The Forged Note Part 3

"Oh, Mildred!" he wailed. "Mildred, Mildred! I can't believe it.... I can never, oh, never----and I loved you so!" On and on he went; at times walking, other times stumbling; but always uttering incoherent sentences. "It can't be true--it _isn't_ true! That old hag--spiteful creature," he now growled distractedly,--"lied! I'll go back, curse her!

I'll go back and prove her the liar she is." He halted, staggered drunkenly against a building, and then abruptly turned his face in the direction from whence he had come. But, 'ere he had gone far, he desisted. Believe those words or not, something forbade this step.

Weaker than ever, torn, distracted, and mentally prostrated, he paused and leaned against a building, and for a long time gave up to utter misery.

Our pen fails here to describe fully those conflicting moments. All that he had lived for in those days, and all that he had recently hoped for, seemed to have been swept forever from him in that one moment. After an interminable spell of mental blankness, a sentence he had once been fond of quoting, and which he had taken from Haggard's _Pearl Maiden_, came back to him out of a remote past. It was this: "With time, most men become used to disaster and rebuff. A colt that seems to break its neck at the crack of a whip, will hobble at last to the knacker, unmoved from a thousand blows rained upon him." So, presently, with a tired, wearied sigh, he gathered himself together, and, with a last despairing look in the direction of the fateful number, he pa.s.sed down the dark street, and disappeared in the direction of The Jackson House.

"Wonder what's the matter wi' d' kid t'night?" said Jackson to his consort, as she looked up inquiringly when he re-entered the room, after showing Wyeth to his bed.

"I wonder", she commented thoughtfully. "He's always so cheerful and pleasant when around. He walked in here like a ghost tonight. Now I wonder what is the matter?"

It was late the following morning when Jackson chanced to be pa.s.sing, and peeped into the room occupied by his friend, who had acted so strangely the night before. The coverlets had not been turned back, altho the bed was sunk in the middle, as if someone had tossed restlessly about over it the night before. Jackson wondered again. But at that hour, Sidney Wyeth was on a train that was speeding southward into Dixie.

So it happened that the hero of this story went forth into a land which is a part of our country.... A part wherein people and environment are so far different from the rest, that a great problem is ever an issue.

This is the problem of human beings versus human beings. A land wherein one race vies with the other; that other being a mult.i.tude of black people, and, as one who reads this might know, a people who, once upon a time had been slaves, chattels, and who for fifty and a few years have been free. That time, however, has not been, as we might appreciate, sufficient to eliminate many things hereditary.

And what came to pa.s.s upon this journey; the things he discovered, the one he again met, of what had resulted, due to the machinations of a pious, evil genius, is the story I have to tell.

CHAPTER TWO

_Attalia_

"Heah! Heah! Don't get on that cah!" cried the conductor the following morning, as Sidney Wyeth was climbing aboard the Jim Crow car of the _Palm Leaf Limited_, bound for Attalia. He backed up and looked about him in some surprise, and than demanded the reason why he shouldn't get aboard that "cah".

"I thought I tole you once we had an extra heavy train, and no colored pa.s.sengers allowed; but since I see yu', now I see you ain't the same fellah that was here awhile ago." And then, in a few words, he explained that, owing to the rush of people to the south during those first days of January, the Jim Crow section of the train had been dispensed with for that day. He explained further that a second section of the same train would follow shortly. As it would, in all probability, pa.s.s them at Lexington, Sidney, with a mumble of thanks, gathered up his grips and returned to the waiting room, catching the same an hour later.

Kentucky soon lay before him. As far as eye could see, a snowy mantle covered the ground, for it was winter. Presently, countless rows of frame buildings appeared. A new brick station, which extended for some length along the track, gave the traveler welcome.

When the train came to a stop, Sidney's attention was arrested by the sight of a creature that may have been called a man, but gave every evidence of being an ape.

"I wonder," said he, to a fellow pa.s.senger, "do those things grow 'round here?"

They both enjoyed a laugh.

He was now in a land in which a portion of the people, apparently, possessed little sense of humor, judging from the way his jokes were accepted.

On the car were two women, among the half dozen or so colored pa.s.sengers. Sidney overheard one of them say to the other:

"I'm from No'th C'lina; but I be'n in Oklahoma two ye's. I'm go'n back home t' stay. Whe' you from?"

"Tennessee, Knoxville. I'm livin' in Bloomington, Illinois, now."

They looked inquiringly in the direction of Wyeth, and presently he was drawn into the conversation. The latter possessed fine sense of humor, and when he found these people so serious, he took delight in joking.

"Whe' you from?" they inquired, with all that is southern and hospitable in their tone.

