Children of the Market Place Part 5

They expressed alarm, but also an inexorable sense of futility, as if there was nothing to be done. He was silent. He had fought the Indians; he was used to the rough life of the West. He did not betray fear; rather he acted as if there was nothing to be done. When he began to speak that was the tenor of his words. He revealed to me possibilities that I had never dreamed of. I could see that I was caught in unforeseen circ.u.mstances. Some of the dangers involved in the situation he only hinted at. For example, the matter of my living with Zoe. There might be people in Jacksonville who believed that my att.i.tude toward Zoe was not of a brotherly nature. Such a suspicion seemed horrible to me.

But Reverdy went on to show me why it might be entertained. This remote country, lacking in opportunity for legitimate expression, held secrets of b.e.s.t.i.a.l and gross departures from nature. Here was Zoe, young and beautiful. What did our kindred blood have to do with the matter of my desire? I had not grown up with her, and it would be natural enough if I did not feel toward her as a brother. Incest was common enough around here. As to Lamborn, Zoe was a n.i.g.g.e.r, and the spoil of any one who wanted her. These were some of the things that Reverdy hinted at. If I prosecuted Lamborn, the countercharge would be made that I had been intimate with Zoe myself. If she had a child I would be proclaimed its father, especially if I raised an issue, and tried to fix the paternity upon Lamborn. If I went to see the state's attorney and asked him to act, there was danger that he would not wish to do so, because the present state's attorney was about to lose the office. He would not wish to start a social hostility that would react upon himself. In fact, Douglas was now trying to supplant him. I was known as a friend of Douglas'. Perhaps I would be trying to involve the state's attorney in an unpopular prosecution. If the prosecuting attorney refused to act that refusal would be known, and credit might be given to any reports that might arise that Zoe was mine before she was Lamborn's, if she ever was his. And if I resented the prosecuting attorney's refusal to act, then I might be accused of acting with Douglas in his ambition to get the office. Above all, under the law of Illinois, Zoe could not testify against Lamborn, a white man. Thus, in any prosecution that was to be made, evidence independent of Zoe's word had to be procured. Where was such evidence? That really settled the whole matter. But I had gone through the whole range of deliberation before finding out that Zoe's word would not be received in court.

But why had Reverdy not warned me against taking Zoe to live with me?

There was the matter, too, of my equal division of the estate with Zoe.

I had done this with the purest of motives. Now the edge of it was turned against me. For why would I surrender so much when I did not have to?

What was I now to do? Should I send Zoe away? Should I keep her in my household and let the tongues wag, as they were doing, or clatter if Zoe should have a child? The secret would be out soon. Lamborn would be sure to betray the fact that he had captured Zoe. There seemed nothing to do then but to settle down with British tenacity to live it out, and brave whatever came to me out of the complications. I was sure of the friends.h.i.+p of Reverdy and Sarah.

With these reflections I went back to the hut. Zoe was still in tears.

She asked me if she had not better go away. If I would give her some of her money she would leave and never come back. "No," I said. "I am going to see you through, Zoe. We will face this out together; only do you consult me about what to do, and help me to stand by you."

I sat down and began to think it all over again. Here were all the pretty things I had bought in St. Louis soon to arrive, and the house would be ready to occupy in a few days. Yet these happy events were clouded for me. There was real bitterness in my cup now.

CHAPTER XV

The house was done. My furnis.h.i.+ngs were delivered. There were curtains to make, many feminine touches were needed to settle the rooms. Sarah did all that she could, but Dorothy Clayton had come. She was just a year younger than I, and of charming appearance and manner. We had become friends almost at once. She was with me daily, as we put the house in order for occupancy. Reverdy thought that Sarah must be apprised of what had happened to Zoe. She was terribly wounded and distressed. But she approved of my course in keeping Zoe with me.

On my birthday, June 18th, we had the housewarming. I gave a party, inviting all the young people from Jacksonville and the country around: those that I knew and those that I didn't--all but Lamborn. The omission would be notable, but I could not invite him. The matter was promptly gossiped about. Lamborn himself was stirred to talk now. He made the most detestable references to Zoe and me; and I was told of them. At the party Douglas drew me aside and confided to me that Lamborn was in an ugly rage.

