THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD
 
 NEW BORZOI NOVELS 
 FALL, 1920 
 
 MOON-CALF 
 
 By Floyd Dell 
 
 THE GATE OF IVORY 
 By Sidney Nyburg 
 
 YOUTH AND THE BRIGHT 
 MEDUSA 
 By Willa Gather 
 
 DEAD MEN'S MONEY 
 By J. S. Fletcher 
 
 THE LONG DIM TRAIL 
 By Forreitine Hooker 
 
 BARBARIANS 
 
 From the Swedish of 
 K. G. Ossiannilsson
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 GEORGE KIBBE TURNER 
 
 NEW YORK ALFRED A KNOPF MCMXX
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
 GEORGE KIBBE TURNER 
 
 PMMTK) IK TH USITSD STATES O AKXBICA
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 MY UNCLE ATHIEL 
 I THE DANGER FROM THE SOUTH, 9 
 II GRUMMIT'S BANK. 22 
 III CLOSED WINDOWS, 33 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 THE TERROR BY NIGHT 
 IV THE INVISIBLE ENEMY, 49 
 V THE NIGHT AIR, 64 
 VI THE SOUND OF WHEELS, 76 
 
 BOOK III 
 
 THE SECRET ROOMS 
 VII SIGNS AND MYSTERIES! 93 
 VIII THE TOWER, 106 
 
 IX THE LITTLE BELL, 121 
 X HAGAR'S HOARD, 137 
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 THE HALF NIGGER 
 XI THE LIGHTED MATCH, 151 
 XII THE BAIT, 163 
 
 1398411
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XIII THE TEMPTER OF THE DOGS, 172 
 
 XIV THE FEVER FIRE, 179 
 XV THE TRAP, 190 
 
 BOOK V 
 VANCE HAGAR 
 XVI THE HEADACHE, 205 
 XVII THE SONG IN THE STREET, 220 
 XVIII THE IVORY ROOM, 234 
 XIX THE GREEN FLIES, 245 
 
 BOOK VI 
 DOOMSDAY 
 
 XX THE FEVER, 257 
 
 XXI THE HOUR AFTER MIDNIGHT, 266 
 
 XXII THE WHISTLING DOCTOR. 274 
 
 XXIII THE BELL ROPE, 284 
 
 XXIV FUGITIVES, 296
 
 BOOK I 
 MY UNCLE ATHIEL
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DANGER FROM THE SOUTH 
 
 I WAS reading a piece in the Commercial Appeal the 
 other day about their finding $60,000 in greenbacks 
 in an old miser's house, some of it in those little 
 old green shin-plasters that go back to Civil war time. 
 And I showed it to my wife, and we smiled a little, and then 
 grew sober right away again; for it set us thinking of my 
 Uncle Athiel Hagar, the miser, and the Yellow Fever Year 
 of 1878. 
 
 It was on a Tuesday that the Fever came. I remember 
 it because it was the day after rent day, the last Monday 
 that my Uncle Athiel ever gathered up his rents from his 
 negro tenements. I can see him now, driving into the 
 black alley that still August evening his high, frail, old, 
 mud-stained buggy swaying and lurching on that old 
 wretched roadway; and Dolly, the old horse, wet and 
 soapy from the hot weather. And my Uncle, there on the 
 worn and shiny seat, in his linen duster ; and the little old 
 brown satchel for his collections in between his feet. 
 Every man and boy and nigger in the town knew the rig 
 the clay-stained, old, high buggy, with its paint checking 
 off, and the little clay-colored man, with his bright, black 
 eyes, and his lame leg a little extended; and the battered 
 little handbag that brought back his nigger rents on Mon 
 days. " Old Grum," they called him, or " Grummit " 
 behind his back, but never to his face. 
 
 I went to take the horse and unharness it. I did a good
 
 10 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 lot of that kind of work around that place nigger's 
 work, that other people had their niggers do. But my 
 Uncle Athiel had no more niggers about his place than he 
 had to. For he said that every nigger was a thief at 
 heart. And so, when I came, he had me do it; and he 
 was mighty pleased to have me a lot more than I was, 
 I want to tell you. I was good and tired of it. And if 
 it hadn't been for Vance, I wouldn't have stayed there for 
 one minute. 
 
 " It's been right hot," I said to him, for it certainly had 
 been a wicked, old hot day. 
 
 But my Uncle paid no more attention to me than to the 
 horse. He just turned and lifted out the little satchel 
 of small change from the negroes' rent, and when he had 
 got it: 
 
 " This town is ruined," he said, in a tiresome voice, half 
 like he was speaking to himself ; and walked on toward the 
 house. And I stood there looking after him. 
 
 He had been getting worse all summer down and 
 depressed one day, sharp and ugly the next one cross 
 as an old dog on a chain. But I had never seen him just 
 like that before. 
 
 " Some more money trouble," I said to myself, " or 
 something about the rents." 
 
 So then I unharnessed the old horse, and spanked her 
 into her stall slapdash, like a boy does things ; for in 
 spite of what I thought about myself, I wasn't much more. 
 And my uncle moving so slowly, I wasn't very much be 
 hind him into the side hall. He stepped up stairs to 
 leave his bag of change in the great Purple Room where 
 he slept, and to wash himself; and pretty soon I heard 
 the key turn when he locked up the Purple Room again as 
 he came down to supper. 
 
 At supper time, too, he had very little talk for us. And
 
 THE DANGER FROM THE SOUTH 11 
 
 it seemed to me he was way down deep in one of his gloomy 
 fits when he used to fret about the poorhouse. He was 
 a little deaf, my Uncle, and usually, if he was going to talk 
 at all, he started it. But if he didn't care to, he sat there 
 silent, the way he did that night, looking away into that 
 country a thousand miles off, that old folks build up for 
 themselves out of their thoughts and memories. 
 
 Yet that night he was different than he ever had been. 
 And both Vance and I remembered, and spoke afterward, 
 of the way that finally he looked up and said to me a sec 
 ond time : " This town is ruined," in that tired monoto 
 nous way that deaf men talk ; and went on eating. 
 
 It came out afterward, like I expected, that he had been 
 short in his collections. His nigger tenements were about 
 all his property he hadn't sold now, except that great 
 house we lived in. But they always had given him more 
 trouble, in spite of the big interest they brought in on his 
 money, than anything he had ever had. 
 
 And now, it seemed, the niggers were getting restless, 
 like the white folks, over all this talk of Fever; moving 
 around, getting more shiftless and trifling and excited 
 every day not from fear of the Fever, for they weren't 
 supposed to have that then, but from something else; 
 from God knows what new crazy notions like they al 
 ways do at times like that. And five families of them had 
 suddenly disappeared from the tenements since just the 
 week before. 
 
 Yet that wasn't it entirely, either. Both Vance and I 
 have said so since a hundred times. It didn't quite ac 
 count for the way her father talked to us that night, 
 after he had finished up that last round of collections on 
 his tenements, nor for the way that he turned and said 
 to me a third time: 
 
 " This town is ruined ; and we're ruined with it ! "
 
 12 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 It came out of him like a groan; more like an involun 
 tary sign of some deep, old, inward trouble than common 
 ordinary speech. And he didn't even start that talk he 
 used to make, when he was like .that, about how we all of 
 us were bound out to the poorhouse. He just sat silent. 
 
 I saw Vance watching him out of those deep eyes of 
 hers, stiller and more anxiously than she usually did. 
 She was pale, paler than ever that night the heat prob 
 ably, I said to myself. Her lips were parted, and I knew 
 that she was tired. But then, of course, I didn't know 
 that other thing that was really bothering her. 
 
 Vance tried to talk with both of us, tried to talk and 
 make him laugh, but it was too hard for her. She was 
 tired, and her voice was faint ; and her father didn't hear 
 and wouldn't hear, and didn't want to talk. And so we 
 sat and finished supper, without talking. And the room 
 went still, and the daylight started dying down, and there 
 was no noise from outside through the windows ; for the 
 whole world was just exhausted and tired out, at the end 
 of another scorching day. And about the only sound 
 we heard in that great high room where we sat was every 
 now and then when some fly, caught in on the paper wound 
 around the chandelier near the ceiling, started its fine, 
 high singing, and then got still again. 
 
 " Come on out now, Beavis," said Uncle Hagar, getting 
 up from the table. 
 
 I knew then right away what was coming. He was go 
 ing out to give the yard and barn another going over and 
 inspection for fire and thieves. Once in so often, when he 
 got more than common nervous, he started out on those 
 searching expeditions of his. But there was never one 
 that I remembered so thorough, and so long as this. 
 
 He went ahead across the yard I can see him so 
 much plainer than anything I saw yesterday in his
 
 THE DANGER FROM THE SOUTH 13 
 
 linen duster, and his wrinkled linen trousers, and his old- 
 time boots, covered with that old, reddish-yellowish clay 
 dust ; and his great old hickory cane, smooth from twenty 
 years of wearing in his hands. And I can see his clay- 
 colored face, and his bright black eyes, and his smooth 
 straight hair, still black; and his close mouth, cut like a 
 bluish gash across his old yellow face. 
 
 I was of no special use. He had to see everything for 
 himself. He went through the shed and small barn where 
 Dolly was, around the servant's room everything ; even, 
 at last, the great empty barn, that we never used and 
 opened. 
 
 We unlocked the side door, and stepped in; and the 
 dust, and the silence, and the still dry air of. the place, 
 stood around us hot as an old oven ; choking full with 
 the dusty smell of an unopened stable pine wood and 
 hay, and horses, and leather all baked together. 
 
 We stood there for a minute, looking around ; and then 
 my Uncle Hagar started looking through it. For he al 
 ways had an idea that there might be some thief hiding 
 there, some tramp or nigger. And more especially that 
 summer, when he had that suspicion that there were some 
 particular niggers hanging around and staring at the 
 house. Some particular niggers, and among them that 
 new half-nigger he had been seeing several times lately. 
 
 He started hunting around, through all that heat, him 
 self. And I did like he told me to, and stood below and 
 watched and waited while he did it. Old, lame a little 
 from that strain he got when wrestling when a boy, going 
 sidewise up the stairs but walking right along ahead, his 
 thin mouth shut, stern as the wrath of God descending 
 on the Israelites in the Old Bible the old man was a 
 figure, in spite of all his years, that no thief would want 
 to see coming headed toward him, I believe. And es-
 
 14 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 pecially when he was carrying that great hickory cane of 
 his, and carrying, too, somewhere in his clothes his 
 linen duster probably that little old-time Derringer 
 pistol of his that he always wore on him ; that once, they 
 said, he had shot a man with. 
 
 Day and night he had the two of them about him. At 
 night, I knew, there stood his hickory cane, set up at the 
 head of his bed of his great canopied bed in the Purple 
 Room ; and there underneath his pillow, always ready, lay 
 that curious little Derringer of his, which he bought first 
 when he was a boy in this rough, new Mississippi River 
 country. Just a raw country boy, come down here from 
 that hill country to the east, where they raise and send 
 away the kind of man he was. 
 
 You've seen them, I expect those lean, leathern, clay- 
 colored men, with small round heads, and bright eyes, they 
 raise up there hungry folks from a hungry soil, that 
 went south and west, and still go, for that matter, looking 
 for more food. You find the Southwest full of them 
 these small-headed men from the hills with only room 
 enough in those little heads of theirs for a few ideas and 
 feelings, but those few fierce and strong. The best 
 pioneers, the best soldiers, the best enemies and the best 
 murderers, I believe, the world has ever seen ! 
 
 " Nothin'," said my uncle, going out and locking the 
 barn door after us. " Nothin' ! " 
 
 Lord, what a relief it was coming out of that place! 
 Even the air outside seemed cool and juicy for a little 
 while after that old oven. 
 
 My uncle stood a while and mopped his forehead with 
 his old, red handkerchief. 
 
 " Come on," he said then. " Let's go out and see if 
 there's any air stirring out on the bluff." 
 
 There wasn't any. The river lay there under us, in the
 
 THE DANGER FROM THE SOUTH 15 
 
 twilight, sleek as a new glass bottle not a breath stir 
 ring. And yet it was cooler there always ; and I was al 
 ways glad to be there. 
 
 We sat there, he and I, side by side, on that old clay 
 bluff, looking over the Mississippi. I liked it there. 
 Coming from back up inland, I never got tired of it 
 the long, snaky river, disappearing both ends into the 
 woods ; the everlasting flat line of tree-tops over in Ar 
 kansas ; and the big white steamers with their white fila 
 gree woodwork, like great wedding cakes, upon the brown 
 colored water. 
 
 My uncle sat there several minutes silent, like he gen 
 erally did; took out his tobacco, and cut off that little 
 tiny sliver that he always took to chew, hitched his old 
 lame booted leg over the other, and sat sideways, looking 
 down, staring at the levee and the city. After a while 
 his mouth twitched at the corner. 
 
 " It's come," he said. " It's here finally." 
 
 " What? " I asked right away. 
 
 But before I spoke, I knew already what he was going 
 to say ; or I thought I did. As hot as it was, a cold flash 
 shot over me. 
 
 " The Fever," said my Uncle Hagar, still looking from 
 me toward the town. 
 
 " I was down in there to-day ," he went on talking. 
 " It's here now ; and I know it. They can lie all they 
 want to." 
 
 I had never seen the Fever; I wasn't there five years 
 before, the last time they had it there in town. All the 
 dread I had was from what I heard and saw the fear 
 of other people's fear of it. For I saw that everybody 
 stood there all that summer through all the white folks 
 stood and watched and listened for it like a man at 
 night, out hunted by a sheriff's posse.
 
 16 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 They said they died like flies in autumn that time be 
 fore poor people mostly. They said they buried them 
 in trenches. A tropical disease, come up the river from 
 the South, in the air. There was nothing you could see 
 just this old poison in the air you breathed. One day you 
 were perfectly sound and well. And all at once this blinc 
 headache took you. In three days after you were dead; 
 and in three hours more a coffinful of black jelly your 
 flesh dropping from your bones out in the graveyard. 
 
 " They can't fool me," my Uncle Athiel went along. 
 " It's there right now. They can't fool me with their 
 lies, and the other fancy names they give it. I've seen 
 it too many times. It's smoldering down there in a dozen 
 places now. 
 
 " Right there," he said, and pointed with his cane. 
 And as it turned out afterwards he was right. It was 
 right there, just where he pointed. 
 
 " Yes, and half a dozen people," he went on, " are dead 
 already, though they won't admit it. They won't say it 
 was the Fever that killed them." 
 
 His eyes shone, his mouth worked at one corner. The 
 fear of the Yellow Fever, which lay twitching at the nerves 
 of every white man in the town, had touched him. I could 
 see it. And I was quite a lot surprised. For he had al 
 ways said it was nothing to be scared of. 
 
 " That ends it," said my Uncle Athiel, letting his cane 
 drop back to the ground again ; " that ends it ! This 
 town is done for ! " 
 
 I sat silent thinking of the Fever, of the death in 
 the air, which we had been watching for and fearing all 
 that summer. I was wondering if he really knew; if in a 
 week or two it would be all around us. 
 
 And as I thought, my Uncle Athiel cracked out that old
 
 THE DANGER FROM THE SOUTH 17 
 
 common oath he usually gave when he had used up all 
 the rest. 
 
 " By Judas H. Iscariot," he said. " Done for ! " 
 
 And after a while he went on, speaking out his thoughts. 
 " I've seen property go down and down year after year. 
 Down, down ! It's down already next to nothing. And 
 now this ends it." 
 
 I woke up from my own thoughts then, and looked at 
 him. For he talked in such a dead, old, doleful voice, I 
 had to. And I saw right away, what I ought to have 
 known at first. It wasn't the fear of Fever that was 
 scaring him at all. It was that same old fear he always 
 had, about his money. " His property," he always 
 called it. 
 
 Everybody to their own mind, of course, even to the 
 things they are scared of. I thought that to myself as 
 I sat there, looking at him. 
 
 I sat there, a stranger almost, in this new country 
 thinking and wondering about that Fever, and what I had 
 seen and heard of it, and what it really was. I didn't 
 know one thing about it ; I had never been Where it was in 
 my whole life. I only saw the fear of it around me, in 
 other people's eyes. 
 
 But I knew that all around me those folks were stand 
 ing nervous, jumpy with fear of that danger that was 
 coming from the South ; touched with the fear of death. 
 And even I myself was not free from it now. 
 
 And here beside me sat this man, shaky and sharp- 
 voiced too but not at all from what was scaring all 
 the rest not a particle from fear of death. After him, 
 as I know now though I did not then was a more 
 ceaseless, monstrous, hounding fear, that, once set on 
 men's trails, comes driving them faster and faster as the
 
 18 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 years go by till finally it drives them shivering out of 
 life itself : The money fear ; the fear of loss and poverty. 
 And we all get it following us, more or less, all of us, I 
 believe, in our old age. 
 
 But naturally, I didn't understand it then. You never 
 do when you are young. So I sat and watched him from 
 the corner of my eye, curious ; his yellow face, his straight 
 hair and the big old waxen yellow ear that was toward 
 me thinking then how strange he was. For it was plain 
 enough that he was just swept out of himself with excite 
 ment. 
 
 " All the summer," he went on, " I've seen it coming up. 
 All this summer, long before I sold my block. 
 
 " I sold it out, and took my loss," he went on talking 
 to himself. " Five thousand dollars five thousand un 
 der what I paid for it. 
 
 " Five thousand dollars," he said over to himself un 
 derneath his breath, and called out his old Iscariot oath 
 again. 
 
 " I'm glad I done it. I'm glad I took it now," he said 
 suddenly and stiffened up. " That's five thousand dol 
 lars more than anybody'd give for it to-day. No, sir, you 
 couldn't get rid of it this minute no, not for love nor 
 money." 
 
 I sat looking at him corner-wise, wondering where his 
 excitement was going to take him to. Never once in all 
 the time that I was there had he talked to me so direct 
 and straight about his money. Complaints and groans, 
 and prophecies of the poorhouse plenty ; but never once 
 such clear and open talk of any sums of money he might 
 have. 
 
 But then, for several minutes after that, my Uncle 
 Hagar went on talking about the ruin of himself and of 
 the city.
 
 THE DANGER FROM THE SOUTH 19 
 
 The place was ruined utterly, now and forever. 
 Ruined, busted, done for. No business, nothing. No one 
 to buy and no one to sell. " Two weeks from now," he 
 said, " there won't be one merchant solvent in this town." 
 
 And the banks, he said, were sure to go. And he was 
 damned glad of it. He always cursed the banks, and 
 those that ran them. 
 
 " For do you know what's going to happen here ? " he 
 asked me. 
 
 I told him that I didn't, though I expected that I 
 really did. 
 
 " Everybody's going to leave this town at once," he 
 said ; " all the white folks. They're all going out of 
 here together like a flock of lunatics. 
 
 " And then," he said, his voice rising up ; " then, do you 
 know what will be left here ? " 
 
 "What will?" I asked him. 
 
 " Thieves and niggers that's all," said my Uncle 
 Athiel. " Thieves and niggers in an empty town ! " 
 
 I'd never seen him anything like that before. There 
 was color in his old yellow face, even in that tallow-colored 
 ear toward me. I saw the blood come up into it and turn 
 it lifelike. He swung suddenly and stared with his bright 
 eyes into my face. 
 
 " This town is full of thieves ! " my Uncle Hagar said. 
 
 I started back a little he put his face so close up to 
 mine. 
 
 " Full of thieves," he said to me, and I sat, saying 
 nothing, waiting. 
 
 " Lemme ask you something," he said, talking on. " I 
 want to ask you somethin'. Do you imagine we're the 
 only ones that's talking and whispering in this town 
 right now ! " 
 
 And I didn't know what to say to him.
 
 20 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 But he didn't care at all, I expect, whether I talked or 
 not. 
 
 " Look yonder, look down there," said he, pointing 
 north again with that great heavy cane of his, to that 
 long ragged line of old brick blocks that rendezvous of 
 niggers and thieves the bad niggers, and the murderers 
 and the nigger thieves. 
 
 " What do you think what do you think they're talk 
 ing of to-night? " asked my Uncle Athiel, pointing. " All 
 those hungry fellows over there? " 
 
 You know what the levee was those days snack 
 houses, and bawdy houses, and sudden lights opened into 
 the darkness ; and dead niggers in the alleys in the morn 
 ing. A desperate place. 
 
 " Lemme tell you somethin'," said my Uncle Hagar, an 
 swering himself. " They know it's coming. They know 
 it's here. They're down there just waitin', watchin'. 
 They're all waitin', watchin' all over town waitin' 
 for it to break loose ! " 
 
 I thought then of the negroes especially while he 
 was talking. For I knew he was thinking mostly of them 
 himself. The niggers and the way they acted. Their 
 bowing and scraping; and underneath it all, their watch 
 ing ways their great brown eyes forever following you 
 around. All just standing there, and watching you al 
 ways, and more than ever when your back was turned 
 standing, watching, saying nothing. I was raised out to 
 the east, where they didn't have so many. I never could 
 get used to them to that great black herd of them in 
 Memphis, especially. 
 
 " You see those paths ? " my Uncle asked me, suddenly 
 jerking out toward them with his cane. 
 
 The things went in and out; up and down and criss-
 
 21 
 
 cross, twisting and turning and going around to their 
 unseen endings down the bluff. 
 
 " Judas ! " my Uncle said, " an honest man never 
 stepped in one. Every one of them was beaten by the feet 
 of thieves." 
 
 He stopped and turned and looked at me. 
 
 " Niggers and thieves," he said. " Niggers and thieves, 
 watchin' and waitin' and whisperin'. This town is full 
 of thieves right now," he said again, and his voice grew 
 every minute sharper. 
 
 "Right now!" he said again, and jumped up on his 
 feet. 
 
 " Come on now," he said. " Come on along. It's get- 
 tin' late," and started out toward home. 
 
 He had only gone a rod or two when he stopped and 
 stared at me again. 
 
 " We got to keep our eye peeled," said my Uncle 
 Hagar. " We got to keep our eye peeled from now on ! " 
 
 He turned, and I came after him, knowing just exactly 
 how he felt, feeling it myself. For if they were talking 
 down there, like he said they were; if they were talking 
 of anybody, they certainly were talking about us and 
 about my Uncle's house.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GRUMMIT'S BANK 
 
 COUNTING the thoughts of everybody black 
 and white together I expect my Uncle Athiel 
 was the best-known man in Memphis those days 
 and the most talked about. The negroes stopped and 
 watched him, and the boys, as he drove around town in 
 that high old rickety buggy of his ; Mondays especially, 
 after his collections, with that little old brown satchel 
 between his feet. And they whispered after him that name 
 they gave him; Grummit, old Grummit, and of all the 
 money he had hidden away. For everybody said he was 
 the worst old miser in Memphis. 
 
 I expect most folks, from other sections of the country, 
 don't believe there are any more old misers now, outside 
 the story books. But it is different with us down South, 
 or it was until here just a few years ago. For there was 
 a plenty of them in that country I came from when I was 
 a boy, and all through Tennessee everywhere and in 
 Memphis, too. Every little town and cross-roads village 
 had one, just as much as they had their town drunkard. 
 And the miser and his house were known just as well as 
 he was. 
 
 And now, when you stop to think of it, this was all per-, 
 fectly natural and to be expected. All during the war 
 time, nothing was safe in our country. The thieves from 
 the North and the thieves from the South were all turned 
 loose on us by war. And so all kinds of folks got into 
 
 22
 
 the habit then of digging their money into the ground, 
 or hiding it around the house to save it. And then right 
 after the war came the banks failing. There were a 
 great number of banks failed and some of them in the 
 most scoundrelly kind of way. And one natural result 
 of all this, like I said, was to breed these old misers with us. 
 
 It was one of these bank failures after the war, I know, 
 that turned my Uncle Athiel to his habits, more than any 
 one of his other losses ; and gave his house that great 
 brick house of his its curious name and reputation. 
 
 I never knew all the story. But I do know he was 
 caught in this big bank failure a little after war time 
 the smash of the great Mr. Bozro's bank. And from that 
 time on he never spoke of banks without cursing them. 
 
 " A bank," I heard him say a dozen times, " is a place 
 where they take your money and keep it." 
 
 And bankers, so he said, were the only men on earth 
 who got the Saviour mad enough to strike them. 
 
 " He knew what he was about," he said with a great 
 common oath. " He only knew how much they deserved 
 it." 
 
 And for ten years he had never set his foot inside a 
 bank, except when he had to, when he went to change 
 money there; to change his silver and little bills for big 
 ones. I wondered sometimes how they did it for him, 
 after what he said of them. And he never would leave one 
 dollar there. 
 
 Now everybody knew all this and talked about it. And 
 everybody knew that he had money. They saw him gath 
 ering all those years and never spending. And they knew 
 it must be somewhere. And it was for that reason, I 
 expect, that after a while that great house of his got its 
 name. For everybody when I was first there called 
 it Grummit's Bank.
 
 24 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 There had always been stories about that great house 
 since its building since Mr. Bozro first built it. For 
 he was a great man in his day, and very much talked 
 about. But all the older ideas were lost and half for 
 gotten now in that last one which gave it that new name 
 that it was known by. 
 
 In a way, if you wanted to think about it so, it did 
 look a little like a bank from the outside more than 
 like a dwelling or, anyhow, I got to think so. Very 
 big as big almost as a Main Street block was those 
 days, and very solid. Thick heavy walls of brick, lumpy 
 trimmings, standing out beneath the eaves, all brick; and 
 brick eyebrows over all the windows; and blind windows 
 blind empty niches, built for statuary that was never 
 made, they said; but looking more, it always seemed to 
 me, like they were just made to show how thick and heavy 
 those brick walls were. And a slate roof, French style; 
 and an eight-sided, sloping tower, covered with gray 
 rounded slates, and two round eyelike windows for all 
 the world like an old gray owl, sitting up there over the 
 front door. And it seemed to me, like I told you, and 
 does now, more like an old bank than a house. 
 
 Anyhow that's what they call it, Grummit's Bank, and 
 they had all manner of stories about it. But the chief 
 one that was in everybody's mouth, the one all the rest 
 started from was that somewhere, hidden away in it, 
 my Uncle Athiel Hagar had a hundred thousand dollars 
 in greenbacks. 
 
 Just where that tale of Hagar's Hoard of Greenbacks 
 started from; just why it was a hundred thousand dollars 
 always ; and why it was always greenbacks and not gold 
 - I didn't know. And nobody could tell me or could 
 have told me if I had had any one to ask. But it was 
 something everybody believed and talked about so com-
 
 GRUMMIT'S BANK 25 
 
 mon, that we heard it ourselves. Even my Uncle Athiel 
 heard it. 
 
 And when he did, he was always in a great hurry to 
 deny it. It always excited him and made him mad. It 
 was about the only thing I knew of that ever set him 
 talking. But it always did. 
 
 " A hundred thousand dollars,'* he said to me more 
 times than once in those few months that I've been here; 
 " I wish to God I had a hundred thousand cents. So I 
 could be sure I wouldn't spend my last days in the poor- 
 house." 
 
 For even then in those first months that I knew him 
 he would now and then, when he grew excited, or things 
 had gone against him, start up that talk of poorhouse and 
 poverty. Bitter and angry, generally, but sometimes 
 down-hearted and depressed. But so earnest always, that 
 it seemed he almost believed in it himself. 
 
 More generally he would talk and go on about the poor- 
 house. But there were other things he turned to some 
 times, especially to the losses he had, and once or twice, 
 I remember, he got started talking of all the money he 
 had lost in that old Confederate currency. 
 
 " A hundred thousand dollars, huh ! " he said. " I ex 
 pect they mean Confederate money." 
 
 And starting then, he railed and cursed the war, and 
 both the North and South. Grant for attacking and 
 Lee for surrendering anything that made all that old 
 Confederate money worthless. 
 
 For he had got great quantities of it, so Vance told 
 me once, toward the end of the war; bundles of it hold 
 ing on to it, thinking it might after all be worth a little 
 something. It made him very bitter talking of it. 
 
 Sometimes he would deny that story one way ; sometimes 
 another. But he would always deny it some way; I
 
 26 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 couldn't help but notice that myself. That old story of 
 a hundred thousand dollars the faintest mention of it 
 
 would get him mad and excited almost any time. And 
 sometimes he would even bring it up himself. 
 
 " I wish I could catch the torn fool that started that 
 a-going," I've heard him saying. And if he could have, 
 there would have been plenty of trouble for somebody. 
 
 But nobody started it, I expect; it just grew. Yet no 
 one could be got to doubt it either. That hundred thou 
 sand dollars was just as much a fact in the minds of every 
 body, and a hundred times as well known, as the money in 
 the safe of any bank in town. 
 
 Now, ready money was scarce in the South those days, 
 you may remember, and a hundred thousand dollars in 
 cash, right there, made Rothschild, whom we used to talk 
 about when I was a boy, instead of Rockefeller, look 
 mighty thin and far away. And so, in spite of all our 
 pinching, and all our small and shabby way of living, 
 that house of ours old Grummit's Bank stood up 
 there on a bluff like the city on a hill that could never 
 be hid, in the New Testament. 
 
 Everybody knew it; everybody talked about it. The 
 boys in the street even used to whisper of it, resting after 
 play. 
 
 " A hundred thousand dollars ! A hundred thousand 
 dollars! If you had it, what would you do? " 
 
 They couldn't imagine, any of them. Poor ragamuffins 
 
 poorer than Job most all of them. They didn't see 
 a two-bit piece once a year. And they would say all 
 manner of wild and foolish and extravagant things about 
 it. It was like a story to them, I expect, and our old 
 place the ogre's castle in a fairy tale. They walked by 
 very serious ; and whispered, looking out the sides of their 
 eyes at the tower and the closed windows, and drawn
 
 GRUMMIT'S BANK 27 
 
 shades. For the house was so big, we kept a good share 
 of it closed continually. 
 
 It was funny to me when I thought of it. I had been 
 there for months now and I knew just nothing at all about 
 my Uncle's money business. But the boys and niggers 
 knew it all how much it was, how it was in greenbacks 
 and not in gold, and why and a great lot of other in 
 formation. 
 
 But the most curious idea of all to me that all the 
 negroes and the children had was the story of where 
 he kept this hoard of his. Having it there, I expect, they 
 had to know just where it was and how he watched it. 
 So they said he had it in the tower. I heard that story 
 several times myself. 
 
 I sat once, I remember, in the darkened saloon parlor, 
 beside a window opened in the front. The blinds were 
 shut, and through them I saw and overheard these boys, 
 two boys, one ten or twelve perhaps, the other maybe 
 eight looking up, and talking of our tower. 
 
 " I wonder if he's shut up there now," said the bigger 
 boy, looking. 
 
 " Who ? " said the little spring piping one. 
 
 " Old Grummit." 
 
 "What's he doing there?" said the little one after a 
 long while and gazed up wondering. 
 
 " He sits there ; he sits there counting it," the bigger 
 one went on telling him, as certain as Revelation. And 
 they stood there, both of them, quite a while, looking, 
 silent and I listening to them, trying not to laugh. 
 
 But that idea about the tower I knew was common, all 
 over everywhere. And the ridiculous part of it to me 
 was, in all the time that I'd been there in the house, I'd 
 never known my old uncle to go up into the old tower 
 once. And yet all that time, that was the commonest and
 
 28 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 most talked of all the stories of that house of ours among 
 the boys and niggers. 
 
 For it wasn't only boys that talked about all this. 
 There were plenty of others besides boys who talked of 
 Grummit's Bank. We knew that, all of us. There wasn't 
 a thieving negro in the town, who didn't lie and dream 
 about that house of ours. It was thieves' talk in the dens 
 along the levee. And the rousters on the steamboats 
 leaned over the rail and stared at it, going by on the 
 Mississippi. It was as prominent in the minds of that 
 low class of population as the Louisiana lottery. And we 
 knew it. 
 
 A hundred thousand dollars ! There it was, in there 
 somewhere! If you could find it and steal it. There it 
 was just for the reaching out of hand and taking it. 
 And then, thieves' paradise, eating and gambling and 
 drinking and women forever! 
 
 We knew all this, I say, or enough of it anyway. And 
 it had, I know, its influence upon us every day in our 
 lives on all three of us. And yet I can say right truth 
 fully, that on that day the last day before the Fever 
 came, I, on the inside of the house, knew less than every 
 body seemed to know from the outside. There was money 
 there, I believed. How much, I didn't know, nor where it 
 was. 
 
 But I had been there only a few months then ; it was 
 less than a year that my mother died ; and I didn't know 
 for certain, anything to speak of. All that I did learn 
 was from what little I might hear about my Uncle's busi 
 ness which was as little as he would let me ; and what 
 I couldn't help but see of his curious actions about the 
 house that great old house ; the way he hated it, and 
 cursed it, and watched it. 
 
 He hated, in the first place, the very mind that con-
 
 GRUMMIT'S BANK 29 
 
 ceived it, and the way it was brought forth. For it was 
 built, a monument to himself, by that great Southern 
 financier, Mr. Bozro, that they talked about so much, till 
 his great bank failed after the war ; the man whose failure 
 had robbed my Uncle Hagar of so much money. 
 
 I never saw the man ; he was dead long before I got 
 there. And all I knew is what they said of him. A little 
 man, very spic and span and dressy; and monstrously 
 conceited. 
 
 " He looked just like Napoleon," they used to say about 
 him and laugh. For they said they really thought he 
 did. 
 
 Now, that great house of his he had built to be the 
 finest in the land, taking the patterns of it from great 
 houses he had seen abroad especially in France, they 
 said. But he didn't get to use it long, before it ruined 
 him it and all the other grand manners he had given 
 himself. And they found him shot one morning dead 
 by his own hand in the great canopied bed of the Purple 
 Bedroom he had built for himself. And his bank and all 
 his other enterprises, blown sky-high all gone. 
 
 It was in this grand smash of Mr. Bozro bank, prop 
 erty and all that my Uncle had been caught, as I told 
 you not once but all around. He lost this big lot of 
 money in the bank to start with; and then in the ruina 
 tion of Mr. Bozro's personal business which came with 
 it, my Uncle Athiel had been caught again twice caught. 
 For first he had to take this house over on a mortgage, 
 for a personal debt, the house and all its furniture, and 
 secondly, he had to keep it. No one could use the thing. 
 It was too big. There was no sale at any price for it. 
 So at last we three, my uncle, his daughter, Vance, and 
 I, when I first came there, were forced to occupy this great 
 place to save it. And the monument which the great local
 
 30 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 financier had built to draw the forefingers of all passers- 
 by to it, and exalt his name forever, now kept his memory 
 green in one mind only my Uncle's ; and that in a 
 manner it was scarcely worth while building houses to 
 secure. 
 
 " I wish that I was God for twenty minutes," I've heard 
 my Uncle say a number of times. " I'd fix him." 
 
 He didn't say it often. It broke out of him, prin 
 cipally, when there were repairs to be paid for, on the 
 house, or when the tax bills came. For the taxes were 
 monstrous those days. 
 
 " I'd see him fry in Hell a million years," he said, " and 
 this thing with him ! " 
 
 For never, I believe, when he once fixed his hate upon 
 a man, did he forgive anybody anything. Forgiveness 
 wasn't in his blood. 
 
 It was this hate, I noticed, first, like I said. It came 
 principally, of course, from the money that old place 
 had cost him. But then I noticed, right away, how, with 
 all his hatred of the house, he guarded it: The locked 
 door to the Purple Room, which he slept in; his fear of 
 fire; his rule against all niggers in the house as far as 
 possible for all but that one, that one religious darkey, 
 Arabella. And always, his great care in locking and 
 keeping that great house locked up day and night. And 
 that perpetual warning he had given me ever since I came 
 there to keep my eye peeled keep my eye peeled for 
 fire and thieves. 
 
 And now, since the Yellow Fever had started up the 
 river from New Orleans, the fear and anxiousness of my 
 uncle for that house had grown continually ; and naturally 
 his growing fussiness had its effect on us. He was very 
 shrewd at seeing things. He had told us from the first 
 that the disease was surely coming; and when it did come
 
 GRUMMITS BANK 31 
 
 crawling up towards us, nearer and nearer, his mind dwelt 
 more and more, not so much on the danger of death, as 
 the disorder and loss and thievery that was coming out of 
 it. And it all naturally had its effect on us. 
 
 I know that all those weeks the sense of watchfulness, 
 and the feeling of being watched, too, grew upon us. 
 Every now and then we got an idea that some one, some 
 particular person, was watching us. You couldn't help 
 it especially when my Uncle was continually noticing 
 these folks, folks that were watching us, or that he thought 
 were. 
 
 There was an old nigger that started coming to the 
 back door I remember an old shambling nest of rags 
 with a big veined coarse skinned, black hand stretching 
 out of it; and the tiresome mumbling whine of those old 
 time nigger beggars. 
 
 " Please give th' ole man a nickel, boss. Please give th' 
 ole man a nickel? " 
 
 He had two trips for nothing; and the third my Uncle 
 sent him off a flying. 
 
 Then there was later on that half nigger, whom my 
 Uncle saw several times that big half nigger on the 
 bluff behind us whittling with his great cotton knife 
 looking. That made more of an impression on me. I 
 never saw him myself, but I heard my Uncle talk of him a 
 number of times. And I kept looking out for him and 
 never finding him. 
 
 You understand that river was an ugly place those 
 times. We were nearer pioneer days then. There was 
 violence and murder, free and open in those river towns. 
 And I remember their saying that down town in Memphis 
 there wasn't one street corner but what some one had 
 been murdered on. 
 
 For that matter the Mississippi was always a kind of
 
 thieves' highway and is to-day. But nothing to those old 
 steamboat times. Thieves and murderers, local and im 
 ported too, moved South and North, searching, finding, 
 trading and escaping on the river. And we sat there on 
 the edge of this ugly path of secret travelers. And down 
 on the levee were their well known haunts and stopping 
 places. We could see them from our upper windows. 
 And all over that town was the poverty that came after the 
 war. The thousand hands of poverty of negroes es 
 pecially stretching out ; begging and picking and steal 
 ing. I never could get used to them that black herd 
 of niggers there in Memphis. Ragged, limping, consump 
 tive; laughing, crying, gorging, and starving by turns, 
 like savages; but everlastingly on the edge of want. 
 
 So it is little wonder to me now, when I think of it, and 
 know all I do to-day, that my Uncle was so careful watch 
 ing his house and property night and day and es 
 pecially those days of the coming of the Fever.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CLOSED WINDOWS 
 
 SO then my Uncle Athiel turned and went back home ; 
 and the great house loomed up before us, dark and 
 ugly as a great old mausoleum in a grave yard. 
 And just before we came to it across the alley, and into 
 the back yard the only light that we could see went 
 out, and Arabella, the negro servant, came out and locked 
 the door; and started down the path to the great serv 
 ant's room by the alley, where she spent her nights alone 
 her two dogs walking with her. 
 
 " All locked up ? " asked my Uncle. 
 
 " Yassah," said Arabella, not even looking at him. 
 
 She was one of these sanctified niggers. Nothing ever 
 troubled her. Her face was just as round and smooth and 
 peaceful as an apple; not an expression in it, only that 
 faint old smile those religious niggers have the kind 
 that know they're sanctified, and sure of going to Heaven. 
 Curious acting things, when you see them first, but the 
 most honest of the lot. And I know for a fact my Uncle 
 hired this one for just that reason. She was the only 
 nigger he would have in his house. And he had her just 
 because he knew that she was a sanctified nigger. He 
 >ld me so. 
 
 " Look here," said my Uncle to her ; " you're lettin* 
 those dogs loose in the yard every night, now, ain't you? " 
 
 " Yassah," said Arabella, walking right along ahead. 
 Her voice was just as smooth and calm and peaceful as 
 her face. 
 
 33
 
 34 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Look out you do," said my Uncle. 
 
 Arabella and her two dogs went straight along ahead 
 down the path toward the alley. Belle, the black and 
 tan, before her a little dancing nervous thing, up on the 
 tips of her toes. And behind, slouching at Arabella's 
 heels, General Sherman the great old yellow dog she 
 called General Sherman naming him, the way the nig 
 gers do sometimes, after celebrated folks they want to 
 honor. 
 
 God knows what wicked mixture of mongrels there was 
 in that dog. There was hound, I expect; and some mas 
 tiff, for he was a great high beast; and plenty of other 
 kinds, for certain. He was so old and worn out, and lay 
 around so much that there were callouses on his front 
 legs, made from lying on them. And when he went fol 
 lowing along after, like he did now, with his old red eyes 
 looking down at the bottom of Arabella's dress, he lurched 
 and sagged and looked like he might just stop anywhere 
 and fall to pieces in the path. 
 
 My Uncle stood a minute, looking after them. 
 
 " You can't trust a nigger," he said. " You can't 
 trust any of them. She ain't half so human as that dog." 
 
 Then we went on, and through the side door into the 
 house. 
 
 Vance was standing there. I saw her before we went 
 in standing looking out from the window, playing with 
 the curtain cord, thinking. She looked mighty frail and 
 delicate, watching out that way into the dusk, from that 
 great arched window, like I saw her so often evenings. 
 For they wouldn't let her out much after supper. They 
 said the night air wasn't good for her. Folks were dif 
 ferent then; they had just the opposite notions from what 
 they do now about the night air. 
 
 My Uncle walked in the sitting room, and I after him.
 
 CLOSED WINDOWS 35 
 
 And I heard him, just as soon as he got there, call to 
 Vance and give her that curious unforeseen order. 
 
 " Shut that window," he said right loud to Vance. 
 
 " What ! " said Vance, surprised. 
 
 " Now ! " said ray Uncle Athiel. And she shut it like he 
 told her to. He treated us both like children, for that 
 matter, and we both just had to take it. 
 
 " Now lemme tell you something," my Uncle said to 
 Vance, " and you, too," he said to me. " From now on 
 every window on this floor goes shut at sundown." 
 
 "Here, where we sit, too?" asked Vance. For the 
 others were all locked anyhow. 
 
 " What I said was every window," he told her. 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 " Why," he said after me. " Don't you know why 
 yet?" 
 
 " No," I said. " I don't." 
 
 "Ill teU you then," he said to me. "I'll tell you. 
 It's because this town is full of thieves ! " 
 
 And then for a second or two we ah 1 stood silent, Vance 
 and I swapping glances. 
 
 " We'll roast to death," I said. " We'll just choke up 
 and die. We can't breathe in here." 
 
 " It's time you got to learn how then," said my Uncle, 
 and his voice was getting ugly, the way it did when he was 
 crossed in anything. " For it won't be long now before 
 you'll have to know, anyhow. You'll have to if you want 
 to keep on livin'." 
 
 I didn't get what he meant that night. I didn't catch 
 it. I wasn't even sure I heard him right, so I didn't say 
 any more. 
 
 And after that he started out himself and went around, 
 closing everything that was open, and looking over all 
 the rest. And Vance and I stood staring at each other.
 
 86 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Can't I help you? " I said to him once, trying to make 
 up, and be friendly. But he didn't want me. 
 
 " No, I'll help myself," he answered me, and went along. 
 He went through the whole floor, we heard him stamping 
 through the Crystal Room, across the Hall ; the din 
 ing room, the kitchen, and even in the cellar. 
 
 " I don't like this," said Vance to me. 
 
 " Neither do I," I told her. 
 
 "Did you notice him his eyes? " she whispered. 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " I'm awfully worried lately," she told me. " I'm 
 awfully anxious." I looked at her then, sharp. For 
 it seemed to me then though I wasn't sure that she 
 shivered a little. 
 
 " He hasn't slept at all," she said and stopped. For 
 he was coming back again. There had been nothing much 
 for him to shut up, excepting that one room where we all 
 were that sitting room in the front. 
 
 He was back again and stood looking in through the 
 doorway at us. I've often wondered just what was in 
 his mind then; just how the world looked through his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Don't sit up too late," said Vance, going toward him 
 to say good-night. " You've got to have your sleep." 
 
 " Lemme tell you something," said my Uncle, looking 
 past her to me. " After this from now on, you want to 
 keep your eye peeled more'n ever." 
 
 Vance kissed him good-night. 
 
 " Keep your eye peeled ! " he said to me, hardly notic 
 ing her and turned to go upstairs. 
 
 And then, as if he had an after-thought, he stopped and 
 turned again. 
 
 " We're bound out to the poorhouse," he said, in that 
 old miserable voice he talked in when he felt blue and
 
 CLOSED WINDOWS 37 
 
 down hearted. " They'll get us all there finally. But 
 we'll give 'em a good hard fight doing it." 
 
 And then he went upstairs alone, and we waited there 
 without talking, and listened to him till he reached his 
 Purple Room again and locked the door. We just stood 
 listening to him going that little common man, trudging 
 up through the dark corridors of that great old mansion 
 that Mr. Bozro, the banker, built to be a monument of 
 his elegance and power ; that little old yellow man hunted 
 by fear and poverty, that common terror that old folks 
 have, which seems to follow them, no matter how much 
 they have the fear that some one will get their money 
 away from them. 
 
 " Vance," I said, when he was gone. " This ain't going 
 to do." For he certainly did not look right. 
 
 " He'll feel better to-morrow, maybe, if he gets some 
 sleep," she said. " He hasn't slept any lately hardly," 
 she told me. 
 
 " But are there really any thieves around here? " I 
 asked her. " You haven't seen a one, have you? " 
 
 " No," said Vance, " but there's always somebody acts 
 like they might be watching." 
 
 " Yes," I said, thinking " yes." For that was true 
 enough. " But what's started him going now? " 
 
 Vance didn't know. 
 
 " You haven't ever seen that half nigger he keeps talk 
 ing of, have you? " I said to her. 
 
 " No," said Vance. " No. Not for certain. But 
 once I thought maybe I had." 
 
 " I haven't ; and you haven't," I said, and shook my 
 hcnd. " I believe sometimes that he imagines half these 
 things." 
 
 But Vance was very certain that he didn't. 
 
 " That isn't the real trouble," she said. " You know
 
 38 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 that. It's what's back of it. It's his losses. One after 
 another year after year, for twenty years now. Till 
 every year he gets scareder and scareder for fear he'll 
 lose it all." 
 
 There was a good lot in that too. In his younger days, 
 they said, my Uncle Athiel had been a man who took as 
 many chances as the next one especially in money busi 
 ness. He was a fighter and an ugly one. And I know 
 I've heard my father saying to my mother that he just 
 found out where money was, and went there after it. 
 And it didn't make much difference to him just how clean 
 or dirty the place was where he found it. 
 
 That was in the old days. But now for twenty years, 
 one thing after another had gone against him; and they 
 said he'd lost his nerve. I expect he had. For it'd been 
 enough to break any man's faith in his luck what he 
 had been through. 
 
 Lord, but it was hot in that old sitting room, with those 
 windows closed! 
 
 " We can't stand this," I said to Vance. 
 
 " Let's go into the Crystal Room," said Vance. 
 " Maybe there'd be more air there." 
 
 So we went across, under the dim gas light in the hall, 
 to the great saloon parlor. 
 
 Almost all the rooms in Mr. Bozro's house on the 
 first and second floors anyhow had special names of 
 their* own mostly for their colors. They were mostly 
 all copied, like the whole house was, as I told you, from 
 some special room he had seen in his traveling abroad 
 especially in France. 
 
 The Crystal Room of ours was the biggest and finest 
 saloon parlor that I ever saw. It was forty or fifty feet 
 long, I believe, and from its high ceiling there hung down 
 these two great crystal chandeliers, all glass chains and
 
 CLOSED WINDOWS 39 
 
 prisms, that sparkled and tinkled and shone when they 
 were lighted up, like a baby rainbow. Besides this, at 
 either end, were two great black-and-gilt framed mirrors. 
 And so they called it the Crystal Room for the whole 
 place seemed full of glass. 
 
 I lighted up one faint gas jet in the nearest chandelier, 
 and it shone out in the dim circle of green and red in the 
 great bank of glass above it. But the rest of the great 
 room was dim. 
 
 " There, this is better," said Vance, " isn't it? " 
 
 " Yes," I had to admit it was. 
 
 " It won't be so bad shut up here evenings, when we're 
 used to it not in this great house," she said. " And 
 there's another thing," she said, " if you stop to think 
 of it. We won't be bothered with mosquitoes." 
 
 She always made the best of everything that happened. 
 That was one thing I always noticed about her even 
 that year when she had her sickness that Yellow Fever 
 year when she was so delicate. 
 
 I didn't pay much attention to her. I was thinking 
 about my Uncle and his fears and queer actions. I might 
 have spoken to her that night about what he thought about 
 the Fever coming. But I didn't think I would ; I didn't 
 think I'd worry her till I had to. 
 
 We sat there talking for a little while in that great 
 half-lighted room with its great furniture, and its big 
 black piano, and its great mirrors everything in the 
 grand manner. And the old yellowish-brownish figures 
 in the two high oil paintings the paintings of Pocahon- 
 tas' wedding and De Soto's Discovering the Mississippi 
 looked down on us from the wall. They were copies 
 from those two celebrated paintings made especially for 
 Mr. Bozro, by one of the finest oil painting artists in the 
 South.
 
 40 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 She looked slenderer than ever Vance in that old 
 room and frailer. She wasn't any invalid, but she was 
 a fine, delicate thing delicate as a cape jessamine 
 and full of ideas and excitements and impulses, that were 
 too much for her. I watched her slight, thin hand on 
 the arms of the chair, lying listless. And all at once it 
 clenched itself and unclenched. She moved a little and 
 sighed. 
 
 "What is it, Vance? " I asked. 
 
 " Father," she said, and stopped, her big eyes star 
 ing out before her. And suddenly I looked and I saw her 
 shudder. This time I was sure. I saw it quite distinctly. 
 
 " What is it ? " I asked her a second time. And I kept 
 on asking till she told me. 
 
 " A dream," she said, at last not wanting to. 
 
 "A what?" I said. 
 
 " Oh, I had the most monstrous dream," she said, and 
 shuddered a second time. 
 
 " What about? " I asked. 
 
 And finally I got her to tell me: 
 
 " About my father." 
 
 I burst out laughing when I heard her louder than 
 I need to have, I expect. 
 
 " What next ? " I asked. " What next ? You certainly 
 are sensible, Vance ! " 
 
 She was always full of strange notions ; and I was 
 always having to laugh her out of them. They were 
 strange and crazy and different from other people's 
 and they didn't do her any good. 
 
 "What was it?" I asked finally. "What was the 
 dream about? " 
 
 " I'm not going to tell you," she said. " You'll never 
 find out from me," and started turning it off with a 
 laugh.
 
 CLOSED WINDOWS 41 
 
 She wouldn't, either. She never would, when she didn't 
 want to. That was what aggravated me so continually. 
 She looked so frail, you'd never believe how obstinate she 
 could be. When she didn't want to tell you anything or 
 do anything, she wouldn't ; she'd laugh it off or escape you 
 someway. 
 
 But the real trouble with her was always that she took 
 life so hard. Now this thing had bitten into her, I could 
 see that, underneath it all, right away. Her voice showed 
 it and her deep eyes looking out from her pale face be 
 neath her great crown of black hair; and her thin delicate 
 hand gripping when she spoke of it, on the chair arm, 
 till the nails went white under the pressure. And now I 
 thought I understood why her eyes had gone following 
 her father around that night so steadily. It was this 
 foolish idea about a dream. And it made me mad, like a 
 lot of her ideas. 
 
 " You go to bed," I said, " and sleep that's what you 
 need. This weather's been too much for you." 
 
 " I expect so," she said. 
 
 " I know it," I replied. 
 
 " Yes, maybe I'll forget it," she said then, going. And 
 I stood watching her as she went. 
 
 They say delicate women are that way sometimes so 
 sensitive and full of imagination, and quick to catch things 
 about the other folks around them, that they seem some 
 times to be taking information through the empty air, 
 like they had a sixth sense almost, they say. I never took 
 much stock in that myself. 
 
 But certainly Vance was delicate enough, and she had 
 imagination plenty. Far too much for her, I believe. 
 She had been alone a lot even before her mother died 
 and still more afterward; and she had too, like the rest 
 of our women folks here, the bringing up by the niggers,
 
 42 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 when they were children. And that makes a difference, 
 I believe. 
 
 I remember now how she looked to me, as I stood there 
 watching her go out how frail and delicate and slim ; 
 thin wrists and slender ankles ; and a body I could more 
 than span around with my two great hands. She looked 
 more delicate to me, maybe than she really was in com 
 parison to myself. But there was hardly body enough 
 to her, I used to think, to rightly clothe her soul. 
 
 I smiled to her when she went out, and she to me. And 
 I heard her go along into her room upstairs the Ivory 
 Room, and close the door. And then I started out to 
 follow her upstairs. And almost by the time I put out 
 the gas and left the empty Crystal Room, her notion, her 
 talk about that dream of hers had gone clean out of my 
 mind. For I was certain it would be all gone from hers 
 that next morning. 
 
 I put the light out in the glass chandelier in the Crystal 
 Room ; and my dim shadow in the great pale pier glasses 
 passed out with me into the hall. Then I turned out the 
 flicker of light in the bronze gas fixture in the lower hall 
 way, and went on up the long black walnut stairway to 
 the second floor. 
 
 My Uncle, as I told you, had the Purple Room, the 
 great bedroom of Mr. Bozro ; Vance had the Ivory Room 
 in front, where Mrs. Bozro had slept; and I was in the 
 Red Room toward the rear; and in the "L" above the 
 dining room, was the Turkish Room, unoccupied. Then 
 upstairs, besides, on the third floor, were all those other 
 bedrooms six more of them all closed and vacant. 
 
 I went into the Red Room and closed the door lighted 
 up the gas. And I sat down like I always did at night, 
 to read my law books. That next year, thank God, I 
 was to take my examinations to the bar. I was going to
 
 CLOSED WINDOWS 43 
 
 be my own man. No more like that last six months for 
 me. I saw myself already sitting there, with my framed 
 certificate from the State of Tennessee on the wall ; and 
 the steel engraving of Henry Clay, with that old parch 
 ment smile of his looking down on me from the wall; and 
 a round top black walnut desk, and a cane-backed swivel 
 chair; and a library of sheepskin law books closed in a 
 book-case with glass doors. And after that some clients, 
 and a dollar or two in my pocket I could call my own. 
 And let me tell you I thought that time would never come. 
 
 I was twenty-one; and time goes slower then when you 
 have to wait around to get what you're after. My folks 
 had both died, and left me with that little old red clay 
 farm up in the hills. And I had made my mind up right 
 away to get out of there out of the mud and mire of 
 that God-forsaken country ; and go down to Memphis and 
 be a lawyer. I had heard the lawyers hollering and 
 speechifying once or twice on court days in the county 
 seat. And it fired my blood, I expect. 
 
 And so, as soon as I was able, I came down to Memphis, 
 and my Uncle Athiel was glad enough, as I said, to take 
 me, when I told him what I could do around the place. I 
 was a big husky boy, and I could see in his looks, as he 
 eyed me, that he knew I would not be a bad thing for him 
 to have around that great place of his. 
 
