An Arkansas Planter Part 20

"Read it! Why, John, I have eaten it. I gad, sir--Pardon me, ma'am."

With a nod she p.r.o.nounced her forgiveness. The slip was but a pretense, foisted to change the talk to suit his purpose. "Ah," said he, "I have not yet weeded out all my idle words, and it grieves me when I am surprised by the recurrence of one which must be detestable; but, ma'am, I try hard, and there is always merit in a sincere trial."

"Yes, in a sincere trial," she agreed.

"Yes, ma'am; and--now there's John laughing at me fit to kill himself; and bless me, ma'am, you are laughing, too. Am I never to be taken seriously? Are you thus to t.i.tter true reformation out of countenance?

But I like it. But we are never tired of a man so long as we can laugh at him; we may cry ourselves to sleep, but who laughs himself to slumber? Ma'am, are you going to leave us?" he asked, seeing that Mrs.

Cranceford was on her feet. "But of course you have duties to look after, even though you might not be glad to escape an old man's gabble.

I _call_ it gabble, but I know it to be wisdom. But I beg pardon for seeming vanity."

A dignified smile was the only reply she made, but in the smile was legible the progress his efforts were making.

"John," he said, when she was gone, "that sort of a woman would have made a man of me."

"But perhaps that sort of a woman wouldn't have undertaken the job," the Major replied.

"Slow, John; but I guess you're right."

"I think so. Women may be persistent, but they are generally quick to recognize the impossible."

"Easy. But again I guess you're right. I gad, when the teachings of a man's mother leave him unfinished there isn't a great deal of encouragement for the wife. A man looks upon his wife as a part of himself, and a man will lie even to himself, John."

"By the way," the Major asked, sitting down, "have you seen that fellow Mayo since he came back?"

"Yes; I met him in the road once, but had no words with him."

"It would hardly do for me to have words with him," the Major replied; and after a moment of musing he added: "I understand that he's organizing the negroes, and that's the first step toward trouble. The negro has learned to withdraw his faith from the politician, but labor organization is a new thing to him, and he will believe in it until the bubble bursts. That fellow is a shrewd scoundrel and there's no telling what harm he may not project."

"Then why not hang him before he has time to launch his trouble? There's always a way to keep the cat from scratching you. Shoot the cat."

"No," said the Major, "that won't do. It would put us at a disadvantage."

"Yes; but I gad, our disadvantage wouldn't be as great as his. n.o.body would be willing to swap places with a man that's hanged."

"That's all very well, but we would be the aggressors, and distant eyes would look upon him as a martyr."

"Yes, I know; but isn't it better to have one man looked on as a martyr than to have a whole community bathed in blood?"

"It might be better for us, but not for our children. A blood-bath may be forgotten, but martyrdom lives in the minds of succeeding generations."

"John, there spoke the man of business. You are always looking out for the future. I have agreed with myself to make the most of the present, and so far as the future is concerned, it will have to look out for itself--it always has. Was there ever a future that was not prepared to take care of itself? And is there a past that can be helped? Then let us fasten our minds to the present. Let me see. I wonder if we couldn't train a steer to gore that fellow to death. And I gad, that would do away with all possibility of martyrdom. What do you say?"

"Nothing more on that subject; but I can say something concerning another matter, and it will interest you more than the martyrdom of all history."

"Then out with it. I demand to be interested. But don't trifle with me, John. Remember that an old man's hide is thin."

"I'll not trifle with you; I'll startle you. Sixty years ago, the grandfather of Admiral Semmes made whisky in the Tennessee Mountains."

"But, John, that was a long time ago, and the old man is dead, and here we are alive. But he made whisky sixty years ago. What about it?"

"The brother of the admiral lives in Memphis," the Major continued, "and the other day he sent me a bottle of that whisky, run through a log before you were born."

Gid's mouth flew open and his eyes stuck out. "John," he said, and the restraint he put upon his voice rippled it, "John, don't tamper with the affections of an old and infirm man. Drive me off the bayou plantation, compel me to acknowledge and to feel that I am a hypercrite and a liar, but don't whet a sentiment and then cut my throat with it. Be merciful unto a sinner who wors.h.i.+ps the past."

