Hagar 2

Hagar 2

"For everywhere I went ter pray,

I met all hell right on my way."

 

The country gentlemen were laughing again, wrapped in the blue and

fragrant smoke. The captain of the packet-boat came up the companionway

and passed from group to group like a benevolent patriarch. Down below,

supper was cooking; one smelled the coffee. The sun was slipping lower,

in the green bottoms the frogs were choiring. Standing in the prow of

the boat a negro winded the long packet-boat horn. It echoed and echoed

from the purple hills.

 

The dark little girl was still staring at the dwindling lock. The

black-and-white figure, striped like a zebra, was there yet, though it

had come down out of the sky and had now only the green of the country

about and behind it. It grew smaller and smaller until it was no larger

than a black-and-white woodpecker--it was gone.

 

She appealed again to Miss Serena. "Aunt Serena, what do you suppose he

did?"

 

Miss Serena, who prided herself upon her patience, put down her book

for the tenth time. "Of whom are you speaking, Hagar?"

 

"That man back there--the convict."

 

"I didn't notice him. But if he is a convict, he probably did something

very wicked."

 

Hagar sighed. "I don't think _anybody_ ought to be made to dress like

that. It--it smudged my soul just to look at it."

 

"Convicts," said Miss Serena, "are not usually people of fine feelings.

And you ought to take warning by him never to do anything wicked."

 

A silence while the trees and the flowering blackberry bushes went by;

then, "Aunt Serena--"

 

"Yes?"

 

"The woman over there with the baby--she says her husband got hurt in

an accident--and she's got to get to him--and she hasn't got any money.

The stout man gave her something, and I _think_ the captain wouldn't

let her pay. Can't I--wouldn't you--can't I--give her just a little?"

 

"The trouble is," said Miss Serena, "that you never know whether or not

those people are telling the truth. And we aren't rich, as you know,

Hagar. But if you want to, you can go ask your grandfather if he will

give you something to give."

 

The dark little girl undoubled her white-stockinged legs, got up,

smoothed down her blue gingham dress, and went forward until the

tobacco-smoke wrapped her in a fragrant fog. Out of it came, genially,

the Colonel's voice, rich as old madeira, shot like shot silk with

curious electric tensions and strains and agreements, a voice at once

mellifluous and capable of revealments demanding other adjectives, a

voice that was the Colonel's and spoke the Colonel from head to heel.

It went with his beauty, intact yet at fifty-eight, with the greying

amber of his hair, mustache, and imperial; with his eyes, not large but

finely shaped and coloured; with his slightly aquiline nose; with the

height and easy swing of his body that was neither too spare nor too

full. It went with him from head to foot, and, though it was certainly

not a loud voice nor a too-much-used one, it quite usually dominated

whatever group for the moment enclosed the Colonel. He was speaking now

in a kind of energetic, golden drawl. "So he came up to me and said,

'Dash it, Ashendyne! if gentlemen can't be allowed in this degenerate

age to rule their own households and arrange their own duels--'" He

became aware of the child standing by him, and put out a well-formed,

nervous hand. "Yes, Gipsy? What is it you want now?"

 

Hagar explained sedately.

 

"Her husband hurt and can't get to him to nurse him?" said the Colonel.

"Well, well! That's pretty bad! I suppose we must take up a collection.

Pass the hat, Gipsy!"

 

Hagar went to each of the country gentlemen, not with the suggested

hat, but with her small palm held out, cupped. One by one they dropped

into it quarter or dime, and each, as his coin tinkled down, had for

the collector of bounty a drawling, caressing, humorous word. She

thanked each gentleman as his bit of silver touched her hand and

thanked with a sedate little manner of perfection. Manners at Gilead

Balm were notoriously of a perfection.

 

Hagar took the money to the woman with the baby and gave it to her

shyly, with a red spot in each cheek. She was careful to explain, when

the woman began to stammer thanks, that it was from her grandfather

and the other gentlemen and that they were anxious to help. She was a

very honest little girl, with an honest wish to place credit where it

belonged.

 

Back beside Miss Serena she sat and studied the moving green banks.

The sun was almost down; there were wonderful golden clouds above the

mountains. Willow and sycamore, on the river side of the canal, fell

away. Across an emerald, marshy strip, you saw the bright, larger

stream, mirror for the bright sky, and across it in turn you saw

limestone cliffs topped with shaggy woods, and you heard the sound of

picks against rock and saw another band of convicts, white and black,

making the railroad. The packet-boat horn was blown again,--long,

musical, somewhat mournfully echoing. The negro on the towpath, riding

sideways on his mule, was singing still.

