LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 </te-tx*-^ (n^i* Gp*^ 
 
 >-y^ y^r^r 
 
 &*- j
 
 YAZOO STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 BEVERLY CARRADINE 
 
 Author of 
 
 Mississippi Stories Pen Pictures People I Have Met 
 
 Pastoral Sketches Remarkable Occurrences 
 
 Graphic Scenes A Journey To Palestine 
 
 Etc. Etc, Etc. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO. 
 
 CHICAGO AND BOSTON
 
 Copyright 1911, by 
 THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Major Rosser . . . 5 
 
 Charlie Goodfellow . . . .41 
 
 Stories Around a Camp Fire . . 69 
 
 A Conversation in Hades . . .123 
 
 A Misunderstood Man . 145
 
 MAJOR ROSSER
 
 MAJOR ROSSER 
 
 Major Rosser was the owner of several 
 hundred slaves and a large beautiful cotton 
 plantation in Mississippi. He was one of 
 the best pistol shots in the State and was 
 equally proficient in horsemanship. His met- 
 tled steed, Black Hawk, might paw, plunge, 
 rear or kick as he pleased, but the Major 
 kept his saddle with an easy, undulating 
 grace that was delightful to behold. 
 
 His title of Major" was not won by any 
 act of bravery on his part performed on the 
 field of battle amid whizzing of shot bursting 
 of shell and the cries of the dying mingled 
 with the thunder of cannon and the rattle of 
 musketry. It was obtained in a much easier 
 and less dangerous manner. A military com- 
 
 7
 
 8 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 pany was formed in his county, assembled 
 once, elected Rosser as the commanding of- 
 ficer; and never met again. It is well known 
 however, that the honorary appellation of 
 Captain is one of comparative insignificance 
 in the South, and so the public, in its own ir- 
 resistible way, promoted Captain Rosser to 
 the rank of Major without going through 
 the formality of an election, or securing the 
 necessary papers from the government. 
 
 At the age of thirty-five Major Rosser was 
 still unmarried. He was considered a con- 
 firmed old bachelor, and, as such, he seemed 
 to be perfectly content. With his hounds 
 napping on the front gallery; his revolvers 
 swung from nails in his room; his slippers, 
 shoes, boots, and boot-jack piled in a corner; 
 his meerschaum, briar root, clay and cob 
 pipes on the mantel, mixed up with boxes 
 and bags of tobacco, perique, kilikinick and 
 other brands, he seemed to want nothing 
 else. He was a satisfied man. 
 
 He had a few favorite books, which with 
 the "Picayune" and the "Memphis Appeal," 
 met his mental wants. A bountiful table 
 with the well known Southern cooking of
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 9 
 
 hot biscuit, broiled chicken, egg cornbread, 
 golden waffles, spongy buckwheat cakes and 
 dripped coffee, not to mention other pala- 
 table dishes of the dinner hour, amply sus- 
 tained the body, while a pleasant circle of 
 town and country friends satisfied all the 
 cravings of the social nature. 
 
 The Major possessed the most quiet of 
 temperaments. He was a man of few words, 
 often not speaking for hours. One would 
 have thought that he was asleep but for the 
 little puffs of blue smoke which were emitted 
 with a certain regularity either from his 
 mouth or from the bowl of the richly colored 
 meerschaum. Whether occupying the rocker 
 in his room, or reclining in an easy chair at 
 the end of the gallery, he would often sit for 
 hours looking over the shaded lawn, the rows 
 of negro cabins, and the broad cotton fields 
 to the dark line of green woods in the dis- 
 tance, a silent but always an observant man. 
 
 He had another peculiarity. All questions 
 that were put to him, whether simple or com- 
 plex, he answered only after the greatest 
 deliberation. A conversation with the Ma- 
 jor was a memorable event, and, to a nervous
 
 10 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 person, a trying ordeal. Generally several 
 minutes elapsed between the query and the 
 reply. Often when the response was given 
 it had been delayed so long that the ques- 
 tioner had forgotten what he asked, or, that 
 he had asked anything at all. Rapid and 
 numerous interrogatives never disconcerted 
 him in the least. He took the first that came, 
 ignoring the others, carefully weighed the 
 pros and cons, slowly delivered his opinion, 
 and then proceeded to the next in order. The 
 superficial observer sometimes thought that 
 the Major was either lacking in intelligence 
 or was not interested in the conversation, 
 but such was not the case. Neither was he 
 absent minded, as some thought. He saw 
 and heard everything. He was simply cau- 
 tious. 
 
 Some malicious individuals thought that 
 he was lazy, but they also wronged him. He 
 had an independent fortune and was under 
 no necessity of working. He likewise pos- 
 sessed a temperament which made it pos- 
 sible for him to enjoy sitting a long time in 
 one place. This was not without its excel- 
 lence, inasmuch as it did no harm to any one
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 11 
 
 else, and brought contentment to the main 
 party. But there were gleams in his eyes 
 sometimes, and occasional lines about the 
 mouth, which indicated that he could be a 
 fearful man in the matter of deeds if aroused. 
 
 There had been but one great outbreak in 
 his life and this had occurred when he was 
 twenty-one years old. It happened several 
 months after the death of his father, which 
 sad event left him the sole owner of Wild- 
 wood Plantation and the solitary occupant 
 of the family mansion. At that time he re- 
 turned from the county seat one day "rip 
 roarin' drunk," as the negroes called it. He 
 burst out of the woods on Black Hawk, who 
 was flying like the wind, a crimson faced, 
 hatless spectacle of intoxication. The reins 
 hung loose on the horses neck and in either 
 hand he carried a revolver which he fired 
 with every few bounds of the rushing animal, 
 looking all the while the very personification 
 of a demon of wrath and destruction. 
 
 He swept up and down the quarter streets, 
 knocking over barrels and chicken coops, 
 tearing down whole panels of fence, and
 
 Id MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 shooting at everything alive that crossed his 
 path, from a chicken to a negro. 
 
 The slaves fled in every direction. Some 
 took refuge in the woods, others in the fields, 
 and some even went to neighboring planta- 
 tions where they reported that; 
 
 "Mars Bob Rosser done gone plum 'stract- 
 ed." 
 
 It was three days before all the fugitives 
 returned; and the whole neighborhood talk- 
 ed of the happening for years. 
 
 It was shortly after this that he was elect- 
 ed Captain of the Military company; every 
 one being convinced that he could lead men, 
 and charge and shoot when the proper time 
 came. 
 
 After the escapade just described the ow- 
 ner of Wildwood resumed his usual quiet 
 life, which, judging from outward appear- 
 ances, did not seem to have in it a greater 
 mental and physical force than that beheld 
 in the beginning of what many would have 
 pronounced a dull common place existence. 
 
 At the age of thirty-six, much to the sur- 
 prise of everybody the Major married. At- 
 tending a fish fry one day, he was thrown in
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 13 
 
 the company of a black eyed widow, the re- 
 lict of one Solomon Crump, a school teacher, 
 who died early, and in lieu of money left his 
 wife still young and childless with what wis- 
 dom he could spare, and a personal property 
 of her own, made up of those arts and graces 
 which are peculiarly powerful when brought 
 to bear on character's like Major Rossers. 
 
 Some men have to tre hunted up, petted, 
 courted, flattered, and almost proposed to in 
 order for matrimony to be consummated. 
 The Major was such a man. He would doubt- 
 less have been caught sooner but for the fact 
 that he had remained so much at home. With 
 Joe to blacken his boots and saddle his horse, 
 Dilsy in the kitchen, Charlotte in the dining 
 room, and Rufus the driver and overseer, 
 with whom to talk over the work and crops, 
 he had not felt the need of human compani- 
 onship and hence had not been open to at- 
 tacks from the female husband hunter. 
 
 But the fish fry settled the matter. On the 
 homeward journey the carryall in which the 
 widow was riding broke down and the Major 
 drove the interesting lady in his buggy to
 
 14 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 the home of her married sister, five miles 
 away. 
 
 Mrs. Crump lost no time. She put satin 
 on her manners, velvet around her voice and 
 sighed with her eyes full of tears when he 
 said in reply to her question, that he dwelt 
 all alone at Wildwood. 
 
 She was not yet thirty, passably good look- 
 ing, and knew how to bait, throw and draw 
 certain kinds of lines. As she studied the 
 fish by her side, she saw that a scoop net 
 would answer far better than a delicate hook 
 with an almost invisible worm. So, taking 
 up the net, she brushed some dust from his 
 shoulder, removed a horse-hair from his 
 sleeve, passed her dainty handkerchief over 
 his hat which the wind had blown on the bug- 
 gy floor, reached for and returned the whip 
 just when he wanted it or had finished with 
 it, and cooed and fluttered and hovered over 
 him in one charming nerve tingling way after 
 another until it was evident to her black cal- 
 culating eyes that the being she wanted was 
 already entangled in her meshes. 
 
 Her thoughtful, refined ministry was so 
 different from Dilsy's rough ways, and was
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 15 
 
 so superior to the services of the housemaid, 
 that the man, phlegmatic as he was, was 
 deeply stirred and began to find the idea of a 
 mistress of his mansion, who would also be 
 a pleasant companion, not at all disagreeable. 
 Before he left the house Mrs. Crump's sister, 
 playing into the widow's hand, as women 
 of this relationship have been occasionally 
 known to do, exacted a promise from the 
 Major to "call soon." 
 
 "When ?" asked the Major in his quiet way. 
 
 "O, you can't come too soon," cooed the 
 widow, with her most captivating smile. 
 
 The Major came the next day. 
 
 The two sisters, peeping through the 
 blinds of an upper window, saw him drive in 
 the gate. They looked at each other with a 
 strange expression in their eyes, and then 
 the charmer, with a glance in the mirror, 
 descended the stairs to meet the web woven 
 fly whom she declared, she was 
 
 "So surprised and yet so charmed to see." 
 
 The sister also gave him a cordial welcome 
 and later in the day proposed that the two 
 should drive to Lover's Leap, and sent them 
 off with the laughing admonition,
 
 1C MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 "Not to be gone too long, and above all 
 things not to jump off the Bluff, but consent 
 to live a good while like two sensible people." 
 
 Mrs. Crump asked for permission to drive. 
 The horse was quite spirited and the Major 
 was frequently compelled to grasp the reins 
 to assist the widow, who was not at all skill- 
 ful, but very charming in her helplessness. 
 Sometimes when this occurred their hands 
 touched, and the Major finally noticed that 
 every time this happened the fair one would 
 withdraw hers less quickly. Once he even 
 ventured on a slight pressure of her finger 
 tips. He was really alarmed at his own tem- 
 erity but when he looked at her and found 
 her face wreathed in smiles he breathed free- 
 ly again. 
 
 When they returned from the drive they 
 were an engaged couple. The marriage took 
 place two months later, and Mrs. Crump be- 
 came Mrs. Robert Rosser and the mistress 
 of one of the finest plantations in Missis- 
 sippi. 
 
 On the very first day of their wedded life 
 the Major discovered, to his profound as- 
 tonishment, a talon on the foot of the dove
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 17 
 
 he had brought home to coo for him. The 
 second day he found another. The same af- 
 ternoon he observed that the bill of his do- 
 mestic pet was not straight, as he had first 
 imagined, but had a decided curve. On the 
 third day he awoke to the fact that he had 
 not heard a single coo up to that time, but 
 caws and croaks instead. On the fourth day 
 he saw plainly that the bird was a hawk in- 
 stead of a dove, and before the week was 
 complete he admitted to himself that he had 
 been badly sold and that a hell on earth had 
 begun. 
 
 The first thing that she did was to drop 
 the "Major" and call him Mister Rosser. 
 "The idea," she said, "of a man being called 
 Major who had never been in a single battle." 
 
 Then came endless ridicule of his habits 
 and "old style ways." His easy chair was re- 
 moved from the porch to the cellar. His 
 guns, pistols, books, horns, pipes, etc. all dis- 
 appeared, and the quondam old bachelor 
 apartment became a woman's bedroom, with- 
 out a single suggestion of male occupancy. 
 The Major never felt at home in the boudoir
 
 18 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 after the transformation, so he seldom cross- 
 ed its portal. 
 
 The new ruler also changed cooks repeat- 
 edly, and Joe was banished to the cotton field. 
 She gave Charlotte a cowhiding for drop- 
 ping a soup tureen, and broke the plantation 
 bugle over Samanthy's head for being awk' 
 ward in handling the loom. 
 
 It was a study to watch the Major as he 
 saw without seeming to observe the trans- 
 formation that was going on in his house- 
 hold. He said nothing, but quietly smoked 
 his briar root pipe, sitting on the doorstep, 
 or on a settee at the end of the verandah. His 
 old reclining chair had disappeared a few 
 days after Mrs. Rpsser made the remark that 
 it was "only fit for the ash pile." 
 
 The servants whispered, grinned and won- 
 dered at the unmistakable subjugation of the 
 husband. The neighbors laughed and buzzed 
 and talked about 
 
 "The greatest case of hen pecking ever 
 known in those parts." 
 
 The Major smoked on quietly, but at times 
 there was a strange gleam in his eye, and on 
 several occasions he was observed to remove
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 19 
 
 the pipe from his mouth and gazing abstract- 
 edly at the bowl, speak to it words which the 
 bystander could not hear. 
 
 Mrs. Rosser might have taken warning 
 from this ominous silence, but instead of do- 
 ing so, she continued to twist higher the 
 string of the domestic instrument on which 
 she was playing; while remarks which she at 
 first uttered in a low voice intended only for 
 the ears of the servants, were now spoken 
 so as to reach the Major. 
 
 "If there was anything in the world she 
 hated, it was to see a man lolling around the 
 house all day." 
 
 "Men were of no account anyhow." 
 
 "A woman had to marry a man to find out 
 how cranky and selfish he was." 
 
 "About all that most men were good for 
 was to lay around the house and poison the 
 air with filthy old tobacco smoke, while their 
 wives slaved themselves to death from morn- 
 ing to night." 
 
 "As for her part, she just couldn't endure 
 a lazy man. What would she not give if she 
 could lay her eyes on a man with some fire 
 and spunk in him."
 
 10 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 The Major heard all these remarks as it 
 was intended that he should; but gave no 
 sign except that the notrils were slightly 
 distended and that strange gleam would ap- 
 pear in his eyes. 
 
 One day he asked the servant who stood 
 behind his chair at meals if he remembered 
 the time he got drunk and came home and 
 cleared out the whole plantation with his 
 horse and pistol. 
 
 "I'd lak to know, Marse Bob, who's gwine 
 to forgit dat day," replied the man, "Hit meks 
 me trimble yit when I ricollecks how you 
 come a rippin' an' a chargin', and a whoo- 
 pin', an' a shootin', right and lef, all th'u' de 
 quarters, till all we niggers tuk to de woods." 
 
 A most plebeian snort came from the thin 
 nostrils of Mrs. Rosser. With face partly 
 hidden by her coffee cup, she said with a most 
 provoking smile to the servant girl behind 
 her: 
 
 "The idea of Mister Rosser getting up a 
 stir like that. It is too ridiculous for any- 
 thing." 
 
 "Andy," said the Major, "do you know that
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 21 
 
 I feel like one of those spells is coming on me 
 again" ? 
 
 "Well I jes' hopes to de Lawd dat it wont 
 come in my time, Marse Bob." 
 
 Mrs. Rosser snorted again louder 'than* 
 usual, but the Major took no heed of the 
 curious sound. 
 
 "They say that volcanoes have big explo- 
 sions after years of inactivity. Possibly men 
 are like volcanoes in this respect. It has 
 been fifteen years since my last explosion, 
 hasn't it Andy?" 
 
 "For de Lawd's sake, doan ax me, Marse 
 Bob; 'caze I don* want to 'member nuffin 
 'bout dat day." 
 
 Mrs. Rosser's amusement here became so 
 great that she had to leave the table; but 
 her laughter could be heard from the pantry 
 as she noisily arranged some dishes and de- 
 livered herself of her opinions on the sub- 
 ject to Charlotte. 
 
 "I'd like to see Mr. Rosser come home 
 drunk. I'd give him such a reception that 
 he'd be glad to remain sober forever after. 
 My first husband did it once and I cured him 
 for all time. I put him to bed, had his head
 
 22 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 shaved and put mustard plasters all over it. 
 When he woke in the morning and looked in 
 the glass he fairly raved. Finally he asked 
 me why I treated him that way. I replied 
 that I thought he had brain fever and was go~ 
 ing to die, so I did what I could to save him." 
 
 "I never had brain fever in my life," he 
 said, with a pleading look in his eyes. "Don't 
 ever administer such treatment again, and 
 don't be alarmed when I come home in the 
 same condition. Just put me to bed and I'll 
 pull through all right." 
 
 "No, no, Mr. Crump," I said, "I'll treat 
 you the same way every time you come home 
 in that condition.* It is the duty of a wife 
 to do all she can for her husband, and if you 
 should die for lack of proper attention, I 
 would be miserable all the rest of my life. 
 My! how I laughed when he left the room. 
 But mind you, he never came home drunk 
 again !" 
 
 The woman was silent a moment as if in 
 pleased recollection, and then added: 
 
 "Just let Mister Rosser dare to come home 
 'drunk and I'll" 
 
 Here she brandished a carving fork in the
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 23 
 
 air so close to Charlotte that that damsel 
 had to execute a remarkable leap to avoid 
 the prongs. 
 
 After this, Mrs. Rosser's provoking re- 
 marks increased in number and she pressed 
 the domestic yoke still harder upon her long 
 suffering and silent husband. 
 
 It had always been the custom at Wild- 
 wood to dine at one o'clock, and the internal 
 economy of the Major suffered greatly when 
 that time arrived and there was no dinner. It 
 was remarkable how the midday meal be- 
 came later and later; first two o'clock, then 
 three, then four and finally showed symp- 
 toms of reaching the period of five. 
 
 Still the Major offered no protest. But he 
 talked more and more to the bowl of his pipe, 
 and the angry gleam in his eye was almost 
 constant. Mrs. Rosser might easily have 
 seen the peculiar look which he turned up- 
 on her at times, but she was too much ab- 
 sorbed in herself or the perusal of a yellow 
 back novel ; or if she did, she gave no sign. 
 
 One afternoon the clock struck four and 
 still dinner had not been announced. Glanc- 
 ing stealthily at her husband sitting at the
 
 24 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 end of the gallery, she saw that he was talk- 
 ing to himself. Calling Charlotte, she bade 
 her go softly behind her master's chair and 
 hear what he was saying. A minute later 
 the servant returned and reported: 
 
 "He sayin," Miss 'Livia, Dis emptiness I 
 kinnot stan'. " 
 
 This information afforded Mrs. Rosser so 
 much pleasure that her form fairly shook, 
 and she kept dinner waiting another hour. 
 
 On another occasion, her husband was so 
 absorbed in a volume that he held in his 
 hands that she had to speak several times. 
 
 "What is that you are reading so intently, 
 Mister Rosser?" 
 
 Lowering the book and looking steadily 
 at her, he replied: 
 
 "Volcanoes!" 
 
 She felt a peculiar emphasis was given the 
 word, and it brought a thrill of vague alarm, 
 but it soon passed away, and she went on in 
 her usual course. 
 
 Everything up to this time seemed to indi- 
 cate that the wife was the enthroned and 
 crowned ruler of the household. And just 
 like absolute monarchs, she was constantly
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 25 
 
 testing as well as tasting her power in a 
 variety of exasperating ways. Some from 
 their very littleness are not mentioned, lest 
 it be construed as a reflection on the sex. 
 Few people could have imagined the cat like 
 torments to which she descended; but it all 
 seemed to afford her the keenest delight. 
 There were several things that alarmed her 
 however, and one shocked her to such an ex- 
 tent that dinner was served at one o'clock 
 for a week. 
 
 She woke once in the middle of the night, 
 with the strange sensation that someone was 
 looking at her. She usually slept with her 
 arm over her face. Opening her eyes she 
 glanced up quickly and beheld Major Ros- 
 ser standing by the bedside and gazing down 
 fixedly at her. There was something in the 
 set expression of his face which was really 
 terrifying and she came near crying out ; but 
 just then a window sjammed and her hus- 
 band turned away. 
 
 Another time she found him in the attic 
 with a half dozen revolvers lying before him 
 on the top of a flat trunk. They had all been 
 freshly loaded and he was polishing them
 
 20 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 with a piece of red flannel and slipping them 
 back in their holsters which were attached 
 to a large leather belt. 
 
 A few days later she overheard a conver- 
 sation between her husband and the negro 
 driver. The talk in some way had turned on 
 the famous episode of fifteen years before 
 when the Major, on the only drunken spree 
 of his life, had charged over the plantation 
 as if a thousand demons were after him. 
 
 "I kin see you now, Marse Bob," said the 
 negro, "a bustin" outen de woods on Black 
 Hawk, wid yoh eyes sot, hat gone, hair a 
 flyin', a whoopin' an' a yellin', Black Hawk's 
 hoofs a hittin' de road a blockerty-blockerty 
 blockerty, an' dem pocket bull-dogs o' yourn 
 a barkin' an' a sayin' yer bang! yer bang! 
 yer bang! Who-ee! how we niggers did brek 
 for de woods. Ole Uncle Sandy whut been 
 laid up wid de rheumatiz two years an' moh, 
 got outen his cabin as nimble an' as peart 
 as a deer, an' even big fat Nancy cut an' run. 
 I nuvver want to see sich a sight ag'in 'slong 
 'as I live. Marse Bob does you 'member how 
 you kilt two o' yoh bes' cows an' put a ball
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 27 
 
 in Yaller Tom's leg when he wuz a cli'min 
 de fence tryin' to git away fum you?" 
 
 Mrs. Rosser drowned her husband's reply 
 with the stinging sentence: 
 
 "It must be a brave man indeed Rufus, 
 who would shoot two cows, and a lame negro 
 who was only trying to get out of the way." 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Rosser was even 
 more provoking than usual and she discharg- 
 ed every piece of feminine artillery she pos- 
 sessed at her husband. As for the Major, 
 he was never more quiet. In fact, he seemed 
 to be in rather a good humor. 
 
 At ten o'clock he rode off on Wild Fire, 
 a fine coal black stallion, high spirited and 
 unmanageable by anyone except himself. He 
 left word that he had gone to the County Seat 
 six miles away, and would be back at noon. 
 At that hour he had not returned. Neither 
 did he come at one o'clock, two, nor three. 
 Mrs. Rosser, accustomed to the regular ha- 
 bits of her husband, began to grow restless, 
 and going frequently to the door, gazed an- 
 xiously up the road which entered the forest 
 some distance from the house and wound its 
 way to the town.
 
 28 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 The hall clock chimed four. The dinner 
 was cooked as dry as chip. The sun was 
 hardly an hour high and still no Major Ros- 
 ser. 
 
 She drew her chair to a spot near the win- 
 dow from which she could see the entire 
 length of the highway up to its entrance in 
 the timber. Just what kind of a reception she 
 proposed to give her tardy spouse is not cer- 
 tainly known, but from the expression of her 
 eyes and the lines about her mouth, it was 
 doubtless intended to be a memorable one. 
 
 At half past five, a shot was heard in the 
 woods. Then came the clatter of horse's hoofs 
 and a yell that was simply terrific. A mom- 
 ent later from out the shadowy forest ap- 
 peared her husband, hatless, his hair stream- 
 ing in the wind, a pistol waving in his hand, 
 while Wild Fire, half mad with fright was 
 rushing down the road toward the house 
 like a black thunder cloud. 
 
 As every leap of the thoroughly maddened 
 steed brought the peril nearer to where she 
 stood, Mrs. Rosser unconsciously put her 
 hand to her breast and steeled herself for the 
 ordeal, while she beheld the frightful sight
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 29 
 
 and heard the periodic crack of the pistol 
 with the alternating whoop of the rider. 
 
 She could hardly credit her senses as she 
 viewed the crimson face and rocking form 
 of her husband. And when she saw the horse 
 clear the gate without touching a hoof and 
 come dashing toward the house not forty 
 yards away, heard the crack of the pistol 
 again and then a window pane within six 
 feet of her shiver into fragments; though 
 every mental faculty, every fibre and nerve of 
 her body was in a state of the highest tension, 
 yet she was so profoundly terrified that she 
 could not move a step. 
 
 As the rider passed the house he yelled to 
 her at the top of his voice, with a most dia- 
 bolical expression of face, 
 
 "When I (hie) finish up the quarters, I'll 
 (hie) 'tend to your case old lady." 
 
 With this startling war cry, he threw the 
 empty pistol in her direction, breaking an- 
 other window with a resounding crash, and 
 wheeled towards the quadruple row of negro 
 cabins. 
 
 Such a commotion as took place there had 
 not been beheld since the Major's first erup-
 
 30 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 tion fifteen years before. Men, women and 
 children fled precipitately, some to the fields 
 and others to the woods. Wild Fire snorted, 
 plunged and struck fire from the rocks as 
 he swept through the quarter streets, and 
 such a medley of sounds filled the air, made 
 up of the barking of dogs, gobbling of tur- 
 keys, squalling of chickens, squealing of pigs, 
 with the shouts and cries of the negroes, to- 
 gether with the poppings of the revolvers 
 and the yells of the Major that it verily seem- 
 ed that Pandemonium itself had been turned 
 loose. 
 
 Mrs. Rosser with her hand nervously fing- 
 ering her throat, stood at the door watching 
 the remarkable scene, and listening to the 
 distant cries of terror and distress. A few 
 minutes later when she saw that Wild Fire 
 had been turned and was coming back to- 
 ward the house, the female tyrant suddenly 
 vacated her throne, and without any fare- 
 well address, apologies, or explanations, 
 most ingloriously fled into the house locking 
 and barring the door behind her. 
 
 Major Rosser circled around the dwelling 
 twice, shooting in the upper panes of the
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 31 
 
 lower windows, whereupon Mrs. Rosser rush- 
 ed to the second story and hid under the bed 
 in a back room. The Major promptly ele- 
 vated his artillery and began to pick out the 
 panes in the upper windows. Immediately 
 Mrs. Rosser sought refuge in the cellar. 
 