Douglas was quite the life of my party. He mingled freely with all the company, making himself charming to every one. He danced with every girl present, and more than once with Dorothy. His short figure gave him a certain comical appearance. But he was graceful and adept at the dances. And his wit and good humor kept every one in high spirits.

Reverdy, too, partic.i.p.ated in the joy of the occasion with generous enthusiasm. Altogether, we were a merry crowd. I had strengthened my hold upon the affections of the community. For the time I had forgotten my embarra.s.sing troubles. They came back to my mind after the guests had departed. And there was something else to disturb me. Dorothy had gained more than my pa.s.sing interest.

Work was now my salvation, and I had plenty to do. I had learned in this year a vast amount about running a farm; and I was blessed with excellent health. But meanwhile Zoe! It was not long before it was certain that she was to bear a child; and it would not be many months or even weeks when she could not walk out or go to town without betraying her secret to the world. But then what should the explanation be? Should I tell what I knew? Should I remain silent?

Except for engrossing duties, with time to think and brood, I should have been thrown into tortures with the possibilities. There was always the chance, too, that Zoe in the desperation of the moment might run away from me. She had the English blood of my father in her veins, venturesome, perhaps reckless. Perhaps it was well that she had no control of the profits of the farm which had thus far been allotted to her, nor her share of the ready money which my father had left. I had had Reverdy appointed her guardian, making myself accountable to him. I deemed this the fitting thing; and I was also brought to do it because I might be absent at times in the future when she would need money. But if Zoe should run away what would become of her? The chance of her being kidnapped and sold into slavery filled me with terror. Yet the days went on without change.

Except that Sarah's boy was born! What a father Reverdy was! So wondering and gentle. And he guarded Sarah like a lover and father in one. Zoe was wild to see Sarah's boy; but that was out of the question now. She wanted to deed some of her land to the boy, or better perhaps, to Sarah. But she would have to wait until she became of age to do this.

The birth of Sarah's boy affected Zoe profoundly. She was now about two months advanced in her own pregnancy. She was beginning to think of the ordeal herself, of the fate of the child, what it was being born to....

What, indeed? I noticed that Zoe had hours of deep depression. Would it not be best for me to have a woman in the house with Zoe? Mrs. Engle knew of a widow about fifty whose husband had been killed in the War of 1812. And I got her, a Mrs. Brown. Zoe was now free of the housework.

She had a companion when I was away on my work about the farm. And I felt relieved. But my mind and heart were full of problems. There was always Zoe! There was always Lamborn, skulking in the shadows of my speculations. How would I unravel this tangle with him?

Then there was Dorothy. Some of the talk must reach her eventually. It might come to her as a smudge upon me. Then I could not expect to continue my attentions to her without explanations. How could I go into explanations with Dorothy? But even if Dorothy only knew that Zoe was my sister, what would she think of me? Could she have an interest in a man with a family relations.h.i.+p of this sort? Could Dorothy, bred in Tennessee, look with favor upon my attentions? Had Reverdy and Sarah kept this relations.h.i.+p from Dorothy? Had some one else told her? But if she had not found these circ.u.mstances a reason for turning from me could she tolerate the rest of my difficulties?

And one night I came home to find Zoe in bed. She was in great pain and very weak. She was scarcely able to talk. She took my hand and pressed it, only saying: "I have done something for you. If I die, it will be best anyway. If I live it will be all right. I could not bear to bring you such shame and trouble. Don't worry ... don't."

Mrs. Brown came in and stood by the bed. She did not speak. She looked at me as if to say that sometimes desperate things have to be done. I understood. I acquiesced. Did Mrs. Brown do it? I never asked. Zoe's sufferings were very great. All this for Lamborn's drunken madness. And then Zoe began to mend. She was out of her difficulty. She became herself in a few weeks. But her spirit had changed. She was wiser, more self-possessed. She was more a woman. A great load had been lifted from me; yet I now faced a new Zoe. What would this mature Zoe do to me?

CHAPTER XVI

There was the law against Zoe taking this step, and against any one having any part in it. Still would it be known? I was content to wait for developments and meanwhile to put the whole thing behind me. Work helped me to do this.

