The Battle Ground Part 5

Holding the child by the hand, the Major went into the room.

"It's poor Jane's boy, Molly," he repeated huskily.

The old lady raised her head upon her high pillows, and looked at him by the light of the candle on her breast. "Are you Jane's boy?" she questioned in suspicion, and at the child's "Yes, ma'am," she said, "Come nearer.

There, stand between the curtains. Yes, you are Jane's boy, I see." She gave the decision flatly, as if his parentage were a matter of her pleasure. "And what is your name?" she added, as she snuffed the candle.

The boy looked from her stiff white nightcap to the "log-cabin" quilt on the bed, and then at her steel hoops which were hanging from a chair back.

He had always thought of her as in her rich black silk, with the tight gray curls about her ears, and at this revelation of her inner mysteries, his fancy received a checkmate.

But he met her eyes again and answered simply, "Dandridge--they call me Dan--Dan Montjoy."

"And he has walked two hundred miles, Molly," gasped the Major.

"Then he must be tired," was the old lady's rejoinder, and she added with spirit: "Mr. Lightfoot, will you show Dan to Jane's old room, and see that he has a blanket on his bed. He should have been asleep hours ago--good night, child, be sure and say your prayers," and as they crossed the threshold, she laid aside her book and blew out her light.

The Major led the way to "Jane's old room" at the end of the hall, and fetched a candle from somewhere outside. "I think you'll find everything you need," he said, stooping to feel the covering on the bed. "Your grandmother always keeps the rooms ready. G.o.d bless you, my son," and he went out, softly closing the door after him.

The boy sat down on the steps of the tester bed, and looked anxiously round the three-cornered room, with its sloping windows filled with small, square panes of gla.s.s. By the candlelight, flickering on the plain, white walls and simple furniture, he tried to conjure back the figure of his mother,--handsome Jane Lightfoot. Over the mantel hung two crude drawings from her hand, and on the table at the bedside there were several books with her name written in pale ink on the fly leaves. The mirror to the high old bureau seemed still to hold the outlines of her figure, very shadowy against the greenish gla.s.s. He saw her in her full white skirts--she had worn nine petticoats, he knew, on grand occasions--fastening her coral necklace about her stately throat, the bands of her black hair drawn like a veil above her merry eyes. Had she lingered on that last Christmas Eve, he wondered, when her candlestick held its sprig of mistletoe and her room was dressed in holly? Did she look back at the cheerful walls and the stately furniture before she blew out her light and went downstairs to ride madly off, wrapped in his father's coat? And the old people drank their eggnog and watched the Virginia reel, and, when they found her gone, shut her out forever.

Now, as he sat on the bed-steps, it seemed to him that he had come home for the first time in his life. All this was his own by right,--the queer old house, his mother's room, and beyond the sloping windows, the meadows with their annual yield of grain. He felt the pride of it swelling within him; he waited breathlessly for the daybreak when he might go out and lord it over the fields and the cattle and the servants that were his also. And at last--his head big with his first day's vanity--he climbed between the dimity curtains and fell asleep.

When he awaked next morning, the sun was shining through the small square panes, and outside were the waving elm boughs and a clear sky. He was aroused by a knock on his door, and, as he jumped out of bed, Big Abel, the Major's driver and confidential servant, came in with the warm water. He was a strong, finely-formed negro, black as the ace of spades (so the Major put it), and of a singularly open countenance.

"Hi! ain't you up yit, young Marster?" he exclaimed. "Sis Rhody, she sez she done save you de bes' puffovers you ever tase, en ef'n you don' come 'long down, dey'll fall right flat."

"Who is Sis Rhody?" inquired the boy, as he splashed the water on his face.

"Who she? Why, she de cook."

"All right, tell her I'm coming," and he dressed hurriedly and ran down into the hall where he found Champe Lightfoot, the Major's great-nephew, who lived at Cheric.o.ke.

"h.e.l.lo!" called Champe at once, plunging his hands into his pockets and presenting an expression of eager interest. "When did you get here?"

"Last night," Dan replied, and they stood staring at each other with two pairs of the Lightfoot gray eyes.

"How'd you come?"

"I walked some and I came part the way on a steamboat. Did you ever see a steamboat?"

"Oh, shucks! A steamboat ain't anything. I've seen George Washington's sword. Do you like to fish?"