 She had hardly reached this place of re- 
 fuge when she heard the most terrible sounds 
 on the verandah in front. Could it be that 
 the Major was riding Wild Fire up the steps 
 and on to the gallery ! 
 
 Yes! and not only this but he had turned 
 the horse about and by dint of using the spur 
 was making the great animal kick the front 
 door to pieces! 
 
 The now thoroughly distracted woman 
 left the cellar and ascended by a rear stair- 
 way to the second story again. She had 
 hardly reached it when she heard the front 
 door crash in and her husband, whom she 
 was now convinced was insane, rode through 
 the wide hall and into the parlor, still shoot- 
 ing while the crashing of the furniture show- 
 ed that great havoc and destruction were go- 
 ing on below. 
 
 The next noise that reached the ears of the
 
 82 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 trembling female crouched in a small back 
 room was one that fairly froze the blood in 
 her veins : 
 
 Major Rosser was riding up stairs on Wild 
 Fire! 
 
 Up the steps they came, with an awful 
 pounding of the iron shod feet, while the last 
 of the pistols was discharged and the Major 
 yelled: 
 
 "Let me get at her ! She turned my house 
 into a hell and now I'll give her a dose." 
 
 The frantic woman stopped to hear no 
 more but raced down the back stairway, shot 
 out of the door, fled to the barn and climbing 
 into the loft, buried herself six feet under the 
 hay! 
 
 It took ten of the strongest negro men on 
 the place to get Wild Fire down stairs again. 
 Refusing to descend as he had ascended, it 
 was necessary to blindfold, push, pull, and 
 half carry him down. 
 
 Major Rosser, when his wife fled, fell 
 across the bed without removing his boots, 
 and seemed to sleep heavily all night. When
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 38 
 
 he opened his eyes the following morning 
 the change about him was simply amazing. 
 
 If his marriage had been a dream, or we 
 might say nightmare, and he had suddenly 
 awakened in his old bachelor apartments, 
 his surroundings could not have looked 
 more familiar. 
 
 From his pillow, he surveyed the charming 
 scene. His slippers were by his bedside; his 
 rocking chair in the old corner; his pipes and 
 tobacco bag, his blowing horn, powder flask, 
 and shot pouch were all back in the places 
 where he had kept them for fifteen years: 
 his walking canes were in their rack which 
 he had not beheld for months; and there 
 was his double barrel fowling piece near the 
 wardrobe, and yonder was his bootjack 
 where he wanted it in a word, everything 
 was as it had been until the interloper ap- 
 peared. 
 
 A pleased smile illumined the Major's 
 features. Evidently the smile was seen by 
 someone else; for truth to tell, Mrs. Rosser 
 after making the transformation or rather 
 restoration in the apartment while her hus- 
 band slept, had retired to a back room and
 
 84 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 with her eye applied to the key hole watched 
 the sleeping man and waited for develop- 
 ments. 
 
 The smile was the sign she wanted, and 
 she made bold to come in. But the change 
 in her was more wonderful than the altera' 
 tion in the room. The Major could scarcely 
 credit it. She was all graciousness, thought- 
 fulness and attentiveness. Mrs. Rosser was 
 dead or departed, and here was Mrs. Crump, 
 with smiles and graces as if she was still 
 angling for, and trying to land the mascul- 
 ine fish before her. 
 
 The beauty about all this change was, that 
 as the days and weeks went by, it brought 
 happiness to the woman herself, as well as 
 comfort to others. She felt it, and every- 
 body else recognized it. As for the Major, 
 he saw to it that she lacked for nothing. A 
 new carriage and a new piano were among 
 some of the material exhibitions of his ap- 
 preciation of the metamorphosis of his wife, 
 
 Several times after this she showed a dis- 
 position to reascend the throne; but the 
 Major had only to take up the book "Vol- 
 canoes," or go to examining and oiling his
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 35 
 
 pistols, when Mrs. Rosser at once became a 
 living combination of a cooing dove and a 
 loving, playful little lamb. 
 
 She lived ten years following these events, 
 and passed away leaving the name in the 
 neighborhood of being the most devoted of 
 wives and faithful of housekeepers. The 
 Major had a handsome tombstone erected 
 over her grave, and helped with a most lib- 
 eral hand a number of her poor relatives. 
 
 After eleven years of connubial experience, 
 the widower was thrown back upon a life 
 similar to that of his old bachelorhood; only 
 he resumed it with a stock of general know 
 ledge about women which he certainly did 
 not possess when he launched his bark upon 
 the sea of matrimony. He seemed to be per- 
 fectly satisfied with the capital of informa- 
 tion he had amassed in this line, and did not 
 care to increase it by any other investment; 
 so he remained in a state of singleness the 
 rest of his days. 
 
 One afternoon, while smoking his favorite 
 Kilikinick tobacco in his meerschaum on the 
 front gallery in company with an old con-
 
 88 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 fidential friend and neighbor, Squire Stan- 
 ley, the visitor said: 
 
 "Major, the whole community says that 
 your life has been a blameless and correct 
 one, with the exception of the two big drunks 
 you got on, with fifteen years intervening." 
 
 The Major discharged a cloud of smoke 
 toward the ceiling, and tapping his cheek 
 reflectively with the amber mouth-piece of 
 his pipe replied: 
 
 "I was never drunk but once in my life." 
 
 This statement was met by an exclama- 
 tion of astonishment from the Squire, and 
 the polite but prompt and earnest array of 
 proofs as to the actualness of the two sprees 
 which had gone down upon the records of 
 the neighborhood History as having un- 
 doubtedly taken place. 
 
 "It matters not," returned Major Rosser, 
 "what the people say and how appearances 
 may be against me, but the Almighty knows 
 I was never drunk but once and that was 
 thirty years ago." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me," said the visitor, 
 with his eyes fixed steadily on Rosser's un- 
 moved countenance, "that you were not in-
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 37 
 
 toxicated when you shot a dozen balls in 
 your house, made Wild Fire kick the door 
 down, and rode him up the staircase to the 
 second floor." 
 
 "As God is my judge," replied the Major 
 quietly, and impressively, "I was as sober as 
 I am now." 
 
 For a few moments the Major smoked 
 reminiscently, and then knocking the ashes 
 out of his meerschaum, put his hands upon 
 his knees still holding the pipe, and fixing a 
 steady, truthful look upon his guest, he said: 
 
 "One single gill of whiskey was all that 
 was purchased in the County Seat that day. 
 It did not go inside, but was dashed on my 
 clothes. A two grain dose of sulphate of 
 quinine makes my face turn a fiery red in a 
 few minutes. The hat was left purposely in 
 the edge of the woods. The wild dash from 
 the timber was as carefully planned as it 
 was executed. The pistol shots were fired 
 by a perfectly trained hand intended to 
 wound or kill nothing but a bad disposition. 
 The pistol itself, thrown violently, was never- 
 theless aimed at a window to make a crash, 
 and add to the panic, yjild Fire had been
 
 88 MAJOR ROSSER. 
 
 trained in secret to kick anything to pieces 
 when goaded by the spur. All the whoops 
 and yells were put on. In a word, the whole 
 thing was a painted, befeathered, Indian-like 
 demonstration to throw "The Tea Over- 
 board." It was the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, Battle of Lexington, Capture of Bur 
 goyne and Surrender at York Town all in 
 one. It obtained at once from all foes, do- 
 mestic as well as foreign, the instantaneous 
 recognition of a great new power which had 
 arisen with a strong central government, and 
 whose president was elected for life." 
 
 Squire Stanley gave a long, low whistle 
 which meant volumes, as the Major conclud- 
 ed the lengthiest speech he had ever been 
 known to make in his life. 
 
 Rufus, who had come up during the utter- 
 ance of the last half dozen words and had 
 no idea what was being talked about, took 
 his seat on the bottom step and ejaculated, 
 
 "Bless de Lawd dats so!" 
 
 Major Rosser refilled his pipe with fra- 
 grant golden-colored tobacco, lighted it with 
 a coal of fire a little darkey brought him on 
 a chip, leaned his head back, half closed his
 
 MAJOR ROSSER. 89 
 
 eyes,and puffing soft clouds of blue and white 
 smoke in the air, looked as pleased and con- 
 tented as Washington must have felt when 
 he received the sword of Cornwallis, and 
 soon after was elected the Chief Magistrate 
 of the United States of America.
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW 
 
 I. 
 
 Charlie Contrasted with a Friend. 
 
 I possessed in my youth and early man- 
 hood two friends who were perfectly anti- 
 podal in appearance and disposition. One 
 had the face of an undertaker, the other that 
 of a harlequin. The countenance of the for- 
 mer was drawn after an elongated pattern, 
 while that of the other, moon-like in shape 
 had a horizontal line, or opening, running 
 clear across the facial country with marked 
 tendency at times to reach the ears, and 
 which Charlie called a smile. One was in 
 a chronic condition of low spirits; the other 
 over-flowed with fun and good nature. 
 
 Cast as I was with these two very differ- 
 
 43
 
 44 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 ent companions, I was naturally affected by 
 the centrifugal and centripetal life forces, 
 and doubtless kept in a midway kind of or- 
 bit, and saved in a sense from the character 
 tangents of either side. 
 
 All honor, however, to these friends of my 
 youth. Both are today under the sod; the 
 sunny hearted preceding the low spirited one 
 to the tomb by twenty years. 
 
 The hat is lifted, and a flower thrown on 
 each grave in appreciation of the sterling 
 qualities which were possessed by this 
 couple and that were perfectly apparent to 
 the intimate friend, if not always to the 
 casual acquaintance. Solid worth was un- 
 der the jolly exterior of Charlie Goodfellow; 
 and a faithful loving heart beneath the mel- 
 ancholy mien and speech of Downey Mc- 
 Knight. 
 
 McKnight's gloom was peculiar as the-: 
 reader will perceive in a moment, and mani- 
 fested, if not relieved itself, in more than 
 one way. 
 
 One form of grief expression was beheld 
 in poems that Downey wrote and which 
 were invariably of the most depressing na-
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 46 
 
 ture. Several of them appeared in the coun- 
 ty paper, and every one had something to 
 the purport that the winds were whispering 
 low, or the waves were murmuring low, or 
 the sun was sinking low. One day Good- 
 fellow told McKnight that all his poems 
 were "low down." The poet gave a nervous 
 start, looked pained, and after that for quite 
 a while the ballad changes were rung on 
 swell, knell and farewell. 
 
 I am confident that McKnight, with the 
 exception of one other life situation or con- 
 dition, was as happy as he with his tempera- 
 ment could be, when he had penned one of 
 these dirges and could secure a listener to 
 the funeral song. The expression on his 
 face was not only one of content, but actual 
 joyfulness, as he jingled mournfully along 
 with rhymes of care and despair and sever, 
 never and forever. He was one of those be- 
 ings who seemed glad to be miserable. 
 
 The other occasion to which reference 
 was made, and wherein Downey surpassed 
 himself in having the blues, was the hour in 
 which he had partaken of an excellent and 
 bountiful dinner. The better the meal, the
 
 46 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 deeper was the sadness. Who would think 
 of such a thing? And yet at such moments 
 the man fairly revelled and rolled in melan- 
 choly. 
 
 McKnight evidently enjoyed every mouth- 
 ful. He seemed to dispose of rich and luscious 
 portions with regret, as if reluctant to have 
 them leave the palate and throat. And yet 
 the pensiveness of the face and the tone of 
 sadness in which he spoke would be most 
 marked at this very time. Moreover the sor- 
 row was after a crescendo fashion, growing 
 as the meal proceeded and the courses fol- 
 lowed each other in appetizing order. 
 
 As McKnight opened his napkin and 
 spread it on his lap, he would heave a low 
 sigh. As he passed from soup to fish his 
 gloom steadily increased. As the meat and 
 vegetables came on and dfsappeared in sec- 
 tions, his voice took on a husky, smothered, 
 pathetic sound, while his remarks and frag- 
 mentary conversation bore upon the empti- 
 ness of life, the vanity of earthly things, 
 while dark hints were made of breaking 
 hearts and despairing lives being often at 
 pur own tables and yet unrecognized.
 
 CHARLIE GOODFBLLOW. 47 
 
 At a desert of custard, pudding-, almonds, 
 raisins and black coffee, to which Downey 
 paid the most devoted attention, I have 
 heard him say, with tears standing in his 
 eyes, that true enjoyment and satisfaction 
 could only be found in other worlds and ex- 
 istences. 
 
 After this, lighting a meerschaum pipe or 
 Havana cigar, McKnight would stretch him- 
 self on a sofa in the Library, or in a ham- 
 mock on the porch, and blowing the soft 
 blue and white smoke into little clouds or 
 rings from his lips, he would say in a mel- 
 lowed and most melancholy tone that "life 
 to him was a lonely desert; and the world a 
 howling- waste." He also said that "the 
 star of hope had set" and that "he any day 
 would gladly hail the portals of the tomb." 
 
 The fact of my juniority to the speaker by 
 several years, he being then twenty-two, was 
 sufficient in itself to lift him on a high pedes- 
 tal of regard; but when in addition, Dow- 
 ney's voice, rich and oily from his dining, 
 came drowsily to the ear, speaking in low, 
 muffled accents of desert wastes; stars 
 setting in dim misty horizons; and lonely
 
 48 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 graves under sighing pine trees or by the 
 bank of sad sea waves; the effect was very 
 fine indeed, and I greatly admired McKnight 
 and hoped to behold life as he did when I 
 became older. 
 
 Still the effect of seeing Charlie Goodfel- 
 low, after watching the star of hope set on 
 McKnight's sandy life plain, was very grate- 
 ful and inspiring; and I could but feel that 
 for a long and steady pull, and for a whole- 
 some journey through the years allotted 
 man on earth, the cheerfulness and bright- 
 ness of Goodfellow would be far more de- 
 sirable. 
 
 Unlike McKnight, who had a good income 
 and so could nurse and indulge his moods 
 and tenses, Charlie had to work for a living. 
 His active life may have, through the bound- 
 ing blood in his veins, thrown off the mental 
 depressions that belonged to an existence 
 of sluggishness and inactivity, but more than 
 that he possessed a large capital of good 
 spirits, and so was a good fellow in disposi- 
 tion and manners, as well as a Goodfellow 
 in name. 
 
 He started his business life as a clerk in a
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 49 
 
 drug store. Our more intimate acquaintance 
 began with him in quite an unusual way. 
 
 I had stepped in a Pharmacy to purchase 
 some little articles when I discovered Good- 
 fellow, then a youth of eighteen or twenty, 
 rolling on the floor in what appeared to be an 
 apoplectic fit, or some kind of convulsion. 
 Full of sympathy I knelt by him to render 
 what assistance I could by lifting his head, 
 chafing his hands, etc., when I saw that he 
 was shaking with laughter, his face wreath- 
 ed with smiles, while ha, ha, ha's were be- 
 ing gasped, coughed and literally blown out 
 of his mouth. 
 
 "Why what on earth is the matter with 
 you, Goodfellow?" I asked, pulling him up 
 and propping him against the counter in a 
 sitting position. 
 
 His reply, as he wiped his streaming eyes 
 and tried to control his voice, was: 
 
 "Just sit here in the door a few minutes, 
 as I have been doing, and watch the faces 
 of the people as they go by and you will see 
 what's the matter with me." 
 
 It was a dull business season, very few 
 coming into the store, and so Charlie had
 
 50 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 been entertaining himself by observing the 
 human panorama as it went by on the pave- 
 ment before him. The result, as has been 
 seen, was his collapse on the floor. 
 
 At his urgent entreaty I took my position 
 on the door step and began looking at the 
 moving, living picture show. While I did 
 not fall over on the floor like Goodfellow, 
 yet I began smiling in a minute's time, and 
 in five minutes laughed until the tears rained 
 down my cheeks. 
 
 The full power of the Street Vitascope 
 can only be realized by doing as Charlie and 
 the writer did; for no description can do the 
 matter justice. It requires the eye vision, 
 and not the tongue portrayal, of a regular 
 pavement procession to enable one to real- 
 ize what it really is as a fact and effect. I 
 can only say that the variety of faces follow- 
 ing in quick succession and these same coun- 
 tenances bearing every kind of expression, 
 makes a Vaudeville Show, the like of which 
 was never seen on boards, stage, or platform 
 of any kind. 
 
 Some physiognomies look pleased, others 
 angry, some glad, others sad; some pedes-
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 51 
 
 trians are muttering and talking to them- 
 selves, others shaking their heads solemnly 
 in an absent-minded way, while still others 
 glide by grim and grum as so many stone 
 images. 
 
 Then will come a group of grinning idiots, 
 next a long undertaker face, third, a man 
 pulling his nose, fourth, another working on 
 his chin or scratching his ear. Some have 
 their lips drawn to one side, others with 
 mouths wide open, some cross-eyed, others 
 cock-eyed, some are trotting, others are pac- 
 ing, and in a word the diversity of the street 
 parade is so great, and the contrasts com- 
 ing so quickly and unexpectedly are so re- 
 markable that no programmed human show, 
 or circus, can approach in a thousand miles 
 of it as to numbers of actors and naturalness 
 and faithfulness to their multitudinous parts. 
 
 It is a Vaudeville strictly for the very 
 poor. It is gotten up without advertise- 
 ments or cost to the attendant; doorsteps 
 and heads of alleys are reserved boxes with- 
 out charge; and the Play, itself, suddenly 
 thrown before the observers convulses with 
 merriment and always brings down the 
 house.
 
 53 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 II. 
 
 Charlie with the Animals. 
 
 Absent from my native town for several 
 years, when I returned I was informed that 
 Goodfellow had purchased a poultry and 
 dairy farm combined, located a few miles 
 out in the country and was now residing up- 
 on it. 
 
 Receiving a message to visit him and 
 spend a few days, I did so, and found my 
 friend pleasantly domiciled, while his work 
 being mainly one of an easy, fitful super- 
 vision of competent hired labor, left him an 
 abundance of leisure on his hands. 
 
 He was in a very jovial frame of mind and 
 told me that he was experiencing the deep- 
 est enjoyment in the study of animal life, 
 while he was constantly playing pranks and 
 jokes on every creature that moved in the 
 backyard, poultry enclosure, stable lot as 
 well as field, and that in the fun furnished 
 him by farm, lot, stall and coop, he was hav- 
 ing the time of his life. 
 
 He informed me, with a radiant face, that 
 he had greased the planks of a little, sloping
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 58 
 
 bridge which the cattle had to cross, and the 
 scene which followed of slipping, stagger- 
 ing, falling down and mooing aloud surpas- 
 sed in its entertainment any circus he had 
 ever attended. 
 
 He fastened a grain of corn to a string and 
 then would jerk it away before a rooster, 
 hen or turkey could pick it up. The puzzled, 
 surprised look of the fowls as they turned 
 their silly little heads from one side to the 
 other as if trying to solve the mystery of the 
 vanished bait, set our friend off in a ringing 
 peal of laughter. 
 
 He tarred the roosts in the hen house and 
 such a fluttering and squalling time at once 
 ensued that Goodfellow stamped around on 
 the outside of the chicken tenement, clapped 
 his hands, and cried out "It beat the world." 
 
 He placed duck eggs under a setting hen 
 and hen eggs under a duck, then went into 
 ecstacies ove the confusion which followed. 
 The hen of course went distracted when she 
 saw the ducklings, that she thought to be 
 her chickens, take to swimming on the pond; 
 while the duck cranium was tried to the limit 
 to understand why her brood refused to conic
 
 64 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 on the water, where she was so much at 
 home. 
 
 He dressed a hog up in a bear skin and 
 turned him loose in the midst of the drove, 
 and such a squealing, scampering around 
 and general uproar took place as brought 
 several of the farm hands on the scene with 
 clubs and guns in their hands to see what in 
 the name of the National Constitution and 
 the Bylaws was the cause of the commotion. 
 
 They found Goodfellow rolling on the 
 ground and hugging himself in a kind of 
 physical knot of enjoyment at the excite- 
 ment and hullabaloo. The men came in an 
 ace of shooting the disguised hog under the 
 impression that his bearship was not only aft- 
 er the swine in the lot, but had already fatal- 
 ly wounded their Manager, whom they be- 
 held writhing and twisting before them in 
 the dust. 
 
 Another evening my friend was skirting 
 one of his fields, when he saw a shoat some 
 thirty feet away coming up the narrow jim- 
 son-weed lined path that ran by the side of 
 the rail fence. The hog was trotting along 
 indulging in that tremulous chant peculiar
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 55 
 
 to those animals, and doubtless absorbed in 
 anticipations of the straw sty and corn pen 
 awaiting him at the barn. 
 
 Quick as thought Goodfellow turned and 
 stooped so that his head was near the 
 ground, while his face, upside down gazed 
 through his legs. 
 
 The shoat did not see this startling spec- 
 tacle until he was not more than ten feet 
 distant; when suddenly he was confronted 
 with a physical phenomenon for which he 
 had no precedent in his history of the past, 
 and hence no word to describe in his entire 
 pig vocabulary. 
 
 He instantly stopped his chant and trot 
 and stood with one foot upraised and wear- 
 ing a look of profound astonishment. For Lo ! 
 here was a being of some kind whose head 
 hung between his lower limbs and his face 
 set upside down! What could it be? And 
 what must he do in view of such an unparall- 
 eled monster in his path! 
 
 At the very same second that the hog de- 
 cided it was most prudent to retire and give 
 the strange creature before him a wide berth 
 and complete right of way, Goodfellow slap-
 
 66 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 ped his hands together loudly and let forth 
 a ear-splitting yell. 
 
 The animal, perfectly panic stricken, gave 
 a big "Whoof" and whirling about to run, 
 struck his head with terrific force against a 
 sharp, projecting fence rail and was instant- 
 ly killed. ' 
 
 Goodfellow's mirth at once left him. The 
 man was genuinely grieved over the pitiful 
 occurrence, and with tears in his eyes, stoop- 
 ped over the lifeless form and with sorrow- 
 ful touch of his hand, said: 
 
 "Poor little Piggie!" I never intended to 
 do this. I never dreamed you would hurt 
 yourself. I am so sorry." 
 
 Charlie was soberer for several hours than 
 I ever knew him to be before. Then he had 
 an additional thought to increase his serious- 
 ness, and that was he had lost ten or fifteen 
 dollars as the cost of his practical joke. 
 
 But the fountain-like good humor of the 
 man soon began to manifest itself again, and 
 that very afternoon I had to join with him 
 in a hearty laugh over one of his experien- 
 ces, as he called them, with his four-legged 
 friends.
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 57 
 
 A little before sundown he took me out 
 to the barn to witness a sight which he claim- 
 ed was equal to a Monkey Show with a hand 
 organ thrown in. 
 
 Stationing ourselves behind a large door 
 in the building that opened into the lot, he 
 whispered: 
 
 "I have trained a young bullock to make 
 a regular acrobatic display of himself every 
 evening and exactly at this hour." 
 
 For a number of preceding days he had 
 hidden himself behind the portal which was 
 then concealing us, and would there await the 
 approach of this grave looking, young bov- 
 ine. Then just as the animal would get half 
 across the threshhold Goodfellow would sud- 
 denly appear from his hiding place with a 
 loud snort. And then such a bellow and 
 scamper on the bullock's part down the long 
 dim, shadowy stable to some remote stall 
 would take place, as can better be imagined 
 than described. 
 
 "Now," said Charlie, whispering, "My two 
 year old friend goes through the whole per- 
 formance, leaving nothing out of the pro-
 
 68 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 gram, each evening at this hour without my 
 having to say or do a single thing." 
 
 He had hardly finished this information, 
 where here came the animal in question with 
 a sober, meditative look, stopped just an in- 
 stant near the door, gave an anxious glance 
 at the hiding place, got half way through 
 the portal, seemed to expect an interruption 
 and then, suddenly with a snort and bellow, 
 let fly both of his hind hoofs at the door, 
 and fairly flew down the long length of the 
 shadowy stable. 
 
 It was certainly amusing and Charlie 
 laughed until the tears of mirth streamed 
 down his face. 
 
 "Oh!" he gasped, "there is a heap of fun 
 in animals, if you just know how to get it 
 out." 
 
 I had to return to town the next morning 
 and did not see Goodfellow again for a 
 month. This time we met on the street. 
 Taking me aside he said: 
 
 "I am in for it now." 
 
 ^ 
 
 "What do you mean?" I queried. 
 
 "Oh !" he replied, "I am afraid my humor 
 with animals is going to break me financial- 
 ly."
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 59 
 
 "What has happened now," I continued. 
 
 "Well, this time the bill is not fifteen, but 
 ninety dollars against me." 
 
 "What have you done?" I asked, now quite 
 interested. 
 
 "I will tell you," he answered. "I was 
 walking out on the bank of the Yazoo River 
 yesterday afternoon and saw a splendid mule 
 sound asleep by the side of the road. The 
 animal had been purchased the day before, 
 as I found out afterwards, by a man named 
 Hobson, who owns a small farm in my 
 neighborhood. The mule had been turned 
 out of the lot after a trip to town, and lying 
 flat in the dust had fallen asleep in the drow- 
 sy sunshine. 
 
 "As I drew near I noticed one of his ears 
 standing straight up, looking so like a 
 trumpet that I could not resist the sudden 
 temptation, which came upon me, to put it 
 to some practical use. So creeping up soft- 
 ly to the slumberer, I stooped down and ap- 
 proaching my mouth close to his ear, shout- 
 ed in a stentorian voice: 
 
 "Are you asleep?" 
 
 "I am sure" continued Goodfellow, "that
 
 60 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 my friend in the dust thought that the Day 
 of Judgment for mules had come, and he 
 was unprepared. He made a sudden leap 
 upwards and sideways, got one of his fore- 
 legs doubled under him in some manner, and 
 broke it at the knee. 
 
 "His owner, after a talk with the veteri- 
 nary surgeon, saw that the animal was crip- 
 pled for life, and so had him shot. Mr. Hob- 
 son, then had an interview with me after- 
 wards, and that of a most lively character. 
 During this conversation I was not allowed 
 a moment to express my regret and tell him 
 I was on the way to his house to right the 
 unpremeditated wrong. In the hottest lan- 
 guage, and without listening to me, he told 
 me that I had to pay him ninety dollars, and 
 that at once. 
 
