Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 39

The young fellow listened but had no comment ready, and indeed knew too little of the terrible questions for which time alone would have an answer to feel the full force of these awful texts. He did say, "I will read Mr. Lincoln's speeches. Uncle talks to me about Kansas and slavery and compromises, but it is sometimes too much for me."

"Yes, he will not talk of these things to your aunt, and is not willing to talk to me. He thinks both of us are extremists. No, I won't walk any further. Let us go home."

The natural light-mindedness of a healthy lad easily disposes of the problems which disturb the older mind. John forgot it all for a time in the pleasant interest of a letter from Leila, received a day before his uncle's return.

"CAPE MAY, June 21st.

"MY DEAR JOHN: Here at last I am free to write to you when I please, and I have some rather strange news; but first of Aunt Ann. She is very well pleased and is already much better. Uncle Jim left us to-day, and I am to have Lucy here and one of the grooms. If only I could have you to ride with me on this splendid beach and see the great blue waves roll up like a vast army charging with white plumes and then rolling back in defeat."-

John paused. This was not like Leila. He felt in a vague way that she must be changing, and remembered the rector's predictions. Then he read on-

"Now for my adventure: Aunt Ann wanted some hair-wash, and I went to the barber's shop in the town to buy it. There was no one in but a black boy, because it was the bathing-time. He, I mean the boy, said he would call Mr. Johnson. In a moment there came out of a back room who do you think but our Josiah! He just stood still a moment-and then said, 'Good G.o.d! Miss Leila! Come into the back room-you did give me a turn.' I thought he seemed to be alarmed. Well, I went with him, and he asked me at once who was with me. I said, Aunt Ann, and that she was not well. Then I got out of him that he had wandered a while, and at last chosen this as a safe place. No one had told me fully about Cousin George Grey and why Josiah was scared and ran away, but now I got it all out of him-and how you warned him-and I do think it was splendid of a boy like you. He was dreadfully afraid of being taken back to be a slave. It seems he saved his money, and after working here bought out the shop when his master fell ill. I did not like it, but to quiet him I really had to say that I would not tell Aunt Ann, or he would have to run away again. I am sure aunt would not do anything to trouble him, but it was quite impossible to make him believe me, and he got me at last to promise him. I suppose there is really no harm in it, but I never did keep anything from Aunt Ann. I got the hair-wash and went away with his secret. Now, isn't that a story!

"I forgot one thing. As the Southern gentlemen come to be shaved and ask where he was born, they hear-think of it-that 'Mr. Johnson' was born in Connecticut! His grandfather had been a slave. I shall see him again.

"This is the longest letter I ever wrote, and you are to feel duly complimented, Mr. Penhallow.

"Good-bye. Love from Aunt Ann.

"Yours truly,

"LEILA GREY.

"P.S. I am sure that I may trust you not to speak of Josiah."

Mr. John Penhallow, as they said at Westways, "going on seventeen," gathered much of interest in reading and re-reading this letter from Miss Grey. To own a secret with Leila was pleasant. To hear of Josiah as "Mr. Johnson" amused him. That he was prosperous he liked, and that he was fearful with or without reason seemed strange. It was and had been hard for the young freeman to realize the ever-present state of mind of a man in terror of arrest without any crime on his conscience. There was perhaps a slight hint of doubt in Leila's request that he would be careful not to mention what she had said of Josiah, "as if I am really a boy and Leila older than I," murmured John. He knew, as he once more read her words, that he ought to tell his uncle, who could best decide what to do about Josiah and his terror of being reclaimed by his old owner.

During the early hours of a summer night Mark Rivers sat on the porch in a rocking-chair, which he declared gave him all the exercise he required. It was the only rocking-chair at Grey Pine, and nothing so disturbed the Squire as Mark Rivers rocking on that unpleasant piece of furniture and smoking as if it were a locomotive. It was an indulgence of Ann Penhallow, who knew that there had been a half-dozen rockers in the burned rectory.

John sat on the steps and listened to the shrill katydids or watched the devious lanterns of the fireflies. A bat darted over the head of Rivers, who ducked as it went by, watching its uncertain flight.

"I am terribly afraid of bats," said the rector. "Are you?"

"I-no. They're harmless."

"Yes, I know that, but I am without reason afraid of them. I think of the demons as being like monstrous bats. But that is a silly use of imagination."