He sat there looking upward, a figure of distress, fearing the arrival of despair. The Major laughed at him. "Don't knock me down with a stick of spice-wood, John."

The Major went to a sideboard, took therefrom a quaint bottle and two thin gla.s.ses, and placing them upon a round table, bowed to the bottle and said: "Dew of an ancient mountain, your servant, sir." And old Gid, with his mouth solemnly set, but with his eyes still bulging, arose, folded his arms, bowed with deep reverence, and thus paid his respects: "Suns.h.i.+ne, gathered from the slopes of long ago, your slave."

Mrs. Cranceford stepped in to look for something, and the play improvised by these two old boys was broken short off. The Major sat down, but Gid edged up nearer the table as if preparing to s.n.a.t.c.h the bottle. Upon the odd-shaped flask she cast a look of pa.s.sing interest, and speaking to the Major she said:

"Oh, that's the whisky you got from Memphis. Don't drink it all, please.

I want to fill up the camphor bottle----"

Gid sat down with a jolt that jarred the windows, and she looked at him in alarm, fearing at the instant that death must have aimed a blow at him. "Camphor bottle!" he gasped. "Merciful heavens, ma'am,' fill up your camphor bottle with my heart's blood!"

At this distress the Major laughed, though more in sympathy than in mirth; and Mrs. Cranceford simply smiled as if with loathness she recognized that there was cause for merriment, but when she had quitted the room and gone to her own apartment, she sat down, and with the picture in her mind, laughed in mischievous delight.

"Help yourself," said the Major. Gid had spread his hands over the whisky as if to warm them in this liquidized soul of the past.

"Pour it out for me, John. And I will turn my back so as not to see how much you pour."

"Go ahead," the Major insisted.

"But I am shaken with that suggested profanation, that camphor bottle, and I'm afraid that I might spill a drop. But wait. I am also bold and will attempt it. G.o.ds, look at that--a shredded sunbeam."

"Don't be afraid of it."

"I was waiting for you to say that, John. But it is reverence, and not fear. That I should have lived to see this day is a miracle. Shall I pour yours? There you are."

They stood facing each other. With one hand Gid held high his gla.s.s, and with the other hand he pressed his heart. Their gla.s.ses clinked, and then they touched the liquor with their lips, sipped it, and Gid stretched his neck like a chicken. To have spoken, to have smacked his mouth, would have been profane. There is true reverence in nothing save silence, and in silence they stood. Gid was the first to speak, not that he had less reverence, but that he had more to say and felt, therefore, that he must begin earlier. "Like the old man of Israel, I am now ready to die," he said, as he put down his gla.s.s.

"Not until you have had another drink," suggested the Major.

"A further evidence, John, of your cool judgment. You are a remarkable man. Most anyone can support a sorrow, but you can restrain a joy, and in that is shown man's completest victory over self. No, I am not quite ready to die. But I believe that if a drop of this liquor, this saint-essence, had been poured into a camphor bottle, I should have dropped dead, that's all, and Peter himself would have complimented me upon the exquisite sensitiveness of my organization. Pour me just about two fingers--or three. That's it. If the commander of the Alabama had taken a few drinks of his grandfather's nectar, the Confederacy would have wanted a blockade runner."

"You don't mean to say that it would have softened his nerve, do you?"

"Oh, no; but his heart, attuned to sweet melody, would have turned from frowning guns to a beautiful nook in some river's bend, there to sing among flowers dripping with honey-dew. I gad, this would make an old man young before it could make him drunk."

The Major brought two pipes and an earthen jar of tobacco; and with the smoke came musings and with the liquor came fanciful conceits. To them it was a pride that they could drink without drunkenness; in moderation was a continuous pleasure. When Gid arose to go, he took an oath that never had he pa.s.sed so delightful a time. The Major pressed him to stay to supper. "Oh, no, John," he replied; "supper would spoil my spiritual flow. And besides, I am expecting visitors to-night."

He hummed a tune as he cantered down the road; and the Major in his library hummed the same tune as he stretched out his feet to the fire.

As Gid was pa.s.sing the house of Wash Sanders, the endless invalid came out upon the porch and called him:

"Won't you 'light?"

"No, don't believe I've got time," Gid answered, slacking the pace of his horse. "How are you getting along?"