamore tree and fell on the 
 note in his hand. The words danced before 
 his dazzled eyes. The birds shook the spell of 
 night from their fluttering wings, and came 
 hopping about him for their daily alms. He 
 flung it to them with a lavish hand. Life was 
 not leaden-hued ; it was bright, it was dazzling, 
 it was sweet, and all the sweeter because the 
 Provost had a wife. 
 
 He fell to work on his shingle-making after 
 awhile with fierce energy. He must work some
 
 242 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 of this excitement off at his finger-tips, or the 
 "first fool that came along would read it or mis 
 read it." He marveled, as the sun mounted 
 higher and he worked on undisturbed, at the 
 strange absence of travel along the road that 
 morning. It must have been well on toward 
 ten o clock before he heard a sound other than 
 the soft splitting away of the cypress block 
 under his sharp draw-knife. It was a horseman 
 clattering along the plank road, and from the 
 gait he was coming he would not relish deten 
 tion. He was at the gate holding it wide open 
 by the time Cap Van Dorn stopped his horse 
 so suddenly on the other side of it as almost to 
 precipitate himself over its head. The gate 
 keeper looked up at him smilingly : 
 
 "Hillo! you ride as if Old Nick himself was 
 at your heels." 
 
 "Upon my word !" said Cap, looking down 
 upon him with a mystified glance before he 
 sprang from the saddle, and, with the bridle 
 thrown over his arm, led the way back to the 
 shanty. He was mystified by the brightness in 
 Henry s face. 
 
 "You haven t been at work?" he asked, 
 kicking the new-made shingles impatiently out 
 of his way. 
 
 "Of course I have. Why not?" 
 
 "You re looking more cheerful than I ve seen
 
 BALDY S POINT. 243 
 
 you since you got back," Cap said, taking keen 
 note of the new light that had come into 
 Henry s eyes, and a certain elate erectness. 
 
 "I believe I am feeling a little better than 
 usual this morning," said Henry, blushing hotly 
 and feeling nervously in the side-pocket where 
 he had thrust Fanny s note. 
 
 Cap lifted his hat to run his fingers perplex 
 edly through his thick hair. Was the man lost 
 to all sense of decency? 
 
 "Then you don t care whether the fellow 
 lives or dies, it seems." 
 
 "What fellow?" It was Henry s turn now 
 to look mystified. 
 
 "The Provost Marshal." 
 
 "What ails the Provost Marshal?" 
 
 "See here, Henry." Cap had seated himself 
 astride the splintery cypress block, but now he 
 sprang up violently and laid both hands heavily 
 on Henry White s shoulder. "Don t act a part 
 with me. It s not the sort of revenge I d have 
 expected you to take, but I m going to stand 
 by you, old fellow, and you ve got to get out 
 of this." 
 
 "What in creation are you talking about, 
 Van Dorn?" Henry shook him off roughly, 
 and stepped back to look at him angrily. 
 There was no mistaking that look of mystified 
 ignorance.
 
 244 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "Then you didn t shoot the Provost Mar 
 shal yesterday after he rode by here with 
 Fanny Ray?" 
 
 "What ! and you dare come here to ask me 
 such a question to my face?" 
 
 Van Dorn quailed before the indignant 
 wrath in his friend s eyes. He ought to have 
 known better. But, then, who in heaven s 
 name had done it? Who else had any motive 
 for doing it? The man was an idol with the 
 freedmen. 
 
 "That s what it meant, then," said Henry, 
 absently. A new light had been shed on 
 Fanny s words of warning. Could she have 
 ridden out there herself that morning for his 
 sake? 
 
 "That s what what meant?" 
 
 But he had no notion of sharing his miracle 
 of sweetness with any one else. He smiled, 
 and, shoving the cypress block nearer to his 
 visitor with one foot, said, briskly: "Come, 
 sit down and tell me all about it. I pledge 
 you my word you ve brought me the first 
 hint of this whole matter." 
 
 "What !" 
 
 "You have indeed." 
 
 Cap stared at him in wordless surprise. Of 
 course he believed Henry. But what then did 
 this undercurrent of excitement mean? It
 
 BALDY S POINT. 245 
 
 showed in his eyes, his voice, his entire bear 
 ing. 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me," he said abruptly, 
 "that you don t know Wesley Ford was shot* 
 yesterday, just after passing the toll-gate? 
 That he was shot with a Winchester rifle, and 
 that you get the credit for it all?" 
 
 "What nonsense you are talking, Cap ! 
 Have you been shut up in the woods so long 
 that you are ready to believe every old woman s 
 gossip? I did hear a shot yesterday. It was 
 about sundown. I supposed some darky was 
 duck-hunting. If the Provost got the bene 
 fit of it, it must have been an accident. I m 
 the only man in the county who owns 
 a Winchester rifle, and mine is in the 
 shanty." 
 
 "Is it there now?" 
 
 "I suppose so. I forget it sometimes when 
 I go up to the house, but I generally find it 
 just where I left it." 
 
 He led the way toward the shanty while 
 speaking. 
 
 "There!" he said, triumphantly, pointing to 
 his gun in the corner. 
 
 Cap seized it and raised the hammer. An 
 empty cartridge fell to the floor. Both men 
 turned ghastly pale. 
 