 That was all right; I was willing to do it, and I did. 
 But there was no great love lost on either side, between 
 him and me, I expect. There wasn't on mine anyway. 
 For I knew before I came there, that, though I always 
 called him Uncle Athiel, and he'd been brought up by my 
 grandparents like their own children were, he really was 
 no blood kin of mine at all. He was just a young boy 
 from a poor family that had lived next to ours once, whom 
 my mother's folks had taken in and cared for and adopted,
 
 44 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 when his people died. And it was a funny thing the 
 way things sometimes happen in this world that this 
 one poor boy we'd taken in, was the only one of us all 
 that had property and money now. And here was I, at 
 twenty-one, living under his roof, without a cent in the 
 world, except two hundred dollars that I had gotten finally 
 out of the old farm above the mortgage and that 
 pledged to this gamble of mine at getting started in the 
 law. 
 
 So I sat there for an hour or two one night, trying to 
 read my law book without any luck at it. I sat there, 
 slapping mosquitoes, for they came in the open windows 
 to the light, eating me alive ; and I tried to read and 
 my eyes slipped off the pages of the law book just as soon 
 as they went on. I was thinking that night of something 
 else. 
 
 I got thinking of the Fever, and whether it would really 
 come ; and of my Uncle and his fears ; of his thieves and his 
 fires, and whatever he had hidden in that old house of his, 
 that made all that talk; that made him have those ideas 
 about fire and thieves which were always uppermost in his 
 mind. 
 
 Then after that I got thinking of Vance how delicate 
 she was, how delicate and high strung; and the strange 
 ways and notions she had different from other folks, 
 men and women too. She was as distinct from the other 
 women I had known the common, wiry farm women I 
 had been accustomed to in the country as if they had 
 been bred on different stars. 
 
 I sat there worrying about her that night ; about how 
 careful she had to be since her sickness that last spring; 
 and how that hot summer had worn upon her; and now 
 about this Fever thing, that seemed to be right down 
 upon us.
 
 CLOSED WINDOWS 45 
 
 " She'd have to get out anyhow, if that comes along," I 
 said to myself. And tried to think of it that way; and 
 did get the feeling that it would go right finally. And 
 then I felt a little easier. 
 
 By and by, I thought it was a little cooler, so I put 
 out the light and undressed myself in the dark, to save 
 shutting down the shades, and keeping out the air. And 
 I crawled in under the old mosquito bars on the bed, 
 and, inside there, naturally, it was hotter than ever. I 
 turned and sweat, and rolled and twisted the sheets up 
 into ropes. I lay there restless, hot, worrying, without 
 sleep. 
 
 The town seemed restless to me, too, I remember. 
 There seemed more noises on the street. My Uncle moved 
 around the Purple Room. And Arabella's dogs the 
 big one and the little one went around the house pa 
 trolling. I saw them once or twice; and once or twice 
 they got barking. 
 
 There was a song on the street, some drunken man was 
 going home singing. And every half hour, I think it was, 
 I heard, from the main street down under the hill the 
 tinkle-tinkle of the bell of the little old bobtailed mule car 
 that went by those days passing by all night long, at 
 intervals as regular as the striking of the clock. 
 
 And then, after a while, those old alley dogs got holler 
 ing those nigger dogs out in the alleys. There never 
 was such a place for dogs, I believe, as Memphis. I hadn't 
 grown used to them yet. 
 
 Every time one started up, it set the whole pack yel 
 ling. The alleys were alive with them those nigger 
 dogs, those old tramp dogs, that came and went and loved 
 and multiplied till the back alleys swarmed with them. 
 Mongrels, crawling mongrels, afraid of their own shadow, 
 the hands of every man against them. And at night
 
 46 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 time, when once the cry was started, they all awoke and 
 yelled together with idiot fear. 
 
 I remember lying there that night, half sleeping, and 
 hearing that old miserable wail of crying dogs start near, 
 and go shuddering out through the alleys of the sleeping 
 town waking, dying, fading out at last in the far dis 
 tance, where the alleys ended in the empty pastures at 
 the borders of the town. 
 
 The city seemed restless somehow uneasy in its sleep. 
 But maybe it wasn't so. Maybe I just thought so after 
 ward when I remembered. 
 
 For it was that next day that the Fever came.
 
 BOOK II 
 THE TERROR BY NIGHT
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE INVISIBLE ENEMY 
 
 THAT next day we knew the Fever was in town. 
 And not a one of us who saw it come, I believe, 
 is ever going to forget it. I know I never shall 
 not if I live to be a hundred. 
 
 I sit here now and talk of it, and right away I'm back 
 again in that hot August afternoon on old Main Street; 
 and I see the smudge of that first Fever fire on the street; 
 and smell the taint of that old carbolic acid in the air. I 
 never smell that, never, to this day, but I got a little sick 
 and numb, and I say to myself: 
 
 " Here it is ! It's come ! " Thinking of course of that 
 old Yellow Fever in the air. 
 
 What struck me first, I remember that first day I saw 
 it, was the strangeness of it all. I'd never been where 
 they had had the Fever before in my life. I just stood 
 and watched and listened. 
 
 And after I'd looked down the road, at the place where 
 the woman died, and the yellow spots of acid on the road 
 way, and the street roped off, the next thing I noticed 
 was the queer way folks behaved. Everybody acted queer, 
 it seemed to me hurried, and got out of one another's 
 way. And some were drunk, for they said at first that 
 drinking gin would protect you. But the most of them, 
 I could see, weren't drunk at all. They were something 
 else. 
 
 There was one little man, I remember, a dapper dandy 
 little man in a linen suit walking straight down the middle 
 
 49
 
 50 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 of Main Street, directly in the white shine of the sun. 
 And everybody that passed him, going across the street, 
 he wheeled away from, and went way around. And if 
 they didn't go far off enough to suit him he waved and 
 called to them to go further. 
 
 And there was another man, I saw, who was carrying 
 a sponge in his hand, and every now and then he lifted it 
 up to his nose and smelled it. It had carbolic acid on 
 it. We saw that often enough afterward. But that was 
 the first time I had seen it; and I stood and stared at 
 him. 
 
 I stood staring at him; and all at once it came to me. 
 " Lord," I said to myself, " these folks are scared to 
 death." 
 
 And right after that I was scared myself some ; and 
 began to have that feeling that got growing on me after 
 ward. 
 
 The trouble was nobody knew about the thing where 
 it was, or who had it, or how you got it. Every step you 
 took you might be blundering into it. You had that old 
 scary feeling, of a man waiting to be struck from behind 
 in the dark. It seemed like something dangerous was 
 standing there behind your shoulder something you 
 couldn't see. All that you knew was that somewhere, 
 somehow, under that clear, cloudless pale green summer 
 sky, death lay hidden, waiting all set and ready to 
 pounce down upon the next one, like a cat upon a sparrow. 
 And the next one might be you. 
 
 So I didn't stay there very long, nor talk to very many. 
 I did hear that they said the Fever seemed to be checked, 
 or headed East like it was in '73, and in that case they 
 might hold it so it wouldn't get down to us at all. That 
 was something, anyhow. And after that I started home 
 right away.
 
 THE INVISIBLE ENEMY 51 
 
 I got on a little old bobtailed mule car and rode down 
 Main Street, sitting up straight on the hard, carpeted 
 seat, for fear of whoever might have been sitting there 
 before me. And there, on the corner, as I got out, stood 
 John McCallan, the policeman, in the thin shade of an 
 old mulberry tree, holding his old felt hat in one hand and 
 mopping off his red-hot face with the other. 
 
 " Well, sor, it's come," he said. 
 
 " Yes, John ; it has, sure enough," I answered. 
 
 " God hilp us," said John, and cleared his throat. 
 " They say they're burnin' the clothes and beddin' of the 
 poor woman on the street," he said, " and they got it all 
 roped off to the alley. And chimicals and stuff all over 
 the ground." 
 
 " Yes," I said. " I saw it down the street." 
 
 "By this time, she'll be buried," he said. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " God hilp us," said John McCallan. " They have to 
 bury 'em quick, don't they? They have to get 'em away 
 under ground right off. 
 
 " Yes," he said, looking off. " There's many a poor 
 feller alive and workin' to-day that'll be lyin' there and 
 the flies'll be eatin' this day week." 
 
 " The flies ! " I said. 
 
 " God, wait'll you see it," he said, looking straight 
 ahead. " I saw it, when it was here in '73." 
 
 " The flies," I said again. I never heard of that be 
 fore. 
 
 " We used to find them so mornings. Them big 
 green flies on the window." 
 
 He stood fanning himself with his big floppy hat. 
 
 " And the naygurs," he went along, " don't have it ! 
 Plenty o' good white men'll die. And those naygurs won't 
 any of them have it." He was always cursing at the
 
 52 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 niggers. " They'll stay here stealin' from us and makin' 
 trouble." 
 
 And by this time the mule car had been down and 
 turned around at the end of the run, and was tinkling 
 back again. 
 
 " Well, good evenin'," said John McCallan, treading 
 the step behind the door in the rear; and the little car 
 teetered under his great body as he climbed in. And I 
 turned around and started going up the hill to our street. 
 
 That certainly was a hard and unnatural summer for 
 heat, that Yellow Fever year, so hot and dry, they said, 
 the big old trees died in the woods their roots just 
 dried up in the ground. 
 
 Lord, how hot it was going up that old hill ! I can feel 
 it now. Dry as a kiln. Not a cloud in the sky ; nothing 
 but the white sun no bigger, it looked like, than a ten- 
 cent piece. Just a glimmering point of white hot light 
 baking the earth up in one solid brick. And the shadows 
 everywhere sharp as if cut off with a knife. " Yellow 
 Fever Weather," they got to calling it afterwards; we 
 had it all that summer. 
 
 The great house of my Uncle stood there ahead of me 
 as I dragged along, set up from the street; with its two 
 little magnolia trees, on either side of it, stiff as pompons, 
 their leaves glistening and shining like burnished metal. 
 A locust droned and rattled in one of them fast and 
 furious, like something gone mad from heat. My head 
 was hot from the white sun overhead. My feet were hot 
 from the hot bricks underneath. My tongue was hot in 
 my mouth, and my soul was hot in my body ; and when I 
 opened the side door, and passed into the great dark 
 house, it seemed cool as a cave. 
 
 I opened the door and slipped in softly. Vance might 
 be taking her sleep upstairs, and now certainly she could
 
 THE INVISIBLE ENEMY 53 
 
 not get too much. I started going into the sitting room 
 to throw myself into a chair and cool off, when I saw, in 
 the study, to the right, Arabella, the negro woman, star 
 ing motionless out the window. 
 
 She turned her great eyes toward me for a moment, 
 thinking, maybe, it might be my Uncle ; then turned them 
 back again, and stood there looking down the street 
 still as something watching on a path in the jungle. She 
 had been watching out a lot that way lately ; all the nig 
 gers had been watching, it seemed somehow to me, since 
 they said first the Fever was started up from New Orleans. 
 
 "Well, Arabella," I said, "it's come! The Fever's 
 here!" 
 
 " Yassah," she said, all unexcited. 
 
 " There was a woman died of it this morning." 
 
 " Yassah," she said. " Yassah." 
 
 And though her voice didn't change one little tone, all 
 at once her smooth round face broke into a sudden peace 
 ful smile. 
 
 " Yassah," she said. " Yassah. The signs all say 
 so." And she turned her face out the window again, and 
 her eyes went hunting down the, street over the brow of 
 the little hill toward the city. 
 
 " What is she looking for to come up over that hill? " 
 I said to myself. " What is that old smile about? " 
 
 I had heard they said there was something going on in 
 the heads of those sanctified niggers that summer of 
 that special lot that she belonged to. We heard them 
 howling Sunday evenings, longer than ever before all 
 night long, and week nights too, more lately down in 
 that chapel she belonged to. " The Hollering Saints," 
 they used to call them, then. 
 
 There was something on their minds, some crazy new 
 idea. But who knew it? I didn't; and I believe there
 
 54 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 was no one else, no white folks who did, exactly. All they 
 knew was what they generally know about niggers that 
 bowing and scraping ; those brown masks those faces 
 with all their muscles trained since the sin of Ham in the 
 Old Bible; since they went out in slavery and subjection 
 to lie still and show nothing. And those big old brown 
 eyes, watching, watching. And sometimes, very rarely 
 when you surprised it, that glimpse of the real thing be 
 hind, when it breaks into hysterics at those nigger meet 
 ings ; or gleams out in something like that consecrated 
 nigger's smile that Arabella gave me when I told her of 
 the Fever. 
 
 " Miss Vance upstairs? " I asked her. 
 
 " Yassah, she's upstairs a-restin'," said Arabella and 
 kept on looking. 
 
 I went upstairs myself then to my own room, and started 
 reading at my law. I was behind that last day or two. 
 But mighty little reading I did that afternoon. My 
 thoughts went right back to the Fever ; to the dead woman, 
 and the chemicals, and the scared folks on the street. 
 And my eyes went traveling out the window. 
 
 Already folks were going out of town. Already the 
 sound of wheels sounded on the streets the sound of the 
 stampede of those next few days. The folks just north 
 of us, the Ventresses, I saw, were closing up their house 
 already, and getting fixed to leave to-morrow. 
 
 I know I sat there on the window, and thought it over. 
 I didn't fool myself; I didn't once expect that my Uncle 
 or I would go. But it struck me, with some satisfaction, 
 I remember, that now Vance was certainly going to be sent 
 out into the hill country, like they had been planning once 
 before in that hot weather. 
 
 " There's that much to be said for the Fever," I said to 
 myself, " it will get her out of here."
 
 THE INVISIBLE ENEMY 55 
 
 For I had worried about her being there all that sum 
 mer. 
 
 And while I sat there wondering and worrying, and 
 caught up like everybody else, with my own affairs, I 
 heard somewhere out the window, the " Whistling Doc 
 tor " as we all called him, coming up from visiting some 
 patient down the street. 
 
 Dr. Greathouse, his real name was. He was our doc 
 tor ; a highly educated man, and I expect the leading doc 
 tor in Memphis ; but so big and careless and full of fun 
 and courage, that most everybody knew him, not by his 
 own name, but for that odd trick he had; for whistling, 
 everywhere he walked, that one old tune he knew " The 
 Arkansas Traveler." You heard him whistling it all the 
 time on the street so everybody got to call him the 
 " Whistling Doctor." 
 
 I looked down the side street in front of us, and saw 
 him from my window. There was an old lady down be 
 low he came to see once every so often. And he was com 
 ing out of there now. A big, tall, fleshy, rolling man 
 with a kind of rolling walk, and a great hearty voice. 
 
 Old Uncle Mungo sat waiting for him in his buggy 
 the old Virginia darky that had always been in his family, 
 and always drove him. I never seem to think of that old 
 nigger outside that old buggy that he kept so sleek and 
 clean. He was just as much a part of it, the doctor 
 used to say, as the upper stories of one of those old Greek 
 Centaurs. For the doctor, as I told you, was a highly 
 educated man a graduate of the University of Vir 
 ginia and he was just full of things like that. 
 
 The whistling stopped when the doctor reached the 
 street, and climbed in his buggy. But there had been one 
 cheerful noise on the street, anyhow, I said to myself, and 
 one cheerful face, in all this crowd I'd seen this day, that
 
 56 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 wasn't scared. There were plenty of poor sick folks I 
 knew who listened all day long just to hear that old 
 whistle of his broken and off the key, half the time, go 
 by. And now, with that Fever there, and half the town 
 half scared to death, it was better than a band of music 
 going up the street. He saw me where I had got up and 
 stood looking at him out the window, and waved his hand 
 at me as he went by big and rough and careless and 
 slouched down in the corner of that bran span clean 
 buggy; and the little old Virginia darkey, brushed and 
 combed, and cleaned till he shone, tucked up in the other 
 corner, driving. And so they went on down out of sight. 
 
 Time crawled along mighty slowly after that; and by 
 and by I went downstairs, thinking Vance might have got 
 down without my hearing her. I stopped by the side of 
 her door and listened, as I came by, and I didn't hear a 
 thing. 
 
 But when I got down there, she wasn't down there yet. 
 Only Arabella, staring out the window down the hill, from 
 the sitting room this time. 
 
 " What are you in here for, Arabella," I said to her 
 " all this afternoon ? " For I knew and she knew too, she 
 had no business in there that way. She knew that she 
 was breaking all my Uncle's orders about the house his 
 general rules that when she got done in front the house, 
 she had to leave at once. 
 
 She turned slowly toward me, pretending not to un 
 derstand. 
 
 " I'm just alookin' and watchin'," she said, and set her 
 great brown eyes on me. " I'm examinin' and watchin' 
 what's goin' on yere. 
 
 " Look yondah," she said, in an old secret voice. 
 
 I looked out. She was pointing to the Ventresses, the 
 neighbors just above us. They were sending out their
 
 THE INVISIBLE ENEMY 57 
 
 trunks now to the depot, to be on time that next morning. 
 
 " They all a-goin'," she said. " They all a-goin' out." 
 
 And I saw the folks across the street from us were get 
 ting ready too. 
 
 " They's all a-goin'. Eve'ybody's a-goin'," said Ara 
 bella, standing motionless. 
 
 " You better go ! " she said to them, under her breath ; 
 " you better go," and nodded to herself. 
 
 " Why what for? " I asked her, trying her, to see 
 what she would say. I liked to hear them talk. I en 
 couraged them all I could always. I wanted to hear what 
 they would say. 
 
 " Why ! " she said, looking with her big round eyes at 
 me. " Why ? 'Cause they're goin' to die. All them 
 in this city's goin' to die," she said in a deep, old grave 
 yard voice. 
 
 It seemed silly, but it gave me a kind of start the 
 way she said it that, and all I had been seeing that day 
 the fear of the folks on the street. 
 
 " Damn the thing," I said, and shook my shoulders. 
 
 I thought to say it to myself, but I saw that I must 
 have talked out loud. For the negress who had started 
 going, looked around and watched me with a steady look. 
 "What thing?" she said, like an old owl. "What you 
 mean! What thing? " 
 
 " The Fever," I told her. 
 
 " They's more terrible things acomin'," she said, wait 
 ing a minute. " They's more monstrous things than that 
 Fever acomin' down upon this city more monstrouser 
 and terribler for all the folks yere." 
 
 And right away when she was saying it, her great 
 smooth, oily face broke out again in that wide, , peaceful 
 smile. 
 
 She stood a minute, while it died away, and took one
 
 58 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 more long look out the window; and then turned around 
 and stalked back to her kitchen. 
 
 I stood there wondering what it was that she saw com 
 ing up over that hill toward the city. Death, in some 
 form, I expected, like the rest of us. But in what form, 
 and for what purpose? For nothing strange happens in 
 a nigger's mind, except for some old deep mysterious pur 
 pose of God or of the Devil. What was it she saw 
 coming? And why on earth when she thought of it, should 
 she smile? 
 
 Then, in just a few minutes more, I heard Vance's light 
 feet upon the stairs, and saw her in the big brown door 
 way. 
 
 " It's come, 5 ' I said. " The Fever! " 
 
 She didn't seem surprised, either, not a bit. She walked 
 across the room and stood there at the window, where 
 Arabella had just stood, and where afterward we all 
 stood so often, looking down the little hill, across the lit 
 tle valley, toward the city. 
 
 " Dad was right then," she said. 
 
 And I asked her what she meant. 
 
 " He expected it last night," said Vance. 
 
 " How did you know that?" I asked astonished. For 
 I had especially kept from speaking to her of it. And I 
 knew he hadn't either. 
 
 " I don't know," she said, turning. " It was perfectly 
 plain, wasn't it? " 
 
 " It wouldn't have been to me," I said, " not unless he 
 told me." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," she said a little absently. "I 
 think it was." 
 
 I stood watching her. She seemed nervous and wrought 
 up still, as she stood there looking out the window. 
 
 " What is it? " I asked her.
 
 THE INVISIBLE ENEMY 59 
 
 " What's what? " she said. 
 
 " What is it you're looking for so strong down the 
 street? " 
 
 " Dad," she said. " Have you seen him? " 
 
 " It's too early yet," I said. 
 
 " Yes, I expect it is," said Vance and started turn 
 ing away. But she turned right back again afterwards. 
 
 " I don't want him down there," she said. " I wish 
 that he'd come home." 
 
 I told her there would be no danger. He would not go 
 near where the fever was. But she didn't answer me. 
 And I thought I saw again that little shiver that she gave 
 the night before. 
 
 " They're all leaving ; they're all going," she said, 
 speaking to cover it up. " Everybody's going, aren't 
 they?" 
 
 " The streets are full of them," I said and waited. 
 But she didn't speak. 
 
 " They say the trunks are piled up to the second story 
 at the depot," I went on. 
 
 Then we were both silent for a while. 
 
 " Are we going? " I said at last. 
 
 " No," she said, as if only just half hearing me. " No, 
 we won't go." 
 
 " You will," I said. 
 
 She stood and looked at me a moment. " No, 5 * she 
 said. " No, I'll not." 
 
 " Yes, you will," I said, confident for I was certain 
 of it. And then I changed the subject. 
 
 " You've seen it," I said, " before the Fever ; when 
 it was bad that time before ! " 
 
 For she'd told me that she had. 
 
 " Yes, I've seen it, very bad," she said. 
 
 " But you never told me much about it," I went on.
 
 60 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 She had never talked much about it before. I imagined 
 somehow that she didn't care to. But she talked freely 
 enough that evening of it. 
 
 "It's the air," she said. ''It's poisoned. That's 
 what I remember most." 
 
 " Is that right," I said. " Is that true? " 
 
 "Yes, certainly," said Vance. "That's what all the 
 great doctors say. This poison in the air this 
 miasma! " 
 
 I asked her then just what she remembered of that time 
 she had seen it so near before not there in Memphis ; 
 in a little town further west that they lived in before they 
 came there. 
 
 " It was the year after my mother died," she said 
 " the year we lived in Texas. Ursa, old black Ursa took 
 care of me." 
 
 She talked low and broken and stopped. 
 
 " I remember mostly," she said again, " the black air 
 the black poison air ! " 
 
 " Not really so ! " I said. " Not black t " 
 
 She had that way with her of telling any story as if she 
 believed it through and through the most unlikely 
 things. She told them like a child a nervous, serious 
 child that makes you see a thing almost, because it be 
 lieves it so. Half like a child; half like a great actress, 
 I sometimes thought, who knows exactly what she is do 
 ing but yet believes it, too, with her feelings. 
 
 " No, not really," she said. " I only thought so. I 
 thought at night it formed in the houses where the Fever 
 was for the Fever always comes by night, you know," 
 she said. 
 
 "Always?" I asked. 
 
 " Always," Vance answered. " So mornings," she said, 
 " I used to think that I could see that black air coming
 
 THE INVISIBLE ENEMY 61 
 
 out through the tops of the windows and the open doors." 
 
 " How silly," I said. 
 
 " Ursa said so," said Vance. " I was only seven years 
 old." 
 
 She told me then what she had really seen about the 
 folks, the poor sick folks down in the cabin by the bayou, 
 who had it down underneath their windows ; how the doc 
 tor came, how the coffins came, bright new pine coffins 
 standing waiting by the door in the sunshine; how you 
 heard folks crying in the night. 
 
 You heard them when she told you, plain as day 
 when she told it in that still low voice of hers, hushed a 
 little and breathless ; wide-eyed, secret and still like 
 children telling their old ghost stories those old ghost 
 stories that the niggers teach them to one another in 
 the twilight. 
 
 " I used to get up in the mornings," she said, " early 
 mornings, to see that old black air that Ursa used to talk 
 about, coming out the tops of the doors and windows. 
 Like smoke, like old black smoke, I thought it was." 
 
 " You crazy thing," I said. 
 
 " No," said Vance. " No. It's worse than that, the 
 way it is. It's really worse, I believe." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "Why, it's there just the same, isn't it? " said Vance. 
 " It's there ; only it's invisible. And that's worse, I think. 
 That's worse, isn't it?" 
 
 Her low voice stopped, as she turned back again to the 
 window. We were still again. 
 
 " They died there, you say, in that old cabin? " I asked 
 her finally. 
 
 " Six of them ! " she said, absent-minded again. 
 
 " Oh, I wish he'd come ! " she said. And when I looked 
 at her I saw her eyes were full of tears.
 
 62 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " What is it, Vance ? " I asked her, standing up beside 
 her. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," she said, turning quickly, so she 
 hid her eyes from me. 
 
 "Are you thinking of that same foolishness again?" I 
 asked her quickly. 
 
 I suspected, naturally, right away. She hadn't got 
 rid of that thing yet that dream of hers. 
 
 " What foolishness ? " she asked. 
 
 " That dream that old dream you said you had about 
 your father." 
 
 She nodded. " A little," she admitted. 
 
 " You ought to be taken out and whipped within an 
 inch of your life," I said. 
 
 " I expect I had," said Vance, and tried to laugh. 
 
 "What was it? What was it that you dreamed?" I 
 asked her. 
 
 But she said, like she had before, " I won't tell you." 
 
 " Look here," I said for I thought then I could un 
 derstand; with all that Fever around and everything. 
 " What was it? Did you dream he died? " 
 
 She shuddered then again like she had the night be 
 fore. She didn't answer. But I knew then that that 
 was what she'd dreamed. 
 
 " You little fool," I said. " Haven't you got any sense 
 at all? Ain't you ever going to grow up and be like 
 other folks?" 
 
 She turned away from me, looking out the window. 
 
 " You can't help such things coming to you, can you ? " 
 she said, trying to excuse herself. 
 
 " But you don't have to believe them," I told her. 
 
 " I don't believe them," she said. " I don't ! It's just 
 the way it's left me. The way it made me feel."
 
 THE INVISIBLE ENEMY 63 
 
 " You've had the same feeling after dreaming, I be 
 lieve if you tell the truth," she said to me. 
 
 She had me there. For all of us have had that feeling, 
 I expect after some dream we had after one or two 
 at any rate. And I saw too, in a way, how the whole 
 thing must have come to her worrying about her fa 
 ther the way she had that summer. It is perfectly 
 plain and simple. 
 
 But all I wanted to do was to get her quit of it of 
 this worry and apprehension, whatever it was. 
 
 And so, I went on scolding and laughing at her, and 
 she looking out the window. 
 
 " Oh, why won't he come ! " she said, impatient. 
 
 And then right away again, " Oh, there he is ! " said 
 Vance. And we saw him coming up the street. 
 
 We looked down the empty street and down over the 
 hill with the dusty shadows of that parched old sum 
 mer afternoon lengthening on its east side on the houses 
 and the fences and the yards. And there came my Uncle 
 Hagar, in his high, old dingy buggy; and his old brown 
 hand bag between his feet, driving poor old Dolly, loose 
 reined, as if there was never a fever nor a danger in the 
 world.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE NIGHT AIR 
 
 4 '"W "IT T ELL," I said to my Uncle Athiel, as I took 
 % /\ I the reins of the horse, and started unhar- 
 T T nessing. *' It's come, like you said it 
 would." 
 
 " Yep," said my Uncle. 
 
 And when I looked around him, I saw he was a different 
 man than he was the night before more like he was 
 naturally. His face was set; his eyes were sharp and 
 beady, like they were when he felt sure of himself. And 
 his old bluish mouth was shut straight across his face, 
 and served notice, when you looked at it, that you get no 
 more words out of it than necessary. 
 
 " Many new cases ? " I tried again. 
 
 " Ten," said my Uncle ; and turned and hitched off to 
 ward the house again, carrying his old brown satchel. 
 I didn't know what he'd been doing with that down town 
 all day. Not collecting rents not on Tuesdays. 
 Maybe he'd been having small change turned into bills. 
 
 He was just as silent during most of the meal time 
 only answering questions ; and then only when he had to. 
 
 The Fever bad? Bad enough. Did he go near it? 
 No. Where was it now? It seemed to be going East; 
 staying up North and East like it did in '73. But you 
 could never tell one thing about it. 
 
 Crowds in the street. Yes the fools ! He saw a 
 lot of them at the bank he said then, getting started 
 
 64
 
 THE NIGHT AIR 65 
 
 taking out money. Putting it in too, some of them 
 the fools. They'd lose every dollar they'd put in. Those 
 banks were busted if you know the truth of it. Those 
 damn scoundrels would get every dollar there was left 
 there by those fools. 
 
 Fools; everybody was fools that night. For a minute 
 or two he got started talking and calling everybody fools 
 especially the folks who were running away and leaving 
 their places empty. 
 
 The fools, he said; when they moved out, the niggers 
 and the thieves just moved in. The town was full of them. 
 And there never were so many niggers standing around the 
 streets, looking, in this world. 
 
 " You take that place yonder," he said, nodding out 
 the window, to that Ventress place, just north across our 
 yard. What were they thinking of, the crazy fools, run 
 ning off like that; and leaving their property empty, just 
 inviting fire and thieves? They might destroy us. They 
 might set us all afire. They would, too, if that house 
 once got agoin'. 
 
 And when Vance said the servants would stay and take 
 care of it : 
 
 " Niggers," my Uncle Hagar told her. " Niggers. 
 How long do you reckon they'll stay there ? One day ! " 
 
 Half the houses in the town would be full of niggers 
 and thieves in two weeks. They'd go in and out. They'd 
 live in them, if they wanted to. For half the police and 
 half the firemen, he claimed, had skipped already. 
 
 " There won't be anybody left in a week or two," he 
 said, " to protect the property here." 
 
 And after that he closed up again and wouldn't talk a 
 bit more than he had to. 
 
 " You won't have to go down town again," Vance said 
 to him.
 
 66 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " No," he said, " not much. I got all my business set 
 tled up. Only one or two more things to-morrow. 
 May be." 
 
 Vance sighed. She knew, and I knew too, he would go 
 and come just when he liked. It was no good talking to 
 him. 
 
 " But after that," said Vance, " you won't have to go 
 down there again." 
 
 "After that," said my Uncle Athiel, "I'll be right 
 here looking after my own property." 
 
 " Then you aren't going away," I said quickly. 
 " You're not going to get out of town." 
 
 " Going, no ! " said my Uncle Hagar, resting his black 
 eyes on me. " What do you take me for? " 
 
 So we sat there again in the high black walnut lined 
 room without talking. It was lighter than the night be 
 fore. The sky was clearer. 
 
 " Most sun down, ain't it ? " said my Uncle, suddenly, 
 and got up. 
 
 " Yes," said Vance. 
 
 " It's time to shut the windows," said my Uncle. 
 
 " Good Lord t " I said under my breath. 
 
 " Only to-night " he said, " we're going to shut them 
 all the upstairs, too." 
 
 " Upstairs ! " I said. 
 
 " Upstairs and down ! " 
 
 " We can't stand it," I said, rising up. 
 
 My Uncle stood and stared at me his eyes sharper 
 than gimlets. 
 
 " It's moonshine, anyway," I said. " Isn't it bad 
 enough with just the downstairs closed? " 
 
 " Are you a fool ? " said my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 "No," I said. "Are you?" 
 
 You know how quick and irritated you get in that
 
 THE NIGHT AIR 67 
 
 weather. And with all the rest to add to the excitement 
 
 the fever and all that, and my quick temper anyway 
 I was ready for murder, I expect, that night. 
 
 " Beavis," said Vance to me. 
 
 " We can't be shut up here not altogether," I said, 
 minding her, and talking lower and apologizing with my 
 voice. 
 
 " It's better, I expect you'll find," said my Uncle Athiel, 
 " than being shut up altogether in a pine box." 
 
 "What is this anyhow?" I said, raising up my voice 
 again. 
 
 " You do it now," said my Uncle Athiel. " And talk 
 about it when you come down." 
 
 So Vance took me upstairs to close the windows, while 
 he saw they were all shut up below. 
 
 "What is this anyhow?" I asked Vance again, going 
 up. 
 
 " The Fever," she explained to me. " Shutting out 
 the Fever like we used to do. Shutting out the night 
 air." 
 
 Lord, how hot it was in that house hotter than the 
 night before hotter when you went upstairs ! Hotter 
 
 a lot hotter in the second story than in the first. You 
 felt it going up. You smelled that old dry dusty smell 
 of furniture and carpets the dyes in them, I expect it 
 is that you smell inside the house those hottest sum 
 mer nights. 
 
 I went back to close my room, while Vance was taking 
 care of hers. I started and slammed down the back 
 window of the two in my room, and started over to the 
 second. And then I stood there watching. For, far up 
 the street, I could see that first old Fever fire burning in 
 the road-way before the Snack house where the woman 
 died. There were fewer buildings then, on our side; you
 
 68 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 could see way up the street. And, tho' it wasn't very 
 dark yet, I could see that fire plain enough. They had 
 fed that Fever fire they set going in the day, and kept it 
 going still, after they had burned the clothes the woman 
 died in, the things the woman touched as she was dying. 
 There was tar in the fire; and some other chemicals, I 
 believe. And I could just catch a faint touch of red, 
 and see, much plainer, over it, the black and greasy smoke, 
 that swung heavily down the street. 
 
 I stood for a minute watching it, with that old feeling 
 of loneliness, that comes over you anyhow, looking out 
 into the twilight, with a big black unlighted house at 
 your back; and I jumped a little when Vance called for 
 me, at my doorway, to go downstairs. 
 
 My Uncle Athiel was there, waiting in the sitting room, 
 when we two came back. 
 
 " Now, sit down ! " he said to me. " Sit down and hold 
 your horses ! And I'll tell you something about this 
 Fever, if you think you want to listen. Sit down ! " he 
 said. 
 
 I sat down, without answering back. Vance had been 
 talking to me when we were coming down from upstairs. 
 
 " You ever seen it? " he said to me. 
 
 " No," I said " no, sir." 
 
 " I have," he said, eying me. " All my life." 
 
 I didn't say anything in answer. 
 
 " And when you know about it," he said ; " you know 
 like I do, there ain't any more danger in it than a kitten. 
 I'm not afraid of it not a particle." 
 
 "Why not, aren't you? " I said. 
 
 " Are you afraid of sun-stroke? " he said. " Do you 
 ever worry about it? " 
 
 " No," I said. " You don't have to get sun-stroke,
 
 THE NIGHT AIR 69 
 
 you don't have to go out where it is. You don't have to 
 go out and stand out in the sunshine." 
 
 " Just precisely. And it's just the same precisely, with 
 this Fever," said my Uncle Athiel. " Only one comes by 
 day and one comes by night ! 
 
 " Now lemme tell you somethin'," my Uncle Hagar said 
 " and it will be worth your while rememberin' : You 
 won't get the sun-stroke, never, not if you keep in out of 
 the sun. And just the same, you won't get the Yellow 
 Fever never if you keep out of this night air. 
 
 " I've seen it, and I've seen it working for more than 
 thirty years ; and I ain't no more afraid of it ; nor half so 
 much as a good hard cold. For you know exactly 
 what to do with it. You know that all you have to do 
 is one simple thing: 
 
 " Keep down your windows after dark ! Keep 'em down 
 till morning comes and shut out that old poison night 
 air ! " said my Uncle Hagar. " That's all. You do that, 
 and you're just as safe as you would be in Alaska. Pro 
 vided that one thing. Provided you just shut up all your 
 windows nights," he said and stopped talking. 
 
 I moved and shifted my chair. And all at once Vance 
 got up and went and stood at the window. I saw what it 
 was right off. She'd caught sight of the Fever fire. It 
 was getting darker and you could see it plainer now. 
 
 " Simple, ain't it? " said my Uncle Hagar. 
 
 I didn't say one word to dispute him. I'd promised 
 Vance I wouldn't. 
 
 " It sounds so," I told him. But I didn't believe it 
 just the same. 
 
 So then my Uncle Hagar went on talking and explain 
 ing more about the Yellow Fever. 
 
 " I know," he said. " I've watched it everywhere
 
 70 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 around this country. You can touch it," he said, " and 
 breathe it ; you can bury 'em, and handle 'em and be with 
 'em all day long. And you'll never catch it. They all 
 know that; it's well known. Any doctor'll tell you. 
 
 " But nights," he said, " look out ! This ^Fever's a 
 night disease. It comes at night. It always strikes 'em 
 first just after midnight always just between the hours 
 of twelve and one. And they're lowest then, after they've 
 got it. And when you ask the doctors why, they don't 
 know why. 
 
 " It's a night disease, that's all," said my Uncle Athiel. 
 " That's all they know. It's a night thing. The Yellow 
 Fever's just as much a part of the night as the moon. 
 
 " It travels," he said ; " it goes traveling on in this old 
 poison night air." 
 
 Vance stood there looking; and I sat still. I could 
 look down past her shoulder, down the street and see the 
 old Fever fire brightening as the daylight grew more dim. 
 The gas lights were few and feeble in those days ; and the 
 fire light, a dull old red, shone plainer and plainer in the 
 deepening dark. It was growing pretty dusky now; the 
 time the last shine of sunset shows white in the eastern 
 window panes. 
 
 " You'll do that," said my Uncle Athiel to me. " Will 
 you?" 
 
 " Do what ? " I asked, looking over toward where Vance 
 was. 
 
 " Keep 'em closed ; keep all your windows closed." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I will," I said. For I had told Vance that 
 I'd agree to anything. 
 
 " For if it once gets in a house," he said, " if it once 
 gets in that's different. You're a goner every 
 body," said my Uncle. " A goner, when it once gets into 
 the house with you."
 
 THE NIGHT AIR 71 
 
 He looked at Vance then, to see if she was going to 
 answer him to promise him about keeping down her 
 windows too. For she only stood there watching, with 
 her face at the window. 
 
 And then, as it happened, when he was watching, that 
 old Fever fire in the street flared up. Somebody'd thrown 
 more stuff on, I expect, to keep it going. It flared and 
 threw an orange light, down the darkened street. 
 
 "What's that!" said my Uncle, jumping to his feet; 
 and hurrying over and standing there back of Vance at 
 the window. And then saw himself what it was. 
 
 "Fools," he said. 
 
 We stood there for a few minutes all of us. I was 
 thinking of the poor woman who was dead, and in the 
 graveyard, and her poor little old clothes and furniture 
 and belongings burned and gone, and traveled out across 
 the town in smoke. 
 
 " The fools ! " said my Uncle suddenly again. " The 
 fools. Judas Iscariot! They might set a fire that way 
 and destroy half the property in this town ! " 
 
 I looked at him, as he stood there staring rigid. 
 
 Property, property always property I All the town 
 half crazy with nerves and fright; death and fear of 
 death stamped on the faces of all other folks. And all 
 the time this one little yellow man, with his eye just set 
 on that same old man's fear for property. 
 
 He said good-night then, and Vance and I listened 
 while he poked upstairs again and locked himself in his 
 Purple Room. 
 
 " You believe that? " I said right off to Vance. 
 
 "What?" she asked. 
 
 " That thing about the Fever." 
 
 " Certainly I do ! " said Vance. 
 
 " Well, I don't," I said.
 
 72 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Certainly, it's true," said Vance. " Any doctor'll 
 tell you so. All these highest educated doctors have 
 studied it all out and they know. They'll tell you it's 
 the night air brings the Yellow Fever." 
 
 " Even if it was," I said, " you couldn't shut it out by 
 putting down a window." 
 
 " Yes, you could," said Vance. " You ask any doctor 
 any doctor in Memphis, and see what he says." 
 
 " I will," I said ; " I'm going to the first chance I get. 
 And I won't believe it till they say so." 
 
 But she was sure and positive, like she always was when 
 she took sides. " They'll tell you," she said, " and they 
 know too. We've got as highly educated doctors here in 
 Memphis as anywhere in this country." 
 
 " How can you shut out the night air? " I asked her. 
 
 " Hundreds of people have, yes, thousands," said 
 Vance. " I know lots of folks myself." 
 
 That old Fever fire shone down the street plainer and 
 plainer now. Its light was quite far away ; but darkness, 
 as it came along, seemed to bring it always nearer to us. 
 I could see the orange light of it now very faint on 
 Vance's face. For we hadn't lit the gaslight yet. We 
 were too busy talking. 
 
 " Do you mean to say," I asked her again, " that you 
 believe all that?" 
 
 " It's just as safe, I believe," said Vance, " as it is in 
 Alaska if you do what he said to do." 
 
 " That wasn't the way you talked this afternoon," I 
 told her. 
 
 " When? " she asked me in an arguing voice. 
 
 " When you were talking of that old Fever you saw 
 before. When you were worrying about your father." 
 
 We stood side by side at the window, so her shoulder 
 touched my arm; and when I spoke again about her fa-
 
 THE NIGHT AIR 73 
 
 ther, all at once I felt her tremble like she had done 
 that afternoon a little shudder pass across her slender 
 body. 
 
 And then, right away, it was all that I could do to hold 
 myself from gathering her in my arms. It was the danger 
 of the thing thinking of the danger from that Fever 
 somehow. It seemed somehow I must protect her and 
 fend it off from her and get her away from it. And 
 still I was mad and irritated at her, too, all at the same 
 time. 
 
 " You lied to me. You know you lied," I cried. " You 
 do fear it ! " We were like two children together, when 
 we thought a thing, out it came. 
 
 " No," she said. " I did not. I did not lie." 
 
 " Do you mean to say," I went along, looking down at 
 her, " you think you're going to stay here ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, defying me. 
 
 " Well, you're not." 
 
 " I am," she cried again. 
 
 " Don't fool yourself. You certainly are not," I said. 
 
 I could see the faint yellow shine of that Fever fire on 
 her smooth, thin cheek. I was scared and mad both at 
 the same time. 
 
 " I am," she said. " You'll see ; so don't let's argue 
 don't let's " 
 
 And all of a sudden her voice had left her like it did 
 sometimes that summer; left her entirely and she was 
 whispering. 
 
 It scared me always, almost out of my wits. 
 
 " God ! " I said in an ugly voice. 
 
 " You're certainly in fine shape to stay here," I said. 
 
 And she not able to talk back, just made a face 
 at me. 
 
 " It's time you went to bed," I said.
 
 74 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 And now, when she held back and objected and refused, 
 I just made her. 
 
 " Up you go ! " I said. 
 
 " I don't want to," said Vance. 
 
 " Come on, Vance, be decent ! " I said to her, and finally 
 she went up and left me there. 
 
 I turned and stared out at the old Fever fire, and tried 
 to think. 
 
 I tried to think the Fever wasn't going to be much ; of 
 how little it was started yet. And how they might be 
 able to hold it down there, as they did in '73, or it might 
 go East as it is headed now. And all I saw was Vance 
 and the faint, faint orange glow of that Fever fire on her 
 face ; and her dark wide eyes watching it ; and her frail 
 ness, and her voice that failed so often that summer since 
 it had come so fierce and hot. And what would happen 
 if the Fever should keep coming on, and coming on to 
 where we were where she was. 
 
 I started to think what would come to me if anything 
 should happen to Vance if she should stay there and 
 get that Fever. And I couldn't; I wouldn't; I couldn't 
 look it in the face ! 
 
 So, all nervous, I jumped up and went upstairs. And 
 I tried to read law some, and I couldn't. And I lay down 
 on the bed, all dressed, and tried to think about my law; 
 for it was so hot in there that I didn't believe that I could 
 sleep. But I couldn't think either. 
 
 I must have got to sleep finally though for all at 
 once I woke up with a big start. It seemed to me I heard 
 the tinkle of a bell, of one of our door bells. That it had 
 waked me up. 
 
 I sat up and listened ; but I didn't hear anything again. 
 And I thought if there was anybody there they'd ring 
 again ; or certainly Vance would hear it she slept so
 
 THE NIGHT AIR 75 
 
 lightly. So finally I thought that I was just dreaming. 
 
 I just thought that I was dreaming and got up and un 
 dressed myself in that baking room. 
 
 " There's one thing, though," I said to myself. " I'd 
 never gone to sleep like that with those windows open, for 
 mosquitoes. They'd have eaten me alive. 
 
 " Vance was right," I said to myself, " about that. 
 And I don't know how much cooler it would be either, 
 sleeping under that mosquito bar with the windows up 
 than it is now in this great high room, without it." 
 
 And after that one night I tried sleeping there without 
 the mosquito bar over the bed. I went around and 
 cleared the room of any mosquitoes that might be in there. 
 And there wasn't but very few. And it was not nearly 
 so bad with that room closed up, as I had at first ex 
 pected. 
 
 It was hot, though, that night and I slept pretty light. 
 
 I didn't hear that bell again that night. I heard the 
 usual noises my Uncle moving late in his big bedroom ; 
 a song or call or two in the streets, and the faint tinkle of 
 a street car. 
 
 The dogs the old alley dogs were hollering across 
 the town again, of course. There was a late moon. I 
 always did hate to hear them those days ; even now 
 I do " talking death," the niggers call it ; on moonlight 
 nights. 
 
 But more than anything besides, that night I re 
 member it even better than that first ring of that little 
 bell was the sound of wheels upon the street.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SOUND OF WHEELS 
 
 ALL night long that sound of wheels never stopped 
 once on the road. I heard them faint and far 
 off, from the hollow paving blocks below on Main 
 Street; and now and then, more occasionally, the rattle 
 and grating of those that went along up our own street; 
 coming slowly up at first, then a little faster, then over 
 the hill, the horses trotting, down the little valley towards 
 the city. They were moving north, most of them to 
 the depot of the railroads to the north ; and from the 
 time of daybreak when I awoke and stayed awake, and 
 lay there listening, that sound of hurrying and restless 
 ness and fear grew and grew to the panic and stampede 
 of that afternoon when the folks all jammed together 
 at the depots all trying to get out of town at once. 
 
 I saw at breakfast time that my Uncle was no better for 
 any sleep that he had that night. He sat silent through 
 the meal; his hand was unsteady as he drank his coffee, 
 and his right eyelid twitched like it did sometimes after 
 he'd passed a sleepless night. And the brown welts which 
 bad nights raise under the eyes of old folks, showed 
 plainly under his. 
 
 We two sat there alone at breakfast, for Vance thought 
 she would rest that morning. And Arabella came in and 
 went out waiting on us. 
 
 And about the only time my Uncle spoke at all, was 
 
 when he looked up and said to Arabella : 
 
 76
 
 THE SOUND OF WHEELS 77 
 
 " Who was it out there last night bothering the dogs ? " 
 
 " I dunno, sah ; I dunno," said Arabella, all unin 
 terested. 
 
 I looked up at them, reminded for the minute of what 
 I thought I'd heard that night before of somebody at 
 the door bell. 
 
 " Somebody was outside there," my Uncle Athiel said, 
 " and has been there for two or three nights now." 
 
 " Yassah, I expect they was. They is quite often 
 some nigger watchin' and prowlin' in that alley, lookin' 
 over yere," said Arabella. 
 
 " You ain't seen him, have you ? " said my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 " No sah, I ain't seen him," said Arabella. " I ain't 
 seen nobody." And her face kept just smooth and still, 
 like it always was. 
 
 My Uncle looked up at her to see if she was lying. 
 
 " No, sah," said Arabella, in a kind of meaning way. 
 " I ain't a watchin' or waitin' for sech things no longer. 
 I ain't been watchin' for no thieves nor money. No 
 sech thing not now ! " 
 
 And then, as if she couldn't help herself, that calm, 
 peaceful, sanctified smile of hers opened wide from side 
 to side of that smooth brown face. 
 
 " They ain't half so human as a good dog," said my 
 Uncle, staring at her, leaving. 
 
 " Some nigger was around. I heard him botherin' the 
 dogs," my Uncle explained to me then. 
 
 " I expect so," I said. 
 
 They are around, always, nights like the cats es 
 pecially when there's a moon. And then, of course, there 
 was that house of ours that always was attracting 
 them. 
 
 That's all we said. My Uncle didn't mention any ring 
 ing of the bell, and I didn't either. For I was more cer-
 
 78 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 tain now than ever that it was just a dream or an im 
 pression I had, waking. Maybe I just heard the street 
 car tinkling in the distance. You can't tell what you'll 
 think when you're half asleep. 
 
 Then after that we got up, and my Uncle called me out 
 in the yard to harness up again. 
 
 " I got to go down town again, after all," he said. 
 " I've got something I've got to clean up. But this is 
 the last day." 
 
 We stood out on the old side porch a minute ; my Uncle 
 stood there leaning on his cane and watched the people 
 going and called them fools again. 
 
 " Fools," he said. " They run out and the thieves and 
 niggers move right in. In two weeks' time there won't 
 be nothing here but nigger thieves." 
 
 They were all getting out, all around us the folks 
 across the street those folks the Ventresses across 
 our yard on the north side. And up the street went that 
 funny old procession of niggers' teams, going hauling 
 trunks to the stations. 
 
 " All stirred up ; all stirred up," said my Uncle Athiel, 
 " and the scum all coming to the top. 
 
 " Come on along," he said. And we started out for 
 the barn and I harnessed up for him. " Lemme tell you 
 somethin'," he said to me, " you're to stay right here to 
 day all day you understand ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said. 
 
 " Stay right here and keep your eye peeled ! You 
 don't know ; you can't tell who'll be around here from now 
 on ! You don't know who's watching now." 
 
 So I said I would. Naturally I had no idea of doing 
 anything else. 
 
 That morning I stayed right there. I did my work 
 what there was to do; read some in my law book; and I
 
 THE SOUND OF WHEELS 79 
 
 looked a whole lot out of my window, and watched the 
 moving on the street. 
 
 The procession kept moving and moving all the morn 
 ing every old thing that went on wheels was out ; all 
 out, carrying the white folks' baggage to the depot. 
 Every rusty old rake of a hack in the place went dashing 
 back and forth, trying to be in two spots at once; and 
 all the niggers, with their little starving rats of horses, 
 perishing with blindness or hip disease, went rambling and 
 rattling with as many trunks as they could stagger to. 
 Everything with wheels was out wheelbarrows and 
 hand-carts; and I remember one little darkey, traveling 
 down the middle of the street, dragging a great trunk 
 after him with a rope just drawing it on its casters. 
 
 By dinner time, when my Uncle got back, the whole 
 thing was going, its wildest, and people were starting for 
 the trains themselves. And there were some folks already 
 but not so much as later coming out in our direc 
 tion from the town, leading dogs and carrying bird-cages 
 in their hands and some of them bedding ; going out 
 from where the Fever was, to find some place out in the 
 suburbs where they could sleep. Like people running 
 from a great fire. They said the sidewalks before the 
 depots were solid full of trunks ; and they said when 
 the trains went out they locked the doors of the cars 
 when they were full, and men just broke the windows open 
 and climbed in. And some sat on the engine, and some 
 up on the roofs of the cars and went out North so. 
 
 My Uncle had seen some of it and he was talking more 
 than ever about fools. 
 
 " The whole town's upside down ; all the crazy fools 
 the lame and halt and blind, and weak-minded, are up and 
 crawling out of the holes and alleys. And all the nig 
 gers in the town standing on the corners looking ! "
 
 80 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 After dinner, he went back again to town himself ; but 
 this time, so he said, it surely would be his last trip 
 there. 
 
 " You mind what I tell you," he said, driving out. 
 " You stay right here." 
 
 And I said, of course, I would. 
 
 I stood watching him, and afterward I went out in 
 front, and watched there. 
 
 There certainly were enough queer folks going by. 
 Fear, like my Uncle said, was driving strange things out 
 of the holes and alleys ; and everywhere, if you kept your 
 eye out, you saw the niggers watching standing, watch 
 ing. 
 
 I stood there, looking down the street, from the front 
 of the yard, under one of the little magnolia trees, watch 
 ing. And right after that, I made my bad mistake, with 
 out the slightest purpose and meaning to make it. 
 
 I was standing there, only just a little while when I 
 heard the whistle of the doctor, the old cracked Arkansas 
 Traveler tune, coming up the street. And right away I 
 said to myself: 
 
 " There's the man. There's the man can tell me about 
 the Fever about this business of shutting out the Fever 
 nights. Yes, and what we're going to do about Vance." 
 
 For I was thinking about her, naturally, all the morn 
 ing. Especially when I saw she didn't feel like coming 
 down to breakfast again. 
 
 The whistling stopped, and I knew the doctor had got 
 into his buggy; and I saw him coming down by us, going 
 down to visit that old lady that patient of his down the 
 side street. 
 
 So I stepped down on the walk and waited for him. 
 
 " I want to talk to you," I said. " I've got to talk 
 to you."
 
 81 
 
 " Well, I tell you what you do," he said finally. " I'm 
 going down here a minute. I'll walk the rest of the way, 
 and you get in with Mungo, and he'll drive you down to 
 my house. And by that time, I'll be through here, and 
 he'll come back and get me. How's that? " 
 
 I told him that'd be all right. Just like me. I just 
 didn't think not one thing about leaving the house open. 
 Only one thought in my mind always. I was just think 
 ing about Vance and the Fever. What I was going to 
 do about getting her out. 
 
 So, like a fool, I got right in, and drove off with Uncle 
 Mungo, without even telling Vance. 
 
 " Yessah, yessah," he said, cramping the wheel to let 
 me in. 
 
 " Lots o' travelin' to-day lots o' travelin'," said 
 Uncle Mungo, making conversation. He was the nicest 
 old darkey that ever lived. 
 
 The teams were still going by us up the street. 
 
 " Mr. Willy's mighty busy these days," said Uncle 
 Mungo. He called the doctor that always Mr. Willy. 
 They do that those old family niggers call their folks 
 by their old baby names until they die. I expect the 
 doctor was sixty then, if he was a day. 
 
 " I expect he is," I said not thinking much about 
 what he was talking of. 
 
 " Does you think we's goin' to have a right smart of 
 this Fever? " he asked me, and I looked up, kind of quick. 
 
 " I'm afraid so" I said. 
 
 " Yessah," said Uncle Mungo, in a kind of dismal voice. 
 '* I'm afraid so too. I agree with you. I'm afraid so 
 too." 
 
 He was always agreeing with you the politest nigger 
 you ever saw. An old Virginia house nigger entirely 
 different kind from the cornfield niggers, and especially
 
 83 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 those ones around us, down the river in Mississippi and 
 Arkansas. They talked a different kind of language 
 even. 
 
 " Mr. Willy'll be powerful busy, I do expect," he said, 
 and sighed. " He'll go right into it. He'll go right 
 where it's the worst." 
 
 And after that he sat quiet in his corner of the buggy 
 and didn't say much. But I naturally saw what he was 
 thinking of about his Mr. Willy. Then he let me out 
 at the house. And I didn't wait very long, though it 
 seemed so. For right away he was back again, and the 
 doctor came bustling into the big old rambling parlor 
 where I was sitting in that low, old fashioned parlor, 
 with the oil portraits of the Greathouses on the walls 
 and wanted to know what he could do for me. 
 
 I hadn't sat down ; I was standing and walking around. 
 I'd got thinking about Vance again. 
 
 " Hello. Sit down," he said, spatting me between my 
 shoulders with his great hand. 
 
 But I didn't ; I simply stood up. " I want to ask you 
 straight," I said, going right at him. " Is it any good 
 for the Fever, to shut down the windows ? " 
 
 " What windows ? " said the doctor. 
 