 "This I have just done, coming to town to 
 do it and feel very deeply that I am a sadder, 
 if not wiser man. I have made up my mind 
 also never to ask another slumbering des- 
 cendant of a donkey if he is asleep. Such 
 kindly inquiries, or office calls, are too ex- 
 pensive. I shall allow the laws of nature to 
 take their course in the return of animation,
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 81 
 
 consciousness and reflection to every long 
 auricled quadruped, without any help or in- 
 terruption from me for the balance of my 
 life." 
 
 By this time Goodfellow was once more 
 in as cheerful a frame of mind as though his 
 pocket-book had not been drawn upon in a 
 way that would require several months of 
 economy before it would be restored to its 
 normal condition; and as though no irate 
 Mr. Hobson was fuming around on the street 
 and in stores and offices, while hotly deliver- 
 ing himself about; 
 
 "A fool of a man, who had no better sense 
 than to ask a fool of a mule if he was asleep; 
 when the biggest idiot in the land could have 
 seen at a glance that he was asleep." 
 
 Mr. Hobson was not a brilliant man and 
 was utterly devoid of all sense of humor as 
 well. So he continued his strictures to an 
 admiring and highly amused circle of listen- 
 ers: 
 
 "What on earth made Goodfellow ask 
 such a fool question? Did he suppose the 
 mule could understand what he said? And 
 what if he was asleep? Was it any of Good-
 
 62 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 fellow's business? In the name of common 
 sense can't a mule go to sleep without be- 
 ing waked up like a like -a like a I don't 
 know what! Aint a mule got no rights? 
 Must a mule have his ear bawled into just 
 because he is trying to snatch a nap between 
 jobs of work?" 
 
 When these red-hot explosive utterances 
 were repeated to Goodfellow, he fairly doub- 
 led up with laughter and said between bursts 
 of merriment: 
 
 "Well I am getting paid back already for 
 my ninety dollars. W T hy a season ticket to 
 a comic opera, or a trip to the Adirondacks 
 would not begin to give me the enjoyment 
 I am procuring out of Hobson and his mule. 
 And even when Hobson forgets his trouble, 
 and ceases his onslaughts on me, yet I will 
 have the memory of his sayings, my opera 
 will go on, my Adirondack trip will be ex- 
 tended, and all without any expense over 
 and beyond the original payment of ninety 
 dollars.
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 63 
 
 III. 
 Charlie versus Cupid. 
 
 A year after the occurrence just related, 
 Goodfellow gave up his farm and returned 
 to town. One day I asked him: 
 
 "Charlie, why don't you get married and 
 settle down?" 
 
 "Nothing would please me better," he re- 
 plied with a smile, "but two things make it 
 impossible." 
 
 "What two things," I asked. 
 
 "Well, first I am bound to take in consid- 
 eration the effect of my nature, or tempera- 
 ment on my children. We must consider 
 posterity, you know. I am confident that 
 the spirit of fun is so developed in me that 
 my descendants would be born incarnated 
 jokes, and my household would become in 
 time a Vaudeville Show. Think of being a 
 progenitor of a set of clowns." 
 
 I had to laugh over this presentation of 
 the matter, but thought I would upset his 
 arguments by the next remark. 
 
 "Why not marry a very melancholy wo- 
 man, a girl who writes obituary poetry,
 
 64 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 speaks of being misunderstood and like our 
 mutual friend McKnight, accuses life of be- 
 ing a desert waste, and lays charges against 
 the star of Hope that it is setting behind the 
 sand hills of time." 
 
 "Well, right there," replied Goodfellow, 
 you bring up one of the very causes f my 
 remaining in a state of celibacy. Do you 
 know that I cannot get to the point of pro- 
 posing marriage without going into a perfect 
 spasm of laughter. 
 
 "Twenty times I reckon I have tried it, 
 and right when I ought to be tender, sen- 
 timental, serious or business - like, here 
 comes up some old fool recollection of a fun- 
 ny thing in the past ; or I get a view of my- 
 self as a meek faced, bald-headed husband 
 and father; and then I go to grinning like an 
 idiot, or exploding in laughter like a gunpow- 
 der magazine, and of course the whole thing 
 is off." 
 
 Here Charlie, who seemed anything but 
 crushed over the memory of his marriage 
 failures, assumed his favorite doubled-up po- 
 sition of mirth, and looked like he had a com-
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 5 
 
 bination attack of sickness made up of swamp 
 ague and a case of apoplexy. 
 
 "What do the women say when you go 
 off in your fun spasm that way?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh!" he replied, wiping his eyes, "Some 
 of them freeze up and some boil over. Some 
 get insulted and fairly blister me with their 
 tongues, while still others sweep out of the 
 room without a word and never speak to me 
 again." 
 
 Exceedingly entertained I kept silence, 
 while Charlie, in a kind of musing tone, con- 
 tinued his checkered love history. 
 
 "On one occasion," he said, "the girl burst 
 into tears. I felt sorry for the position I had 
 placed her in by my idiotic way of laughing, 
 but I could not help it. And what do you 
 think! Another girl pulled my hair and box- 
 ed my jaws !" 
 
 This last remembrance was too much for 
 Goodfellow, and over he w r ent on the sofa, 
 shaking with merriment as if he had a con- 
 gestive chill. 
 
 "Why don't you write a letter proposing 
 marriage?" I suggested. 
 
 "I have repeatedly done so," was the re- 
 sponse "and it was as complete a failure, if
 
 6 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 not worse, than the other. Why I have to 
 tear up so many sheets of paper trying to 
 compose the right style of document that it 
 not only affects my purse, but it takes more 
 time from my work than I can afford to 
 spare." 
 
 Goodfellow here began chewing in silence 
 on a wooden toothpick, seemed plunged in 
 retrospective thought for a few moments, 
 and then blowing the splinter from his lips, 
 resumed: 
 
 "How to start a letter is the first 
 trouble. If I begin, say for instance, 'Miss 
 Julia/ that seems too formal. If I commence 
 'Dear Miss Julia' I invariably think of dry- 
 goods accounts and millinery bills. 'Sweet 
 Miss Julia' is unallowable, and ridiculous 
 anyhow, for the woman is not sugar. 'Hon- 
 ored and Respected Miss Julia' sounds like 
 a petition to Congress, or the Pulpit an- 
 nouncement that the funeral services will be 
 continued at the grave." 
 
 By this time Charlie's face was beaming 
 with pleasure. He certainly realized a lot of 
 comfort, somehow, in recalling his blunders 
 and failures in the marriage line.
 
 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 67 
 
 "One girl", he continued, "was the daugh- 
 ter of Colonel Stake, who lives down the 
 River near Satartia. Well, I commenced the 
 letter, 'Dear Miss Stake'; then tried 'Honor- 
 ed Miss Stake'; and still dissatisfied at the 
 way it sounded, altered again to 'Miss Stake'; 
 and as I saw it was a "Miss Stake" all the 
 way through, I got one of my spells of fun 
 on me, and laughed all my love out for the 
 young lady before I could stop." 
 
 "Then," he went on, "If I get the caption 
 of the letter all right and satisfactory, here 
 comes the rest of the effusion in which 1 am 
 expected to say, "I never loved but one," 
 when I have been devoted to twenty. By that 
 time I get so highly amused over the whole 
 thing that I cannot proceed further to save 
 my life. 
 
 "Now, notice this curious fact" pursued 
 Charlie, with twinkling eyes, "if, while pen- 
 ning the letter, I have a laughing spell, then 
 I don't want the girl to accept me. My love 
 seems to go with the laugh. So what on earth 
 is to become of me? Don't you see, as I have 
 told you, that mine is a hopeless case? That 
 all on account of this queer temperament,
 
 68 CHARLIE GOODFELLOW. 
 
 this constitutional peculiarity that I have 
 evidently inherited, I am doomed, hopeless- 
 ly doomed, to live and die an old bachelor."
 
 STORIES AROUND A 
 CAMP FIRE.
 
 STORIES AROUND A 
 CAMP FIRE 
 
 Four white men, and two negro servants, 
 were grouped about a camp fire one night, in 
 the very heart of one of Yazoo's deepest and 
 most tangled swamps. It was fully a half 
 dozen miles to the base of Walnut Hills on 
 the east, and the same distance with a similar 
 stretch of dark woods to the river on the 
 west. North and south, for a greater num- 
 ber of miles, an unbroken wilderness lay si- 
 lent and shadowy. 
 
 The flame of the fire lighted up the slug- 
 gish flow of a bayou on whose shore the 
 camp was pitched; illumined the great tree 
 trunks standing thickly around; revealed like 
 a silver ribbon a spring winding down a 
 shelving bank; and fell with fainter glow on 
 
 n
 
 72 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 the green front of a canebrake which pressed 
 in dense ranks on one side as if meditating 
 a charge across the stream upon the dark 
 phalanges of timber beyond. 
 
 As resinous knots of pine would be thrown 
 on the burning pile, the increased light 
 brought out a view of a neighboring slough 
 with cypress trees draped in long streamers 
 of gray moss, cypress knees beneath looking 
 like grave stones, rustling fan-like palmettos 
 stirring uneasily in the variable night air as 
 if agitated by something, and several strange 
 vista-like openings in the woods, like grass 
 grown and long forsaken roads, and disap- 
 pearing mysteriously with a distant bend in 
 the black depths of the forest beyond. 
 
 Two white tents were pitched near the 
 fire; and an Indian style of shelter made of 
 Palmetto leaves, fronted from the other side. 
 In picturesque confusion could be seen rifles 
 and double-barrelled shot guns leaning 
 against trees, while pistol holsters, hunters' 
 horns, shot pouches and saddles and bridles 
 were swung to limbs, rested on logs, or were 
 lying on the ground. A remoter view showed 
 horses picketed for the night, crunching gol-
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 73 
 
 den ears of corn and chewing meditatively 
 on bundles of sweet smelling, yellow fodder. 
 
 The Caucasian element of the party con- 
 sisted of two Southern cotton planters with 
 a couple of visiting friends from Yazoo City, 
 a merchant and a lawyer, and all engaged in 
 that peculiarly fascinating sport, a camp 
 hunt. 
 
 The servants, owned by one of the cotton 
 planters, were busily engaged with coffee 
 pots, skillets and frying pans in preparing 
 the evening meal. The blended odors of the 
 fragrant Java, well done biscuit and juicy 
 venison steaks not only struck the olfacto- 
 ries of the men agreeably, but aroused a deep 
 interest and expectation of a half dozen 
 hounds lying down and looking on from a 
 respectful distance. 
 
 The turkey hunt at the early day dawn, 
 the later drive for deer, and the still hunt 
 by torch light by night, had all been success- 
 ful in the past two days, as could be seen by 
 several of the great birds, the form of a doe, 
 while two bucks swung by their heels from 
 forks of trees had their branching antlers al- 
 most to touch the ground. 
 
 It was early in the spring; the mosquito
 
 74 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 pest time had not commenced; while morn- 
 ings and nights had such a chill in the air as 
 to make the warmth of the camp fire most 
 agreeable to our hunters, who sat awaiting 
 with keen appetites the announcement of 
 supper. 
 
 Tin cups and plates formed the cut glass 
 and silver ware of the feast; and hunger, 
 sharpened to a keen edge by exercise in the 
 open air, made a sauce far ahead of any con- 
 diment prepared by man. But fortunately 
 there was superabundance for all, dogs in- 
 cluded, and as Dave, one of the servants said: 
 
 "Dar was plenty moh whar dis come 
 tan." 
 
 There was much cheerful conversation as 
 the meal proceeded, and laughter as well, 
 over the incidents and accidents of the day. 
 
 Pipes were then pulled out, cigars lighted 
 and gradually a thoughtful pause fell on the 
 group, while the woods began to whisper in 
 the night-wind, the cane brake stirred, and 
 the palmettoes rustled their fan-like 
 leaves a moment out in the deep shadows 
 and then would stop, as if listening to the 
 men talking around the fire.
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 75 
 
 Of course amid the dark spectral woods 
 all around; and in the heart of a great, softly 
 sighing wilderness, the inevitable question 
 would at last be propounded: 
 
 "Who believes in ghosts"? 
 
 The instant that Major LeGrange, with 
 his solemn and deliberate way of speaking 
 uttered these words, the two negro men, 
 Dave and Daniel cried out simultaneously: 
 
 "Laws-a-Mussy !" 
 
 And while the former peered into the 
 gloom across the bayou, the other glanced 
 uneasily backward at one of the before-men- 
 tioned road-like vistas that began not far 
 from the camp, followed a straight course 
 for fully fifty yards, then swerving to the 
 left, vanished and ended in the blackness of 
 the woods. 
 
 The white men all laughed at the excla- 
 mation of the servants; but not the less did 
 several of them take hasty glances out into 
 the surrounding shadows, as though they 
 expected to see a fearful face peering at them 
 from behind a tree, or a startling form flit- 
 ting toward the group from down one of the 
 narrow star lighted glades.
 
 76 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 Why is it that when such a question is 
 asked, especially at night, that a kind of cree- 
 py crawly sensation steals up the spinal 
 column and distributes itself even to the 
 roots of every hair on the head? Now let 
 the query be propounded not only at night, 
 but in the midst of sighing forests miles away 
 from human habitations, and no sound but 
 the hoot of a distant owl, and see if the in- 
 quiry will not produce a sudden, accelerated 
 beating of the heart, accompanied with some 
 peculiar difficulty of regular breathing. 
 
 "Curtis," said LeGrange, addressing the 
 lawyer from Yazoo City, while he knocked 
 the ashes out of the bowl of his merschaum 
 pipe, refilled it with Kilikinick tobacco and 
 lighted it with a coal from the fire; 
 
 "Suppose we all tell a story of strange, 
 uncanny, ghastly things that have happened 
 to us personally at some time in our lives; 
 and you begin rolling the ball." 
 
 The gentleman addressed as Curtis smiled 
 and said: 
 
 CURTIS' STORY. 
 
 "My life has been a busy and prosaic one 
 and I have nothing to relate of an actual su-
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 77 
 
 pernatural character, and that properly de- 
 serves to be ranked among real ghost stories. 
 Still, "he added as he removed his cigar from 
 his mouth," there was an occurrence which 
 took place some twenty years ago when I 
 was about twenty-five years old, that cer- 
 tainly gave me, for the time being, a very 
 great shock." 
 
 "I had been visiting some friends several 
 miles away in the country, and on leaving 
 them after eleven o'clock at night and going 
 out to the front gate where I had left my 
 horse hitched, found that he had slipped the 
 bridle and departed, doubtless for his livery 
 stable abode in town. 
 
 "I could easily have secured another 
 steed from the family I had just parted with, 
 but not wishing to disturb them, or the ser- 
 vants at such a late hour, and being strong, 
 healthy and fond of walking, I concluded to 
 return on foot. 
 
 "The night was moonless, and very clou- 
 dy. A fitful wind was blowing, now roaring 
 through the branches of the leaf stripped
 
 78 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 trees, now dying away in a sighing tone, and 
 still again dashing my face with a sprinkle ot 
 rain, as if the sob of nature had been fol- 
 lowed by a gush of tears. 
 
 "I walked with a quick step, first thinking 
 of the pleasant company I had just left, and 
 later running over in mind a brief of some 
 coming case, and had made two miles suc- 
 cessfully and without interruption, when, 
 arousing from thought, I found myself ap- 
 proaching the cemetery, which is located 
 just one mile from town. I had to pass on 
 the high road in twenty feet of the white 
 gate, which opened into the silent abode of 
 the dead. Owing to the blackness of the 
 night the grave yard itself was barely dis- 
 cernible, but the latticed portal, being nearer, 
 was plainer to view. 
 
 "Glancing in that direction as I was going 
 by, I saw a white form on the inside of 
 the enclosure leaning against the gate and 
 looking at me over the top panel, which was 
 nearly five feet from the ground. 
 
 "I need not tell you that the shock was 
 great and that for moments my heart seem- 
 ed to stand still. But when in another in-
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 79 
 
 slant there came a strange, low moan from 
 the spectral object looking at me, my horror 
 was increased beyond words to describe. 
 
 "With sheer force of will I determined to 
 investigate, and turned towards the entrance 
 when a dash of rain full in my face caused 
 me to stop a moment to wipe the blinding 
 drops from my eyes; and as I looked again, 
 the midnight visitor was gone. 
 
 "Walking up to the gate with no little ex- 
 citement and apprehension, and peering 
 through the gloom down the holly tree lined 
 drive, or avenue, I saw, fully fifty yards 
 away, the faint outline of a form in the re- 
 mote shadows. 
 
 "Summoning up every power of my being 
 I climbed over the locked gate and advanced 
 towards the misty looking object in the dis- 
 tance. Again it melted from view; and again 
 dimly appeared on a side walk that ran at 
 right angles from the central road. As I 
 walked rapidly towards the apparition, sud- 
 denly it vanished, and on my reaching the 
 spot where I had last beheld the uncanny 
 object stand, I could see nothing but an ar-
 
 80 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 ray of marble slabs and tombstones standing 
 spectrally about in the darkness. 
 
 "Just before me about fifteen feet away 
 was a newly made grave. As my eyes fell 
 upon it, suddenly a great, white form arose 
 from it, and gave a blood curdling, heart 
 breaking kind of cry !" 
 
 Curtis paused, and the breathless silence 
 in which he was gazed at by the other five, 
 showed how profoundly his narrative had 
 moved them all. 
 
 At last Lester, the merchant, said, as if 
 unable to bear the suspense: 
 
 "What on earth was it Curtis?" 
 
 The lawyer thus addressed, carefully ap- 
 plied a match to his extinguished cigar, and, 
 after a few whiffs, replied in a quiet voice : 
 
 "It was a very large, white New Found- 
 land dog!" 
 
 There was a volley of "Oh's" and "Ah's 
 from the white men, and a fusillade of 
 "Hehs!" "Hunhs!" /My Lands!" and "De 
 Lawd-a-Musseys" from the two negroes. 
 Then Curtis in answer to interrogating eyes 
 and lips, said: 
 
 "The newly made mound contained the 
 body of the dog's master, who, I found later,
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 81 
 
 had been buried that morning. The faithful 
 animal returned to the grave from the house 
 after the funeral;, and in its instinctive way, 
 went to the portal at midnight looking for 
 help for his buried friend and owner; and 
 standing with its fore feet on the top bar of 
 the gate, gave the indistinct moan I heard 
 and mistook in the gusty wind. Evidently 
 in its two disappearances in the cemetery, 
 the dog was leading me on, and finally 
 crouched behind the earth hill of the grave, 
 waited for my arrival. Seeing me stand still, 
 it leaped up and gave the dismal howl that 
 I thought in my agitation was a cry." 
 
 All applauded the story and LeGrange, 
 smoothing his brown beard, said, it was a 
 striking narrative and deserved to be ranked 
 in the best class of ghost lore and literature. 
 
 Ludlow, the other Cotton Planter, a culti- 
 vated gentleman and a man of known cour- 
 age proved in several desperate encounters 
 for which he was not responsible, remarked 
 gravely : 
 
 "You had more nerve, Mr. Curtis, than I 
 believe I should have possessed. I think I 
 would have remembered some pressing en-
 
 83 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 gagement at home when I saw the ghost at 
 the gate looking at me and moaning." 
 
 "Ef dat had bin me" broke in Dave," when 
 dat white thing riz up and busted outen dat 
 grave, I'd ur died plum daid right den an' 
 dar." 
 
 There was a laugh over Dave's honest con- 
 fession, when LeGrange, turning to his ser- 
 vant said: 
 
 "Dave, can't you give us a ghost story"? 
 
 The young negro man scratched his head 
 meditatively as well as apologetically and 
 replied: 
 
 "Marse Ed, I ain met up wid no ghoses 
 myself yit, and I sholy do hope ter de Lawd 
 dat I nuvver will. Whuffur I want ter see a 
 gho's! I jes nachully would drap daid in 
 my tracks ef I seed one. Naw suh I ain look- 
 in' for no sech, an' I ain gwineter look fur 
 no spooks an' sperits. You done huyrd me 
 say so. But I kin tell you a story bouten 
 how de devil got ole Uncle Lige Johnson, 
 whut belongst to Col. Middleton on de Azoo 
 River." 
 
 "All right, Dave," said the others, "tell 
 us about that": and every eye was fixed in 
 amused interest on the negro.
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 88 
 
 The servant cleared his throat several 
 times in evident enjoyment of his position 
 as an entertainer of four prominent and weal- 
 thy white men, and began : 
 
 DAVE'S STORY. 
 
 "Lige Johnsin, Marse Ed, was a nigger 
 preacher, and he was a mighty one on de 
 rousements ob ligion an' de fires ob torment. 
 Ive seed de floh ob de chu'ch plum kivered 
 wid people squallin an' cryin' w'en he brung 
 out de pale hoss ob Rebelation, and oncapped 
 de Pit, an' let de brimstone loose. 
 
 "Oh Yes, Preacher Johnsin was a great 
 preacher. I hyurd him preach once boutin 
 Balaams Ass, an' I tell you suh I could jes 
 h'yer dat Ass er talkin'." 
 
 "I haven't a doubt of it" interjected Major 
 LeGrange, while the other white men laugh- 
 ed. Dave failed' to see the cause of the 
 amusement and resumed: 
 
 "Uncle Lige Johnsin tuk a notion dat de 
 wurl was gwineter end and dat soon, an' so 
 all dat winter he had de cullud folks skeered 
 haf to death lisnin' fur Gabrul to blow his 
 trumpet.
 
 84 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 "He would rare an' jump in de pulpit an' 
 crack his heels, an' say: 
 
 "Dey ain none o' you ready to go but me. 
 I'se ready I tell you. An' doan none o' you 
 ketch hoi' o' my coattails when I'm cotched 
 up wid de angels, an' speck me ter pull you 
 outen a burnin' wurl. Naw my frens! hit 
 kain be did. I'se gwineter look outen fur 
 myself dat day." 
 
 "Den all de wimmin would cry and groan, 
 an' some ob de men would look glum an' 
 hang day haids. 
 
 "One night two white gemmuns laid fur 
 Preacher Johnsin. Day say dat he done got 
 de nigger's all aroun' so frustrated bouten* de 
 Jedgment dat day couldn' wurk in de field. 
 So day crawl up in a high lof ob de meetin' 
 house whur Uncle Lige preached, and tuk a 
 big tin bugle wid dem, an jes when preacher 
 Johnsin was er tellin' bouten de las' day, and 
 he was de onlys one ready fur it; one of de 
 white gemmuns in de lof holler out in er 
 orful voice: 
 
 "Blow, Gabrul, Blow!" 
 
 "An' right den an' dar dat udder white
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 85 
 
 man blowed on dat horn three long, mohn- 
 ful sounds! and den sech a screamin' an' 
 groanin' an' a runnin' hyer an' a runnin' dar 
 mungst de nigger's you nuvver see in all yoh 
 bawndid days. 
 
 "De lights went out, an' de men scrouged 
 an' fit fur de dohs; an' dar was Preacher 
 Johnsin er runnin' hyer an' dodgin' dar, try- 
 in' dis doh an dat one, doin' his bes' to git 
 outen de house an' mek fur de woods lak de 
 res' o' dem. He look lak he done gone plum 
 stracted. 
 
 "Jes den he seed de window back o' de 
 pulpit, when he flung hissef agin it an' bust it 
 out and jumped fur de groun'. But 'stead 
 o' litein on de groun', Uncle Lige landed 
 straddle ob er big, ole bull, whut was er 
 stannin' dar jes under de winder. 
 
 "Sholy dat bull was as much 'stonished as 
 Preacher Johnsin', an' off he tuk down de 
 road snortin' an' er bellowin' wid Uncle Lige 
 er sittin' on his back an' holdin' on tight. An* 
 jes as he whiz out on de big road befoh' de 
 chuch whar ebry body seed de 'mazin sight; 
 Preacher Johnsin' lookin' ashy in his face,
 
 86 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 his eyes er poppin' out, an' er trimlin all over 
 holler out: 
 
 "Lawd hev mussy! De Debbil done got 
 me at las' ! No mohn I expected" ! 
 
 There was a hearty laugh all around the 
 camp fire at Dave's purloined, ancient, moss- 
 back story, which had doubtless served its 
 time and generation in almost every slave 
 state in the Union; and then Major Le 
 Grange, loading his pipe for the third time, 
 looked at Daniel, who was giving a kick- 
 kick-kick kind of laugh between his teeth 
 over Dave's narrative, and said: 
 
 "Now, Daniel, is your time." 
 
 "Who? Me! Marse Ed," exclaimed the old 
 darkey, counterfeiting surprise, and yet un- 
 able to conceal his satisfaction. 
 
 "Yes, You. Tell us if you ever saw, heard 
 or smelled a ghost?" 
 
 "Well, Marse Ed, I sholy hev felt an' smelt 
 ghoses many er time as e'v'ybody has, as 
 has bin er ridin' thu' de woods at night. 
 Dem wahm airs you meet up wid dose times, 
 Ole Granny Roxey Ann say, is ghoses er 
 trablin' aroun'. But I kain say I ebber huyrd 
 or seed er ghos'. 
 
 "De nighis I kin come ter dat whut youse
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 87 
 
 all er talkin' erbout, was when de Angel o' 
 Death come to my cabin arter me. Does you 
 want ter hyer bouten dat?" 
 
 'The very thing, Uncle Daniel" said the 
 gentlemen; whereupon Daniel, taking a 
 small stick in his hand to assist gesticula- 
 tions as a kind of wand, began: 
 
 DANIEL'S STORY. 
 