 "What does it mean, Hank?" Van Dorn
 
 246 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 looked at his friend pleadingly. Surely 
 "Hank" wouldn t lie to him. 
 
 "89 help me God, Van Dorn, I don t know." 
 
 Then Cap held out his hand, and Henry 
 clasped it. They knew that whatever else 
 might have happened, they still believed in 
 each other. 
 
 The sun was an hour higher when Cap rose 
 to leave. It had been hard to convince Henry 
 that it was necessary for him to do anything 
 but stand his ground. He, Van Dorn, was 
 bent upon carrying out the programme 
 mapped out by himself after he had left Nel 
 lie and Mammy at the Wilsons . 
 
 There was no knowing what the plans of the 
 Provost s dark champions were, but he and 
 Amy had prepared for them as far as pos 
 sible. 
 
 "I ve a note here for Mrs. White from Miss 
 Wilson," he said, producing it. "We thought 
 if she was made to believe that she could be 
 useful there to-day, seeing the Major s sick, we 
 would have no difficulty in getting her out of 
 the way." 
 
 "That was thoughtful of you both. You ll 
 drive mother over for me?" said Henry calmly. 
 
 "No, sir; you ll drive her over yourself. 
 Can t you see what a pucker she d be in if I, 
 the man she despises above everything, should
 
 BALDY S POINT. 247 
 
 incontinently drive off with her and leave you 
 behind?" 
 
 "That s true," said Henry anxiously; "but, 
 then, on the other hand, if I drive off with 
 her, these black fiends will say I m running 
 away from them, and I ll die before I give them 
 a chance to do that." 
 
 "Would there be any special display of brav 
 ery in not running away? You are one against 
 several hundred. By to-morrow night they 
 may have come to their senses or cooled down 
 a little. At present they re simply so many 
 ravening wolves." 
 
 "I ll drive mother over there and leave her," 
 said Henry finally, gritting his teeth with im 
 potent rage, "and then I ll come back as fast 
 as horse-power can bring me. I ll be hanged if 
 I run from a parcel of niggers!" 
 
 "The quicker you re off the better," said 
 Cap curtly; "there s nothing more I can do 
 for you at present. You promise to start for 
 the Wilsons immediately?" 
 
 "As soon as I can hitch the buggy up," said 
 Henry, gathering his scattered belongings to 
 gether while speaking. The sooner he got his 
 mother out to the Wilsons the sooner he 
 would get back. 
 
 Cap drove the sharp rowels of his spurs into 
 his horse s flanks in needless cruelty as he
 
 248 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 turned his head toward Baldy s Point. "There 
 Avas no danger of Henry s coming back to 
 Whitefields that evening," he said to himself, 
 bitterly; "Amy Wilson would see to it that he 
 did not." And then, as if taking blame to him 
 self for even so fleeting a reflection upon her, 
 he lifted his hat reverently from his head, and 
 said aloud : 
 
 "God forever bless her. She s one of His 
 own." 
 
 His immediate errand out to Baldy s Point 
 was to learn the extent of the Provost s 
 injuries, and to discover, cautiously, how 
 many people knew of this plot against Henry 
 White. Those were times when it was well 
 if a man could prevent his left hand from 
 finding out what his right hand was doing. 
 The slightest indiscretion at this juncture might 
 precipitate the entire locality into a state of 
 fermentation. Whatever his business, it kept 
 him all day out at Baldy s Point. The sun was 
 sinking when he mounted his horse and rode 
 rapidly out of the little town where the one 
 topic of conversation was the shooting of 
 Wesley Ford. It had sunken entirely, and the 
 shades of night were falling fast, when he 
 quietly opened the yard gate at Whitefields, 
 and passed through it on foot. The house was 
 dark, the yard was tenantless ; a silence as of
 
 BALDY S POINT. 249 
 
 death brooded over the premises. Cap made 
 the circuit of the house and the kitchen to 
 make sure of his solitary possession. Then, 
 mounting to the back steps, he swung himself 
 lightly from its banisters into the branches of a 
 paper-mulberry tree whose higher limbs spread 
 themselves over the gallery roof. With the 
 agility of a monkey, he swung from limb to 
 limb until the roof was reached, ran along it 
 until he came to the dormer, whose closed 
 shutters he raised from their hinges by a 
 violent exercise of strength. 
 
 "Slightly burglarious," he said, as he leaped 
 down into the dark hall and paused to pull his 
 vest and trousers into normal connection with 
 each other. 
 
 He had provided himself with matches. It 
 took him only a few moments to light lamps in 
 different parts of the house, and to open the 
 doors and windows with a careful regard to the 
 usual routine of the household as well as he 
 could recall it. 
 
 Henry s short seersucker coat, which was 
 reserved for house wear, hung on the hat-rack 
 in the hall. So did his low straw hat, with its 
 broad black ribbon band. Cap invested him 
 self in both, then held a lamp in front of the 
 parlor mirror to scan himself. 
 
 "Not a bad imitation. If they think he s at
 
 250 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 home they won t look for him anywhere else. 
 Perhaps it s all words, but I ll be ready for 
 them. It won t do for them to think the white 
 men are growing timid. Come what may, poor 
 little Nellie will have a friend." 
 
