Carolina Lee Part 23

"'Scuse me, honey, fer waiting awn you myself, but do you reckon I could 'a' got dat no 'count fool, Lily, to git up en wait awn ennybody at dis time in de mawnin'? Not ef she knowed huh soul gwine be saved by doin'

it. Dese yere chillen ob mine is too fine to wuk lake dere mammy does."

"But how did you manage to wake up so early?" asked Carolina.

"Lawd, honey, I'se done nussed sick chillen tell I sleeps wid one eye open from habit. En when I see what a pretty day it gwine turn out, en when I see dat en de fust five minutes you laid eyes awn him, you done cotched de beau what half de young ladies in Souf Calliny done set dere caps for, I says to myself, 'Ole 'ooman, ef you wants to see courtin' as is courtin', you jes' hump doze ole rheumatiz laigs ob yours, en get dar 'fore dey suspicion it demselves!' Law, Mis' Calline, how you is blushing! Ump! ump!"

"Here, Aunt Calla, take this for your trouble, and go and see if Mr. La Grange has come," cried Carolina.

"Why, Mis' Calline, dis yere will buy me a new bunnet! Thank you, _ma'am_. Yas'm, dah he is! I kin tell de way Mist' Moultrie rides wid my eyes shut. He rides lake one ob dese yere centipedes!"

Old Calla made it a point to see the riders mount. The sun was just coming into view, sending the mists rolling upwards in silvery clouds, when Carolina stepped out of the door. Her habit was of a bluish violet, so dark that it was almost black. It matched the colour of her eyes. Her hair caught the tinge of the sun and held it in its shining meshes.

Moultrie La Grange was waiting for her at the foot of the steps.

He held the mare Araby by the bridle, and leaned on the saddle of his own mare, Scintilla, shielding his eyes.

"Good morning,--Moultrie."

"Is that you, Miss Carolina? The sun, or something blinds me."

Carolina had heard it all many times before. Why, then, this difference?

She pretended to herself that she did not know, but she did know, and was happy in the knowing. He was so handsome! She gloried in his looks.

She felt as she had felt when she stood before the Hermes of Praxiteles, and wondered, if such glorious beauty should ever come to life, how she could _bear_ it!

Moultrie La Grange was not considered handsome by everybody. His beauty was too cold--too aloof--for the mult.i.tude to appreciate. But does the ordinary tourist go to Olympia?

Carolina had rather dreaded the four miles to Enterprise, if their way should lie over the dusty highway of yesterday. But she was not surprised; in fact, it seemed in keeping with what she had expected of him when he struck off through the woods, and she found herself, not only on the most perfect animal she had ever ridden, but in an enchanted forest.

Moultrie led the way both in conversation and in direction, and Carolina found herself glad to follow. His sarcasm, his wit, and the poetry of his nature were displayed without affectation. She kept looking at him eagerly, gladly, and yet expectantly. What was she waiting for? He discussed men but not deeds; amus.e.m.e.nts but not occupation; designs but not achievements. She wondered what he did with his time. He was strong, magnetic, gentle, charming. His voice was melodious. His manner full of the fineness of the old South.

Yet there was a vague lack in him somewhere. He just failed to come up to her ideal of what a man should be. Wherein lay this intangible lack?

Suddenly they emerged from the woods and struck the highway, and in another moment they were in Enterprise.

Not a breath of life was anywhere visible. Although it was six o'clock, not a wreath of smoke curled upward from any chimney. They rode through the sleeping town in silence.

"Now here," said Moultrie, "is a very remarkable town. It is, I may say, the only town in the world which is completely finished. Most towns grow, but not a nail has been driven in Enterprise, to my knowledge, since I was born. This town is perfectly satisfactory to its inhabitants _just as it is_!"

Against her will Carolina laughed. His tone was irresistible.

"Ought you to make fun of your own--your home town?" she asked.

"My more than that! Enterprise yields me my bread--sometimes."

Carolina looked at him. He pointed with his whip at the shed on the railroad platform.

"I am telegraph operator there six months in the year. I teach a country school in winter."

If he had struck her in the face with that same riding-whip, the red would not have flamed into Carolina's cheeks with more sudden fury. She dug her spurless heel into Araby's side, and the mare jumped with a swerve which would have unseated most riders. Moultrie looked at her in swift admiration, but she would not look at him. She struck her horse, and, with a mighty stride, Araby got the lead and kept it for a mile, even from Scintilla. Then the man overtook her and reached out and laid a hand on Carolina's bridle hand, and looked deep into her eyes and said:

"Why did you do that? Why did you try to escape from me? Don't you know that you _never can_?"

And all the time Carolina's heart was beating heavily against her side, and her brain was spinning out the question over and over, over and over:

"Oh, how can he? How can he be satisfied with that? How can he endure himself!"

It was not the lack of money, it was the lack of ambition in the man at her side, which stung her pride until it bled.