 

"Aunt Serena--"

 

"Yes, Hagar."

 

"Why is it that women don't have any money?"

 

Miss Serena closed her book. She glanced at the fields and the

sky-line. "We shall be at Gilead Balm in ten minutes.--You ask too many

questions, Hagar! It is a very bad habit to be always interrogating. It

is quite distinctly unladylike."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

GILEAD BALM

 

 

At the Gilead Balm landing waited Captain Bob with a negro man to

carry up to the house the Colonel's portmanteau and Miss Serena's

small leather trunk. The packet-boat came in sight, white and slow as

a deliberate swan, drew reflectively down the shining reach of water,

and sidled to the landing. The Colonel shook hands with all the country

gentlemen and bowed to the ladies, and the country gentlemen bowed to

Miss Serena, who in turn bent her head and smiled, and the captain said

good-bye, and the Colonel gave the attendant darky a quarter, and the

woman with the baby came to that side of the boat and held for a moment

the hand of the dark little girl, and then the gangplank was placed and

the three Ashendynes passed over to the Colonel's land. The horn blew

again, long, melodious; the negro on the towpath said, "Get up!" to the

mule. Amid a waving of hands and a chorus of slow, agreeable voices the

packet-boat glided from the landing and proceeded down the pink water

between the willows and sycamores.

 

Captain Bob, with his hound Luna at his heels, greeted the returning

members of the family: "Well, Serena, did you have a pleasant visit?

Hey, Gipsy, you've grown a week! Well, Colonel?"

 

The Colonel shook hands with his brother. "Very pleasant time, Bob!

Good old-time people, too good for this damned new-fangled world!

But--" he breathed deep. "I am glad to get home. I am always glad to

get home. Well? Everything all right?"

 

"Right as a trivet! The Bishop's here, and Mrs. LeGrand. Came on the

stage yesterday."

 

"That's good news," said the Colonel. "The Bishop's always welcome, and

Mrs. LeGrand is most welcome."

 

The four began to walk toward the house, half a mile away, just visible

among great trees. The dark little girl walked beside the hound, but

the hound kept her nose in Captain Bob's palm. She was fond of Hagar,

but Captain Bob was her god. As for Captain Bob himself, he walked like

a curious, unfinished, somewhat flawed and shortened suggestion of

his brother. He was shorter than the Colonel and broader; hair, nose,

eyes, mouth were nothing like so fine; carriage and port were quite

different; he lacked the _cachet_, he lacked the _grand air_. For all

that, the fact that they were brothers was evident enough. Captain Bob

loved dogs and hunting, and read the county newspaper and the sporting

almanac. He was not complex. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred he

acted from instinct and habit, and the puzzling hundredth time he beat

about for tradition and precedent. He was good-natured and spendthrift,

with brains enough for not too distant purposes. Emotionally, he was

strongest in family affection. "Missed you all!" he now observed

cheerfully. "Gilead Balm's been like a graveyard."

 

"How is mother?" asked Miss Serena. She was picking her way delicately

through the green lane, between the evening primroses, the grey-green

delaine held just right. "She wrote me that she burned her hand trying

the strawberry preserves."

 

"It's all right now. Never saw Old Miss looking better!"

 

The dark little girl turned her dark eyes on Captain Bob. "How is my

mother?"

 

"Maria? Well, I should say that she was all right, too. I haven't heard

her complain."

 

"Gad! I wish she would complain," ejaculated the Colonel. "Then one

could tell her there was nothing to complain about. I hate these women

who go through life with a smile on their lips and an indictment in

their eyes--when there's only the usual up and down of living to

indict. I had rather they would whine--though I hate them to whine,

too. But women are all cowards. No woman knows how to take the world."

 

The dark little girl, who had been walking between the Colonel and

Captain Bob, began to tremble. "Whoever else's a coward, my mother's

not--"

 

"I don't think, father, you ought--"

 

Captain Bob was stronger yet. He was fond of Gipsy, and he thought

that sometimes the family bore too hardly on Maria. Now and then he

did a small bit of cloudy thinking, and when he did it he always

brought forth the result with a certain curious clearing of the throat