 He moved about the house with conspicuous 
 activity for a few moments, then, walking out 
 on the front gallery, he seated himself, lighted 
 a cigar, and, tilting his chair back, elevated his 
 feet to the banister rail, in token of absolute 
 indifference to the brooding storm. 
 
 He was seen of more than one dark form as 
 it slunk cautiously by the fence on its way to 
 the rendezvous appointed by Henry Robinson. 
 The night was very dark so dark that the 
 man on the gallery, whose striped seersucker 
 coat and white straw hat were only dimly dis 
 cernible by the light of the lamp on the hall 
 table behind him, could see only a foot or two 
 of the broken brick walk that led from the 
 front steps to the front gate, and such shrubs 
 and tree limbs as came within the radius of 
 that dim lamp-light. The mutterings of dis 
 tant thunder broke the silence occasionally, 
 followed by fitful flashes of lightning that only 
 intensified the succeeding darkness. The 
 pockets of the seersucker coat sagged heavily. 
 There was a loaded pistol in each one. 
 
 "If they ll only show themselves," said Cap
 
 BALDY S POINT. 251 
 
 to himself, cautiously familiarizing himself with 
 the location of the triggers, "I ll stand some 
 chance." 
 
 But nothing showed itself. Under the man 
 tle of the black night the dark forms stole 
 stealthily by the house in ever-increasing num 
 bers. Some of them felt slightly compunctious 
 toward that motionless form on the gallery. 
 But they had yielded up all volition to the man 
 who had bidden them meet him at the White- 
 fields gin that night. They had conned their 
 lesson like faithful parrots. "Their rights had 
 been trampled on. Their champion had been 
 murderously assaulted, and if they did not re 
 venge him they would be left to look out for 
 themselves in all future emergencies." Appall 
 ing contingency ! They were going to secure 
 themselves against it.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SPECTER WINGS. 
 
 AS a usual thing, the amenities of domestic 
 life were none too closely observed in the 
 cabin on the Webb place which Betsy called 
 home. She was not an exacting spouse. She 
 never called her husband to account for unex 
 plained absences, but, \vith a stolid composure 
 that might easily have reached the exaltation 
 of dignity in a higher social grade, she would 
 conscientiously set aside a large proportion of 
 the family rations for his benefit; which done, 
 she washed her hands and her conscience of all 
 concern in his affairs. Wifely solicitude could 
 go no further with her. But on the morning 
 of that early visit of hers to Baldy s Point, she 
 showed an unusual spirit of conciliation. 
 
 She found him sitting in sulky abstraction on 
 the front steps when she rode up with the corn- 
 meal she had traded for at Sellers s tied up in a 
 pillow-slip that was resting on the pommel of 
 her saddle. He raised his blood-shotten eyes 
 as she stopped in front of him, but volunteered 
 no assistance. 
 
 252
 
 BALDY S POINT. 253 
 
 "Holp me down wid de meal, ol man, en on- 
 tie de piller slip. I fetch you a pinf uv whisky. 
 I ain gwine pester you no mo* t day." 
 
 "To-day," she repeated to herself, with 
 emphasis, swinging the sack of meal into 
 Henry s hands and cantering away to turn the 
 mule loose in the lot. 
 
 Henry s sense of the civil was immensely 
 quickened by that mention of the pint of 
 whisky. He sprang to his feet with alacrity to 
 relieve his wife of the heavy sack. Extracting 
 the black flask from its neck, he dumped it 
 unceremoniously inside the house. He was 
 not without a certain amount of conscience, a 
 stunned and deadened thing that was feebly 
 protesting within his hardened breast, and 
 making it somewhat difficult for him to keep 
 his courage up to the sticking-point. 
 
 The whisky was just what he needed. His 
 potations were many and deep. The day was 
 a long one to him, but the night came at last. 
 He had spent nearly the whole time of waiting 
 sitting motionless on the front steps, with his 
 blood-shotten eyes dropped upon the ground 
 between his feet, brooding over his fancied 
 wrongs and feeding the flames of hate with 
 fiery draughts from the black flask by his 
 side. 
 
 He was rather glad, when the time came to
 
 254 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 start for the Whitefields gin, that Betsy was 
 nowhere visible. She had promised not to 
 "pester" him any more that day, but he didn t 
 care to risk a renewal of her prophecies of woe 
 when he started on his evil errand. There was 
 a long stretch of darksome woodland that he 
 must traverse before reaching the main road, 
 and he d much rather hear the hooting of the 
 screech-owls in its fastnesses than one of 
 Betsy s lectures. Not that she lectured habit 
 ually, but in this matter of Henry White she 
 showed a disposition to be ugly with him. 
 
 His cabin was on the outskirts of the woods. 
 It had been originally built for a stock-minder s 
 convenience. Almost immediately after cross 
 ing a rickety stile which did duty for a gate he 
 was surrounded by a dense forest growth. He 
 was not timid. He had followed the cattle 
 trail through the Bomber aisles in many a noc 
 turnal expedition. But to-night they seemed 
 denser and darker than ever. 
 
 He stumbled along the rough path with nerv 
 ous haste. The roots that veined it seemed 
 to have multiplied miraculously and resolved 
 themselves into so many snares for his 
 hurrying feet. The outstretched arms of a 
 blackthorn caught his ragged straw hat and 
 swung it aloft. He reached up to recover it, 
 clutched recklessly at the thorny branch, and
 
 BALDY S POINT 255 
 
 held by it for support. His knees were sway 
 ing treacherously beneath him. 
 