 "Hit was jes erbout foh years ago. You, 
 Marse Ed, had bin gone ter Europe two 
 years. I had gethered my little patch o' 
 sweet taters an' bunked 'em. I was er comin' 
 thu de woods thinkin' how good a fat pos- 
 sum would go wid dem taters, when my ole 
 dog Ring treed one right befo' my eyes. I 
 chopped de tree down an' got de possum. 
 Dat vahy night I had jes cooked dat same 
 fat possum, an' had him kivvered aroun' wid 
 sweet taters, an' de rich grease an' gravy er 
 comin' down his sides on de taters. An' I 
 had jes put de dish on de table wid my mouf 
 waterin* at de sight, an' was gwine ter de 
 far eend ob de room fur a chur; when dar 
 comes a big thun'rin' knock at de doh. 
 
 ".Who dat?" I say wid my voice er trim-
 
 88 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 lin'; coz I try not to let de udder nigger's 
 
 know I had dat possum; an' den de knock 
 
 was so loud dat it sont my heart right up in 
 
 de roof o' my mouf. So I say all in a trim- 
 
 ble: 
 
 "Whodatdaratdedoh?" 
 
 "An' a monstus deep voice say: 
 
 "Hits me, de Angel ob Death. Let me in!" 
 
 "An' I say, wid my hair er risin' and a 
 
 bristlin': 
 
 "Whut you want, Marse Angel ?" 
 
 "An' he say wid dat growlin' voice: 
 
 "I done come fur Uncle Dan'el's soul. Let 
 
 me in. I've come fur you!" 
 
 "I felt de cole sweat er drappin offen me, 
 
 an' I say, er shakin' all ober: 
 
 "Marse Angel, Uncle Dan'el doan live 
 
 hyer no moh!" 
 
 "You liar" he say ter me, poundin' de 
 
 doh; "I know bettah. Youse Uncle Dan'el 
 
 yo'hsef." 
 
 "An' I say, almos' er cryin' an, ready ter 
 
 drap on de floh: 
 
 "Marse Angel, an' you huyrd nuffin' tall 
 
 bouten whuts come o' Uncle Dan'el?"
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 89 
 
 "No," he growled pressin' gin de doh. 
 "Whuterbouthim?" 
 
 "Why Marse Angel, dat poh unharmful 
 nigger he done bin daid an' behied gwine on 
 moh'n two weeks." 
 
 "Oh you ole liar" de angel hollered "He's 
 right in dar now, let me at him !" 
 
 "An' he flung hissef agin de doh wid er 
 orful bang; an' when he did dat, I jes riz an' 
 went thu' de back winder an' lit on de groun' 
 er flyin'. An' I tell you, suh, I run ober two 
 fences, and brek thu briar patches an' nuvver 
 stop runnin' 'till I come er pantin' an er 
 blowin' to ole Brudder Zeke Green's cabin 
 what was a preacher ob de Baptis' swasion, 
 an' who lib dah wid his son-in-law, Pete, 
 whut was a deacon in de chu'ch. I tell you 
 dey was sutney 'stonished when I tumble on 
 de floh an' tole 'em dat de Angel ob Death 
 was in my cabin whar I bin er livin' an 
 haivin' myself all dese years." 
 
 "Preacher Green and Pete, his son-in-law, 
 say dey think I bin drinkin' or dreamin'. 
 But I say, Hi! How I bin er dreamin' when 
 I ain gone ter baid yit? An' how be in baid
 
 90 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 when I was jes finishin' cookin' dat fat pos- 
 sum an' taters. 
 
 "When I mention dat supper, Brudder 
 Green say: 
 
 "Whar dat possum an' taters now?" 
 
 "An' I say I lef 'em on de table when I brek 
 thu de winder." 
 
 "An' den Brudder Green and Pete hang 
 day haids and think er little, arter day huyrd 
 bouten dat possum supper, an' den say day 
 gwine back wid me ter my cabin ter look in- 
 ter dat Angel o' Death business. 
 
 "So day tuk a blazin' pine knot an* a couple 
 ob axes, an' we come thu de woods back o' 
 my house an' stop to lissen. But ev'ry thing 
 was still an' dark. Den we crep 'round in 
 de front whar de angel med de racket; an' 
 dar warnt no angel dar; an' I was sho' glad 
 fur dat. But my doh was wide open whar 
 I spec' he bust it open wid his hand; an' so 
 Brudder Zeke Green an' Pete walked in er 
 holdin' de torch high an' wid day axes draw- 
 ed, an' me a trimlin' comin' behin' 'em. An, 
 dar was no angel dar. An' as we look closer 
 dar wuzzunt no possum dar nuther. Day 
 all done gone, an' de taters too !" 
 
 "Den Brudder Pete he brek inter er big
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 91 
 
 laf an' say he ntivver knew er angel eat pos- 
 sum an' taters, speshully de Angel o' Death." 
 
 "An' Preacher Green, who done read haf 
 thu de spellin' book, arter prowlin' 'roun de 
 room an' lookin' mighty troubled bouten 
 sumpin, say: 
 
 "Brudder Dan'el, you bin de subjick ob er 
 practil joke." 
 
 "Hi ! I say, whut you mean by dat kin' o' 
 joke you call practil ? An' he say : 
 
 "Some triflin' nigger done skeer you off 
 fum yoh own baid an' boa'd an' sot down 
 an eat yoh possum an' taters." 
 
 "An' I say: 
 
 "Naw, Suh, dat voice was too deep an' turb- 
 ble fur enny man's voice. Hit was de Angel 
 o' Death I tell you, an' he lef de doh open, 
 an' de dogs got in an eat dat supper.' 
 
 "An 5 preacher Green say: 
 
 "When did ennybody eber see a dog draw 
 a chur to er table lak dis? An' whar you see 
 er dog sop er plate wid a piece er bread lak 
 dat? An' whar you know a dog eat possum 
 meat and pile possum bones on de side o' de 
 plate like dis?" 
 
 "Den he went on !
 
 92 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 "Naw, suh, dis ain nuffin' tall but one o* 
 dat rascally Yaller Bob's practil jokes. He's 
 got jes dat deep growlin' voice you huyrd, an' 
 he smelt yoh supper, an' he sont you er fly- 
 in' thu der woods while he eat yoh possum 
 an' taters !" 
 
 Dan uttered these last words with a puz- 
 zled expression of countenance, while rub- 
 bing his kinky gray hair slowly with his hand 
 in a reflective retrospective manner. Then 
 suddenly looking up, he said: 
 
 "Dats whut Preacher Green sayd about 
 hit, Marse Ed : Whut do you say, an' de ud- 
 der gemmens?" 
 
 There was a hearty laugh so loud and re- 
 sounding over the conclusion of the story 
 and especially at Daniel's question, that it 
 set several owls to hooting in the woods. 
 
 Their ha-ha's and who-who's, somewhat 
 sobered the circle, and the mirth was all 
 gone, when Major LeGrange, addressing the 
 merchant from Yazoo City, said: 
 
 "Col. Lester, it is now your turn."
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 93 
 
 COL. LESTER'S STORY. 
 
 "We, in the mercantile life, Major, are 
 too busy to give attention to the matter we 
 are talking about tonight. We have "scares," 
 panics, drops, slumps, runs and such 
 things, but not one of them a ghost, but 
 something far more real and substantial. 
 
 "Personally I have never beheld one of 
 these graveyard wanderers and midnight 
 visitors; but last year on a business trip to a 
 distant town I met a man who had seen one, 
 so you must be content with a second-hand 
 apparition in my narrative. 
 
 "I had finished my business in the place 
 and was whileing away the hours before bed 
 time in the hotel office, with such instrumen- 
 tal means as cigars, newspapers and occa- 
 sional chats with one or another of tEe 
 guests. 
 
 "One of these gentlemen had been often 
 to the community before, and was able to 
 give me much information relative to the 
 surrounding country, crops, people, the new 
 railroad that was approaching and other 
 matters. While this party was speaking to
 
 04 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 me my attention was directed to a person 
 sitting aloof from us, bearing the appearance 
 of being sick or in trouble, and with unmis- 
 takeable evidences of some kind of dread or 
 terror upon him which he was endeavoring 
 with poor success to conceal. 
 
 "Seeing my eyes fixed on the man inquir- 
 ingly and sympathetically, my companion 
 said: 
 
 'The gentleman across the room had a 
 great shock last night; and is just waiting 
 for the stage tomorrow morning to leave 
 this "accursed country," as he calls it, for- 
 ever/ 
 
 "What was the shock?" I naturally asked. 
 
 "Oh!" replied my new acquaintance, 
 "It has reference to a house about two miles 
 from town. It is a good dwelling, the fruit 
 farm connected with it can be made first 
 class, the land is the best on the market, but 
 the house itself has a bad name." 
 
 "What do you mean by a bad name?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Well, the first Happening connected with 
 it was that the man who did most to improve 
 the place was found one morning by the
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 95 
 
 neighbors in a headless condition, stone dead 
 on the floor of the front room. This occur- 
 red ten years ago and the head has never 
 been found to this day, nor the murderer 
 brought to light and justice. 
 
 "It was quite awhile before any one want- 
 ed to buy the home where such a deed of 
 darkness had been committed ; but after sev- 
 eral years the horror of the occurrence wore 
 off some; strangers came in, and one of 
 them bought the farm. He spent but one 
 night, and came into town early next morn- 
 ing 1 looking like he had been sick a year. 
 He went straight to a real estate agent and 
 sold the place for half the amount he had 
 given for it. He tried to escape giving an 
 explanation for such a hurried disposal of 
 property and departure when only the day 
 before he was pleased with his investment 
 and made no mention of leaving. But being 
 urged by one, to whom he had taken a liking, 
 he laid his hand on his shoulder just as he 
 was stepping into the stage and said in a low, 
 awe struck tone: 
 
 "I don't want to live in a house where af- 
 ter you have blown out the light and gone to
 
 9 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 bed a man without a head will walk in and 
 sit down in a chair with his form turned to- 
 wards you as if he was looking at you!" 
 
 "The same thing has happened twice since. 
 Strangers buy the house, stay one night, 
 look pale and sick the next day, sell at a 
 sacrifice, and leave the town to come back 
 no more." 
 
 "The last occurrence of the kind took place 
 last night. The house had been empty and 
 the land idle for two years, when the gentle- 
 man across the office yonder arrived here 
 seeking to invest money in a homestead. He 
 was delighted with the value, possibilities 
 and especially the situation of the farm. 
 No one told him that it had the reputation 
 of being haunted, and so he purchased it. 
 Then buying several chairs, a table and a 
 cot, he went out late in the afternoon of 
 yesterday and took possession. 
 
 "Last night about one o'clock, he burst 
 into the room here where the clerk, myself 
 and another gentleman were sitting by the 
 stove smoking and talking. He looked like a 
 wild man, was deadly pale, and breathing 
 heavily.
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 97 
 
 "We asked him what was the matter? 
 and it was minutes before he could tell us; 
 and then while he told us he kept glanc- 
 ing at the door with a look of apprehension 
 and terror that was pitiful to see. 
 
 "He said that when night came on after 
 going to the house, that he had a frugal 
 supper, cleared off the table, made up the 
 fire in the front room, and sat down to think 
 and plan for the future. That he dropped 
 into a slumber as he sat in his rocker and 
 must have slept several hours; for when he 
 awakened the fire had nearly burned down 
 and only illumined the room with fitful 
 gleams, alternating in these brief flashes 
 with deeper and longer lasting shadows. 
 He was just stooping to push together the 
 dying embers, intending then to retire to bed, 
 when a voice behind him spoke aloud: 
 
 "It is a cool night." 
 
 "Looking quickly around he saw a man 
 without a head sitting in a chair not over 
 eight feet away from him. He said an un- 
 utterable horror filled and nearly blinded as 
 well as choked him. He thought once he 
 would faint; but nerved to sudden exertion
 
 98 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 he gave one wild leap through the door, an- 
 other into the yard, then through the gate, 
 and up the road he sped with all the swift- 
 ness he was capable of toward town, which 
 was two miles away. The horrible feeling 
 with him all the while he ran was that "The 
 Thing" was after him; but hoping at last 
 that by his long and rapid flight he had dis- 
 tanced it, if it had pursued, he, all exhausted 
 and laboring for breath, sat down on the end 
 of a log that was lying by the side of the 
 road. His race had been nearly a mile. 
 
 "Breathing heavily from his violent and 
 prolonged exertion, he felt that he must rest 
 a few minutes, when suddenly the same 
 quiet voice spoke near him, saying: 
 
 "That was a close race we had." 
 
 "Turning quickly, to his consternation 
 and terror, there at the other end of the log 
 sat a human figure with no head on its shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 "Up he sprang again and rushed like a 
 madman along the road towards town, and 
 finally into the hotel, as I have already de- 
 scribed. 
 
 "He has remained over today simply to
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 9 
 
 sell the property and, I understand, took one- 
 third of what he paid for its purchase. He 
 leaves early in the morning on the stage. 
 The clerk tells me he will not go to bed, 
 but sat up in the office with him the remain- 
 der of last night, and intends doing the same 
 thing again this evening. 
 
 "I looked at the man we were discussing 
 and discovered the poor fellow had fallen 
 asleep with his head resting on the palm of 
 his hand. The face looked worn, pale and 
 sad; and it was evident that his slumber was 
 disturbed now and then by some inner agita- 
 tion of mind and heart. 
 
 "Next morning he ate no breakfast, and 
 later took the stage for a neighboring rail- 
 road station. I saw him settle down on a 
 back seat, then as the vehicle started, his 
 face appeared a moment at the window, cast- 
 ing a backward, terror stricken glance down 
 the road, as if he expected pursuit of some 
 kind; and the next moment the driver pop- 
 ped his whip, the wheels whirred, and the 
 stage disappeared in a cloud of dust taking 
 with it the unhappy man from my view for- 
 
 ever."
 
 100 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 As Col. Lester finished, there was a pro- 
 found silence for a full minute; when Major 
 LeGrange said: 
 
 "I think I can give the true explanation 
 of that ghost haunted house." 
 
 "What is it?" asked several voices. 
 
 "I believe," replied LeGrange, "that it was 
 a set up trick by parties, who for some reason 
 did not want the land to be sold." 
 
 "What do you say" interrupted Ludlow, 
 "to the idea of the real estate agent being 
 at the bottom of the whole affair? If he 
 could sell the homestead at a good price one 
 day, and buy it back almost the next morn- 
 ing at a discount of from thirty to fifty per- 
 cent, then repeat the transaction every year 
 or so, I can see how it paid him to keep a 
 ghost without a head as a kind of silent work- 
 ing partner in his business." 
 
 All laughed at this explanation, refilled 
 their pipes, while Daniel and Dave put fresh 
 logs on the fire. 
 
 Major LeGrange, the recognized chairman 
 of the night, looked across at his personal 
 friend Ludlow, and said: 
 
 "George, we will now hear from you."
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 101 
 
 Ludlow was a man of dark hair and eyes 
 and possessed the courtly bearing and easy 
 grace so often beheld in the men of the old- 
 time South. He began in a musing tone: 
 
 LUDLOW'S STORY. 
 
 "I have had some very strange things to 
 happen in my life; but would prefer to tell 
 you of a circumstance or piece of history in 
 the life of my mother. 
 
 "Most of my family came from Natchez, 
 but some of my people lived and died in Clai- 
 borne County. One of my grand-aunts own- 
 ed a large and imposing looking residence 
 which commanded a distant view of the Mis- 
 sissippi River. The house sat back in the 
 midst of a great grove of forest trees of 
 some twenty acres in extent. Just a bare 
 glimpse could be had from the highroad of 
 its turreted roof, broad verandahs and white 
 pillars that towered to the height of two 
 stories; while the drive-way to the mansion 
 curved and wound about under timber so 
 lofty and crowded as to be shrouded in a kind 
 of twilight all along its length, even at the 
 hour of mid-day.
 
 102 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 "My Grand-Aunt, now a widow, had once 
 a family of four sons and daughters, but the 
 girls had married and were far away in the 
 North. The eldest born son had been mur- 
 dered in these same woods, and the second 
 boy was a wanderer on foreign shores and 
 never came home. 
 
 "Other sorrows came to the white-haired 
 mistress of the mansion, and so she gradual- 
 ly retired from all social life, never going out 
 herself, and receiving but few visitors. 
 
 "The house with its wide halls, broad 
 shadowy stair-cases, and twenty empty 
 rooms, was so stripped of life and gladness 
 that finally visitors became still rarer; and 
 as reports began to spread that the building 
 was haunted, the time arrived when the be- 
 lated stranger was almost the only guest. 
 His horse would be well fed and taken care 
 of by the hostler, and he, himself, after an 
 excellent meal, would be conducted to one 
 of the numerous and elegantly furnished bed- 
 rooms; yet such was the chill and emptiness 
 of the large, echoing dining room, the gloo- 
 my stretch of halls and passages, the vista
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 103 
 
 of door ways opening in a line through libra- 
 ry, drawing room, to remote, misty-looking 
 parlors, and such was the awful stillness and 
 loneliness of the whole house that no one was 
 ever known to be a guest the second time. 
 
 "Then it was whispered that some of these 
 wayfarers for a night had other reasons of 
 a harrowing nature for not coming again. 
 That they had seen and heard grewsome and 
 even frightful things and desired no more 
 of that kind of nocturnal experience. 
 
 "Yet, through all this,, my Grand-Aunt 
 lived and continued to abide alone for years 
 after these events had taken place, and others 
 that I am about to relate. 
 
 "When asked by friends and relatives if 
 the house was haunted, she replied quietly 
 and solemnly that she was compelled to ad- 
 mit that certain things took place there that 
 she found it impossible to explain. 
 
 "So when she invited my mother and my 
 mother's sister, who were her favorite nieces, 
 to spend a week with her, she said in her 
 letter to them that they must come expecting 
 some strange happenings in the house, which 
 she could not account for, nor prevent.
 
 104 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 "At the last moment my mother's sister 
 was taken sick, I verily believe with appre- 
 hension, and could not start on the carriage 
 journey of twenty miles. So my mother de- 
 parted and arrived alone. 
 
 "It was a blustering Autumn afternoon; 
 the leaves were falling like a golden shower 
 all over the woods, and made a royal yellow 
 and crimson carpet for the wheels to roll 
 noiselessly over. 
 
 "My venerable Aunt met my mother at 
 the door of the jgreat porch, kissed her affec- 
 tionately, and sending a female servant with 
 her to a bed room on the second floor, await- 
 ed her return in the Library, where a bright 
 cheery fire of hickory logs blazed and spark- 
 led on the large, brass andirons, and threw 
 its warm light over thick carpets, rich rose- 
 wood furniture, and stately looking family 
 portraits. 
 
 "My mother felt a sense of oppression the 
 instant she entered the house; and the re- 
 moteness and loneliness of her apartment, 
 with its great curtained and testered bed, 
 dark frame mirrors, and tall solemn looking 
 mahogany wardrobes, did not add to her
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 105 
 
 cheerfulness and courage. But in the Libra- 
 ry, before the cozy fire, talking over family 
 matters with her Aunt, she soon became her 
 bright, natural self again. 
 
 "Mean time the wind had lulled and the 
 evening shadows filling the woods began to 
 creep towards and fall upon the house. 
 
 "It was about five in the afternoon and 
 the two ladies were quietly conversing, when 
 suddenly the door which led into the hall 
 opened wide and then shut again with a loud 
 noise. 
 
 "My mother instantly sprang to the por- 
 tal, opened it, and looked up and down the 
 broad passage and towards the wide stair- 
 case, which led to the second floor; but not 
 a soul was in sight ! It would have been im- 
 possible for the fleetest of human beings to 
 have escaped detection, so swift had been 
 the movement and act of my mother. 
 
 "Naturally she was much agitated, and in 
 returning to the side of her Aunt, noticed 
 that she had given no sign of the strange 
 occurrence, save by an increased pallor and a 
 profounder sadness. My mother said: 
 
 "What is that, Aunt Mary?"
 
 106 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 And the aged woman's reply was: 
 
 "I cannot tell, for I do not know." Then 
 bowing her face on her hands, she rocked in 
 that positioft for some minutes, then quietly 
 resumed her work of crocheting. 
 
 "Nothing else happened the rest of the 
 afternoon. But, when supper was over my 
 mother could not but observe that the ser- 
 vants seemed to hurry their work as if an- 
 xious to get out of the house and away as 
 soon as possible. Their own cottage and 
 log cabin homes in the yard or more distant 
 field were small and humble; but doubtless 
 their occupants reflected that they were 
 abodes of peace and all the more to be de- 
 sired in that they had no ghostly, superna- 
 tural visitants disturbing their tranquility 
 by day and their rest by night. 
 
 "Do none of the servants stay here in the 
 house all night?" asked my mother, as the 
 two ladies returned from the dining room to 
 the Library. 
 
 "No," was the quiet reply. "They cannot 
 stand the strange occurrences taking place 
 again and again; so I sleep here all alone in 
 the house, except now and then when I have
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 107 
 
 a visitor like yourself, or some traveller asks 
 for hospitality for a night." 
 
 "I think you are a very courageous wo- 
 man," said my mother. "It is simply won- 
 derful how you can live such a lonely life, 
 meeting these shocks of mind and nerve so 
 often, and yet not go down under them, or 
 run from their cause." 
 
 "The conversation went on between the 
 two; and they spoke of the Fox sisters, with 
 their discovered and exposed fraudulent 
 table rapping; the Cock Lane Ghost, which 
 proved to be another imposition on the pub- 
 lic; and the mysterious happenings at the Ep- 
 worth Rectory, when occupied by the Wes- 
 leys, concerning which strange occurrences 
 the godly, sensible parents of John Wesley 
 could give no explanation, and about which 
 the great Founder of Methodism himself, 
 was remarkably reticent all his life. 
 
 "It was nearing the hour of midnight, and 
 the two women were just arising to retire 
 to their bedrooms, when heavy steps were 
 heard walking on the floor of the room just 
 above them. 
 
 "My Grand-Aunt said to my mother :
 
 108 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 "The room above us is locked, the win- 
 dows barred, and no human being can go in 
 or out, such is the peculiar key and fasten- 
 ing. Now, we will go up together to see, as 
 I have often done before alone." 
 
 "So taking a pistol in one hand and a Bible 
 in the other, thus prepared for natural and 
 supernatural beings, she approached the Li- 
 brary door that opened into the great central 
 hall, with my mother clinging close to her. 
 
 "To my mother's amazement they could 
 not stir the portal. It was not locked, but in 
 turning the knob it was as though some kind 
 of power held the door fast from the hall 
 side. It was in vain they struggled unitedly 
 with it; it would not yield. When suddenly 
 it flew open, nearly striking them in the face, 
 and a dreadful feeling, as if a presence had 
 entered the room, swept over them. 
 
 "My mother said her blood seemed to turn 
 to an icy coldness in her veins; but not dar- 
 ing to remain in the room with the "Pre- 
 sence," she quickly followed her Aunt into 
 the hall, up the stairway to the hall above, 
 and then toward the apartment where they 
 had heard the sound of walking.
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 109 
 
 "As said before, the door of this bed cham- 
 ber was locked. On opening it and turning 
 the light of the lamp into the room nothing 
 could be seen but a handsomely furnished 
 apartment where every window was barred 
 on the inside, and the one closet, on inves- 
 tigation, revealed only emptiness. 
 
 "There was nothing to do but to return to 
 the Library, where they had hardly seated 
 themselves, when the heavy steps were heard 
 again in the room above, then out in the hall, 
 next coming with a steady tread down the 
 stairs, and then towards the Library door, 
 which the pale faced, agitated women had 
 closed behind them. 
 
 "In another instant the door was flung 
 open, and the steps went deliberately across 
 the room and stopped in front of the shrink- 
 ing, trembling, terrified females, as if the 
 "Presence" was looking at them! 
 
 "My mother at this juncture fainted dead 
 away on the floor ! 
 
 "When she returned to consciousness her 
 head was resting on a sofa cushion or pillow, 
 while her Aunt was bathing her face with 
 camphor chafing her hands and trying in 
 various ways to resuscitate her.
 
 110 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 "Where is that dreadful Thing?" gasped 
 my mother, turning an appalled look towards 
 the door. Her Aunt replied: 
 
 "It has been gone an hour, and will dis- 
 turb us no more tonight. Poor Child, I am 
 sorry that you came to visit me." 
 
 "She had hardly gotten the words out of 
 her mouth when a violent blow like a brick 
 hurled by a powerful hand struck the side of 
 the house. 
 
 "Leaping to their feet and running to the 
 window nearest the sound, the women had 
 an uninterrupted view of a broad lawn flood- 
 ed with the soft moonlight, and there was 
 not a living creature of any kind in sight. 
 
 "Closing the shutters and dropping the 
 curtain, the Aunt and Niece rolled a sofa up 
 near the fire, which they replenished, and sat 
 down, both deadly pale and conversing in 
 low tones. 
 
 "Finally my mother said: 'Aunt Mary 
 again I have to say that I think you are a 
 very brave woman to endure all these dread- 
 ful happenings for months and years, and all 
 alone !'
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. Ill 
 
 "Remember," replied the other, "It does 
 not happen every night. Sometimes a month 
 goes by without a thing occurring. This time 
 it has been three months. This was one 
 reason I thought you and your sister might 
 visit me. I continually hope that each out- 
 break will be the last. Then you have 
 not seen and heard the worst. At first 
 I was so exercised in mind and heart 
 that I thought I could never stand it. 
 But I reasoned it out that if these things were 
 of the Devil, the God whom I love and serve, 
 would deliver me. Or if they were from de- 
 signing, wicked men, that I had equally com- 
 fortable promises in the Bible that I should 
 be protected. In addition I felt I owed it to 
 Society, to Morality, and to Truth, itself, not 
 to allow evil characters to triumph in their 
 plots and labors through womanly timidity 
 or superstitious fears. 
 
 "What do you mean by designing men," 
 asked my mother, laying her hand lovingly 
 on her aunt's shoulder. 
 
 "Well, you know this is a very handsome 
 dwelling and desirable estate; and if men 
 who have tried repeatedly to purchase it
 
 112 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 from me, and in vain, should endeavor in 
 some unknown way to make the house ap- 
 pear as if it was haunted, and so drive me to 
 terms, I call that designing, as well as wick- 
 ed. 
 
 "My mother left next day. She could not 
 have remained, she said, another night in a 
 building with such frightful, unnerving 
 things taking place both day and night. 
 