"Uncle Jim doesn't like them, and you once told me that he had very little imagination."

"Yes. One can't explain these dislikes. Your uncle reasons well and has a clear logical mind, but he has neither creative nor receptive imagination."

"Receptive?" asked John.

"Yes, that is why he has none of your aunt's joy in poetry. When I read to her Wordsworth's 'Brougham Castle,' he said that he had never heard more silly nonsense."

"I remember it was that wonderful verse about the 'longing of the s.h.i.+eld.'"

"Yes-I forgot you were there. Verse like that is a good test of a person's capacity to feel poetry-that kind, I mean."

"I hear Uncle Jim's horse."

"Yes. I can't see, John, why a man should want to have a horse sent to meet him instead of a comfortable wagon,"-and for emphasis, as usual with Rivers, the rocking-chair was swinging to the limits of its arc of safe motion.

The Squire dismounted and came up the steps with "Good-evening, Rivers,"-and to John, "I have good news for you-but order my supper at once, then we will talk." He was in his boyish mood of gaiety. "How far have you travelled on that rocker, Rivers?"

"Now, Squire-now, really-" It was a favourite subject of chaff.

"Why not have rocking-chairs in church, Mark? Think what a patient congregation you would have! Come, John, I am hungry." He fled laughing.

While the Squire ate in silence, John waited until his uncle said, "Come into the library." Here he filled his pipe and took the match John offered. "There are many curious varieties of man, John. There is the man who prefers a rocking-chair to the saddle. It's queer-very queer; and he is as much afraid of a horse as I am-of-I don't know what."

The Squire's memory failed to answer the call. "What are you grinning at, you young scamp?"

"Oh, Mr. Rivers did say, Uncle Jim, something about bats."

"Yes, that's it-bats-and I do suppose every one has his especial fear. Ah! quite inexplicable nonsense!-fears like mine about bats, or your aunt's about dogs, but also fears that make a man afraid that he will not face a danger that is a duty. When we had smallpox at the mills, soon after Rivers came here, he went to the mill-town and lived there a month, and nursed the sick and buried the dead. At last he took the disease lightly, but it left a mark or two on his forehead. That I call-well, heroic. Confound that rocking-chair! How it squeaks!"

John was too intently listening to hear anything but the speaker who declared heroic the long lean man with the pale face and the eyes like search-lights. John waited; he wanted to hear something more.

"Did many die, uncle?"

"Oh, yes. The men had fought McGregor about vaccination. Many died. There was blindness too. Supplies failed-no one would come in from the farms."

John waited with the fear of defect in his ideal man. Then he ventured, "And Aunt Ann, was she here?"

"No, I sent her away when I went to Milltown."

"Oh! you were there too, sir?"

"Yes, d.a.m.n it!" He rarely swore at all. "Where did you suppose I would be? But I lived in terror for a month-oh, in deadly fear!"

"Thank you, sir."

"Thank me, what for? Some forms of sudden danger make me gay, with all my faculties at their best, but not that. I had to nurse Rivers; that was the worst of it. You see, my son, I was a coward."

"I should like to be your kind of a coward, Uncle Jim."

"Well, it was awful. Let us talk of something else. I left your aunt better, went to Was.h.i.+ngton, saw our Congressman, got your nomination to West Point and a letter from Leila. Your aunt must be fast mending, for she was making a long list of furniture for the new parsonage, and 'would I see Ellen Lamb and'-eleven other things, the Lord knows what else, and 'when could she return?' McGregor said in September, and I so wrote to her; she will hate it. And she dislikes your going to West Point. I had to tell her, of course."

"I have had a letter from Leila, uncle. Did she write you anything about Josiah?"

"About Josiah! No. What was that?"

"She said I was not to tell, but I think you ought to know-"

"Of course, I should know. Go on. Let me see the letter."

"It is upstairs, sir, but this is what she wrote," and he went on to tell the story.

The Squire laughed. "I must let Mr. Johnson know, as Leila did not know, that it was Ann who really sent you to warn him. Poor fellow! I can understand his alarm, and how can I rea.s.sure him? George Grey is going to Cape May, or so says your aunt, and I am sure if Josiah knows that he is recognized, he will drop everything and run. I would run, John, and quickly too. Grey will be sure to write to Woodburn again."