 A few feet from the blackthorn a strange 
 apparition had sprung up immediately in the 
 path he must tread. Two large white wings, 
 belonging to nothing, apparently, this side the 
 spirit world were waving slowly and solemnly 
 in the direction he had come. Their spectral 
 tips were pointed accurately toward his cabin 
 the cabin where he had left Betsy and the 
 children. A pale phosphorescent glow shone 
 steadily about the base of the wings. There 
 was nothing more to the apparition. Whether 
 supported by the powers above or the demons 
 below was more than the frightened wretch 
 could conjecture. The sighing of the wind in 
 the tops of the tall trees was all the sound he 
 heard. It might have been the rustle of those 
 ghostly wings, so sadly it whispered. To and 
 fro, always in the direction of his cabin, they 
 swayed, waving him .backward from the scene 
 of his meditated crime. 
 
 "It s some wil critter that I kyarn mek out 
 fur de dark," the cowering culprit moaned, and, 
 grasping his hat, he veered abruptly from the 
 cattle trail and went crashing through the un 
 trodden undergrowth like an ox. He would 
 take a short cut around "the critter," and come 
 back to the path farther down, where the roads
 
 256 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 forked. He drew his breath more comfortably 
 when the thick foliage hid from his view those 
 strangely luminous white wings. 
 
 This detention would make him late, and 
 "the folks" would think he was not coming at 
 all. He quickened his pace almost to a run, 
 and reached the forks of the road quite spent 
 for breath. 
 
 There, swaying to and fro, always pointing 
 their spectral tips toward the path he had trod 
 den, were the wings. 
 
 He stood still in palsied terror. The very 
 breath seemed frozen in his lungs. In the 
 death-like stillness that wrapped him about he 
 could hear the weird rustle of those unearthly 
 wings. And as they swayed, the phosphores 
 cent gleam was fanned into a brighter light. 
 He stretched his hands toward it beseechingly. 
 
 "Do it mean I mus go back? Do it mean 
 de Lawd gwine scorch my soul ef I don leave 
 dat w ite man lone? Say, marse spirit, is dat 
 yo meanin ?" 
 
 The wings were pointed slowly and solemnly 
 in the direction of his cabin. He staggered 
 backward a few steps. There was no mistaking 
 that ghostly command. He would give up his 
 revenge. He turned backward with a groan of 
 anguish. Blackness reigned supreme. He 
 retreated half a dozen steps, and then cast a
 
 BALDY S POINT. 257 
 
 frightened look over his shoulder. The wings 
 were nowhere visible. 
 
 "I se a w ite-livered fool," he said aloud in 
 swift revulsion from fear to wrath ; "it war n 
 nuthin but a w ite cow. I done swore t kill 
 Henry White this night, an I gwine do it." 
 
 Veering again, he plunged forward past the 
 forks of the road. Of course it had been all 
 imagination. There was the wide open space 
 where the three roads met, and where the faint 
 starlight showed him everything in its normal 
 condition. Everything was just as it should be. 
 He was all right at last. There was the big 
 road. In a moment he would be opposite 
 the shanty the shanty that should never 
 again shelter the toll-gate keeper from the wind 
 and the rain. Revenge was too sweet to be 
 relinquished. But It They were there before 
 him. They looked whiter, larger, more myste 
 rious than ever, seen in "the open" where the 
 gleam of light at their base shed its faint lumin- 
 ousness over the lustrous feathers. To and fro, 
 always with their spectral tips turned toward 
 the cabin where Betsy and the children were, 
 they waved their warning to him. "Back, go 
 back!" that was the mute command. 
 
 With a howl of terror he struck abruptly 
 off to the right. The river was not far away. 
 He had heard the folks say spirits never crossed
 
 25 8 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 the water. On and on he raced : now stumbling 
 over some unseen obstruction, only to pick 
 himself up bruised and bleeding; now casting 
 a look over his shoulder, only to see those 
 terrible white wings slowly following, always 
 waving him backward from his deadly purpose ; 
 now rushing forward with his head buried in his 
 outstretched palms, willing to grope his way 
 blindly, if only he could shut out the sight of 
 that pursuing presence. He heard the rushing 
 river close at hand at last. What a tumult of 
 sound ! It was "on the rise." It was rush 
 ing seaward in angry, swollen volume. His 
 skiff was there ; he was always on the lookout 
 for flotsam and jetsam. Once let him grasp 
 its strong oars, and he would bid defiance 
 to the avenging spirit that was pursuing him 
 so hotly. 
 