 "Her Aunt remained alone as usual; and 
 several years later passed peacefully away to 
 Heaven. 
 
 "Dreaded as the house was in her lifetime, 
 after her death, when it was closed up, it be- 
 came even gloomier looking, and was avoid- 
 ed and shunned by every one. 
 
 "It seemed to those who drove up the 
 avenue to obtain directions about the road 
 from the servants in the back yard; or to 
 hunters approaching it through the woods; 
 that it stood for some dreadful mystery; 
 that "The Thing" which had haunted, sad- 
 dened and blighted the place was looking 
 down from the upper windows, or peering 
 through the transoms of the hall door at 
 them. So that they were glad to get away
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 113 
 
 from the solemn, silent mansion and move 
 on public highways and look on brighter 
 dwellings that had no such appearance and 
 history. 
 
 "Meantime' -while the estate was rented 
 out and cultivated, and a few servants lived 
 in cabins in the back yard, the great house 
 itself was closed and left solitary, with the 
 old forest trees sighing around it, and wring- 
 ing their lofty branches over its roof as if 
 in grief and trouble over something of a 
 dark, hopeless nature that had taken place, 
 or was going on still within its mysterious 
 walls. 
 
 "One night it burned down. No one ever 
 knew how it happened, unless it was brought 
 about by sparks from a, forest fire. 
 
 "To this day the melancholy ruins can be 
 seen with blackened pine, oak and sycamore 
 trees and fire scroched shrubbery standing 
 about it ; while the chimneys, tall and weather 
 stained, look like monuments towering over 
 the grave of an ended household, a blighted 
 home, whose members are scattered, dead, 
 and departed forever."
 
 1U STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 Ludlow's story left the whole party, ser- 
 vants not excepted, in a mental state of 
 gloom not unmixed with a feeling of fear. 
 
 As the dark eyed speaker had proceeded, 
 chilly sensations ran through the body and 
 tingled to the very finger tips of the bravest 
 man of the group. 
 
 It was LeGrange's time to give a narrative, 
 but no one asked him to begin. The nerves 
 of all were on a kind of edge; and there was 
 a vague uneasiness and apprehension felt, 
 which the half-dying fire, the distant hooting 
 of owls, the rustling palmettos stopping at 
 times as if to listen to the weird story, and 
 the occasional sigh of the woods around 
 them did not tend to lessen, but deepened 
 and intensified instead. 
 
 Curtis, the Lawyer, was about to propose 
 going to bed and letting LeGrange off until 
 the next evening; when suddenly Dave cried 
 out in a loud voice and with a tone of un- 
 speakable horror: 
 
 "My Lawd-a-Mighty ! Jes look yonder!" 
 
 In the next instant Daniel screamed: 
 
 "Oh Gawd-Hev-Mussy !" and fell grovel- 
 ing on the ground on his face, while Dave,
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 115 
 
 with another cry of dismay and terror plung- 
 ed head-foremost in the palmetto shanty and 
 burrowed out of sight under blankets, bun- 
 dles of fodder, and baggage of every descrip- 
 tion. 
 
 All the four white men on hearing the 
 cries and beholding the action of the ne- 
 groes, sprang to their feet and with vary- 
 ing expressions of astonishment and horror, 
 looked in the direction where Dave had 
 pointed his finger before he leaped out of 
 sight. And there, hardly fifty feet distant 
 in the starlight, in the road-like vista we have 
 described and just this side of the place 
 where it bent away and was lost in the dark- 
 ness of the swamp, stood a skeleton of a man 
 of gigantic height, with its ribs and teeth 
 glittering in the firelight, while in the sock- 
 ets of the white, bony head two shining eyes 
 burned and glowered upon them. 
 
 Before the amazed and horrified men 
 could do a thing, some kind of large body 
 dashed behind them* went through and over 
 the fire, scattering its embers and plunging 
 the camp and road into a darkness all the 
 greater because of the sudden transition
 
 116 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 from light to blackness. At the same mo- 
 ment there proceeded from the Skeleton 
 Figure a blood curdling scream and maniacal 
 laugh. 
 
 All credit to the nerve and courage of the 
 white men, the entire four grasping up guns 
 and pistols plunged into the narrow glade 
 where they had beheld the frightful spec- 
 tacle; LeGrange and Ludlow firing repeat- 
 edly as they ran forward. 
 
 But on arriving at the vista bend, nothing 
 was to be seen. Ludlow returned hastily to 
 the camp fire, seized a brand, and waving it 
 until the flame was restored, rushed back 
 to the three and holding the torch aloft, 
 peered into the remaining length of the 
 strange roadway, and listened breathlessly 
 for the faintest sound. 
 
 But nothing rewarded the view, and noth- 
 ing was heard but the dying echoes of their 
 own firearms in the forest, and a general 
 hooting of owls produced by the discharge 
 of the guns. 
 
 By and by everything became perfectly 
 still. The palmetto fans quieted as if fallen 
 into a deep' silent expectancy. Then a night
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 117 
 
 bird gave a call, and the woods commenced 
 sighing again. 
 
 The men, penetrating some hundred 
 yards or more in the surrounding trees, and 
 realizing the folly of trying to explore a 
 canebrake where one being could easily hide 
 from a thousand seeking him, gave up the 
 quest, returned to the camp and with the 
 assistance of the terrified negroes, heaped 
 fresh logs and pine knots on the fire, and 
 spent several additional hours of the night 
 smoking, musing and talking to each other 
 in undertones. 
 
 The occurrence had been so real they 
 could not doubt it. And the ghastly figure' 
 having been beheld by all six, they could 
 not deny the hor^' 1 ' Appearance in the 
 road. 
 
 Wtr _ nnaiiy retired, one of their 
 
 IT' .,as left on guard, but it is question- 
 
 . whether any of the remaining five clos- 
 ed their eyes in sleep on that memorable 
 night. 
 
 At daybreak the hunters arose, heavy and 
 unrefreshed, and after a hasty morning 
 meal, packed up and rode away homewards ;
 
 118 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 leaving the embers of their camp fire to 
 smolder and consume on the lonely, densely 
 
 shaded banks of Tipton Bayou. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The hunting party had disappeared 
 through the heavy timber not more than 
 ten minutes, when slowly and cautiously 
 two men in striped clothes and bearing a 
 skeleton between them, slipped out from the 
 tangled cane brake, and made for the hunt- 
 ers campfire. 
 
 Placing the skeleton in a sitting position 
 against a tree, the escaped convicts began 
 to look around for food, which they surmis- 
 ed the hunters in their carelessness and has- 
 ty departure might have left. Their search 
 was far from being a failure. 
 
 "Why here is almost a whole quarter of 
 venison !" exclaimed one. 
 
 "And here" cried the other, is a bag of 
 biscuit and a pot half-full of coffee. Sure- 
 ly those men must have been badly scared 
 to have left so much good grub behind." 
 
 "That was certainly a lucky find of yours 
 in the cane-brake yesterday, that skeleton 
 of some lost hunter or trapper, and the use
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 119 
 
 you put it, to scare off that crowd from our 
 wigwam in the cypress brake. That scream 
 and maniacal laugh of yours couldn't be 
 beat in a lunatic asylum. It made even my 
 blood run cold." 
 
 "Yes," replied the second convict, "By 
 putting some fox fire or phosphorous wood 
 in the sockets of the eyes, and holding the 
 skeleton up high in my arms towards the fire 
 it looked like a giant and maybe like the 
 Devil himself to that astonished gang. Then 
 the yell and laugh helped. But I had no idea 
 that four of that bunch were white men. If I 
 had I never would have risked the thing; for 
 white men are not so easily scared and they 
 have a way of shooting, and that well, 
 scared or no scared. I thought it was a 
 pack of darkeys, and that they would leave 
 here in a hurry and never stop running 
 until they got back to the plantations where 
 they belonged. And I felt sure that their 
 reports of what they saw would make this 
 part of the woods perfectly safe for us until 
 time to give ourselves up and get our pardon 
 by enlisting in the army." 
 
 The first man had been busily frying some
 
 120 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 
 
 venison steaks on the coals of fire, and now, 
 having finished, and dividing the bread and 
 meat between himself and comrade, replied: 
 
 "You may well say that those white men 
 shoot well. The only thing that saved us 
 was one of their horses taking fright at the 
 skeleton, breaking his halter and knocking 
 the fire out as he dashed away. Quick as 
 we were to slip in the cane-brake some of 
 their rifle balls whistled mighty close to us; 
 and but for the echo of their guns, the hoot- 
 ing of the owls, and their own loud talking 
 at first, they must have heard us as we 
 crawled away through the cane with that 
 skeleton yonder, which you had tied up so 
 well with leather strings and thongs to hold 
 it together and keep it from rattling." 
 
 "That's so," rejoined the second man, 
 "and I don't know that we can afford to stay 
 here another week, as we had expected. 
 Those white men are going to think the mat- 
 ter over and are certain to come back and 
 ferret it out. And it will never do for them 
 to run us down with bloodhounds and catc v 
 us before we take advantage of the pro'* 
 ation of the governor and volun* ^ar-
 
 STORIES AROUND A CAMP FIRE. 121 
 
 render ourselves to the authorities and get 
 mustered into service. One of these days 
 when I have redeemed myself in this Civil 
 War that has broken out, I shall find some 
 of these parties, make a clean breast of it, and 
 tell them of the Skeleton Scare we put upon 
 them." 
 
 The first convict agreed to the suggestion 
 of an immediate departure from the swamp 
 to the hills. And so after bundling up the 
 remnants of the food, they vanished from 
 view in the dark forest on their way first to 
 their shanty in the heart of a cypress brake, 
 and then ultimately to safer regions in the 
 northern part of the county. 
 
 Meanwhile the skeleton was left leaning 
 against the trunk of a neighboring tree, 
 with the phosphorescent gleam still in its 
 eyes, and sat apparently gazing into the dull 
 yellow stream that flowed sluggishly past, as 
 if waiting for some lone hunter or lost trav- 
 eler to come along and discover, with a 
 shock, the mystery of the Ghost of Tipton 
 Bayou.
 
 A CONVERSATION 
 IN HADES 
 
 133
 
 A CONVERSATION 
 IN HADES 
 
 Opening Scene. 
 
 (A human spirit flying as if pursued, 
 knocks at the black portals of Hell. The 
 doorkeeper emitting brimstone fumes from 
 his mouth appears, and the conversation or 
 dialogue begins) : 
 
 (Spirit) "Let me in". 
 
 (Doorkeeper) "What brings you here?" 
 
 (S) "Desperation." 
 
 (D) "But what was your sin?" 
 
 (S) "Nothing special I had a scolding 
 wife." 
 
 (D) "You cannot come in here." 
 
 (S) "Why not pray?" 
 
 (D) "We have nothing worse to offer you 
 than that you have had already. Besides" 
 
 125
 
 126 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 
 
 (S) "Besides what ?" 
 
 (D) "The Devils have held a conclave, 
 and agreed that it would be wrong and un- 
 just to give a man another Hell, when he 
 has already had one on earth." 
 
 (S) "But your Hell will not be as bad as 
 the one I left, and so it will be a relief." 
 
 (D) "That may be true, but Devils have 
 some sense of justice and some pity; and 
 they say they could take no pleasure in tor- 
 menting a man who lived ten, twenty or thir- 
 ty years with a scolding wife. They declare 
 they would feel so mean and despiseable that 
 they could never lift up their heads again." 
 \ (S) "But I am used to being in Hell." 
 
 (D) "Yes but we could not make things 
 as lively for you as you had them once in 
 your own house. You would soon feel the 
 difference, and would be betrayed into mak- 
 ing reflections on us. We once had a man 
 here who did that very thing, and in the 
 midst of our scolloped and gilt-edged tor- 
 ment, he would smile and say: 
 
 "You just wait 'till Sairy Ann gets here, 
 and she will show you what real Simon Pure 
 Torment is!
 
 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 127 
 
 "Well, sir, that man got us all so nervous, 
 and me so terrified that for months I was 
 afraid to go to the Entrance Gate when a 
 new woman appeared. An what is more, if 
 at the time of one of these female arrivals, 
 some one had yelled~"Sairy Ann !" I verily 
 believe that the whole crowd of us would 
 have taken to our heels, and Beelzebub him- 
 self would have come near breaking his neck 
 in getting off his throne and running. 
 
 "No sir, your arguments won't do: There 
 is no place here for you." 
 
 (S) "But what must I do?" 
 
 (D) "Go to Heaven ! They will let you in 
 there as soon as you tell your story." 
 
 (S) "But I have lost my religion through 
 my wife, and am a backslider." 
 
 (D) It doesn't matter. You will do no 
 harm up there. Nobody will be afraid of 
 you. No man who has been henpecked and 
 scolded and treated as you have been, will 
 ever be dangerous in Heaven. Get off with 
 you quick; your very appearance makes me 
 feel like weeping, and if I were seen with 
 tears in my eyes I would lose my position 
 here forever. Step off lively now ! You are
 
 128 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 
 
 blocking the way! Make room there for an- 
 other man. Goodbye. I know they will give 
 you a lofty seat in the Glory world. Then 
 remember this for your comfort; there is no 
 marrying or giving in marriage in Heaven." 
 (S) "That's so. I had forgotten that. I 
 thank you sweet Devil for that last thought." 
 (D) "You are welcome. Farewell." 
 (S) "Pardon me before I go; but grant 
 me another word. I see that last man has 
 gone in and you have a few minutes to spare 
 me. Tell me, do all men go to Heaven who 
 have had scolding wives." 
 
 (D) "Not all. For some of these women 
 repent and go to Heaven, and when their 
 husbands hear that, they prefer coming to 
 Hell; and therefore many got in here be- 
 cause of this before we made the new law I 
 told you about. Then other men when in- 
 formed of the separation of the sexes in Hell 
 do not mind coming here to live with us." 
 
 (S) "And are the sexes kept apart in the 
 Infernal World? You astonish me! 
 
 (D) "Yes, the men are kept on what is 
 called the Mainland, and the women are di-
 
 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 129 
 
 vided up in what is known as the Continent 
 and the Five Islands." 
 
 (S) "You interest me. Please explain." 
 
 (D) "I will do so cheerfully, though I 
 must be brief, as we are looking for a large 
 arrival today, through the wreck of a Sun- 
 day Excursion Train, and the breaking in of 
 the floor of a Political Convention Hall. So 
 speak quickly, what would you like to know 
 of me." 
 
 (S) "I wish to be informed as to the mode 
 of punishment dealt out to women in Hell, 
 and why the sexes are separated?" 
 
 (D) "I will tell you, but for the reasons 
 just given will have to be brief." 
 
 (S) "I appreciate your 
 
 (D) ''Step inside the door here, and hold 
 your palaver. Stand now by the bank of this 
 vast grey sea, which stretches away yonder 
 to that black lightning-riven horizon. You 
 are standing on the Mainland, where the 
 men are kept. Now look away to the left, 
 and do you see a rocky island the first of a 
 group of four? 
 
 (S) "Yes." 
 
 (D) "Well that is filled with women who
 
 130 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 
 
 railed against men and marriage, calling the 
 first brutes, and the second a degrading cus- 
 tom and institution. 
 
 "The island next to it on the left is peo- 
 pled with females who advocated woman's 
 rights. 
 
 "The one still farther to the left is crowd- 
 ed with old maids who never had an offer of 
 marriage. The fourth and most distant of 
 the cluster has a population of widows who 
 wanted to marry the second time, but died 
 without the realization of their hope. Do 
 you see them all ? 
 
 (S) "Yes perfectly." 
 
 (D) "Now look at that vast bleak coast 
 on the right, against which the waves are 
 pounding, and sending up their bitter spray. 
 That body of land though really an island, 
 yet because of its Australian size, has been 
 called the Continent. It is overflowing with 
 women who were scolding wives. Do you 
 see that also?" 
 
 (S) "Certainly. It is undoubtedly large 
 enough to be seen." 
 
 (D) "True, it is large, but it is densely 
 populated. Now look at a point midway be-
 
 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 131 
 
 tween the Continent and the group of four 
 islands and you will see what is called Fifth, 
 or Beauty Island. Of this I will speak again 
 in a minute, telling you who live there. I 
 suppose you see it." 
 
 (S) "Yes, and it is the loveliest in shape 
 and appearance, of the five." 
 
 (D) "That is true. Now take this field 
 glass and look carefully over the Continent 
 and you will notice that the shores are lined 
 with women, and they are all looking this 
 way at the men on the Mainland." 
 
 (S) "Yes-Yes- Yes-I see them doing so!! 
 But what is their torment?" 
 
 (D) "You earthborn dolt and idiot! Don't 
 you see that the women's suffering on the 
 Continent arises from this everlasting sep- 
 eration from their victims of former days, 
 the men. This fact drives them to frenzy." 
 
 "Once a million or more of them crowded 
 out on that prominent Headland over there, 
 and raised a screech of defiance at the men 
 over here; but they were so far off that it 
 sounded like the distant cry of a sea gull. 
 All the men laughed and could have hugged 
 the Devil."
 
 132 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 
 
 "When the women through their glasses 
 saw the men's amusement and evident joy, 
 they screeched again in fury and got to right- 
 ing among themselves." 
 
 (S) "But what about the dwellers on the 
 four islands: what is their suffering?" 
 
 (D) "Well sir, you are about the biggest 
 blockhead I ever met, and I have seen a num- 
 ber of no ordinary fools. Did your wife's 
 treatment make you stupid or were you born 
 so?" 
 
 (S) "I was considered gifted until I got 
 
 mar " 
 
 (D) "Oh well, don't get to sniffling and 
 snuffling around here; take this glass and 
 look carefully at the Continent. Your wife 
 may be over there now. Look and see if she 
 has arrived." 
 
 (S) "Not for the World!" 
 
 (D) "Well ! well ! well ! She did have you 
 scared, I must say." 
 
 (S) "Scared isn't the word. She, that is 
 Mandy got me so unstrung in life, that a 
 crash of thunder never gave me as great a 
 nervous shock, as did her thin sharp voiqe 
 speaking suddenly to me."
 
 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 133 
 
 (D) "Poor fellow, how you tremble. Here 
 sniff some of this brimstone to revive you. 
 She shall not get you." 
 
 (S) "But you said she might be over there 
 on the Continent; and if so, she must have 
 passed close by us. Do you reckon she did?" 
 
 (D) "I don't know. I was talking to you, 
 and turned the gate over to the Second Keep- 
 er. She may have gone through then. Take 
 some more of these fumes in your nostrils. 
 You look like you are going to faint." 
 
 (S) "Faint! Did you know that I killed 
 myself on earth to get away from her?" 
 
 (D) "I am not surprised, for many do so. 
 But you men do amuse us Devils a lot." 
 
 (S) "How?" 
 
 (D) "What makes you call the women 
 Heaven's best gift to man; the gentler sex; 
 man's guiding star; the white handed angel 
 of mercy, and all that stuff. One of your 
 poets wrote that Eden was a wild, until the 
 first woman smiled. And yet, you know she 
 was the first sinner as she was the first 
 woman, and got all of you in a world of trou- 
 ble. Then you yourself made a College 
 Commencement address once to a hall filled
 
 134 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 
 
 with women, and you plastered them so 
 thick with fulsome eulogiums that you made 
 us all sick here in Hell. What makes you 
 men such hypocrites." 
 
 (S) "It seems to me that you are the one 
 who lacks sense now. The whole thing is 
 done to keep peace." 
 
 (D) "Well, what makes you marry them?" 
 
 (S) "Most of us were badly fooled." 
 
 (D) "Did the woman you call "Mandy" 
 fool you?" 
 
 (S) "Please don't mention her any more. 
 I just can't stand it. I only know I must 
 have had no sense when I married her, and 
 I certainly have had none since." 
 
 (D) "What kind do you mean; sense in 
 the head, or cents in the pocket." 
 
 (S) "I mean both." 
 
 (D) "Well you men may say what you 
 will about us Devils, but in one thing we 
 have shown our wisdom over you, and that 
 is we have always steered clear of the ma- 
 trimonial rock." 
 
 (S) "That's just the reason that many of 
 us would rather come to Hell and be with
 
 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 135 
 
 you Devils, than live on earth in a smaller 
 but more intolerable place of torment." 
 (D) "But what if Mandy should insist" 
 (S) "Please do not mention Amanda any- 
 more; but tell me about the torment of the 
 Four Islands." 
 
 (D) "If you take a peep through the tele- 
 scope at Widow's Island, Old Maids' Island, 
 and no Marriage Island, you will observe 
 that the rocks and hills are covered with fe- 
 males, who are all the time looking through 
 glasses at this place, the Mainland. Many 
 you notice are busy wiping away the tears 
 from their eyes." 
 
 (S) "I see them ! Oh how pitiful !" 
 (D) "If you look again, you will see that 
 the women in no Marriage Island weep as 
 much as they do in the Old Maids' and Wi- 
 dow's Island. In other words, all their talk 
 against matrimony was mere rot. Marriage 
 in your race or order of beings, was not only 
 a law written on stone, but founded in your 
 mental and physical constitution, and yet 
 they pretended it was wrong, unnatural and 
 dreadful. And now they are condemned to 
 live with, and by themselves, and feel etet- 
 nally the lack of an intellectual and physical
 
 136 A CONVERSATION IN HADES 
 
 complementing and supplementing part, 
 that is resident only in the opposite sex." 
 
 (S) "But what about those on Woman's 
 Rights Island?" 
 
 (D) "Their suffering arises from the fact 
 that they have no men to listen to their pub- 
 lic harangues and wholesale abuse of the 
 masculine gender. So they are compelled 
 to hear one another. Turned loose upon 
 themselves with no men anywhere around to 
 arraign and accuse as the author of their 
 troubles and downtrodden condition, their 
 lectures seem to lack salt, flavor, inspiration, 
 or something; and so it is hard to tell who 
 are the greatest martyrs over there, the 
 speakers who are appointed to deliver the old 
 time tongue lashing; or the audience doomed 
 to listen to the wearying, sickening, endless 
 repetition of platitudes, or forced to applaud 
 mere rounded periods of windy nothings 
 where freshness in unknown, and only venom 
 and heaviness and tediousness remain." 
 
 (S) "But what about the torment of the 
 men on the Mainland?" 
 
 (D) "I will show you. Look here again 
 at the island which you thought to be the
 
 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 137 
 
 most beautiful, and which is called Beauty 
 Island." 
 
 (S) "Yes, I remember." 
 
 (D) "Well, there dwell the women who 
 died unsaved, but who loved the men, and 
 whom the men loved. The torment of your 
 sex is in peering through telescopes and see- 
 ing from afar these fair and beautiful women, 
 who cared for them and who in turn com- 
 manded their affection and ardent devotion." 
 
 "If you will look up and down the shore 
 you will see millions of men perched on crags 
 and standing on promontories, gazing 
 through their glasses and waving their hands 
 toward that island which is the least distant 
 of the five." 
 
 (S) "Well, that is truly dreadful." 
 
 (D) "So said Mark Antony, Henry the 
 Eighth, Napoleon Bonaparte, Beau Brum- 
 mel, Byron, and a number of others when 
 they arrived. But it is the case just the 
 
 same." 
 
 (S) "But is there no communication 
 whatever between Beauty Island and the 
 Mainland". 
 
 (D) "None at all, save by telescope."
 
 138 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 
 
 (S) "Is the* no amelioration of anguish 
 in some way?" 
 
 (D) "O yes; the men know that if the 
 Beauty Island citizens cannot come to them, 
 neither can the dwellers on the Continent or 
 those on the Four Islands." 
 
 (S) "Do the men suffer as much as the 
 women ?" 
 
 (D) "In some respects there is a differ- 
 ence; for when the women on the Continent 
 and Four Islands looking through their field 
 glasses, see the men all gazing through their 
 telescopes at the Females on Beauty Island, 
 they scream, shriek, pull each other's hair, 
 scratch and bite one another, and fall down 
 in paroxysms." 
 
 (S) "Well, all this is trubiwonderful. I 
 had no idea that the Devil had such a grim 
 spirit ot justice in him. 
 
 (D) "Yes, he is supposed to have suffered 
 himself away back yonder somewhere. And 
 he always insists that Eve lied about the 
 Falljn the Garden." 
 
 (S) "So poor lost men have a streak of 
 pleasure given them by being allowed to gaze
 
 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 139 
 
 upon Beauty Island with its population of 
 lovely and loving females." 
 
 (D) "Yes, but they have a far greater joy 
 than that." 
 
 (S) "What is it?" 
 
 (D) "The knowledge that the women on 
 the Continent can never cross over and get 
 them again." 
 
 (S) "Yes, that is blessed indeed !" 
 (D) "Certainly it is. But one day, Ha! 
 Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I can never think of it 
 without laughing. Wait a minute until I 
 blow this sulphur out of my nose. One day 
 as I was saying, a man of your sort was up 
 on that high rock on the Main Coast Line, 
 sweeping the sea with his glass, when he 
 thought he saw the women on the Continent 
 embarking in boats and rowing this way. 
 He yelled to the crowd below what was hap- 
 pening, and you never saw the like in all 
 your life as to excitement and confusion. 
 There was a panic and stampede among the 
 men that astonished the oldest Devils in 
 Hell. The crowd rushed over Gloomy Hill 
 yonder, crossed Despair Valley, swam Red
 
 140 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 
 
 Hot Lake, and hid themselves in the Mid- 
 night Mountains." 
 
 "How^Apollyon did laugh at the sight ! He 
 sent a Regiment of Imps on their trail to tell 
 them it was all a mistake; that he had fixed 
 seas and boundary lines so that Woman 
 Righters and Scolding Wives could never 
 get at the men again. 
 
 "When they heard this, they crept back 
 looking cheap and foolish but still very much 
 frightened." 
 
 (S) "I had no idea that the Devil had any 
 idea of fun or sense of humor." 
 
 (D) "You don't know him. He has a 
 keen appreciation of the ridiculous. You 
 ought to hear him take off the preachers 
 when they have proved in their sermons that 
 there is no such thing as a personal Devil in 
 the universe. You would die laughing. 
 