 " Why the windows of the house, naturally," I said. 
 
 " Sit down," said the doctor. " Sit down. Stop wear 
 ing out my carpet. Sit down, and let's try to find out 
 what you're talking about." 
 
 So I sat down and told him about our windows. 
 
 " Is it any good? " I said. " Will it do any good? " 
 
 " I don't know," he said. 
 
 "Don't know!" I said, jumping up. "What are you 
 a doctor for? " 
 
 " It might," he said. " Sit down. Sit still. Let me 
 feast my eyes on you in peace."
 
 THE SOUND OF WHEELS 83 
 
 " Then it is the air," I said, and I told him how my 
 Uncle talked about the poisoned night air. 
 
 " That's right," he said. " That's all right. There's 
 something that carries it in the night air." 
 
 " You sure? " I asked. 
 
 " Sure, there's nothing surer." 
 
 " At midnight ? " I asked. " It always comes at mid 
 night? " 
 
 " Yes. Nine cases out of ten." 
 
 " Just by night? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What is it ? " I said, looking sharply. 
 
 " I don't know," he answered me. 
 
 " What are doctors for? " I said. I was pretty bump 
 tious then when I got excited. 
 
 " I don't know," he said. " You don't expect them to 
 know much, do you? " 
 
 And I looked to see him laugh again and smile, but he 
 didn't either. 
 
 " Don't they call you an authority on the Yellow 
 Fever? " I said. 
 
 "I don't know," he said. "Do they? You tell me. 
 All that I know is that I'm not one." 
 
 But still I didn't see the faintest fraction of a smile on 
 him. 
 
 " Nor anybody else," he said. 
 
 Then he got up on his feet, and started out to walk 
 himself. 
 
 " Lord," he said suddenly. " I wish that I did know. 
 I wish to God that I could tell you, son ! " 
 
 He went walking up and down, walking up and down. 
 
 I was astonished. I never saw him act so wrought up 
 before. 
 
 "Right there," he said. "Right there!" And
 
 84 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 stopped and reached out with his hand. " Right there, 
 just at your finger tips, just always there. 
 
 " And when you think you'll reach it, when you're going 
 to close your hand on it," he said; and grabbed with his 
 great hand a handful of empty air, " it slips away. It's 
 gone! You haven't got it. No. It's always out just 
 out beyond your reach. 
 
 " And some day," he said and stopped in front of 
 me, explaining : " some day there's somebody's . going to 
 find it out blunder on it, get it somehow. That thing, 
 that thing there in the air that none of us can ever reach. 
 
 " Good God," he said, letting his great arm drop again. 
 " I'd rather be that man " he stopped and looked at me 
 again, and I could see the wrinkles come gathering back 
 in the corners of his eyes once more. 
 
 " Than George Washington," he said " or Julius 
 Caesar or maybe Cleopatra or Bob Ingersoll ! " 
 
 And so he passed it off at last, like he did everything 
 else, with a joke. 
 
 " This Fever is it going to be bad this time ? " I said, 
 going on after a while, then, " Are you we going to have it 
 very bad ? " 
 
 " It don't look too good to me," he said, " all running 
 and scattering the way they are running and stirring 
 it in all through the town like stirring baking powder 
 in a cake." 
 
 " Well then," I said, back pounding to where I started 
 from ; " what do you say about this thing? What do you 
 say about this shutting up of windows nights? Is it any 
 good?" 
 
 " It might be," said Dr. Greathouse. He was sitting 
 down again. " And sleeping up in the third story too. 
 There's a lot of the old timers around here will tell you 
 both things.
 
 THE SOUND OF WHEELS 85 
 
 " It might be," he said, while I was still looking at him, 
 keeping my old quick tongue between my teeth. " It 
 might be, if you could keep 'em shut all the time every 
 night and all night long like you could a glass jar. 
 This night air carries it not a doubt of that. But can 
 you do it? Can you always keep them closed? " 
 
 " We could try," I said. 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor, and for the minute we 
 stopped. 
 
 " Much obliged for telling me," I said. " Thank you ! 
 But look here," said I, " what I'm waiting to find out 
 about is this, right here now about ourselves : Is it going 
 to be safe for us to stay that way or is it not? Tell me 
 that." 
 
 " Why don't you go? " said Dr. Greathouse, watching 
 me. 
 
 " Ask him," I said. 
 
 "Ask who?" 
 
 " Why don't you ask my Uncle Athiel? " 
 
 The doctor stopped and thought a second or two. 
 
 " I reckon I don't have to," he said and whistled 
 underneath his breath. 
 
 And finally he asked of me : " What does he say about 
 it? How does he act? " 
 
 So I told him ; and I told him all of it for I was 
 frank and open with him always ; he had been a good friend 
 to me. I told him all about it the thieves and fire ; 
 and the windows and Vance and all. And all that talk 
 of " Property." And he listened, looking down, drum 
 ming with his fingers. 
 
 "What has he got there do you expect?" asked 
 Dr. Greathouse, looking up. 
 
 " That Grummit's Bank they talk about," he said 
 prompting me, when I didn't catch him first.
 
 86 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. I never knew. I never thought 
 it was my business to." 
 
 " Something," he said, his lips upon his joined first 
 fingers. " There isn't all this talk for nothing." 
 
 And then we both sat still; and he was next to speak 
 again. 
 
 " No, he won't go," he said, as if the thing was certain 
 in his mind. 
 
 " They never do. You never saw one of those old 
 misers," he went along. He always called a spade a 
 spade; and if you didn't like him you could get another 
 doctor. ** You never saw one of them you could drive 
 out of the house he's got settled down and fastened in. 
 And the more that the Fever comes, the worse it gets 
 here " 
 
 " The more he will stay right there," I broke in, for I 
 had figured that out myself. " Fire and thieves ! " I said. 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor. " Fire and thieves. The 
 more the rest go out, the more he'll stay there watching 
 out for fire and thieves. That's reasonable to expect." 
 
 " Look here," I said. " He's got to go, if it's going 
 to be as bad as you say it is. He's got to go ; and some 
 body's got to make him. You, for instance. You might 
 do it." 
 
 " No," said Dr. Greathouse. 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " No," the doctor said, " this thing has got him." 
 
 "What thing?" I said. 
 
 " Something stronger than you or I," he said " or 
 he is." 
 
 And I told him that I didn't see exactly what he meant. 
 
 " You can call it what you want to," said Dr. Great- 
 house. " A Succubus, maybe that's what they'd call it 
 once, I reckon."
 
 THE SOUND OF WHEELS 87 
 
 " A what ! " I said. I wasn't very well read then, at 
 twenty-one. I've done the reading that I have done 
 mostly since. 
 
 " A Succubus," said Dr. Greathouse, laughing. " A 
 thing that comes and sits down on you, and rides you, and 
 holds you till you die ! And kills you finally sucks out 
 your life from you." 
 
 " Another nigger idea," I said, looking. 
 
 " No," said the doctor, laughing in his old good na- 
 tured laugh " some other savages ourselves, a few 
 generations back." 
 
 And I was ashamed of myself, when he said it, I remem 
 ber, for not knowing. I was afraid of him, anyhow, a 
 little, when he got talking that way. He was a very 
 highly educated man, and I knew it. And I was a good 
 deal of an ignoramus myself. And I knew that too. So 
 I didn't say much then just sat still. 
 
 " But they're real enough," the doctor went along. 
 " I've seen 'em by the hundred. We most all of us get 
 one as we grow older that holds us down, and feeds on 
 us, and kills us finally." 
 
 " You're getting in too deep for me," I said. 
 
 " That gets you, and holds you," said the doctor, 
 " Like your Uncle held here, for example. You don't 
 see anything that's holding him here, do you? Noth 
 ing you can touch with your bare hand? " 
 
 "'No," I told him. 
 
 " And yet, wild horses couldn't drive him out of there," 
 he said " when everybody knows he ought to go ! " 
 
 " No," I said " not if you mean it in that way." 
 
 " I do," said Dr. Greathouse. " I certainly do. I 
 mean a Succubus. I scarcely ever go into a house, where 
 I don't see one feeding." 
 
 " Ah-hah ! " I said. " I don't take much stock myself,
 
 88 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 in these invisible things you can't take up and handle in 
 your hands." 
 
 He got up then, all of a sudden, from his chair so 
 quick that he startled me. He was that way sometimes 
 very unexpected. 
 
 " You're right," he said. " You're right, son. Here 
 I'm going around traveling in my mind again. And you 
 just waiting naturally to find out what to do ! " 
 
 " That's it," I said. 
 
 " I'm tired, I expect worn out and useless," the doc 
 tor said, apologizing. " Old and tired and useless. 
 
 " But that'll do ; that'll be all ! " he said sweeping his 
 hand across his eyes. " From now on let's talk sense, 
 like real men do. 
 
 " He'll stay ! " said Dr. Greathouse, briskly then. 
 " Your Uncle won't get away. We can count on that 
 much anyhow." 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " I expect we'll count on that," he said again. " And 
 you? " he turned and asked me. " Will you be going? " 
 
 " Well I don't love him very much," I said. 
 
 " No, I expect you don't," the doctor said. 
 
 " But nobody is ever going to say about me," I said, 
 " that I quit him. No. I'd stay, I expect, if the devil 
 himself were staying there if he was as old and feeble 
 as he is now in that great house alone. I won't have 
 folks saying about me 
 
 " No," said the doctor, and grinned. " No, I don't 
 expect you would," the doctor said at last and grinned. 
 
 " What are you grinning at? " I asked him. 
 
 " Nothing," he said, " I was just wondering what holds 
 you here. Nothing you can see or touch with your bare 
 hand." 
 
 " Damn me" I said, thinking all the time of Vance.
 
 THE SOUND OF WHEELS 89 
 
 "But the little girl," he said, talking to himself, 
 " maybe we could get her out." 
 
 " We've got to, that's certain," I said. 
 
 We will," the doctor said. " We'll do it if there's 
 nothing ties her here too." 
 
 He made me nervous, harping on that thing that 
 idea of his, about being tied there. 
 
 " I'll come to-morrow," he said then, " and see what I 
 can do to get her out." 
 
 " She oughtn't be here," I said, " had she? " 
 
 " Nothing could be worse," he said. 
 
 " I'll go and see your Uncle about her," said the doctor. 
 " I'll find some excuse. I'll tell him I'm advising all my 
 patients to get out. I am too," he said. 
 
 So I shook his hand half off, and I came away not 
 thinking then how long I'd been there. 
 
 " You keep your fingers off, you young hot-head," said 
 the doctor, " till I see the old man. Till I can see him 
 anyway." 
 
 So I hurried back remembering, all at once, when I 
 got headed home! I knew then, when I thought, that I 
 oughtn't to have come there in the first place. But I 
 was bound to go anyhow, I expect ; bound to know what 
 that doctor had to tell me. 
 
 I ran up the steps in the yard from the street ; and up 
 into the side door. And there in the hall just coming 
 down from upstairs, was my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 There was my Uncle Athiel coming toward me. And 
 he was panting, and his collar was just melted and run 
 down his neck ; and his eyes down to no bigger than a 
 pencil point shining like a snake's eyes underneath his 
 yellow lids. 
 
 " By the great right handed Son of God," he said loud 
 and strong and stopped to look at me.
 
 90 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " You certainly are a good and faithful servant 1 " he 
 went on, in a little mincing, sneering voice. 
 
 And turned his back on me and walked away as if I 
 wasn't fit to look at. 
 
 What had happened? I didn't know. I could only 
 guess and fear it. And I followed him around afterward, 
 trying to find out. 
 
 "What have I done?" I asked. "If I've done any 
 thing that I can change, it's your duty to let me know." 
 
 But he wouldn't say a word about it. 
 
 I wasn't sure that anything had happened. 
 
 All I saw that night was that we were being held there, 
 by this thing that was holding him, day after day, while 
 that Yellow Fever came crawling up to us from the city.
 
 BOOK III 
 THE SECRET ROOMS
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SIGNS AND MYSTERIES 
 
 IF anybody'd come to me that night and said: 
 " What's this thing like you're so afraid of? " I ex 
 pect I couldn't quite told him. It lay over there 
 that Fever over there, in the city, out of sight. I'd 
 never seen it in all my life. All that I'd ever seen were 
 those fires at night, and the hurrying and the faces of 
 the folks who were running away. All I felt, I expect, 
 was the fear of the fear I saw in other faces. But that 
 next morning I had a different idea. 
 
 They tried to tell us still that they had the Fever 
 checked ; that it was going east, if anywhere and then 
 only very slowly ; and that there was nothing for us to be 
 afraid of at all. But I never believed them after that 
 third day ; I never had the slightest comfort or confidence. 
 For it was that next morning that the Dead Wagon went 
 by us for the first time. 
 
 It was another clear, hot morning yellow and green 
 the yellow early sun, and green shadows beneath the 
 trees, and that old brown, soft-coal smoke from the 
 kitchen chimneys floating in the air between them. I was 
 up a little early. And so I stepped out on the porch to 
 get a mouthful of cool, morning moisture, before that 
 old hot sun had drunk it all away. 
 
 And there, ahead of me, was Arabella, upon the side 
 
 porch, making little dabs with her broom, looking 
 
 93
 
 94 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 down the street. I heard the clack of an axle, I looked 
 down and I saw the Dead Wagon come crawling up over 
 the hill. 
 
 It was nothing much to look at. Nothing but a com 
 mon old furniture wagon, drawn by two mules, two fine, 
 fat, sleepy mules; sleek and lazy, and all fixed up with 
 those old cow-tails those old-time niggers used to put on 
 their harnesses. 
 
 They dragged up slowly, their ears wagging back and 
 forth to their walking. And on the seat above them sat 
 that nigger we heard so much of afterwards that 
 " Make-Haste Mose " that hurried so with the dead. 
 
 There were only two coffins on that first morning two 
 yellow pine coffins side by side in the furniture wagon. 
 Two paupers, going down to the Potter's Field, way out 
 south of town. 
 
 Arabella and I stood watching them come by. The 
 negro Mose sat up there, lounging in his seat, eating a 
 piece of cold bacon and corn bread, it looked like, for 
 breakfast. 
 
 It was all common looking enough. They went by like 
 any old furniture wagon; and the coffins were pretty 
 well out of sight in the wagon. But I stood and stared 
 like a man in a trance. But it was for that reason, I 
 believe, that I noticed that first time those little black 
 spots those little black shiny spots, that spattered on 
 the pavement of the roadway underneath the wagon. 
 
 The wind was away from me, thank God. There was 
 only one single puff of that monstrous odor. 
 
 But then I looked again, and saw, shining in the sun 
 the first time that I ever saw them that little golden 
 trail of flies. The sun was quite low still ; and there was 
 still some moisture in the air; and the yellow sunlight 
 touched their wings. You saw, when it came back of
 
 SIGNS AND MYSTERIES 95 
 
 them, this little golden swarm, that danced, and played, 
 and shifted places as it followed in behind the wagon. 
 
 " God," I said, when I caught the meaning of it. 
 " Those flies." 
 
 I thought that I was talking to myself. But I couldn't 
 have been. I must have spoken it out loud, for: 
 
 " Yassah," said Arabella right away. 
 
 My eyes turned toward her, like they would to any hu 
 man creature in a time like that I believe for com 
 pany. 
 
 She stood there, looking studying. 
 
 " Yassah," she said, in her soft, peaceful voice. 
 " Them's green flies ! " 
 
 I looked toward them, and back into her smooth, brown 
 face. She stood there, looking off then; looking off, like 
 she saw something you couldn't see off there. 
 
 " Them's green flies old green flies. Just the same's 
 He sent down on them ol' 'Gyptians for signs and warn 
 ings." 
 
 I watched into those big brown eyes of hers - and 
 something, all of a sudden, seemed to take hold of her. 
 She smiled, like she had done before; but more more 
 kind of radiant and rapturous, like something had been 
 suddenly lighted up inside of her. 
 
 " Signs and mysteries," she said, looking out behind 
 me. " Signs and mysteries ! " she said again, in an old 
 shaky voice. 
 
 And I didn't say a word watching where it would 
 carry her. 
 
 "Watch out!." she said "watch out. Ev'ybody. 
 Watch out! Signs and myst'ries, comin' now! Comin' 
 like they come down on them ol' 'Gyptians ! " 
 
 Then all at once she raised her eyes, and the smile 
 stopped where it was; and she shut up. I looked back
 
 96 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 behind her, and there was Vance there on the threshold 
 back of me, looking toward the street. The old Dead 
 Wagon was just disappearing around the house. I hoped 
 she didn't see it. I'd given anything rather than have 
 her to. 
 
 " Arabella," said Vance. " You better be getting 
 breakfast on the table." 
 
 " Yas'am," said Arabella, and went along in. 
 
 " You can't get any work out of her these days," said 
 Vance. 
 
 " I reckon not," I said, smiling. 
 
 " She just stands looking. What was she looking at 
 just now?" asked Vance. "What was she talking 
 about?" 
 
 And I told her finally. 
 
 " What is it she's continually staring and looking out 
 the window for? " I asked her. 
 
 *' It's that woman that negro woman from Arkan 
 sas who was prophesying the destruction of Memphis here 
 last winter," Vance explained. 
 
 I hadn't heard of it not to understand it. 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Vance, " didn't you hear about that 
 woman from up over there in Arkansas, who was fore 
 telling that this year was the year Memphis was going 
 to be destroyed and swallowed up in the ground ? " 
 
 I hadn't heard it, but I understood. Once in so often 
 one of these religious niggers a woman generally gets 
 started out prophesying that the earth or the city is go 
 ing to be destroyed. They go around on street corners, 
 and on the church steps, and sometimes in the churches 
 themselves some of them. 
 
 And most generally it starts up a great to-do and 
 excitement among the niggers or in a part of them 
 anyhow. You can say what you want to, about the nig-
 
 SIGNS AND MYSTERIES 97 
 
 gers, but they're a mighty religious race. The only thing 
 is that what they believe the ordinary run of them 
 is so mighty strange and different from other folks. They 
 won't ever tell about it much, if they can help it only 
 fool you. But sometimes, when you get one right, you 
 can get him to tell you some things they really do believe, 
 way down under. 
 
 They believe, every one of them, they're God's people, 
 just like the old Jews. And they believe, in a kind of 
 way, that the Old Bible is talking about them when it 
 talks about the Jews. And King Solomon was a black 
 man. They'll show you that right there in the Bible. 
 And some of them, I know for certain, say Christ was 
 black ; and I believe yes, I know there's plenty of 
 them think that God is black a big black God, watch 
 ing specially after His black people, and punishing their 
 enemies and oppressors. 
 
 And every now and then, there's one of them, like I say, 
 gets up and prophesies a woman generally. And a 
 big cloud's coming up, and the winds will blow and the 
 trumpets. And the black angels will rise out of the 
 ground, and the sinful city will be destroyed; or the old 
 sinful world will come to an end and the great black 
 God will sort out the wicked and righteous forever. For 
 Heaven's right there, they think, right over your head 
 a lot nearer than Texas is on the railroad train. And 
 any time that black hand's liable to reach out of a thunder 
 cloud up over you and close up heaven and earth 
 together, like a fan. 
 
 " But why should she smile about it, Vance? " I asked. 
 
 " Why, don't you see? " she said. " They aren't going 
 to suffer those ones like Arabella. They aren't going 
 to die. They're sanctified. They're just going to be 
 translated right up to Heaven. Drawn up by white
 
 98 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 horses this last woman says. They're going to be 
 saved forever. 
 
 " And St. Michael," said Vance, " will stand upon the 
 custom house, and Gabriel on the levee and blow their 
 horns. And the city of Memphis will sink into the ground 
 and will be swallowed up and destroyed." 
 
 " Is that true? " I asked. " Did she say that? " 
 
 "Yes, perfectly," said Vance. "That's what she 
 said." 
 
 And so at last, that third day of the Fever I got to 
 understand what it was the negress stood and watched to 
 see coming up over our hillside from the city. Death for 
 us, but not for her. For her, white garments, and sit 
 ting at the Right Hand forevermore. 
 
 And so after that, we went into breakfast and sat down 
 with my Uncle Hagar. 
 
 I looked to see my Uncle ugly, after what I had done 
 whatever I had done that day before. He was that. 
 But he was more than that. Generally he would not have 
 spoken to me until he got good and ready, but when he 
 did speak, he would be straight and ugly and downright. 
 Now he seemed to me, that very first morning, to be dif 
 ferent to have changed. That day, and those days 
 afterward, he went around with his head down. There 
 wasn*t a word out of him to me, at any rate. He 
 wouldn't look up or speak to me unless he had to, for 
 something he had got to have done. He just seemed to 
 avoid me entirely. 
 
 He didn't go off of the premises any more none of 
 us did that now ; and only very little out of doors. From 
 that time on he was in the house, principally; and nearly 
 always in the Purple Room shut up in that great Pur 
 ple Room where he slept, and in the little anteroom to it,
 
 SIGNS AND MYSTERIES 99 
 
 which he had made into a kind of office where he could 
 keep his accounts. 
 
 After breakfast that morning, right away he disap 
 peared there ; and it was only after knocking several times 
 that I got him down to see Dr. Greathouse, when he came 
 to call on him, like he told me he would. And finally my 
 Uncle did poke his head out of the door, and ask what it 
 was. And I got him finally to go downstairs. 
 
 Just what the doctor said to him, I don't know. For 
 they went in together to Mr. Bozro's old study, at the 
 back of the side hall, and shut the door. I expect he 
 told him, like he told me that he would, the day before 
 just before I left him that he was going around telling 
 all his patients they would better get out of town if they 
 were able to ; and that Vance ought to go anyhow, Fever 
 or no Fever. And certainly, now, that the Fever had 
 come. 
 
 They came out of there after a while, and my Uncle 
 had agreed then that Vance should go. I could tell, both 
 by the way they talked, and by what the doctor was say 
 ing to him coming out. 
 
 " You'd better all go. You'd better go yourself," he 
 said. 
 
 " Go," said my Uncle. " Go ! That's easy said. 
 
 " I want to tell you something," he said, moving near 
 him, in a kind of secret way. " I've got to stay here. 
 I've got to save what little property I've got left. I'm 
 ruined near enough the way it is." 
 
 " Better ruined than buried," the doctor said. 
 
 " I don't know about that," said my Uncle, looking him 
 in the face. " I don't know. It ain't so different." 
 
 He watched after the doctor, as he rolled away out of 
 the yard, whistling again, of course but kind of softly 
 and got into his buggy beside of old Mungo.
 
 100 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 And then my Uncle went upstairs again, and I didn't 
 see him out of his room all morning. 
 
 All the afternoon it was the same; he kept out of sight 
 in his own room. Vance was in her room resting. And 
 I was up in mine, trying to read my law, and not succeed 
 ing. Lord, how hot those long summer afternoons were 
 that we had then ! Long enough any time in that country 
 
 with the old white sun on the streets ; and the river 
 glittering under it, white as the shine of a new tin pan; 
 and those old locusts groaning and rasping in the mag 
 nolias; and even the birds in the trees gaping from the 
 heat. You can't work, you can't read, and you can't 
 rest. You just sit there. And that time, when we sat 
 there waiting and watching for the Fever, strange ideas 
 got simmering in your head. They were no good to 
 you; only harm. You knew that. But on they went, 
 just the same; you couldn't stop them. 
 
 I got thinking about that old Dead Wagon, and its 
 wake of golden flies ; of this invisible poison, that filled the 
 air every night around us and wondering how far it 
 had got now. And of Vance, and of how tired she looked, 
 and when my Uncle was going to send her away, and 
 whether she would go when he told her to. 
 
 That afternoon he didn't speak, nor at supper time ; 
 and it was evening again, and the windows closed ; and 
 Vance and I in the sitting room before he walked in and 
 told us she had got to go. 
 
 She was standing by the window again looking out 
 
 like we did all those evenings after that, toward the 
 city. She just laughed at him when he told her. 
 
 " I want you to go," he said. " And the doctor does. 
 He says you've got to go." 
 
 But his voice wasn't very determined talking to her.
 
 SIGNS AND MYSTERIES 101 
 
 " What do I care what the doctor says," said Vance, 
 and I looked at her sharp and mad. 
 
 " I believe you ought to," said my Uncle, but kind of 
 indifferent, like he was repeating something he had been 
 told to. 
 
 " You aren't going, are you? " Vance asked him. 
 
 " No," he said. " I can't go." 
 
 " And you haven't changed your mind, either, have you? 
 You think you're safe still if you stay here and close up 
 the windows nights? " 
 
 " I know I am," said my Uncle Hagar, talking up 
 louder and more positive, like he did naturally. 
 
 " Then why should I go ? I'll stay and see you keep 
 your windows shut," said Vance, and laughed a little, and 
 turned, looking down again. 
 
 That night there were two or three fever fires again, 
 whose reflections we could see from the window. And one 
 of them, which came up while we stood there especially 
 bright. It was down underneath, lower than we were. 
 We couldn't see the fire itself, only the reflection of it on 
 the face and cornice of a brick block opposite it. An 
 orange flame, that rose and fell, and shifted the black 
 shadows on the rosy brick. It was newly lighted just 
 lighted bright and fresh. 
 
 " What's that ! " said my Uncle Athiel in a bigger 
 voice going over close beside Vance. 
 
 He stood watching it. 
 
 " That's nearer ! " he said, sharply. " That's nearer ! " 
 
 He was right. It was nearer nearest of any yet. 
 The light, upon their faces and the window, shone quite 
 distinctly now the light from that reflection, when two 
 nights before, from up the street, it was just barely no 
 ticeable on Vance's cheek.
 
 102 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 The Fever, I saw it, with a jump at my heart, was no 
 longer going east. It was turning south now, toward 
 us. 
 
 " See that ! " my Uncle cried out, watching. " See 
 that ! The fools they'll have the town afire yet. 
 They'll burn up all the property in it." 
 
 And right away he turned and started straight up 
 stairs, the idea of getting Vance to go clean gone out of 
 his mind. 
 
 We two stood there, and saw that orange light rise and 
 fall on the face of the old block fading dimmer now, 
 than when it was just set. And you could see in your 
 mind's eye, down in the street which was hidden out of 
 real eyesight the dead person whose clothes were burn 
 ing there in his house ; and the fresh coffin at the door ; 
 and the nurse maybe, leaving the empty house, where the 
 other folks had all gone away. And Make-Haste Mose 
 hurrying up in there to take charge. 
 
 " And now," I said to myself, " it certainly is turning 
 down this way." 
 
 I shivered. I couldn't help it; and especially when I 
 could see plain almost as the shine of the moon that orange 
 light before me on a cross frame of the window; and 
 across Vance's thin cheek again. 
 
 " What is this foolishness ? " I said. " You're goin', 
 like the doctor said you would." My voice sounded high 
 and sharp, even to myself. 
 
 " No, I'm not," said Vance. 
 
 " The doctor said so ! " I said again. 
 
 " What do I care about the doctor," said she. " What 
 does he know about it any more than anybody else? " 
 
 "What do you mean?" I asked, astonished. I never 
 did understand women anyhow. And I don't believe I 
 ever shall.
 
 SIGNS AND MYSTERIES 103 
 
 " What do you mean ? Only two days ago you said the 
 doctors knew all there was about it especially these 
 doctors here in Memphis, and now you say " 
 
 " I believe my father knows," said Vance. " I believe 
 he wouldn't say that about closing up the house, staying 
 here, unless he was sure that it was safe." 
 
 " What does he know about it? " I said. 
 
 " Don't let's talk about it any more," said Vance. And 
 her voice began to sound tired again. 
 
 I looked at her that slender thing ; that frail crea 
 ture. You could take her in your hands, and break her 
 into pieces. You could, but you wouldn't. That's the 
 thing that drives me mad with women. She could 
 stand and defy you forever indefinitely laugh at you. 
 Not because she was strong but just because she was 
 weak. Her weakness was the weapon that she beat you 
 with. I looked at her and listened to her foolishness 
 and I was so mad I almost cried. Just helpless mad. 
 
 " I'll carry you away if I have to," I said. " I'll take 
 you away by force." 
 
 " Don't be silly," said Vance, laughing in my face. 
 " What could you do? I could come right back." 
 
 "You'd come right back," I said. "You'd Oh, 
 you drive me crazy. Haven't you any sense? " 
 
 " Just as much as you have," said Vance. " And just 
 as good a reason why I should stay." 
 
 And I said, naturally, I didn't see it. 
 
 " Do you think I'd go before my father went? " she 
 said. " Do you think I could? " 
 
 " All right, then," I replied, talking wild like a boy 
 does. " He's got to go ; then he's got to go too ! I'll see 
 to that myself. I'll make him go." 
 
 " Beavis," said Vance, " why have you always got to 
 tear the house down? Why don't you have some reason
 
 104 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 about you? Don't you know we never can get him away, 
 if you start at him like that? Don't you know you'll 
 spoil everything? " Her voice rose while she was talk 
 ing, and her big eyes looked me through sharp like her 
 father's. 
 
 " Spoil everything ! " I said, confused again. " Spoil 
 everything ! But you don't want to go," I said to her. 
 
 " Who said I didn't? " said Vance. 
 
 " You did," I said, " just now. You said you wouldn't. 
 It was perfectly safe here." 
 
 " No, I never said anything of the kind, never," said 
 Vance. And I stood staring at her. 
 
 " If you didn't just say that," I said, " I'll " 
 
 " Oh, don't let's argue. It just tires me," said Vance. 
 " That's all." 
 
 I saw she was right. I saw her voice was getting 
 huskier and tireder. I knew I had to stop. There was 
 nothing else for me to do but to stop beaten by her 
 weakness. 
 
 Just stop standing there, four times stronger than she 
 was, helpless. So mad that I could have just jumped up 
 and down ! 
 
 There was this, though, in what she said. It would be 
 the worst kind of foolishness for me to try and get my 
 Uncle Hagar to do anything the way he felt and acted 
 toward me that day. It would just hinder what I wanted, 
 instead of helping it. 
 
 Afid we stayed there, saying nothing, standing by the 
 window. 
 
 And as we did, we both of us turned suddenly, listening, 
 for we heard my Uncle unlocking and opening his door to 
 the Purple Room again; and coming out into the hall. 
 We stood and listened. And he unlocked another door. 
 We heard his feet upon the staircase.
 
 SIGNS AND MYSTERIES 105 
 
 " He's going up into the third floor," said Vance 
 and still we heard him going and still another door be 
 ing opened, and his feet on other stairs. 
 
 " He's gone up into the tower," said Vance, excitedly. 
 
 " Did you ever know him to go there before? " I asked, 
 listening. 
 
 " Never, I believe. Never. Not till yesterday," said 
 Vance. " Not till yesterday just before you came in." 
 
 " You know those stories? " 
 
 " Yes, I know them," said Vance, her eyes shifting off 
 from mine, so I saw she didn't want to talk of it. 
 
 " I want to ask you something," she asked me, after 
 waiting. " Did he seem to you to act different to-day? " 
 
 " How did he seem to you ? " I asked her back. 
 
 " Suspicious, kind of. Always keeping off and avoid 
 ing me." 
 
 " Did he act that way to you, too? " I said, surprised. 
 
 For I'd thought that it was only toward me that he 
 acted so. 
 
 " Yes," said Vance, " I can't do a thing with him 
 not now. He won't even look at me."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TOWER 
 
 I NEVER see one of those old vacant towers on top 
 of a private house, but I start thinking of my 
 Uncle Athiel in that tower of his during the Yellow 
 Fever time. 
 
 What do they build them for those towers, do you 
 know? Nobody ever uses them. They just stand there, 
 always empty, always useless a kind of summer house 
 for spiders ; spiders and dust, and now and then a crazy 
 fly upon the windows. In all my life I never knew of one 
 used so much, or to so much purpose as my Uncle Athiel 
 used that one of his during those next few days. 
 
 I could hear him moving, faintly, there above me for 
 he seemed to have left the doors open after him till late 
 that night ; until I went to sleep. And I lay there for a 
 long time wondering. 
 
 The first thing that flashed into my mind, naturally, 
 from the time I first heard his steps on the stairs, was 
 Grummit's Tower that old foolish story that the nig 
 gers and children had told each other for so long; that 
 there in that old tower my Uncle kept his money. I had 
 never taken any stock in that story. It always seemed 
 ridiculous to me on the face of it. I had never known 
 the man to go there once before in my whole time with 
 him. 
 
 And yet it was strange, I had to say myself, that 
 
 106
 
 THE TOWER 107 
 
 now, the very first thing, at the first shock of panic, he 
 should right away bolt up there. I was puzzled; more 
 than puzzled, disturbed and worried. My mind clung to 
 the thing like a drowning sailor to a board trying to 
 understand it. But I was mighty sleepy that night, too. 
 I would go so far, clutching at it, then drowse; then lose 
 it; then, snap! I'd go, jumping nervously awake, and 
 my mind would start circling round again. 
 
 Vance had never heard him there either, I said to my 
 self, trying to let it go almost sleeping. 
 
 And then, I'd hear, almost as plain as if they stood 
 over me, the voices of those little ragamuffins standing on 
 the walk in front of the house, and saying, like I'd heard 
 them say that time, " There's where he counts it ! There's 
 where he counts it ! " 
 
 " How silly," I said to myself, " children's and niggers' 
 talk." But, of course, he might have had it there all the 
 time Of course 
 
 Snap ! I twitched awake again. I drowsed and woke, 
 and drowsed again until finally, as it always does in the 
 longest night, sleep got me I passed into a stiff and 
 uneasy sleep. I heard the faint voices from outside 
 the dogs barking, those old howling alley dogs across the 
 town. But they were a long, long way off calls in the 
 distance, echoing, echoing, out across the town; and then 
 I got asleep. 
 
 Vance told me that next day that my Uncle Hagar 
 stayed up there in that tower until almost morning. 
 
 " Is there any light up there ? " I asked her for I 
 had been thinking about that. 
 
 " No," she said. 
 
 " He was just sitting up there in the dark? " 
 
 " There was a moon," said Vance, " part of the time." 
 
 "Wasn't he sleeping there, maybe?"
 
 108 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " No, he was moving around all night." 
 
 " Then what, what " I started saying. 
 
 " I don't know," said Vance. " Maybe he won't do it 
 again." 
 
 I looked at her. But I got no information from her 
 face. 
 
 " The thing is now," she said ; " he must have sleep. 
 For nights now he has been without it." 
 
 I saw that too. He couldn't have slept more than three 
 or four hours since that first night the Fever came. He 
 had been up all hours of the night. 
 
 And I saw too from her face how worried and anxious 
 Vance was over it. 
 
 " Keep away from him," said Vance, " and I'll see if I 
 can get him to take a nap." 
 
 There was sense in that. She was the only one who 
 had any little influence over him, and he certainly needed 
 it. His face was dry and old and worn for sleep. He 
 must have felt the need of it himself badly. For after a 
 while Vance went up to the Purple Room where he still 
 kept himself, and knocked, and got him to promise to lie 
 down. He did too ; and slept right through dinner-time, 
 and Vance let him sleep. 
 
 " I did sleep," he said to Vance, when he woke up in 
 the afternoon, " I did sleep " as if the fact surprised 
 him. 
 
 But that evening, as the dark came on, and the windows 
 of the house went down again, he was shut up in the tower 
 once more just the same. 
 
 " There he goes," I said to Vance, listening to him go. 
 
 " Yes," said Vance. 
 
 " What is he there for? Have you any more idea? " 
 
 " Not the slightest." 
 
 " Why don't you ask him? "
 
 THE TOWER 109 
 
 " I did," said Vance. And when I asked her what he 
 had to say: 
 
 " He just looked at me," said Vance, " looked at me and 
 walked away." And we both of us sat silent for a while 
 after that. 
 
 " I don't like it. I don't like the way he acts," said 
 Vance. " He acts like he is suspicious and afraid of 
 everybody." 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 " If I could only get him to pay attention to me," she 
 said. " To look at me like he usually does. But he 
 won't. He won't even look at me." 
 
 " No," I said but my mind was going in a different 
 direction. 
 
 " Is there something there," I said. " Do you think 
 there is anything there in that tower? " 
 
 For I knew that she must be thinking some, anyway, of 
 about what I was that thing that everybody thought 
 about that gave the house we lived in its name. 
 
 " No, I don't think so." 
 
 "Why not? "I said. 
 
 " I never did think there was anything there," she said, 
 hesitating. And I thought then I could hear plainly the 
 emphasis on that last word. 
 
 But I did not press her about it then. I didn't want 
 to, if she didn't want to talk about it. And so, after a 
 while, it was bedtime, and Vance went upstairs and left 
 me there in the sitting room thinking. 
 
 There was another day gone, and no change for us. 
 The reports from the Fever had not been bad; they said 
 there were not so many new cases that day; and if it was 
 coming south in our direction, there were no signs of 
 it except that one man who had died where that fire was 
 that we saw the night before. But they didn't fool me
 
 110 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 one particle I knew better. I knew they were making 
 everything as small and easy as they could, and that you 
 couldn't believe a word they said. The Fever was com 
 ing, and we were held there by my Uncle, and he was held 
 tighter than ever by that house of his, and whatever he 
 had in it. 
 
 And up to that time, I hadn't known much about my 
 Uncle's money affairs, I hadn't considered it any of my 
 business. I knew that they were queer. I knew that 
 everybody talked about him as a great old miser. But 
 now I thought I had to know and understand, especially 
 if I was going to get Vance away like I intended to just 
 what it was that was holding him; and whether, as 
 Vance seemed to think, we could ever hope to get him 
 away. 
 
 I didn't think we could, for I did believe to some ex 
 tent that he was just what they said he was, a miser. 
 And I knew then, just as well as I do now, that nobody 
 ever gets one of those old misers out of the house they 
 got used to making their hidings in not till you drag 
 their souls from their bodies ; and it makes no difference 
 how much they have got there whether it's much or lit 
 tle, they get fastened to their house like an oyster to its 
 shell. Or at least that's been my experience, and I have 
 seen a number of them. 
 
 And so I sat thinking it all over about what I had 
 seen since I'd been there all those queer and unusual 
 actions of my Uncle about his house. His rule against 
 niggers on the place, all but that sanctified Arabella ; his 
 orders that she should be kept out from upstairs and the 
 front of the house all that was possible ; his closing up and 
 locking up the Purple Room, all but that short time that 
 Vance took charge of it in the morning. And now, this 
 summer especially, since the Fever came, his jumpy fear of
 
 THE TOWER 111 
 
 thieves and fire; and his closing of the whole house; and, 
 last of all, these queer visits to that tower. 
 
 And when I got thinking over that all, the words of 
 Vance came back to me, and I thought again, that, though 
 she said she did not believe there was anything in that 
 tower, she had almost said that she did know that there 
 was, somewhere in the house, a store of money, large or 
 small, which my Uncle Athiel was keeping guard over. 
 
 " If anybody could know," I said to myself, " besides 
 him, she would." 
 
 And then I went up to bed. And I knew that then and 
 long after, my Uncle Hagar was in his tower. And he 
 stayed there, I learned from Vance next day, practically 
 all that night again. 
 
 It was Saturday that next day, and just as hot as ever. 
 There was nothing much unusual in the morning except 
 that Dead Wagon going by again. There was something 
 wrong, as usual, with the paving down on Main Street. 
 And from that on, that wagon came around by us over 
 that hill. The coffins were growing more on it, I saw. 
 That morning there were four. 
 
 Then, that afternoon, right after dinner, my Uncle was 
 in the tower again in the daytime, in the middle of 
 the day! 
 
 You have no idea how hot it was in that place sum 
 mers. The white hot sun beat down upon that gray slate 
 on the roof; and streamed in those little bullseye windows 
 until the pitch in the floor boards sweat right out. But 
 into that old oven my Uncle went and closed the door after 
 him. Maybe he had the windows open. I expect he did, 
 but mighty little good that did. 
 
 Vance heard him going without a word. Fifteen min 
 utes passed, half an hour, and still I heard that he didn't 
 come down again. And finally Vance came out of the
 
 112 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 sitting room where she had been reading and listening, 
 and started upstairs without a word, clenching and un 
 clenching her hands. I started after her to the second 
 story, and saw her go up from there to the third, and 
 stand by the door to the stairs to the tower. I saw her 
 try the door, and it was locked. 
 
 Then she called to him : 
 
 " Dad, Dad," she said to him, " what are you doing 
 there?" 
 
 There was no answer whatever not a word. 
 
 And then she beat upon the door and called again. 
 
 And again for quite a while he didn't answer. Then 
 there was something I didn't hear. 
 
 " Come down," she called again. " You'll die up there ! " 
 
 " What are you doing " the voice of my Uncle came 
 through the door. " What are you doing following me 
 around ! " 
 
 " It will kill you," she said ; " you can't stand it." 
 
 But she knew, I believe, she couldn't move him. 
 
 " Go away ! " he answered. " Go away I'll come 
 down when I'm through." 
 
 " Through what? " I said to myself. 
 
 " Was he mad at you? " I asked her, when she came 
 down to where I was, breathless, for the third story was 
 almost as hot as the tower. 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 " His voice sounded so," I said. 
 
 " What will we do ? " said Vance sharply. " He can't 
 stay there." 
 
 " Let's wait a little while," said I, and very soon after 
 wards he did come down into his room upstairs on the 
 second floor, and stayed there the rest of the afternoon. 
 
 And now it seemed to me the time had come to talk 
 with Vance about what she knew; about these ties which
 
 THE TOWER 113 
 
 bound my Uncle Hagar, and with him us two as well, to 
 the house; and what, if anything, it had to do with these 
 queer actions of his in the tower. 
 
 " Through what? " I said to Vance. " What is there 
 for him to be through with up there? " 
 
 " I don't know, I can't imagine," she said. 
 
 " He isn't crazy? " I said. " His mind isn't touched? " 
 
 For in spite of what the doctor said that idea had got 
 going in my mind. 
 
 " No," said Vance promptly. " He's up there for some 
 purpose." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " I thought at first," she said, " he might be up there 
 watching those fires. You know that first night there was 
 that Fever fire." 
 
 " But you don't think so now? " 
 
 " No," she said slowly. " You know before that that 
 evening you were out, he was up there too the first 
 time!" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " There weren't any fires then there wasn't anything 
 to remind him of fires then." 
 
 " Well, then," I said, when she stopped, " what ? " 
 
 " I don't know," she said. 
 
 " Is it his money, like they say? " I blurted out. 
 
 " No, I don't think so," said Vance, kind of faintly. 
 
 " There might be," I said, " some reason back of all 
 those stories about the tower." 
 
 " I don't think so ; I don't think there is any money 
 there." 
 
 And again she seemed to tell me that there might be 
 money somewhere else. 
 
 " Is there any money anywhere ? " I asked straight out 
 of her.
 
 114 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Yes," said Vance slowly. " Yes." 
 
 " Is there a lot? " I went ahead and asked. 
 
 " Yes," she said slowly, " I think there is a great lot." 
 
 " I never asked you before," I said, excusing myself. 
 
 " I know " said Vance. 
 
 " I wouldn't now," I said, ' if " 
 
 " I understand," Vance said. " But it isn't there in 
 that tower." 
 
 "Where is it?" I asked. 
 
 " In the Purple Room," she said, " somewhere in that 
 room he sleeps in, I believe." 
 
 " How do you know? " I said. 
 
 " I saw it once," said Vance. " I saw him with it one 
 night. The door blew open." 
 
 " Paper money ? " I asked. 
 
 " Greenbacks," said Vance. 
 
 " That's all the time you ever saw it ? " I asked. 
 
 " That's all," she said. 
 
 " And yet," I said, " he might have taken it up there 
 to that tower just lately since the Fever." 
 
 " It isn't locked," said Vance. " It wasn't till to-day 
 the door was open after him." 
 
 I remembered that she was right. I had noticed that 
 too. That seemed to settle the idea that he had money 
 there. 
 
 " Then what " I asked her. 
 
 " I wish I knew," said Vance, " for it is something on 
 his mind eating him up." 
 
 And again, for the first time in a day or two, I saw 
 that almost invisible shudder pass over her, that I had 
 noticed that first day or two that she spoke to me about 
 that dream she had; that came to her when she spoke 
 about her father. 
 
 What was it that took him to the tower? I didn't
 
 THE TOWER 115 
 
 know. It must be something, even if his mind was going, 
 like I sometimes thought. It would be something, some 
 idea that would take him there. What that might be I 
 did not know yet, but I did know now that, what they 
 had all thought and said about him was true; that he 
 really was a miser. Somewhere in that house, in that 
 old Purple Room, my Uncle Athiel sat and watched his 
 hoard of money, large or small, whichever it might be. 
 
 I had never been in the Purple Room only seen it, 
 passing, through its open door ; but I knew in general how 
 it looked and lay with its high ceiling and glass chan 
 delier, and the fringed purple hangings at the windows, 
 the fringed purple canopy over the bed, bearing the letter 
 " B " in gold, surrounded by laurel leaves, in gold too, 
 like some bedroom in France, some bedroom that Napoleon 
 built, they said. And a long purple bell rope, with deep 
 fringes, beside it. And the gilt bands on the dark fur 
 niture. 
 
 And in all that showy expensiveness that little old yel 
 low man, common as an old shoe, lay like an emperor. 
 And always at the head of his bed, under where that 
 purple bell-rope hung down, stood his smooth, old yellow 
 hickory cane; and under his pillow was that funny little 
 Derringer that years ago he had shot a man with in 
 those first years when he first came, a boy, into that Mis 
 sissippi River country. 
 
 I went over the thing backwards and forwards ; and 
 after I had done that about a hundred times I made up 
 my mind to what I was going to do. He and I were go 
 ing to stay there, that looked certain ; and if Vance was 
 going, it was time she went. 
 
 And I figured then, knowing now for certain what was 
 on his mind, in general, that I'd play for all I could on 
 what would excite him and interest him the most that
 
 116 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 need of watching and guarding over his ** Property " he 
 was always telling about. It would be an even swap. If 
 he would save Vance for me, and send her away, I would 
 save his old " Property " for him, or do the best I knew 
 how. 
 
 I was afraid I wouldn't get hold of him that day. I 
 had nothing but sullen side looks out of him since that 
 row of ours two days before. He kept out of my way. 
 But finally, at the end of the evening, when I had given 
 up, by luck I caught him. 
 
 Vance had gone upstairs a little early ; the weather was 
 still tiring her. I sat alone in the sitting room for a 
 while, when I heard my Uncle coming down the stairs. He 
 went into the Crystal Room across the hall first, and I 
 knew he was looking for a second time, to see that the 
 house was all locked up. Then finally he came into the 
 sitting room where I was. 
 
 He started by me with his head down, walking toward 
 the windows. 
 
 I got up. 
 
 " You and I ain't been getting on very well lately," I 
 said to him. 
 
 He didn't say anything. 
 
 " It was my fault," I said. " If you want me to say 
 so I apologize." 
 
 And still he said nothing at all, and started to go along 
 to the windows again. 
 
 " I want to talk to you," I said, my voice rising. 
 
 " I don't want to talk to you," he said, giving me a 
 crooked look. 
 
 " I don't care whether you do or not," I said, my voice 
 rising some more 1 and then dropping when I thought. 
 " You're going to ; and you'll want to, when you hear me."
 
 THE TOWER 117 
 
 He raised up his head then, and stood and looked at 
 me, and I looked at him. 
 
 " I want to make you an offer," I said. 
 
 " What is it? " he said at last. 
 
 " The police are mostly gone out of this town now," I 
 said, " and the firemen. About all they've got now is 
 those nigger militia companies." 
 
 I saw from his eye that I had reached him. 
 
 " And the time may come," I said, " you will need 
 some help here. You might need me even." 
 
 " You can go any time you want to " said my Uncle 
 Athiel in a dead voice. 
 
 I took hold of myself and held myself back. 
 
 " All right," I said, " but I'll make you my offer 
 first." 
 
 He didn't say anything. 
 
 " This town is full of thieves," I said, using his own 
 words. And I could see him move a little in spite of 
 himself. 
 
 " Well," he said finally, what of it? What have you 
 got to say to me? " 
 
 " Just this that's all," I said. " You send Vance 
 awav, like the doctor says to. Don't ask her; make her 
 go." 
 
 He stood looking out the window. " Ah ha," he said 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well ! " I said. " And when you do that, you can 
 keep me and use me for your nigger, and no questions 
 asked. And there'll nobody get at your old ' Property,' 
 not while I'm alive." 
 
 He kept looking out the window. 
 
 " Let me tell you something," I said, aiming at that old 
 fear of his " when this town is all closed out and noth-
 
 118 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 ing but niggers loose here, and thieves you may need 
 another man." 
 
 " You're a good man," said my Uncle Athiel, sneering. 
 " What do you think you could do? " 
 
 "Try me!" I said. 
 
 He grunted. 
 
 " You try me ! " I said a second time. 
 
 "What could you do?" he asked again. But he was 
 looking at me now, not out the window. 
 
 " Do ! " I said I was afraid I would lose him. " I'll 
 show you ! " 
 
 " What would you do if I sent Vance away ? " he said. 
 
 " Do " I said, getting red in the face and choking a 
 little. 
 
 He stood there, waiting looking up at me. 
 
 " Do " I said, " I'd swim Hell for you if you asked 
 me to ! Provided " I said, " you send Vance away 
 right now." 
 
 And he turned then, and gave me another look with 
 a quick, little black twinkle in his eyes, and it was the 
 one friendly look I had had from him in two or three 
 days. 
 
 " She'll go," he said, right away. And so we stopped 
 talking. 
 
 " You keeping your windows closed down tight al 
 ways ? " he asked me finally. 
 
 " When I promise to do a thing, I generally do it," I 
 said. 
 
 And we said very little more before we went upstairs. 
 
 I went upstairs and started walking back and forth, 
 in that bedroom of mine that big old Red Room, with 
 the windows closed. I was a little excited. It was hot, 
 fearful. But we were getting used to it now. 
 
 I threw myself down on the bed finally, and went to sleep.
 
 THE TOWER 119 
 
 I fell asleep, and then I woke up all of a sudden; I 
 didn't know for a minute what waked me. 
 
 It seemed as if there were a lot of strange noises that 
 night. There were too, some of those first nights of the 
 Fever. 
 
 I could hear my Uncle moving in his room come down 
 from the tower apparently. I got up stiffly and finished 
 my undressing and got in the bed again. 
 
 Then I thought I heard some one fire a gun once. And 
 by and by, as my mind cleared up from sleep, I under 
 stood that. It was probably some one firing a gun in the 
 cellar to kill the Fever. They did that the first part of 
 the time some. There were some folks who thought it 
 killed the Fever poison that formed in that old cellar air 
 where they had cellars nights. 
 
 And then, of course, the dogs outside got started bark 
 ing then, and several other times that night. I got out 
 once and watched out the window, but I couldn't see a 
 thing. 
 
 After that, over north of us the Ventress's cow was 
 mooing and calling to be milked. Their niggers had gone 
 away and left it, again, that night. 
 
 I was back in bed again my sleepy feeling pretty 
 well gone now. 
 
 And then, all at once, I started and sat up listening, 
 for I heard again, real distinctly this time, the tinkle of 
 that little bell I heard before. It was in the house, it still 
 seemed to me. It must have been. 
 
 And it certainly sounded like one of the door bells, to 
 the front or side door one of those little bells jingling 
 on their wires in the cellar way. 
 
 And I said to myself again : " Is it possible that some 
 body is out there fumbling around those doors ? " 
 
 The side door was almost right under my window.
 
 120 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 There was nobody there I could have seen them, but 
 there might be somebody in front. 
 
 I opened my door softly, and crawled out into the front 
 hall, and I sneaked up, and stood by the window in the 
 front of it. My Uncle wouldn't hear me he was too 
 deaf. I stood there a while. 
 
 There was a porch over the door, but I could certainly 
 see anybody, if they went away, or certainly hear them on 
 the porch flooring. But so far as I could see or hear, 
 there wasn't anybody there, and I came back to my room 
 at last certain of it. There was nobody there! 
 
 My Uncle was still up there was a light still going 
 under the crack of his door. But he seemed to be going 
 to bed now. I looked at my watch when I got into the 
 room and it was almost three o'clock. 
 
 Then I looked out of my window for the last time. 
 There was no sign of life anywhere. The only thing I 
 saw at all was a yellow light a kerosene lamp down in 
 the second story of the little corner grocery store at the 
 foot of the hill. Somebody was up there, probably get 
 ting ready for another day's work, I thought first, for 
 they got up very early. 
 
 And then I said to myself I don't know why un 
 less it was on my mind all the time, and I was all waked 
 up and nervous the way you are, by those different sounds 
 and noises around the house. I caught my breath and I 
 said to myself 
 
 " I wonder if they've got the fever down there ! It 
 would be just the place they'd catch it ! " 
 
 And just only the thought of it drove out of my mind 
 all the rest I'd been thinking of: my Uncle and his trips 
 to the tower; and the noises out doors, and even the 
 sound of that little bell that had just been worrying 
 me so.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LITTLE BELL 
 
 IT was the first thing that I thought of in the morning 
 too. When I came downstairs, I asked Arabella if 
 she'd heard anything of the Fever being any nearer 
 to us. 
 
 " They's sayin' somebody's got it down there some 
 where," she answered, nodding toward the cross street 
 down below us. 
 
 They always know what happens the niggers, it 
 would astonish you how quick. It's like these new wire 
 less telegraphs they've got to-day. Let anything hap 
 pen, and it's known by all the niggers from one end of 
 the town to the other as fast as a man can walk. It 
 travels down the alleys like wildfire, just by one stopping 
 and telling it to the other. 
 
 But that was all that Arabella knew that story ; and 
 all we learned that morning. I had no real reason at 
 all but nervousness to think the fever was there noth 
 ing but a light burning at night the way they do when 
 people are sick. And all the first part of that morning 
 there was nothing to be seen there except that empty 
 street. 
 
 That was Sunday the first Sunday after the Fever. 
 I can recollect it especially because it was that day the 
 city began to have that deserted look it got to have after 
 wards. The rush to leave was over now, around us any- 
 
 121
 
 122 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 way. The sound of wheels was stopped. And now the 
 place was entirely changed. 
 
 The streets were vacant, the churches were closed; 
 there was no sound of bells ; and the houses, around us, 
 anyway, already stood with their doors locked and their 
 blinds closed with that kind of a human look of an 
 occupied house all gone; just facing out upon the mo 
 tionless street, their fronts expressionless as the faces of 
 dead men. 
 
 They stood there empty, with their sharp black shadows 
 on the sidewalks, and the hot white sunlight out in the 
 road all still and motionless. And for half an hour 
 at a time not a moving thing went by not the shadow 
 of a dog or man moved down the vacant street. 
 