 At headlong speed he stumbled down the 
 steep river bank and bounded into his skiff. 
 With shaking hands he unwound the chain that 
 secured it to the stake, and, seizing an oar, he 
 sent it spinning far out into the swift cur 
 rent. An eddy caught it and sent it round 
 with a swirl. He gave a yell of triumph as he 
 saw the white wings there on the bank, power 
 less to pursue; no longer waving, no longer 
 forcing him backward with their spectral tips ; 
 motionless, drooping, vanquished ! Then he
 
 BALDY S POINT. 259 
 
 awoke to a new peril. He was in the swirl 
 of a fierce eddy. He seized the other oar, and, 
 with all his boatman skill, tried to extricate 
 himself. Around and around, faster and faster, 
 he spun, every circuit bringing him again face 
 to face with those motionless white wings. 
 What a witch s caldron it was ! Great black 
 drift-logs, rushing by on the swollen current, 
 were sucked in and joined in a devil s waltz 
 about the little boat. In vain he pulled now 
 on the right oar alone, now on the left, then on 
 both. The doomed skiff only spun the swifter 
 in its dizzy circle about the eddy. The black 
 ened corpses of the dead trees smote it fore 
 and aft, until it shivered throughout its entire 
 length. The sound of the rushing waters filled 
 his ears. Mingled with it was the muttering of 
 the thunder stored away in the piled-up masses 
 of inky clouds that hid the friendly stars from 
 him. A rush of cold water over his feet ! A 
 hole had been beaten in the side of the skiff! 
 He flung his oars away. They were useless to 
 him. He stood dumbly up in the boat. 
 There was no help, no light, no hope, anywhere. 
 Overhead swift-scurrying storm clouds; around 
 him, swifter-rushing, pitiless water; landward, 
 those still, white wings. Without a sound, with 
 no word of fear, nor of supplication, nor of re 
 morse, he faced his doom. Raising his arms
 
 260 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 over his head, he clasped his hands together 
 and leaped. One chance in a million ! 
 
 The eddy engulfed him. The cold waters 
 embraced him. The swift-swirling logs lifted 
 him in their arms and bore him seaward in 
 triumph, when chance finally released them 
 from the witch s caldron. And the thing that 
 had been a scheming, passionate, vengeful per 
 sonality, but a moment before, was tossed upon 
 the shores of eternity like a dead leaf. The 
 white wings drooped, fluttered, fell heavily to 
 the ground. The phosphorescent gleam died 
 out as they fell. Betsy leaned far over the 
 river bank to listen for the sound of oars. 
 
 "The waters meks a mighty fuss to-night," 
 she said, fretfully, "but he ll come out all right. 
 Let him row bout on de water tell he cool off 
 some. I had t skeer "im." 
 
 She stooped, and, lifting from the ground 
 two immense white crane s wings, whose only 
 function, hitherto, had been to ornament the 
 ends of her one mantel-piece, she slapped them 
 softly together, and, untying the two small 
 bladders appended to their lower edges, she 
 thriftily extracted the remains of two candles, 
 which she deposited in the bosom of her scant 
 black dress. 
 
 "I cou dn uv headed him off so easy," she 
 said to herself, "ef it hedn ben fur de whisky
 
 BALDY S POINT. 261 
 
 in his head, but I done swear he shant hu t 
 Henry White, en I kep my word, dat s all. Thar 
 ain no jestiss in it. Dat w ite man done fed me 
 en my chillun many a time w en we would a 
 starved to def fur all Henry Rob son done fur 
 us. I had t skeer him out n it. Dat s all. But 
 he ll turn up all right." She folded the wings, 
 that had done such effective ghostly service, 
 carefully under her black apron and started rap 
 idly homeward. Henry must find her fast 
 asleep when he got back to the cabin. 
 
 The excited crowd that had gathered from 
 far and near under the gin shed at Whitefields 
 that night waited in vain for the coming of 
 their leader. Not a tenth of their number 
 knew distinctly why they were there. Still 
 a smaller proportion knew what roles had been 
 assigned them. No one knew anything clearly 
 but the leading spirit that had convened this 
 gathering. They could do nothing without 
 Henry Robinson. As the night wore on and 
 he did not come, they waxed wroth. He was 
 playing them false ! He wanted them to run 
 all the risk while he secured himself. Disaffec 
 tion seized upon them. In darkness and de 
 spondency the dense mass slowly dissolved into 
 so many angry atoms and dispersed. Henry 
 White was saved. The threatened storm had 
 been averted by a woman s wit.
 
 262 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 Galloping homeward as swiftly as possible 
 after depositing his mother at the Wilsons , he 
 rode up to his own front in some trepidation. 
 Those lights in the house he had left darkened 
 and locked, what could they mean? He ad 
 vanced up the brick walk with his hand in his 
 breast-pocket. His ringing footfall brought 
 Cap Van Dorn suddenly to his feet. 
 
 "Who goes there?" he demanded, peering 
 out into the dark yard. 
 
 "Cap!" 
 
 Henry bounded up the steps with that aston 
 ished exclamation. It all flashed upon him ! 
 He drew his friend into the lighted hall, sur 
 veyed him from head to foot through a sudden 
 mist that came into his eyes. 
 
 "And you were willing to risk all that for me, 
 old fellow?" 
 
 "I don t see that I ve risked anything worse 
 than a infernal cold," said Cap, laughing lightly. 
 "These rogues are deliberate, to say the least 
 of it. I ve about smoked up all your cigars." 
 
 But Henry, laying his hand on the sleeve of 
 the seersucker coat, said softly : 
 
 "Greater love hath no man than this, that a 
 man lay down his life for his friend." 
 