 "He said that once he sat on the altar rail, 
 listening to a leading preacher disproving 
 his existence. That it made him feel quite 
 queer to hear philosophy, science and logic 
 all brought in to oust him not only from the 
 world, but out of being itself. Suddenly he 
 sprang up and said to himself I will make
 
 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 141 
 
 that man take all this back and admit my 
 personality and presence in fifteen minutes. 
 So out he skipped, changed the course of the 
 wind, and had the congregation coughing 
 and sneezing all over the house. He next 
 tickled the leg nerves of the elderly and made 
 them fidgetty, got the young people into ir- 
 reverent snickering, caused drowsiness to 
 come upon some prominent pew holders, and 
 wound up his attack by clogging the brain 
 and stiffening the tongue of the preacher. 
 In another minute the minister who had been 
 contending for minutes against all these dis- 
 turbing conditions, suddenly cried out in a 
 tone of vexation and even anger: 'It seems 
 to me that the Devil is certainly here today.' 
 
 "How we all laughed when Lucifer told 
 us this story one day in a great gathering. 
 
 "Oh yes! Satan has a fine sense of humor, 
 and when he isn't mad, or has worked off 
 some of his bad feelings by sticking red hot 
 harpoons into men, he is very genial, and 
 greatly enjoys a joke. 
 
 "I remember that after one of the scared 
 men saw him laughing at the stampede I 
 have described, and heard him explain how
 
 142 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 
 
 impossible it was for the women on the Con- 
 tinent ever to get at the men on the Main- 
 land, that the man in a fit of gratitude clap- 
 ped Apollyon on the back and called him a 
 'Hunk-a-Dory!' 
 
 "My! how Lucifer laughed at that, and 
 said in reply: 'Just now you were slapping 
 the ground with your feet because you 
 thought you saw a Dory, and now you are 
 slapping my back with your hands because 
 you think I am a Dory.' 
 
 "Ah yes, The Old Boy enjoys a joke now 
 and then." 
 
 (S) "Were the scolding women really 
 coming across the Sea after the men?" 
 
 (D) "Yes; they had picked up a lot of 
 elastic weeds, wove them into skeleton 
 frames, daubed them with clay, and stretch- 
 ed their garments about them, making a frail 
 kind of boat; and put to sea. But Lucifer, 
 you know, < isjhe Prince of the Power ofj:he 
 V Air, and he raised a storm, which tumbled 
 their cockle shells over, knocked them to 
 pieces on the rocks, and rolled the women, 
 xc,r screaming and wailing, back on the tide to 
 the shore."
 
 A CONVERSATION IN HADES. 143 
 
 (S) "I have but one more question to ask 
 you!" 
 
 (D) "Say on." 
 
 (S) "If when I go from here to Heaven, 
 and find that Amanda has repented and is 
 up there, can I have a bunk here in hell?" 
 
 (D) "I have already told you that its 
 against our rules to do such a thing. But as 
 we have made some exceptions, in a number 
 of peculiar sad suicides, we will try to ex- 
 tend this courtesy to you." 
 
 (S) "You not only relieve me by saying 
 this, but you delight me. But let us under- 
 stand each other. That body of scalding 
 water between the Mainland and the Conti- 
 nent, is not wide enough to suit my notions, 
 if Amanda is over there. I know Amanda; 
 and I tell you that boiling foaming sea, 
 broad as it is, would be nothing for her to 
 cross if she got her dander up. 
 
 "So, if Amanda conies here, I shall go to 
 Heaven and bid you an eternal farewell. But 
 if she ascends to live with the angels, then 
 look out for me here at once. I shall instant- 
 ly return to this place, to take up my peace- 
 ful and happy abode with you inhabitants of 
 the infernal regions, forever."
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN 
 
 145
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN 
 
 i. 
 
 Clear Lake lay outspread in quiet beauty 
 in the light of the setting sun. A sail rigged 
 skiff made a slanting white rent in its purple 
 mantle. On the west bank a long curving 
 sweep of cypress trees fringed the shore as 
 far as the eye could reach. On the east at in- 
 tervals of a mile or more, plantation homes 
 with their attendant array of negro cabins 
 and broad intervening fields of corn and 
 cotton approached the waters edge as if med- 
 itating a plunge in the waves. 
 
 A tin bugle calling the hands from work 
 sounded faintly, while the notes mellowed 
 by distance seemed like a requiem to the de- 
 parted day. Near the timber line a negro 
 
 147
 
 148 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 was calling hogs from the depths of the 
 swamp with the plaintive cry so well known 
 in the South. It went echoing on its way 
 across the Lake only to be caught up and 
 flung back by the dark forest which lined the 
 opposite shore. A gun was fired in the woods. 
 Then came the tinkle of a remote cow bell; 
 and later the voice of some one driving cattle 
 in the field. 
 
 After a while the Lake began to indulge 
 in some of her coquettish ways; and having 
 worn first a morning robe of blue, and then 
 an afternoon gown of silver gray, she now 
 put on a pink evening dress, and commenced 
 receiving attentions from a thousand stars 
 that were casting tremulous glances of ad- 
 miration upon her. 
 
 As the flirtation went on the owls broke 
 into laughter in the shadowy woods, a mock- 
 ing bird warbled from a pendant vine, a ne- 
 gro man came up the dusky road singing a 
 hymn, while lights from distant homes 
 twinkled along the misty line of the darken- 
 ing shore. 
 
 One of these lights streamed from a dwel- 
 ling which surrounded by a grove of oak and
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 149 
 
 beecn was not fifty yards from where the 
 waves were rippling against the shelving 
 bank. It was one of the many wide porched 
 broad hailed and white pillared homes for 
 which the Southland is distinguished. 
 
 Its present owner and occupier was Fred 
 Stanley a bachelor of twenty-eight years. 
 With such an occupant, it is not to be won- 
 dered at, that the house had something of 
 that neglected air which is certain to appear 
 from the absence of the hand and presence 
 of a woman. 
 
 Rumor however was very busy at this 
 time, to the effect that a female head would 
 soon be introduced to the Stanley mansion ; 
 that this fact accounted for the recent addi- 
 tion of a wing, and the extraordinary amount 
 of painting, plastering and general improv- 
 ing now being received by the building. 
 
 Report also said that the fair one had cap- 
 tured Stanley while he was on a business trip 
 to Yazoo City, and that she was a remark- 
 ably handsome girl of nineteen with black 
 hair and eyes, and looked and walked like a 
 queen. Just how the gossipers had discover- 
 ed the peculiar appearance and locomotive
 
 150 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 powers of feminine Royalty does not appear, 
 inasmuch as none of them in their travels 
 had ever seen a foreign country, and the 
 greater number had never been farther than 
 the counties of Holmes and Yazoo. 
 
 To all this floating talk our young bach- 
 elor listened with a smiling countenance, on- 
 ly saying "Perhaps so," and "Maybe so" and 
 "Wait and see." 
 
 There was another bit of news, which of 
 course was not repeated to Stanley, .to the 
 effect that Blanche Osmond, the young lady 
 in question, had another admirer beside him- 
 self who stood so high in her favor, that it 
 was quite a while before she decided to give 
 up her impecunious suitor and take instead 
 the wealthy young Mississippi planter. Peo- 
 ple wondered if it was so, but no one had the 
 hardihood to ask the man with the clear cut 
 face and determined brow, if such had been 
 the case. If it was true, Stanley never men- 
 tioned the fact to his nearest friend. 
 
 He was not a man given to being confiden- 
 tial with everybody, though by nature he 
 was sunny spirited, and open hearted. Social 
 in his habits, yet trained in a Military Aca-
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 151 
 
 demy, bereaved of his parents before he was 
 twenty, and living much per force to himself 
 on his plantation, he had by education, an 
 unsought solitariness, and business habits, 
 learned some most profitable lessons on the 
 lines of reticence and self-control. 
 
 His soldierly bearing and resolute face, 
 set off with a tawny moustache and short 
 sharp pointed chin beard made him in ap- 
 pearance a man that a regiment would con- 
 fidently have followed as a leader in a battle 
 charge. In the social circle, this same hand- 
 some countenance and princely carriage not 
 only attracted glances of admiration from 
 women, but brought upon him as well the 
 approving looks of his own sex. 
 
 He fought valiantly in the Civil War first 
 as a Captain and finally as a Colonel. When 
 the Surrender took place, his two hundred 
 slaves were set free; but he had his large 
 landed estate left, and this with its rentals 
 and sub-rentals brought him in an income of 
 ample nature. 
 
 The night just spoken of he had finished 
 his supper, and tilted back in a rocker on the
 
 152 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 spacious verandah with a briar root pipe in 
 his mouth, was looking at the star lighted 
 beauty of the Lake spread before him, and 
 later giving numerous directions to Joe, his 
 negro Driver as that overseer of field hands 
 is called in the South. The man stood lean- 
 ing against the steps, hat in hand, ejaculat- 
 ing "Yes Sah !" and "Naw Sah !", and getting 
 his periodic responses wonderfully mixed up 
 and confounded as the conversation proceed- 
 ed. 
 
 Joe in time gave way to Millie the colored 
 housekeeper and waitress in the bachelor 
 domicile. She was attired in the regulation 
 red handkerchief turban, blue cottonade 
 dress and white apron. Fond of Stanley who 
 had formerly owned her, yet at the present 
 moment she was quite perturbed in mind at 
 the prospect of a new mistress arriving and 
 ousting her from the domestic throne where 
 she had so long reigned, and the bringing 
 in of some negro damsel from the city to 
 take her place. In fact she so expressed her- 
 self. 
 
 "I spec* yoh new wife gwine to be so mon- 
 stus fine, dat she kain stan' me an' my ole 
 man Sandy rounst her."
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 153 
 
 "My new wife," said Stanley looking up 
 with a smile, "I never had an old one, or any 
 other kind yet to my knowledge, so how can 
 I have a new one?" 
 
 "Oh you knows Mars F'ed whut I mean. 
 You neenter badger me dat way jes kase Ise 
 a poh ignunt nigger. I jest axin you kase I 
 wants to know whut kin she do bouten yoh 
 aigs an' coffee? Foh she ketch on you done 
 bin starved." 
 
 "You need not be afraid Millie; I heard 
 her say that she could not bear to keep house, 
 and so you will have it all your own way." 
 
 "Hunh!" grunted the spoiled servant, 
 "whut she spec' to do den ! Is she gwine to 
 hoi' her hans an' order me an' Sandy an' all 
 de res' ur us niggers aroun' ?" 
 
 Stanley flecked with his finger the white 
 ash from the bowl of his pipe, and with a 
 partly amused, partly worried air said firm- 
 ly: 
 
 "You just attend to your own business 
 about the house Millie as you are employed 
 to do, and there will be no trouble at all about 
 the other matters."
 
 154 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 The sound of the iron in her master's 
 
 voice, brought the servant to herself at once 
 
 as it had frequently done before; and she 
 
 went off humming a mournful sounding 
 
 / hymn, a custom almost invariable with the 
 
 ^M^W^M^M * ^** ^M^^^ 
 
 negro woman when non plussed and taken 
 aback in any way. 
 
 For quite awhile after Millie left, Stanley 
 sat in his rocker buried in meditation which 
 evidently from the expression of his face was 
 of a very pleasing character. 
 
 The woman's question had naturally 
 brought back to his mind the history of his 
 acquaintance and engagement to Blanche 
 Osmond. He recalled how when walking 
 one evening with a friend on Broadway in 
 Yazoo City, he had first met her. He bore 
 away the impression of a pair of fine dark 
 eyes and a superb figure. His friend told 
 him she was from a town in southern Louis- 
 iana. 
 
 Not expecting to see her again, yet two 
 hours later upon entering the parlor of a 
 family he knew, she rose up with the rest to 
 greet him. She was attired in a dress of rich 
 crimson that became well her brunette beau-
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 155 
 
 ty; and this time as he looked at the stately 
 girl with her snow white hand resting on a 
 rose wood table, he felt with a thrill at the 
 heart, that any man would be fortunate in- 
 deed to secure such a woman for his wife. 
 
 Before he left that night he had to acknow- 
 ledge to himself that for the first time in his 
 life he was deeply in love. 
 
 He made repeated visits from his planta- 
 tion to town, sent his charmer presents of 
 books, music and flowers with the inevitable 
 box of choice candy, and in two months time 
 was an accepted suitor. 
 
 While Blanche had a half dozen admirers, 
 there was but one who could really have been 
 called a rival. George Varley was about 
 Stanley's age, of a good Mississippi family, 
 and had come recently to Yazoo City to 
 practice law. He dressed well, talked well, 
 and was sought after in every kind of social 
 entertainment. He was a man that women 
 called fascinating. With but few exceptions 
 the gentler sex of the town admired him. 
 When his face was in repose, his heavy 
 drooping black moustache assisted in giving 
 him a pensive air which was quite captivat-
 
 156 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 ing to some of his female friends. In addi- 
 tion he possessed a soft low confident kind 
 of laugh which would be hard to describe, 
 and that not a few disliked to hear without 
 being able to tell exactly why. 
 
 Concerning his temporal circumstances, 
 Varley frankly stated that he had nothing; 
 that he would like to marry, but could not, 
 as he was unable to keep a wife in that com- 
 fort and luxury which he thought was due 
 a woman. 
 
 The four months visit of Blanche Osmond 
 was drawing to a close. In ten days more 
 she would take a steamboat for Vicksburg 
 and then down the Mississippi to her home 
 on the Coast. Stanley in a month's time was 
 to follow, and bring her back a bride. 
 
 There had been several things about his 
 fiancee which had somewhat disturbed the 
 young planter. One was the self collected 
 way in which she had accepted his offer of 
 marriage. Second her remark already quot- 
 ed about housekeeping; and still another 
 speech made by her one evening in the home 
 circle where she was staying. The family 
 were speaking about the marriage of girls to
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 157 
 
 poor men, when she was asked what she 
 thought about it. Her quick reply as if sur- 
 prised out of some habitual caution was : 
 
 "My father is a struggling lawyer with a 
 large family. From my childhood I have 
 heard nothing but the cry of 'hard times' and 
 the necessity of economy. Our home life 
 was one of constant pinching to make ends 
 meet. Our shoes were patched and half 
 soled, and our dresses turned again and 
 again. My soul fairly sickened over these 
 things, and as I grew up I determined never 
 to marry any but a rich man." 
 
 "But suppose you loved a poor man," ask- 
 ed a lady boarder in the family. 
 
 "I would not marry him," hotly replied the 
 girl with a quick impatient tap of her pretty 
 foot on the floor. 
 
 "Would you marry a rich man without 
 loving him?" pursued the same questioner 
 with a thoughtful anxious look on her face. 
 
 A kind of heart tempest seemed to sweep 
 over the young woman, and her voice was 
 full of suppressed feeling, and her eyes had a 
 smoldering fire burning in them as she re- 
 joined:
 
 158 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 "I certainly would! Why not? He has his 
 capital in money, and mine I am told is my 
 beauty. Why not put the two together? He 
 wants mine, and I need his. No, I would 
 never marry a poor man." 
 
 Stanley came in unannounced while this 
 last speech was being made, and stood in the 
 door way a silent listener. He thought he 
 had never seen her look as handsome, and 
 yet her words filled him with a nameless 
 pain and foreboding. 
 
 At the same moment she looked up and 
 saw him. Her face crimsoned, but with per- 
 fect self possession she greeted him with 
 such a fond glad look and warm pressure of 
 the hand, that his heart pang was all gone in 
 a moment. 
 
 A fourth matter which disturbed him was 
 that whenever Varley was present, while 
 Blanche would redouble her attentions to 
 her accepted lover and say but little to the 
 other, yet she would show at times an un- 
 easiness not to say agitation that was unac- 
 countable. Once he caught her looking fur- 
 tively at Varley who serene as a May morn- 
 ing sat near the window stroking his mous-
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 159 
 
 tache and smiling benevolently at the flower 
 garden outside. 
 
 Stanley however was the soul of honor; 
 and the intrusion of every suspicion would 
 be met with an instant rejection as being 
 unworthy of himself, and an insult to the 
 woman whom he loved with his whole heart. 
 
 For nearly an hour the young planter had 
 been lost in reverie, his rocker was still, and 
 a cigar which he had lighted was held for- 
 gotten between his fingers. The woman's 
 queenly beauty was in the ascendant, and his 
 thoughts had become not only pleasant, but 
 tender, as could be seen by the smiling lines 
 about the mouth. 
 
 The clock from a mantel within was strik- 
 ing eight when he heard the galloping of a 
 horse on the Lake shore road, a slam of the 
 big gate, and a moment later Sandy, his 
 valet, hostler and general help, put in an ap- 
 pearance at the steps with a package of mail 
 in his hand. 
 
 "Mars Fred hyers er bundle er papers jes 
 put offen de boat dis ev'nin Sah, as she was 
 gwine up Sah. Mr. Bentley at de Landin' say
 
 160 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 de Cap'n tole him dat one dah was veh'y im- 
 portun'." 
 
 Stanley took the package and walked into 
 his lighted room to examine the parcel. The 
 apartment was a typical bachelor's den. A 
 handsome fishing rod was over the mantel, 
 a rifle and fowling piece leaned in one corner, 
 while a hillock of boots and shoes uprose in 
 another. A large round table stood in the 
 center of the room containing writing mater- 
 ials, some books and newspapers, a box of 
 cigars, a sack of smoking tobacco, several 
 kinds of pipes and a porcelain match case, 
 Behind his trunk under the bed, and back of 
 the wardrobe and bureau were a remarkable 
 assortment of slippers, bootjacks, blacking 
 brushes, walking canes, buggy whips, spurs 
 and other things too numerous to mention. 
 These treasures Millie had been commanded 
 not to touch, on pain of instant excommun- 
 ication from the house, and the installment 
 of another African dame to take her place. 
 So all she dared to do was to keep the sacred 
 articles dusted, while relieving herself as she 
 did so with a low grumbling protest, and the 
 occasional prophecy.
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 161 
 
 "Ef Mars F'ed ever gits mahied, dars 
 gwine to be ur herrikin in dis room as sho's 
 you bawn." 
 
 As Stanley approached the table and un- 
 tied the bundle his eyes fell at once upon a 
 letter on top addressed to himself and mark- 
 ed "Important," followed by the words "See 
 that this reaches Mr. Stanley at once." 
 
 He tore the envelope open and sitting back 
 in his chair read while Sandy with the well 
 known curiosity of his race, remained in the 
 doorway with his eyes fixed on his former 
 master, and waiting for some word or signal 
 from him. 
 
 He did not have to tarry long. In a single 
 minutes time he saw Stanley become deadly 
 pale, his breathing labored, and then the let- 
 ter flutter from his trembling hand to the 
 floor, while the stricken man regardless of its 
 fall, sat staring fixedly at the wall. 
 
 Sandy who had played with Stanley when 
 a boy, and had been his body guard and at- 
 tendant through the war, was devoted to 
 him, and felt a genuine alarm and grief at the 
 spectacle of the unmistakeable trouble be- 
 fore him.
 
 162 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 "Mars Fred" he cried, "In de name ur 
 goodness whuts de matter." 
 
 There was no answer from his employer, 
 who really had not heard a word his servant 
 had spoken. 
 
 The letter lay wide open on the carpet, 
 and with the well known privilege granted 
 the reader and author, we bend over the 
 pages and read it together. It was written 
 in a clear firm hand and evidently by a 
 woman. 
 
 Yazoo City, May 3, 18. . 
 Mr. Fred Stanley, 
 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 You will pardon what may seem 
 to be a great piece of presumption on my 
 part, but I cannot see your life and happiness 
 sacrificed without giving you warning. 
 
 The woman to whom you are engaged is 
 utterly false to you, and undeserving your 
 love or respect. I have seen enough with my 
 own eyes on three occasions to convince me 
 of her perfidy, and of the fact that you are 
 a deeply wronged man. 
 
 She evidently loves George Varley and per-
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 163 
 
 mits him liberties that no woman engaged 
 to a man could ever grant another and be a 
 true and pure woman. She of course has 
 taken great precautions to conceal from the 
 public eye what I write you; but I have seen 
 these happenings when the public was not 
 around, but in bed and asleep. 
 
 You have been away now some days from 
 town, and she does not look for you until a 
 week hence, as she knows your business af- 
 fairs are keeping you engaged. It is during 
 the past few days that I have beheld the oc- 
 currences to which I alluded. She has had 
 three buggy rides after dark with Mr. Var- 
 ley, coming in late when most people have 
 retired. This very evening she is to go ten 
 miles down the river in a buggy with him to 
 a dance or party of some kind given at 
 Colonel Boltons. They will not get back to 
 town before one o'clock tonight. 
 
 If you doubt what I tell you, you can ob- 
 tain the ocular proof by hastening here, and 
 stationing yourself not later than a quarter 
 before one, behind the honeysuckle frame 
 on the left side of the porch of the house 
 where she is staying. These are moonless
 
 164 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 nights, but you will see enough to know 
 that I have not warned you without cause, 
 as I deeply regret to say. 
 
 I send this up by the boat to-day, and mark 
 it "Important" with the request to the Ware 
 House man at the Landing to see that you 
 get it at once. 
 
 I am a woman as you see by the hand- 
 writing, but I have no designs on you or 
 yours. I am a married woman and twenty 
 years older than yourself old enough in- 
 deed to be your Mother. As God knows my 
 heart I feel only a mother's interest and a 
 Christian solicitude for you. If necessary I 
 am willing to let you and Miss Osmond know 
 who I am. 
 
 There was no signature to the letter, but 
 it needed none. The truth fairly throbbed 
 through all the calm plain statement of facts. 
 
 Five minutes had gone by, and Stanley 
 had not changed his position or altered his 
 fixed abstracted look. He gave no other 
 outward sign of what was going on within ; 
 but if a hand had clutched and wrung his
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 165 
 
 heart, he could hardly have endured greater 
 agony. 
 
 Meantime light came pouring in on events 
 of the past, bringing dreadful confirmation 
 of suspicion, while Hope still clung to the 
 possibility of some ghastly mistake, and Love 
 reached out its hands and cried over the 
 shattered idol. 
 
 Sandy's round bronze face had tears cov- 
 ering it when he spoke again. 
 
 "Mars Fred, kin I do anythin' fur you. It 
 huts me pow'ful bad to see you ur grievin' 
 dis way." 
 
 Stanley withdrew his eyes from the wall 
 with a great effort, let them rest on his ser- 
 vant, and with a voice vibrant with suffering 
 said: 
 
 "Saddle Roebuck and Wykoff quickly and 
 bring them around." 
 
 Then noticing the look of sorrow and sym- 
 pathy on the negro's face, he spoke again 
 laying his hand on his shoulder. 
 
 "Don't mind me Sandy Boy. I'm all right. 
 But quick with the horses; we have not a 
 minute to lose." 
 
 Sandy brushed the tears from his cheek
 
 106 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 with the back of his hand, and was off like 
 a shot. 
 
 II. 
 
 In a few minutes the beat of the hoofs of 
 Roebuck and Wykoff died away upon the 
 listening ears of those on the Buena Vista 
 Plantation, and the riders swept swiftly 
 down the lake shore toward the "Landing" 
 on the Yazoo River four miles away. 
 
 Stanley had quickly thought out his plan. 
 He knew from the present state of high 
 water that all the bayous in the Swamp were 
 full and would so delay him in crossing and 
 heading, that he could never reach Yazoo 
 City by horseback at the hour mentioned in 
 the note. He at the same time remembered 
 that the steamboat which had gone up at 
 midday, made what was called "The Short 
 Trip," going only to the head of Honey Is- 
 land, and so would soon return, passing the 
 "Landing" at about 9 or 10 o'clock that 
 night, and giving him the best and only 
 chance indeed of reaching the desired desti- 
 nation in time. 
 
 Deflecting at last from the lake upon whose
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 167 
 
 bosom the descending Venus was leaving a 
 trail of fire, the riders pursued their course 
 through the woods, and after a hard gallop 
 stood on the banks of the Yazoo. 
 
 Sandy soon built a large fire out of chunks 
 and knots which he picked up under the trees, 
 and the flames leaping up threw a broad 
 band of golden light across the flowing 
 stream to the opposite shore. Sitting down 
 they silently waited for the coming packet. 
 Far away through the still spring night they 
 could faintly hear her whistle, blowing for 
 landings five miles away overland, and ten 
 by water. Nearer and clearer and fuller 
 came the sound, and at last the boat turned 
 the bend of the river with her lights flash- 
 ing, her red and green lamps shining steadily 
 on the forward deck, and the furnace doors, 
 opened for a moment, sending a lurid glare 
 over the waters and against the wooded 
 banks. 
 
 Now then was Sandy's time to wave his 
 fire brand, while the sparks scattered in the 
 air with the movement; but the boat made 
 no return signal. He waved again, and high- 
 er; and still no recognition of the sign. Per-
 
 168 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 haps the pilot and lookout did not see it. 
 Once more went up the blazing torch and 
 then! the soft musical whistle floated out, 
 and a minute after the deep toned bell fol- 
 lowed with a solemn sound the dying echoes 
 of the whistle that still reverberated down 
 the river. A few moments more and the 
 silvery jingle of the bells in the engine room 
 were heard, the great wheels rested from 
 their long and steady beat of the waves, and 
 an iron bracket filled with burning odorous 
 pine knots threw out a red smoky radiance, 
 illuminating a group of deck hands in the 
 bow, and bringing out of the darkness the 
 forms of the two men and horses on the 
 shore. 
 
 Next the boat turned gracefully in the 
 stream and headed up gently against the 
 bank. The Mates voice rang out like a fog 
 horn: 
 
 "Shove out that plank! Quick about it! 
 Confound your lazy hides, are you going to 
 take all night about it! Heave away there 
 men !" 
 