"From the _Rosebud Country_, South Dakota," he replied. Their faces were a study. Somewhere in the years gone by they might have heard of that state in school, but the _Rosebud Country_ was Greek to them.

"O-oh," they echoed, and then looked at each other and back at him.

Presently one of them inquired: "Where is that?"

"In Africa," he answered, but they did not catch the joke, and to this day, they speak of the man they met from the Dark Continent.

At that moment, the train was crossing a stream over the highest bridge Sidney had ever seen, with possibly one or two exceptions. It seemed a thousand feet to the crystal water below, and every eye was fixed upon it. The porter, a long, lank, laughing creature, scion of the south and _some_ porter, seeing an opportunity to draw attention, rushed up in a Shakesperian pose, and related dramatically, the incident of an intoxicated man, who, while crossing that very stream, fell, of a sudden, smack dab over-board, right into it. In concluding, he looked about him more dramatically than ever, as the many "O-ohs," and "Mys!"

greeted his terrible story. And Sidney Wyeth, with eyes wide open, inquired if he got wet.

"Jes' listen at that," they cried in chorus, and the joke was lost.

Down, down the train whirled into the bowels of Dixie. Far away to the east, rising gray and ghostlike above the mists, the pine covered c.u.mberland Range appeared and reappeared in the distance. Outlined like grim sentinels, the scene, to the hero of this story, recalled the many tragedies of which those mountains were the back-ground. The moon-shiners, the feudists, the hill-billies and the rough-necks, always had a haven there.

The puffing of many, many locomotives, the sight of buildings, and the glare of electric lights gave evidence that they had reached a large city. Chattanooga, city of southern trunk lines, and railroad center, now greeted his eye.

He spent one night there, and the next day, resumed his journey toward that most conspicuous of all southern towns, Attalia. It was a hundred and fifty miles and more by rail. The train became more crowded as it neared his destination, while the people grew more cosmopolitan. One of these, a black man, entered at one of the many stations, and greeted Wyeth pleasantly, inquiring where he was headed for. Wyeth answered Attalia, and his companion became very sociable.

"Understand," said Wyeth, after a moment--the other had possessed himself of a portion of the seat upon which he sat--"that Attalia is one of the best towns in the south, and has one of the finest stations in the country."

"La'gest 'n' finest in the wo'ld," said the other, with a show of pride.

He was a resident of the state of which Attalia was the capital, and was, furthermore, a preacher. Wyeth didn't care to argue, so let it _be_ the largest and said:

"That's wonderful! I hear also, that it is a great commercial center as well, and that the city is growing like a mushroom."

"Oh, yeh," said he. "Out-side Noo Yo'k, it's the busiest and best town in the United States. Yes, yeh," he went on thoughtfully, "Attalia is sho a mighty city. Eve' been theah?"

"Not for more than ten years," replied Sidney.

"Indeed! Well, well, I mus' say you'll ha'dly recognize it as the same."

They were now approaching the embryo city. Clouds of smoke, and the whistling of innumerable locomotives filled the air. Wyeth began making preparation to leave the train, when the other touched him, saying: "No hurry, my deah suh, no hurry. Be's a long time yet befo' we 'rives in de station, be's a long time yet."

"Well, well!" the other exclaimed, in some surprise.

"Oh, Attalia's a mighty city, a great city. Wait until you see Plum street 'n' the sky-sc.r.a.pers."

Meanwhile the train had arrived, and stood outside the station, through which it had just pa.s.sed. It was indeed a large and imposing structure.

As it rose behind them, under the bright sunlight, with its many cornices glittering as so many diamonds, it was truly a city pride. From where the train stood, the city lay like a great scroll, and vanished in the distance. Smoke and dust filled the air, and hovered over the medley of buildings like a dull, red cloud. Rising in uncertain lines, as if to escape the gloom, a line of sky-sc.r.a.pers appeared in the background.

"Those must be on Plum street," mused Sidney, as he looked about for a conveyance.

Besides being the capital of the state, and the greatest commercial city southeast of the Mississippi, Attalia is the city of conventions, the southern center for insurance, a progressive journalistic city, and a uniform town. It is also a center for the education of Negroes, since it has a number of colleges supported by northern philanthropy. Yet the city is unable to maintain a proficient and complete course of education for its many colored children. Unfortunately for the Negroes, when the white schools are amply provided for, not enough is left for the proper training of its black population, which const.i.tutes one-third of the whole.

Sidney did not fail to take note of the fact, as he pa.s.sed through the station, that, contrary to previous reports, the colored waiting room was cleanly kept, almost as well as that of the white race. White-coated flunkies flitted about nimbly in prompt attention to the weary traveler, in spite of an air of sleepiness.