"I never fished. I lived in a city."

Zeke came in with a can of worms, and Champe gave them the greater share of his attention. "I tell you what, you'd better learn," he said at last, returning the can to Zeke and taking up his fishing-rod. "There're a lot of perch down yonder in the river," and he strode out, followed by the small negro.

Dan looked after him a moment, and then went into the dining room, where his grandmother was sitting at the head of her table, washing her pink teaset in a basin of soapsuds. She wore her stiff, black silk this morning with its dainty undersleeves of muslin, and her gray curls fell beneath her cap of delicate yellowed lace. "Come and kiss me, child," she said as he entered. "Did you sleep well?"

"I didn't wake once," answered the boy, kissing her wrinkled cheek.

"Then you must eat a good breakfast and go to your grandfather in the library. Your grandfather is a very learned man, Dan, he reads Latin every morning in the library.--Cupid, has Rhody a freshly broiled chicken for your young master?"

She got up and rustled about the room, arranging the pink teaset behind the gla.s.s doors of the corner press. Then she slipped her key basket over her arm and fluttered in and out of the storeroom, stopping at intervals to scold the stream of servants that poured in at the dining-room door. "Ef'n you don' min', Ole Miss, Paisley, she done got de colick f'om a hull pa'cel er green apples," and "Abram he's des a-shakin' wid a chill en he say he cyarn go ter de co'n field."

"Wait a minute and be quiet," the old lady responded briskly, for, as the boy soon learned, she prided herself upon her healing powers, and suffered no outsider to doctor her husband or her slaves. "Hush, Silas, don't say a word until I tell you. Cupid--you are the only one with any sense--measure Paisley a dose of Jamaica ginger from the bottle on the desk in the office, and send Abram a drink of the bitters in the brown jug--why, Car'line, what do you mean by coming into the house with a slit in your ap.r.o.n?"

"Fo' de Lawd, Ole Miss, hit's des done cotch on de fence. All de ducks Aun'

Meeley been fattenin' up fur you done got loose en gone ter water."

"Well, you go, too, every one of you!" and she dismissed them with waves of her withered, little hands. "Send them out, Cupid. No, Car'line, not a word. Don't 'Ole Miss' me, I tell you!" and the servants streamed out again as they had come.

When he had finished his breakfast the boy went back into the hall where Big Abel was taking down the Major's guns from the rack, and, as he caught sight of the strapping figure and kindly black face, he smiled for the first time since his home-coming. With a lordly manner, he went over and held out his hand.

"I like _you_, Big Abel," he said gravely, and he followed him out into the yard.

For the next few weeks he did not let Big Abel out of his sight. He rode with him to the pasture, he sat with him on his doorstep of a fine evening, and he drove beside him on the box when the old coach went out. "Big Abel says a gentleman doesn't go barefooted," he said to Champe when he found him without his shoes in the meadow, "and I'm a gentleman."

"I'd like to know what Big Abel knows about it," promptly retorted Champe, and Dan grew white with rage and proceeded to roll up his sleeves. "I'll whip any man who says Big Abel doesn't know a gentleman!" he cried, making a lunge at his cousin. In point of truth, it was Champe who did the whipping in such free fights; but bruises and a bleeding nose had never scared the savage out of Dan. He would spring up from his last tumble as from his first, and let fly at his opponent until Big Abel rushed, in tears, between them.

From the garrulous negro, the boy soon learned the history of his family--learned, indeed, much about his grandfather of which the Major himself was quite unconscious. He heard of that kindly, rollicking early life, half wild and wholly good-humoured, in which the eldest male Lightfoot had squandered his time and his fortune. Why, was not the old coach itself but an existing proof of Big Abel's stories? "'Twan' mo'n twenty years back dat Ole Miss had de fines' car'ige in de county," he began one evening on the doorstep, and the boy drove away a brood of half-fledged chickens and settled himself to listen. "Hadn't you better light your pipe, Big Abel?" he inquired courteously.