 And after you watched it a while, like I did that morn 
 ing, it was like a picture more than something real like 
 a dream, or something you'd read a long time ago. It 
 wasn't real at all, somehow. It made me think then, 
 quite often, and still more afterwards, of that old dead 
 city in the Arabian Nights they used to read to us about 
 when we were children where the people were all gone 
 turned into fishes, out of sight; and just one man sat 
 in the center of it, half turned to a black stone. And a 
 number of times I got to thinking then, when I was alone, 
 especially for you get queer ideas going in your head 
 at such times as that that I was like that man. Every 
 thing was unreal somehow. Even that common dirty lit 
 tle brick block where they said the Fever was more 
 especially when you thought it might be right there. 
 
 The next word we got that the story might be true 
 was from old John McCallan, the policeman. I saw him 
 going by later in the morning and hailed him. 
 
 " Good mornin'," said John, saluting with his billy at 
 his hat.
 
 THE LITTLE BELL 123 
 
 " I heard it," he said. " I heard they said one of Jakie 
 Otterman's young ones had it." 
 
 And he stood and pointed down to the little German's 
 grocery store down at the corner of the street below, the 
 place where I had seen the light upstairs on the second 
 floor, where the family lived. 
 
 " But I don't believe it," said John. " They was tel 
 ling me they wasn't sure. They be'd sure all right if 
 they had it this time. It's the worst it ever was," said 
 John. " I never seen it so bad anywhere. 
 
 " It ain't there yet, I don't believe," said John. <c It 
 ain't around here yet. But you'll get it. It's comin' all 
 right, down here everywhere. 
 
 " Why don't you get out? " he asked me secretly. 
 "What's the matter with the old man?" asked John, 
 lowering his voice and looking behind him. 
 
 I didn't have time to answer him. For my Uncle was 
 coming down the side-walk coming toward us, holding 
 something in his hand. 
 
 " John says maybe they've got the Fever down there," 
 I told him. 
 
 " Down where? " questioned my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 " Down there, over Otterman's store," I said. 
 
 " Look," said John, " there's the poor feller out there 
 now." 
 
 We saw the little grocery man come up the other side of 
 the street, a little ways from his place, and stand there 
 wavering a fat little man in shirt sleeves. He looked 
 peculiar to me. I had never seen him before without his 
 apron on. And it didn't seem natural. It always seemed 
 to me like that apron must have been on him when he 
 was born. But now the store was closed, and he had no 
 use for it, of course. 
 
 He stood there, kind of wavering, and teetering back
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 and forth across the street there, on the edge of the 
 gutter. 
 
 " Hi ! " called my Uncle Athiel, " has anybody got the 
 Fever down at your house? " 
 
 I thought for a minute he was going to answer him. 
 But then he looked at us and shook his head to himself, 
 it looked like, not to us. And went right back without 
 speaking. And you could see now that he was pretty 
 shaky. 
 
 " Poor fool ! " said my Uncle Athiel, " he's drunk." 
 
 " They get drinking when they're scared," said John 
 McCallan. 
 
 " Poor fools," said my Uncle Athiel. " There's nothing 
 to be afraid of. I ain't any more scared of it than I am 
 of sunstroke. All you got to do is to keep your windows 
 shut at night, and keep out of that poison night air." 
 
 " Yes, I heard that too," said John, polite enough, but 
 with a way about him of a man who'd heard of all kinds of 
 schemes, like policemen naturally would do at times like 
 that. 
 
 We all stood and watched the shaky little figure of the 
 groceryman going in his door. 
 
 But it was hardly shut behind him when : " Say," said 
 my Uncle Athiel to the policeman, " I got something I 
 want to ask you about." 
 
 I looked at him, and, what he had in his hand, I saw 
 now, was a piece torn out from a newspaper. 
 
 "Is this right?" said my Uncle. "This piece in the 
 newspaper, where it says the city marshal tells folks to 
 shoot anybody they catch on their premises after ten 
 o'clock at night ? " 
 
 " Yes, sor," said John, " that's just the way it is." 
 
 " All right," said my Uncle Athiel. " So that's 0. K." 
 
 " Yes," said John.
 
 THE LITTLE BELL 125 
 
 My Uncle seemed to me brisker that morning; quite a 
 lot different from those two days before. He was talking 
 sharp and straight to the point, like he usually did. 
 
 " I just wanted to know that," he said. 
 
 " Yes, sor," said John, " this town is full of thieves." 
 
 I looked up at him quick, for he had taken that expres 
 sion my Uncle was always saying, right out of his mouth. 
 And then I looked toward my Uncle, and I saw, when John 
 said it, that he was breathing deeper. 
 
 " And if you catch 'em loiterin' or hangin' around your 
 place at night," said John, " you got a right to shoot 
 'em." 
 
 " And that's good sense," said my Uncle Athiel, " a 
 man's got the right always to defend his Property." 
 
 " Yes, sor," said John, " yes, sor," shifting his weight 
 on to the other foot and thinking. 
 
 " It's naygurs," said John, " thieving naygurs. All 
 the rest of the thieves have left the town for fear of the 
 Fever, but the naygurs don't have it the naygur 
 thieves. 
 
 " And they're all over," he said, " all over. They're 
 thicker'n grass in a sod." 
 
 " They got a new scheme, I notice in the papers," said 
 my Uncle, " they're setting fire to people's sheds and rob 
 bing their houses when they come running to put it out." 
 
 " Yes, and them nurses too," said John, " they're takin' 
 and robbin' the dead people when they die some white 
 ones, but mostly naygurs. Oh, they got all kinds of 
 schemes," said John, " them naygurs. 
 
 " And they're gettin' into people's houses where they're 
 gone and robbin' them; and just stayin' and livin' there. 
 What's to hinder? " said John. " Half the police are 
 sick or gone, and more, too, I'm sorry to tell you, Mr. 
 Hagar."
 
 16 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Yes," said my Uncle Athiel, " and half the firemen." 
 
 " All they got left," said John, " to guard the town, is 
 these naygur militia can you imagine it, sor? " he asked 
 " naygurs guarding a town ? 
 
 " Naygurs," and John, riding his favorite horse to 
 death. " If I was the President, I'd shoot the half of 
 them ; and the other half I'd send back to Af ricy where 
 they belong. If there's any divilmint in this town it's 
 them that's back of it. 
 
 " Well, sor," said John, " I'll have to be going," and 
 started off like he hated to. 
 
 " Oh," he said, and stopped. 
 
 " If you see a half-naygur," he said, turning back, 
 " ahangin' round here a big half-naygur with a scar 
 from a knife across his face, you call me will you? " 
 
 " Yes," I said, looking at my Uncle. 
 
 " I wish you would. It'll help me on the force. You 
 can get word to me at the station house," said John. 
 " They say there's one hangin' round here that answers 
 to the description of a naygur they want for killin' a 
 white man down the river a Jew peddler." 
 
 I looked at my Uncle again to see if he was going to 
 say anything about that half-nigger he had kept talking 
 about those weeks before, but he didn't move a muscle. 
 
 " He killed the poor Jew for his pack," said John. 
 " He cut him to death, with one of them big knives them 
 river naygurs have on them." 
 
 " I expect it wasn't all his fault the naygur," said 
 John, explaining. " I expect the Jew started hollering, 
 and scared the naygur." 
 
 " They're hard customers those half niggers," said 
 my Uncle Athiel " hard tickets when they get started." 
 
 " The worst they is," said John, " they got the worst 
 of both sides in them."
 
 THE LITTLE BELL 127 
 
 " They ain't half so human, any of 'em, as a good dog," 
 said my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 And so, after talking a while longer, about the Fever, 
 and how bad it was, and how he didn't think sometimes it 
 was just only Yellow Fever, but something else some 
 old plague or other the old policeman finally went 
 along. He seemed to hate to go, somehow. He was a 
 great fellow to stand around on a corner and talk to 
 folks, very sociable. And I expect he got lonely on those 
 empty streets, and kind of hungry for somebody to talk 
 to. He reminded me of a child that hangs around, hating 
 to go into the dark at bedtime. He talked around 
 and around, and up and down everything, before he 
 left. 
 
 " Lord," said my Uncle Athiel, when he tramped away 
 from us, " it's lucky nobody ever told him about Christo 
 pher Columbus he'd never stop till he brought him 
 down to date." 
 
 It seemed to me like my Uncle was a good lot smarter 
 and brisker than he was the day before that time he 
 acted so suspicious of everybody. In comparison he 
 acted almost pleased about something; and he certainly 
 was a whole lot different, in his actions toward me. 
 
 Well, we didn't hear any more about the Fever down 
 below us all that day. Once I thought I heard the 
 Whistling Doctor somewhere down in that direction 
 somewhere and that was a bad sign, for he was working 
 on the Yellow Fever now, all over the town. But I 
 couldn't see him anywhere. Then I asked our Howard 
 visitor when he came, if he'd heard anything. But that 
 street was out of his district, and he didn't know. They 
 were going around every day now that Howard Society 
 to every house in town, to find out about who had the 
 Fever, and help them. A wonderful fine work it was ; and
 
 128 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 something to be proud of, but a good many of the poor 
 fellows died of the Fever. 
 
 So that afternoon and evening passed without anything 
 but a suspicion in our minds whether the Fever was really 
 down there under that hill, or not. I sat upstairs in my 
 room, like the others did, and tried to live through that 
 afternoon. The weather was just the same only worse 
 that clear old Yellow Fever weather, with that pale 
 greenish sky, and the white sunshine and black shadows 
 on the streets, and the birds parching and gaping for 
 breath in the trees. And afternoons, just after dinner, it 
 seemed to be the hottest. 
 
 If the other afternoons were long, they were nothing 
 to that one. In spite of its being Sunday and all that, 
 I got out my Law Book, Blackstone, it was, on the Rights 
 of Things on Property. And I sat and stared and 
 tried to read, just waiting for that afternoon to pass, till 
 I thought I would die of old age, just sitting there and 
 crossing and recrossing, and shifting my legs around, and 
 sweating, and trying to read Blackstone, before that 
 afternoon was over. 
 
 Sometimes you get drowsy days like that, and can get 
 to sleep. But there was nothing like that for me that 
 day. I was on edge too much wondering if the Fever 
 was really right down there in that old block ahead of my 
 windows ; and wondering when my Uncle Athiel was going 
 to do what he told me he would and send Vance away. 
 
 Toward the end of the afternoon I did hear him come 
 out, I thought, and go into her room, and I said to my 
 self: 
 
 "That's better; now he's doing it." 
 
 It was evening, though, before I got to learn anything 
 about it. We went into the Crystal Room after supper, 
 and Vance sat down at the big black piano for a while
 
 THE LITTLE BELL 129 
 
 like she generally did Sunday nights ; and sang some Gos 
 pel Hymns. They were mighty popular then, and my 
 Uncle liked them. They were about the only music he 
 did like, and about the only way we celebrated Sunday. 
 We used to sit there Sunday evenings in the dusk, the 
 three of us, under those big mirrors, and those two great 
 paintings of Indians, and listen to Vance play the piano 
 and sing Gospel Hymns, and it was about the only time 
 my Uncle came in and sat down in the Crystal Room at 
 all. 
 
 But after a little while, when the dark came on at 
 night, he got restless again, and went upstairs; and left 
 Vance and me there, alone again in the big room under 
 the eyes of Pocahontas, and De Soto discovering the Mis 
 sissippi; and the faint figures of ourselves sitting there 
 in the great mirrors. 
 
 " He saw you this afternoon ? " I said right away to 
 her, " didn't he? " 
 
 " Who ? What ? " said Vance. 
 
 " Your father about going away P " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you're going ! " 
 
 " No," said Vance. " No." 
 
 " He'll make you," I said. 
 
 " He can't," she said. " Nor you can't nor any 
 body. I won't go. Even if you should take me and carry 
 me away on your back, it wouldn't do you any good I 
 can come right back again." 
 
 I sat still ugly, refusing to speak. 
 
 '* I'm going," said Vance, " when you go. I'm going 
 to stay as long as you do, and there's no reason why I 
 shouldn't." 
 
 " Except," I blurted out, " if you take the Fever, it is 
 sure to kill you."
 
 130 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " No," said Vance shortly. 
 
 I didn't talk I sulked again. 
 
 " Don't you see, Beavis," she said, and reached out 
 where she was sitting and put her hand on my sleeve 
 " Can't you see? " 
 
 "What?" I said. 
 
 " If I stay, maybe I can get him to go ! " 
 
 " No," I said. 
 
 " Maybe if I can get him out of this way he is now ; 
 get him like he usually is. Get him to look at me," she 
 said, talking faster. 
 
 " No," I said. 
 
 " I can try, anyhow," she said. " I can try " and 
 her voice started breaking a little. 
 
 I looked at her, and I thought that once again I saw 
 that little shudder. 
 
 " What is it ? " I said, but she didn't answer. 
 
 "What is it?" I said. 
 
 " Oh, I'm afraid ! I'm afraid for him ! " she answered, 
 breaking her silence with a rush. 
 
 " Your father ! " I said, and she nodded. 
 
 "That dream still?" 
 
 She nodded, choking. 
 
 " Oh, I can't forget it ! I can't forget it ! " she said, 
 and stretched out one hand before her. 
 
 " Vance," I said sharply. " Are you a perfect fool ? " 
 
 I knew I had to do something to stop it ; to break her of 
 the foolishness. 
 
 I had at the same time, all the time, that impulse that 
 I always had at times like that, to take her in my arms 
 and protect her. I knew that sometime, I'd break over 
 and make a fool of myself; break over and do just that. 
 And I jumped up on my feet and stood in front of 
 her.
 
 THE LITTLE BELL 131 
 
 " You've got to go, Vance," I said for the hundredth 
 time. 
 
 She didn't answer me. 
 
 " You've got to go," I said louder. 
 
 " Don't," said Vance, " please don't ; I can't stand it ; 
 first father and then you. Don't you only tire me 
 without the slightest use. I'll go when you do and he 
 does. I told him so this afternoon. So don't argue ; 
 don't. It only tires me " 
 
 And then that voice of hers went again, and she stopped 
 whispering the rest. 
 
 And, as usual, I stood there, so mad I could cry, al 
 most. Stopped and blamed myself for hurting her. It 
 was enough to drive you jabbering crazy. The Fever 
 right down there under the hill, maybe; coming toward 
 us anyway, and she sitting there and defying us both 
 of us to send her away. And both of us unable to 
 send her. For the weakness that we feared for, con 
 tinually defeated us. 
 
 I got up on my feet, I remember, and went stamping 
 up and down the room over the roses in that deep soft 
 carpet; pink roses they were, as big as cabbages. I re 
 member watching them as I walked. 
 
 " Stop," said Vance, finding her voice at last. " Stop 
 tearing around like that. I want to talk to you; and I 
 can't when you're going that way ; sit down, you make me 
 dizzy." 
 
 "What do you want? " I asked crossly. 
 
 " Sit down, first," she said. 
 
 So I did. 
 
 "What was it you saw last night? " she said. 
 
 " When ? " I answered, looking at her. 
 
 " When you heard that little bell, and got up and 
 watched out the hall window."
 
 132 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Nothing," I said surprised. 
 
 " I didn't either," she said. 
 
 " So you heard it? " I said. 
 
 " Twice now," said Vance. " Yes, and once or twice 
 several weeks ago." 
 
 " What is it? " I asked. 
 
 " I don't know," said Vance. " I thought first it was 
 one of the door bells." 
 
 " Let's go and see," I said, getting up. 
 
 So Vance got a candle and we went out through the 
 kitchen to the cellar stairs ; to the back of the back stairs 
 where the bell hung. 
 
 There were four of them, I remembered when I got 
 there up above your head, in a row. Two for the two 
 front doors and two others. You could see them when 
 Vance held up her candle four little bells on their coiled 
 springs. You remember them, maybe those old-fash 
 ioned door bells, fastened on at the end of the coiled wire, 
 and you pulled the knob at the door, and it pulled a 
 lever, and a wire. And another lever jerked at the other 
 end and shook the coiled wire, and set the little bell danc 
 ing and jingling at the end of it. 
 
 " One to the front door, and one to the side," I said. 
 
 " What are the other two? " 
 
 I had never paid any attention to those. 
 
 " One to Dad's room," said Vance, " and one to mine." 
 
 And then I did remember, I had heard about it. Mr. 
 Bozro, in building his great house, had put in the bells 
 for calling servants from upstairs, like he had seen in 
 those great houses he had visited in his travels abroad. 
 One for the Purple Room, where he slept ; and one for the 
 room of Mrs. Bozro, the Ivory Room that Vance had now. 
 And the bell-ropes, big flat kind of tapes, with fringes at 
 the end, hung down exactly as they did in those great
 
 THE LITTLE BELL 133 
 
 houses in France or England only I expect in fact 
 I know they did not work exactly the same. Only as 
 near as he could make them, in Memphis then. 
 
 " But those two were both disconnected," said Vance. 
 " They have been ever since we first came here.'* 
 
 We stood there underneath them, looking up by the 
 light of the candle in Vance's hand. The bells and coils 
 were fastened back of the stairs on the rough boards, with 
 dust and cobwebs all around them ; all rough work, as the 
 back of things are apt to be in our country and the 
 South generally, where so much of the work is left to 
 niggers. Just all splintery boards behind them, and 
 above them and under them two little cleats they were 
 fastened to some way. But the two bells to the bedrooms 
 were disconnected like Vance said. You could see the old 
 rusty wires where they hung down. Some nigger's job, 
 I expect shiftless ; anybody else wouldn't have left them 
 swinging there like that. 
 
 " Do you suppose," said Vance, looking up, " that a 
 mouse or some little thing like that could crawl up there 
 and get on one of those little cleats and run over those 
 springs or touch them some way ? " 
 
 " How could he get up there? " I said. 
 
 " I don't see," said Vance. 
 
 " I don't," I said. " No." 
 
 " I still believe," said Vance, " that somebody is out 
 there, outside. I believe that that is what Dad is doing up 
 there in that tower," said Vance. 
 
 "What?" I said. 
 
 " Watching," said Vance. 
 
 " Oh, moonshine," I said. And I stood and stared and 
 puzzled over those four bells, set up there in a row above 
 us. 
 
 " Listen," said Vance, all at once. " What was that? "
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 It was that man down the street, firing off his shot gun 
 again in his cellar to kill the poison Fever air that he 
 believed formed there. I hadn't thought much about that 
 before, so far as we were concerned. It was like a lot of 
 other strange things they did. But there we stood, at 
 the head of those dark stairs, and I could smell that old 
 damp cellar air under us. And all at once it scared me 
 all that talk of poison air everywhere was getting on my 
 nerves a little ; more and more, as the Fever came crawling 
 over toward us. And it might be that the Fever bred 
 down there, I said to myself. Who knew? 
 
 " Come," I said to Vance, " let's get out of here. Out 
 from this old cellar air ; come ! " And I took her by her 
 wrist. 
 
 And all at once, without the slightest idea in the world 
 I was going to do it, I had her in my arms pleading with 
 her, begging her to go and get away where she would be 
 safe. I just gathered her up in my arms like you would a 
 child to protect her, with some crazy idea in my head 
 that I could shut her out from the danger that was around 
 her from that poison air and the Fever. 
 
 " Beavis," said Vance, struggling. Some of that hot 
 wax from the candle came down on my hand, I remember. 
 I remember that old cellar dampness in my nostrils, and 
 I remember too, always, the warm fragrance of her hair 
 against my face. 
 
 She still struggled silently to get away from me. But I 
 paid no attention; I just held her away from me and 
 looked into her eyes. 
 
 " Please, Vance," I said. " Oh, please, for God's sake, 
 won't you go ? " 
 
 Now that I had gone that far, I didn't care; I was be 
 side myself. She was so frail, so slight; the danger was 
 so great for her; she was so much to me. I could never
 
 THE LITTLE BELL 135 
 
 doubt that now, never. And the thought blazed over me 
 like a flash of lightning. If she should die of this thing; 
 if she should not be here forever, what would the rest of 
 my life be worth anyhow? You know how it is when 
 you're twenty-one, life stretches out before you forever, 
 and the thought of it without her burned and stung me 
 and threw me into a great foolish panic. 
 
 " No," said Vance, " no. Please ! " she said faintly, 
 and dropped the candle. 
 
 And the light went out, leaving us in the darkness. 
 
 I was ashamed of myself yes, and scared. 
 
 " Vance," I said, in the darkness, " I am ashamed of my 
 self. I apologize." 
 
 She didn't answer me. 
 
 " Will you forgive me? " I asked, and still she didn't an 
 swer. 
 
 " Will you? Will you? " I kept asking her. 
 
 " Yes," she said, after awhile. " Yes, but don't, don't 
 ever ask me to go again not until my father goes, my 
 father goes and you ! " 
 
 Then we lighted the candle again, and went back in the 
 front hall without talking. 
 
 It was Sunday night. The niggers were having their 
 meeting somewhere, those sanctified niggers. I could 
 hear them when I went upstairs. All night long they 
 were going: Clap! Clap! Clap! Stamping and danc 
 ing and marching around, and singing those marches, and 
 those old mournful " long metre " hymns that slide up 
 and down like dogs howling at the full moon. Doing 
 just like they used to do, I expect, round the fires at 
 night in Africa. Thev were getting more and more ex 
 cited, those last few days, by death and the Fever, and 
 those old nigger prophecies about the end of the world 
 that were circulating round again.
 
 136 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 There were one or two Fever fires on the streets in the 
 city that I could see, and down under us, looking out the 
 window, I could still see the yellow light over that old 
 grocery store like I had the night before. Then I went 
 to bed finally. 
 
 But the last thing I remembered was the niggers clap 
 ping and singing somewhere down south back of the hill.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 ALL night, when I woke in my restless sleep, I heard 
 the sanctified niggers clapping and singing and 
 marching around; and then, toward daybreak, 
 screeching and hollering, and getting saved and sanctified 
 a strange noise, more like something barking than a 
 man, especially when you listened to it at night. They're 
 afraid, afraid, and screaming for fear of Hell, and yelling 
 with wild, scared joy for escaping it. And in that Fever 
 time they were getting all excited around us, anyhow. 
 They had to stop them afterwards. 
 
 It must have been almost daybreak that morning before 
 they finished. But when we came downstairs to break 
 fast, there was Arabella, up and waiting, with that same 
 calm, contented, cat-look on her face, stronger and more 
 peaceful than it ever was. 
 
 " Yassah," she said, when I asked her that question 
 we all wanted first to know " Yassah, it's come, they got 
 it." 
 
 There wasn't a change in her old smooth face or a 
 flicker of excitement on her face. Only it seemed some 
 how to shine from the inside, with peace and contentment, 
 more and more every day. 
 
 " Down there? " I asked, pointing, and I jumped up 
 and ran to the window. 
 
 " Yassah," said Arabella. " Down to that little gro- 
 ceryman's. They've got them chimicals all over the street 
 
 137
 
 138 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 you kin see it plain. And yondah at the front of the 
 yard you kin hear that poor woman acrying for her child ; 
 and the poor child going * Um-um-um,' that regular ole 
 Fevah cry out the window." 
 
 " Come back here and sit down to your breakfast," 
 said my Uncle. For both Vance and I were at the win 
 dow. 
 
 So we went back; there was nothing to be seen from 
 there anyway. 
 
 " When you goin' ? " questioned Arabella, suddenly to 
 Vance. " When you goin' ? " 
 
 " We're not going at all," said Vance. " You're not 
 going, are you? " she said. And when Arabella shook her 
 head, " Then why should we ? " 
 
 Arabella stood staring at her. " The colored race," 
 she said, " they don't have the Fevah. No'm not to 
 speak of. But the white race they goin' die. All that 
 stays here. They all goin' die. 
 
 " You better go," she said, and I noticed her voice was 
 beginning to rise up and grow sharp the way it did the 
 morning before. 
 
 " Your father better go. This ain't no ordinary 
 Fevah. No'm ! " she said, solemnly, and rolled her 
 head. " This ain't no common Yellow Fevah." 
 
 My Uncle didn't say one word. He only looked at her 
 for a second, and looked down again. But after that she 
 didn't talk any more through breakfast. 
 
 " Oh, look ! " said Vance, from the side door, when we 
 went out. 
 
 The street in front of the Fever place was white 
 with lime, I think it was. I can't explain just how it 
 struck you first. Like the silent street, and the golden 
 flies following the Dead Wagon strange and unnatural
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 139 
 
 and unclean, somehow; strange as snow in summer; un 
 natural and threatening, like some scary dream of a 
 child. 
 
 " Come back here, Vance ! " my Uncle called out. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I don't want you out there." 
 
 He spoke to her that way as often as not, more like she 
 was twelve than nineteen. I was glad he did. For she 
 came back. 
 
 But he and I went out to the edge of the yard and 
 looked down there and listened. 
 
 There wasn't much to see only those white chemicals 
 on the empty street. That old block where the grocery 
 was looked like it was deserted for all you could see. 
 Closed below the old chicken coops standing empty un 
 der the wooden awnings ; and all the shutters up. And 
 upstairs where the Fever was, nothing to be seen besides 
 those wide open windows. 
 
 But then all at once, that old common place changed 
 for me into something different. For I heard for the 
 first time through those open windows the Yellow Fever 
 moaning, that curious noise, half murmur and half moan ; 
 that old " um-um-um " they keep agoing. And once I 
 did think I heard a woman crying. 
 
 And then, right away, that old common place that 
 old cheap grocery block, changed into something strange 
 and fearful and fantastic. You have the same feeling 
 sometimes, when you run suddenly upon an accident ; and 
 a man's face turned up from the ground all drained white. 
 I do, I know. And after that, for a while, it was like 
 something deadly hidden down there in that old brick 
 block ; and I wouldn't have been surprised any minute 
 one particle if I had seen that old black poison air
 
 140 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 Vance thought about when she was a child, come drifting 
 out those open windows. It was a strange feeling, I 
 don't forget it. 
 
 My Uncle stood by me and looked at it for a while. He 
 had seen it plenty of times before; and if he had any 
 feelings about it at all, he didn't show it in his hard, old, 
 yellow face. 
 
 But then he turned and walked back to our house, and 
 I with him. The sun was coming up, clear and hot again. 
 It glistened on the east side of the shiny, rubbery leaves 
 of the magnolia trees ; and the locusts in them were drying 
 out their wings and getting going by fits and starts into 
 that old hot weather song of theirs. It was another old 
 Fever day, hotter than ever. The damp was going, and 
 you could smell the heat of the day in your nostrils al 
 ready; and feel the first dry smart and tingle, when the 
 sun first fell upon your cheek. 
 
 Vance was inside, in the side doorway. My Uncle 
 walked straight up to her. 
 
 " Get ready," he said. " I want you to get ready right 
 now." 
 
 " What for? " said Vance. 
 
 " You're going to-day," said my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 I was more than glad. " Now," I thought to myself, 
 " the time has come, young lady, when you're going." 
 Her father wasn't like he had been the past three days 
 moonshiny and absent minded; he was quick and nervous 
 and determined, like he usually was. 
 
 " Are you going? " said Vance, to her father, looking 
 at him, with her great dark eyes. 
 
 " No," he said. 
 
 " Then you can't expect me to," said Vance. " It's no 
 different from yesterday. I'm going when you and 
 Beavis go."
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 141 
 
 " You're going when I tell you to," and his black eyes 
 were ugly. 
 
 " No," said Vance. " I wasn't taught to think that's 
 what Southern women do." 
 
 "What?" said my Uncle. 
 
 " Run ! " answered Vance, " get scared and run ! " 
 
 " You're going if I tell you to," said my Uncle. 
 
 " No," said Vance. 
 
 " You'll go if I have to take you by force ! " said her 
 father, and caught her by her arm. She shrank the 
 faintest bit; then stood still and passive, looking in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " You hurt me," she said, " don't. You just hurt 
 me ! " And her voice was very low and even. They 
 stood for a minute and looked at one another. He 
 dropped her arm finally, and went away, muttering to 
 himself, and Vance stood watching him, her hand holding 
 at her arm where he had gripped it. She was breathing 
 hard. 
 
 " You've got to go, Vance," I said. 
 
 " No, sir," said Vance. 
 
 She stood there, her lips parted, still panting for 
 breath. 
 
 " Sit down," I said roughly. " Sit down, anyhow." 
 
 She looked at me a minute and I saw tears come up into 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Go away," she said. " Please leave me alone." 
 
 So I went out into the stable and set about my work, 
 muttering to myself. 
 
 We got no further with her, not a step. Her father 
 hadn't moved her an inch. Her weakness had won against 
 him, exactly as it had with me. Her weakness was her 
 strength, like it is with women, anyhow. It had beaten 
 him just exactly as it had me.
 
 142 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 It was an hour or two before I got back to the house 
 again. And when I came in the side door I heard Vance 
 and her father talking in the big hall. And I thought 
 with a gleam of hope that it was talking about her going 
 away again. 
 
 I stopped to listen to what he would say. But it was 
 Vance who was talking. 
 
 " Where are you going? " asked Vance, in a sharp high 
 voice, like she was scared. 
 
 But he didn't answer. 
 
 " You aren't going down there to those tenements ? " 
 questioned Vance, and her voice grew sharper still. " The 
 Fever's all around there. You aren't going down there, 
 no, sir ! " 
 
 I'd come around by that time to where they were stand 
 ing, facing each other again. My Uncle stood there with 
 his old hand satchel in his hand. And then it came to 
 me right away. It was Monday again, the day for gath 
 ering in the niggers' rent. It was a week from that night 
 he had gone home prophesying Fever, the night before 
 the Fever came. It seemed more like a hundred years. 
 
 " It's no use, anyhow," said Vance. 
 
 He just stood looking at her. 
 
 " There's no use," she said. " Nobody's paying any 
 rents any more. It said so in the paper." 
 
 " No," said my Uncle, and his voice was rougher than 
 ever. " You don't have to remind me. I know that with 
 out going down there. I know that property is worth 
 less like the rest. You don't have to tell me I'm ruined." 
 
 She stepped back a little, he talked so loud and ugly. 
 
 " I'm not going down there don't you worry," he 
 said. " I'm going in here," and he tramped on toward 
 Mr. Bozro's study. 
 
 When he went in, Arabella was there.
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 143 
 
 " What are you doing here? " he said to her. " Ain't 
 you through here yet ? Well, get through and get out ! " 
 
 So in a minute or two she came out looking back of her 
 like an old cat when somebody's got her usual chair, and 
 she shut the big brown round-topped door after her. 
 
 " Now, what's he doing in there ? " Vance asked me, 
 when they were both out of our way. 
 
 For my Uncle hated that place, that study, and made 
 all manner of fun of it, with its big black expensive fur 
 niture, and its great center table; and the safe that Mr. 
 Bozro had built into the wall that the key to was lost 
 now, so it could never be used. He never went in there 
 to sit by himself from one year's end to the other. 
 
 " First the tower," I said, " and now this ! " 
 
 " But there's one thing," said Vance, " he acts better 
 now. He isn't so gloomy and down-hearted." 
 
 That was right too. He seemed as sharp and smart as 
 I had ever seen him, and I had to admit it ; but that didn't 
 explain why he was in there; why he had gone in there 
 with that old hand satchel of his that he carried his money 
 in, and why he stayed there all day. 
 
 At first it seemed to me that maybe he might be there 
 because the Fever was down on that side of the house, 
 and he could look out the windows and see what was going 
 on in the street. For his room upstairs was on the wrong 
 side of the house' for that. It might be he was going to 
 stay in there in that Study right along now. It was more 
 understandable anyhow, than his trips into the Tower, 
 even if Vance's explanation of his going up there to watch 
 was right. 
 
 But what bothered me and made me mad was the way 
 he had forgotten, apparently, everything he had said and 
 promised about sending Vance away. Whatever he was 
 thinking of, now, had wiped that clean off his mind. Nat-
 
 144 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 urally I was mad. I didn't care much what he did him 
 self; he could do what he pleased. There was only one 
 question with me now. How were we going to get Vance 
 out of there? 
 
 But I did think then too that his actions were strange ; 
 and I could see that Vance did. 
 
 But the most comical thing of all was Arabella, stand 
 ing or passing along in the hallway outside, muttering 
 by the closed door, and trying to figure out what he was 
 doing; what all this meant. She had been used to having 
 that room, and those windows to look out of so long that 
 she thought they belonged to her, and now, when the Fever 
 was right there, she had to go outside in the yard to 
 look. 
 
 We were all looking down that way naturally now. I 
 sat up in my own bedroom window reading my books for 
 quite a while. And I could see, out there, Arabella go 
 out in the yard, several times, her two dogs following her, 
 and stand in the shade of a tree and stare down, over the 
 block where the Fever was. And come back again, calm 
 and stately as a steamboat on the river. 
 
 I was sitting there in the afternoon, when she was com 
 ing back, and I saw her do a mighty curious thing. She 
 had got about opposite my Uncle's window, when all of a 
 sudden I saw her stop right still; just stand and stare. 
 Then after a while she went along, looking indifferent 
 again but she must have been there staring a half a 
 minute or so. 
 
 It was after that, about an hour, when I came down 
 stairs to go out in the yard, and I ran across her again, 
 lurking about the back of the main hall, standing at the 
 entrance to the dining room, and I made it my business to 
 go outdoors that way to see what she had coming on her 
 mind now.
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 145 
 
 I turned my head and looked at her when I came by and 
 right away she started talking and asking questions in a 
 queer kind of ghostly voice. She was excited about some 
 thing, that was certain. 
 
 " You ever think you ever think what you be doing 
 then? " she asked me, very slow and solemn. And the 
 " O-O-Os " in her words came out of her like an old owl 
 in the twilight. 
 
 " Then ! " I said. " Then what ? " 
 
 " You ever think," she went right along, " what you 
 be doing when that Day comes around? " 
 
 "What Day?" 
 
 " That Judgment Day ! " 
 
 I stood right still and watched her. She had been dif 
 ferent, a little, all that day. From the excitement, I 
 reckoned, from the Fever, and after that Meeting she had 
 been to all that night before. 
 
 She was always a little different, mornings after those 
 Meetings. But she was talking more anyhow instead 
 of just standing, looking. 
 
 " Where'll you be ? Where you goin' to be ? " said 
 Arabella, like one of those old exhorters ; but talking yet 
 in a kind of whisper. " You ever ask you'se'f ? 
 
 " Where you goin' to be? " she went along, " when He 
 comes? Playin' cards and gamblin' and swearin'; and 
 cahying on? Or is you goin' to be found aprayin', down 
 on your knees prayin' ? " she said, talking louder ; and 
 stopped, looking at me and catching her breath. 
 
 For she was pretty mighty fat and heavy. 
 
 " We better be ; we better be ! " she said. 
 
 " They's some," she said, looking in a meaning way at 
 me looking at the door into the hall ; " they's some 
 will be found a-sittin' and a-countin' their money. 
 
 " But that ain't goin' do him no good," said Arabella,
 
 146 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 her whisper rising louder, " that ain't goin' do him no 
 good you mind what I tell you," she said. " Money, 
 just old money, that ain't goin' do you no good, not much 
 longer ! " 
 
 Then right of a sudden she called me over by the win 
 dow. 
 
 " You see them clouds you see them clouds," she 
 said, pointing over in the west. " You see them old clouds 
 comin' up? 
 
 " Maybe they's the ones ! Maybe they's the ones ! " 
 she said. " Maybe it will be comin' down yere to-night ! 
 You can't tell ! You can't never tell ! But you know 
 it ain't long now ! It ain't long ! 
 
 " Signs and myst'ries ! " she said, in that old secret 
 voice ; " signs and myst'ries eve'ywhere ! 
 
 " Look out," she said, loud and stopped, for my Uncle 
 moved a little in his room. 
 
 " Look out ! " she said softer and rolled her eyes at 
 me, and then turned back suddenly, back to the kitchen. 
 
 And I went outdoors smiling to myself thinking what 
 wild things the niggers were, and what strange thoughts 
 got going in their heads. I didn't have the slightest idea 
 then of what she was driving at. 
 
 It was about half an hour after that when I had to 
 come back to the house for something. And for some 
 reason I looked up just as I passed under the Study win 
 dow and looked in. The window was pretty high ; you 
 couldn't see much generally. I looked in, and just as I 
 had seen the negress do, I stiffened up and stopped. I 
 stopped short, then I thought, and went along, for fear 
 he would notice it. 
 
 For there, at the great table in the center of the Study 
 I saw my Uncle Hagar sitting, and the table in front of
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 147 
 
 him was all covered up with money ! I couldn't doubt that 
 now at last I was looking with my own eyes at that old 
 " Hagar's Hoard " that they talked so much about ! I 
 saw it with my own eyes ! 
 
 He sat there in that high backed chair, one of those 
 high black expensive carved chairs that Mr. Bozro had 
 in his study, dozing, it looked like, half asleep, with his 
 hands out on the arms. Right ahead of him, propped 
 up on the table was a book a big black book, with a 
 red back, like the book-keepers use. And at the farther 
 end of the table sat that little, old, brown hand satchel 
 of his, wide open. 
 
 But, in front of him, where you could see it perfectly 
 plain, were all those piles of green-backs fifteen or 
 twenty piles I should say, anyway, all fastened up with 
 paper bands around the middle twenty piles, maybe 
 more. 
 
 And there, over them, with the windows free and open, 
 sat my Uncle dozing in that great black chair. I went 
 along, looking neither right nor left, stiff and unnatural 
 as that old steam automaton they said they had in Phila 
 delphia at the Centennial. I went along into the side 
 door, and upstairs and into my own room. And there 
 I sat down and tried to think. 
 
 I certainly couldn't understand it, that was all. For, 
 suppose the man was all right in his mind ; and he seemed 
 to me that last day anyway, as straight as a string 
 what was he doing there with all that money spread out 
 in the public way in broad daylight? 
 
 But suppose the other thing. Suppose all that fear of 
 his all his losses, and his great house, and his fear of 
 fire and thieves, had come to a head and his mind had 
 worn out under the strain of that Fever time why then,
 
 148 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 why wouldn't it be natural to expect that the worse and 
 more excited he got, the deeper and deeper into that great 
 old house he would have hidden that money of his ? 
 
 I sat there for an hour or two and puzzled my head 
 over the thing; and I got nowhere, not before supper- 
 time. Only, the more I thought, the madder I got over it. 
 
 There, under my window, was the Fever at our doors. 
 I could see the chemicals shining white on the street; and 
 the woman, the mother of the sick child, sitting in the 
 window ; and sometimes if I strained my ears, the moaning 
 of the child. There was the Fever under our windows, 
 and certain as to-morrow morning, to come to us. And 
 there underneath me, sat that damned old fool ; thousands 
 of dollars before him enough to take us all to Alaska 
 and keep us there the rest of our natural lives ! Sitting 
 there, bent up in his chair over those old green-backs 
 like a drowsy child over his playthings. 
 
 And we all tied, and fastened, and bound here against 
 our will, by that pile of paper he sat playing with.
 
 BOOK IV 
 THE HALF NIGGER
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 IT was cloudy that night dark early. There were 
 ragged, tousled thunder heads in the west that smoth 
 ered the twilight. And down the vacant street the 
 lonely yellow light in the place where they had the Fever 
 was started watching for another night. 
 
 " Poor woman," said Vance. " Poor baby ! " 
 
 She stood beside me at the window again, after supper, 
 watching as we did every evening now, up toward the 
 city, toward where the Fever lay. 
 
 " You remember her, that little one with such white 
 hair," said Vance, very softly. 
 
 She stood beside me, staring with those deep eyes of 
 hers, lips slightly apart, like a child at the tragedy. Frail, 
 sensitive women are so, I expect sometimes. But I never 
 knew one just like her she was such a very fine and 
 delicate thing like one of those harps they set at the 
 windows, played through and thrilled by all the unseen 
 movements of the air. 
 
 She stood rigid again, watching the lonely light under 
 our little hill. 
 
 " Vance," I said, finding my own voice, with some 
 trouble, " when are you going? " 
 
 She looked at me, reproachful for asking her that same 
 old thing again. 
 
 "When are we going?" she said. 
 
 " He won't go," I said, looking back over my shoulder 
 
 151
 
 152 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 to where the high brown door stod closed to the Study. 
 
 " Maybe he will," Vance answered slowly. 
 
 " I believe," she said after a while, " I believe I could 
 get him to go myself, if he would only look at me. I 
 think," she said, and choked a little, " I think my father 
 thinks a lot of me in his way, but now he won't see me, 
 even. 
 
 " And I can't force myself on him. That would be 
 worse than nothing," she said. " You know that." 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 She waited till her voice grew steadier. 
 
 " If it wasn't for this thing always on his mind," she 
 said. "What is it? What do you believe it is? What 
 is he always thinking about ? " she said, looking up at me. 
 
 " Property," I said, " his Property." I caught my 
 self just in time from saying right out " His money." 
 For that would never do to tell her that queer business 
 of her father's that I had just seen that afternoon not 
 if I ever hoped to get her away from there. 
 
 " No," said Vance. 
 
 "What then?" I asked her. 
 
 " Thieves and fire," said she, repeating from her father. 
 
 I shook my head. " That's just another way of saying 
 it," I told her. 
 
 " But I believe he's watching something in particular, 
 or some one ! " she went on. " I've said that all the time 
 
 in the tower at night, from his room, and now in there. 
 He's watching there," and she nodded toward him where 
 he was sitting in the Study. 
 
 " No, sir," I said, " I know positively that isn't so. I 
 know he isn't watching ! " 
 
 "How can you know for certain?" she asked. And 
 naturally I could not tell her of the thing that I had seen 
 
 that sight of " Hagar's Hoard " through the windows
 
 THE LIGHTED MATCH 153 
 
 that proved for certain he could not have feared there 
 were any thieves about. 
 
 " Well," said Vance, contradicting me, " I just know 
 that it is ! " 
 
 " Why? " I said just to hear what was in her mind, 
 certain all the time she was wrong. 
 
 " Because," she said to me, " in the first place I believe 
 there is some one watching him." 
 
 " Watching him," I said. 
 
 " Always," she said, " for days. What is that bell? " 
 she asked. " That door bell ringing for? " 
 
 " Have you heard it again ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes again last night," she said. 
 
 " And why are the dogs so restless, always, after mid 
 night? " 
 
 " I don't know," I said. " I expect they always find 
 something the} 7 can bark about." 
 
 " They do," said Vance, looking at me " around this 
 house." 
 
 " It's mighty easy, Vance," I said, " to get too nervous 
 at a time like this." 
 
 " Don't you believe it ? Don't you believe I'm right ? " 
 she said. " Isn't it sensible to think so? All those stories 
 they started ; that got the niggers talking. All those 
 thieves and jail-birds down here along the river. You 
 know yourself what it's like down there; what happens 
 to an honest man out there alone after nightfall. How 
 many of them gone, and never seen again, excepting 
 maybe far down the river! And now, just like Dad 
 says," she went along, " the whole town is full of thieves. 
 Some of them, I believe ; some of them, are certainly watch 
 ing us." 
 
 " So your father says," I said, and smiled at her 
 certain she was on the wrong track.
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Isn't that so ? " asked Vance. " Aren't there thieves 
 now everywhere? If everybody didn't know it, would 
 they have that? " and pointed. 
 
 Up the street from the city, while she was talking, two 
 nigger soldiers two of those nigger militia in bright 
 blue and red uniforms, that they appointed to keep peace 
 and order in the town came along by, patrolling the 
 town, as they did, after that, in pairs. 
 
 " No," said Vance, looking at them going by, " some 
 body is certainly watching here ! " 
 
 " I expect," I said, " you'll say pretty quick you've 
 seen that half nigger that your father talked about this 
 summer." 
 
 " That's what I was coming at," said Vance. " I be 
 lieve maybe I have. There's been one to-day and yester 
 day, loitering in the alley; a great fawn-colored nigger 
 with a great long scar on his face." 
 
 " You saw that ! " I said, quickly, for I saw right away 
 that here was John McCallan's man, the nigger wanted on 
 suspicion of the killing of that Jew. 
 
 " Yes," said Vance. " And I believe that Dad's been 
 seeing it too. I believe that's all he's been doing first 
 in that tower, and now here." 
 
 " And I know that it isn't," I said, more sharp and 
 certain. 
 
 " How do you know? " asked Vance, again. 
 
 And again I couldn't tell her. 
 
 " I'll tell you sometime," I said, " but not now." 
 
 " You're wrong," said Vance, just as certain as I was. 
 
 " And another thing," she went on, then ; " Another 
 thing I'm going to ask you: Do you believe anybody 
 could be in that Ventress house? " 
 
 "Why?" I asked her.
 
 THE LIGHTED MATCH 155 
 
 " Well, there are in lots of houses now all over the 
 city you know that. All these vacant houses." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " but that doesn't prove anything about 
 this one." 
 
 " No," said Vance, " only I got it into my head some 
 way " 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 " I don't know," she answered like she didn't care to. 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " The shades," she said at last. " It seems to me the 
 shades in those windows there are different, are changed 
 some way on different days." 
 
 " Oh, moonshine ! " I said, and laughed. 
 
 The servants might have been back in that house again. 
 She might be entirely mistaken about such a little thing 
 as the position of a window shade. If ever there was a 
 woman's way of seeing and worrying about things, that 
 was it. 
 
 " Let's talk of something real, Vance," I said. " Let's 
 think about the Fever. 
 
 " There it is, right here," I said, " right within a stone's 
 throw of us ; what are you going to do ? " 
 
 " What can I do ? " asked Vance. 
 
 " Are you going to go like we want you to ? " 
 
 " When you do," she said again. 
 
 " But that's no time at all. He won't go," I said 
 " your father, he won't go at all." 
 
 " He might, perhaps," said Vance. 
 
 Then I lost my head a little, as usual, at her arguing 
 and obstinateness. 
 
 " There it is," I said, " under your windows, death for 
 certain ! The air alive with this old Fever poison. Do 
 you expect, now it's got here, you can shut it out? Do
 
 156 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 you think you can shut out that poison by just only clos 
 ing down your windows in the night time? " 
 
 " I believe my father knows," said Vance, faintly. 
 " After all the times he's seen it. I believe he knows, if 
 anybody does." 
 
 " It will be all around us in three days," I said. " Do 
 you believe it will pass us by ? 
 
 " I expect you think," I said, bitterly, when she did not 
 answer, and seemed not to be listening to me at all just 
 looking off. " I expect you think it will go right by our 
 closed windows, without getting a one of us." 
 
 " One of us," said Vance, starting. " Oh ! " 
 
 " What is it ? " I said, moving toward her. 
 
 " One of us ! " she said again, catching her breath. 
 
 " Oh, I see ! I didn't understand you first." And then 
 tried to pass it off, and couldn't. 
 
 I saw then what I had blundered into. She was shiver 
 ing now, noticeably, through all her slender body, worse 
 than ever before. 
 
 " Vance," I said, and put my arm about her shoulders, 
 steadying her. " Vance, quit it." 
 
 For I knew of course it was that dream again about 
 her father. 
 
 " I will ; I will," she said. I could feel the muscles of 
 her arms tightening with the effort. 
 
 I stood there, waiting for her to control herself. 
 
 " I must go now," she said, in a husky voice. " I'm 
 going upstairs." 
 
 " I'm sorry, Vance," I said, apologizing. 
 
 " No, I'm a little fool, that's all," she said, and left me. 
 
 But she turned back as she was going out. 
 
 " I had two other dreams like that," she said, " and 
 both came true. One of them, when my mother died." 
 
 She turned, and left, and I watched her her lithe,
 
 THE LIGHTED MATCH 157 
 
 little figure go climbing up the stairs into the dusky upper 
 hall, and I thought what all of us have at different times, 
 I expect, what a strange, different creature a woman is 
 from the rest of us. 
 
 I went back thinking about it; puzzling and worrying 
 over the way everything was going, the way we were tied 
 and snarled up in that invisible net that binds up men and 
 women's lives. How I cursed that house in my heart 
 that black old house, and what there was in it ; that " Ha- 
 gar's Hoard " I had seen that afternoon ! And that old 
 miserliness, and fear of my Uncle for his " Property," his 
 money. Yes, and even the loyalty, and nervous dread of 
 his daughter. All the invisible bonds that held us there, 
 strong as the cable of a ship, while outside, hour after 
 hour, death rose up under our windows. 
 
 I found myself again by the window, as I worried back 
 and forth over all this trouble. We were there, all the 
 time, at those north windows drawn in spite of our 
 selves by the expectation of what we might see espe 
 cially at night when the Fever fires were lighted on the 
 empty street, and there seemed everywhere that feeling of 
 fear and waiting. 
 
 I saw the vacant street, the yellow dots of street lights, 
 and up the roadway, in front of the city, now, the lights 
 where the nigger militia had their camp on the bluffs. 
 My eye fell now and then on the Ventress's house 
 next to us black and high and ugly, just beyond our 
 yard. 
 
 I looked and looked, and turned away to watch the ris 
 ing thunder clouds in the pale west, when my eye went sud 
 denly back to it, that house of the Ventress's. 
 
 In the sitting room, through the central window that 
 faced toward us, there shone a little glow of light. Some 
 body had struck a match there. I could see nothing else
 
 158 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 there no one, not a soul. The curtains were three 
 quarters down. 
 
 The little light grew slowly faint and bluish, like 
 those old matches did, and then rose into a yellow glow, 
 and finally died, shaken out. 
 
 I stood and watched and watched, after that, but there 
 was nothing more nothing at all that I could see. But 
 I was sure now. There was some one there. And I had 
 thought the house was empty. Of course, I said to my 
 self, it might have been one of the servants ; one of their 
 own negroes come back there. And yet, I didn't think so, 
 exactly. 
 
 I stood and watched, bound on seeing what did not come 
 again, when I heard behind me the click of an opening 
 door. My Uncle came out from the Study across the hall. 
 And he came out, I saw, as he turned around, empty 
 handed. The old hand satchel that he had taken with 
 him, that stood upon his table, while he was counting out 
 and examining his greenbacks, he hadn't brought out with 
 him. 
 
 " He must have left it all in there," I said to myself, 
 " unguarded, on the ground floor of the house." 
 
 There was that safe in there, of course. But he had no 
 key to it. I knew that. It wasn't the slightest use to 
 him. 
 
 And I couldn't understand at all. He must certainly 
 be crazy. 
 
 My Uncle Hagar came over to where I stood. And 
 when he came, I caught his eye. It was as far as you 
 could think from the eye of a crazy man or from any 
 old man's dull eye. There was a curious old black twinkle 
 in it. If I had seen it in any man's eye, I would have said 
 for certain, he was laughing. And then, there certainly 
 was, it seemed to me, a kind of crooked smile upon his lips.
 
 THE LIGHTED MATCH 159 
 
 He looked at me a second, and that smile went away. 
 
 " Where's Vance," he said. 
 
 " Gone upstairs," I answered. 
 
 Then he stepped up alongside of me at the big high 
 window. 
 
 " A cloudy night," said my Uncle Athiel, looking out. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said. 
 
 " Looks like we might have a thunder shower," he said. 
 
 " Yes, sir, it does," I said. Those great old navy blue 
 clouds had shut off the last lingering white patches of 
 sunset. 
 
 " I hope we do," said my Uncle Athiel ; " they're good ! 
 They wash this old Fever poison out of the air." 
 
 That was one of the ideas they had about the Fever 
 then. 
 
 " It will make it healthier," said my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 " And maybe cooler," I said. 
 
 It was hot still ; still close and disagreeable in the house ; 
 shut up that way at night. But you didn't mind it some 
 how, after a while. Somehow, after all that talk about 
 the poison in the night air, I had got by that time so I 
 was glad, and more than glad, to keep my windows all 
 shut down as tight as any one. I expect, in a smaller 
 house, it might have been a whole lot harder. That was 
 one thing, like Vance had always said, about that great 
 house of ours. You could stand it being shut up there. 
 
 We stood there quite a few minutes, the two of us, 
 looking out. It was a sad looking old blue night, now, 
 very dark and silent silent as the grave. 
 
 It seemed to me my Uncle loitered a little more than 
 usual. And on his old blue lips I thought that I could see 
 again that faint, curious smile. 
 
 "What do you see?" he said to me after a while. 
 "What were you looking at?"
 
 160 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 I was watching the Ventress's house, I expect, without 
 realizing it. 
 
 I made up my mind, right away then, I'd let him have it. 
 
 " You've had a great lot to say about thieves lately," 
 I said ; " thieves in houses. Now I'll tell you why I'm 
 looking and watching here. I'll tell you. Maybe I've 
 just seen one. I just saw somebody, anyhow, light a 
 match in there at the Ventress's." 
 
 " Just tell me that again," said my Uncle, leaning over ; 
 and that faint smile got a little plainer. 
 
 So I told him again, louder. " Do you think we ought 
 to go over there? " I asked him. 
 
 " No, sir," he said sharply. " No, not in that damned 
 poison night air, with the Fever right down there, not for 
 any man. Not for a thousand Ventresses." 
 
 For he never got on very well with that family, anyway. 
 
 " It might be only one of their own niggers, after all," 
 I said. 
 
 My Uncle kept looking at me without speaking. 
 
 " We might tell the police, I expect, to-morrow, any 
 way," I said. 
 
 " Police ! Hell ! " said my Uncle. " Tell the police ! " 
 And he laughed. " What police ? There ain't any ! 
 Why should we tell them if there was ? " 
 
 " To save the house," I said, " if somebody is in there 
 robbing it." 
 
 " Save it nothing ! If anybody's been robbing that 
 house," said my Uncle, " they'd had it robbed and done 
 with long ago." 
 
 It made me mad, the way he had that night all his 
 actions, and the way he acted about that house especially. 
 I can't describe it. His voice was harsh, and kind of ugly 
 and insolent. Yes, and younger that was just it 
 younger.
 
 THE LIGHTED MATCH 161 
 
 And he seemed to be jeering and flouting at me all the 
 time. 
 
 " All right," I said, for he got on the raw with me more 
 and more. " Suit yourself. But now I've got something 
 else to tell you." 
 
 "Oh-ho! What else?" said my Uncle. "Out with 
 it!" 
 
 He made me madder still, the way he talked. But I 
 liked less than anything else that smile he had on his 
 face quite plain now when he looked at me. 
 
 " If I had money," I said, looking him in the eye " a 
 lot of money around the house, I don't think I'd be so open 
 about it." 
 
 " If you had money," said my Uncle, and his eyes twin 
 kled into mine, before he lowered them again " ah, ha? " 
 
 " Well, then," I said, " I'll tell it all to you like it was. 
 I just saw you, and that old money of yours, spread out 
 before you there this afternoon right there in plain 
 sight. 
 
 " I don't expect you thought when you did it," I said, 
 " but if there are any thieves or bad niggers, or half- 
 niggers, around this place, or the next one," I said, look 
 ing at him, " they can't help seeing it as well as I did. 
 
 " I'm telling you this so you'll be prepared so you'll 
 know," I said, and stopped and looked out of the window. 
 
 And all at once I turned suddenly round, for my Uncle 
 burst out laughing stood there, just laughing fit to kill 
 himself. It wasn't the pleasantest laugh I ever heard, but 
 it was a laugh just the same. 
 
 " What's the joke? " I said, getting madder yet. 
 