 Together they kept their watch through the 
 undisturbed hours of the night. They talked 
 of Nellie, they talked of Amy, they talked of
 
 SALDY S POINT. 263 
 
 the past, the present, and the future, and, in 
 that close communion of hearts, the miracle of 
 Fanny s repentance slipped from Henry s keep 
 ing and was tenderly scanned, Cap silently 
 wondering if that would make any difference 
 with Amy. And Henry waxed a little triumph 
 ant as the quiet hours of the night wore away, 
 for they wotted nothing of the pulseless form 
 that was rushing seaward in the close embrace 
 of the black drift-logs. Nor of the vengeance 
 that the Lord had taken into his own hands.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 NELLIE FINDS AN ASYLUM. 
 
 BALDY S POINT was pining for a sensa 
 tion. It had had enough in the course of 
 a very few weeks to satisfy any normal crav 
 ings, but its cravings had ceased to be normal, 
 and to ask it to rest content now with the hue- 
 less happenings of everyday village life was to 
 ask it to forego all its newly acquired taste for 
 the dramatic. 
 
 Its prime sensation, the one from which it 
 had extracted the most decided thrills, had been 
 that shooting of the Provost Marshal and 
 Fanny Ray s strange drive through the woods 
 with him bleeding at her feet. 
 
 The people of Baldy s Point felt rebuked 
 when they recalled the ready credence they had 
 given to the Henry White theory of the 
 assault. Circumstantial evidence had been very 
 strong against him ; but of course Henry Rob 
 inson s flight from the country had fastened the 
 guilt upon the right man. Some of them 
 claimed to have been quite satisfied on that 
 point even before Wesley Ford utilized his first 
 264
 
 BALDY S POINT. 265 
 
 conscious breath to affirm that his assailant was 
 not a white man. 
 
 And then the Provost s wife had come the 
 Ann whose name was never off his delirious 
 lips. And Ann had quite taken the town by 
 storm with her strong, sweet face and her brisk 
 curiosity, and her wide-awake interest in the 
 sleepy old town. So unconditionally, indeed, 
 had Baldy s Point surrendered to the Provost s 
 wife that when Amy Wilson proudly appropri 
 ated her on the score of cousinship, and the 
 Fords moved out to the Wilson place as soon as 
 he was able to be moved at all, the town felt as 
 if it had sustained a loss, and so expressed 
 itself. 
 
 And then there was that sudden and myste 
 rious "making up" of Henry White s and Fanny 
 Ray s, which had resulted in such an absurdly 
 prompt marriage ceremony. 
 
 "Scarcely a wedding at all, "the Judge s wife 
 had said, plaintively distributing the cake and 
 wine at the informal reception held on the. re 
 turn of the bridal party from the church. She 
 had always looked forward to doing such splen 
 did things whenever Fanny should have made 
 up her mind to matrimony, that she really felt 
 humiliated by the suddenness and the meager- 
 ness of the whole thing. But there was large 
 compensation to be drawn from the sparkle
 
 266 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 that had come back to Fanny s eyes and the 
 lightness to her step, the absence of which she 
 had been so persistent in attributing to the 
 "child s disordered liver." 
 
 Yes, Baldy s Point had been reveling in ex 
 citements, and its appetite grew with what it 
 fed upon. That clearing up of the mystery 
 about Cap Van Dorn, too, had touched their 
 consciences, and a great many of them made 
 solemn resolutions never again to judge a man 
 by appearances. The story of Nellie Hall 
 once out, Baldy s Point was amiably inclined to 
 make a sort of hero out of Cap ; but he received 
 their apologetic advances much as he had 
 accepted their adverse criticism : shrugged his 
 broad shoulders, laughed a trifle bitterly at their 
 laudatory remarks, and went on about his own 
 affairs, unheeding, uncaring, only rejoicing 
 that Nellie had at last found a tender woman- 
 heart to nestle in. 
 
 Whenever Henry White made grateful allu 
 sion to the night when Cap made a sort of decoy 
 of himself in his coat and hat, Van Dorn would 
 smile inscrutably. To his way of thinking, the 
 whole thing had led up to a delightful alteration 
 in Briarwood affairs. 
 
 When he went to Locust Grove to relieve 
 Amy of her charge, he found Nellie in a state 
 of mutiny. Her attachment to her new friends
 
 BALDY S POINT, 267 
 
 was as violent as it was sudden. With all the 
 unreason of her disordered mind, she refused to 
 go with him. 
 
 The Major settled the difficulty in his usual 
 domineering fashion: "Let her stay. I like to 
 have the gentle little thing here. She inter 
 ests me." 
 
 "It should be entirely as Miss Wilson said," 
 Cap had answered, looking wistfully from the 
 dictatorial old soldier, strong in his helpless 
 ness, to Amy, where she stood passing a caress 
 ing hand soothingly over Nellie s shining hair. 
 
 And when Amy had said she really thought 
 he had better leave her where she was, at least 
 until she was well of the bad cough that had 
 come as a sequel to that stolen expedition 
 after blackberries in the dewy morning hours, 
 he had consented without a demurrer. 
 
 So the gates of Paradise had swung partially 
 ajar for Cap, and he was at liberty to come and 
 go just when he pleased, with Nellie s name for 
 his passport. And Amy and the Major dis 
 cussed asylums and institutions with him, so 
 that when the crop should be shipped, and he 
 should have a little money, he would know 
 just where to take her. 
 
 And as it was meet and proper that Briar- 
 wood should yield of her increase to the house 
 hold that was sharing this grave responsibility
 
 268 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 with him, he resolved himself into an amateur 
 marketman, rarely coming over without his 
 bags of vegetables or baskets of fruits. 
 
