The Hindered Hand Part 6

Every step that Foresta took on her sorrowful journey was accompanied by a rain of tears. As she drew near the place where her father was at work, she stopped and tried to remove all traces of sorrow. She wiped and wiped her eyes, but the tears persisted in flowing. Her father was at work in a quarry as a rock breaker.

The city was using small stones as a sort of pavement for the streets, and aged Negro men were given the work of breaking rocks into fragments to be used in that way. The occupation was not an ideal one, as employment was of a fluctuating character, and the sitting on the ground, often damp, was not conducive to health. The amount earned in proportion to the labor performed was very small. But aged men unable to move about very much found this to be about all that they could do. So, the rock pile grew to be the accepted goal of all the Negro men who wore themselves out in other service without laying aside a competence or establishing themselves permanently in the good graces of their employees.

There were many who did thus establish themselves, and Ford Crump would have been such a one but for the following chain of circ.u.mstances, to which account you may give heed while waiting on Foresta to feel self-possessed enough to approach her father.

Soon after the Civil War Mr. Arthur Daleman came to Almaville and entered business. Ford Crump, Foresta's father, then a young man, was his first Negro employee. The business grew until Mr. Daleman was rightly cla.s.sed as a very rich man.

For several years after Mr. Arthur Daleman's marriage, no children had come to bless their home. Early one morning, as Mr. Daleman was crossing the bridge, he saw a young white girl acting rather suspiciously, peering up and down the bridge. Drawing near, he found that she had an infant wrapped in a bundle. Fully believing that it was the intention of the girl to drown the babe, he asked that she give him the child. This the young woman very gladly did. As the child grew, Mrs. Daleman's heart warmed to it and after several years of anxious thought and observation of the child the couple decided to adopt it as their son. Within a year after this was done a beautiful little girl, whom they called Alene, was born to them.

When Mr. Daleman grew wealthy, he decided to travel through the North and induce capital to invest in the South. He felt that the commercial tie between the sections would be of the greatest possible value and it was said of him that he brought more outside capital into the South than any other one man. He turned his business over to his adopted son, Arthur Daleman, Jr.

Arthur Daleman, Jr., did not like Negroes, and though Ford Crump had been with the business from its infancy, his presence was not desired by the new manager. When Ford Crump got so that he was not as active as was desired, he was summarily dismissed and his place given to a young white man. Arthur Daleman, Sr., whose interests were now immense, never came near the store, and, as a consequence, did not know the fate that had overtaken his faithful employee.

Ford Crump did not appeal to Mr. Daleman, Sr., in the matter, partly through pride and partly because he could not bear the irritating tone of the younger Daleman, which was in such striking contrast to the kindly manner of the elder Daleman. He had saved his earnings and bought a little home, and he was now willing to take his chances in the world even at his advanced age. It was thus that he found his way to the rock pile.

We now return to our messenger. Foresta sees that she is not going to be able to appear before her father free from signs of sorrow, and she decides on another course. Picking up a stone she rubbed it violently on the back of her hand, tearing the skin and causing blood to flow. She now hurried to the spot where her father sat, and said,

"Papa, mama wants you!"

The tone of Foresta's voice caused her father to look up quickly and anxiously.

"What are you crying about, my dear?" asked Mr. Crump.

Foresta made no reply, but held out her hand so that her father could see it.

"Poor thing; how did you hurt it?" he asked.

"Don't think about that. Mama wants you. Come on!" said Foresta, averting her face.

The father and daughter trudged along home, the father trying to say comforting things to Foresta and she weeping the more bitterly the while. At length it occurred to Mr. Crump that Foresta was more deeply touched than would have been the case if her trouble had been merely that of a bruised hand. Stopping, he said,

"Say, now, Foresta, is your mama hurt?"

"O no, papa! Mama is not hurt. Come on!"

"Is Henry----"

Foresta perceived the coming question, and ran to avoid it. They were now near home. Foresta rushed in and threw her arms around her mother.

Hearing her father's footsteps, she ran into the kitchen, leaving her mother to break the news.

"Ford, we haven't any little Henry now!" said Mrs. Crump in sad, soothing tones.

Ford Crump whirled away from his wife and walked rapidly out of the room through the kitchen into the back yard. Little Henry's chief task was attending to the chickens, and Mr. Crump stood at the fence running across the yard to form an enclosure for the fowl.