Big Abel shuffled into the cabin and came back with his corncob pipe and a lighted taper. "We all ain' rid in de ole coach den," he said with a sigh, as he sucked at the long stem, and threw the taper at the chickens. "De ole coach hit uz th'owed away in de out'ouse, en I 'uz des stiddyin' 'bout splittin' it up fer kindlin' wood--en de new car'ige hit cos' mos' a mint er money. Ole Miss she uz dat sot up dat she ain' let de hosses git no sleep--nor me nurr. Ef'n she spy out a speck er dus' on dem ar wheels, somebody gwine year f'om it, sho's you bo'n--en dat somebody wuz me. Yes, Lawd, Ole Miss she 'low dat dey ain' never been nuttin' like dat ar car'ige in Varginny sence befo' de flood."

"But where is it, Big Abel?"

"You des wait, young Marster, you des wait twel I git dar. I'se gwine git dar w'en I come ter de day me an Ole Marster rid in ter git his gol' f'om Mars Tom Braxton. De car'ige hit sutney did look spick en span dat day, en I done shine up my hosses twel you could 'mos' see yo' face in dey sides.

Well, we rid inter town en we got de gol' f'om Ma.r.s.e Braxton,--all tied up in a bag wid a string roun' de neck er it,--en we start out agin (en Ole Miss she settin' up at home en plannin' w'at she gwine buy), w'en we come ter de tave'n whar we all use ter git our supper, en meet Ma.r.s.e Plaintain Dudley right face to face. Lawd! Lawd! I'se done knowed Ma.r.s.e Plaintain Dudley afo' den, so I des tech up my hosses en wuz a-sailin' 'long by, w'en he shake his han' en holler out, 'Is yer wife done tied you ter 'er ap'on, Maje?' (He knowed Ole Miss don' w'ar no ap'on des es well es I knowed hit--dat's Ma.r.s.e Plaintain all over agin); but w'en he holler out dat, Ole Marster sez, 'Stop, Abel,' en I 'bleeged ter stop, you know, I wuz w'en Ole Marster tell me ter.

"'I ain' tied, Plaintain, I'm tired,' sez Ole Marster, 'I'm tired losin'

money.' Den Ma.r.s.e Plaintain he laugh like a devil. 'Oh, come in, suh, come in en win, den,' he sez, en Ole Marster step out en walk right in wid Ma.r.s.e Plaintain behint 'im--en I set dar all night,--yes, suh, I set dar all night a-hol'n' de hosses' haids.

"Den w'en de sun up out come Ole Marster, white es a sheet, with his han's a-trem'lin', en de bag er gol' gone. I look at 'im fur a minute, en den I let right out, 'Ole Marster, whar de gol'?' en he stan' still en ketch his breff befo' he say, 'Hit's all gone, Abel, en de car'ige en de hosses dey's gone, too." En w'en I bust out cryin' en ax 'im, 'My hosses gone, Ole Marster?' he kinder sob en beckon me fer ter git down f'om my box, en den we put out ter walk all de way home.

"W'en we git yer 'bout'n dinner time, dar wuz Ole Miss at de do' wid de sun in her eyes, en soon es she ketch sight er Ole Marster, she put up her han'

en holler out, 'Ma.r.s.e Lightfoot, whar de car'ige?' But Ole Marster, he des hang down his haid, same es a dawg dat's done been whupped fur rabbit runnin', en he sob, 'Hit's gone, Molly en de bag er gol' en de hosses, dey's gone, too, I done loss 'em all cep'n Abel--en I'm a bad man, Molly.'

Dat's w'at Ole Marster say, 'I'm a bad man, Molly,' en I stiddy 'bout my hosses en Ole Miss' car'ige en shet my mouf right tight."

"And Grandma? Did she cry?" asked the boy, breathlessly.

"Who cry? Ole Miss? Huh! She des th'ow up her haid en low, 'Well, Ma.r.s.e Lightfoot, I'm glad you kep' Abel--en we'll use de ole coach agin',' sez she--en den she tu'n en strut right in ter dinner."

"Was that all she ever said about it, Big Abel?"

"Dat's all I ever hyern, honey, en I b'lieve hit's all Ole Marster ever hyern eeder, case w'en I tuck his gun out er de rack de nex' day, he was settin' up des es prim in de parlour a-sippin' a julep wid Ma.r.s.e Peyton Ambler, en I hyern 'im kinder whisper, 'Molly, she's en angel, Peyton--' en he ain' never call Ole Miss en angel twel he loss 'er car'ige."

IV.