 But one morning he came without any offer 
 ings. His face was clouded with a new anxiety, 
 and he asked to see Amy alone. His horse s 
 heaving flanks told the story of his hard riding. 
 
 "I ve got a strange letter here," he said, 
 going into his subject without preamble, "and 
 as I m afraid it will take me to New Orleans, 
 and perhaps to Kentucky, before I get back, 
 I ve come to ask you, if Nellie should need any 
 thing, will you call on Sellers for it? I ll make 
 it right when I go through town." 
 
 "No more trouble, I hope? Nothing very 
 serious?" 
 
 She was always gentle and patient and court 
 eous. She was that to everybody; but he 
 craved something more, and he craved it espe 
 cially that morning. 
 
 "Yes," he said, gravely, "something very seri 
 ous, I apprehend. I knew, as soon as I took 
 hold of my business after the war, that some 
 fellow in New Orleans had bought up all the 
 mortgages on my place, and that he was 
 inclined to give me trouble. But I did not 
 know until to-day that malice was at the bottom 
 of it." 
 
 "Malice?"
 
 BALDY S POINT. 269 
 
 "Yes. At least unless there s a remarkable 
 coincidence underneath it. This letter" he 
 felt in his pocket for it "is from a lawyer in 
 New Orleans, who informs me that he has been 
 notified of the sudden death of a client of his, 
 by name Hall, who holds a first mortgage 
 on my place, and that his client wrote from 
 his death-bed desiring foreclosure and an 
 adjustment of his estate for the benefit of his 
 only child a daughter." 
 
 "And you think " said Amy, exchanging 
 her vaguely polite interest for an attitude of 
 eager attention. 
 
 "That this man Hall is Nellie s father. If it 
 is, I know he s left things in as bad a fix as 
 possible for me. I ve nothing to hope for in 
 the way of time." 
 
 "But Hall is such a common name." 
 
 "True. But he says, here, this man died in 
 Kentucky, where he had gone for his daughter." 
 
 "And what would the foreclosure of the 
 mortgage mean for you?" 
 
 "Ruin. Absolute and utter ruin." 
 
 "Oh, no, don t say that ! Think how young, 
 how strong, how 
 
 She merely hesitated for a word that shouldn t 
 sound too patronizing, but when she saw the 
 great light of hope dawning in his fine eyes, 
 she flushed and hesitated still longer. She had
 
 270 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 known for a great while all that was in his fool 
 ish, fond heart. She finished her sentence with 
 cool reserve : 
 
 "Your friends say that you have shown in 
 domitable resolution in the past. Hold fast 
 by it for the future, and all will be well." 
 
 "All will be well!" 
 
 He echoed her words almost hungrily, and 
 then he rushed on to meet his fate. 
 
 "I ve always thought that a man showed a 
 terrible amount of effrontery in asking a woman 
 to share nothing with him, calmly taking it for 
 granted that he could make up to her by pretty 
 speeches for every deprivation his poverty 
 entailed on her; but, on the other hand, I 
 sometimes feel that I could get the upper hand 
 of my bad luck yet, if only I had a goal to 
 work up to. You see, I ve never had a goal. I 
 suppose I ve worked harder than I would have 
 done otherwise, because I owed it to Nellie to 
 make her as comfortable as possible. But if it 
 should turn out that this man Hall is her father, 
 and that she owns Briarwood, there ll be plenty 
 of her kin turning up to take care of the poor 
 child. They wouldn t tire so quickly of an 
 heiress. I suppose the right sort of a fellow 
 would always do his best on abstract principles, 
 but then I never claimed to be -the right sort 
 of a fellow, you know. If only now
 
 JBALDY S POINT. 271 
 
 He looked at her imploringly. She was not 
 so unversed in the lore of the human heart as 
 to misread that earnest look. She blushed to 
 think how much of her own weakness this sim 
 ple-hearted, brave fellow had penetrated in the 
 past, and yet loved her. She sighed to think 
 how persistently he refused to modify the ped 
 estal he had erected for her occupancy when 
 they were both years younger. She wished 
 she could give him all that he wanted and that 
 he deserved to have. It seemed so very 
 recently that she had come to do him bare 
 justice even. If there was nothing to woo him 
 on, there was certainly nothing to repel him in 
 her face. She seemed waiting for the comple 
 tion of that disjointed sentence : 
 
 "If only now I had a goal." 
 
 Something came into her face, and, reflecting 
 itself in his heart and voice, filled them with 
 -brave hope. 
 
 "If only you, Amy, whom I have loved ever 
 since I can remember, it seems to me, would 
 say, Do it for my sake, what would I not un 
 dertake? It s the aimlessness of it all, you 
 see, that crushes the energy out of a fellow. I 
 couldn t work just to feed and clothe Cap Van 
 Dorn. I don t think enough of him for it, you 
 see." He tried to point the humor of his 
 words with a laugh, but it was a failure.
 
 272 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 "I am so much weaker and more foolish than 
 I can ever hope to make you understand," she 
 said, with unshed tears making her eyes starry 
 bright ; "if you only knew " 
 
 "I do know," said Cap, in a voice of solemn 
 tenderness. "I know that I am not your 
 heart s first choice, but all I ask is permission 
 to win you into oblivion of every sorrow that 
 has brooded over this dear head. Will you let 
 me try, Amy? I don t want to bind you by 
 any promises. When you come to me, it must 
 be because you love me better than you do 
 anybody else on earth. If that time ever 
 comes, will you tell me of it voluntarily?" 
 