 "Well, I'll just show you," said my Uncle, moving to 
 ward his study. 
 
 "No, I won't! No, I believe I won't to-night. Ill 
 wait till to-morrow morning," he said, stopping himself.
 
 162 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " But meantime," he said, touching me on the arm, 
 " meantime you keep your eye peeled ; keep your eye 
 peeled at that house next door ! " 
 
 I couldn't make out, quite, whether he was laughing or 
 in earnest when he said that, when he gave me those old 
 directions of his to be watching out. 
 
 I just stood there, gaping, as he went upstairs. 
 
 My mouth opened like a fool. But I was boiling over 
 inside. 
 
 He went poking along out, not noticing me. But when 
 he got to the door he stopped and turned around and 
 looked at me. And then again he broke into that ugly 
 laugh once more. 
 
 " Judas," he said, looking me over, " you certainly did 
 look sad." 
 
 And then he laughed again. 
 
 " Sad," I said after him, getting madder. 
 
 " You ought to seen yourself." 
 
 " Seen myself ! " I said, madder and madder. 
 
 " Just standing," said my Uncle Athiel, " just standing 
 there with that look on your face," said my Uncle Athiel. 
 " Sadder'n a sick mule in a cemetery ! " 
 
 And he gave that laugh again while I worked hard to 
 hold on to myself. For just for that minute it seemed to 
 me the man must certainly be crazy. But then, when I 
 thought it over, I wasn't sure not about that laugh, 
 anyway. It was not a crazy laugh, no, not in the least. 
 
 It was just mean and disagreeable. The meanest laugh 
 that I ever heard.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE BAIT 
 
 I KNOCKED at the high brown door of his Study 
 very softly. It was about half-past nine. My 
 Uncle had said to come when Vance went upstairs 
 after breakfast. 
 
 " Come on in," said my Uncle. 
 
 It was kind of darkish in there. The sun was on the 
 other side of the house, and one window shade was down. 
 
 " Sit down, over there," paid my Uncle. And I went 
 where he pointed, over to the far corner of the room, 
 back from the window. 
 
 I could see better now; the high room, with the big 
 black shiny chairs carved with dragons on their backs, 
 and the big table in the center. I sat down, and felt the 
 body of one of those old twisting dragons at my back. 
 Then I sat up again and stared. For there, on the center 
 table, was " Hagar's Hoard," fixed just like it was the 
 day before. 
 
 There was the red-backed book-keeper's book, and the 
 old hand-satchel and all the green-backs in their little 
 banded piles, and over it my Uncle Athiel sat in his high 
 chair only not drowsing now his eyes as sharp as 
 jet buttons, and on his blue lips that same crooked, dis 
 agreeable smile. He was cutting himself off the sliver of 
 tobacco he chewed. He poked it into his mouth on the 
 
 big blade of his jack-knife. 
 
 163
 
 164 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Well," he said, smart and deep, " how do you like my 
 lay out? " 
 
 " Like it," I said, and that was all. My voice was 
 hoarse and dry. I was staring like a fool. But he sat 
 there, watching with that cold grin on his face, until I 
 finally found voice enough to ask him, " What is it? " 
 
 " Can't you see? " he asked. 
 
 " No," I told him, my voice coming back to me. 
 
 " Here, catch ! " said my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 And, reaching over on the table, he took and tossed 
 over to me one of those fat packages of green-backs. 
 
 And in some way, I managed to catch it. 
 
 " Take a look ! " he said to me. And I did ! 
 
 It was just nothing but those old Confederate bills 
 a parcel of that old ghost money of the Confederacy that 
 they gave the children to play with. 
 
 I looked up at him, finally, and saw that smile again. 
 And for a minute I sat there, with an awful case of the 
 " dry grins " on my own face, thinking what a fool I had 
 been made of. 
 
 "But then," I thought to myself, "this can't be all 
 done just for a sell on me there must be something 
 else." 
 
 So then, " What was it for? " I said to him. 
 
 " Count it," said my Uncle, and sat there, chewing a 
 bit of tobacco and watching me. 
 
 " Five thousand, ain't it ? " he questioned, when I got 
 through. 
 
 That's what it was all in big bills. 
 
 " And twenty piles in all," said my Uncle. " That 
 makes a hundred thousand dollars, all together, don't 
 it?" 
 
 *' Yes," I said, looking up under my eyebrows. 
 
 " A hundred thousand dollars," said my Uncle, " it
 
 THE BAIT 165 
 
 must be that one hundred thousand dollars the niggers 
 talk about. It must be that old man Hagar's Hoard." 
 
 " Must it ! " I said. I was getting right tired of this 
 fooling. And just then the smile went out in my Uncle's 
 face, quick as a lamp in the wind. 
 
 " It must be but it ain't," he said, with an oath. 
 " No. It's just one of his gilt-edged investments." 
 
 But in a minute or two afterwards his smile came right 
 back to him. 
 
 " How do you like 'em? How do they strike -you, now 
 you see 'em? " he asked. 
 
 "What is this?" I said. "What is this, anyhow? 
 Just a sell on me? " 
 
 "No," he said; "not by a jugful!" And he turned 
 and spit through his teeth into that fine expensive fire 
 place, with its marble trimmings, back of him. And that 
 old smile on his face was changed again. The laugh was 
 all gone out of it; it was plain straight and cruel. 
 
 " You thought I was crazy, didn't you? " he said to 
 me. " Well I ain't; you'll find I ain't. 
 
 " But you certainly looked funny," he said to me, 
 " goin' by lookin' up under your eyelids." 
 
 I had gone about as far as I was going; he was giving 
 me more than I swallowed from any man. 
 
 " Look here," I said, " if you think you can sit here and 
 tease me like a sick dog, you're damned mistaken." 
 
 Our eyes met then, and there was no smiles in either 
 one of them. 
 
 " Now you tell me," I said, " what is this thing? What 
 is this stuff here on the table? " 
 
 He looked at me a minute, before answering. 
 
 " It's bait," he said and when he said it, I saw that 
 half smile come sneaking back in spite of him, at the corner 
 of his mouth.
 
 166 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 "That'll do," I said, getting up. "That'll do," I 
 said, and started for the door. 
 
 But my Uncle was up ahead of me. 
 
 " Sit down, you fool," he said. " Stand back away 
 from that window ; he'll see you ! " 
 
 There was nothing crazy, nor foolish, nor joking, about 
 that voice. It was clear and pert, and strong as a young 
 man's. 
 
 " He'll see me ! " I said, falling back into my chair. 
 "Who?" 
 
 " That half nigger in the next house," said my Uncle 
 
 " You mean to say," I started. 
 
 " You bet, I mean exactly what I said," my Uncle 
 Athiel answered. " He's likely laying there on his belly 
 right now; looking out underneath the window shade into 
 here now." 
 
 " You say he's in that house now ! " I said. 
 
 He kept his little black eyes on me. 
 
 " Yes ; and he's been there since yesterday morning." 
 
 " And I saw him there last night saw him lighting 
 that match," I said. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And this ? " I said, pointing at the table. 
 
 "That's just what I said it was just exactly." 
 
 "Bait?" I asked. 
 
 " Bait for niggers," said my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 He looked at me, and I at him. And there was real, 
 genuine pleasure and amusement in his eyes. I don't 
 know when I had seen it there before. He was a different 
 person somehow ; a new man I'd never seen before, pleased 
 and smiling over something he was going to enjoy. And 
 I moved uneasily, more uncomfortable than those uncom 
 fortable chairs made me when I sat looking at him. 
 For I didn't care for him, this new man who watched
 
 THE BAIT 167 
 
 me over the table nor for that smile he wore upon his 
 face. 
 
 " Lemme tell you about it," said my Uncle Athiel, and 
 he went along and told me how he had been watching that 
 half-nigger from the tower first. How he went up and 
 saw him that first day, when I came back from the doc 
 tor's. 
 
 " You can see half the town from there," he said. 
 
 " But now you've got him here," I asked, " what next? 
 How are you going to catch him? The police? " 
 
 " Police ! " said my Uncle, sneering. " No police ! 
 something better than that ! " 
 
 " What? " 
 
 " Ourselves," said my Uncle, and he passed to me a kind 
 of look of understanding. 
 
 " You know what you said to me the other day," said 
 my Uncle Athiel. 
 
 " I said I'd swim Hell for you if you'd get Vance out 
 of here," I said, remembering, and wanting to remind him, 
 too. 
 
 " I liked the way you said that," said my Uncle Athiel, 
 and looked very friendly at me. 
 
 " And I'm going to do what you asked me to," he went 
 along; "I ain't forgot; I'm going to get her out; don't 
 you worry." 
 
 When? " I asked. 
 
 " To-morrow," said my Uncle, " and then," he said, 
 " then I'm going to show you something ; I'm going to 
 show you how we handled those damn niggers in the old 
 days." And he gave me the look of a man who was going 
 to share a treat with you. 
 
 " I'll show you something you never saw," he said over 
 again, and he went on talking about the grudge he owed 
 the niggers generally.
 
 168 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " I've had 'em watching and goggling around this house 
 long enough; I've had 'em whispering round the alleys; 
 and talking that torn fool talk of ' Hagar*s Hundred 
 Thousand Dollars ' for years enough ! What they need 
 is a lesson. You can't never teach 'em anything. They 
 ain't human! What they've got to have is a practical 
 lesson, and, by Judas H. Iscariot that's what they're go 
 ing to get! That's what we're going to show them with 
 this one this half-nigger here ! " 
 
 I had a kind of start when he said this. It was a good 
 lot the way he said it. 
 
 What was it, anyhow, I said to myself, that he was 
 proposing that he and I were going to do to this nig 
 ger thief? He hadn't said anything but hints so far. 
 
 " Well, how are you going to catch him ? " I asked, feel 
 ing around. " There, in that house? " 
 
 " No, I reckon not," said my Uncle. " We ain't going 
 out in that poison night air, not for any nigger." 
 
 "Well, what? "I said. 
 
 " He's coming here to us," said my Uncle Athiel. 
 " We'll sit right here and he'll come right up ; right up 
 step by step till he takes that bait." 
 
 "Will he take it? "said I. 
 
 " Will he take it? Take it! " said my Uncle. " Will 
 a garfish grab a minnow? " 
 
 "Won't he suspect?" I said. "Won't he get sus 
 picious? " 
 
 " Did you ? " said my Uncle, laughing at me. 
 
 " No," I said, hanging my head a little. 
 
 " Well he won't, then. A nigger won't," said my Uncle. 
 " A nigger ! I know 'em I know 'em, through and 
 through; they ain't half so human as a good dog! 
 
 " Don't you fret," he went along, " we'll get him ; he'll 
 come along right up to the window here ; not long now
 
 THE BAIT 169 
 
 to-morrow night, maybe. He'll come right up here 
 and then " 
 
 " And then " I said, after him, " what? " 
 
 His blue lips looked pleased; his face was young, just 
 young with expectation; and his little black eyes just 
 shone. It struck me all of a sudden: How many times 
 had those little black eyes, of those round-headed men 
 from the hills, looked down their gun-barrels at the men 
 they were hunting, with just that kind of sparkle in 
 them; just that enjoyment of killing. 
 
 " Then," he said, " I'll show you something that you 
 never saw before." 
 
 " You'll kill him, you mean ! " I exclaimed, sitting up. 
 
 " Kill him! " said my Uncle, acting just disgusted with 
 me. Who said I'd kill him? " 
 
 But the way he said it, I wasn't sure of anything, only 
 that he was disgusted with my talking. 
 
 His smile came back though, after a while. He was 
 too much taken up by his plans. 
 
 "No, I won't kiU him, I expect," he said. "You'll 
 see; though I've got a perfect right if I want to; you 
 heard that; I've got a perfect right to shoot anybody on 
 my premises after dark. The Marshal said so in his 
 Proclamation. And if I did it would be a good sight 
 better'n that nigger deserves, and the world would be a 
 good sight better off." 
 
 He went on talking then more than I ever heard him 
 talk before. And as he talked I watched him and I 
 thought I understood; I was listening to Athiel Hagar, 
 who lived thirty years ago to young Athiel Hagar, 
 who jammed his way along in that old pioneer time in the 
 Mississippi country. And if there was a rougher and 
 cruder place on God's footstool than that was, it isn't 
 very well known by anybody yet.
 
 170 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 He talked especially about the niggers, about the way 
 they had changed; and about the way they used to keep 
 them down around War times, and just after. He didn't 
 know, so he said, just what he was going to do with this 
 one when he got him. But it was going to be a real les 
 son, the kind that he'd carry around with him for a while ; 
 the kind that would keep the whole kit and boodle of 
 them off folk's property after that when they looked 
 at it. 
 
 And so he went along for a while, telling stories of 
 what they used to do to the niggers, when they got too 
 brash and come-uppy in the old days. 
 
 " I'm going to get this nigger," he said, " and 
 you're going to see me do it; and you'll just laugh 
 yourself sick to see how easy I get the damned black 
 fool." 
 
 He pulled out his old red bandana and wiped his head 
 and lips ; and sat for a while thinking with his head down, 
 and the little holes working in his cheeks as he chewed. 
 He sat there, a coarse little common figure, in that high 
 expensive chair, with the shiny black dragons on it twist 
 ing and curling over him. And by and by he got to 
 talking of the tricks they used to do with thieving niggers 
 in those old days the traps they used to lay for them ; 
 and the way they handled them generally, those days he 
 was out in Arkansas and Texas. And his face changed 
 and lighted up, and he went back, with the pleasure any 
 man does, going back over the enjoyments and amuse 
 ments of younger days. 
 
 He told me the story about blowing up the nigger 
 that slick Guinea nigger with the train of powder, set 
 up to a lot loose in a can. It didn't kill him, of course, 
 as he said, but it must have marked him up something 
 frightful. And all for an old harness.
 
 THE BAIT 171 
 
 He laughed when he told it. And I expect I laughed 
 too ; I had to. 
 
 Then he told about heading up another nigger for 
 something or other he'd done, something about some cot 
 ton, and a mule heading him up in this old turpentine 
 barrel with just his head sticking out. And taking him 
 up on a little hill, up over a little creek and setting it 
 afire, and then starting him rolling down the hill. He 
 had to roll and save himself in the water. 
 
 " Roll, you damn black dog ! Roll ! " said my Uncle 
 Hagar, jumping up from his chair and back again, and 
 calling out just like he must have called out to that nig 
 ger. And then he slapped on his thin old knees, and 
 laughed till he wiped his eyes, with his old red handker 
 chief, and got weak laughing. 
 
 " Didn't it kill him? " I said, catching my breath. 
 
 " Kill him? No ! " said my Uncle Hagar. " Hell, you 
 can't kill a nigger." 
 
 Then he stopped short; he happened to think, I expect, 
 that we were staying too long in there, and he was making 
 too much noise, and Vance might hear it, he said, before 
 he sent her away. 
 
 " Now, get along out of here," he said, " we've been 
 here long enough. But you come back here about four 
 o'clock this evening, when she's resting. And I'll show 
 him to you; I'll let you see him." 
 
 And when I went out the door he was smiling that new 
 smile of his, sitting there over his false green-backs. It 
 struck me then, just as I was going out, what that smile 
 was like. 
 
 It reminded me of those boys you see sometimes in the 
 
 countrv those little boys that sit and poke the eves 
 
 " . * 
 
 out of frogs with a sharp stick, and sit and laugh and 
 
 laugh.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE TEMPTEE OF THE DOGS 
 
 THE middle of that day dragged out as endless as 
 they all did only with this difference. The 
 Fever was no longer something hidden that folks 
 were running away from, over there out of sight in town. 
 It was right here where we could see and hear and almost 
 touch it, and I knew for certain that if Vance was going to 
 get away, it had got to be soon in that next twenty- 
 four hours anyhow, it seemed to me. 
 
 I saw Vance just at dinner-time. She went upstairs 
 again soon afterwards where she could be cooler and 
 rest through the afternoon in her own bedrom. She was 
 resting more than ever. I saw her very little in the day 
 time. All the morning she was caring for that great up 
 stairs of the house; and all the afternoons she spent in 
 resting. And I knew she was growing tireder and tireder. 
 
 I sat a good part of my afternoon, in my own room, 
 making another feeble try at reading at my law and 
 really waiting and worrying, and looking out of the win 
 dow. 
 
 I saw the Dead Wagons as I sat there, one coming and 
 one going. There were two of them now that went by 
 our place, and more, a good many more, in other parts 
 of the town, I suppose. They passed by us now regularly, 
 like busses to a station always loaded. One was go 
 ing out while I sat there, a half dozen coffins piled up 
 like trunks and the golden flies trailed out behind it, 
 and the old lazy mules and the nigger drowsing on the 
 
 172
 
 THE TEMPTER OF THE DOGS 173 
 
 seat. And the other wagon was coming back to town 
 again, with the mules and the harness, and the niggers' 
 clothes all covered up with that old clay dust of the coun 
 try roads, fine and dry as bolted corn-meal. 
 
 There was no more doubt about it now. The Fever 
 had gone loose from them, and was spreading out east 
 and north and south fast as a fire that the gunners 
 have started in the woods in the fall. They were having 
 lots of trouble already getting coffins enough for the dead ; 
 the niggers were fighting against digging the graves ; and 
 the little crooked man who had the contract for burying 
 folks from the town had given up in despair, and got 
 drunk; and for a day or two they couldn't get the dead 
 out from among the sick and living. 
 
 And so I knew that it was a matter of hours just 
 hours if any of us was going to get to go, as I sat 
 there that long afternoon, and waited for four o'clock to 
 come when my Uncle Hagar was to take me up with him 
 into the Tower and show me that half-nigger. And all 
 the time, I made and remade imaginary speeches that I 
 was going to make to him to keep him to his promise of 
 getting Vance away out of there if he didn't bring it 
 up again himself. 
 
 Five minutes to four came, and I heard him moving in 
 his study underneath me; and before four o'clock he was 
 climbing up the stairs to my room. I met him half way 
 on the stairs. 
 
 " I'll go first," he said. " You crawl up afterwards. 
 I believe she's sleeping, but you can't tell." 
 
 So five minutes afterwards I crept up after him and 
 stood there beside him in that old roasting tower. 
 
 " Here's where you get a good look at things," said 
 my Uncle Athiel, wiping his forehead. " Here's where 
 you can see what's going on and nobody the wiser."
 
 174 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 You could, too. You looked over the top of every 
 thing. Over east and north, you saw the streets of the 
 city, empty and white in the white sunshine, with one or 
 two little doctors' buggies standing hitched on the shady 
 side, like the little animals before those little old Noah's 
 Arks the children have. And in the middle of the town, 
 on a corner, I could see one of the places they piled up 
 their extra coffins on the sidewalks, high piles now, bright 
 and new in the sunshine. And there was nobody, hardly, 
 moving anywhere. And over to the west the old river was 
 shining, white and flashy, in the low hot afternoon sun 
 shine. And right below you looked straight down over 
 the fences into the neighbors' yards. 
 
 " Right over there," said my Uncle Athiel, pointing 
 me to the Ventress's back yard. " Keep your eye right 
 there, and you'll see him." 
 
 We stood there and looked it seemed like an hour to 
 me out of one of those little round bulls-eye of windows. 
 There was a little northwest wind blowing in, that played 
 like cool water on your face, but your back was running 
 sweat, and your nostrils were just choked up with the 
 dry heat of the place. 
 
 " You look you keep looking," said my Uncle. 
 " Your eyes are better than mine," and stepped back and 
 sat down on an old black haircloth sofa there was up 
 there. 
 
 But there was nothing there that I could see. 
 
 " He'll come," said my Uncle. " Keep looking ! " 
 
 And then, finally, all at once, I saw our dogs and the 
 way they were acting. There was a little shed over there 
 in the Ventress's yard, between us and them. I saw Belle, 
 the little black and tan, first, going up to it slow and 
 cautious, and then jumping back again. 
 
 " That's him," said my Uncle Athiel, getting up and
 
 THE TEMPTER OF THE DOGS 175 
 
 looking. " He's in back there getting acquainted with 
 the dogs. He was last night." 
 
 The little dog would step up close to the shed and jerk 
 back again from something out of sight behind there. 
 And old Gen. Sherman, older and feebler and more ram 
 shackle than ever, stood out further back and looked 
 with his head down. But Belle, the black and tan, lively 
 and young and full of that woman's curiosity of hers, 
 kept edging in and edging in and then jumping back 
 again ! But she never got quite close enough to be caught. 
 
 Till by and by, the figure in there that we couldn't see, 
 came out following her, and I saw that half-nigger for 
 the first time. 
 
 He came inching 1 out, reaching out his hand, squatting 
 on his heels the way nobody but a nigger can, teasing and 
 coaxing for the little dog he couldn't quite get hold of. 
 
 " That's him," whispered my Uncle Hagar, from in 
 back of me. " Look at him ! Ain't he a bad nigger ! " 
 
 He certainly was, what I could see of him a great 
 huge brute, a great gorilla-shaped nigger with arms most 
 as long as his legs. 
 
 " When you see him close to," said my Uncle, " he's 
 got one of those great scars that those levee niggers have, 
 cut from his eye clear down beneath his chin." 
 
 " He's pretty bold," I said. " How does he dare do 
 it? Right out there in plain daylight! " 
 
 " There's nobody in those houses, now," my Uncle said 
 " not any of them, and he's got that shed in between 
 him and us." 
 
 I had forgotten that. You couldn't see him from any 
 where below us in the house. 
 
 He squatted there we watching him reaching and 
 coaxing, still and patient as an old fisherman in his skiff 
 on a bayou.
 
 176 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " He's gettin' to 'em gradually," said my Uncle. 
 " He'll get 'em," he said, watching like a man who sees a 
 game. 
 
 " What's he planning to do ? " I asked. 
 
 " Feed 'em something, I expect," said my Uncle, stiff 
 and watchful. 
 
 "Kill 'em? "I said. 
 
 " Certainly," said my Uncle, speaking low like folks do 
 when they're watching. " What would he do ? " 
 
 " And we ain't going to try and stop it? " 
 
 " Stop him ! " said my Uncle, astonished. " Stop him ! 
 Why? That's the next thing, ain't it? He can't come 
 near the house with those dogs around or that black 
 and tan anyhow she's too noisy. 
 
 " A good little watch dog too," he said, considering. 
 " That old fool, that Gen. Sherman mongrel, is no use ; 
 you couldn't squeeze a bark out of him, not now." 
 
 The nigger reached and reached, and snapped his fin 
 gers, but he couldn't quite get that little dog. And all 
 at once, he got up finally got up and spanked his knees ; 
 and the dog stood off and moved away ; and he slouched 
 out into the alley, and looked around; and we saw him 
 start out across and down one of those crooked paths 
 along the river bank, to the levee out in the front of the 
 town. 
 
 " After something to eat," my Uncle Athiel said. 
 
 " He won't get 'em to-night, I expect," he went on, 
 again. 
 
 " But he's bitin', he's bitin' ! " he said smiling, and 
 his black eyes snapping out again. " It won't be long 
 now before he's comin' in to call on us." 
 
 I thought he'd go down then; we were being roasted 
 there alive. But he looked at me then a second or two, 
 and said the thing I was waiting to hear.
 
 THE TEMPTER OF THE DOGS 177 
 
 " And now to-night," he said, " I'm going down, and 
 I'm going to get your cousin Vance out of town. 
 
 " I ain't been worried yet ; I ain't so scared of that 
 Fever," he went along, " as the rest of them are. I know 
 you can keep out of it, if you keep away from that night 
 air. So I ain't been afraid of that for myself or her 
 either, or anybody. 
 
 " But now," he said, touching the top buttonhole of 
 my coat, " she's goin'. This ain't any time to have women 
 underfeet," he said. " This ain't any business for 
 women. 
 
 " But you and I'll stay right here," he went along, 
 getting up close to me, and talking in my face. " You 
 and I'll stay and take care of this half-nigger. We'll 
 give the niggers a little lesson they'll remember. We'll 
 show 'em to leave folks' property alone." 
 
 " When are you going to have her go? " I asked him. 
 
 " To-morrow ; she's going to-morrow. And look 
 here," he said, standing off and eying me. " You want 
 her to go, don't you? " 
 
 " I certainly do," I said. 
 
 " Then you keep your hands off," said my Uncle Athiel. 
 " Whatever you see me do. You keep your mouth shut, 
 if you think I talk to her too rough. You've got to talk 
 up to 'em sometimes to handle 'em this high strung 
 kind like her, and like her mother was." 
 
 And I told him I would. I would have done most any 
 thing to get her away from there. 
 
 " Now we'll go down," said my Uncle. " I'll go first, 
 and you follow, when the coast is clear. You follow 
 easy, now easy ! " 
 
 He went down then, as quiet as his lame leg would per 
 mit him. 
 
 And I looked out the window, for a last look. There
 
 178 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 was nothing over toward the Ventress's any more. Even 
 the dogs were gone now. Then I turned and looked down 
 the street, out of the eastern window. 
 
 And I saw two niggers in an old light wagon, bringing 
 down a fresh yellow coffin to the place on the corner, 
 where the Fever was. i 
 
 I saw it, but then I had to come right down, for at any 
 time, Vance might be out and catch me. 
 
 I got down all right and into my room, without her 
 seeing me. And I saw again from there the two men 
 with their coffin. They stopped and went upstairs with 
 it, up over the dingy, empty little grocery store on the 
 corner. 
 
 I wasn't the only one watching as usual. Out in 
 our front yard the furthest corner I could see Ara 
 bella, standing looking. 
 
 Then by and by, after a little while, the two niggers 
 came out with the coffins again, between them, hurrying 
 
 and drove off south with it, toward the poor folks' 
 cemetery. 
 
 And after that, sometime after I saw Dr. Great- 
 house coming out the door. And he whistled once, and 
 old Mungo drove in from around the corner, where he 
 had been standing in the shade, I expect ; and they drove 
 up the road, home, by our house. 
 
 The old doctor was tired, I could see that, from where 
 I was. He was unshaved, and he was in his shirt sleeves 
 
 careless and untidy. He looked bad to me hot and 
 tired and played out for sleep. 
 
 And all the time, in our front yard, Arabella stood 
 staring, taking it all in.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE FEVER FIRE 
 
 ""^T T"ASSUM," said Arabella, at supper time. 
 V' " She's daid. The next to the littlest one 
 M with the whites' hair. Daid daid and buried 
 by this time. Yassum." 
 
 She stopped where she was with a plate of biscuit in her 
 hands. " And old Mek Haste Mose was there, yassum, 
 bringing in his coffin. Just going round like he does 
 ev'ywhere at them Fever houses going round and say 
 ing to 'em: 
 
 " ' Mek Haste ! Mek Haste ! Mek Haste ! ' " 
 
 She stood there, making up those faces, the way niggers 
 do when they get talking about death talking and 
 whispering like an old ghost gibbering in a graveyard. 
 Her eyes rolled and her hands went, and her head stuck 
 out forward. And she talked low, and fast, and hoarse, 
 showing how he went round. 
 
 That was the most she had been excited, that night. 
 We all got pretty nervous that night they first set a 
 Fever fire going on our street. 
 
 " Yassum," said Arabella, getting all the time more 
 worked up, the way they are when they've got strange 
 news to tell. " And the two others got it now, and the 
 old man. And all the chillun and the old man. All of 
 'em but the woman she ain't got it yet. 
 
 " Down there, in our front yard," she said, taking 
 
 179
 
 180 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 breath, " you kin hear 'em. You kin hear 'em plain. 
 The sick ones, ev'y now and then going ' Um-um-um,' that 
 old Fever sound ev'y so often. And that poor woman 
 aprayin' all the time. Just sittin' there at the window 
 aprayin' for God to spare 'em." 
 
 " Poor woman," Vance whispered. 
 
 " But He won't spare 'em. He ain't agoin' spare no 
 body, not now, not any more ! " said Arabella, louder. 
 " It's gettin' too late now ; it's gettin' too late ! " 
 
 " That's all," said Vance. " Put them down and go." 
 
 For the negress stood still there, with the plate of bis 
 cuits in her hands, talking hoarse, and rolling the whites 
 of her eyes. 
 
 She went along then, looking back. 
 
 " When you goin' ? " she said, half-way out. " When 
 you goin' ? " 
 
 " Never mind," said Vance. 
 
 " I heard that woman hollerin' myself," said my Uncle, 
 looking up from his eating. " Those Dutchmen, they 
 take things mighty hard when it strikes them. They 
 holler easy. They's a lot of 'em up around St. Louis 
 there I used to see 'em up there." 
 
 " These folks have a right to take it hard," said Vance, 
 quickly " with the Fever there ! " 
 
 " Yes," said my Uncle Hagar, in that dull voice of his, 
 " they have. You're right. I've seen whole families go 
 that way when the Fever once gets inside the door." 
 
 And he went on eating, and we didn't any of us talk 
 much more. 
 
 I thought maybe he would say something to Vance right 
 then, when he had started talking. But he didn't, and 
 when the meal was done, back he went into the Study 
 again and his play-acting with his false money, I 
 expect. And Vance and I were in the sitting room alone
 
 THE FEVER FIRE 181 
 
 when they started up that first Fever fire, right there, 
 under our windows, on our own street. 
 
 We both got up and stood looking at it. It was twi 
 light yet, and we hadn't lighted the gas, and it shone 
 bright and clear, when they touched it off at first all 
 that light cotton stuff, and the straw mattress, and the 
 child's clothing. It was a clear bright fire, when they 
 first started it. And standing back a little, and looking 
 down I watched it over Vance's shoulder, and saw its 
 light, like I had seen that first one the week before upon 
 the window-frames, and across her hair and cheek. Only 
 that first fire had been so faint and far away I could 
 scarcely see it. And now this fell, as plain as yellow 
 paint, upon her thin cheek, and the frame-work of the 
 window-panes. 
 
 The fire dulled after that. There was something white 
 in the flame at first, some chemical or other they put in. 
 And then, after that, they put on the tar, and smothered 
 it down. And the first flame changed to an old smudge 
 of greasy smoke, with a red fire at its heart. I shivered 
 a little, and started talking. But just then Vance turned 
 away from looking, and spoke to me, and asked me a ques 
 tion I didn't expect. 
 
 " What were you doing in that tower to-day ? " she 
 asked, looking at me curiously. 
 
 " Nothing," I said, making up my mind in a second. 
 " I wasn't in the tower." 
 
 " With Dad ? " she kept right on, keeping her eyes on 
 me. 
 
 "I wasn't there, I tell you," I said. " Why 
 what " 
 
 " How long since you started lying to me? " asked 
 Vance. And after a while she said, " You can't do it, 
 Beavis ; you can't lie to me. You just don't know how."
 
 182 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 I certainly did look foolish, I expect. But I kept on 
 lying. I didn't raise my eyes, but I kept right on. And 
 all the time I knew she never took her eyes away from 
 me. I got red and ashamed, but I held right to what I 
 said. And then, finally both of us stopped, for my Uncle 
 Athiel came out of his study. 
 
 He came out and stood behind us, and I moved out back 
 to let him get nearer to the window. 
 
 " That's wrong," he said, " all wrong. They scat 
 ter it, I believe. They scatter the Fever poison around in 
 that smoke more than they kill it. 
 
 " See that ! See that ! " For somebody added some 
 thing to the fire. I could see the lights start up on their 
 faces and the window-frame. 
 
 " Look yere ! " he said, turning quick and savage to 
 wards Vance. " Didn't I tell you to get out of here 
 three days ago ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Vance. 
 
 " Well, when are you goin' to pay attention to 
 me?" 
 
 And she went back and lighted up the gas. 
 
 He left the window then, and followed her. 
 
 " I wonder, sometimes," said my Uncle Hagar, looking 
 at her in a funny disagreeable way, " what God A'mighty 
 made 'em for." 
 
 "Who?" said Vance. 
 
 " Women ! " said her father. And he started off, curs 
 ing and swearing at the uselessness of women. Lord, what 
 didn't he say? I've forgotten three-quarters of it. 
 There was this to be said about a nigger you could 
 drive him to work like a mule; you could get something 
 out of him. But a woman, God A'mighty, a woman with 
 notions in her head. " Uppity-uppity ; pee-wee-wee- 
 wee ! " He stood and mocked and made queer crazy
 
 THE FEVER FIRE 183 
 
 sounds of women giggling and snickering. What did God 
 make 'em for; he couldn't see. 
 
 " He must have had something special against me," said 
 my Uncle Hagar, with an oath, " from what He sent me ! 
 First your mother, and then you." 
 
 Vance, staring at him, winced and stepped away, when 
 he spoke her mother's name. And I stepped forward and 
 opened up my mouth and then closed it. For I caught 
 his eye, and remembered what he said to me about keeping 
 out of this if I wanted Vance to get away. 
 
 " Two high strung nervous women," he said. " Always 
 under foot. 
 
 " Always doing what you don't want 'em to." 
 
 Vance started toward him first, like she was going to 
 answer him. Then she looked at him and stopped. And 
 when he kept on going, she shrank back got back 
 against the window sill and put her fingers in her ears. 
 He stepped right up to her, and pulled them down again. 
 
 " What's that for? " he said. " This ain't no time for 
 that. I ain't got time now to giggle and squirm and 
 talk sweet-pretty the way a man generally has to talk 
 to women folks. We're going to talk now like ordinary 
 humans. What do you think you're staying here for, 
 anyhow ? " 
 
 She didn't answer right away. 
 
 " Come on," he said, " there's got to be some reason." 
 
 But she didn't, or she wouldn't answer him. 
 
 " What is it you want ? Do you want to kill us ? " 
 
 " I'm going to stay," said Vance, " as long as you 
 do." 
 
 " Now I want to tell you something," said her father. 
 " I don't expect you'll understand it. But you've got to 
 hear it for it's God's truth, and you can like it or 
 lump it, just as you like. If you stay here two more 
 
 "
 
 184 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 days you've got about three chances out of four of killing 
 the whole lot of us." 
 
 " Why? " said Vance, her big eyes watching him. 
 
 He took her by the arm. 
 
 "Why?" he said. "Look yere!" And he held her 
 there before the big gilt mirror on the side wall. " Look 
 yere, that's why ! " 
 
 She stood looking there, into that big dark pool of a 
 looking glass the dim light of the gas-jet in the chan 
 delier behind her, surprised, scared a little, I expect, and 
 mad, too. Her lips parted, her great coil of black hair, 
 and her deep eyes full of apprehension and wonder, 
 staring from her white face. She had that look she often 
 had, when she got a little bit excited intense and won 
 dering, and a little scared that made me think some 
 times of a young prophetess in the Old Bible, and she 
 certainly looked pale and delicate. 
 
 " Do you see now if Fever was around who'd have 
 it? " said my Uncle. " Tell me that ! Do you see? " 
 
 " But you said," Vance answered, " you said if you 
 kept out of the night air You said so ! And I've al 
 ways " 
 
 " I said, ' generally,' for the usual run of folks. I 
 wasn't talkin' of anvthin' like that," he said, pointing to 
 the mirror. " Anythin' just achin' and ripe and certain 
 to get it if it came within gunshot. You can see that 
 yourself. You ain't a fool." 
 
 " I won't go," said Vance. " You can't scare me that 
 way." 
 
 " And if you get it. If it gets inside once, inside this 
 house " and his voice grew uglier yet. " Why, then 
 we'll all take our turns. You'll have the satisfaction of 
 not only havin' it vourself but givin' it to all the rest 
 of us."'
 
 THE FEVER FIRE 185 
 
 "I won't go," said Vance. " I can't. I can stay and 
 help." 
 
 " Yes," said my Uncle, in a disagreeable, sneering voice, 
 " help kill us ! " 
 
 " Do you believe that, Beavis ? " said Vance, turning 
 round to me. 
 
 " I certainly do," I told her. " I certainly don't want 
 you around," I said, for I was getting desperate. And 
 it seemed to me already that he had failed. That he 
 wasn't going to get her to go after all. 
 
 He thought so, too, I expect for he started off again on 
 the foolishness of women, worse than ever. 
 
 Our nerves were all going, I expect, under the strain. 
 He made me so mad I couldn't stand it. 
 
 " That'll do ! " I said, " she'll go, I believe." 
 
 " But I won't go," said Vance. " You know I won't. 
 Why, I can't " she said, and looked over at her father. 
 " You know. I couldn't " 
 
 And I recognized at once what she was talking about 
 that same silly idea that presentiment she had that her 
 father, and nobody else, was going to die to be sick and 
 die out of that house of ours. And when that struck me 
 again, I was just more ugly and desperate than ever. 
 Between the two of them he with his " Property " 
 with his money, whatever it was that he had there; and 
 she with that worry and anxiety over him, that had gone 
 now right up to the edge of superstition and craziness 
 I was desperate. 
 
 And then, just then, I looked out and my eye fell again 
 on that old Fever fire smoldering on the street, and some 
 thing took me ; I could feel myself going the blood 
 rushing up back of my ears into my head. I gave up. I 
 didn't care any more what I said or did. 
 
 " Let her alone," I said, talking hoarse. " Let her
 
 186 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 stay if she wants to. But she knows now for certain how 
 we feel. She knows that she's a burden and danger to us. 
 And now she knows it let her stay if she wants to 
 let her stay ! " 
 
 " Beavis ! " said Vance. 
 
 I didn't look at her. But I knew she stepped back, and 
 away from me. I could hear her drawing in her breath, 
 surprised. 
 
 " You never talked like that to me before," she said, 
 afterwards, in a low voice. 
 
 But I didn't look at her. I kept my eyes away from 
 hers the way you always do when you're mad. 
 
 " It's settled," I said, not answering her, going right 
 ahead with the meanest talk I could think of. " It's set 
 tled you'll stay ; we'll all stay. And you can get the 
 Fever and give it to us. And we'll all die together. Then 
 you'll be satisfied.'* 
 
 " Beavis," said Vance, standing before me. " Can't 
 you help me? Won't you help me when I'm trying to do 
 what I think is right? " 
 
 " You're not doing right," I said. " You're doing all 
 wrong, and you know it," I told her, and wouldn't look at 
 her. 
 
 She stood looking at me a little longer ; and then turned 
 away toward her father. 
 
 " Good-night, Dad," she said. 
 
 But he didn't move a muscle toward her, or speak. 
 
 And finally she turned, we standing there, and stood 
 there in the doorway, looking back a minute at her father. 
 She didn't even glance at me. 
 
 " I'm going to stay," she said. " I'm going to stay. 
 You can't scare me that way." 
 
 It seemed to me as she stood there looking at him, that 
 I saw that little nervous shudder come over her again.
 
 THE FEVER FIRE 187 
 
 Lord, how I would liked to have helped her! How I 
 wanted to go over and take her in my arms and comfort 
 her! But of course, I didn't. I just stood there, like 
 you do when you're mad ; looked away, still as a log, 
 just disregarding her. 
 
 And she went out alone, and we heard her in silence, as 
 she climbed upstairs to her bedroom. 
 
 I turned and faced my Uncle then. 
 
 " How does she look to you? " he said, looking sharp 
 at me. 
 
 " Bad," I said, " as bad as she can. Just all tired 
 out." 
 
 " Yes," he said, and stood looking out the window, 
 thinking. " Yes." 
 
 " She won't last a week after the Fever's here," I said. 
 
 " She'll come around," said my Uncle Athiel, after a 
 while, like he was telling himself so. " She'll come 
 around." 
 
 And then he went on, talking to me. 
 
 " You did j ust right," he said, " I was afraid one time 
 you wouldn't; but you did just right." 
 
 And when I didn't answer him, or pay any attention, he 
 went on again. 
 
 " Just right," he said, " just right. That's the way 
 to handle women." 
 
 "How? What do you mean?" I said, looking at 
 him. 
 
 " Hurt their feelings. Make 'em think they're wrong. 
 Set 'em thinkin' they're harmin' you then go off and 
 leave 'em let 'em think ! Let *em worry ! " 
 
 I stood and listened to him, while he went along, talk 
 ing to himself. 
 
 " Keep away from her after that. Let her think about 
 it. They'll come around. They'll come around some-
 
 188 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 times. They can't stand it, especially those high strung 
 and nervous ones. 
 
 " It's the only way to handle 'em sometimes. Espe 
 cially those high strung ones like her and her mother. 
 Hurt their feelings blame 'em ! And then leave 'em 
 alone and leave 'em think." 
 
 I held my tongue to keep from talking. But he went 
 along too far for me. 
 
 " You'll see," he said. " You'll see how it acts with 
 her. She'll be round, all ready to go, to-morrow." 
 
 " Hell ! " I said, breaking loose. " A million devils ! " 
 For it made me sick to hear him talk. " She won't go, 
 nor any of the rest of us. We'll be here you, she and 
 I, and all of us, staying watching your ' Property ' ! " 
 I said. " We'll stay here and when we move at all, we'll 
 move under ground ! " 
 
 My Uncle looked at me more quiet. 
 
 " That's the only way I know," he said. " That's the 
 only way I know to get her out. Do you know any bet 
 ter? " 
 
 " No," I had to say. " No, I don't." 
 
 " Then keep away from her. You keep away from her. 
 And let me try and see how it works." 
 
 " All right," I said. " I certainly will. I'll try any 
 thing now. 
 
 " And now," I said, while he stood watching me. " Let's 
 talk and settle how we'll save that ' Property ' of yours 
 your house here and whatever else it is you've got 
 there," I said, looking at him. " Let's find out how we'll 
 kill that half-nigger!" 
 
 They say that fear strikes different folks in different 
 ways, at different times. It made me, at that time, I 
 know, like a wild savage beast. I just wanted to hurt 
 somebody like I was being hurt.
 
 THE FEVER FIRE 189 
 
 " I mean it ! " I said to my Uncle Hagar, who stood 
 looking at me. " I mean it ! I'd kill anything, by God ! 
 For six bits, I'd kill you ! " 
 
 He stood still looking at me in the eye, reading me. 
 " That's the talk ! " said my Uncle Athiel. " You'll do." 
 
 And his face came out again into that mean old crooked 
 smile. 
 
 After that we planned together for a little while for 
 watching out for that half-nigger that night and for 
 getting him. But not very long, either. I left the plan 
 ning of it mostly to him. And pretty quick I went along 
 upstairs, still mad and savage. 
 
 But when I got upstairs, up alone in my room I 
 don't deny it I just stood there, and turned my face 
 to the wall put my head up against my arm and cried. 
 For it seemed to me likely now, we'd all go, now all die. 
 But Vance for certain.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE TRAP 
 
 IT was my share to watch the last part of that night 
 till daylight. My Uncle was to stay there in the 
 study until two or three o'clock; and if anything 
 happened, which we didn't expect that night, he would tap 
 on the ceiling just under my bed with his cane. And if 
 there was nothing, he would come up and scratch at my 
 door when he wanted me, and I would stay there in my 
 own room and watch for I was just exactly as well 
 placed there to see, as I would be down below. 
 
 So, at half past two, I heard him scratching at my 
 door, and I got up and rattled the knob, and my Uncle 
 Hagar went along to bed and left me watching. 
 
 I sat and watched out the window, and I saw just noth 
 ing at all. Too mighty little in fact. It was too quiet. 
 There wasn't one thing that showed alive but that yellow 
 lamp upstairs where the Fever was down under the hill. 
 And at three o'clock, the lamp-lighter putting out the 
 gas lights. But not one sound, I noticed, from the dogs. 
 I did notice that. I didn't see our dogs once. And the 
 other dogs weren't so noisy now. They had killed a great 
 lot of them off since the Fever came poisoned them. 
 
 But I didn't think about the dogs or anything, so much 
 as I should have, I expect. My mind was too full of 
 what I had seen and understood, and been scared about 
 during that long day I'd just gone through. 
 
 The night, there by the window, was just as long and 
 
 190
 
 THE TRAP 191 
 
 longer. And I had plenty of time to go over all that day 
 again one thing after another the Fever, and the 
 chances of getting away from it now; and all those crazy, 
 unbreakable, invisible chains which bound us there, while 
 death climbed up on us, up the street. 
 
 I thought about my Uncle and his " Property," of that 
 " Hagar's Hoard," or whatever it was he really stayed 
 for; and of that half -nigger he was watching now, like a 
 wild Indian in ambush, with no mind left for anything 
 else. And Vance most of all, Vance with her ob 
 stinacy and her great danger, and that foolish presenti 
 ment of hers about her father. 
 
 Vane! I saw her fine, delicate, drawn face ahead of 
 me in the dark all that night. Her pale face set off with 
 its crown of thick black hair. Her parted sensitive lips, 
 and her deep eyes deeper now for that crazy fear and 
 apprehension that had caught her since the Fever came. 
 Vance, with that fear in her eyes, half like a young 
 prophetess out of the Old Bible half like a sensitive 
 child afraid of the dark. I sat and saw her, and her 
 danger, staying there; saw it the clear way you do some 
 times, at night, and I saw more and more all the time, 
 what it would mean to me, if anything should happen to 
 her if she should stay there and die. 
 
 I sat there and looked out into the dark a fright 
 ened boy, in love just staring eternity in the face! 
 And shivering at it, and scared. And when my mind 
 traveled back again, over it all ; and I realized the thing 
 that held her there just the shadow of a dream I 
 writhed in my old armchair, and got up on my feet and 
 walked the room. 
 
 It was crazy, if you looked at it so, absolutely crazy. 
 And yet, since that time and during it, I haven't ever 
 undertaken to say just who was sane, or what was, in
 
 192 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 such a time as that was. They say in shipwrecks, folks 
 get that way and rant and stamp and have strange 
 ideas, and show plain just all the thoughts and wishes and 
 anxieties that really have control and government of their 
 mind. And even at that time, when I wa.s going through 
 it, I understood partly the strain that folks were going 
 under, in that Fever summer their fear of death, their 
 flight, their funny crazy ideas for cleansing and burning 
 and shooting that Fever poison out of the air. And the 
 superstition of the negress, and the strained actions of 
 all kinds that went on around us. And I could see, too, 
 partly, how that impression had fixed itself on Vance's 
 mind. First the worry for the Fever generally; then for 
 her father in particular. And then that dream came out 
 of it and brought that sharp sense of fear that everybody 
 has had sometime or other after some bad dream, I be 
 lieve. Only hers was multiplied and kept alive continually 
 by everything that was going on around her. 
 
 About her father, whether he was crazy or sane, or not, 
 I never did pretend to say not to this day. What is 
 being crazy, anyway? You tell me. I can't say. We 
 all have our ideas that just won't balance right if we 
 will only stop and watch them. And all I know or think 
 about, when I remember now how my Uncle acted then, is 
 that old common fear which grips and rules the mind of 
 all of us sometimes and especially when we get old 
 that fear for property of losing what we've got. In 
 all the actions I remember most of him, as I tell them to 
 you now, I see that old specter of fear grabbing him and 
 taking him along with it, out from our eyes into eternity 
 just as real and actual a thing as anything in this 
 world. 
 
 At breakfast time, I know, he and I sat alone again. 
 Vance was not feeling well, and sent down word she would
 
 THE TRAP 193 
 
 have to be excused. And so, though I had planned and 
 planned what I would say and do when she came down, I 
 didn't even see her. She just stayed away from us. 
 
 Arabella moved around, taking care of us at breakfast 
 time. Another one of the German children in the house 
 below was mighty low, she told me. And she said the 
 Fever was moving on, now was gone into two other 
 houses on that street below there. 
 
 " You ain't seen my little dog this morning? " she asked 
 us, when she got through talking " You ain't seen my 
 Belle anywhere? " 
 
 We hadn't, either of us. 
 
 " She ain't been around all mornin'. Gen. Sherman, 
 old fool, he's been in, but I ain't seen nothin* at all of 
 Belle since way along early last evening." 
 
 And my Uncle winked at me one of those deep, slow 
 winks that old-fashioned people give you plain and 
 clear as drawing down a curtain. 
 
 " He's got her ! He's got her ! " he said, after Ara 
 bella left the room, and smiled. 
 
 He hadn't slept much, it looked like. His face showed 
 that. But he was cheerful almost happy acting that 
 morning, and quick and full of snap almost as a young 
 boy. 
 
 " She'll be round at noon," he said about Vance. 
 " She'll come around and go before the twenty-four hours 
 are up." And he said he was glad that she wasn't down 
 that morning, so we could have it for ourselves to talk. 
 Then he took me, right away, into that study, and showed 
 me more about that old trap that he was laying for the 
 half-nigger. 
 
 " I don't expect too much. All we got to expect is 
 he'll come, and take a look. All he'll do to-night, I ex 
 pect," he said, " will be to come alookin*.
 
 194 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " He'd have to look ; he'd j ust have to look anyway," 
 he went along, " or he wouldn't be a nigger. 
 
 " But," said he, " if we get him on the premises ! 
 That's all we want ! " 
 
 I shrank back a little bit; I expect I showed it. For 
 I thought naturally of what the Marshal had said about 
 shooting down on sight anybody that you found loitering 
 around your premises. And by that time I'd got over 
 that first flash of wanting to hurt and kill something that 
 I had the night before. And I did think, whatever he said, 
 that he meant to kill that half-nigger or hurt him mon 
 strously, anyhow, when he got him there. 
 
 " Don't fret ; don't get excited," said my Uncle. " I 
 ain't agoing to kill him. I ain't made up my mind yet 
 just what I am going to do; I'll get him somewheres, but 
 I won't kill him right outright." 
 
 Then he showed me more about his trap how he'd 
 worked it out sitting there counting and working on 
 his books, and how at night he put away his Confederate 
 money behind some books and left it there, and how sure 
 he was that some of the time, anyhow, the half-nigger had 
 been over there at the Ventress's watching. 
 
 " I don't mean I expect him to get in here," said my 
 Uncle Athiel, " right away. All we got to look for is to 
 get him up here up to those windows there." 
 
 There were two of them, French windows, that opened 
 out on two little balconies, two of those stiff looking little 
 balconies, with heavy wooden railings around them and 
 thick short posts like dumb-bells where nobody ever 
 goes out to sit. 
 
 " If you can get him in there on one of those," said my 
 Uncle Athiel, " we've got him. 
 
 " Now then," he said, " let's me and you go out and
 
 THE TRAP 195 
 
 take a turn around the yard. Maybe we might find out 
 something about that dog that little dog of hers." 
 
 So we did ; we went out ; and around the servants' room 
 and the big empty barn, and the stable the shed we 
 used for the old horse out beside the alley. Finally, 
 all at once, my Uncle stooped down, and dragged out 
 something stiff from underneath the corner of the shed. 
 
 " Look yere ! " he said. 
 
 It was Belle, the little dog, flat and stiff as a board. 
 Her back was hunched and her front legs drawn up un 
 derneath her. 
 
 " Strychnine," said my Uncle Athiel, kicking it back 
 under with his foot. He talked pretty low and soft. 
 Then right away he talked up a lot louder. 
 
 " Who did that? I'd like to know who did that? I'd 
 like to catch him at it," he said loudly, and winked at 
 me when he said it. 
 
 " You can't tell where he might be watching," said my 
 Uncle, when we had got back again in the house. 
 
 " That looks good," he said, " that looks like a good 
 sign. He's comin' on ; he's comin' faster'n I thought. 
 
 " Now, you get along out of here," he said. " I'll see 
 you later," and he closed himself in behind the big brown 
 doors again. And went on, I suppose, with his play-act 
 ing and tolling in that nigger, with his old Confederate 
 money. And I went along and tried to kill off the time 
 in another day. 
 
 Most of all I wanted to see Vance just how she 
 looked, if nothing else. And yet, I didn't want to see her, 
 either not so she would have a chance to talk to me. 
 I couldn't talk to her not after that last night. 
 
 So after all I tried to persuade myself that it was bet 
 ter for me and /or her that I didn't see her; that maybe
 
 196 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 by keeping away and just leaving her to herself both of 
 us, like my Uncle said to do she would finally come 
 around herself, come to her senses and get out. 
 
 But whatever I thought I was, or wasn't going to do 
 if I saw her made no difference, for I did not see Vance 
 that day, not alone. She stayed in her room late that 
 morning, till I worried for fear she was taken sick. But 
 later on she was out around the upper story at her morn 
 ing's work, and at noon she was at the dinner table. But 
 silent, talking not at all to either her father or to me. 
 
 Not one of us were talking, not even of the Fever, nor 
 how it was running out now to other houses from that 
 Fever house there on the corner. And right away again 
 after dinner, Vance went back again upstairs. 
 
 " Let her alone," her father said. " She'll come round 
 and go." 
 
 That afternoon, it was, the second child of the grocer, 
 Otterman, died, in that house below. The niggers came 
 with another coffin, and I heard the mother screaming as 
 they took it out again much worse than the first time. 
 She was getting in hysterics now alone in the house 
 with all those sick folks, and only a nigger nurse they sent 
 her in to help her. She got quiet after a while. But 
 it made you crawl whenever she got started hearing 
 her and thinking what it meant. And what it might mean 
 to you and all the rest. And all the time I knew, of 
 course, Vance sat up there alone, listening to it. 
 
 That monstrous day passed finally. Time for supper 
 came and went, and Vance came down and went right back 
 again, and shut herself up in her own room still silent. 
 
 There was no fire in the street, before the Fever house, 
 that night. When there were a number sick in a place 
 like that, they got careless about their fires. There 
 wasn't bedding enough to go round, most likely. I know
 
 THE TRAP 197 
 
 I saw that afternoon, the mother, the little German woman, 
 crying and hanging out the bedclothes to dry in the back 
 yard. 
 
 But as far as I could see, my Uncle Athiel paid no at 
 tention to all of this. He might have been in Russia for 
 all the thought he gave the Yellow Fever. He had his 
 mind on just one thing, that game that he was playing; 
 that tolling in of that half-nigger. 
 
 And after supper a while, he came and called me. 
 
 " It's comin' on better'n I expected," he said. And I 
 made up my mind he had seen the nigger moving about 
 the Ventress's place. Once or twice, I knew, he had gone 
 up in the tower that afternoon alone. For he did 
 everything himself, that day; he was spry and active as 
 a boy. And if he wanted anything of me, he said, he 
 would call and let me know. 
 
 " The dogs won't bother him any now," said my Uncle. 
 " That big one won't do anything but sleep now that 
 black and tan is gone. He knew that, he figured on it 
 that's why he didn't get him too. 
 
 " He may come, I wouldn't be surprised he may come 
 lookin' to-night you can't tell. Things are movin' on 
 pretty good." 
 
 And then he told me what he wanted me to do. He had 
 planned it further while he was sitting there that after 
 noon. 
 
 He was going to leave one side of both those French 
 windows out upon the balcony without locking it. 
 
 " If he once gets up there on a balcony like I 
 think he will; just a touch, just a touch and it will 
 swing open and he's inside. And then " my Uncle said. 
 
 " Then " I said after him. 
 
 " Nothin' will keep him nothin' will just keep a nig 
 ger from steppin' in. And when he does "
 
 198 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Yes," I said, waiting. 
 
 " You let him have it. Let him have it till we get 
 him." 
 