 The narrow plank just touched the bank, 
 and Stanley with a hasty goodbye to Sandy,
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 169 
 
 stepped swiftly along its length to the boat, 
 and ascended the steps, as the great bell 
 gave a toll, the little ones of the engine room 
 merrily jingled, and amid loud orders from 
 the ever boisterous officer, the plank fell with 
 heavy echoing sound on the deck, the steam- 
 er turned her bow down stream, and with 
 quick beat of the paddles rushed on her way 
 to Yazoo City; while Sandy on Wykoff and 
 leading Roebuck returned homeward 
 through the shadowy forest. 
 
 As Stanley after a brief visit to the clerks 
 office, moved away from the noisy group in 
 the gentlemen's saloon and ascended to the 
 hurricane deck, he noticed by his watch that 
 it was not yet ten o'clock. 
 
 Taking a chair well forward, he gave him- 
 self up unrestrainedly to his gloomy 
 thoughts. What a mission he was on ! To 
 discover that very night if the one he loved 
 most was untrue to him; and if suspicion 
 proved correct, to find the same night in the 
 woman's treachery his own life wretched- 
 ness. 
 
 A starry Southern sky was overhead. The 
 forest loomed up on either side like two long
 
 170 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 black cliffs through which the steamer sped 
 its swift way. Ahead the river with its 
 steely gleam in the starlight would seem to 
 terminate, but as the bend w T ould be reached 
 and turned, the shadowy banks would open 
 like a gateway and there would be seen an- 
 other stretch of star lighted water inviting 
 onward the rushing vessel. 
 
 It is questionable whether the melancholy 
 thinker saw any parable or hint in this scene 
 of nature as to sudden openings and deliver- 
 ance for the despairing heart and walled up 
 life. He simply gazed forward with the one 
 aching desire to get to the end of his jour- 
 ney and find there his respite or doom. 
 
 The trees on the shore were full of Katy- 
 dids, and the night air was laden with their 
 song which could be heard above the cough 
 of the escape pipe and the heavy beat of the 
 steamers paddles. They were singing "Katy 
 did" and "Katy didn't," all the way down the 
 river. There was a division among them 
 about the matter. Stanley never heard their 
 chant afterwards, without connecting it 
 with this memorable sorrowful night. 
 
 Desiring for a moment to escape from his
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 171 
 
 reflections, he glanced back and upward at 
 the pilot house. He could but imperfectly 
 see the shadowed face and upper part of the 
 man's form there as he silently stood now 
 on one side of the wheel, and then with a 
 slow movement would pass over to the other. 
 Often he would make no change for minutes, 
 but stand with an arm stretched along the 
 tops of the spokes with his face looking sil- 
 ently and fixedly forward. 
 
 The time was coming when Stanley would 
 again see that same man in another pilot 
 house but under such circumstances of hor- 
 ror that he would carry the scene with him 
 through Eternity. 
 
 The Captain sat in a chair close to the 
 front guards, with his head and body bent 
 in a meditative position. Stanley remembered 
 that the man had a touching history which 
 was only partly known to the public. It was 
 said that he loved a very superior young- 
 woman, and had been, or was still engaged 
 to her. Ten or fifteen years had rolled past 
 and they had not married. Rumor said they 
 never would! That something which no 
 one understood had happened, and they
 
 172 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 could not wed. So our young planter with a 
 great pity looked at the bowed figure and 
 said to himself: . . 
 
 "How many life tragedies are taking place 
 all around us, and we do not know them. I 
 j am only one out of a great number of brok- 
 / enhearted men." 
 
 The Katydids seemed to sing even more 
 plaintively after this, but they did not reveal 
 the secret they were chanting about. They 
 said "Katy did" and "Katy didn't," which 
 simply left the matter in the same old tangle 
 and mystery of the centuries. 
 
 Stanley wondered if it was not really true 
 as he had heard as a boy, that a woman was 
 at the bottom of all the trouble in the world. 
 He remembered a Ranche on a western prai- 
 rie which was fifty miles from any human 
 habitation, and where he had been belated 
 once in crossing the plains. In the 
 lonely cabin he found a solitary book 
 with the title "Betrayed By A Woman." 
 The owner of the place was not there, nor 
 did he appear before Stanley left; but he felt 
 somehow from the well thumbed condition
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 173 
 
 of the volume, that the book in some measure 
 reflected the history of the hermit. 
 
 He found himself thinking of the Sorceress 
 of the Nile and the noble Roman whom she 
 ruined. Then his eyes fell again upon the 
 lonely figure of the Captain. He knew from 
 occasional movements of his hand that he 
 was not asleep. The woman he loved was 
 far away, and here he was, the man who 
 loved her, bowed down and alone in the 
 night. Stanley wondered if she ever lost any 
 sleep on his account; and thought bitterly 'I 
 guess not' as he flung his cigar in the waves. 
 
 Again he glanced up at the unlighted pilot 
 house, and beheld the dimly outlined figure 
 at its vigil, the left arm was still resting on 
 top of the wheel, and the shadowed face still 
 looked fixedly down the river. He wondered 
 if the silent helmsman up there had any 
 heart history, if any woman had ever tortur- 
 ed his mind or blasted his life. He marvel- 
 led if back of his steady gaze now directed 
 down the stream there were thoughts of such 
 an one whom he desired or dreaded to meet, 
 and to whom every revolution of the wheels 
 was bringing him.
 
 174 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 There was no way of finding out, and the 
 restless man turned back to the contempla- 
 tion of the night, and to listen to the divided 
 testimony of the Katydids, some of whom 
 still continued to affirm that she did, while 
 others as persistently declared that she did 
 not. 
 
 Having but a couple of landings, the boat 
 made a swift run, and so a little after mid- 
 night she blew her calliope-like whistle for 
 Yazoo City, and hardly twenty minutes af- 
 terward Stanley was walking up the dark and 
 silent streets of the town, his steps echoing 
 from the store fronts and walls with a drea- 
 ry foreboding sound. 
 
 Lights had been extinguished everywhere 
 except at one residence where there seemed 
 to be a social or musical gathering. A wo- 
 man's magnificent voice was singing "The 
 Crimson Bird." For two or three minutes 
 after he passed he could hear the singer and 
 even some of the words : 
 "Oh list not to the Crimson Bird 
 That sings on yonder vine 
 
 There is a voice of sweeter note, 
 Tis thine dear love, tis thine;
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 175 
 
 There is a voice of sweeter note 
 Tis thine dear love, tis thine. 
 
 Oh gaze not on yon distant star 
 That beams with rays divine; 
 
 There is an eye with brighter light, 
 Tis thine sweet love, tis thine; 
 
 There is an eye with brighter light, 
 Tis thine sweet love, tis thine." 
 
 He remembered how the woman he loved 
 delighted to dress in crimson. As for the 
 light of her dark eyes, how could he forget ! 
 
 Passing in half a block of the jail he sud- 
 denly recollected that a white man who had 
 been a Confederate soldier was to be hung 
 in the morning. Glancing down the street 
 he saw the gallows standing up stark in the 
 starlight, and wondered if the man was 
 asleep or awake, and whether he heard the 
 woman singing. 
 
 He noticed as he walked on, that the dogs 
 were barking all over the town. The wo- 
 man's voice had doubtless aroused them, 
 but he knew the negroes would say that 
 they felt or saw the presence of death.
 
 176 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 Pausing at last before a house with a 
 large flower yard, and looking at his watch 
 with the light of a match, he saw that it lack- 
 ed exactly fifteen minutes to one. He swift- 
 ly opened the gate, and took refuge behind 
 a honey suckle frame that bordered the 
 porch. It perfectly hid him, while through 
 the vines he had a clear view of the gallery 
 and door. He had scarcely taken his position 
 when he heard the whir of wheels and a bug- 
 gy with two persons in it turned the corner. 
 In another moment the speed was changed 
 to a walk, and in almost a noiseless way the 
 vehicle approached. In an equally quiet 
 manner the figures got out of the buggy, 
 opened and shut the gate softly, and walked 
 toward the house with guarded footsteps. 
 
 There was no trouble in recognizing them 
 even in the starlight. There were few forms 
 that could compare with the fair one Stanley 
 gazed upon from his covert in the honey- 
 suckles. With a sickening heart he observ- 
 ed that they were whispering as they ad- 
 vanced; and on entering the porch with
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 177 
 
 soundless footfalls, they did not approach 
 the door but came to the most shadowy cor- 
 ner and in four feet of where he was con- 
 cealed. 
 
 To his unutterable amazement and agony 
 he saw her lift her face and entwine her 
 arms around Varley's neck, the sleeves fall- 
 ing down beneath the elbow in the act, re- 
 vealing the whiteness and roundness which 
 he had so admired and of which he had been 
 so proud. He saw Varley put his arms about 
 her, bend down his head and their lips meet; 
 and thus they stood for a minute. 
 
 For some moments Stanley thought he 
 would suffocate, and his veins burst with the 
 blood that swelled and packed them. Ex- 
 citement, fury, indignation, all strove in his 
 tortured heart. For an instant he came near 
 rushing out and murdering the man, and 
 then dashing the woman upon the ground, 
 grinding his heel in her false and beautiful 
 face and spurning her from his presence for- 
 ever. 
 
 Like a flash however came the thought 
 that this would never do, and with a stifled 
 groan he clenched his hands around a slat
 
 178 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 of the vine frame, driving a small nail deep 
 into the flesh, and yet knew it not until hours 
 afterward. The slight sound however dis- 
 turbed the pair, and Blanche whispered 
 quickly; 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "Just the birds in the vines. We aroused 
 them." 
 
 Then again she sank in his arms. 
 By and by Varley spoke to her very softly, 
 but so distinctly as to be heard by the agon- 
 ized being near by: 
 
 "What would Stanley think if he could 
 see us now?" 
 
 "Oh don't mention him. I don't want to 
 think of him. I respect him, but I love you. 
 Oh I wish you had money so we could mar- 
 ry!" 
 
 Again the woman's face was lifted, and the 
 man's head stooped to meet it with kisses. 
 
 "Well I haven't, and that just ends the 
 matter," replied Varley, "I have not enough 
 to support us a week." 
 
 After a few moments he resumed, 
 "Why don't you love Stanley?"
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 179 
 
 "I don't know. I admire the man, but I 
 do not love him." 
 
 "What makes you love me?" 
 
 "I cannot tell," she replied, "but when I 
 am with you I feel like I am drunk." 
 
 Varley laughed his low triumphant laugh 
 almost under his breath. 
 
 "Please," she pleaded, "don't laugh that 
 way. I can't bear to hear it." 
 
 Several minutes more passed away, seem- 
 ing like ages to the stricken wretched man 
 in concealment. And yet there remained a 
 great additional pang for him. 
 
 Varley spoke again, 
 
 "When you are married and I am invited 
 to visit you at your plantation, or your house 
 in town, will you feel differently, and act dif- 
 ferently to me then?" 
 
 "Oh," she said breathing heavily, "Don't 
 ask that. I will then be married to him." 
 
 The young woman seemed to be trembling 
 all over, and reminded Stanley in spite of 
 his mental suffering of a bird he had once 
 seen charmed by a serpent. He remember- 
 ed the distressing sensation it had produced
 
 180 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 in him as stopping- his horse he looked at the 
 sight. The woodland songster with wings 
 extended and quivering, had its eyes fixed 
 on the red open mouth and basilisk gaze of 
 the snake which was stretched full length 
 on the large limb of a tree, and not twelve 
 inches removed from its fascinated victim. 
 
 How little he dreamed then that he would 
 behold the same kind of thing reproduced 
 on a so much higher scale of life, and when 
 he himself would be so bitterly and disas- 
 trously affected. 
 
 He recalled how he got down from his 
 horse that morning and taking a rail from 
 the fence drew near the limb and with one 
 crashing blow killed the reptile which fell 
 with heavy thud upon the ground. The bird 
 though freed from its captor did not at once 
 fly, but looked and acted as if it was sick, 
 confused and partially paralyzed. He recol- 
 lected that it was hours before he could 
 shake off the impression made upon him by 
 the scene; and yet here he was beholding 
 something unspeakably more horrible, where 
 the human serpent was not destroyed, and 
 the weak woman who was thoroughly in the
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 181 
 
 man's power showed no sign of disenchant- 
 ment and manifested no desire for deliver- 
 ance. 
 
 Again Varley spoke to her. 
 
 "I am waiting for your answer." 
 
 The woman seemed to be in deep thought; 
 and then Stanley saw her drop her head on 
 Varley' s breast. He heard the betrayers 
 low soft laugh again, and then whisper some- 
 thing. He saw the being he had idolized lift 
 up her face, Varley bend to meet it, and his 
 heavy moustache cover her mouth. 
 
 Not ten minutes had elapsed during this 
 scene on the porch' but to Stanley it seemed 
 ten years. And when finally after more en- 
 dearments the two parted, Blanche tipping 
 away noiselessly and vanishing through the 
 door, and Varley walking and driving off 
 as quietly as he came, the unhappy man stag- 
 gered out from his hiding place and reeled 
 up the street stunned, dazed, half crazed and 
 feeling like he had aged a quarter of a cen- 
 tury. 
 
 A fourth pair of eyes, considerably older 
 than the others, had been a silent witness of 
 the scene on the porch, and now followed
 
 182 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 Stanley with a tearful glance and the fervent 
 petitions "God pity him! God have mercy 
 upon him !" 
 
 But the man knew of no human sympathy, 
 felt no relief from any quarter, and stagger- 
 ed aimlessly about for fully half an hour. He 
 thought once of drowning himself in the riv- 
 er, then of shooting himself. He wanted to 
 run like the wind and leave the black dreadful 
 load behind which was crushing him. He 
 felt like rushing into the forest, losing him- 
 self in the swamp, dying like an animal in a 
 jungle, letting the vultures pick his bones, 
 and no one ever knowing what had become 
 of him. Everything seemed to cry out for 
 suicide, and the various methods of self de- 
 struction came flowing in tumultously like 
 stormy waves beating on a strand. 
 
 In this condition while wandering from 
 street to street, a watchman met and recog- 
 nized him, thought he was drunk and calling 
 him by name, advised him to go to the hotel. 
 
 Stanley was in a mental state where hu- 
 man voices were a torture, and he broke 
 away from the man and fled up Adams street 
 toward the hills that skirt the city on the
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 183 
 
 east. Next day the night officer told it 
 around that he had found Stanley drunk on 
 the street after one o'clock and he did not 
 seem far from mania potu; that he acted 
 like one beside himself and ran from him 
 like a maniac. The report gained ground 
 daily and many believed it. Already Fred 
 Stanley was a misunderstood man. 
 
 After distancing the watchman, Stanley 
 ascended the hill and sat for a couple of 
 hours or more on the "Peak" looking down 
 at the sleeping town. He could see just be- 
 low him the locust grove where one evening 
 at sunset he had told Blanche Osmond of his 
 love and was accepted. He could easily lo- 
 cate the house where she was now staying 
 and possibly sleeping, and all ignorant of 
 his knowledge of her perfidy, and that agony 
 into which she had plunged him. 
 
 He could safely groan aloud where he was, 
 high up on the hill above the town. And 
 groan he did while his burning eyes were dry 
 as stone, and his heart felt like a great ach- 
 ing throbbing wound. 
 
 He heard a clock striking in some house on
 
 184 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 the hill far beneath him. He counted three. 
 He had been on the Peak nearly two hours. 
 
 Glancing to the right he saw the town 
 cemetery a half mile or more away, in a kind 
 of Sleepy Hollow valley. His father and 
 mother lay buried there. There were no liv- 
 ing people to whom he could go with his 
 grief, and a great longing came over him to 
 be near those dear dead loved ones. 
 
 Crossing the hills he passed over the 
 branch near the graveyard, and climbing 
 the stile, walked down the gravelled road 
 with monuments and vaults on either side, 
 and came in the starlight to his family burial 
 lot. Closing the little gate behind him, he 
 stood a moment in the dim light at the foot 
 of the graves of his parents, and then with 
 a bitter cry of "Father! Mother!" he fell 
 groaning between the two mounds. 
 
 In the presence of his dead, years had 
 swept away, and he had become a child again. 
 How often their arms had been reached out 
 and thrown around him in the trials and sor- 
 rows of childhood and boyhood; and here 
 he found himself instinctively craving and 
 seeking their help and comfort once more.
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 186 
 
 He put his face in the grass that covered his 
 mother's form and flung his arm over the 
 grave of his father, as if he would embrace 
 the one who had been the strong earthly 
 friend and protector of his life. He tried to 
 pray, but could not. He cried out "Christ! 
 Christ! Christ!" and once sobbed out "Have 
 mercy." 
 
 Perhaps he was praying better than he 
 thought ; and was answered more than he at 
 first dreamed was possible. Anyhow as the 
 hours rolled over the prostrate form be- 
 tween the two graves, a part of the unendur- 
 able agony of mind was lifted, the suffocat- 
 ing grasp around the heart loosened, and a 
 sense of incoming life and strength stole over 
 the exhausted spirit. The feeling of bereave- 
 ment was left, and a sadness voiceless and 
 profound brooded upon him, but there had 
 come calmness and power to both mind and 
 body. There was an inward realization of 
 ability to rise up and go forward with a life 
 burden and sorrow, and make no sign, give 
 no moan, and ask for no sympathy or help 
 from the gaping curious gossiping crowd 
 around.
 
 186 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 The first pencilings of the dawn now ap- 
 peared in the East. A mocking bird was sing- 
 ing from a large magnolia tree in a distant 
 part of the cemetery, and the breath of the 
 Cape Jasmine was faintly perfuming the air. 
 
 A little later, and the sound of wagon 
 wheels on the high road and the whistle of 
 a passing driver broke on the stillness of the 
 City of the Dead, and Stanley knew that th'e 
 world was waking up for another days toil 
 and battle. 
 
 He walked out of the grave yard deadly 
 pale from the nights suffering and exhaus- 
 tion. His dress was in disorder, and the 
 stain of mud and clay all unconscious to him- 
 self was on his hat and coat. 
 
 As he entered the main road on his return 
 to town, he was overtaken by a number of 
 milk, meat and vegetable wagons going at 
 that early hour to the market. Their oc- 
 cupants looked wonderingly and inquiringly 
 at him as they rattled past. Two butchers 
 nudged each other and laughed. 
 
 "Out on a spree" cried one. 
 
 "Drunk again," laughed the other. 
 
 Stanley heard the remarks and guffaws of
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 187 
 
 the men as they drove on ahead and disap- 
 peared in the distance with occasional turn- 
 ings of head and pointings of whip in his di- 
 rection. Their misjudgment did not arouse 
 any resentment. He simply said to himself 
 with a sigh, 
 
 "Drunk? Yes verily, I am drunk: but it is 
 with sorrow!" 
 
 Twenty minutes afterwards as he passed 
 the Market, the two individuals of the wag- 
 on called the attention of several of their 
 friends to him, and repeated their views and 
 conclusions. And so the misunderstanding 
 concerning the man went steadily on. The 
 human judges were certain they had "sized 
 up the case" as they called it, and yet had 
 missed the truth so to speak by millions of 
 miles, even as other character critics and ex- 
 ecutioners have done before, and will do so 
 again in the effort to comprehend^ajtjprpj- s 
 fnnndest of all mysteries a suffering human 
 heart and life.^ 
 
 III. 
 
 Blanche Osmond came down to a late 
 breakfast the next morning, and was dawd-
 
 188 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 ling over a cup of tea and piece of toast, 
 when at nine o'clock the door bell rang. 
 
 As the other ladies of the house were in 
 their rooms, and the servant seemed to be 
 absent, Blanche answered the summons, and 
 found a colored boy bearing a letter which 
 was addressed to herself. 
 
 "Who sent it," she asked. 
 
 "Mr. Stanley sont it Ma'am," was the re- 
 ply. 
 
 "Mr. Stanley! Is he in town," exclaimed 
 the surprised woman glancing quickly at the 
 envelope and recognizing her fiance's hand- 
 writing. 
 
 "He was hyer, but he done gone now. I 
 seed him git in a buggy, an' he moh'n haf 
 way to Benton by now." 
 
 "What was he going to Benton for?" quer- 
 ed Blanche now full of curiosity. 
 
 "He aint gwine to Benton. I hyerd him 
 tell a gemmun he gwine to Canton tonight, 
 an' fum dah he gwine right on to Noo Or- 
 leans. An' he gin me ur haf dollar to fotch 
 dis letter rounst to you." 
 
 Dismissing the boy, Blanche Osmond 
 went with an anxious look to her room, and
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 189 
 
 locking the door, and taking her seat, open- 
 ed the letter, and read the following lines. 
 The agonized man had written four or five 
 notes full of upbraiding and censure, but 
 tore them up one after another, and finally 
 composed and dispatched the last. 
 
 Yazoo City, May 4, 18 
 
 Miss Osmond : I was both a spectator and 
 auditor of the scene and conversation which 
 took place last night at one o'clock between 
 yourself and Mr. Varley. 
 
 I spare you the upbraiding that naturally 
 leaps to the lips in view of your treatment to 
 a man who loved you with his whole heart. 
 
 It is well for us both that I discovered your 
 character and the true state of your heart be- 
 fore marriage. Of course our engagement is 
 at an end. My lips shall be sealed to all as 
 to the cause of the rupture, as I do not wish 
 to injure you in the eyes of the community. 
 You are at liberty to make any explanation 
 of the separation that you desire. I will pro- 
 mise not to contradict your statement. 
 
 F. Stanley. 
 
 For a moment the woman came near fal- 
 ling. Then collecting herself she read and
 
 190 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 re-read the cold formal lines that went like 
 daggers into her heart. 
 
 When she came down to luncheon, several 
 hours later, she ate nothing, and looked so 
 deadly pale that all inquired if she was ill. 
 
 In a few days the report was in circulation 
 that Fred Stanley had been drunk on the 
 street after midnight. This was followed by 
 another rumor, that because of his disgrace- 
 ful conduct, Blanche Osmond had broken the 
 engagement. Then quickly on the heels of 
 the second came the third installment of gos- 
 sip, that Stanley in inconsolable sorrow had 
 gone off on a spree to New Orleans. 
 
 There were some who stated that they 
 saw him intoxicated at night and in the early 
 morning; and others had seen him driving 
 up the plank road toward Benton looking 
 pale and miserable. So here was the proof. 
 
 These reports were brought to Blanche 
 Osmond by acquaintances and friends, and 
 in reply she smiled coldly and said that Mr. 
 Stanley was nothing to her. This of course 
 was a plain confirmation to the public of all 
 that had been rumored in the case. 
 
 Another whisper started that Stanley had
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 191 
 
 jilted the young lady. No one could trace 
 this to its source, but it began somehow, and 
 ran its course like other bits of town talk. 
 It was believed by a number, and reflected 
 on Stanley more than the other adverse state- 
 ments about him; for the male flirt is a char- 
 
 acter whom the true Southerner finds it im- 
 possible to tolerate. 
 
 At the dining table of one of the leading 
 families in town, this last report was brought 
 up. One of the daughters was begging that 
 Fred Stanley be included among those in- 
 vited to a reception to be given a niece of 
 the family, who was to pay them a visit. The 
 father from the foot of the table said, 
 
 "Let it not be mentioned again. A man 
 who is seen drunk on our streets at night, 
 and flirts with as fine a girl as Blanche Os- 
 mond is not the man I wish to have near a 
 daughter or niece of mine; I don't care if he 
 has got money." 
 
 "But," replied the daughter, "the report 
 is that Blanche gave him the mitten. He 
 did not jilt her." 
 
 "It doesn't matter," rejoined the indignant 
 father. "If she threw him off, he deserved
 
 192 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 it for his misconduct on the streets. The 
 Watchman says he acted like a crazy man, 
 and was on the verge of mania potu. And 
 they say at the Market, that several there 
 saw him close to Willis hill at daybreak, and 
 that he looked like, he had slept in the gullies 
 all night. Blanche Osmond is to be congrat- 
 ulated upon her happy escape." 
 
 Thus the two reports went on ; and as both 
 of them were damaging to the already pro- 
 foundly wronged man ; so the misunderstand- 
 ing of his character and the actual history 
 of the case, increased as time and talk prog- 
 ressed. 
 
 Both pieces of gossip travelled up to Clear 
 Lake and went the rounds in a weeks time 
 among the neighbors. Most of the families of 
 Stanley's circle were inclined to believe the 
 first story, that he had been discarded by his 
 lady love, and that he had gone to New 
 Orleans to rally from his grief and mortifi- 
 cation before returning home. 
 
 Sandy and Millie with the rest of the old 
 family negros believed that "Mars Fred hed 
 flung dat town gal sky high," and were cor- 
 respondingly proud of him for having done
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 193 
 
 so. They fairly hooted at the idea of any 
 woman not being willing and anxious to get 
 their young master for a husband. Millie 
 with her arms akimbo before her wash tub 
 declared to a circle of admiring listeners; 
 
 "Shoo! Whut you talkin' about. Sho's 
 you bawn Queen Victoria would be proud fur 
 one ur her darters ter mah'y Mars F'ed. 
 She'd sho jump at de chance. Dat she would. 
 You hyer me talkin' don't you." 
 
 Nearly two weeks after Stanley's depart- 
 ure from his place, one of the boats threw off 
 a letter from him addressed to Bentley the 
 Warehouseman at the Landing. It con- 
 tained a request that he would get word to 
 Sandy to meet him at the Landing with his 
 horse on the next trip of the steamer. 
 
 Bentley concluded to deliver the message 
 in person, and so found himself in due time 
 at the big front gate of Buena Vista. The 
 customary "Hello" given in a stentorian 
 voice brought out a pack of hounds from the 
 quarters, Stanley's large Newfoundland on 
 the gallery, and Millie from her cabin wiping 
 her hands on her apron as she approached. 
 
 "I came up to deliver a message to Sandy 
 from Mr. Stanley. Where is he?"
 
 194 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 "Whurs Mars Fed? He's in Noo Or- 
 leans." 
 
 "No I mean Sandy: where is he?" 
 
 "W'y aint you hyerd nuthin tall bout 
 Sandy? He's bin in baid gwine on mos' two 
 weeks." 
 
 "Why no; whats the matter with him?" 
 asked Bentley. 
 
 "Law bless yoh soul honey, he done mos' 
 bus' his haid open er dressin' back. He done 
 hut hissef pow'ful bad." 
 