I had Sarah's boy to interest me too. They had named him Amos. I had taken five twenty-dollar gold pieces and tied them in a package, bound them with a ribbon, and placed them in his tiny hand. I could not foresee the time when I should touch his hand on an occasion of very different import and with Zoe standing by. Zoe had made Amos some pretty little things and sent them by me. Sarah's only regret was that her grandmother could not see the boy. Her great happiness was wholly beautiful. And Reverdy seemed impressed with a greater dignity and a more gracious heart, if that were possible. I had found Mrs. Brown well adapted to my household. She liked the place; and the prospect was that she would be long in my service. Life was moving on.

I kept in touch with affairs in England and Europe through the London _Times_. I was also a subscriber to Greeley's _New Yorker_; and I did not slight the local paper, which belabored Douglas in proportion as he increased in popularity and power. I read many books as well.

For I felt the stir of a new age. I saw the North, the country around me, growing in wealth and dominance. I saw old despotisms giving way and new ones coming to take their place. The factory system was arising, due to machinery. Weaving and spinning processes had improved. The cry of women and children crowded in the factories of Pennsylvania began to be heard. The hours of toil were long. And if the whip descended upon the back of the negro in the South, the factory overseer in Philadelphia flogged the laborer who did not work enough to suit him, or who was tardy at the task. Women and children there were feeling the lash of the whip. Just now there was talk of a machine which would cut as much grain in a day as six men could cut with scythes. I ordered two of these machines for the next year, for I was farming more and more on a big scale. But what seemed most wonderful to me was an instrument now being talked about which sent messages by electricity. It was not perfected yet. It was treated with skepticism. But if it could be! If I could get a message from St. Louis, a distance of more than a hundred miles, in a few minutes or an hour!

Douglas came out to see me one night to tell me what was on his mind. He wanted to be the prosecuting attorney. Consider the straits of a young man who must make his way and get a place in the world! Is there anything more desperate at times? What was the law business in this community, divided, as it was, by eleven lawyers, shared in by visiting lawyers? Douglas had to live. Youth is forced to push ahead or be crushed. I know he has been accused of manipulation in having the law pa.s.sed by which he could be appointed to the office and supplant a rival. Well, if he had not had the gifts and the energies to do such things, how could he have served the country and maintained himself? The next February before he was twenty-two, he was state's attorney for the district. No wonder that lesser men railed at him. But what one of them would not have done the same thing if he could?

And now I was seeing much of Dorothy. What did it mean? Was she only my friend? Reverdy, her brother, was my most intimate friend. Did she receive my attentions on account of the relations between him and me? If she knew anything about Zoe she never betrayed it to me. Surely she could not be in Jacksonville so long and be ignorant that Zoe was my half-sister. At last I decided to explore Dorothy's mind. I went at it forthrightly. Did she know that Zoe and I had the same father?

She had heard it. That was a common enough thing in the South; not common there, however, for a colored mother to be the wife of a white father. "I have suffered on account of this," said Dorothy. "You knew nothing about it and had nothing to do with it. It is too bad--too bad, Jimmy!"

There remained Zoe's misadventure. How could I approach that? But if Dorothy had heard of it would she continue to receive me? If she knew about it would not the present a.s.sociation of ideas bring it to mind and bespeak it to me by change of color or expression? I looked at Dorothy quizzically. I discovered nothing in her face. Then I began to think of the certain probability that some one had come to her breathing rumors upon her. So I said: "Promise me something, Dorothy. If any one ever tells you anything about me, say, for example, that I haven't been perfectly fair with Zoe in every way, and honorable as far as I know how to be, will you withhold belief until you give me a chance? Do you promise me that?" And Dorothy stretched her hand to me in a warm-hearted way. "You are Reverdy's friend, aren't you, and he is yours. Well, I promise you. But it isn't necessary, for it would have to be something that I could believe you capable of. Then Reverdy would have to believe it, and then I might have a mind of my own after all. Why, how could anyone say anything about you? You have been as good to Zoe as if she were as white as I."

And so Dorothy didn't know. I left the matter where it was. I could not go on. You see I was nineteen and Dorothy was eighteen and the year was 1834.

But Lamborn. I had made an enemy of him. Rather, he had turned himself into my enemy. He was running with a gang of rough fellows called the McCall boys. They drank and fought, using clubs or stones or knives.