 I was to stand between the windows in the dark back 
 a ways, with that old great hickory cane of his. A club, 
 it was really. 
 
 " You want to watch out for him though. You can't 
 be too careful. A nigger's eyesight is different from a 
 white man's. A nigger's a night thing," said my Uncle 
 Athiel, " just as much as an owl. He can see in the dark 
 just like an old owl. That's why they are always out so, 
 all hours of the night. 
 
 " Look out for him. You want to look out for him. 
 Be sure and get him the first crack. He's an ugly nigger 
 a hard customer," said my Uncle. " A hard ticket. 
 And they've always got somewhere around 'em those 
 levee niggers one of them big knives they cut and slash 
 each other with." 
 
 " 111 get him," I said. 
 
 " Yes, I reckon you will," said my Uncle, looking me 
 over. " You're pretty strong and husky. 
 
 " But if you don't," he went along, " I can. I'll get 
 him somewhere." 
 
 He meant that he would get him with that old Der 
 ringer of his. 
 
 So it was all fixed up. I was to go up to my own room, 
 upstairs, and by and by my Uncle Athiel was to come 
 up too, and close his door, and lock it up. And all the 
 lights in the house would be out. And then, after a little 
 while we would both crawl down. 
 
 " And Vance " I said. 
 
 " That's her lookout," said my Uncle. " If she stays, 
 she'll just have to take what comes along like the rest 
 of us.
 
 THE TRAP 199 
 
 " But she'll come round ; she'll come round and go to 
 morrow," he kept on saying. " You'll see." 
 
 It was about ten o'clock before I heard him coming up. 
 I'd got almost crazy waiting waiting and watching 
 down there where the Fever was. 
 
 There was the excitement and the moving around of 
 lamps in that first Fever place below, us. And the Ger 
 man woman, those children's mother screamed again, 
 once. And then, after that, she made less noise and out 
 cry. I heard her still, but it was different. It seemed 
 to me finally that it sounded more like she was laughing 
 than crying. But the windows were all down, and I 
 couldn't hear her, or anything, very clear. 
 
 I got downstairs ahead of my Uncle. 
 
 " Nothing yet? " I whispered when he came. 
 
 " No, nothin'," he told me. 
 
 " But he's there," he was whispering, " he's there ! cer 
 tain ! " 
 
 We took our places like we planned. I on the inside 
 between the windows with that great club of a cane. He, 
 in the corner, back a little, with his old Derringer. We 
 stood there waiting. Nothing not a sound. Only 
 that German woman who had lost her children, over there 
 only now and then that German woman laughing. 
 
 " That last young one's dead, I expect," my Uncle 
 Athiel whispered. 
 
 It got on my nerves terribly, after a while, hearing 
 her. 
 
 There we sat waiting and waiting like hunters in 
 a duck-blind. A half hour, and an hour, nothing! My 
 Uncle sat down finally, back there in the corner. 
 
 " Wait," he whispered, once or twice. " Wait, wait ! " 
 
 The side of the French window, the one between him 
 and me, blew open just a crack. I heard a mosquito in
 
 00 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 the room, around me. I closed the window with my fin 
 ger. I heard my Uncle striking softly in the dark at the 
 mosquito. Then he waited. 
 
 " Keep back! " said my Uncle. Listen! " 
 
 There was something after awhile something 
 along outside the wall of the house. 
 
 We stood there, frozen, hardly breathing. There was 
 something light, a great yellow hand, I made out finally, 
 on the dark brown balustrade of that balcony to the 
 window between him and me. 
 
 And still I heard nothing only once the cry the 
 laughing of that woman again down there below. 
 
 Then an arm came up, and a leg ; a leg and a bare foot. 
 And softly and slowly the great half-nigger stood on that 
 old balcony between us, waiting! 
 
 I could feel the old smooth, hard hickory cane in my 
 hand, and a piece of bark which still stuck out on the 
 handle. It felt like I was holding a feather. And still 
 we stood there holding back. 
 
 Still we stood there, a long, long while. Then all at 
 once there was the scratch of a match, and we shrank 
 back, both of us, flat back against the wall. The match- 
 light grew up, shaded in a big saffron colored palm, first 
 blue, then yellow. And I could see, from where I stood, 
 just one piece of the cheek of that great half-nigger, flat 
 against the pane pressed flat and white against the 
 glass. And a great long scar, with knobs and roughness 
 in it, whiter than the rest, running clear across the smooth 
 yellowish meat of the cheek. 
 
 He stood and looked for a second or two we still 
 waiting. Then like a flash the great coarse saffron palms 
 just closed on the match and it was out again. He must 
 have thought he heard somebody passing on the street.
 
 THE TRAP 01 
 
 For he turned his back; hugged close to the window, and 
 waited waited till he was sure. 
 
 But all at once he moved a little he must have moved, 
 for the unlocked side of the window gave way and the 
 great nigger half stumbled, half rolled in onto the floor 
 between us. 
 
 " Stomp him ! Stomp him ! " yelled my Uncle Athiel. 
 " Let him have it ! " 
 
 But like a cat the half-nigger rolled, and when he 
 rolled, he kicked me with his great bare foot, and in a 
 second, there I was, rolling on the floor myself. 
 
 And in another second " Whang ! " my Uncle's old Der 
 ringer had gone, and the room was full of its blue smoke. 
 
 " Missed him, by God ! Missed him ! " said my Uncle 
 Athiel in the voice of a man just dying in despair. 
 
 The half-nigger was gone; he hadn't hit him; there 
 wasn't a sign of blood or anything. 
 
 I didn't wait ; I was out after him. Over tne balcony, 
 out into the yard, running as if the Devil was after me. 
 Out in the middle of the back yard before I stopped. 
 
 What was I running for? Where to? 
 
 I stopped and listened. Not a sound or a sign. Not 
 a sign of the half-nigger to be had. 
 
 Barefoot, gone out into the darkness ! Not a sound ! 
 
 Not a sound anywhere. Only, once again, that Ger 
 man woman who had lost her children, laughing. 
 
 " Come back in here, you fool ! " my Uncle called from 
 the side doorway. " Come in here ! Come out of that 
 poison night air ! " 
 
 I stood for just a second, and I did what he told me to. 
 
 I'd heard so much about it all the time that 
 poison Fever air. How deadly it was; and how it got 
 you. We had shut it out so carefully. And it seemed
 
 202 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 somehow, when I stood there, like I could feel it just 
 feel it thick and poison, all around me. 
 
 I shivered and went hurrying back and in the door. 
 And it seemed, when I went in, like that woman was down 
 there laughing after me. 
 
 "You fool!" said my Uncle Athiel. "You double- 
 damned fool ! Now you've exposed us all. You've got 
 us all the Fever, most likely." 
 
 Not a word any more about the half-nigger; not a 
 word. But then, on the stairs ; behind him her black 
 hair in long braids below her waist; a long white India 
 shawl, that was her mother's, over her night-dress 
 Vance was calling in a high sharp voice: 
 
 " What is it? Oh, what is it? " 
 
 " Nothing, nothing," said my Uncle Athiel. " We 
 were just shooting at a nigger a nigger sneakin' 
 through the yard. We were taking a shot at a nigger." 
 
 He gave very little explanation more than that. 
 Just sent her back to bed, scared and wondering.
 
 BOOK V 
 VANCE HAGAR
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE HEADACHE 
 
 I HAVE often thought of her, lying there alone that 
 night, in that high old empty Ivory Room, which 
 Mr. Bozro built for his wife's grand boudoir. 
 Alone and wondering, with nothing more human for com 
 panionship than those little simpering frescoed cupids 
 looking down on her from the ceiling. Left to herself, 
 not knowing what had really happened, in all that row 
 and shooting down below her. And the Fever mounting 
 up under her windows. And that German woman laugh 
 ing and crying out there. And all the time that shadow 
 of her strange monstrous presentiment about her father. 
 
 I expect, probably, from what she has told me after 
 wards though she never speaks of it more than she can 
 help that she lay awake all that night, growing sicker 
 every minute toward the morning, and yet, though she 
 certainly must have known what the symptoms were most 
 like, never calling out to either one of us though both 
 of us were lying there awake without a doubt in 
 those rooms next to hers. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't want to disturb you I didn't want to. 
 I just didn't want to," she told me, trying to explain it. 
 For she was sure all the time, so she has always said, that 
 she never was in danger that there was only one of us 
 really who was, her father. 
 
 " I can't explain it to you," she said. " I just knew. 
 And I knew it wasn't I." 
 
 205
 
 206 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 And so, we all three lay there that night, awake. For 
 I am certain my Uncle Hagar was awake too. We all 
 three just lay there, thinking out our own thoughts, 
 though one of us, I expect, was too sick to think much. 
 
 " Now we all of us can go to bed and sleep," my Uncle 
 had said when he locked up the side door after I 
 ran in; and Vance had started back again to her room, 
 and there was nothing to be seen outside through the win 
 dows. 
 
 " He won't be back again to-night," my Uncle said, 
 talking of the half-nigger. 
 
 Now it was easy enough to say, " Go to sleep," but it 
 was something different to do. 
 
 It was Thursday night for one thing ; and the nig 
 gers those hollering saints were out again for an 
 all-night meeting in the sanctified chapel down back under 
 the hill. We didn't hear them much, earlier; they were 
 slow in working up the meeting, I expect. But now, when 
 I had got up into my room, we heard the Clap ! Clap ! 
 Clap! and the Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! of the sancti 
 fied niggers perambulating round and getting drunker and 
 drunker on salvation. And after a while they were danc 
 ing and screaming and rolling on the floor, getting saved. 
 I never heard them before or since get quite so bad. The 
 Fever had something to do with it, naturally; and those 
 old prophecies of the nigger woman from Arkansas about 
 the end of the world, or Memphis, or whatever it was. 
 
 The noise, and all that, was bad for rest and sleeping. 
 But it wasn't all the time. It came in kind of gusts and 
 stopped again. And I was used to it, more or less, and 
 the windows were all down, anyway. And speaking for 
 myself, I know the thing that really kept me from resting 
 that night was just my own thoughts and the way I 
 felt ashamed of myself.
 
 THE HEADACHE 207 
 
 I was worried and scared at the Fever, and desperate, 
 now, almost, about the chances of ever getting away from 
 those old bonds which held us there while it came around 
 us. That was the thing that scared me. But from that 
 minute, funny enough, what troubled me most was my 
 shame and humiliation for the figure I had cut in all that 
 thing that night. My cheeks burned when I went over 
 it, and I pulled my full strength at my finger knuckles, and 
 turned and twisted in my chair as I sat there, looking 
 out the window. We feel that way at twenty-one over 
 any mistake we make. It's worse than any fever worst 
 of all when it's just a little public. 
 
 My whole action in this thing had been so foolish. The 
 half-nigger had gone slipped away from our fingers. 
 I had bungled that myself once in losing him ; twice in 
 following him out. There was only one thing that, in my 
 heart, I could be thankful for that my Uncle hadn't 
 killed the nigger right there under my eyes and nose. 
 
 " But that wasn't my fault either," I said to my 
 self. 
 
 While I sat there, staring, thinking, the old dog Gen. 
 Sherman started up and barked once or twice in the 
 yard barked quite sharp and growled. I got up and 
 looked out the window glad to do something that would 
 take me away and set me free from that old rolling squir 
 rel-cage of my thoughts. 
 
 " Hullo ! " I said, half out loud to myself " That old 
 fool is still alive ! " 
 
 For we said both my Uncle Hagar and myself 
 that now that little nervous black and tan was dead, the 
 old dog would just lie and go to sleep nights never 
 watch at all. 
 
 But he barked once or twice, quite loud; and growled, 
 and finally just stopped. I thought first it was Arabella
 
 208 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 coming home from her meeting. But it was too ugly a 
 bark for that somehow. And after that, too, I could 
 hear the niggers still stamping, and calling and crying, 
 down back under the hill. 
 
 " The old fool must be having a bad dream," I said 
 to myself, and finally sat down again. 
 
 The dog was barking, it seemed like, out back in the 
 yard out near the big barn. But there was nothing 
 to be seen and after that there was not another sound, 
 that I heard, all that night. 
 
 It couldn't be the half-nigger, I said to myself. He 
 had gone, out of our way; he certainly wouldn't be back 
 again, that night, anyway, like my Uncle said. He had 
 just gone and the fear and danger from him ; he seemed 
 unreal now, like everything else. The folks were gone 
 out of the houses ; the ordinary noises from out the streets ; 
 even the sound of wheels and of running away ! And the 
 only real thing left out of all of it; the only real thing 
 it seemed like in the world, was that old invisible thing 
 we couldn't see, or touch, or understand the Fever that 
 filled the air that old poison night air outside that 
 window-glass. 
 
 I could hear in my mind continually, the woman 
 laugh again, from the open windows of the Fever house. 
 They had got her quiet now. You didn't hear her really. 
 But that laugh of hers kept sounding in my ears. And 
 when my mind came round to that again, I stiffened up, 
 and pulled my knuckles, and sat straight and scared once 
 more. For I heard, for the hundredth time, my Uncle 
 calling out to me! 
 
 " You fool ! You fool. You've got us all the Fever ! " 
 
 For if all those theories, that everybody had then were 
 true, about the night air and the poison in it it might 
 be that, after all I'd feared and worried, it was I myself
 
 THE HEADACHE 209 
 
 that, for the first time, had really gone and exposed the 
 whole of us to the chance of dying by that Fever. I 
 didn't know anything about it, of course. Nobody did 
 much, those days. But all I could think of was, that at 
 that time, when the Fever was there, right on us, just 
 my recklessness and general foolishness might be the 
 thing that was going to give us all that Fever. Just 
 when I ought to have been cool and kept my head 
 I'd broke and rushed in, like a wild blundering half- 
 trained young dog in a covey. And I was ashamed and 
 humiliated, and scared, when I remembered it. 
 
 The more I thought of it, the jumpier and more nervous 
 I got. There was only one possible escape now for us 
 that I saw haste. 
 
 " Hurry ! Hurry ! " something kept saying in me. 
 " If we get out at all now, we've got to hurry ! " 
 
 But how could we get out? We were fastened there. 
 
 And so I worried and tossed and twisted' in my chair 
 through that monstrous ugly night; and woke up, after 
 a few snatches of late, broken sleep, into an uglier and 
 more dangerous day and to the sudden shock of that 
 morning. 
 
 My Uncle came in after me to breakfast, and sat down 
 very shaky, and I looking at him cornerwise. I never 
 saw one night change any man like that did. His right 
 eyelid twitched the way it did when he was tired; his 
 hand was trembly, and his face was yellower, and his lips 
 were bluer than ever. If he had gone back twenty years 
 when the excitement of that hunt of his was on, he'd gone 
 forward twenty more now that it was done. The flash 
 and go was all gone out of him. And he seemed to have 
 shrunk and weazened and waxened all at once into an old 
 man. The flesh had sunk and fallen in between the bones 
 of his face in his temples and in his cheeks.
 
 210 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 I noticed, then, after we sat down, that he kept watch 
 ing continually toward the door. 
 
 " You heard your cousin Vance, this morning? " he 
 finally asked me. 
 
 I told him that I hadn't, and he put his eyes back down 
 again on his plate. But every now and then he still 
 looked up toward the door. 
 
 " You go up and see what's keeping Miss Vance,'* he 
 said to Arabella. 
 
 And when she went, he kept on eating, without a word 
 to me. 
 
 " Miss Vance ain't acomin' down," said Arabella, com 
 ing back. She'd grown more important and grand those 
 last few days ; that old catlike smile of hers grew all the 
 time on her old smooth face. 
 
 "Ain't comin'! Why not?" said my Uncle Hagar, 
 right away. 
 
 There was something funny about the way the negress 
 talked. 
 
 " A haidache it seems like she's got, a right bad 
 haidache," said Arabella, and though her face was just 
 as smooth and peaceful as it ever was, her eyes rolled, 
 and her voice was a warning. She knew just as well as 
 anybody did what she was saying. 
 
 " A headache! " I said, jumping up. 
 
 " Yassah," said Arabella, "a bad haidache, she just 
 kin raise her haid for the pillar." 
 
 My Uncle jerked up onto his feet, as fast as his old 
 stiff legs would let him. 
 
 " Yassah," said Arabella for good measure 
 " yassah, and she's shiv'in' considerable too." 
 
 " Shut up, you black fool ! " said my Uncle Athiel, 
 and came along where I was standing waiting for 
 him.
 
 THE HEADACHE 
 
 " I hope you're satisfied ! " I said, staring him in the 
 face. 
 
 He didn't answer me. He started round me for the 
 door, but his face was like tallow dead and lifeless and 
 yellow. 
 
 " You and your damned money ! " I said. 
 
 " You go and get the doctor ! " he said to me. In 
 fact, I had started already myself. I had my hat in my 
 hand already. But I couldn't go without blaming him; 
 without saying what was boiling over in me. 
 
 " You " I said, pointing my first finger in his face. 
 
 " You you damn you ! " I said, and that was as 
 far as I could get. 
 
 And I whirled around and hurried toward the door. 
 
 But when I got there, going out, I whirled again. 
 
 " By God ! " I said, " if she's got it, you ought to die ! 
 If she's taken it I'll just come back and strangle you 
 with my own hands, I believe." 
 
 But my Uncle Hagar didn't say a word, nor pay any 
 attention to me. Just went along steadily into the hall 
 and upstairs. 
 
 Then I turned and ran towards the doctor's. But be 
 fore I did, I saw him going up the stairs tugging at 
 the banisters, lifting his feet slow and heavy like it 
 was hard work raising them from the floor an old, old 
 man, with a bloodless, tallow face, dragging his old broken 
 body up the stairs. 
 
 And then I said to myself, going out it came across 
 me in a flash: 
 
 " You're blaming him when it's you that did it. 
 It's your fault more than his. You brought it in to her 
 last night." 
 
 And then I was running, running down the street, 
 thinking, " You did that for certain. It was you."
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 And pretty quick, as I went running, my feet were go 
 ing to a kind of chant like you make at times like that, 
 sometimes. I was just chanting to myself; and my feet 
 went beating out over and over again to that same thing. 
 
 " God Almighty I did that ! 
 
 " God Almighty I did that ! " 
 
 It couldn't have come to her, of course not that way 
 from anything I did. But I didn't know that then. 
 
 The doctor was coming out of the gate when I got 
 there, whistling his " Arkansas Traveler " as high and 
 gay and out of tune as usual. And Uncle Mungo sat 
 waiting for him with his buggy out in the front. It was 
 the prettiest time of day. There were roses still, out in 
 the garden; and a mocking bird was singing foolish 
 gladness in a bush somewhere; and that old clear, faint, 
 smiling, pale-green Yellow Fever sky was hung out over 
 the world like the proclamation of a universal holiday. 
 
 "What is it?" said the doctor, stopping whistling. 
 
 " Vance ! " I said, choking. 
 
 "You come along after us," he said; and jumped in 
 side of Mungo, and they were gone along up the road be 
 fore I knew it. 
 
 But three minutes after I was there behind them, stand 
 ing outside the door of the Ivory Room, listening. 
 
 The first thing I heard was the doctor's voice, and, let 
 me tell you I went numb when I first heard it. 
 
 " What you been doing to this child ? " was the first 
 thing I heard him say, talking to my Uncle. 
 
 And my heart gave a great high bound. That couldn't 
 mean the Fever, it seemed like to me. 
 
 " Nothin'," said my Uncle Athiel, in his old dead voice. 
 
 Then they were both quiet for a minute, and it was my 
 Uncle who spoke next.
 
 THE HEADACHE 
 
 " We thought," he said, and caught his breath, " it was 
 the Fever." 
 
 " It couldn't be much more like it," said the doctor. 
 " But it isn't." 
 
 And the flood of joy and happiness and comfort came 
 back over me this time completely, as I listened there be 
 hind the door; all at once my whole soul and body just 
 cried out " Glory, Glory Halleluiah ! " 
 
 " What is it then ? " my Uncle went on asking him. 
 
 " Nerves ! This girl is on the ragged end of nervous 
 collapse ! " said the doctor. And I heard my Uncle sigh. 
 
 Vance laughed then, or tried to. 
 
 " What did I tell you ? " she said. But you could only 
 just hear her. 
 
 " There's nothing to laugh at," said the doctor. And 
 her laugh died down. " I don't understand it," said the 
 doctor. " This thing must have been going for days. 
 What I don't see is how she has kept up till now. 
 
 "What have you been doing?" he said to her. 
 "What's the matter with you?" And when she tried 
 to laugh him off again " don't laugh," he said. " How 
 long have you been having these shivering spells ? " 
 
 " Oh, a few days," Vance whispered, offhand, like she 
 always did, talking about herself. 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor, grunting at her. " I see 
 I see you have. 
 
 " Now the first thing you've got to do is to get her out 
 of here," he went along, talking to my Uncle. 
 
 " I been tryin' to," my Uncle said, " but she won't go." 
 
 " Won't go ! " said the doctor. 
 
 " No and I can't make her go," mv Uncle said. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Ask her," said my Uncle Athiel.
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " I won't. I can't. You can't make me," Vance whis 
 pered. 
 
 * , ; . i 
 
 " You see," said my Uncle's voice again. 
 
 "Why not? " the doctor went on asking Vance. 
 
 " I'm going to stay. I'm going to stay as long as he 
 does," said Vance's whisper, louder and more excited. 
 
 " Oh, I see," the doctor said again. " Well then ; all 
 right ; you get ready to go," he said, " for he's going. 
 Your father's going." 
 
 " And Beavis, too," I heard her say. And her voice 
 seemed stronger immediately, right away. 
 
 " Yes, both of them," said the doctor to her. " Lie 
 down ! Lie down ! " he said again. " You won't go for 
 a day or two yet. And when they all go, depends upon 
 just one thing on you; on how quick you get fit and 
 ready to be going. You understand? " 
 
 I heard her lie back again with a sigh. And right 
 after that the two men came out together. 
 
 " I can't go," said my Uncle, when the door was shut. 
 
 " You saw her ! " said the doctor, looking at him. 
 
 " She's got to go without me. Beavis here can take 
 her," my Uncle Athiel answered him. 
 
 The doctor only just looked at him. 
 
 " Can't you make her go?" my Uncle said. 
 
 " You've tried it, haven't you? " the doctor asked him. 
 But my Uncle kept on arguing. " You don't understand 
 it," he kept saying. " I can't go. I can't go and leave 
 my property. I can't do it," said my Uncle. 
 
 " You saw her," said the doctor a second time, and 
 stopped. 
 
 My Uncle stood there just stood there, motion 
 less. 
 
 " I can't go ! I can't go ! " he said again after a 
 while. " I'm near enough ruined as it is."
 
 THE HEADACHE 215 
 
 " That's your business," said the doctor in a chilly 
 way. " My business is my patient. Now I'll tell you 
 about that. And it isn't a very long story : 
 
 " If she goes away she'll be all right in two weeks. If 
 she stays with this nervous strain that's got her now, she 
 won't be alive ten days from now. I can promise you 
 that. And that's not talking about the Fever, under 
 stand! If she gets that, like she probably will, she's 
 dead beforehand ! " 
 
 " She's crazy," said my Uncle, in a low old voice, " she's 
 crazy or she'd been gone long ago." 
 
 " I don't know anything about that," said Dr. Great- 
 house. " It's hard telling now, who's crazy and who isn't 
 these days," he said, giving a meaning look at my Uncle. 
 
 My Uncle stood, not noticing him, and wet his bluish 
 lips with his tongue. 
 
 " I can't ! I won't ! " he said. " I ain't agoing to go 
 and leave everything I've got just for a school-girl's 
 nonsense. 
 
 " No, sir. You don't understand," he said, while he 
 stood there watching him. " I'm ruined now, near enough. 
 I'm bound out to the poor house now," he said, " for sure 
 and certain. But I ain't going till I have to. No, sir! 
 I'm going to stay right here and watch my property 
 what little I've got left." 
 
 And I jumped up then, raging and cursing. That 
 " property " talk was the last straw. 
 
 " Property ! Property ! " I called out to him. " You 
 old devil. Property ! You old murderer, if I ever hear 
 you talk of that again, I'll choke you till your tongue 
 hangs out your mouth longer than a blacksnake ! " 
 
 " Shut up, you young fool," the doctor said to me. 
 
 " What'll it be? " he said to my Uncle Athiel. " It's 
 going to be one or the other. Which'll it be that
 
 216 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 ' Property ' or that little girl of yours ? And you your 
 self, in the bargain probably ! " 
 
 And when my Uncle Athiel didn't answer him, nothing 
 but a sort of old low groan, the doctor went along him 
 self, talking low and quiet, but still the way men talk when 
 they're giving orders. 
 
 " Now," he said, looking straight and steady at my 
 Uncle, " I'll tell you what you're going to do. You're go 
 ing to get out of here. Right away, too. You're going 
 to take what you're guarding here, and get out ! " 
 
 " What I'm guarding here ! " said my Uncle, looking 
 around. 
 
 " Yes sir," said the doctor, looking him in the eye. 
 " We've got no time now for dancing and teetering and 
 mincing words. Yes what you're guarding here 
 and sacrificing yourself and everybody else for." 
 
 " Guarding," said my Uncle Athiel, talking quicker 
 getting excited, " what is there left to guard ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said the doctor. 
 
 " I reckon you don't," said my Uncle. " I expect you 
 don't!" 
 
 " I don't. It's none of my business," said the doctor. 
 But my Uncle didn't hear him, apparently went right 
 on with his own thoughts. 
 
 " Nothin'," he said with a groan. " Nothin' ! " 
 
 " Well, if that's so," said the doctor, " you certainly 
 have got no excuse for staying here anyway." 
 
 My Uncle stood there staring, just staring at the 
 wall at nothing. Not speaking, looking, his eyes 
 down, scarcely breathing. 
 
 " You're going," said the doctor, " like a white man 
 should." 
 
 And still my Uncle stood staring at the wall, while he 
 waited.
 
 THE HEADACHE 217 
 
 " I'll go," he said at last, in an old miserable voice, and 
 very low. So low you could hardly hear him. 
 
 " I'll go," he said, louder, a second time like it was 
 torn out of him. 
 
 " All right, then," said the doctor, " I'm glad to hear 
 it." 
 
 And I thought, looking, I'd never seen a man change 
 so much as my Uncle Athiel had in that one night and 
 that morning. That flash of youth he'd had, was out ; the 
 fire was down again lower than ever, almost to its 
 embers. The flesh had sunk and fallen into holes in his 
 face in his temples and his cheeks, and his eyes were 
 dead and hopeless. He was an old, old man where he 
 stood there looking at the wall. 
 
 " I'll go," he said a third time, like he was speaking to 
 himself. " To-morrow ! " 
 
 " Not to-morrow," said Dr. Greathouse. " Maybe the 
 day after. But to-morrow she won't be ready to go. 
 She's got to rest a day anyhow." 
 
 " All right," my Uncle said, like a man who wants to 
 stop talking. " The day after, then." 
 
 " And mind," said the doctor, " I can't promise any 
 thing certain." 
 
 " She ain't dangerous now? " my Uncle asked him, and 
 looked up at him. 
 
 " No. But to-morrow is a long way off, these days," 
 said the doctor. " And the day after is a good lot fur 
 ther. 
 
 " It's all around you now," he said. " Back and 
 front, and everywhere. The Fever's all around you." 
 
 They started downstairs together. 
 
 "Keep your windows down, nights, still?" the doctor 
 said making conversation, it seemed to me, for my 
 Uncle didn't talk. He'd just stop talking.
 
 218 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Yes," my Uncle answered him and that was all. 
 
 " I would, I believe," the doctor said, " until I went." 
 
 I noticed specially when he said it but my Uncle 
 didn't notice, or look up even. 
 
 " And if there's anything I can do," said the doctor 
 again, " to help you about watching this property here 
 after you're gone, I want to." 
 
 " I'll see," said my Uncle, but that was all. He didn't 
 look up or thank him even. 
 
 " I hope you get away," said the doctor, waiting at 
 the door. " I hope you get away all right." 
 
 And it was plain he wanted to talk as kind and friendly 
 as he could now. " It's not only what you've got to do 
 for your little girl, it's what you ought to do for your 
 self. It won't do you any harm, I expect, to take a little 
 rest yourself." 
 
 " Me," said my Uncle, " me ! What difference does it 
 make about me? I'll have rest enough before long," he 
 said. " I'm through, I'm done for." 
 
 And he spoke in that old, dull, miserable voice, like a 
 man who is really all through, and sees it. Like a man 
 at the end of a game, broken, cleaned out. 
 
 Like a man at the end of a game, when the lights are 
 down, and the glasses empty, and the cards scattered on 
 the floor. And one last player going, ruined, done for. 
 
 And in spite of myself I couldn't help but feel sorry for 
 him, stumbling, crawling with his old heavy feet up the 
 long dark stairs, without speaking. Up the stairs, and 
 back again to his Purple Room. 
 
 I was sorry for him. But I was glad at the same time 
 too glad to think of him very long. Happy and ex 
 cited, and full of sudden hopefulness after that mon 
 strous morning. 
 
 There, across the hall, upstairs, lay Vance, still free
 
 THE HEADACHE 219 
 
 from the Fever, anyhow. With still a chance of escap 
 ing it. 
 
 And when I thought of her again, lying there, tired and 
 scared, as determined about staying till the last one as 
 she ever was, I could see as plainly as anything in this 
 world, that if we all got out of there alive without getting 
 that Fever, it was to her, just only to her, that we would 
 owe it her weakness, that aggravating, obstinate weak 
 ness that women have, and use forever, as their weapon; 
 that weakness and obstinacy that win for women in the 
 end.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE SONG IN THE STEEET 
 
 VANCE was asleep in her room, peacefully and 
 quietly sleeping, thank God, and my Uncle was 
 in his Purple Room, where he had gone right 
 after the doctor left, and stayed, only coming out for 
 dinner. And I was there all alone, restless, worrying, 
 trying to pass the time away, that everlasting time be 
 fore we could go. 
 
 " Hurry, hurry ! " something kept calling in me, now 
 that I knew we were going. And I knew just now how 
 all those folks felt, those first few days, running away out 
 of town, with those frightened stares on their faces. 
 Were we going to get out soon enough, now that we were 
 going? That was the question continually before me. 
 
 For the Fever was in back of us now, like the doctor 
 had said ; back and front and all around us. And it was 
 only reasonable to expect that that old Fever miasma, 
 that poison, whatever it was, was all around us too, in 
 the air. 
 
 So I sat and looked and twitched my fingers and waited. 
 For that was all I could do now. Just roamed around 
 like a homeless dog. From downstairs to up, and from 
 upstairs down again tiptoeing and worrying. 
 
 I sat there in the sitting room, finally, looking out 
 north again. They said the whole town was empty now 
 
 of white folks ; most all that were left were sick ; and now 
 
 220
 
 THE SONG IN THE STREET 
 
 they said they were having trouble to find coffins enough 
 for all that died. And the Dead Wagons went by creak 
 ing and groaning. I can hear them now, under those 
 great toppling loads of coffins. And they said that now 
 even the niggers were getting the Fever and dying with 
 it like the white folks. And there just seemed to be no 
 end to it. 
 
 I looked there quite a while, before I noticed that there 
 was somebody else in the house besides me who was watch 
 ing and waiting, and expecting the Fever. 
 
 Arabella had come in while I was there, I expect 
 and stood over there across the hall in the Study, looking 
 out again down over the hill, toward the city like she 
 had from the first when we were looking for the Fever ; 
 staring down the hill from that same old place in Mr. 
 Bozro's Study. My Uncle had gone and left it entirely, 
 and kept himself upstairs r.g?.m. 
 
 And by and by the negress came sidling in to me 
 asking what the doctor said about Vance. 
 
 " She ain't got it after all, didn't he say? " she asked. 
 
 And though her face was as smooth as it always was, 
 her voice was warm and friendly. For I knew she thought 
 the world of Vance. 
 
 " No," I said, " she hasn't." 
 
 " Then she better be goin'," said Arabella. " Better 
 be goin' quick as she can." And there was that same old 
 secrecy and mysteriousness in her voice, and her eyes be 
 gan lighting up again like a warning. 
 
 " Better be goin'," she said, " better be goin'. You 
 better be goin' right off now ; they ain't no time to spare." 
 
 " We're going," I said. " Day after to-morrow," I told 
 her, when she asked me, " When ? " 
 
 " Mighty late ! " she said, in that old graveyard voice. 
 " Mighty iate ! "
 
 222 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Oh no," I answered back, more cheerful than I felt. 
 " We won't get it ; we'll all get out of here before we get 
 the Fever." 
 
 " Fevah ! " said the negress, in a kind of warning voice. 
 " This ain't no Fevah." 
 
 " What is it then? " I said, getting curious again. For 
 her mind was running now, I could see plain enough, on 
 that old religion of hers. And her eyes fired up, and her 
 old smooth round face began to light up like a jack o' 
 lantern. 
 
 " This ain't no common, ordinary, Yellow Fevah," said 
 Arabella. " You kin see it if you look. Look at 'em ! 
 Look how they die ! Right off on the street, without 
 warning. And some of 'em's spotted, when they find 'em 
 just all spotted like a dog. Yes, the niggers now are 
 having it too and dyin' just like white folks. No suh, 
 no suh," she said, shaking her old head in a meaning way, 
 " this ain't no Yeller Fevah." 
 
 " What is it then ? " I went on and asked her. 
 
 " Don't you know ? " she said, rolling her old eyes at 
 me. "Not yet?" 
 
 " No " ; I told her that I didn't. 
 
 " It's the punishin' of God acomin' down on Memphis," 
 she said to me. " It's the punishment of God af allin' on 
 this old wicked city for its sins. It's the aind; it's the 
 aind! 
 
 " But you white folks won't see it ! " she went along 
 warning me. " You won't see it 'tall, and eve'y day the 
 signs gettin' thicker'n thicker around you. Signs and 
 mysteries, growing closer and closer eve'y day ! " she 
 said, staring out behind me with eyes looking right on 
 by me. 
 
 And her voice grew higher and louder. 
 
 " Why, my good Gawd ! " she said, her voice still rising.
 
 THE SONG IN THE STREET 
 
 " It's here ! It's right here now. It's here! And yet 
 nobody won't see it. 
 
 " Look yondah! " she said, jerking out her arm to the 
 window. " In just a day or two and you'll see it see it 
 coming. It'll be acomin', acomin*, acomin', up this road. 
 Just a few days longer, just a few days longer now. 
 
 " Just a few days longer, He'll be here," she said 
 chanting now, sort of singsong. And that old peaceful 
 smile spread out across her great wide face again. 
 
 " Just a day and a day; just a few days longer," she 
 said, beaming and showing her white teeth. " Just a few 
 days now, and He'll be acomin' up the street; and the 
 trumpets will be ablowin', and the clouds will be arisin' ; 
 and the folks will be acryin', and arunnin' and awringin' 
 they hands, and Memphis will be asinkin' right down, 
 asinkin', sinkin', sinkin' right down into the ground. 
 Memphis will be destroyed. Just all overcome and gone." 
 
 She was just gone, changed into a wild savage, while 
 I stood looking at her ; a wild African, chanting low and 
 mysterious, like some old savage nigger on the Congo. 
 
 " And right yere, acomin' up the streets acomin' up 
 the streets," she said, pointing, " who'll yuh see ? Who'll 
 yuh see acomin'? Right yere before your eyes. Him! 
 Him! Him! He'll be comin' the Lamb! The Lamb 
 in his white garment and the chayiot and his great 
 chayiot. 
 
 " And them great horses ; them great white horses, 
 comin' and acomin' and acomin', adrawin' him up this 
 hill ! Acomin' and acomin' and acomin' on and ahol- 
 lerin' Victry ! Victry ! Victry ! Ahollerin' it at the 
 top of they voices." 
 
 She saw them coming there right up there over the 
 hill. You could almost see them for yourself. The black 
 angels blowing their trumpets and that black God of
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 hers, and those great white horses there before him, com 
 ing, calling up over the hill. 
 
 The sweat stood out on her face, and her body grew 
 stiff while she was telling it ; and her eyes looked down the 
 street and way out beyond ; far off somewhere out 
 back of the world. 
 
 " Yassuh," she said, finally, wiping her wet mouth with 
 the back of her hand. " Yassuh, you goin' see it." Her 
 voice was hoarse. " Yassuh, yassuh, you goin' see it 
 right away. Right away if you stay hyah. 
 
 " Yassuh, yassuh. Oh, you better go. You better be 
 goin' and takin' her away," she said, moving out again to 
 her place back out in the kitchen. And that old smile, 
 bright and shiny, on her glossy face. 
 
 I stood there and watched her go, wondering for a min 
 ute at what I'd seen at what a nigger'll show you when 
 they lift a corner of the curtain over their strange souls. 
 And then I turned again, looking out the window 
 thinking my own worries, and my own thoughts. 
 
 There was nothing much to see that day some signs 
 they had the Fever in some houses down below there. 
 But nothing of the half-nigger; nothing wrong either, in 
 the Ventress's house across the lawn. One of their own 
 niggers had been back that day, and went all through it, 
 looking. And there was nothing there. 
 
 I did notice that old dog once or twice, when I was out 
 in the yard first when I was doing my work in the 
 morning that old dog lying there by the door with the 
 glass top that went into the harness room in the big old 
 vacant barn. 
 
 " He's got a new place to lie," I said to myself, and 
 thought no more about it. 
 
 I couldn't see Vance at all that day. She wasn't strong 
 enough to sit up yet, and what she wanted anyhow, was
 
 THE SONG IN THE STREET 225 
 
 rest. And for that matter, I didn't plan to see her any 
 way not after being out and exposed myself to the 
 Fever that night before. And so I didn't go near her 
 door even, though the Lord knows I wanted to see her bad 
 enough if only to see how she was looking. 
 
 So there wasn't much that day. I slept a little myself, 
 late that afternoon. I was tired enough to, after that 
 night before. 
 
 Then my Uncle and I ate supper together, talking a 
 little of Vance, and of the Fever, and of our plans for 
 going away. He was going to take us up back into the 
 hills around our old country, toward the middle of the 
 state. 
 
 But my Uncle Athiel didn't want to talk. His head 
 was down; and his eyes were down. And he kept that 
 general listless look and motion of a man who has lost 
 the game, and doesn't care about anything any more 
 all broken. 
 
 He didn't even want to talk to me much not even 
 about watching the house that night. 
 
 " He won't want to come back again, not right away," 
 he said. " We scared that nigger too bad ! " 
 
 But I wasn't so certain sure as all that though I 
 thought likely he was right. But it looked to me as if 
 I'd better stay up and watch a little. 
 
 And so evening went, and night came again; I sat up 
 there in my old Red Room bed-chamber, looking out, and 
 wondering whether, after all, we were going to get away 
 and worrying and fretting over Vance. 
 
 The town was all changed even the sounds at night ; 
 and that night, with the niggers quiet and so many of the 
 alley dogs got rid of, there was scarcely any noise any 
 where. The bell they used to ring every night, those 
 days, was still; the wheels were gone from the streets;
 
 226 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 you heard no more drunken men go calling home noth 
 ing, only the little mule car, underneath the hill, going 
 tinkling by every half hour, regular as a clock. 
 
 I did not feel sleepy any. I was nervous, I expect; 
 and I had slept just about enough that afternoon to take 
 away my appetite for sleep, but I laid down at last with 
 my clothes on, just to rest myself. And then for a min 
 ute or so I must have fallen asleep. 
 
 It couldn't have been long, though, a few minutes, 
 maybe, for then I was waked up right away by that song 
 on the street. 
 
 I sat up listening. I hadn't heard for a number of 
 nights that old sound of a drunken man going singing 
 home in the night. 
 
 It was right out there in our own street, I noticed 
 coming slowly up the hill. It sounded strange and silly 
 and drunk. Then after a while I noticed the tune that 
 he was singing. It was that funny old nursery song they 
 used to sing to the babies something about the " Fly 
 on the Wall " our words used to be. But really it's a 
 German song, it seems an old German song. The 
 Germans call it, they tell me, " Du Lieber Augustin " 
 a simply, silly, wearisome old song, going over and over 
 again. 
 
 I listened and I didn't understand the words at all, 
 hard as I tried. And the reason was, naturally, that 
 he was singing them in German. I could hear the foot 
 steps of the man, unsteady. 
 
 It was very still. 
 
 Then there were other steps, I noticed the steps 
 of a heavier man ; and all at once there was a kind of 
 scuffle of feet on the walk in front of us like two men 
 struggling. I got up to the window, and stood listen 
 ing.
 
 THE SONG IN THE STREET 227 
 
 Then suddenly, while I stood there, I heard that door 
 bell go Jangle, jangle, jangle, in the cellarway. 
 
 There was some one there this time that was cer 
 tain ! I grabbed the first thing that I had an old spoke 
 of a cartwheel it was, I'd got in my own room, weeks ago, 
 when my Uncle first was talking of thieves and robbers. 
 
 And I started out and crept and crawled downstairs, as 
 fast as I could go, and still keep quiet. There was a dim 
 light in the upper hallway. We were keeping it there 
 while Vance was sick. But not one sound from my Uncle's 
 room. He hadn't heard a thing. He wouldn't; he was 
 too deaf. 
 
 I slunk and crept down the black stairway, and hugged 
 the smooth paper on the wall. Lord, it was dark there ! 
 Only the light from the street lamp through the ground 
 glass on the front door, and that dim light above. 
 
 But this time, I said to myself, this time I'd show them ! 
 This time, if there was anybody there! 
 
 I listened then by the outside door. I stopped and 
 listened. I turned the key in the lock, the knob of the 
 door turned it quick as I could turn, and jumped out, 
 saying : 
 
 " Now, damn you ! " 
 
 And it was only old John McCallan, the policeman, 
 standing there on the sidewalk in front of the house, 
 begging my pardon, and holding up another man, rolling 
 and babbling in his arms. 
 
 I looked, and it was that little German grocer, down 
 below that man who had the Fever half-dressed 
 in shoes and trousers and his night-shirt; and that old 
 German song still going feebly on his lips. 
 
 " You'll excuse me for disturbing you, Mr. Beavis," 
 said John, " but I got to get this poor Dutchman home. 
 He's out here wanderin' crazy with the Fever."
 
 228 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 There it was finally, the Fever come up to our own 
 door. 
 
 " I'll help you. Let me help you," I said, like a fool, 
 laying down my old cartwheel spoke and going toward 
 him. 
 
 " Stand away from him," said John. " Don't touch 
 him. I don't need you to do that ; one's enough ! " 
 
 " What do you want me to do then ? " I asked him. 
 
 " The naygur nurse they gave him has gone asleep, I ex 
 pect," said John. " That's what's happened, and he has 
 run away. And you can run down now, if you want to, 
 and wake the naygur up, and have him come and help 
 me get this poor feller home." 
 
 So then I ran along down and hammered on the door, 
 and woke the nigger. And he stuck out his head above 
 me and told me he'd come. 
 
 There was a lot of talk about the nigger nurses in that 
 Fever time, I want to say. And a lot of it wrong and 
 mean and ungrateful. They were pretty mighty faith 
 ful, a good lot of them. But the great trouble they did 
 have with them, really, was keeping them awake nights 
 to watch the folks that they were nursing. 
 
 So after that I ran back again to where old John stood 
 waiting, with the little German, where he had him lying 
 there propped up now against our stone terrace wall. 
 
 " Poor feller," said John, looking down at him, and I 
 standing off away. " Poor feller, this will finish him, 
 pretty likely. They get loose every now and then, and 
 run out like this when they get wrong in their heads. 
 And every time, most, it kills them. 
 
 " You've got to lie still," he said, " with this Fever. 
 If you move around too much it kills you. Sometimes 
 they run off, away, like this, and crawl off in some place
 
 THE SONG IN THE STREET 
 
 and die. They found a number of them this last week, 
 down there in the business blocks." 
 
 I turned. It seemed to me, while I stood there, I heard 
 some one calling me. 
 
 " Poor feller," said John. " And he thought he 
 wouldn't have it. He'd had it once before." 
 
 The nigger nurse was coming now, scared, running up 
 the street. 
 
 " This ain't no regular Fever," said John. " I've seen 
 the Yellow Fever now, for years. It never acted like this 
 before. The naygurs are all getting it now ; and all the 
 folks that had it once before. That's new. And those 
 that had it die right off a lot of them. I've seen thim 
 just right off after they get it. I never seen it come 
 like that before. No, sor," said John McCallan, " no, 
 sor ; it ain't natural for the Yellow Fever. 
 
 " No, sor," said John, shaking his old head. " No, sor; 
 I'm telling you this ain't no ordinary Fever. And those 
 that can," he said, " will be watching to get out now. 
 For it's my opinion, it's my opinion," said John McCal 
 lan, " that all of us that stays are goin' to die." 
 
 " I don't see you going out," I said. 
 
 " I can't," said John. " How could I on my job? " 
 
 " There's others have," I said. 
 
 " Yes, and I'm sorry to tell you that they have," said 
 John. 
 
 The nigger was there now; and I stood for a minute, 
 watching them lift up the silent little bundle of man. 
 
 It was all just like me. From first to last I was so ex 
 cited first by that bell and then afterwards doing 
 what I had to do outside I hadn't thought, or consid 
 ered or remembered one thing about that old poison 
 night air we all were standing in.
 
 230 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 And just when it first struck me just when I thought 
 about it, standing there, I certainly thought again I 
 heard my name whispered there behind me. 
 
 " Good-night," I said to John. I stepped inside and 
 closed the door. And stood there in that pallid light 
 that came in there through that old ground glass window 
 in the door. 
 
 And there a white figure swaying forward, face 
 against the door-frame, stood Vance. 
 
 "Hullo, what's this? Vance?" I called, surprised. 
 " What are you down here for? " 
 
 But she didn't answer. 
 
 " What is it? " I said, taking her by her shoulder. She 
 had thrown she had just thrown that white shawl of 
 her mother's, that great long white India shawl, over her 
 night clothes, and come running down. 
 
 " You wouldn't come ! " she whispered, not answering 
 me. " You wouldn't come ! You just stood there, in that 
 poison night air ! " 
 
 I shrank back from her, right away then, thinking 
 where I had been. 
 
 " Come," I said, " you've got to go back to bed. How 
 did you come here anyway? " 
 
 "The bell!" she said. "I heard the bell!" 
 
 She swayed a little. I could see her plainer now 
 my eyes accustomed to the dim light. She swayed I 
 thought that she would faint and fall ; and I caught her 
 though scared to fearful of God knows what exposure 
 I might have brought to her from outdoors there. 
 
 I caught her in my arms, and held her, shuddering. 
 She hadn't fainted though ; she was still conscious. 
 
 " Oh, how lonely I've been," she whispered, " how 
 lonely." And I thought now she was growing light in her 
 head, light and flighty.
 
 THE SONG IN THE STREET 
 
 " And you wouldn't come ! You wouldn't come, when 
 I called you, Beavis ! " 
 
 Her arms reached unsteadily to my shoulder, and she 
 kept on talking in a whisper. 
 
 And longing and anxiousness and that continual fear 
 that never left me now; the fear that I would lose her 
 after all swept over me. And I held her closer, when 
 it overtook me. 
 
 " You wouldn't come," she said, shuddering slightly, 
 once again, " all day all day And now you wouldn't 
 come when I called you. You don't care you didn't 
 care. You didn't care for me ! " 
 
 " Care for you ! " I said, and choked. 
 
 " You didn't come," she repeated weak and a little 
 feverish, I expect. " You didn't care ! " 
 
 And when she said it over a second time I was out of 
 my own control out of my mind, I expect, too for 
 happiness and fear, all mixed together; and dread of 
 what, in spite of me, might be about to happen to her; 
 to take her away from me forever. 
 
 It was like we were the last two folks, somehow, in all 
 the world. Just standing there in that dim hall; that 
 black house behind us. Like all the rest were dead and 
 that damned Fever outside there, crawling, crawling, 
 crawling to the door to get her from me take her out 
 from my arms forever. 
 
 " Care ! " I said. " Care for you ! " I said again. 
 " God Almighty, Vance, I'd tear down the sunset and bring 
 it to you for a gown if you asked me to." 
 
 I was only twenty-one, just a boy. And it seemed to 
 me like we just stood there in the dark defying Death 
 and Time and the universe together. 
 
 And when I spoke, I felt her little body soften and 
 relax in my arms, like a tired little child at bedtime.
 
 232 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 I took her bodily in my arms then, and started up the 
 stairs, for I saw it would be impossible for her now to 
 climb them. And I thought, too late, what it had meant 
 for her the strain, the exposure of that trip of hers 
 down after me in the dark. 
 
 I took her up in my arms and carried her upstairs, like 
 carrying nothing at all. Her lax, childish body slender 
 and young and soft in the folds of that soft old India 
 shawl, weighed like nothing in my arms. She lay against 
 me, like a sleepy child ; and as I passed up toward the dim 
 gas light in the upper hall, she raised her light hand to 
 my face with an uncertain gesture, and drew it down and 
 her deep dark eyes looked up at me, close into mine. And 
 I went up that old long staircase carrying her, watching 
 her and wondering in my heart if now now that I had 
 her there, I might lose her, right away forever, from 
 that Death that lay waiting outside there all around us. 
 
 We'd reached the top of the long stairs almost, my 
 face down watching her, when I started and looked up. 
 There above us, waiting, stood my Uncle Athiel, staring 
 down. There was not a word from him, not a question. 
 
 " Give her to me," he said in a hoarse old voice and 
 took her from me. 
 
 He took her from me lame, old, scarcely able, he 
 looked like, to hold himself upright he took her from 
 me into his arms, and some way went on carrying her 
 down the dim hall to the Ivory Room. 
 
 " Good-night," I told her, before I gave her up to him, 
 and kissed her. 
 
 I'm sure she told him as he was carrying her. I could 
 see her whispering in his ear. I waited. He came back 
 very soon. 
 
 " Will she be all right now? " I said, and looked him in 
 the eyes. " Will there be anything we can do? "
 
 THE SONG IN THE STREET 
 
 " No," he said, " she had scarcely touched the pillow 
 before she was sleeping." 
 
 We said no more. He made no talk of blame or com 
 ment. But the strength and vigor that had come to him 
 when he took her in his arms and carried her down the 
 hall from me, was gone again. 
 
 He looked again like an old, old man. 
 
 I must have gotten asleep again finally, sometime a 
 thin, miserable, restless sleep, for I woke up with a jerk 
 and said to myself : " I must have been dreaming it all 
 over again, or I'm crazy maybe ! " For I had the im 
 pression I had heard that bell again one of those bells 
 downstairs in the cellarway jangling.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE IVORY ROOM 
 
 I WOKE up ; the sun shone in, a little narrow yellow 
 wedge upon my carpet; I woke up and jumped out 
 of bed, and started out on that last day, the last 
 everlasting day, before we finally were to go. I had over 
 slept; that late dead sleep that comes at the end of a 
 sleepless night had been too much for me. 
 
 I looked out the window while I was dressing me, down 
 to the Fever house, where the little German was, over the 
 closed grocery store, and wondered about him if he 
 was living still. And I noticed then, out my back win 
 dow, that the old dog was still there, lying there in front 
 of the harness room of the great closed barn. 
 
 " This will be the second day," I said to myself, won 
 dering a minute, " that he's been lying around out there." 
 Then right away it passed out of my mind when I went 
 downstairs. For the first thing naturally, was Vance. 
 How was she? When could I get to see her? And I tip 
 toed by her silent room and on downstairs, hoping and 
 fearing. 
 
 My Uncle was down below at the breakfast table, and 
 said that earlier he had looked in and she was sleeping 
 peacefully, breathing soft and regular as a child. 
 
 I thought, maybe, he would say something more after 
 that night before when we sat down to breakfast there 
 
 alone together. But not a word came out of him, and 
 
 234
 
 THE IVORY ROOM 235 
 
 I couldn't speak myself, though I tried to several times. 
 But for that matter my Uncle didn't look like he cared 
 to hear me talk. He sat, downcast, looking at his plate, 
 stiller and bluer and more motionless than I had even seen 
 him, in any of those blue days of his when he talked about 
 the poorhouse. And so I waited and waited, till the doc 
 tor came anxious to know just what he would say when 
 he knew of everything especially when he heard of that 
 great thing that had been chasing me awake all night 
 the fear that I certainly must have exposed Vance to the 
 Fever on that night before. 
 
 And meanwhile I went out late and fed old Dolly, 
 who was stamping to be attended to. And then again I 
 saw that old dog there in front of the big barn. He 
 still lay there, curled up on the top step of the door into 
 the harness room. He raised his head when I came along 
 and looked at me out of his little bloodshot eyes, under his 
 old eyebrows, and laid his head down again on his paws 
 when I went along by. 
 
 I didn't stop going, for I was in a hurry to attend to 
 the horse; and coming back I went right by him, for I 
 heard the sound of the doctor coming whistling in the 
 front yard. I saw him right away as soon as he came 
 into the house, and I told him what I'd done that night 
 before about being out there with that German. 
 
 " Ah-ha," said the doctor, " I heard of that. So you 
 were the fellow? " 
 
 "How is he?" I asked. For I knew the doctor had 
 him. 
 
 " He's dead," said Dr. Greathouse. 
 
 Then I stopped for a minute, like you do when any 
 body says that about somebody you've just seen moving 
 around, and heard talking. 
 
 " Dead !" I said. " Then they're all dead? It's got
 
 236 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 the entire family? " And I saw them while I was saying 
 it all those little white headed youngsters, and the lit 
 tle fat man that used to stand there serving us behind the 
 counter in his long checked apron. 
 
 " All but the mother," said the doctor. " That's not 
 the only case," he said, " there's plenty of families, poor 
 folks especially, that are going that way after the 
 Fever once gets into the house." 
 
 And I caught my breath then, and went on, hurrying, 
 telling him about what was bothering me all night long 
 about Vance, and the danger I had exposed her to the 
 Fever, when I first got in the house. I didn't tell him 
 everything, naturally. I just told him I had found her 
 there in the hall way when I came in; and helped her up 
 the stairs. 
 
 " I wouldn't worry about that yet," he said. " You 
 can't give it to anybody, I believe, till you've got it your 
 self." 
 
 That was some encouragement. 
 
 " But the real thing is," he said, " to see how she stood 
 it all herself the coming downstairs, the excitement. 
 That's what ails her anyhow what's on her mind. Her 
 imagination always was bigger than her body from the 
 first day that she talked." 
 
 He went upstairs, and into the Ivory Room, and, wait 
 ing just a minute or two, I heard him laughing, and I 
 heard her laughing too, with her voice back again, quite 
 a little, quite clear and high, but not exactly strong yet. 
 And after a while he called me. 
 
 " You can come in a minute," and in a second or two 
 more Vance's eyes were shining into mine. 
 
 " You can't understand 'em," said the doctor laughing. 
 " Nobody ever understood a woman. The first thing 
 they're away down from something you don't know any-
 
 THE IVORY ROOM 237 
 
 thing about, and the next, they're back, higher than ever, 
 on account of something they won't tell you." 
 