"Chicks, your best friend is gone," said he.

"My head! my head!" he cried.

Foresta and her mother heard his cry and reached him just in time to break the force of the fall, but not in time to prevent his answering the final summons.

CHAPTER IX.

_A Plotter Is He._

Neighbors came and took charge of the body of Ford Crump. The body of Henry was brought home and received the same kindly attention. Foresta and her mother now set forth to make arrangements for the burial. The undertakers asked for a lien on their place as a guarantee of the payment of the debt.

Upon investigation it transpired that the place had been purchased by Arthur Daleman, Sr., in his own name. Mr. Crump had paid him in full for the place but the proper transfer had never been made. Mr. Daleman was not in the city and Arthur Daleman, Jr., refused to have anything to do with the matter. He also intimated that unless Mrs. Crump could show a clear t.i.tle to the place, she would be charged rent.

This intimation did not worry Mrs. Crump, for she knew Arthur Daleman, Sr., to be the soul of honor and knew that he would do what was right, t.i.tle or no t.i.tle. But her personal confidence in Mr. Daleman could not be converted into cash, and she had to look elsewhere for money.

There infested Almaville scores of loan companies that charged exorbitant rates of interest and had their contracts so arranged that a failure to pay put them in possession of the household goods of the party in debt. It was also held to be a criminal offense punishable by a term in the penitentiary for a person to borrow money from more than one company on the same items of furniture.

Little Henry had always a.s.serted that he was going to be a merchant when he became a man, and made it a custom to pick up and preserve such business cards as were thrown into his yard. From his pile of cards stacked in a corner Mrs. Crump learned the location of these loan companies and decided to resort to them for the money needed. Getting a small sum from each, she had borrowed from fifteen companies when she at last got the amount demanded by the undertaker.

Arthur Daleman, Jr., was not making money as fast as he desired in the business turned over to him by his father, so he had resorted to the loan business. Knowing that people would often borrow from more than one loan company in spite of the regulations forbidding it, and reasoning that such borrowers would be even more sure than others to pay, because of fear of the penitentiary, he had ten loan companies of his own operating in different buildings under various names.

It happened that on the evening that Foresta and her mother made the rounds borrowing money, he was on an inspecting tour of his loan companies. Mrs. Crump borrowed money from five of Arthur Daleman's companies without, of course, knowing it. Arthur Daleman, Jr., himself was present in two places when she was borrowing the money. On each of these occasions he had taken more than a pa.s.sing interest in Foresta.

Her beauty was by no means diminished by the mourning attire, and Arthur Daleman, Jr., found himself admiring her, notwithstanding his hatred of her race. When the papers were signed in the second loan transaction which he witnessed, he said to himself with a feeling of satisfaction: "My way is tolerably clear."

With the money procured from the various loan companies little Henry and his father were given what the people called a nice burial. Within a week after the interment Arthur Daleman, Jr., made his appearance at Mrs. Crump's home. Foresta was at school when he called, and when she reached home she found her mother standing, facing him, with an angry and excited look in her eyes. Foresta read in her mother's countenance that she was angry and that the advantage in whatever matter it was, was not altogether on her side.

"What is it, mama?" asked Foresta.

"This man wants you to hire out in his family after you graduate."

Foresta looked at the man in surprise. The thought of going into the service of the whites was utterly foreign to her ambition.

"You may take your choice," said Arthur Daleman, Jr., sure of his ground.

"What choice?" asked Foresta, alarmed by the man's tone of a.s.surance.

"It is this way. Negro servants are not up to what they used to be. They are getting squeamish, and you have to be so careful how you speak to them or they will leave you. We are kept always on the lookout for a servant girl."

"What on earth have I to do with that?" asked Foresta, her eyes widening with astonishment.

"This much--I am going to have a measure of stability in my family service somehow. Your mother here is in a tight box. All I have to do is to speak the word and to the penitentiary she goes!" said Daleman.

Foresta grew weak, her lips slightly parted and she backed to the wall for support.

Arthur Daleman, Jr., continued: "Borrowing money from loan companies takes the form of a sale, as you can see by reading any of the contracts. Now you can't sell a thing to two different people at the same time. The law does not allow such. It is a penitentiary offense.

See?"

Foresta rushed to her mother and threw her arms about her and sobbed bitterly.