They were suspected of trying to rob the stage when it was driven by the poor wretch who had died of the cholera two summers before. That driver was noted for his courage, his ready use of the rifle; and he had frightened the marauders off, and had wounded one of them, who limped away until the trail of his blood was obscured.

Every time I came into town I was subjected to wolfish leers from some member of this gang. Evidently they had taken up Lamborn's cause.

Something was preying upon him. He was drinking more heavily. Perhaps he was tormented with the thought that I knew his secret and abided some vengeance upon him. Perhaps his conscience tortured him. At any rate he had become a skulking figure of hatred, showing his teeth and snarling when he saw me and sidling away like a wolf. He had muttered curses as he hurried to one side. "b.l.o.o.d.y Englishman" and the like were his remarks. Something told me to watch him, to watch the McCall boys. I began to take pains to guard my house in the country, sleeping always with my rifle by my side; and I had provided my men with rifles, instructing them to shoot if trespa.s.sers approached during suspicious hours or when warned away.

The autumn was the most delicious weather I had experienced since coming to America. Enough of the summer was carried over into October, and even November, to keep the days warm and full of sunlight, while the nights were clear and frosty, and always over this boundless prairie the far scattered stars. I had bought an astronomical chart and located the constellations, in which Zoe had joined me in increasing wonder. Then I had a taste of real hunting. Reverdy and I had gone to marshes a few miles away for wild geese and ducks; and we had come back loaded with game for ourselves and friends. There were many parties and what were called "shucking bees," where the company set to to a.s.sist the host in ridding the corn of its sheath; and quilting bees; and apple parings.

These were occasions of festival, the local rituals of Dionysius.

Earlier in the fall I had gone to a county fair and had seen the products of the field on display; and had studied the people: the tall angular gawks, the men carrying whips, the dust, the noise, the cheap fakirs and gamblers, the fights, the drunkenness, the women tired and perspiring carrying their babies and leading a brood. To me it was more like a cattle pen befogged with dust than an a.s.semblage of human beings.

And there was no happiness, no real joy; only barbaric breaking away from hard labor and the silence of the farms; only a reeling and a howling and a war dance; and only here and there a flash of breeding and fineness, and intelligent use of the occasion for sweeter joys and fuller life.

The winter came down; but I was better prepared for it than I was the year before. My house with its walls a foot thick of solid oak and tightly plastered against the penetrating winds kept out the cold. And my fireplaces built under my very eye threw a steady heat into the rooms. I was giving parties from time to time and attending them as well. Douglas always came. He was unfailingly the life of the party. He had reenforced his political successes with a genuine hold upon the hearts of the young people and the older people. He was attacked weekly by the Whig newspaper. But he was not without defense. Almost upon arriving at Jacksonville he had written a letter of praise to the editor of a newly started journal. The editor was greatly pleased at this spontaneous expression of interest and had become Douglas' friend and stanch champion. Ah! Douglas was only manipulating. He had written this letter to win a newspaper to his support. The wily schemer! "Genius has come into our midst," wrote the editor. "No one can doubt this who heard Mr. Douglas expound Democratic doctrine in his wonderful debate with John Wyatt. This country is richer for having attracted Douglas to it.

He is here to stay. And he will be one of the great men of the country as President Jackson is now the greatest figure since Was.h.i.+ngton; and Illinois will send him forth as her son to speak and to act on the great questions that are already beginning to fill the minds of the people."

Douglas often came out to stay for the night or for a day or two. He had little law business, but his energies were always employed in shaping his powers toward a partic.i.p.ation in the politics of the country. His superhuman energy was intensified by the fact that he had been deprived of an opportunity to educate himself. It was the gadfly that drove him forward with such restless industry. I could see that he had no patience for a detailed study of the law; that he might be ignorant of the technical steps to be taken in the collection of a promissory note, but he would know something about the resources of a treaty; that if he did not know how to settle the t.i.tle to a farmer's field, he had considered ways to put at rest any claim of England to the territory of the Oregon.

Yet he had to live as a lawyer before he could flourish as a statesman.

And he had become the prosecuting attorney. His enemies said it was by a trick; that he had had the state law changed so that the legislature could appoint him state's attorney for the district of Jacksonville. The accusation proved too much. Douglas was not quite twenty-two when he reached this office. He had been in the state but two years, not quite that. How had such a youth first won the confidence of enough people who wished to give him this office and were able to do it; and then won the legislature to do the extraordinary thing of changing the law to give him the office, while at the same time supplanting a seasoned and experienced man in the place? How? Was every one corrupt, people and legislature? But it was February and he was the prosecuting attorney for the people.