 And Vance's eyes turned and looked out the window, 
 and I grinned a little and stopped when my eyes caught 
 my Uncle's looking up dull and tired into mine and 
 turning right back again, looking out the window. 
 
 " I'm well, well," said Vance, in a minute, her eyes shin 
 ing back at me again. " I'm well." And some way, 
 though it wasn't strong yet, I hadn't heard her voice so 
 clear and hopeful, not for weeks. 
 
 " And to-morrow we'll be going ! " she said, looking 
 toward her father. 
 
 "Praise God. Hallelujah!" I said quickly. But my 
 Uncle said nothing, standing where he had gone, over by 
 the window looking out. 
 
 " I'm going to get up," said Vance. 
 
 " Later, if she sleeps, perhaps," said the doctor, to my 
 Uncle. And he nodded that he understood. 
 
 " And now," the doctor said to Vance, " you're going 
 to sleep." 
 
 " To-morrow," said Vance, " we're going to-morrow ! 
 And this afternoon I'll be up ! " 
 
 " Maybe," said the doctor. " But now you'll just pull 
 down your shades and rest." 
 
 And so he put them down and we went along out. 
 
 " It is wonderful how she's changed," said the doctor, 
 " but let her rest all she can." And he went on talking 
 then about our leaving town. 
 
 " I've got it all fixed up so you can go," he said. " And 
 you're not getting out of here any too quick. 
 
 " There were three deaths down that street below," he 
 said, " two besides the little German grocer. And one 
 in back of us in the alley on the next block, a nigger. 
 And one in the side street.
 
 238 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " It's all around you," said the doctor. 
 
 " It's in the air," my Uncle Hagar answered him. 
 " The air's aU full of Fever." 
 
 But he talked dull and listless, even about that not 
 excited a bit; like a man who doesn't care what happens 
 to him next. 
 
 It was all fixed, it seemed, so that the doctor would 
 come around occasionally and keep his eye on the house 
 when we went. And I was to talk to John McCallan and 
 let him have the key to it. There was some of those that 
 stayed on through the Fever and he was one of them 
 that had more than a hundred keys given them of stores 
 and houses. 
 
 And then, when he had told me that, my Uncle went 
 upstairs and stayed there, to be near Vance, he said. 
 
 But before he went away he spoke to me for the first 
 time, about her and myself. 
 
 " I expect," he said, " you'll think, before long, you'll 
 want to marry her? " 
 
 He talked in a dull, dreary kind of voice, and looked 
 at me once, and turned his eyes down again. But I was 
 glad anyhow, that he didn't fight it. 
 
 I didn't know exactly what he would do, for naturally, 
 he knew I didn't have a dollar. 
 
 " As soon as I get the money to," I said. 
 
 " Money," said my Uncle, like a dead old echo. 
 " That's it." 
 
 And my heart went down in my boots again, when he 
 went upstairs but not for very long. 
 
 It wasn't very long before he called to me to come up 
 there. " Your cousin, Vance," he said, and he hitched a 
 little on the " cousin," " wants to see you ; she's up and 
 dressed and wants to see you. I expect that you can go 
 in there for a little while."
 
 THE IVORY ROOM 239 
 
 So I stopped, a breath or two, outside the door of the 
 Ivory Room; and knocked and went in. 
 
 It was a big high place very pale and delicate col 
 ored ivory and palish blue and pink. Mr. Bozro had 
 built it for his wife when they thought they were so rich. 
 A tall, lean woman, they said, with a leathery, coppery 
 skin, and wonderful diamonds. 
 
 And all the woodwork of the room was ivory, and all 
 the stuff on the white bureau for her hands and hair was 
 real ivory. And the furniture was French, ivory-colored 
 too like in some of those great houses they had seen 
 abroad. And overhead pink cherubs, with ivory ribbon 
 streamers from their waists, played with ropes of roses 
 dull pink roses against a pale blue sky. 
 
 Vance was there, on a satin sofa a kind of long 
 French sofa, with a pillow back of her; in some creamy 
 kind of dress ; some fluffy ivory-colored lace thing. But 
 I was noticing most her eyes and hair black against 
 the whiteness. And her eyes. But I saw her eyes just 
 only for a second. 
 
 " Vance," I whispered, on my knees beside the sofa. 
 " Vance, why don't you look at me ? " 
 
 " I'm ashamed," she whispered back. 
 
 " Ashamed ? " I asked her. And with a quick motion, 
 she hid her face upon my shoulder. 
 
 " Ashamed? " I asked her again, after our silence. 
 " Of what? " and turned her face where I could see it. 
 
 " Last night," she said, " last night, last night." 
 
 " Don't say that, Vance, again. Never again," I told 
 her. And we were still again. Until once more I felt 
 her shuddering that nervous shuddering that I feared 
 passed over her again. 
 
 " What ! " I said sharply to her. " Not that again ! " 
 
 " I was so lonely," she whispered, and stopped.
 
 240 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 I waited. 
 
 " That day," she went along, " that awful day that 
 woman laughed so ! " 
 
 I could see her when she said it I could see her 
 there in her room alone, not understanding; and Death 
 screaming down there underneath her windows; watch 
 ing it all day and night with those great eyes of hers 
 and filling out and peopling the darkness, and all she 
 didn't understand, with her imagination that restless 
 imagination of hers. 
 
 " That day," she said, " you didn't speak to me ! " 
 
 I begged for her forgiveness then what I could 
 for the share I had in it. " I don't understand it now," 
 she said " all that row and shooting ! " 
 
 And I told her what I knew about that half -nigger. 
 
 " It was a thousand years," she said, " that day, and 
 those two nights. I feel a thousand years old, at least. 
 And that night that night you shot ! And that pistol 
 smoke in the hall ! My father ! " 
 
 She stopped. 
 
 And all at once I knew that old shuddering had caught 
 her again. 
 
 " I won't," she said, when I spoke sharply to her. " I 
 won't again. But it seemed to me I could see him," she 
 went on as if she couldn't stop. " It seemed to me I 
 could see his face just the same and his hand, just 
 like" 
 
 " That dream? " I said. 
 
 She nodded and was still. 
 
 " And now," I said, " you've got to tell me about it 
 you've got to tell me about that old crazy dream." 
 
 She wouldn't tell at first ; but I teased her and teased 
 her and told her it would be better to tell me better 
 for her.
 
 THE IVORY ROOM 241 
 
 " They say if you share a thing like that, it's easier 
 for you. If two can carry a secret," I said, " with less 
 worry than one can, maybe they can a dream." 
 
 And I smiled and laughed at her and encouraged her, 
 until finally she told me of that wild dream of hers 
 drawing away from me, back into a corner of the sofa; 
 and sending her eyes far off behind me in the distance. 
 And talking after a while in that still, hushed voice 
 of hers that still secret voice the children tell each 
 other those old nigger ghost stories, as the winter night 
 comes on. 
 
 " It seemed to me," she started lying very still and 
 whispering, almost " like we were all in this great place 
 that I was never in before. All three of us in this place, 
 in danger like we are here " she said, and stopped. 
 
 " Oh, I don't want to," she said. " I know you'll say 
 it's just plain silly." 
 
 " Go ahead," I said. 
 
 " And outside," she went along then, stretching out 
 her hand, " outside, I thought there was something there. 
 Something there we wanted to get away from and 
 couldn't. 
 
 " Smoke," she said suddenly. " I thought it was just 
 something hiding inside a lot of smoke. You couldn't see 
 it. You didn't know what it was. 
 
 " And I thought we'd go to the window and we'd try 
 to get out and try and try ! But there was something 
 there, invisible, something monstrous. 
 
 " And when we got there to the doors and windows 
 we couldn't get out, it wouldn't let us ! I don't know 
 why, but we couldn't. We were afraid, afraid of that 
 thing, that thing there in the smoke. 
 
 " And so we sat there, and sat there, and sat there. 
 And by and by," she said, and smiled, a quick little ex-
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 cusing smile and moved restlessly, " you know how it is 
 in dreams it seemed like all at once we were back here 
 in this house. 
 
 " And Clang ! something went shut, and a nigger's 
 voice, a great thick voice like a nigger saying : * There ! 
 You stay there till I come and get you ! ' 
 
 " And outside there, I thought," she said, her eyes 
 growing deeper and her body tense. " Outside it was all 
 smoke now. All around us in a ring. Only nearer now! 
 Only a lot nearer ! And my father and you were walking 
 up and down, walking up and down ! But we couldn't get 
 out. For it was still there only nearer." 
 
 Her voice grew lower and shakier, and she caught up 
 her knees to her, and sat there, her great eyes staring out 
 just like a scared child, just like those children telling 
 stories in the dark. I shivered, just a little myself, sit 
 ting there. I couldn't help it. 
 
 " It came and came and came," she said. " And it was 
 all around us. Smoke ! And all at once one of the win 
 dows for we'd had them all closed like we do here ; 
 all of a sudden this window swung back very slowly. Oh, 
 so monstrous slow a whole lifetime. And the smoke 
 poured in! And then all at once I heard this dreadful 
 cry, my father ! Right back of me crying dreadful : 
 
 " It's got me ! It's got me ! ' 
 
 " And there he was ! There he was ! There he was ! " 
 she said. 
 
 And stopped, panting pushing both her hands away 
 from her face, her fingers spread out stiff; and her face 
 drained white, with her deep eyes staring at me. 
 
 " Quit it, Vance," I said, " quit it! " 
 
 For I saw she shouldn't be doing that again. 
 
 " But I heard him. I heard him say it just as plain 
 as I hear you," she said.
 
 THE IVORY ROOM 
 
 " Why shouldn't you? " I said, " after this all this. 
 All this worry." 
 
 " Oh, I know it's wrong foolish," she said. 
 
 "But I saw him. I saw him there just like I see 
 you. I saw him lying there on his face. I went over 
 where he was and he was lying there on his face and 
 his hand his hand was under his head so. His 
 hand " 
 
 " Vance," I said, getting up on my feet, and standing 
 over her. " Vance, will you stop this ! " 
 
 For she was shuddering miserably through her whole 
 body ; shuddering and sitting up, and staring down 
 as if she saw him there, right there before her on the 
 floor. 
 
 " Yes," she said, and stopped right away. 
 
 " Anybody'd think you were crazy," I said, for I 
 thought I had to talk her out of it. 
 
 " Yes, dear," she said. " I will. I'll stop." 
 
 And I, kneeling down beside her she took me and 
 clasped me, and clung to me, like a child afraid of the 
 dark. 
 
 And outside, while we sat there, I thought I heard 
 I certainly did hear, the " creak, creak, creak," of that 
 damned Dead Wagon, go by our windows. 
 
 And after a while after a long while, she said : " It 
 was a good deal better to tell you." 
 
 " I believe so," I said, pushing back her hair, and com 
 forting her, like a child just like you would a child. 
 
 " I won't do that again," she said finally. " I won't 
 you'll see ! " 
 
 " It worries me so to see you, Vance," I said. " It'll 
 tire you all out again." 
 
 " It won't ; you'll see ! " she said. " I'm going to get 
 up this afternoon. Get up and get ready to go to-mor-
 
 244 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 row. You'll see. I'm old now. I'm a thousand years 
 older now after these last two days. 
 
 " Older than that great turtle they found over there 
 in the river," she said, and looked at me and we both 
 laughed. 
 
 For after all we weren't, either of us, very old yet. 
 
 And right away after that, she was back again. Her 
 spirits were as bright and lively as they ever were. 
 
 But outside there, we knew we both knew the 
 Fever was all around us. The street below us was full of 
 it. And now and then, if you listened, you could hear 
 the voices of the sick folks one or two of them very 
 faint, moaning and muttering. And I kneeled beside her, 
 scared and wondering, both of us wondering whether or 
 not we ourselves were going to escape it. But I, especially, 
 kneeling there by her, wondering secretly, and worry 
 ing over what the doctor had said about her, the warn 
 ings he had given; scared and wondering whether that 
 next day, or week, or month, I would still hold that dear 
 body in my arms; or whether death, creeping and crawl 
 ing outside our windows there, would have her at last; 
 take her forever from me before we could escape, es 
 cape and get her out of there. 
 
 And then, after a little longer, we heard my Uncle 
 calling out in the hall and saying, I'd better come and 
 let her sleep some more. 
 
 " You'll see," she said, when I was going. " I won't be 
 like that again. I'm through with all that foolishness 
 of that dream. I'm a woman now. It's been a thousand 
 years now since I was a girl." 
 
 And the strangest part of it was, she told the truth. 
 From that time on she was a woman stronger and 
 firmer, and a lot more sensible, and steadier than any 
 of us.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE GREEN FLIES 
 
 MY Uncle looked up once during dinner. We 
 were alone yet; Vance was still upstairs rest 
 ing. He looked up at me, once. 
 
 " There's one thing," he said. " A lawyer's bound to 
 know something about Property." 
 
 I had to grin when I answered him. But he didn't see 
 that he wouldn't about " Property " ! 
 
 It was all mighty serious to him " Property " ; some 
 thing that you feared and bowed down to, and worshiped, 
 with candles, almost. 
 
 Then he looked up a second time, after a while. 
 
 " It ain't much I got now," he said. " But what there 
 is will be all for her." 
 
 There was nothing for me to say. I looked up at him, 
 curious and waited. 
 
 And then finally, he said to me again, after a long wait 
 sitting there, motionless, head down, between times ; 
 waiting for Arabella to bring in the dessert : 
 
 " If anything happens to me if anything should hap 
 pen to me, there's some things, I expect, I'd better show 
 you. Pretty quick ! " he went on. 
 
 I looked up at him quick, for naturally, I thought of 
 " Hagar's Hoard." But I told him we'd better wait till 
 to-morrow. It was kind of crawly, listening to him, talk 
 ing with those dead eyes on his plate as if everything 
 was done and over with like he was dead and buried 
 
 already. 
 
 245
 
 246 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " To-morrow," I said, " when we're going. You can 
 tell me to-morrow." 
 
 I don't know whether I did right or not; I never was 
 quite sure. But anyhow, he didn't answer, or try again, 
 and right away Arabella brought in the dessert, and he 
 gobbled it up and got up from the table. 
 
 The next thing I remember, now, as I look back to it, 
 was Arabella, standing out there on the sidewalk around 
 the house, to the back door, looking down toward the big 
 barn, muttering to herself, under the big elm tree at the 
 corner of the house. 
 
 " What's the matter, Arabella ? " I went out and asked 
 her. 
 
 Another sign and myst'ry I expected. 
 
 " That old Gen. Sherman," she said, still keeping look 
 ing, where he lay still lay, curled up on the doorstep to 
 the harness room in the big barn. 
 
 " What ails him? " I said, looking. 
 
 " I don know ! I don know ! " she said, shaking her 
 head, and kind of talking to herself. " Just lyin' there ! 
 Just lyin' there ! 
 
 " I can't call him," she went on. " I can't git him 
 away from there ; he won't come ! " 
 
 " Why don't you go and get him, then ? " I said. 
 
 " I dunno ; I dunno," she kept answering. 
 
 She seemed so like a fool, just standing there, looking, 
 and the dog not a hundred feet off. 
 
 "Why not?" I said. 
 
 " I dunno ; I dunno," she said, " I ain't thought I 
 would. I done let him alone. 
 
 " I dunno," she said. And then, when I pressed her, 
 " I dunno as I wan'ter go ; looks to me like somethin' ain't 
 just right there!" 
 
 " Oh, go along out," I said, mad. There it was, broad,
 
 THE GREEN FLIES 247 
 
 hot daylight. " Go on along. If you want anything, 
 I'm right here." 
 
 And so she went dragging over there, one foot after 
 the other, and the old dog got up as she came along. 
 But instead of coming toward her, like he usually would, 
 he stood with his back to her, looking up at the door to 
 the harness room, and growled. I heard him growl, down 
 in his throat. 
 
 And I stopped and waited before I went into the house. 
 And the negress looked around, and saw me, and went 
 along on, and stood up close to the door that glass top 
 door to the harness room. 
 
 And then, all at once, she stepped back, and called to 
 me, and I went over wondering what new foolishness 
 this was. And when I got there she was talking, going 
 this old singsong. 
 
 " Oh Lawdy ! " she was saying. " Oh Lawdy ! Oh 
 Lawd ! Oh Lawd God ! " 
 
 " Keep quiet ! " I said, for her voice was rising. 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " See 'em, look ! " she said, her eyes standing out like 
 knobs. " Look yonder ! Look at 'em ! " 
 
 The dog was there at the foot of the outside stairs. He 
 didn't want to move, so I kicked him aside. But at first I 
 didn't see it; I didn't notice a thing. 
 
 There was a black curtain to the window in the door 
 closed clear down to keep the light out of the harness 
 room. 
 
 " What ! " I said, speaking sharp to her. 
 
 " Them flies," said Arabella, pointing. " See 'em ! 
 Them great fat green flies. See 'em ; see 'em crawlin' ! " 
 
 I saw them then. The glass this side of the curtain 
 was covered with them light green against the old black 
 shade green, and whitish wings ; a gauzy veil of great,
 
 248 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 fat, lazy flies sitting there and crowding, and dragging 
 up and down. 
 
 But then it didn't strike me either ; funny too ! I'd 
 heard all about it. The negress stood behind me, twitch 
 ing at my coat tails. " Come away ! Come away ! 
 Come away, Mr. Beavis ! " she said. " Lawd God, can't 
 you smell it? " 
 
 The dog stood there beside me now, head down, cocking 
 over one red eye at the crack under the door. And the 
 coarse old yellow hair rising up along his back bone. 
 
 I looked at him, and I looked at her, and then I stepped 
 off the step, for I smelled it that awful sweetish smell 
 you get going by a field in the summer a field where 
 those old buzzards come flapping slowly up. 
 
 " Yassuh," said the negress, reading my eyes. " Yas- 
 suh, somebody ! " 
 
 Then I took my key. It was to the other door, across 
 the carriage way from the harness room. 
 
 Lord, how I hung back, and hated to ! 
 
 " Don't you do it ! " said the negress, begging me. 
 " Mr. Beavis. Don't you never do it ! " 
 
 I took my key, the dog following me, and unlocked the 
 door. 
 
 He stood right back of me; a bristling collar of hair 
 standing out around his neck, and his front paws on the 
 step his little red eyes looking at my heels. 
 
 But the negress went around to the side to the win 
 dow to the harness room on the other side. I had un 
 locked the door and stepped into the dry hot barn when 
 I first heard her starting screaming: 
 
 " Oh God ! Oh God ! Oh my God ! " 
 
 She was hollering the way the niggers do when they 
 see Death ; the way those sanctified niggers holler when 
 they're being saved from Hell :
 
 THE GREEN FLIES 249 
 
 " God he'p me ! God he'p me ! God he'p me ! " More 
 like a bark than anything human. " God he'p me ! " 
 
 I jumped to go out, for I thought of Vance. But she 
 stopped then bit right off where she was. My Uncle 
 had come there. Just the sight of him was like a cold 
 bath to her always. 
 
 She stopped and whispered. 
 
 So I went back. I went along through the carriage 
 way dark with the place all closed. And stood and 
 waited till my eyes got used to it. Stood, and it seemed 
 like my feet were held down, grown out with roots into 
 the floor. The old dog was there behind me, waiting. 
 
 And then I went along, of course, and took the iron 
 latch, and the dog crouched back of me a little, and 
 growled down in his throat. And clack! I put up the 
 latch, and with a jerk, snatched back the door and 
 
 " God ! " I spat it out of my mouth, that puff of thick, 
 hot air ; that rush of flies all into my mouth and eyes 
 and hair. I spat and waved and warded with my hands 
 against the flies and the stench and the sight under the 
 light from the crack of the shade before me of that 
 black thing and all those crawling, feasting flies ; that 
 black thing that had been the half-nigger, on the floor. 
 
 And slam ! The door went shut again. And I stepped 
 back, straight on the paw of Gen. Sherman. Not a 
 whimper, not a sound out of him except again that 
 deep old growl down in his throat. 
 
 And the negress started hollering again the way they 
 do in those meetings of theirs. 
 
 " Jesus ! Jesus ! Jesus ! I'm aburnin' ! I'm aburnin' ! 
 I'm a sinner ! Oh, he'p me ! Oh, he'p me ! I'm agoin' to 
 die!" 
 
 I ran out again. For I saw she had got loose from 
 my Uncle Athiel.
 
 250 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 And already, from somewhere up the alley, the niggers 
 had begun to gather, looking. They stood there three 
 or four of them with those motionless black faces, look 
 ing. There were two more coming when I got there. 
 
 " Hyah ! " said my Uncle Athiel, to them. " Take hold 
 of her ! Make her stop ! " 
 
 But his voice wasn't loud enough. And he knew it 
 and he motioned to me, to help. 
 
 " Come here you," I hollered to two or three of them 
 that I had seen around before. " Take hold of her ! 
 Take her way over there to her room ! " 
 
 For they were crowding in around. And my Uncle 
 didn't even prevent them. 
 
 They took her two big nigger women first, and then 
 two more. She was bowing down and jerking back 
 like a fish jerking out of the water. And hollering and 
 crying. 
 
 But they took her, one to each arm and leg, and lugged 
 her, yanking and jerking and hollering, just took her 
 with them back into the big old servants' room. And 
 not a change, not a sound, not an expression on their old 
 smooth faces except now and then, when she made a 
 jerk jerking and twisting more than usual, and they 
 had to strain a little holding her. They took her along, 
 just as calm and unruffled as with anything they were 
 all used and accustomed to with this old common re 
 ligious fit, just as natural and expected as sudden sickness 
 or childbirth. 
 
 And then when they quieted her some: 
 
 " Judas ! I'm glad to hear that chatter stop ! " my 
 Uncle said. 
 
 " She hadn't ever seen a nigger dead with it, I expect," 
 he said, watching after them.
 
 THE GREEN FLIES 
 
 But the other niggers didn't look after them at all. 
 Their soft old black eyes were looking at the old harness 
 room, and the glass door with the shade down, and the 
 old yellow dog standing by the doorway. 
 
 " Get 'em out of here," said my Uncle to me asking 
 me to do it, like it was the usual thing, instead of doing 
 it himself. " Get 'em out of here ! " 
 
 I sent one nigger off to get the undertaker for Make 
 Haste Mose. 
 
 " And now, the rest of you," I said, " get out of here ! 
 Git!" 
 
 And they moved away slowly, back a little way into the 
 alley. 
 
 " I can't have 'em ; I won't have 'em watchin' and gog- 
 glin' 'round. Half of 'em are thieves," my Uncle Athiel 
 said. 
 
 But there wasn't any expression in his voice, somehow. 
 There wasn't even any life to his fear. And I was doing 
 it all for him just naturally, like he was an old, old 
 man! 
 
 We stood there waiting, waiting a little ways off; 
 watching the old dog outside the door there standing 
 watching. 
 
 " He must have gone in there, that half-nigger," said 
 my Uncle Athiel, staring toward the closed black shade. 
 " He must have run in there hidin', when you chased 
 him. Through a window, maybe. 
 
 " And right after that," he said, " it must 'a' took 
 him! What time was it he came? What time do you 
 think?" 
 
 " Most midnight, it must have been," said I. 
 
 " That's the time ! " my Uncle Athiel said. " That's 
 the time they get it ! And then the old dog came ! "
 
 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 Arabella had started up again, hollering singing out 
 and hollering, something new ! 
 
 " Oh, God ! Hosses and chayiots ! Hosses and chay- 
 iots ! Oh, my God ! " 
 
 A big nigger woman the first one that had grabbed 
 her came up behind us. 
 
 " She's agoin'," she told my Uncle Athiel. " She say 
 she's agoin' away from here. She say she can't stay 
 here no longer." 
 
 " Let her go," my Uncle Athiel said to me, without turn 
 ing around. " She won't be any more good after this." 
 
 " Yassuh," said the woman. 
 
 " And you all the rest of you move along now ! " 
 I said, for they were coming around again by the gate 
 to the alley whispering, looking. 
 
 So they pushed back, stepping on each other the 
 front ones on those behind them. But they stood around 
 outside there, with their old expressionless faces, still 
 looking. 
 
 " That was it, I expect," my Uncle went along. " That 
 was how it was. He came and stood there that old 
 dog. And the half-nigger thought he'd lie low and wait 
 and see if he wouldn't go away. But he didn't, the old 
 fool dog," said my Uncle, watching him. 
 
 There he stood, there by the door a funny thing to 
 look at that poor old rambling, toothless beast that 
 nobody thought was any good, or ever could be. But 
 when the little dog was killed, and he saw it ; and he saw, 
 what we did not see, that night after, that half-nigger 
 some old ghost of a dog some old mastiff away back 
 there in the blood of that old mongrel dog, waked up and 
 stood there all that time, bristling and watching at his 
 enemy.
 
 THE GREEN FLIES 253 
 
 " If he'd a moved, he'd set the dog a hollerin'," said 
 my Uncle, thinking of the half -nigger. " So he lay there 
 still. And then, then the Fever took him. And then, 
 after that, I expect, it was this way: When the nigger 
 found that it was most daylight, and he'd knew he'd got 
 to do something go somewhere and he was getting 
 sicker and sicker all the time why then he turned and 
 twisted and raised himself up, and tried to climb out and 
 get away. And the tryin' and exercise and strainin' 
 killed him! You can't do much," said my Uncle Athiel. 
 " You can't do much when you once get that Fever. It 
 starts you bleeding from the stomach; it kills you." 
 
 He'd got talking as low and tiresome now, as a man 
 talking of some Fever a thousand years ago as if it 
 wasn't there around us at all. And all the time my eye 
 was on that black shade, closed ; and my mind was seeing 
 what was there behind us. 
 
 " Well, there ain't any use of our staying here any 
 longer," said my Uncle Hagar. " Let's go on back to 
 the house." 
 
 And when he said it, I stood and stared at him, and 
 then I broke and started on for the house myself, for 
 I thought of Vance, finally. It was like me, just exactly 
 only one thing at a time for me. And that thing out 
 there in the barn had fastened on all the mind I'd got, I 
 expect, and eaten it up. 
 
 And when I got there, Vance was down below, in the 
 side hallway, all dressed as usual, cool as you please! 
 
 "What was it?" she said. 
 
 And when I started and took time telling her: 
 
 " Did they find some one dead out there that half- 
 nigger? " she asked me. For of course there had been 
 a number of cases like that in other places like I 
 told you, where folks had crawled in and died.
 
 254 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 And when I told her she was right, she was as cool and 
 collected as an old soldier. 
 
 It wasn't very long after that, before Make Haste 
 Mose and his men had come there with their coffin. They 
 came in front at first, but we sent them around back into 
 the alley. 
 
 I went out part way, just enough so I could keep my 
 eye on them. And it certainly did not take them long. 
 For Make Haste Mose kept driving them. 
 
 " Come on come on ! " he kept saying. " Mek 
 Haste! Mek Haste! Mek Haste! We got to be get- 
 tin' along!" 
 
 Just an ordinary nigger he was, a kind of pleasant, 
 careless nigger. But he certainly was a driver that sum 
 mer. It seemed to me like it couldn't have been more 
 than ten minutes, all together from the time that empty 
 coffin thumped upon the ground, till they took it off 
 again, with that half-nigger in it. 
 
 And after that, when I was coming into the house, 
 Arabella was going away for good. You could hear her 
 just as plain, going down the alley, hollering: 
 
 " Oh, Jesus ! Oh, come along ! Oh, Vict'ry ! Vict'ry ! 
 Vict'ry ! " 
 
 You could hear her just as plain way down the alley 
 clapping her hands together, and hollering that her 
 voice rising and whooping and breaking. 
 
 " Niggers' Doomsday ! " said my Uncle, at the door to 
 the side hall. " Niggers' Doomsday ! 
 
 " And I don't know but they're right," he said after 
 ward. " I expect we'd all die if we had to stay here ! " 
 
 And it seemed to me his face was yellower more like 
 tallow ; and his mouth bluer ; and his eyes duller than they 
 ever were.
 
 I 
 
 J
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE FEVER 
 
 AND now I've got to the last day that day we 
 thought we were going and didn't. And one 
 of us never did go ! And when I think of it, I 
 sit and wonder still, sometimes, at the devilish, infernal 
 way it all happened. 
 
 It does seem, sometimes, as if the Devil was in the whole 
 thing, tying us there in that invisible net, that was thrown 
 around us, and kept us all from getting away. And cer 
 tainly if old Satan owns the money, and buys folks with 
 it, like they say in the old stories, he surely had arranged 
 to come and take his pay that day. 
 
 That night before was the longest night since the world 
 began. I know; for I saw it all. I couldn't sleep a 
 wink. For just as soon as I lay down, and shut my eyes 
 just that soon I saw the thing that half-nigger ly 
 ing there on the floor again. And heard the nigger 
 woman screaming for the Judgment Day. And that day 
 before there had been three deaths more in houses we 
 could see from our own windows folks we'd known or 
 seen, or could recall when one of us would say : " Don't 
 you remember that little short woman with the gray 
 hair? " Three deaths on three different streets and three 
 Fever fires lit that evening. The thing was falling all 
 around us ; striking unforeseen and crazy as death in a 
 battle. And if we hadn't had it yet, it was only just the 
 
 257
 
 258 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 mercy of God, it seemed to me. For, of course, we didn't 
 know what really brought the Fever, then. 
 
 So all night long I sat there, restless, sleepless and 
 every now and then half whispering, half praying to my 
 self : " Just this one night ! Just this one night ! If 
 we can only get through this one ! " 
 
 For it seemed clear enough that it was now or never. 
 
 And sitting there, and watching, I saw and overlooked, 
 and didn't even understand the thing that came to keep us. 
 
 It must have been half-past two o'clock in the morning. 
 I know I had looked at my watch some while before, and 
 it was a little after two. Everything was still. Earlier 
 in the evening we had all been busy, finishing packing up 
 what we could ; and for a while I heard my Uncle fus 
 sing around in his room. But now it seemed to me both 
 he and Vance were sleeping ; and I was the only one awake 
 in the house in the world, it seemed like sometimes. 
 For the town was very still, like one of those old dead 
 cities, I remember thinking, they found out in the Persian 
 deserts. Then all at once, the fire-bell rang ; and I heard 
 the sound of feet drumming on the sidewalk some nigger 
 policeman, or militia man, I expect. They had them run 
 ning to the fires. 
 
 There had been quite a number of fires lately; some 
 set, they said, for purposes of thievery. But none very 
 serious. I heard the noise and saw the light and the 
 general direction of this one. And it was quite a little 
 blaze. But I didn't pay much attention to it. And I 
 never thought, until they brought us word in the morn 
 ing, that it was Uncle Athiel's nigger tenements burning. 
 
 It was after breakfast time before we heard of it all. 
 We were going to start away and leave the house a little 
 before noon to drive over and take the afternoon train 
 out in the eastern end of the town, where they stopped and
 
 THE FEVER 259 
 
 started their trains now, so as to keep them out of the 
 Fever. And our four trunks were already loaded, when 
 John McCallan came to go over the place for the last 
 time with me, and see what we wanted him to watch es 
 pecially; and told me the news that they were all burned 
 up and destroyed all our tenements gone together. 
 
 I never hated and feared to go any place in my life 
 like I did to crawl up those stairs and knock on that old 
 brown door of the Purple Room where my Uncle Athiel 
 had gone back after breakfast. For I saw then what 
 might happen. 
 
 "What is it?" he said, from the other side of the 
 door. 
 
 I've always said he looked better that morning. I be 
 lieve he'd had a pretty good night's rest. His eyes were 
 brighter, and his voice, when I called him, was stronger, 
 when he answered through the door. 
 
 " Open up, please," I said. " I want to speak to you." 
 
 And so he opened it finally, and stood there and 
 back of him, I saw, he was holding that old brown satchel 
 he used to carry for his rents. 
 
 " Well, what ! " he said sharply. For it struck him, I 
 expect, that something unusual must have happened for 
 -me to come there and rout him out of that room. 
 
 " There was a fire down town last night," I said, stut 
 tering. 
 
 " Suppose there was ! " he said, his eyes set hard and 
 black and still on mine. 
 
 " The tenements have gone ! " I blurted out. 
 
 " Gone ! Last night ! " he said, slowly, like a man try 
 ing to get it through his head. And looked away from 
 me, and licked his lips. That was all he said. 
 
 " I thought I'd better tell you right off," I said to 
 him.
 
 260 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 But he didn't say anything or move. 
 
 " So if you wanted anything done " I went along. 
 
 " Done ! " he said after me, in a kind of an old dead 
 voice. " Done ! No, I reckon that's all that can be done 
 for me ! 
 
 " No," he went on, while I stood there waiting. " No, I 
 expect that settles it." 
 
 And he drew back and shut the door after him, very 
 softly, and locked it, turning the key in the lock very 
 slowly. 
 
 I didn't like the look of his face, then; the life had 
 gone down in it, in that minute or two, like turning down 
 a lamp. 
 
 I went down, and out around the yard with John Mc- 
 Callan and came back then to see Vance ; and she said that 
 all that time she hadn't heard her father moving in his 
 room. It must have been, then, half-past nine o'clock ; 
 and the trunks were all gone on their way. And we were 
 wondering what we should do next. 
 
 But a little while after that my Uncle came out, and 
 got us both in the sitting room, and started talking to us. 
 
 " Here," he said to me. " I've made up my mind. You 
 take these two tickets and this money, and take your 
 cousin Vance and go." 
 
 His eyes were like burnt holes in a blanket, way back 
 in his head ; but there was some light in them now again, 
 a kind of steady light that never went out of them after 
 wards. 
 
 " What will you do? " I said. 
 
 " I've got to stay," he said, a little quicker. " I've got 
 to stay ; I've got to stay and watch out for my * Prop 
 erty,' all that's left." 
 
 " Property ! " I said, " Property ! What Property? " 
 
 " This house. My house ! " he said. " I ain't agoin'
 
 THE FEVER 261 
 
 to go and leave it. It cost too much. I've got too much 
 money in it ! " 
 
 I saw Vance get white and bite her lips. The whole 
 thing that we'd built up was falling to pieces again. 
 
 I was the first one my temper to go, as usual, un 
 der the strain. 
 
 " We're all ready ! We're all ready ! " I said, getting 
 up, and marching toward him. " You can't go back on 
 us now. No sir ! You've got to go ! " 
 
 I was mad and scared at the same time. The Fever 
 was moaning and screaming all round us. You could 
 step to that window and hear the old " Um-um-um," that 
 groaning of the sick. There was a boy, a boy named 
 Saunders we knew him well down the street op 
 posite us. And up the street a woman, crying, that morn 
 ing, in some house again. 
 
 " Yes, go ! " said my Uncle Hagar, his voice rising, 
 stronger. " Go, and starve to death ! Go, and die in 
 the poorhouse ! " 
 
 His voice broke, and he stopped where he was or I 
 believe he would have been crying. 
 
 But that didn't stop me. 
 
 " Do you think it is any prettier death," I said, " to 
 stay here and rot in this damned Fever ! " 
 
 " Beavis ! " said Vance. 
 
 " I ain't afraid of it. I ain't any more afraid of this 
 Fever," said my Uncle Hagar, " than I am of sunstroke. 
 You don't have to get it unless you want lo." 
 
 " Tell that to the Marines," I said. 
 
 " I know what I'm talking about," said my Uncle. 
 
 " What are you going to do ? Are you going to keep 
 Vance and kill her? " I said. 
 
 " That's different," said he. " Vance is going with 
 you."
 
 262 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " Let me talk to him, Beavis," said Vance. " Let me 
 talk to him." 
 
 " Oh," I said, raving, and turned my back, swearing at 
 him and his foolishness under my breath. And stood there 
 at the window, looking down at the deserted street while 
 they talked it out. 
 
 " I can't afford to," he told her. " I can't afford to. 
 It ain't going to be possible for me to go." 
 
 And when she told him the house and everything in it 
 would be well watched and taken care of, he said " No," 
 he knew better. " Not with all the niggers in town sitting 
 and watching and staring at it, and talking over all those 
 old stories. No, somebody would have to stay and watch 
 it. 
 
 " But you can go," he said, " you two. You've got 
 to." 
 
 And so for an hour, it seemed to me, they had it back 
 and forth ; he saying that she must go, and she saying 
 that she never would go without him ; and telling him how 
 she'd waited all this time just to get him to go; and 
 teasing him and arguing with him, and telling him sup 
 pose he lost it all. What then? We'd get along some 
 way. 
 
 And part of the time she sat beside him on the arm of 
 his chair, and part of the time she was down in front of 
 him on her knees sometimes looking up and talking, 
 and catching hold of his hand, like a teasing child. 
 
 And he on his side was just as obstinate and determined 
 that she should go without him. And several times he 
 patted her hand and when she was looking at him, pushed 
 back her hair, and looked into her eyes ; very clumsy 
 clumsy like men are who don't show their feelings that 
 way very often. But she wouldn't move without him. 
 
 The talk went in circles ; round and round, and back to
 
 THE FEVER 263 
 
 the same place round and round, like the dogs follow 
 ing a fox on the hills; and you could see his mind turn 
 back again and again, to the center of everything to him 
 to his property. 
 
 But Vance held where she was, and finally I thought 
 we both thought she had him. For he stopped talking, 
 and she kissed him, and told him he was going, and to go 
 upstairs and get ready ; and he got up without answering, 
 and went upstairs again into his room. He seemed 
 pretty shaky. 
 
 But when he went in there, he didn't come out again. 
 
 Half-past ten o'clock came, and I didn't like it. 
 Eleven, and I was getting restless, and Vance was too. I 
 saw her listening by the staircase. And then, quarter 
 past eleven, and, if we were going, we'd got to be starting 
 soon. And finally, Vance went up and told her father 
 he'd have to come down and have some lunch before he 
 started. 
 
 But all he said was : " I'm not hungry." And Vance 
 and I took a few bites together, standing up, and clearing 
 everything right away. I had the horse all harnessed in 
 the barn. 
 
 And then, at quarter to twelve, Vance went up, all 
 dressed to go, and knocked at the door. And her face 
 was flushed and excited. 
 
 " Come, Dad, come ! " she called. " It's time to go. 
 We're all ready." 
 
 He didn't answer at all at first, and then he said again : 
 " You go ! " 
 
 " Come, dear ! " she said ; kept saying. " Please, we've 
 got to hurry ! " 
 
 His hand came on the doorknob once, she said, and 
 turned it, and he started to turn the key in the lock, but 
 he didn't, quite.
 
 264 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 And all at once this loud voice, that she scarcely knew 
 was his, came out from behind that old, high door: " No 
 sir. No sir. I'll stay right here. I'm going to stay 
 right here with my Property. You can go, but I got to 
 stay here and keep my eye peeled for my Property." 
 
 And after that he didn't say any more, only after 
 she had knocked and called a lot more : "Get away 
 from there ! Get away from there ! " 
 
 By that time I was up there beside Vance, and when 
 he said it, she turned to me and caught her arms around 
 me, and hid her face in silence the way women some 
 times do, turning away at the end of a burial. A hun 
 dred times she has told me that her father was dead to 
 her, really from that time on. But she didn't cry; nor 
 sob; nor move hardly. And then she stopped, all at 
 once ; she stopped and drew away from me, and said very 
 quietly : 
 
 " I knew that he would never go ! " 
 
 I saw, of course, what she was thinking of that dream 
 of hers. 
 
 And we went downstairs again, and Vance took off her 
 hat and we made our plans to stay. 
 
 There was no use of arguing now. I could see that 
 from her face. She wouldn't go it would only be a 
 useless burden and torture to try to make her now. I 
 saw that, without talking. 
 
 I saw that ; and I went out to the barn, and unhar 
 nessed the horse clenching my hands, and striking them 
 against the side of the building to hurt and bruise them. 
 For I knew the thing was done, that we were all done 
 for. 
 
 " Don't worry," said Vance, when I came back. " You 
 needn't, about me anyhow. I'm just as strong as you 
 are now, and stronger you'll see."
 
 THE FEVER 265 
 
 And the strange thing a thing I never could under 
 stand about women it was true, just as she said. In 
 times like that, strength comes to them a dozen times 
 their usual strength. Where from? I never understood. 
 But I never saw any change like that one that frail 
 girl, we all worried so about, when it came to the test, 
 out-tired us all strengthened and hardened, somehow ; 
 steel to our soft iron; a diamond against glass. 
 
 She had a lot more sense, and understanding and cheer 
 fulness, I know, than I did. From that time on it was 
 I who looked to her for strengthening and self-control. 
 Fatalism, I believe they call it now ; acceptance, I call it. 
 And you know, as well as I do, that women, the best of 
 them, have it a hundred times more than men. 
 
 We could hear my Uncle walking all that afternoon 
 slow at first; then back and forth; back and forth; back 
 and forth on that floor above us. 
 
 Then spaces of silence. 
 
 " What can we do ? " I asked. 
 
 " Let him alone," said Vance. " Maybe after a while, 
 I can get him to come out." 
 
 But he wouldn't not even after she whispered, and 
 told him it was too late to go now; that we were not 
 going. 
 
 And at evening we couldn't get him out for supper. 
 
 " I can't eat ; I don't feel like it," said my Uncle Athiel, 
 finally, to Vance. And she was encouraged we both 
 were to hear him say something anything.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE HOUR AFTEE MIDNIGHT 
 
 TWILIGHT came finally, and the shutting of the 
 windows. We did it naturally, now, by force 
 of habit in spite of the discomfort of it, and 
 the choking heat. 
 
 For the idea, and the fear of that poison air outside, 
 had got hold of us and now, especially, with the Fever 
 groaning under our windows, all around us. And that 
 night, and the nights before it, too I went to shut the 
 windows down against it good and early as glad and 
 quick to do it as a child that shuts the door behind him 
 on a black stairway. 
 
 " I don't believe we'll either of us sleep much to-night," 
 said Vance. " Not anyway till we know what he's going 
 to do. We'll stay here and wait." 
 
 " Won't you be too tired, dear? " I said. 
 
 " Not the least bit," she said. And her voice was clear 
 and strong, and her looks as fresh and little tired as I 
 ever saw them. 
 
 So we waited and watched and listened, together, into 
 that night. 
 
 All over that town, I expect, folks sat watching and 
 worrying through that night but none in such a curi 
 ous way as ours. For what we did really, was just to 
 sit and listen for sounds upstairs ; for the motions behind 
 
 that old locked door, which would show what the man 
 
 266
 
 THE HOUR AFTER MIDNIGHT 267 
 
 locked up in there was doing. And to guess from that 
 what really was in his mind. 
 
 He might really not be well like Vance thought. But 
 to me it seemed that whatever sickness he had now, was 
 sickness of the brain, and not the body. 
 
 He walked still, after supper, continually, up and down 
 but not so fast, nearly, as he had on that afternoon. 
 
 It darkened early another early twilight. The cur 
 tain of blue cloud which draws up toward night on the 
 sky out over the Mississippi even after the pleasantest 
 day and especially as the fall comes nearer was up 
 to-night again. The lamp-lighter came by we heard 
 his heels go clacking down the sidewalk ; and the feeble 
 sparks of the gas-lights twinkle out behind him. 
 
 And now, near and far away, across the town, the light 
 of the Fever fires came out again, like evil flowers blossom 
 ing in the night. Not lighted in nearly all the cases now. 
 As time went by, they gave that idea up. But now there 
 were so many deaths everywhere, only an occasional fire, 
 lighted here and there, made a great lot in the town. 
 
 And now one more was lighted on our street, and we 
 knew it was for the little German woman the last of 
 that family the Fever had started in, down under the 
 hill. 
 
 " The last of them," I said, " the last one of the whole 
 family. Once inside the house, once the thing gets in " 
 and I stared gloomily at the old light the light of the 
 Fever fire that lay like bright orange paint on the win 
 dow frame, and on the face of Vance, standing watching. 
 
 " She was glad, I expect," said Vance softly. " I know 
 that I should be." 
 
 Upstairs my Uncle had stopped walking tired out, 
 maybe. And sat there, motionless, in the dark. 
 
 And, watching the fire down the empty street, we talked
 
 268 HAGAITS HOARD 
 
 of what had happened in those last few days of Ara 
 bella, and of her strange ideas of the end of the world, and 
 all that. But, as usual, I spoiled it. 
 
 " It's likely to be the end of the world for some of 
 us." 
 
 " Oh, you are hopeless," said Vance to me. " Can't 
 you ever pretend; can't you ever believe anything? " 
 
 " Can't you go won't you ? " I said, for the hun 
 dredth time. 
 
 " No," said Vance. 
 
 " Well," I said at last, " at any rate we're here to 
 gether." 
 
 " Yes," said Vance, " but it's not the end of the world 
 for us" And her shoulder trembled, once more, but only 
 a very little, in my arms. 
 
 " I know it won't be," she said, " for you and me." 
 
 When I spoke back and told her how impossible that 
 was that she should know that, she was just as certain as 
 she ever was about it. 
 
 " You can't explain it," she said. " No, you can't ex 
 plain your feelings can you ? No, not any of them ! 
 Heat or cold, or gladness or light. They must come to 
 you, that's all. 
 
 " No," she said, " there's many a time that you and I 
 will watch the daylight out together." 
 
 And then she turned back quickly, sudden tears in her 
 eyes, and went out to stand a long while at the foot of 
 the dark front stairs, listening. And I knew, of course, 
 that that thing was in her mind again that premoni 
 tion she had had about her father. But we didn't men 
 tion it, either one of us, again. 
 
 There was nothing from upstairs, and Vance came 
 back to me. She still thought both of us did that 
 it was better to leave him to himself, and not to disturb
 
 THE HOUR AFTER MIDNIGHT 269 
 
 him. She had tried calling earlier, several times ; and 
 though he made no answer to her, it was plain enough he 
 didn't like it. 
 
 " Aren't you tired standing there, Vance? " I asked. 
 
 For it bothered me, for one thing, to stand there at the 
 window, with the light of the Fever fire before us. 
 
 And so we did not go back again. We sat down, on 
 that old curved backed sofa that had been her mother's 
 the only real common, homely piece of furniture around 
 the place an old time hair cloth sofa, with bright 
 worsted headrests at the ends. 
 
 We sat there waiting talking wondering that 
 long first of the night, together. It was very still 
 dead, silent, mostly. Outside, very faintly, the little 
 tinkle of the mule car, now and then. And once or twice 
 the sound of the negro militia men passing on the streets. 
 But mostly silence. We sat there talking, silent, listen 
 ing. 
 
 We all remember, all of us, I expect! We never can 
 forget those first few times that one dear woman gave us 
 the half-spoken, half-hidden confidences of a woman's 
 heart phrases, broken phrases ; silences. Her hand in 
 your hand ; her dear body touching yours. But for me 
 the thought of it brings back again a touch of fear, the 
 sudden touch of a cold fear, lest now now that I had 
 her in my arms, lest I would certainly and surely lose her 
 out of them forever. A sharp cold touch of fear and 
 the hush, and threat and uncertainty, of that unearthly 
 silent night, with the fire lights, and the poison of that 
 Fever, out beyond our windows, and the vacant, silent 
 streets. 
 
 The man upstairs was moving finally. He'd lighted a 
 light for the first time he'd lighted up his light. We 
 saw it from the windows of the Crystal Room, shining out-
 
 270 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 side on the trees from underneath one of the shades. 
 Then for a long while there was nothing more we noticed. 
 
 We talked of him naturally; and of the thing which 
 bound him there his fear of poverty, of fire and thieves ; 
 and what actually there was that he stood guarding there, 
 and was so scared for. Our talk went rising up and down 
 from silence, like a flickering candle in a dark draughty 
 room. 
 
 Once, outside, there was a sound the sound of a 
 hairy body come against the side door ; and a sigh. And 
 after a scared second or two we understood that it was 
 Gen. Sherman, the old dog, come back as near as he 
 could be to us now Arabella was gone away for com 
 pany. And we talked on about the man upstairs and 
 about what he probably would do. We heard him mov 
 ing around again then ; and after a while a heavy sound 
 as if he had flung himself upon his bed heavy and 
 tired out. 
 
 " Money," said Vance. " Poor father's money. A 
 world with nothing in it anywhere but money. Poor 
 man ! " 
 
 " * Property,' " I said, quoting him. " Damn Prop 
 erty ! If that was all there was in life, I'd hope to die to 
 morrow." 
 
 " Old folks lots of them are that way," said 
 Vance, defending him. 
 
 " Oh, I certainly hope we won't be like that, when we 
 are old," she said. 
 
 I grinned. I couldn't help it talking of old age for 
 us, and all the world around us full of death and danger. 
 
 " Just as sure as ever," I said. 
 
 " Just as sure," said Vance. 
 
 And then: "Listen, what's that?" she said, sitting 
 straight.
 
 THE HOUR AFTER MIDNIGHT 
 
 He seemed to have got up, and to be dragging a chair 
 across the room, slowly very slowly. We stepped into 
 the hall, and stood listening, waiting. 
 
 And : " Listen," said Vance again. 
 
 For suddenly, again, we heard that little bell go, 
 jangle, jangle, jangle, in the cellarway. Not loud at all 
 
 but very plain from where we stood. 
 
 There was no one at the doors not a soul. I rushed 
 to both of them, in just a second or .two. At the front 
 door, nothing! And at the side door, old Gen. Sherman 
 curled up in a dead heavy sleep ! 
 
 And back I went, down into the cellarway, and Vance 
 after me. 
 
 And overhead again, first in the light of a match I lit, 
 and then by a candle Vance brought out, we saw the four 
 little call-bells in their row against the back of the stair. 
 
 It seemed to me that one wire coil was still moving 
 still shivering and palpitating. 
 
 " What do you think, Vance? " I said. But she didn't 
 answer. 
 
 " The one from the Purple Room ! " I said. 
 
 " Let's wait," said Vance. " Maybe it may start again 
 
 if it is he if it is he doing it." 
 
 So then we stood waiting, watching those four little 
 dangling bells. 
 
 If that one had rung, I thought, there was only one 
 way that it could happen. By that little dangling wire, 
 hanging down there by the spring from which it had been 
 disconnected. That little dangling wire, with the crook 
 at its end, where once it had been fastened on. Then all 
 at once there was no doubt of it. We saw that dan 
 gling wire move, slightly very, very slightly just 
 enough to catch that vibrating, sensitive little coil, and, 
 
 " Jangle, j angle, j angle," went the call-bell from the
 
 272 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 Purple Room, there in the half-shadow from over our 
 head. 
 
 " He did that," said Vance. " It's he that's been do 
 ing it all the time," 
 
 " Yes," I said, and together we raced back again to the 
 front hall. 
 
 Upstairs my Uncle Hagar was dragging something 
 that chair again across the room ; slower slower 
 We noticed how very slow he went. And then, 
 
 " Bang ! " it toppled over the floor. 
 
 Then I waited a while below, while Vance went tiptoe 
 ing up the stairs. And after a while she said, there were 
 a few unsteady, tottering steps, more uneven for his lame 
 ness, and he fell heavily again upon the bed. Then she 
 thought she heard him groan very low. 
 
 I was with her in a second. I thought I had heard it, 
 too. 
 
 And finally she spoke to him, and he didn't answer. 
 
 But he did groan again and then again. And 
 finally he spoke out, to himself not her : 
 
 " My head ! God, my head ! " and I knew, and she knew 
 right away, what had happened. 
 
 " Get back," I said to Vance. " Get back ! " 
 
 And: " Can you open the door? " I called to my Uncle 
 Athiel. 
 
 " I'll manage to," he sAid, painfully, after a while. 
 
 " And I'll go and get the doctor," I said to Vance. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 I went, running. It was only just a little ways; and 
 by luck I found the doctor there, all ready. 
 
 And he came right out, and hurried back with me. 
 And when we got there, the door was opened, and my 
 Uncle Hagar was in bed, and Vance stood there beside him
 
 THE HOUR AFTER MIDNIGHT 273 
 
 watchful, pale, and steady and calm as if she had been 
 nursing the Yellow Fever all her life. 
 
 "That's it!" said the doctor. "He's got it; that's 
 the Fever!" 
 
 It was a little after twelve o'clock that hour after 
 midnight when the Fever nearly always came.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE WHISTLING DOCTOR 
 
 **^ ^HOSE windows are all closed!" said Dr. 
 Greathouse, looking around the great high 
 JL. room. 
 
 I told him when he asked, that we had never changed, 
 right from the beginning. We had closed our windows, 
 all through the house, at night always, at sunset since 
 the Fever came. And he nodded his head, as if he liked it. 
 
 " But I don't believe you can stand it now," he told 
 me. 
 
 But when he went to open the windows up, my Uncle 
 tossed and motioned and whispered to have them closed 
 again. 
 
 " I can stand it, I expect," I said. " If I can't, I'll 
 sit out in the hall." 
 
 And my Uncle, motioning, showed that he was better 
 satisfied. 
 
 And then, after that, he showed us there was another 
 thing he wanted. He was going to have Vance kept out 
 of there ; he whispered about it, but not very plain, for it 
 was hard work for him, naturally. So the doctor cut him 
 short, saying, " I'll take care of that." 
 
 But I don't believe he caught entirely what my Uncle 
 Hagar wanted. He thought he just wanted her kept out 
 of that room of his. But what he really wanted to have 
 him do, was to send her out of town entirely, I believe. 
 
 And every time he saw her after that time, he got worried 
 
 274
 
 THE WHISTLING DOCTOR 275 
 
 and excited, thinking she was there, and he had kept her 
 there. 
 
 But that made no difference anyway. The doctor him 
 self would have sent Vance if he could, but there was noth 
 ing he could do, nor I, about getting Vance to go. It 
 was no, flat, from her, from the first. And the best that 
 he could get was to make her promise to keep away from 
 her father out of his room and that only because 
 she saw it hurt him to see her. 
 
 It was the same old story with her; her weakness was 
 her strength. You could press so far, but when she re 
 fused to give way when she still fought you and laughed 
 at you what was there you could do ? You couldn't 
 use physical force to drive her; you couldn't drag her off 
 in chains and irons. So there she was, and there she 
 stayed in spite of us like many a woman has, before 
 and since, I expect. 
 
 And so finally, the doctor got ready to go. And I was 
 to stay and watch my Uncle myself, for that night. 
 
 " I'll send you a nurse along to-morrow," he said. 
 " You can't do it all." 
 
 Nursing was all there was to Yellow Fever, he said, 
 and nobody could watch twenty-four hours without sleep. 
 
 " That's the one thing that kills them their nurses 
 sleeping. That's the one and only thing I've got against 
 these niggers nursing. They just can't keep from sleep 
 ing, sitting there alone. They aren't responsible. For 
 they've" got to be watched these Fever patients " he 
 said, " every minute. They've got to rest, they've got to 
 be made to lie perfectly quiet." 
 
 And after he told me this he went away and left me 
 there. And, as I watched him then, he looked to me like 
 a man who had no business to be out himself all tired 
 and worn out.
 