 And, standing up before him, with both her 
 hands clasped tightly in his, she promised that 
 she would. In a letter he wrote to her from 
 New Orleans he took no advantage of the 
 footing he had gained. It was all about Nellie ; 
 at least almost all. 
 
 "It seems, you know," he wrote, "that 
 Nemesis had been working for the child whose 
 life I marred. It is as I supposed. That man 
 Hall was her father. He went to England 
 during the war, and had just come back. He 
 had left the Briarwood matters in shape to put 
 the screws on as soon as my crop was ready for 
 marketing. Nellie is an heiress. And now I 
 shant have to look about for a reasonable
 
 BALDY S POINT. 273 
 
 asylum ; she can be lodged like a princess, poor 
 dear, and fare sumptuously every day. Do you 
 know, I ve got a foolish sort of a feeling as if 
 there was some sort of atonement in submitting 
 to be made poor that she should be enriched? 
 I m hanging on here to see if her executors will 
 rent the place to me for next year. I m sure 
 she couldn t have a tenant who would look 
 out for her interests more keenly. You believe 
 that, don t you?" 
 
 The rest of his letter concerned her alone. 
 We have nothing to do with it. She answered 
 him, but her letter concerned Nellie exclusive 
 ly: "I hope you won t be away much longer," 
 it said ; "we have had a terrible fright about 
 Nellie. I am afraid that wetting she got has 
 done her more serious harm than we can yet 
 see. Her cough grows worse every day, and 
 last night she had a slight hemorrhage which 
 necessitates our keeping her very still. Father 
 sits by her bedside, showing her pictures and 
 telling her stories all day long. I love to see 
 them together. They both seem so happy." 
 
 He tarried no longer than was absolutely 
 necessary. It was to the Wilson place that he 
 rode straight from the steamboat landing. 
 
 "I ve found a splendid asylum for Nellie," 
 were almost the first words he said when Amy 
 came out to meet him on the front gallery.
 
 274 SALDY S POINT. 
 
 She did not loose her hold of his hand, but 
 drew him gently with her as she turned toward 
 the room where Nellie lay fever-stricken and 
 wasted. 
 
 "She has chosen her own asylum," she said, 
 pausing before opening the door to the sick 
 room, "and you must be prepared for a great 
 change." 
 
 "Not dead?" 
 
 "No, but very, very ill." 
 
 Yes, very, very ill. She turned her large 
 eyes slowly toward the door when it opened, 
 and a seraphic smileplayed upon her lips as she 
 recognized the two dearest faces on earth to 
 her. Cap kneeled down by her bedside, and, 
 clasping her two wasted little hands in his, said 
 in a broken voice : 
 
 "Little Nellie, before you go away I want 
 you to say something for Cap ; say it after me, 
 little girl, won t you?" 
 
 She smiled her assent, and, watching his trem 
 bling lips, repeated docilely the words he 
 doled out tremulously, a single one at a time: 
 "Cap I forgive you everything." 
 
 "I m going to see mamma," she added 
 brightly. "Amy says so. Amy says the flow 
 ers bloom there always. I love the flowers." 
 
 Her restless little hand, in its feverish wan 
 derings over the bed-spread, rested on Queenie s
 
 JBALDY S POINT. 275 
 
 flaxen curls. She gathered this faithful com 
 panion of her darkened days in a tender em 
 brace: "May I take Queenie to where the flow 
 ers bloom? Say, Cap" her gentle voice grew 
 querulous ; she was impatient of the tears that 
 kept him mute "may I take Queenie to show 
 her to mamma?" 
 
 A sobbing "yes" satisfied her. Poor little 
 Nellie, she d never been exacting, and she 
 closed her eyes as if tired of such an unus 
 ual effort. Only for a second. Presently she 
 opened them again, and turned them wistfully 
 on the loving faces about her bed. They were 
 all there; Amy kneeling on one side of her and 
 Cap on the other, the Major quietly sobbing 
 just out of her line of vision, and Mammy 
 kneeling in prayer for the passing soul. 
 
 "Cap," she called to him shrilly, as if he were 
 at a great distance, "I don t want to -take 
 Queenie ; she s heavy, and I m so tired. I want 
 to pick flowers along the road. You may have 
 Queenie. You may have all my things every 
 thing I ve got. You may have all my things 
 that I love, Cap my Mammy, and Queenie 
 and Amy. I m going to where the flowers 
 Her eyes closed. Her breath was spent. 
 She had gone to where the flowers bloom 
 always. She had made her bequests and 
 chosen her asylum.
 
 2 76 BALDY S POINT. 
 
 Across her pulseless form Cap looked into 
 Amy s eyes. Would she ratify Nellie s be 
 quest? Voluntarily she placed her hand in his 
 as they knelt there, the one on either side of 
 the child they had sheltered together. Nellie s 
 sweet lips seemed to wreathe themselves into a 
 smiling benediction, wafted from the spirit 
 world, and Cap Van Dorn had found his goal. 
 
 THE END.
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 GAYLORD