He came out to see me, and we drank his health and fortune. It was on this occasion that Douglas talked to me with the greatest freedom about my own affairs. His frankness and sincerity, his friends.h.i.+p for me, relieved this broaching of my intimate interests of intrusiveness. I felt no inclination to resent it. He had glanced at Zoe who had come into the room once or twice, remarking that she was an unusual young woman. Then he said: "Your father must have been much of a man. I think his marriage worked upon his feelings ... and Zoe. Don't let this get on your imagination. You are handling it in the right way ... just go on.

Let me warn you. The McCall gang is a desperate one. Do not on any account come to an issue with them. There are too many of them. They will sneak up upon you. They carry grudges ... and another thing, there's Lamborn ... as bad as the McCalls. He's been talking too, making threats against you. I tell you this for your own good. He has been boasting of Zoe's interest in him ... to speak euphemistically of the matter ... but just be careful." Whatever else he had in his mind he communicated it to me by the look of his speaking eyes, keen and blue.

Then he arose and went.

Dorothy had returned to Nashville for the winter. She expected to take her place again in Reverdy's household in the spring. And we were writing. I had thought of proposing marriage to her the night before she left. But I could not bring myself to do so. I needed some one in my life. But I was just twenty, and Dorothy seemed so much more mature and wise than I. Then always there was this matter of Zoe. I lived in the expectation that something would come out of Zoe's misfortune; and if it did my name was bound to be connected with it. What would Dorothy say if in the midst of our engagement, if she engaged herself to me, the word should be brought to her that I was the father of Zoe's aborted child and that by some one, perhaps Mrs. Brown, Zoe had been saved the open shame of giving birth to the child and while an inmate of my house? I could see the probative force of these facts against me. This is what kept me from speaking to Dorothy on the subject of becoming my wife and having it settled before she went to Nashville. And then something happened that made my situation infinitely worse before it was any better.

The spring had come on early and I had much to do. I was buying machinery. The mowers that I had ordered were soon to be delivered and I had need to be in town almost daily. There were always loafers about the streets; and among them, not infrequently, the McCall boys or Lamborn.

Reverdy had told me that Lamborn had been talking in the barber shop, saying that I was living in a state of adultery with my n.i.g.g.e.r sister.

At the same time I knew, and Reverdy knew, that Lamborn was trying to get Zoe to meet him. He had sent her a note to that effect, which Zoe had turned over to me. Once he had accosted Zoe as she was coming from Reverdy's to join me at the courthouse preparatory to starting home.

Reverdy thought that the fellow was eaten up with insane jealousy and had brought himself to the belief that I had taken Zoe from him, if he could be said ever to have had a right to her.

It is an April day and I have come into town and am rus.h.i.+ng from place to place attending to many things. Reverdy has met me at the bank to tell me of another opportunity to buy a team of horses and some oxen; for we use the latter mostly to draw the plows that turn up the heavy sod of the prairie. Reverdy has just told me of Lamborn's threat to come to my farm and take Zoe: that when a girl was once his she was always his. He had said these things at the barber shop. Something came over me. I resolved that this intolerable state of affairs, of anxiety for Zoe, of misunderstanding for myself, of dread of the future, of a sort of brake on my life as of something holding me back and impeding my happiness and peace of mind ... all this had to end somehow and soon. I could not live and go on with things as they were.

We stepped from the bank. And there, not ten feet away, stood Lamborn.

His mouth became a scrawl, he uttered a growl, he swayed with pa.s.sion, he moved his hands at his side in a sort of twisting motion. And I thought: there are Zoe and Dorothy, and I may create a feud against me that will follow me for years ... yet this man must die. And I drew my pistol and fired ... Lamborn sank to the ground without a groan. Some of the McCall boys ran out. I fired at them. They fled. I walked forward a step or two. Then I asked Reverdy if he had seen Lamborn reach for his pistol. Reverdy had seen this. I had not. In fact, Lamborn did nothing of the sort. But if Reverdy saw this he could swear to it and help me.