 276 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 So, I sat there alone, in the great Purple Room, and 
 stayed awake, easy enough that night. Stayed awake 
 and watched the faint shadows from the Purple window 
 draperies against the wall, and the darkness and twisted 
 shadows on the ceiling. And sat and gave my Uncle 
 Hagar what he needed, and thought and thought. I 
 wasn't scared, exactly, now. The thing was done. And 
 now the Fever was in the house, all we could do was to 
 wait, with the chances all against us, as we thought. For 
 then, of course, folks didn't know what caused it. 
 
 We couldn't go now, anyhow. Those old, invisible 
 ties that caught us there and bound all of us together 
 were stronger than they ever were now. Neither Vance 
 nor I could go away now, and leave the old man sick 
 there, and alone. 
 
 And so there was really nothing for us to do but sit 
 and wait, with the chances all against us. Sit and wait, 
 but without so much nervousness or excitement as you'd 
 suppose. Just wait with that same kind of calmness, I 
 expect, that a bird has lying in between the claws of a 
 cat. 
 
 I thought of Vance, naturally, and what would happen 
 if she had the Fever. But I couldn't think of that I 
 couldn't let myself think of that. So, partly to forget it, 
 I turned my thoughts to that other thing, that other 
 question that had been always right before us that old 
 secret of my Uncle's Property of " Hagar's Hoard." 
 And now I thought of it more easily and naturally than 
 ever, because of what had happened; because I sat there 
 in that room, where that old store of his those green 
 backs that they talked about was kept, if it was any 
 where. 
 
 So my eye went searching round that great high room 
 for places where it might possibly be. There were the
 
 THE WHISTLING DOCTOR 277 
 
 purple draperies at the window, and the canopy over the 
 bed all with their letter " B " in a circle of gold laurel 
 leaves, which that vain fool, Mr. Bozro, had patterned 
 after the great house he had seen abroad that Napoleon 
 had had. 
 
 But after you looked at them, they seemed like a poor 
 place for hiding. And there were not very many likely 
 places that I could see anywhere. Except the bed, nat 
 urally ; or the great thick carpet with gold threads across 
 it. They made hiding places big enough for anything 
 and common enough. Too common, I believe, for him to 
 use them. 
 
 But most of all, right away, passing over everything, 
 I watched and examined to see about that bell that he 
 had always been disturbing, fussing around at night. 
 But when I looked at it, it seemed to me like there was 
 nothing to see there. Just this flat, old-fashioned bell- 
 rope flat like a tape, a tape say six inches wide, with 
 a long fringe at its end; and at the top a round brass 
 ring a kind of ornamental cap, where it went into the 
 wall. It seemed the most unlikely place for him to have 
 hidden anything. He might, though, I said to myself, 
 have sewed paper money into the long tape. But I 
 didn't think so ; I didn't believe it ; it was somewhere else. 
 
 I did notice, once, looking everywhere, that old brown 
 satchel that my Uncle Athiel got his rents in, peeping out 
 from underneath the bed where he had thrown it, I expect, 
 when he had finally made up his mind he couldn't go. 
 But when I leaned over and looked at it, I saw that it was 
 open g a pi R g open with nothing in it. And I gave the 
 cursed thing another kick under the bed and forgot about 
 it. 
 
 And so that night passed ; and morning came, and 
 Vance brought in what breakfast I wanted cooking it
 
 278 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 herself, of course for the servant was gone. And we 
 settled down to the regular ways of a house where there 
 is sickness. Sat down and waited, through that morning, 
 for the doctor to bring us in another nurse. 
 
 When he didn't come, at first, we said the doctor was 
 having trouble like he said he would, to find a good 
 one. For nurses good ones were almost impossible 
 to get now, the Fever was running on so fast. The houses 
 right around us were full of it ; and that wasn't even a 
 little fraction of it all. I sat and waited, and he didn't 
 come. And, finally, when my Uncle got resting a little 
 better, sleeping apparently, I made up my mind I would go 
 and see what was the matter. It was just a little ways 
 anyhow, and Vance could watch, out in the hallway, for 
 my Uncle wouldn't let her inside anyway. 
 
 And so I went over, and I saw Dr. Greathouse, for the 
 last time. 
 
 Uncle Mungo met me there at the front door, with his 
 face that old dead shiny color that the darkies get in 
 stead of getting pale. 
 
 " He's got it," he said, half whispering. " My Mister 
 Willy's got the Fevah ! " 
 
 It gave me a worse start, somehow, than when I knew 
 my Uncle had it. I had just only seen the man just 
 those few hours before. He must have been already 
 touched with it then. And the feeling came over me, 
 stronger and stronger than ever before 
 
 " Everybody's going to have it. We're all going to 
 have it now." 
 
 I'd given up the hope of escaping. And there was the 
 feeling with it, not so much of being scared, but just 
 reckless. 
 
 " Well, here goes ! " you said to yourself. " I'm next ! 
 Everybody else is hit."
 
 THE WHISTLING DOCTOR 279 
 
 And yet, all the time, underneath, you hoped you might 
 not get it after all. Yourself you and yours. 
 
 I went right in, naturally, to where he was in that 
 great, low, long, old-fashioned bedroom of his on the first 
 floor all tumbled up the way a man living alone, with 
 out women folks in the house, leaves things and his 
 clothes just where he left them when he threw them 
 off. 
 
 " Hello," he said, when I came in, with as much of his 
 great strong voice as he had left. " What do you think 
 of this?" 
 
 It was a pretty light case, he said, so far only 
 
 " These fat ones are apt to have it kind of hard," he 
 said, and tried to laugh, and couldn't much. He was 
 weak, naturally, and it hurt his head too much. 
 
 And when I asked him about anything that I could do, 
 he said, " No, nothing. 
 
 " I'll doctor myself," he said, " mostly, I expect. The 
 rest of them are monstrous busy now. I'll doctor my 
 self. And Mungo here'll take care" of me and pull 
 me out. You will won't you, Mungo ? " 
 
 " Yassuh, I'm just goin' to do that," said Uncle Mungo, 
 trying to smile. 
 
 " I bet on you, uncle. And not the first time, either ! " 
 said old Doctor Greathouse, thanking him with his eyes. 
 
 And then, when I started to go, the doctor talked and 
 asked a minute or two about my Uncle Hagar. He made 
 himself. Told me about a nurse ; and what doctor he 
 would have; and said he'd see we got them there himself, 
 right away. For the doctor was coming to see him the 
 first minute that he had; and he'd send him right along 
 over to see us. 
 
 And he spoke about Vance, and said we certainly ought 
 to get her away. And when I said I couldn't get her to
 
 280 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 go, he said he expected that was true. Women were that 
 way. Naturally, too. 
 
 " But don't give up too much. Don't worry too much 
 about her," he said. " This Fever is a .crazy thing. You 
 can't account for it. It comes and goes when it wants 
 to. And when it once gets you, you can't tell anything 
 either. A great, strong, fat animal like I am, is in a lot 
 more danger than a frail little nineteen year old girl like 
 Vance. You can't tell why, but it's so. 
 
 " The fact is," he said, " they don't know anything 
 they don't know anything about it. It's just as much a 
 mystery as it was when the Pharaohs lost their slaves 
 from it in Egypt." 
 
 And then I thanked him, and told him to stop talking, 
 and got up to go. 
 
 But he managed to ask me one more question before I 
 got away. 
 
 " How was it " he said, " could you keep your win 
 dows closed all night ? " 
 
 And when I told him that I could and had, he thought a 
 minute and said he was glad I did. It was just as well. 
 
 " You can talk all you want to," he said, " there's 
 something outside there. There's something there in the 
 night air that carries that disease." And he waited a 
 minute, looking up at me from his pillow. 
 
 " Something," he said, and turned restlessly in his bed. 
 " Something. God ! Sometimes you think almost 
 you touch it almost with your finger tips; and then it's 
 all gone gone ! You can't quite get the thing. Lord ! 
 How I wish " 
 
 " Lie down," I said. " You're a nice one to talk about 
 lying quiet." 
 
 And when I went out, and all the time I was sitting 
 there, I was seeing those old fat, sleepy mosquitoes up
 
 THE WHISTLING DOCTOR 281 
 
 there on the ceiling, and the walls. And flies, too 
 bothering him then. There weren't any screens with us 
 those days. I wouldn't have noticed the mosquitoes, I 
 expect, except we had been so free from them those last 
 few days those days of the Fever with all the win 
 dows closed at night. It was the only thing that made 
 the great hot house bearable. And once we had the mos 
 quitoes barred out, we kept it pretty free of them. But, 
 then, of course, we didn't know we hadn't any idea at 
 all what it really meant. 
 
 Uncle Mungo stood there waiting for me when I went 
 out. 
 
 "How's he 'pear to you? How's he 'pear to you?" 
 he asked, mighty anxious. And his hand was a little 
 shaky. The old nigger was getting pretty old. 
 
 " He'll come round," I said, more cheerful than I felt. 
 
 " I 'spect so I 'spect so," said Uncle Mungo, agree 
 ing with me, like he always did. " He's doctorin' him 
 self. And there ain't anybody knows more 'bout the 
 Fevah'n my Mister Willy does. No sir ! " 
 
 His voice kept getting stronger as he kept saying it to 
 himself. But he was still pretty scared and shaky. He 
 was a mighty frail little old darky; I don't believe he 
 weighed much over a hundred pounds. 
 
 " The only thing that keeps o'botherin' me," he said, low 
 and secret, " the only thing worries mc's like this : Sup- 
 posin' sometime he went out of his haid. Sposin' so he 
 couldn't tell me just what to do ; and I was left here alone 
 some night, with all that 'sponsibility. 
 
 " It sciahs me. It sciahs me, thinkin' of it. 
 
 " 'Fore God, Mr. Beavis," he went along, his voice 
 shaking and breaking a little bit, " 'fore God, I rather die 
 and be buried a hundred times, than have anythin' hap- 
 penin' to my Mister Willy. Or have anybody else to
 
 282 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 or have any dozen of 'em to die. He's done more good 
 ness in this town than any hunded folks, ain't he? 
 There's hundeds and hundeds of folks'd miss him comin' 
 whistlin' down their street, more'n anybody else on this 
 yere earth, I believe. Yassuh ! " 
 
 The old man was getting too excited. I told him he'd 
 have to stop it and tend strictly to his business. 
 
 " All you've got to do is to keep him still," I said. 
 " That's what he says to do himself." 
 
 " Yassuh, I will," said Uncle Mungo. " But sposin' I 
 was left alone here, and sposin' I didn't know what to do 
 and he got aloose from me all alone here some night ? " 
 
 " Oh, stop your fretting, Uncle Mungo," I said. " Quit 
 your worrying; that won't happen. He ain't so bad." 
 
 But that was what did happen just exactly what 
 did happen, finally, so they tell me. 
 
 And all around me, going home oh, in half a dozen 
 places maybe I either saw the windows open, or heard 
 that moaning from the houses, from the rooms where 
 they were down with the Fever. 
 
 It lay around us striking down one head after an 
 other. There it was, inside that old house of ours. I 
 looked up from under the house when I got there, and 
 saw it, ugly and dreary in that bright sunlight with 
 its great thick, brick walls, and its brick eyebrows over the 
 windows ; and the round blind windows built for statues 
 that were never made, and the old Tower in front, like a 
 great old gray owl over the sidewalk. 
 
 And there it was the Fever inside that old prison 
 now, inside the house; and we knew well enough what it 
 did when it once got in the house. 
 
 And who were we how different that it was going 
 to miss us? 
 
 And so I went on in, slowly, and went slowly up through
 
 THE WHISTLING DOCTOR 283 
 
 the empty lower hall, and found Vance sitting at the en 
 trance of the Purple Room. 
 
 " He's got it. The doctor's got it< now," I told her. 
 And in spite of all I could do, tears came into my eyes a 
 little. I had to cry. He'd been a mighty !good friend to 
 me those few months. 
 
 She'd known him ten times as long as I, and ten times 
 as well. But she didn't let go of herself a minute. She 
 smiled, and took my hand, and patted it. 
 
 " That doesn't mean he's got to die," she said. She 
 had been right. She wasn't a girl any more; she was a 
 grown woman. 
 
 " Go, Vance, go ! " taking her in my arms, " for God's 
 sake, go ! We're all going to have it. We've got to. 
 Everybody. Go, won't you ! Go ! when you've still 
 got the chance." 
 
 She shook her head and put me away from her. 
 
 " He seems quieter," she said, looking there into the 
 Purple Room, where my Uncle Hagar lay, dozing.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE BELL ROPE 
 
 THE new doctor had gone, and I sat there, trying 
 to keep awake. Lord! It was awful. When 
 there was a chance, the excitement of the chance 
 of going away, it was well enough, but now, with that all 
 settled; with our hope of leaving gone; now, just sitting 
 there in that sick room, it was something monstrous. 
 Especially now, when those locusts got going ! That old, 
 hot, sleepy song of the locusts. 
 
 I opened my eyes and sat up and my Uncle lay there 
 looking at me with a little brighter look than he had 
 before. 
 
 " You don't know," he said, in a dull kind of voice. 
 " Everything went wrong with me ! " 
 
 It was the first time he had spoken for an hour or two. 
 
 And then he stopped; and I didn't know what to say. 
 And those cursed locusts went on grinding out there, 
 putting me to sleep. 
 
 " Twenty years ! " said my Uncle, then. " Yes thirty ! 
 All wrong ! " 
 
 Then he didn't talk for a long time and then only 
 slowly as if his mind worked slowly, and in pain. 
 
 But it seemed to me like his mind, just as soon as it 
 came back, always started back in that old groove where 
 it had always been. 
 
 " Don't talk," I said. " It ain't good for you." 
 
 284 '
 
 THE BELL ROPE 285 
 
 " There was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars one 
 time," said my Uncle Athiel, after a while, " that I could 
 count on. Good sound property. 
 
 " Now," he said louder, " I can't count more than 
 thirty thousand ! " and he tried to get up. 
 
 " Lie down ! " I said. " Don't do that again ! " 
 
 They mustn't talk and they mustn't move at all like 
 I told you. It kills them often like it probably did 
 that old half-nigger and the German. But after that 
 he fell back for he was jerked back by the pain in his 
 head, like a great weight, to his pillow. 
 
 After a while, when he got his strength again, his eyes 
 kept open and were on me his face lying toward me. 
 And it seemed to me now though I may only have 
 imagined it, thinking afterwards, on that fringed bell- 
 rope beyond, hanging down the wall. His great old 
 hickory cane stood there beside it, and somewhere, I knew, 
 under the head of hir; bed somewhere, was that old time 
 Derringer pistol that lie had. 
 
 I stopped his talking for the time, but his old thoughts, 
 waking up once more, I expect, just started boiling in 
 him again. 
 
 They made him talk for a while, every now and then 
 in spite of me. In a way, I was glad of it it kept me 
 from sleeping. But I couldn't let him do too much, just 
 the same. 
 
 " You wouldn't believe it," he said, " you wouldn't be 
 lieve it ! " and started struggling. 
 
 " Lie still ! " I said, " I won't let you talk any if you 
 do like that." 
 
 " First there was that damned war," he said, lying there 
 with those little black eyes on me. 
 
 " You know that ! " he said, after a little longer. 
 
 " Yes," I said, humoring him, " I know that."
 
 286 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " And then those banks those scoundels those 
 banks. You know Judas ! What they cost me ! " 
 
 I nodded at him, waiting to see if he wouldn't stop ; 
 waiting to see if his talk wouldn't just run out of itself. 
 
 " And now this," he said, " this town ruined " and 
 started moving, and stopped, looking at me. 
 
 " You wouldn't believe it, would you ? " he asked me, 
 staring. And I told him I certainly would not. 
 
 And for a while he stopped again, thinking it over, and 
 I thought he might be resting. 
 
 " You might say I was getting too old," he started on 
 again, "but I don't believe it was that do you? I 
 don't believe that did it do you?" he asked louder 
 when I didn't answer, getting dull and drowsy. 
 
 " No," I said, sitting up again. 
 
 " No," said my Uncle Athiel louder, " no, you're right ! 
 No, sir ! No, sir ! You wouldn't believe it if I told you. 
 One thing after another and all wrong and all wrong ! 
 And you couldn't tell not one single thing in ad 
 vance ! 
 
 " Sometimes," he said, and stopped staring at me, with 
 a meaning look feverish, I expect. 
 
 " Sometimes, it almost seemed like there was something 
 after me ! Something I couldn't get quit of following 
 me!" 
 
 Then after that he waited a while. The work of think 
 ing and talking had worn him down. And I sat there, 
 listening to those locusts outdoors, there in the trees. 
 
 " Grind grind grind ! Grate grate grate ! " 
 
 It seemed like they were grinding holes in my brain, 
 through my ears. And the air was still, and hot, and 
 bad, in that room, naturally and nothing moving, but 
 a fly sometimes, buzzing across the ceiling. And outside 
 nothing, either. Nothing but those damned droning
 
 THE BELL ROPE 287 
 
 locusts. And, as far as being afraid as far as being 
 scared, I didn't fear anything any longer, or know any 
 thing, or hear anything, but those locusts, putting me to 
 sleep. 
 
 Vance looked in every now and then, and I sat up and 
 appeared the best I knew how; and prayed that nurse 
 they were going to send us would come pretty quick, for 
 I didn't see what I could do, if somebody didn't come 
 along. 
 
 My Uncle rested for a little while. Then he went on 
 talking more now and then about his Property, 
 about the War, about his losses those everlasting losses 
 he had made. 
 
 He cursed the War both sides and all their gen 
 erals ; and Jeff Davis and Abe Lincoln both but es 
 pecially Davis, and the money all that Confederate 
 money they left folks high and dry with. 
 
 God! If I could only have killed those locusts, 
 outside there, grinding me to sleep! The nurse didn't 
 come and didn't come. I got up, and walked around 
 as quiet as I could ; and went out and doused my 
 self with water. It was no good at all. Just as soon 
 as I was back there I heard that old droning coming 
 through the windows of that old hot room! 
 
 My Uncle Hagar traveled up and down again, in his 
 mind, talking over what he'd done and lost. He talked 
 about Vance a while and started blaming her for stay 
 ing. 
 
 " She ought to have gone. She ought to have gone 
 first," he said. " She always was a delicate child. We've 
 always fussed and worried for her. I'm glad she's gone 
 now. She ought to. 
 
 " It's different with me," he said, looking toward me 
 again. " It's different with me. I had to stay here to
 
 288 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 take care of it to take care of everything ! To keep 
 care of my Property! 
 
 "Didn't I?" he asked me. 
 
 And I naturally said, " Yes." 
 
 " I'm glad she's gone," he said finally, about Vance. 
 
 " You and I can stay here now, and take care of it. 
 We'll keep our eye peeled! We got to keep our eye 
 peeled now, you understand, for fire and thieves! For 
 most all the white folks have gone now most all the 
 rest of 'em have gone ! This town is full of thieves ! " 
 
 I had to quiet him on that, and let him start on some 
 thing else. 
 
 " And, as far as Fever goes," he said again, trying in 
 a funny way to snap his fingers, " I don't give that for it. 
 I don't fear it any more than I do sunstroke. And 
 there's no more use of having it." 
 
 You couldn't tell how his mind was. That was an ex 
 ample. He didn't even know he had the Fever, appar 
 ently, and yet he did know he was sick. And in many 
 ways he seemed bright as anybody. 
 
 He seemed to take it for granted too, after that, that 
 Vance was gone. And we were alone there we two in 
 the house. I know he lay there after that, for a while, 
 looking at me. 
 
 " I like the way you stood by me," he said, after a 
 while. And after that it was kind of funny he said 
 something again about lawyers taking care of Property, 
 and nodded to himself, his head all the time on the pillow. 
 Then after that, he let up a little bit, and relaxed himself 
 and got sleepy, and shut his eyes. 
 
 "All right," he said, several times. " O. K." And 
 then, afterwards, just before he went off to sleep: 
 
 " I got something I'm going to show you," he said.
 
 THE BELL ROPE 289 
 
 "Something just as soon as I get my voice back. 
 Just as soon as I get rested up ! " 
 
 And he looked at me, then; and he looked at the wall 
 back of me I'm sure he did, where his old cane stood ; 
 where that fringed bell-cord hung down. Looked over 
 there, just as he had done, I expect, every night since he 
 laid there in that great room; and then he went off 
 quietly to sleep. 
 
 I just remember it ; I just can remember it. The nurse 
 hadn't come, and wasn't coming, apparently, and those 
 locusts were too much for me. The next thing I knew 
 was Vance standing at the door, saying she would stay 
 outside there while he slept, and I must go and rest. 
 
 I went I had to. I just could tell her that he 
 mustn't see her; that she must not go in, for his sake as 
 well as hers, and I started off to my own room. And 
 when I got there, if you'll believe me, and lay down I 
 couldn't sleep, I couldn't sleep a wink ! I kept seeing 
 Vance out there, and worrying; and those locusts, those 
 dry, grating, damned locusts, outside there, still went 
 grinding, grinding, grinding on my bare brain, and keep 
 ing me awake! 
 
 I tried for a while. I thrashed and banged and rolled 
 around then I got up ! And from that time on I 
 changed. I didn't want to sleep. Those locusts going 
 still nearly drove me mad like something rasping and 
 grating inside my skull. But I didn't want to sleep 
 again. I just had no desire to. I had no desire on earth 
 now only to have those locusts stop. 
 
 My Uncle Athiel was asleep still, when I went back. 
 He seemed to be getting along well, Vance said, sleeping 
 quiet and restful. 
 
 And I sat there, alone, looking around, trying to keep
 
 290 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 my mind off those droning locusts and off from Vance. 
 My old continual worry about Vance. My mind, that 
 had been so dull, now got just wonderfully clear. 
 
 I looked at my Uncle lying there, yellow and old and 
 gone, I believed; as good as gone, anyhow. And I saw 
 him, younger, coming down from the hills, in those old 
 rough pioneer times in the rich new country, hunting 
 this thing this Property ; this money of his, that had 
 turned now, these twenty years, and gone hunting him 
 to death. 
 
 " And us too," I thought to myself, " with him." For 
 it certainly did seem that not one of us had much chance, 
 now. And yet I didn't seem to care much. It didn't 
 seem to worry me at all. I didn't care much about any 
 thing but those locusts. 
 
 And I looked around that great room and its fool 
 fol-de-rols ; and I thought of all that great house that 
 old silly, self-advertising of that dead man, that he was 
 better than his neighbors. And then about this other man 
 who followed him. 
 
 One of them dead, by his own hand, in that very room. 
 And now this one, too, this little, common, yellow, old 
 man there, tucked in under that great purple canopied 
 bed with the gold laurel wreaths on it; dying there, most 
 likely, the same as the other had in the same place, and 
 for the same reason for Property for Money. And 
 when I went over it, and around and around, it certainly 
 did seem crazy enough what they had done. That 
 Money folks are always fighting for crazy and little 
 and strange ! With that Fever out there, and all those 
 people dying all around us like it was the end of the 
 world, as the niggers thought ! And we there, waiting 
 waiting ! 
 
 I watched around again, after that, looking around
 
 THE BELL ROPE 
 
 the room; thinking of what he probably had there; and 
 then, of what he said before he went to sleep, that he 
 was going to tell me. And naturally, then, my eye went 
 back again to that call-bell, and that cord to it that 
 hung down there, to see if there could possibly be any 
 thing there which would account for his continual fussing 
 with it, and his looking at it now. Any place there where 
 he could hide his money, if he had it there. But there was 
 nothing I could see. 
 
 That cord itself that big, flat, rough purple cord, 
 would hardly be a hiding place I had made up my 
 mind then though of course it might be. It was big 
 enough of course, to have bills sewed into it if you 
 wanted to. But I didn't think he'd do it. It was too 
 handy, too easy to be looked at. And at the top of it 
 was only that big round brass cap, or ring, where it 
 passed up above there into the wall. 
 
 I must have been looking up at it, when he woke up. 
 
 I saw right away that he was stronger for his sleep, 
 when I saw him waking; and I noticed, too, that with his 
 strength, his suspicious ways had come right back again. 
 
 " What are you looking at ? What do you see ? " he 
 said, in a cross old ugly voice. 
 
 "Nothing," I said. "Why?" 
 
 " Nothin'," he answered me in his turn, and didn't talk 
 any more. 
 
 Whatever he had thought he'd show me, I saw then he 
 never would. 
 
 He seemed brighter, a lot brighter and uglier. 
 
 " If getting better, means getting uglier, like they say 
 it does," I said to myself, " he's getting along." 
 
 He kept his eyes open, after that, for a while, a good 
 share of the time ; always lying there on his side, looking 
 towards me.
 
 292 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 He felt better, himself, too, and stronger, I believe, for 
 once he said, I remember, looking sharp at me: 
 
 " They think they got the old man. They think they 
 got him, but he ain't through yet ! " 
 
 I had given up the nurse's coming now, for the present 
 anyhow. I didn't know what I could do that night, if 
 there was nobody by then, but I thought that I could stand 
 it. Those locusts would stop anyhow. Anything if 
 they'd stop going! So I hung and stuck it out. 
 
 He got restless as the afternoon went on, and then not 
 so ugly; and after a while, when you could see the sun 
 was sloping down, and he was getting tired again, you 
 could see his grip on his mind was weaker. And he 
 started, once or twice and then went on explaining 
 again, and explaining and explaining, his life, once more 
 and his Property and how he lost it. 
 
 He was friendlier to me, as he got tireder, I knew ; ap 
 pealed to me now and then, and gave me advice about 
 getting old; about Property. 
 
 " Don't you never let yourself get old," he said, " never, 
 without something put by to take care of you ! " 
 
 And then, I remember too, his saying : " What's an 
 old man ! Think of it yourself ! Nothing, nothing, 
 more'n what he's got. That's just all! Just what he's 
 got. 
 
 "Did you ever see 'em?" he said to me. "Did you 
 ever see 'em sitting around a poorhouse yard? 
 
 " God ! " he said, " you didn't know it but my own 
 father died there in the poorhouse ! There's where 
 your folks took me and raised me from ! " 
 
 It made him worse, thinking of it. 
 
 " Have something laid away, Beavis, my boy," he said, 
 advising me, " and be mighty careful what you have.
 
 THE BELL ROPE 293 
 
 Money legal money that's the best. I've tried 'em 
 all. That's best." 
 
 His mind was getting cloudy now, I expect. " That's 
 the be.st," he went along. " They can't get it away from 
 you. They can't get it from you when you're old! 
 
 " Legal money ! " he said, getting cloudier. 
 
 " But keep your eye peeled ! You got to keep your both 
 eyes peeled ! All the time all the time when you get 
 old." 
 
 The shadows were growing longer, from the trees in 
 back ; evening was coming ; those locusts in the trees I 
 expect the shadow was falling on them were running 
 down. Thank God! Thank God! It was like passing 
 into heaven! 
 
 He didn't talk again; he went to sleep. I got up and 
 looked out doors. 
 
 It had looked to me and Vance thought so too 
 like that boy, that Saunders boy down the street who had 
 been moaning, had died during the day. And I could 
 see now that was right. Those men had been there 
 the undertakers and I saw the pile of stuff of bed 
 ding in the road before the house. 
 
 There was a little wind. As the night came on, it 
 looked a little like a thunder ^torm. A little wind had 
 started up, whirling in the corners papers and those 
 little old, light, dry leaves of the elm trees. And the 
 locusts were all still everything dead, exhausted, still 
 except this little rustling of those leaves sometimes. 
 
 My Uncle Athiel roused a little, grew restless ; and once 
 or twice he whispered that pretty soon the windows must 
 be closed. But I waited just as long as I could. 
 That breeze, that little breeze after all that day it 
 was like a spring of water in the great African Desert.
 
 294, HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 I don't think I kept them open longer than we had 
 before I don't believe I kept those windows up any 
 longer than I should! I certainly couldn't have known 
 anyway ! 
 
 But while I turned away for the last time to go back 
 into the room and look at him, those fools outside there 
 had lighted up the Fever fire in the street, right there, 
 right under our windows. I didn't see it not at all, 
 until it was too late and the fire all going. 
 
 They lighted up that fire, and just then the breeze grew 
 stronger those whirls of wind that spring up before a 
 thunder shower. It was blue, and darker, and it seemed 
 now that we would get rain at last. 
 
 The wind came up, and came whirling. I could hear it 
 in the dry trees. And before I knew it, the puff of thick, 
 black smoke came blowing in the window and a leaf or 
 two and one little piece of paper. 
 
 " What's that ? " said my Uncle, starting from his 
 drowse. " What's that ? " and sat up straight. 
 
 And I jumped my fastest for the window. 
 
 But not quick enough ! Too late ! For : 
 
 "Fire!" cried my Uncle Athiel. "Fire! Thieves!" 
 and yelling and crying out, he jumped up on his feet, 
 carrying the light bedclothes with him; and stood, and 
 half-reached and half-stumbled out; and pulled at that 
 fringed cord. And when he took it and pulled, the thing 
 gave way and pulled out on him from the top. 
 
 And he toppled and fell upon the floor, face downward ; 
 the bellcord in his hand ; and with his fall came the sharp 
 clatter of a little box at the top of the cord a little 
 round box behind the round brass ring, where it went into 
 the wall the clatter of this little box as it struck 
 against the wall and on the floor. And with it, over him 
 as he laid there, came down this shower of money
 
 THE BELL ROPE 295 
 
 greenbacks, packages of it, and some of it just loose bills. 
 And it lay there over him on his back, and his head, 
 and even on his outstretched hands, where he lay there 
 face downward on one hand, with his sheet upon him like 
 a shroud. I sprang to him ; and looking over, as I sprang, 
 I saw the figure of Vance Hagar looking from the door 
 way. 
 
 And I knew before I touched him, that he was dead. 
 
 I don't say that she knew exactly. I don't pretend or 
 expect to explain it. I don't say that she was sure be 
 forehand how he would die. I only just can tell you what 
 I saw. But he lay there, Vance has told me a thousand 
 times, exactly as she'd seen him in that dream one hand 
 under his forehead, and one hand outstretched. 
 
 Of course you'll say they died that way, in the Fever, 
 often from those sudden starts like that and of 
 course it was not just exactly as she saw it. The money 
 wasn't there for one thing. She hadn't seen the money 
 in her dream. 
 
 But there he was, at any rate. Dead like she had seen 
 him. And there, over him and around him, was spread 
 " Hagar's Hoard," the remnants of the old man's for 
 tune, that he had fought so long and savage and ugly 
 for. 
 
 And I know that I hope that I shall never see such a 
 sight again. Or pass such another night as that. 
 
 It had killed him that hoard of his just exactly 
 as much as if it had drawn him in and strangled him.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 FUGITIVES 
 
 THEY came for him that night, very late al 
 most midnight, I remember. It was pretty hard 
 for Vance so soon, and in the middle of the 
 night that way and that one lone, tired, white man 
 that could come; and the dim lights of the hearse out 
 side there, waiting. 
 
 She couldn't go with him, of course, when he went away. 
 She could not go in there into the Purple Room, be 
 fore they took him. I saw to that. 
 
 But she was very quiet and very reasonable about it 
 all ; she'd thought it out herself. 
 
 " It isn't like it had come unexpectedly," she said. 
 "Like I hadn't known!" 
 
 So, whatever you think about that dream of hers, it 
 did one thing. It really did prepare her for the thing 
 that happened. Nobody can deny that. 
 
 She was a lot more quiet and reasonable; and cheerful 
 too ; a lot more use in planning what to do next than I 
 was. She's told me many and many a time just how she 
 felt about it. She had given him up. He died for her 
 that night, when it was finally settled that he wasn't going. 
 And now there was only just one thing left for her to 
 think of, so she says myself. Women are so, I've al 
 ways thought practical in their feelings the best of 
 
 them. Made to love and fight for us that are living 
 
 296
 
 FUGITIVES 297 
 
 open and public ; and love and mourn for us when we are 
 dead in secret by themselves. 
 
 And so, by midnight, it was all over. My Uncle Athiel 
 had left his old brick house that he cursed and loathed, 
 and guarded so, forever. And the next thing for both of 
 us we both understood was to escape. That old 
 Hoard of his that old Succubus, the doctor had talked 
 about, had held my Uncle there until it had his life. Now 
 that he was gone, the question was, had it held us there 
 until it had our lives, too or would have them both 
 before it was done? 
 
 I had gathered the stuff up the greenbacks be 
 fore anybody else had come in the doctor, or any of 
 the rest and crowded it into that little old brown satchel 
 of my Uncle's that I remembered seeing under the bed. 
 It wasn't counted up of course. All I did was to crush it 
 in there into the bag. But there was a lot of money, 
 I was sure. And funny, right away, it made me scared 
 and nervous the responsibility of it ! I kept edging 
 around staying around the place I had hidden it, in 
 my room. I slept with it that night that early morn 
 ing beneath my pillow. 
 
 When I woke up, I remember, my neck was all lame 
 all stiff and lame, sleeping with the thing there beneath 
 my head. But I slept just the same. I had to like 
 lead. And I woke up clear, bright as a dollar ready 
 to fight out and run; get Vance out of town somehow. 
 
 She was ready, now. She would go anytime. We 
 started talking of it the first thing in the morning, when 
 she came down from her room. 
 
 But the trouble was, now we wanted to go, could we? 
 The Fever had been in the house, now, with us. We 
 might, more than likely, have it coming on ourselves 
 who knew? They couldn't cast us loose into any other
 
 298 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 place now especially now with the whole country 
 with places right around there, in particular up in 
 arms against Memphis, like they were. In arms really, 
 too ; " Shot gun quarantines," in every direction on the 
 roads north and east especially. 
 
 And it was going to be mighty troublesome for us to 
 get out of town by railway. I could see that, more 
 even than by the roads. They could watch the railroads 
 closer. 
 
 " We could drive," said Vance. 
 
 What we wanted to do, was to get up in the country 
 up into the middle of the State, where my folks came 
 from. 
 
 " Would old Dolly stand it? " I said. 
 
 " Certainly, she would," said Vance. " And a lot bet 
 ter than leaving her back here ! ' 
 
 " It wouldn't take us but a week or so," she said, ex 
 plaining. " We could go south, where they aren't so 
 careful Toward where they've had it themselves, and 
 then turn turn east gradually." 
 
 " We could try it," I said. 
 
 " Yes, we must," said Vance, jumping up. " Let's go 
 out and look at Dolly now." 
 
 So we went out there to the old barn together to 
 where the old horse was. She looked right well; she 
 hadn't had a thing to do for all those days. And when 
 Vance came in with sugar in her hand, like she usually 
 did, the old mare turned her head, and whinnered at her. 
 
 And Vance stepped in her stall, feeding her. And 
 directly she put her arms around her neck, and kissed 
 her, and cried a little thinking of her father, I expect, 
 and stopped right away again. 
 
 When we came out together, walking back to the old 
 house I remember, I said to her :
 
 FUGITIVES 299 
 
 " But even south they have those * shotgun quaran 
 tines,' out on the roads. Supposing, supposing, right 
 
 awa J> J ou ran across one." 
 
 For most of them of those places around were 
 deadly against Memphis the first few weeks. 
 
 " Suppose you did," I said. " You might. Suppose 
 you ran across such a town the first thing where the 
 roads were barred." 
 
 " That's just the town we want," said Vance, and 
 looked at me. 
 
 "Want!" I said. "Why? How'd you get in? If 
 you met one of those guards of theirs, how would you 
 get in? " 
 
 " Oh, we'd get in," said Vance. 
 
 " No, I want to know," I said. " What'd you say? " 
 
 "Say?" said Vance. 
 
 " Yes," I said. " I want to know before we start. 
 There's no use going, and getting held up right away. 
 Do you know one thing," I went along, " that you could 
 say to get us out with? " 
 
 " Yes, I do I believe," said Vance. 
 
 " What is it? " I kept on asking her. 
 
 " If I met a guard," said Vance, slowly " If we do 
 meet one," she said " the first thing I'd do, I think, be 
 fore he said anything I believe I'd ask him if they had 
 the Fever there first. I'd ask him that," she said, 
 " before he could say a word to me ! " 
 
 " Yes," I said. Then what? " 
 
 " And then, right away, before he'd get after us," she 
 said and stopped a minute. " You'd ask him for a 
 minister ! " 
 
 " A minister ! " I said my heart starting going. 
 
 " Yes," she said, and wouldn't look at me and started 
 talking on again.
 
 300 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 " We'd tell him," she went on talking a little faint, 
 but like a person who's saying something that they learned 
 by heart. " If we had to I'd tell him you'd tell 
 him ! " she said, turning those big, deep, honest, childish 
 eyes of hers on me at last and dropping them right away 
 again, " that we were running away to get married. And 
 we didn't want to tell him where we came from." 
 
 " Get married ! " I said, my old heart battering at my 
 ribs, urging me forward. And my old pride, still holding 
 me back. " Get married we can't. I can't do that. 
 You know I can't. I haven't got a dollar. I haven't 
 any money in the world ! " I blundered out. 
 
 " I have," said Vance, her eyes on mine. 
 
 " That's it ! " I said. 
 
 " Monty ! " said Vance. " What's money ! " 
 
 " A good lot," I said, and thought right away how 
 funny it was after all my cursing of it. 
 
 " Now? " said Vance, still looking at my eyes. 
 
 I didn't answer her. 
 
 " Between us ? " she said, coming nearer. 
 
 There was no use arguing and holding back with 
 her. My old pride was no use. I had her in my arms 
 right away. 
 
 " That's settled," said Vance staying there, still. 
 
 It would be much better of course; in a way, it was 
 almost forced on us, you might say, by our running off 
 that way we did together. 
 
 " You see," said Vance, moving and looking up, after 
 a while, " you see, it would be kind of a passport being 
 married in a place like that ; where they were very strict 
 against the Fever wherever everybody knew they didn't 
 have it ! Why, the certificate from there, when we went 
 along you see, the certificate from there " 
 
 " Yes, I see," I said, kissing her.
 
 FUGITIVES 301 
 
 "So then," she said, after a little, " we'll go to 
 morrow morning, early. And we can take that old leather 
 trunk, that smallest one." 
 
 " Yes," I said, my pulse racing up again. 
 
 And so I went out to do my part, getting ready. 
 
 You wouldn't believe how burdensome it was that 
 money now I had it. How hard it was to decide what 
 to do with it. 
 
 I thought first that I'd put it in the bank leave it 
 there. Then I couldn't I couldn't do it. All that 
 talk of my Uncle's against banks wouldn't let me. Be 
 sides, I was nothing but a boy anyhow. What did I know 
 about banks myself? So finally I decided I'd just take 
 it with me where I could keep my eyes on it. Then 
 I'd know. 
 
 There was thirty thousand dollars of it just about, 
 I had counted it, finally that morning roughly. And 
 afterwards I found I was right. It was about that; and 
 that was all there was, I believe. I've had folks say to 
 me since, if I'd only look further in other places ! 
 They think there was somebody else in the house after 
 wards got more. They say there was more ; that there 
 must have been ! But I never thought so. I knew what 
 my Uncle said about it, that last day. And I don't 
 think, knowing him, he'd have it anywhere else, anyhow. 
 It would all be right there where he could watch. 
 
 But then for that matter, thirty thousand dollars un 
 der my hand there at night, in bills! A million dollars 
 wouldn't worry me so now. 
 
 Then there was the house too. You wouldn't believe 
 how careful I was in leaving that house, how I went over 
 everything with John McCallan, leaving it. 
 
 " Remimber this, sor," said John, " I never saw you 
 go. I never knew you left the town, out of a house with
 
 302 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 a faver in it! How long would they kape me on the 
 force if they knew it ! " 
 
 " Don't fret about that, John," I said. 
 
 " I don't, sor," said John. " Not a nickel's worth. 
 And if I did, 'twould make no difference. I'd get that 
 little girl of yours out o' here, if it cost me my job on the 
 force this evening." 
 
 " God bless you, John," I said. " I wish that you 
 were going too." 
 
 "Me!" said John. 
 
 " There's plenty of them have gone," I said " police, 
 and doctors, and ministers, too." 
 
 " I know that, sor. An' I'm very sorry to have t' say 
 it t' you. I know that," said John, standing square 
 footed in front of me. " But me ! " he said, and stopped. 
 " Lit me ask you somethin'," he said : " If I got away 
 now from here from what I have to do here. If I got 
 away and saved myself, why then after thot, where'd 
 I spend the rist of my days ? Where'd I go what'd I 
 be after thot? Let me ask you thot! " 
 
 " I don't know," I said. 
 
 " I don't know," said John and shook his head. 
 
 " But you can go," he said, " and they'll all be better 
 off to have you goin'. All the white folks that can," 
 said John, " have their first duty to git away from here. 
 For them that stays'll git it now," said John. " Make 
 up your mind to thot. All thim that stays'll only feed 
 the Faver. They'll all have it. And most of 'em will 
 die. This ain't no Yeller Faver now. It's some old 
 plague, some black plague they used to have in them old 
 times, come back again." 
 
 We thought that ourselves, now that we'd have 
 it, all the white folks that stayed we'd got to think
 
 FUGITIVES 303 
 
 that way ourselves, now that every white man there 
 was going to die. And it did seem worse and different 
 from the Yellow Fever, they said. The dead wagons, 
 droning by us, fuller every day; the folks around us go 
 ing down the folks we knew ; the poor folks laid away 
 in the trenches in the graveyard ; and the niggers burying 
 them all night just eating there and sleeping there, 
 and burying them with those tar fires going around 
 them night and day. 
 
 It seemed natural to expect then there was no stopping 
 it at all. It did seem that finally it would get us all 
 all the white folks anyhow. And why not us too, like 
 the rest and especially now it had been there, in our 
 own house with us. The only thing for us, we knew, was 
 to go if we could. But could we could we get away 
 before it took us? And hadn't one of us, or both, right 
 then, in our blood, the poison of that Fever? 
 
 If it hadn't been for Vance, I believe if Vance hadn't 
 been so sure, I don't expect I'd have taken the chance of 
 going off just that way we did; not knowing but it might 
 strike us later on the road, maybe. 
 
 But I don't know I might have too. I was pretty 
 young and venturesome those days. 
 
 And anyhow we packed up that night to go what 
 clothes we could and we took along, too, a couple of 
 blankets two old army blankets so if we wanted to 
 if they wouldn't take us in, we could just camp out 
 doors somewhere, if we had to. 
 
 It was clear weather, calm, perfectly clear and bright. 
 And we weren't the only folks that had done it that year, 
 I expect. But it was Vance who thought to plan it first, 
 as usual. 
 
 " If there should be the Fever anywhere or they
 
 304 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 wouldn't take us in, we could camp," she said. " We 
 could go into some farmhouse, if it is better; or we could 
 camp." 
 
 Lord, how still it was when I woke up that next morn 
 ing before the dawn. And stole out into the yard, 
 just after daybreak, and harnessed up the horse. 
 
 And then full daylight the sun up long enough to 
 purge all that old imaginary Fever poison from the air, 
 and we started out, to go out of the city, going out south 
 first ! And my Uncle's house old Grummit's Bank 
 with its old tower, and its old heavy, slate covered mass of 
 brick walls, locked and empty, back of us. And ahead of 
 us, the empty city. 
 
 An empty city not yet awoke. Vacant now even in 
 the middle of the day. A city without children or women 
 to be seen, or the shadows of any living things moving 
 on the streets. And then, that time of morning, nothing 
 at all but stillness and closed windows, and blank faced 
 houses staring on the street. All motionless just 
 everybody gone; or out of sight. Doctors and nurses, 
 even, and sick too, mostly tired out, exhausted at the 
 last spent ending of the night. 
 
 All empty the whole town. And in one place on the* 
 main street, I remember, especially, seeing a great squash 
 vine, an old frail, flimsy squash vine, had grown up, and 
 trailed along the curbing of the street, beside the side 
 walk, and still went there living and uncrushed, and oats 
 were growing up in any number of places on the streets. 
 
 We were very lucky, very lucky, going then. We could 
 not have picked out an hour of the day that was safer 
 when we were less expected than in that early morning 
 time when we went jolting out at last into the rutty, 
 dusty, red, old country roads. 
 
 We were very lucky. We were through two towns
 
 FUGITIVES 305 
 
 and were getting into a third one driving east already, 
 and a little to the north before there was anybody held 
 us back at all. 
 
 There was a man then in the road a fat man 
 with a gray mustache, that jumped out of the bushes, at 
 the side of the road suddenly, like he might have been 
 sleeping and trailing an old single barrel shotgun after 
 him. 
 
 Lucky for us again, he was on Vance's side of the old 
 buggy. 
 
 He looked at her a minute where she leaned out to 
 ward him, looking eager then drew his eyes away, and 
 started out to talk to me. 
 
 " Good morning," Vance said to him first. 
 
 " Good mornin', ma'am," said the fat man, most polite, 
 taking his hat off very low, and he looked back at her. 
 
 " Please, sir," said Vance, in that big, wide-eyed, child 
 like way of hers like she was very hurried and excited 
 and scared, " will you tell me, please," she said, her voice 
 shaking, " have you got the Fever here, sir, yet ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am," said the fat man, standing there, look 
 ing with his gun pointing at his stomach. " No, ma'am." 
 
 " Oh, you just don't know how glad I am," said Vance, 
 sighing still watching him with those great eyes of 
 hers. " How glad I am to hear you say that. I was so 
 scared we might be going to some place where they'd had 
 that terrible old Fever. 
 
 " They say it's terrible, just terrible there in Mem 
 phis ! " she said, looking at him. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am, we're keeping watch of 
 that ! " said the fat man, standing straighter. 
 
 And then: 
 
 " Beavis," said Vance, but not taking her eyes from him 
 at all. " Beavis," she said, looking quick at him, and
 
 306 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 back again, " I wonder, Beavis," she said to me, blushing, 
 " if this gentleman wouldn't help you help us ! " 
 
 " Anything, ma'am," said the fat man. " Anything I 
 can, ma'am." 
 
 " Well, then, sir," I said, " you certainly can. You 
 can show us where the nearest parson lives." 
 
 And I looked at him a minute and he at me ; and then 
 we laughed, we both laughed and Vance laughed with 
 us, blushing. 
 
 So he showed us where the minister lived ; and we went 
 along, Vance thanking him. I didn't look back at all 
 I didn't dare to. But Vance did, once. 
 
 She said he wasn't looking when she looked. He stood 
 there in the middle of the road, thinking, looking down. 
 
 I remember the minister when we first saw him; a 
 tall, old, stringy codger, with one of those old long beards 
 those country ministers used to wear those days, some 
 times. It was quite early in the morning yet; he was 
 out hoeing in his garden, I remember shirtsleeves and 
 galluses, and carpet slippers on his feet. We had to 
 wait while he dressed up. I remember how wet and slick 
 his hair was, and how his old white tie stuck out. When 
 we came to pay him, I know, I had to pay him in those 
 old " shin plasters." I had found quite a lot of them 
 in some of the drawers of my Uncle's old secretary the 
 only other money that I found. 
 
 There was nothing in between those, and those great 
 bills in the little box at the end of the bell-rope those 
 packages of big bills in Hagar's Hoard. And: 
 
 " We can't give him a hundred dollars," said Vance. 
 
 For that was the smallest we could find. 
 
 I remember the old man looking down at that great 
 fist full of those old " shin plasters " and I stammering 
 and apologizing.
 
 FUGITIVES 807 
 
 " I ain't seen any of those for a number of years," he 
 said, watching them. 
 
 He wasn't quite sure, I expect, whether they were good 
 or not. 
 
 So then we went along, Vance and I, man and wife, 
 driving out in that hot summer morning. The red dust 
 inches deep on the road, the old locusts still crying in the 
 trees, and the woods dry and rusty, and yellowing toward 
 the fall. And the persimmons tree standing golden in 
 the fields. 
 
 We went on and on, through those old country roads, 
 Vance and I in that old high buggy, with that little 
 leather trunk strapped somehow on behind. And Dolly 
 poking on along ; and I with that old satchel of my Uncle's 
 with Hagar's Hoard in between my feet guarding it. 
 
 You've got no idea how that thing bothered me and 
 kept me watching. I'd got me a Colt's pistol that day 
 before a real pistol, not that old Derringer my Uncle 
 had. And everybody that came along got a sharp look- 
 ing-over from me, now, let me tell you. 
 
 But the main thing, of course, that I never could for 
 get, was the Fever and Vance. Did we have it ? 
 Were we carrying out with us that old Fever poison in 
 our blood? 
 
 We rested in the middle of the day, or Vance did, after 
 eating lunch, at the edge of a grove one of those old 
 high groves we have in our country, with the soft fine 
 grass under them ; and the big high lofty space below the 
 branches. Vance rested, and I sat and kept my eye 
 kept my eye on Hagar's Hoard and thought about its 
 first owner, and his constant watching, while I did. 
 
 I thought quite a lot of him, then my Uncle Hagar 
 as I was sitting there. And what he'd done with his own 
 life ; and of his money, and what he said to me that last
 
 308 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 day that yesterday that seemed so far away already. 
 And especially I kept hearing him telling about old men. 
 What they were. 
 
 "An old man what's an old man?" I kept hearing 
 him, " nothing but what he's got ! Nothin'. Nothin' but 
 what he's got ! " 
 
 And if that was so, I kept thinking, there was all that 
 time left of him to be remembered that mussy wad of 
 greenbacks in that little old handbag of his, beside me. 
 And when I did get thinking of it, I knew, already, there 
 was no great grief or memory of him in me and I was 
 sorry and ashamed. But it was true. 
 
 Already those days of Fever that monstrous yester 
 day, were fading from me. I was tired out, I expect, 
 just weary with the awfulness of it, till at last the feeling 
 had just dropped off of me. And every step we went, the 
 hot golden weather and the soft, hot, lazy silence of the 
 day rose and rose around us, and washed the memory of 
 all that the Fever and the dead man from my mind. I 
 was forgetting it, for I expect I was sleepy, and tired and 
 happy again. Yes, very happy! 
 
 " If only now we have escaped it ! " I said to myself, 
 with a start. And it seemed then, for the first time, to 
 me, that maybe we had. I had that feeling beginning 
 then. That maybe, by our good luck, by accident, some 
 how, we had escaped it. 
 
 And when it came to me, when I thought of it, I started 
 somehow almost believing it. And suddenly I leaned over, 
 from where I sat, my back against a great tree, leaned 
 over Vance and kissed her, where she lay peacefully asleep, 
 resting on one of those old army blankets we had brought. 
 
 And then, along toward evening, we went along again, 
 drove along through two or three more towns around 
 them rather, when we could. They didn't make us any
 
 FUGITIVES 309 
 
 trouble with their quarantines only in one place. And 
 then we just showed the guard our certificate from this 
 place where we'd been married when he started argu 
 ing. And left him there behind us in the middle of the 
 road, laughing. But that was all ; nobody bothered us 
 after that ; and the further away we got from Memphis, 
 naturally the easier for us. 
 
 It was seven days six days and a half in all. For 
 we got through of course ; we were safe. We didn't have 
 the Fever, of course by the grace of God, it all came 
 right for us. 
 
 Good luck it was principally, I expect the luck that 
 young folks have somehow. It was youth of course; and 
 that great house that saved us that great old house, 
 and the shutting out of the Fever at night of the things 
 we didn't know that went carrying death around at night. 
 How foolish we would have thought it, if they'd tried to 
 tell us what it was then really. And yet we saved our 
 selves by what we did not knowing why. And many 
 thousand folks besides us, too, I have no doubt, one time 
 and another, with that old time custom of fearing the 
 night air the night air and its poison, out beyond the 
 other side of the closed windows. 
 
 Yes anyhow we escaped Vance and I 
 
 That afternoon, I was telling you about that first 
 afternoon ! 
 
 We stopped, I remember after a while, at a farm house, 
 thinking to get a bite to eat; thinking maybe if it was 
 good and clean, that we might ask to spend the night 
 there. But after supper, Vance shook her head at me, and 
 I didn't ask. It wasn't a very pleasant place to think of 
 stopping at. There aren't very many in that back coun 
 try, like that was. 
 
 So we went along we drove ahead and the shadows
 
 310 HAGAR'S HOARD 
 
 got right long at the eastern edges of the woods. The 
 sun was going and there would be a moon, Vance said. 
 
 We went by quite a number of those farms, with their 
 bare, trodden yards, and barns and corn cribs the dogs 
 and pigs and chickens unclean, ugly more like lairs 
 of animals than homes of men. 
 
 The rusty sun got lower and lower back of us, and the 
 great still yellow moon swam up into the old violet col 
 ored sky above the eastern trees. 
 
 " It's getting late, Dear Heart," I said. " We've got 
 to decide what we're going to do pretty quick." 
 
 " Yes," said Vance, and sighed and was still. 
 
 We rode in long stillnesses, with the squeak of the 
 traces, and the grating and filtering of the dust from the 
 buggy wheels. And the freshening smell of evening in 
 the air. 
 
 " I don't expect," said Vance, at last, " we'd better try 
 to look at any more of those farmers' houses. They're 
 all so crowded so unpleasant. All these strangers " 
 
 And she stopped, and we were still again. Everything 
 on earth was still so very still, like it is always, some 
 how, when one of those great yellow moons first comes 
 swimming up there in its violet sky. A miracle, a still 
 wonder, like God creating a new world for you, before 
 your eyes ! 
 
 " It's getting late," I said. " We must decide where 
 we are going." 
 
 " Yes," said Vance, again. 
 
 And after a while she spoke again. 
 
 " It's so pleasant here," said Vance, softly after a 
 long sleepy grating of the wheels. " So pleasant out 
 here in the night. These great trees here some of these 
 great groves. These great old silent trees and the 
 moon ! It will be light all night almost. . . .
 
 FUGITIVES 311 
 
 " We could tie the horse out somewhere, tie out Dolly 
 somewhere. She'd be safe enough," she said. " There'd 
 be no more danger at all. All safe," she whispered, 
 " all " and stopped trembling. 
 
 " Yes," I said, my heart beating in my throat. 
 
 " But this," I said, and touched the satchel between my 
 feet, the old, brown satchel, with Hagar's Hoard locked 
 up in it. . 
 
 " That too," said Vance, " safe. Yes, safe enough ! " 
 
 " Yes," I said, finally and was still again. 
 
 "Money!" said Vance, softly. "What's money?" 
 
 . . . There was a little brook, with just a little water 
 running in it after all that dry summer heat. It flowed 
 in through the edge of a great high oak woods, a won 
 derful dry high-roofed place to camp. And a cornfield 
 came up came up, one corner to the trees. A corn 
 field rustling, stopping in the faint wind ; with that 
 sweet, warm weather smell of corn. 
 
 We tethered the old horse beneath the trees, a little 
 ways away from us. 
 
 The wind came up and fell again like something 
 breathing shaking and shivering in the oak leaves, up 
 there, over us and dying down again. 
 
 The great fall moon came rising, rising in the sky 
 the violet sky the milky autumn sky across that old 
 fragrant field of corn rustling lisping still. 
 
 THE END
 
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