"Better go West on a cattle ranch," she thought, with bitter pa.s.sion.

"Better hunt wolves for the government. Better take the trail with the Indians than to lie down and rot in such a manner! And _such_ a man!"

But suddenly a realization came to her of how marked her resentment would seem to him if he should discover its cause, and she hastened to play a part. But he was in no danger of discovering, because he did not even suspect. All the young fellows he knew, no matter how aristocratic their names, were at work for mere pittances at employments no self-respecting men would tolerate for a moment, because they offered no hope of betterment or promotion. Men with the talent to become lawyers, artists, bankers, and brokers were teaching school for less than Irish bricklayers get in large cities. Therefore, it could not be alleged that they were incapable of earning more or of occupying more dignified positions. It was simply the lack of ambition--the inertia of the South--which they could not shake off. It is the heritage of the Southern-born.

Presently Moultrie again pointed with his whip:

"Over yonder is Sunnymede, our place. Poor old Sunnymede! Mortgaged to its eyes, and with all its turpentine and timber gone! Guildford is intact. We just skirt the edge of Sunnymede riding to Guildford. And right where you see that tall blasted pine standing by itself is where I made one of my usual failures. I'm like the man with the ugly mule, who always backed. He said if he could only hitch that mule with his head to the wagon, he could get there. So, if my failures were only turned wrong side out, I'd be wealthy."

Carolina tried to smile. Moultrie continued:

"Once I thought I'd try to make some money, so I sold some timber to a Yankee firm who wanted fine cypress, and with the money I constructed a terrapin crawl. I knew how expensive terrapin are, and, if there is one thing I do know about, it is terrapin. So I canned a few prize-winners, and sent them to New York, and got word that they would take all I could send. Well, with that I began to feel like a Jay Gould. I could just see myself drinking champagne and going to the opera every night. So I immediately raised some mo' money in the same way,--out of the Yankees,--organized a small company, and built a canning factory. The lumber company was interested with me and advanced me all the money I wanted. So I got the thing well started, and left special word with the foreman, a cracker named Sharpe, to be sure and not can the claws, then I went off to New York to enjoy myself. I stayed until all my money was gone and then came home, intending to enjoy the wealth my foreman had built up in my absence. But what do you reckon that fool had done? Why, he had turned the work over to the n.i.g.g.e.rs, and they had canned the terrapin just so,--claws, eyebrows, and all! Well, of course, the New York people went back on me,--wrote me the most impudent letters I ever got from anybody. It just showed me that Yankees can never hope to be considered gentlemen. Why, they acted as if I had cheated them! Said they had advertised largely on my samples, and had lost money and credit by my dishonest trickery. Just as if _I_ were to blame! Then, of course, the Yankee lumbermen got mad, too, and foreclosed the mortgage and liquidated the company, and left me as poor as when I went in. I believe they even declare that I owe them money. Did you ever hear of such a piece of impudence?"

"Never," said Carolina, coolly, "if you mean on your part! You did everything that was wrong and nothing that was right. And the worst of it is that you are morally blind to your share of the blame."

"Why, Miss Carolina, what do you mean? I didn't go to lose their money.

It hit me just as hard as it did them. I didn't make a cent."

"But the money that you lost wasn't yours to lose," cried Carolina, hotly.

"No, but I didn't do wrong intentionally. You can't blame a man for a mistake."

"There is such a thing as criminal negligence," said the girl, deliberately. "You had no business to trust an affair where your honour was pledged to an incompetent cracker foreman, and go to New York on the company's money, even if you did think you would earn the money to pay it back. How do you ever expect to pay it?"

"I don't expect to pay it at all, and I reckon those Yankees don't expect it, either."

"No, I don't suppose they do," said Carolina, bitterly.

"Well, if they are satisfied to lose it, and have forgotten all about it, would you bother to pay it back if you were in my place?"

"I would pay it back if I had to pay it out of my life insurance and be buried in a pine coffin in the potter's field! And as to those Northerners having forgotten it,--don't you believe it! They have simply laid it to what they call the to-be-expected dishonesty of the South when dealing with the North. The South calls it 'keeping their eyes peeled,' 'being wide-awake,' 'not being caught napping,' or catch phrases of that order. But the strictly honest business man calls it dishonest trickery, and mentally considers all Southerners inoculated with its poison. Do you know what Southern credit is worth in the North?"

Moultrie only looked sulky, but Carolina went on, spurred by her own despair and disillusionment.

"Well, you wouldn't be proud of it if you did! And just such a tolerant view of a thoroughly wrong transaction as you have thus divulged is responsible. Colonel Yancey was right. The South is heart-breaking!"

"Do you care so much?" asked Moultrie, softly.

Carolina lifted herself so proudly that the mare danced under her. She saw that she had gone too far. She also felt that error had mocked her.

She had despaired of Moultrie's blind and false point of view when the Light of the world was at hand. Immediately her thought flew upwards.