 "What do you mean by dressing back?" 
 queried Bentley, who being a new comer in 
 the Swamp, was a stranger to many terms 
 and expressions used by both white and 
 black. 
 
 "Well I 'clare ter gracious," returned Mil- 
 lie, "I thought ev'ybody know'd whut dressin 
 back wuz. You know de night Mars F'ed 
 done gonter Azoo City? Well he tuk Sandy 
 to de Landin' wid him to fetch back his hoss. 
 Arter Mars F'ed tuk de boat, Sandy he tun 
 off to Major Burtons, to ur dancin' frolic some 
 ur dem worl'y sinful niggers gin dat vah'y 
 night. Now you know Sandy kain keep furr 
 no place whur a banjer ur fiddle is a gwine
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 195 
 
 on; Sandy aint 'ligious lak me Drat dat 
 cat!" 
 
 Here Millie gave a cat, that in playing 
 around her had stuck a claw in her foot, a 
 kick that sent it flying about ten feet. 
 
 "Naw Suh," the woman placidly resumed, 
 "Sandy nuvver got 'ligion lak me. He's sho' 
 gwine to de Devil wid his banjer an' riddle, 
 always a pickin' an' a sawin' on 'em, w'en he 
 orter be on his knees an' er sarvin' de Lawd 
 Law's a Mussy! did you nuvver see seen 
 ur oudacious varmint as dis cat !" And stoop- 
 ing down she picked up the reoffending ani- 
 mal and taking it by the tail flung it over the 
 fence. The cat of course landed on its four 
 feet according to the feline custom, and then 
 vanished down the path towards the negro 
 cabins with its caudal appendage hoisted in 
 the air like a sail. 
 
 Millie looked a moment after the domestic 
 pet as it scuttled away, burst into a rich Af- 
 rican laugh at the spectacle, and resumed; 
 
 "Well as I was gwine on to tell you; all 
 de dancers was in de middle ur de floh, an* 
 Sandy's part was to do de double shuffle ur 
 gwine backuds all de time as he done it. And
 
 196 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 he to Astonish dem niggers wid some extry 
 Jim Crow shines an' Buzzard hops, nuvver 
 seed de back doh wide open ; w'en all ur sud- 
 dint outen he went backard an* lit on his 
 haid an' jes' about brek his skull on de 
 groun'." 
 
 "Well I never thought anything could 
 break Sandy's skull" laughed Bentley. 
 
 "You's sho right 'bouten dat," broke in 
 the woman with animation. "I tole him dat 
 vah'y thing mohn* a thousan' times, dat he 
 was too hardheaded fur anythin'. Naw Suh ! 
 Sandy's skull all soun', but de fall done twis' 
 his naik, an' he bin mighty po'ly endurin all 
 dese pas' two weeks. I jes lef him in baid 
 when I come to see who dat hollerin' 'hello'." 
 
 Hitching his horse, Bentley followed the 
 voluble woman toward her distant cabin. 
 Several peach trees stood about it, and it 
 was further ornamented in front with some 
 stately sunflowers, and a gourd vine swing- 
 ing from the roof. A half dozen bee hives 
 were half hidden behind white blossoming, 
 althea bushes, and two or three chicken 
 coops rested on the ground. Several mother- 
 ly hens were clucking around at the head of
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 197 
 
 their yellow feathered broods, that were 
 chirping responsively in 'the golden sun- 
 shine. 
 
 "Yes," continued Millie picking her way 
 through the little saffron beauties, "Sandy's 
 bin in baid mosen two weeks wid his banjer 
 lay'n long side ur him." 
 
 As she said this while the two drew near- 
 er the cabin door, they suddenly heard the 
 notes of the banjo, the regular tap and beat 
 of a foot on the floor, and Sandy's voice 
 sounding remarkably strong for that of a 
 sick man. 
 
 Millie at a sign from Bentley stopped amid 
 the clucking fowls, flitting bees and fragrant 
 blossoms of the yard, and both stood listen- 
 ing to the recovered invalid, who all uncon- 
 scious of an audience was singing one of his 
 favorite melodies. 
 
 "De Possum air a funny thing, 
 
 He ramble in de dark, 
 But doan he cut de pigeon wing, 
 
 When he hyer my bull dog bark." 
 
 Then followed a banjo refrain accompan-
 
 198 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 led with a patting of the foot on the floor. 
 Phonetically it was 
 
 Tink er lunk, tink er lunk, 
 Tink er lunk, tink er lunk, 
 Tink er lunk, tink er lunk, 
 Tink er lunk, dunk, day! 
 
 Then came a voice refrain 
 
 "Farewell, farewell, farewell 
 My own true love." 
 
 The foot beat grew louder and the voice 
 stronger as the song proceeded. 
 
 "De squirrel am a curus thing, 
 
 It totes a bushy tail, 
 It steals de corn fum my Daddy's barn, 
 An' husks it on de rail. 
 Tink a lunk, etc., 
 Farewell, etc." 
 
 Sandy was now well warmed up to his 
 work and it was a lively contest with foot 
 and banjo, while his voice floating like a
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 199 
 
 triumphant banner over all, came to the third 
 verse. 
 
 "Ef I had a scoldin' wife, 
 
 I'd whip her sho's she born, 
 I'd take her down to Noo Orleans, 
 An' trade her off fur corn." 
 Tink a lunk, etc. 
 Farewell, etc. 
 
 Sandy was in the midst of his "Farewell, 
 farewell, farewell, my own true love" when 
 Millie with Bentley at her heels walked sud- 
 denly into the humble one-roomed cabin. 
 
 It had a cavernous fire place with a pot 
 swung just over a smoldering fire. A cheap 
 clock ticked on the mantel flanked with two 
 gaudy Plaster of Paris images. A big pump- 
 kin was in one corner. A setting hen on a 
 nest of eggs under the bed, peeped out at the 
 visitors. One of the rafters was garnished 
 with half a dozen strings of red peppers, and 
 as many garlands of onions. A bunch of yel- 
 low gourds hung on a nail high up on the 
 wall. Two or three hide bottomed chairs 
 and a crack glassed bureau with some wood-
 
 200 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 en chests constituted the furniture; while 
 a gay looking quilt on the bed disputed with 
 two red and blue prints on the wall for wealth 
 of color in the apartment. 
 
 Sandy with his neck enswathed in a huge 
 white bandage, and with his banjo now fal- 
 len in his lap, sat in a chair gazing in a rather 
 dumbfounded way at the visitors. 
 
 "Well I mus' say," cried Millie, "You'se 
 done got well pow'ful suddent. Jes now you 
 hed sech mizry in yoh haid, tell you kain git 
 outen de baid to mek up de fire fur dinner; 
 an' now you'se gwine down to Noo Orleans 
 wid ur scoldin' wife. I'd lak ter know who's 
 dat own true love you kain take wid you 
 when you go?" 
 
 Bentley gave a ringing laugh, while Sandy 
 for a few moments looked decidedly cheap 
 and foolish. But Millie came to his relief 
 with the words: 
 
 "Hyers Mr. Bentley Sandy, whuts come 
 wid ur messige fum Mars F'ed dat he's corn- 
 in' home on de boat dis nex' Chuseday." 
 
 "I sho' glad to hyer dat," said the negro 
 with a look of genuine pleasure on his face. 
 Sandy," smiled Bentley, "I heard
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 201 
 
 you had a crick in your neck and was laid up 
 in bed from it." , 
 
 "Twas wussen ur creek Suh, twas ekal ter 
 a whole river, an' I kain git 'cross fur a week 
 an' moh." 
 
 "I'm glad to see you are better at last," re- 
 turned the visitor with an amused look at 
 the big bandage and the banjo. 
 
 "Yes Suh," replied Sandy refusing to part 
 with his gravity and his invalid look alto- 
 gether; "Yes Suh, I'm feelin' quite peert dis 
 mawnin." 
 
 Bentley then gave Stanley's message about 
 meeting him at the Landing with his horse, 
 and turning to leave said; 
 
 "I'm glad you have such a good faithful 
 wife Sandy: you ought to be thankful that 
 you have such a woman to look after you and 
 keep you straight." This last remark with a 
 twinkle in his eye. 
 
 "Dats jes' whut I tell him ev'y day," broke 
 in Millie. "But Sandy doan lissun to me, 
 he's dat hard haided. Naw Suh he nuvver 
 brek his skull. Hits nachuelly too hard to 
 brek." 
 
 These domestic compliments Sandy receiv^
 
 202 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 ed with an unmoved countenance, either be- 
 cause he had learned the philosophy of en- 
 durance, or knew that his wife's bark was 
 worse then her bite. 
 
 In fact Bentley with his quick eye saw in 
 the few minutes of his visit, that Millie was 
 really fond of her husband, in spite of the 
 tongue dressings she gave him. And though 
 indulging in frequent verbal slams at his 
 banjo playing, she was secretly proud of his 
 accomplishment in that line. 
 
 Three evenings afterward Stanley arrived 
 on the Tuesday packet, and was met by San- 
 dy, now fully recovered, with the horses. 
 
 The negro was greatly pained at the 
 changed appearance of his master. There 
 were lines of deep settled melancholy on the 
 face that a child could not but observe. Still 
 Sandy thought in the brief conversation 
 which ensued in their ride through the 
 woods to Clear Lake, that he had never 
 heard a gentler kinder accent in Stanley's 
 voice than there was now. 
 
 Millie's eyes filled the instant she saw him, 
 and with a woman's quick instinct, better un- 
 derstood the new spirit which had come up-
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 203 
 
 on the owner of Buena Vista. She urged a 
 number of things upon him at the table as 
 she waited on him that night. 
 
 "Mars F'ed lenime brile you ur nice spring 
 chicken. Naw you doan want it. t Well have 
 some ur dese fried pyerch jes' caught dis 
 vah'y evenin' outen de lake." 
 
 The silent man quietly refused, and with 
 a patient smile which brought the tears to 
 Millie's eyes again, left the table without 
 touching scarcely a thing. 
 
 The gossip raged afresh about Clear Lake 
 after Stanleys return, for the man's face con- 
 sidered stern by some, and sorrowful by 
 others, gave a new spring and inspiration to 
 the talk. 
 
 Through the garrulous negroes, Stanley 
 was soon in possession of all that was said 
 about him, both on the Lake and in Yazoo 
 City. He made no reply in denial or self de- 
 fense, but the lines grew more marked on 
 his countenance, and his eyes with their hurt 
 expression gathered a deeper shadow. 
 
 He made the carpenters finish the work 
 about the house, and heard through his ser- 
 vants that this step had been termed by his
 
 204 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 neighbors a "bluff," "pride" and "a stiff up- 
 per lip." He went on without a word, and 
 in a month's time had an excellent young 
 farmer named Corwin to move down from 
 the hills with his bride and take possession 
 of the new rooms, and become the manager 
 of his plantation. 
 
 A week after this the neighborhood ton- 
 gues were set going again with the tidings 
 that Stanley had gone to Chicago to live, and 
 had entered there upon the Real Estate busi- 
 ness. 
 
 Months rolled by and one day the papers 
 spoke of a great fire which had raged in Chi- 
 cago, and how Stanley had distinguished 
 himself by heroism of conduct, as well as 
 coolness in the face of frightful danger. 
 Where even firemen had stood appalled, he 
 had gathered a small band of men, and in 
 spite of falling walls and enveloping sheets 
 of flame had burst his way through closed 
 doors and windows and saved a number of 
 lives. 
 
 This report of the bravery of the far away 
 man had a double effect at Clear Lake. Some 
 felt that he had been misjudged and became
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 205 
 
 softened in their feelings toward him. Oth- 
 ers declared that the whole affair was a fine 
 piece of acting, and that Stanley was trying 
 to redeem the bad record he had made in 
 Yazoo City. 
 
 Meantime at Buena Vista, Sandy took care 
 of his absent master's horses and dogs, pick- 
 ed his banjo, and told ever increasingly mar- 
 vellous stories of what he and Mars Fred 
 had seen and done in the War, and what they 
 had achieved in various camp hunts in the 
 Swamp. 
 
 Millie kept the key to Stanley's room, 
 guarding the apartment faithfully as he had 
 left it. She gravely declared to listening 
 whites and blacks alike, that: 
 
 "Mars F'ed done made so much money in 
 Chicago dat he dunno whut to do wid it all." 
 
 It required but little effort of her nimble 
 tongue and rich imagination to add: 
 
 "Mars F'ed done bought ur house fourteen 
 stories high; rides outen ev'y ev'nin' in ur 
 four hoss team, an' got a haf dozen ladies 
 plum 'stracted bouten him." 
 
 With some, these highly colored stories 
 of Millie had no effect save to awaken a
 
 206 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 smile; but there were others who believed 
 all they heard and even more; and felt it was 
 but corroborative evidence of the character 
 of a libertine and the life of a heartless soul- 
 less man of the world. 
 
 IV, 
 
 Nearly a year and a half had passed since 
 Stanley had left Clear Lake for Chicago. 
 Called by business to Vicksburg, Baton 
 Rouge and New Orleans, he found himself 
 one afternoon in October in the office of a 
 hotel at the first named place. Awaiting a 
 hack to carry him down to the wharf where 
 he would take a steamer bound for the Cres- 
 cent City, he carelessly glanced his eye over 
 the file of newspapers on the desk, and saw 
 one a week old from Yazoo City. As he was 
 skimming the local columns he read the fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 "Miss Blanche Osmond who has been 
 spending a month with her friends in this 
 city, will leave us next week by river for her 
 home in Louisiana. Report says that Miss 
 Osmond is to be married in the near future 
 to a wealthy merchant of New Orleans. This
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 207 
 
 gentlemen is certainly to be congratulated 
 in having won so beautiful and accomplished 
 a woman. He may well be proud of his 
 prize." 
 
 In a few minutes more Stanley was in the 
 hack, and soon on the boat which lay like a 
 vast smoking leviathan in the midst of a 
 long line of steamers at the wharf. 
 
 Two large river packets were to leave near- 
 ly at the same time for New Orleans, both 
 loaded heavily with cotton and crowded with 
 passengers. 
 
 A cannon was fired, and the steamboat 
 Stanley was on slowly backed out and turned 
 majestically in the stream with ,her fooW 
 pointed towards the South. 
 
 A crew of fifty negro deck hands stood in 
 a cluster about a leader who was elevated 
 several feet above them. One arm was 
 around the jackstaff and the other waved a 
 ragged hat in the air as he burst forth in one 
 of the wild weird river songs or chants for 
 which the old South was famous. First came 
 the voice of the leader. 
 
 "Oh give my love to Juley." 
 
 Then with a storm-like rush came the fifty
 
 208 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 tongued chorus in a strain that would defy 
 all description, but which sent the blood 
 tingling and shivering through every vein, 
 and the quick gushing tears to the eyes. 
 
 The Refrain 
 
 "Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h!" 
 
 Here a single short line was doing what 
 long speeches and voluminous books have 
 often failed to accomplish. And a little word 
 "Ah," treated by fifty negro men to minor 
 notes, musical slurs, vocal swellings and dy- 
 ings away, together with strangely pathetic 
 lip, tongue and throat tremblings had hush- 
 ed, melted or thrilled every passenger on the 
 boat. The song had set the heart of every- 
 body longing for something or somebody in 
 a homesick disconsolate way that no pen or 
 tongue could ever properly describe. 
 
 Again the leader sang or rather chanted: 
 
 "Oh tell her that I love her!" 
 Then the refrain ; 
 "Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h!" 
 
 Stanley sat in his old favorite place on the
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 20y 
 
 hurricane deck, drinking in the melody from 
 the ragged black faced singers,' and listening 
 to it die away on the distant shore, while 
 wrapped in melancholy thoughts of the past. 
 
 Meantime the great floating palace with 
 heavy puff of scape pipe and ponderous 
 beat of its mighty wheels, had left Vicksburg 
 glimmering in the sunset far behind, and was 
 sweeping with majestic course down the 
 broad mile wide channel of the Mississippi. 
 
 The numerous passengers were scattered 
 over the boat in every direction, but Stanley 
 according to his custom of late held himself 
 aloof from all. A number of feminine eyes 
 were turned upon him that evening with 
 genuine interest; but none of their owners 
 detected any returning glance of curiosity or 
 admiration. To some he appeared a deeply 
 absorbed man, and to others a person of re- 
 markable reserve. No one in looking a sec- 
 ond time would have attributed shyness and 
 timidity to him. The fine cultured face as 
 well as carriage of the body, showed a man 
 perfectly at ease and accustomed to the best 
 in what is known as the social world. He 
 was a sorrow smitten man and shrank from
 
 210 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 a life that in its conversation, customs and 
 amusements would bring back the past. 
 
 He had nothing of the hermit spirit in him, 
 for as it afterward appeared he had mapped 
 out a course of conduct for himself in which 
 considerateness and material help for others 
 prominently figured. He was honestly do- 
 ing his best to rally from a spirit of hopeless- 
 ness into which he had been plunged by no 
 act of his own. But do as he would, the old 
 spring time in his heart refused to return, 
 and the glad light of other days seemed to 
 have gone from his eyes forever. 
 
 A something had left his life and disap- 
 peared from the earth itself. His heart had a 
 sore feeling, and there pressed upon him al- 
 most continually a sense of personal loss and 
 bereavement. The experience was akin to 
 that of a man who has just left an idolized 
 form buried in the cemetery and sits down, 
 with face buried in his hands, on the door- 
 step of a desolated home. 
 
 Instead of an empty house however, the 
 whole world looked stripped and lonely to 
 Stanley. The woman he loved had not gone 
 into the grave, but she had gone away from
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 211 
 
 him; and the sepulchre was not in the ceme- 
 tery, but in his heart; and the death which 
 had visited him could have no resurrection. 
 
 A woman's white hand had struck from 
 his lips the cup of a sweet life joy that every 
 man has a right to quaff. And the goblet 
 was broken and the wine wasted in the dust. 
 She had made existence itself to him aimless, 
 purposeless and not worth the possession. 
 And yet how he loved her ! She did not, and 
 never had cared for him, but Oh how he 
 loved her! He told himself many times a 
 day that she was unworthy of his affection 
 and even respect, but his heart cried out for 
 what he once thought she was, and would 
 not be comforted. 
 
 As the negro melody had swelled forth 
 that evening and died away in plaintive 
 pleading echoes on the river shore, every 
 chord of his nature responded to the line, 
 
 "Oh tell her that I love her!" 
 
 While an anguish swept over his spirit 
 that left him faint, sick and trembling in his 
 chair. He felt that he wanted to give a great 
 wail of agony, and die as he uttered the cry. 
 
 Ashamed of his weakness as he mentally
 
 212 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 called it, the suffering man summoned up all 
 his strength, and inwardly said: 
 
 "No! Heaven forbid that she should ever 
 know how she has made me suffer. Let her 
 live and die thinking my love perished the 
 night I beheld her weakness and perfidy." 
 
 The .boat had sped fully twenty miles 
 down stream. A string band was playing in 
 the great saloon below, and the main body 
 of the passengers were at supper, when Stan- 
 ley found himself almost alone on the upper 
 deck. 
 
 Glancing up at the pilot, he was struck 
 with something about the man's face and 
 quiet attitude that were strangely familiar. 
 One arm was resting full length on the 
 wheel and the eyes of the helmsman fixed 
 steadily ahead in a way that reminded him 
 of the pilot on the Yazoo River the night of 
 his great trouble. Speaking to the Captain 
 about it, he was informed that the man was 
 the same individual. That he was a Missis- 
 sippi River pilot, and had gone into the Ya- 
 zoo work for a brief while, and recently had 
 returned to the larger field. 
 
 As Stanley turned to descend to his state-
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 218 
 
 room he observed the other steamer a quar- 
 ter of a mile astern, and from the volumes 
 of black smoke pouring from her great chim- 
 neys, and "the bone in her mouth" he saw 
 she was coming after them at a great speed. 
 
 Until he retired at midnight Stanley no- 
 ticed that the boats were passing and repass- 
 ing each other, as the advantage was given 
 first to the one and then the other by the 
 various landings that had to be made. 
 
 On the second night out, they were below 
 Natchez. The white and blue cranes which 
 had been flying before them all day long had 
 disappeared. Here and there at wide inter- 
 vals a solitary gleam of light on the shore 
 revealed the location of some cabin, or man- 
 sion home. Points of mist protruded from 
 the banks and looked like spectral fingers 
 reaching out after them. The boat gliding 
 swiftly over this inland sea of a river seemed 
 to be floating between .two firmaments, one 
 twinkling above in the blue, and the other 
 sparkling beneath in the yellow flood of the 
 Mississippi. 
 
 By and by the moon rose, and gave a new 
 glory to the monarch of rivers. The broad
 
 214 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 stream, the distant shores, the two steam- 
 boats perforated and seamed with glittering 
 lights, with the soft silvery moonlight flung 
 over all, made a picture of such beauty that 
 numbers of both sexes lingered by the side 
 guards, and on the upper decks until a late 
 hour. 
 
 At eleven o'clock many of the passengers 
 had retired. Others were engaged in games 
 of cards. A few were dancing in the Ladies 
 Cabin, and several couples continued to sit 
 on deck and stroll about the boat. 
 
 Stanley, an old traveller on the river, was 
 conscious from the violent trembling of the 
 steamer that they were making great head- 
 way. Glancing up at the vast masses of 
 black smoke pouring out of the funnels, and 
 marking the increased stroke of the wheels, 
 he felt convinced that a race was going on 
 between the two rival boats. Looking back 
 he saw the other packet a few hundred yards 
 behind with the same inky pillars of smoke 
 towering on high, and frequent angry glares 
 of red light flashing from the furnace doors, 
 showing they were receiving extra attention 
 from the stokers in charge.
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 215 
 
 Descending to the lower deck, Stanley ob- 
 served that not only great amounts of fuel 
 were being cast into the roaring furnaces of 
 the steamer he was on, but quantities of oil 
 besides.. 
 
 With a grave thoughtful face he went up 
 the companion way and passing one of the 
 officers on the forward deck he said careless- 
 ly: 
 
 "Are you not racing with the other boat?" 
 
 "Well," replied the second clerk with a 
 laugh, "we are not exactly racing, but at the 
 same time we are trying to keep the other 
 boat from getting ahead of us." 
 
 "Why be in such a hurry," continued Stan- 
 ley. "You are not behind your schedule 
 time." 
 
 "Thats true," answered the clerk, "but the 
 boat that makes the next landing first, will 
 get three hundred bales of cotton to carry 
 to the City." 
 
 "I don't see," rejoined Stanley, "how you 
 can take on more cotton with safety to the 
 boat and passengers. You are already up 
 even with the hurricane deck." 
 
 "Why shiver my timbers Sir," laughed the
 
 216 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 clerk, "we could take on five hundred more 
 bales and not be hurt." So saying he passed 
 on and entered the office, while Stanley with 
 the same concerned look ascended to the 
 top deck. 
 
 He looked up at the pilot house, and there 
 stood the man with his left arm lying along 
 the wheel and his face set fixedly on the 
 stream before him as though he had not 
 changed attitude, look, nor boat since Stan- 
 ley first saw him eighteen months before on 
 the Yazoo. 
 
 Walking down the side of the vessel, Stan- 
 ley stood near one of the wheel houses look- 
 ing back at the other steamer which seemed 
 to be gaining on them. He could hear echo- 
 ing across the water the opening and shut- 
 ting of the fire doors, the rattle of iron hand- 
 spikes, the curses of the mate, and the cries 
 of the stokers and roustabouts who were be- 
 ing stirred up to extra efforts and labors of 
 some kind. 
 
 Ten minutes more went by, and Stanley 
 could see their own steamer had recovered 
 the lost distance, and that this fact was ob- 
 served on both boats, as evidenced by great
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 217 
 
 sc'arlet glares of light from the furnaces and 
 loud swearing from one vessel, and by the 
 shouts of victory and derision from the pack- 
 et he was on. 
 
 He turned from the backward view, and 
 was looking forward with the intention of 
 taking his favorite front seat, when sudden- 
 ly, there burst upon his ears a frightful deaf- 
 ening roar and crash, that sent the blood 
 flying back on his heart, while his eyes were 
 horror stricken as he beheld the whole front 
 of the boat become a volcano, the great stack 
 chimneys veer suddenly wide apart, looking 
 like a huge black letter V against the crim- 
 soned sky, the pilot house sinking into the 
 horrible vortex below, while the body of the 
 pilot, distinct in the blended moonlight and 
 blaze of the burning steamer was hurled a 
 hundred feet into the air, and came down 
 revolving and turning over and over as it 
 descended amid a rain of cotton bales, cord- 
 age, timbers, and general wreck, and fell 
 with a heavy plunge, a corpse in the muddy 
 waves of the Mississippi. 
 
 Stanley needed no one to tell him that the 
 boilers of the boat had exploded, and that
 
 218 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 hundreds of lives had been or would be lost. 
 Already the main body of the steamer with 
 its vast amount of weight was careening. 
 The screams of women and the loud calls and 
 shouts of men resounded through the vessel. 
 A number came rushing up the side stair- 
 ways, when with an awful lurch the big pa- 
 latial craft went over, and human bodies, life 
 boats, bales of cotton and every thing else on 
 deck went pouring down like a dreadful cas- 
 cade into the river. 
 
 Stanley braced himself as well as he could 
 when he saw what was coming, but was en- 
 gulphed w T ith the rest. Being a splendid 
 swimmer he soon came to the surface, and 
 lifting himself up to see who he could save 
 in the midst of the foaming water and dan- 
 cing bits of the wreck, he saw a lad with 
 terrified face going down. With a few pow- 
 erful strokes of his arms he was by the childs 
 side and lifting him upon a large door said 
 authoritatively to the frightened but obe- 
 dient boy, "Stay there until some one comes 
 to your help in a boat." 
 
 His next rescue was that of a man who 
 was sinking the second time, but fortunately
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 219 
 
 was not far from him. Catching the drown- 
 ing man by his collar, he lifted his head 
 above the water, and literally pushed him 
 with herculean efforts to a cotton bale, and 
 helped him on this floating life preserver. 
 
 At this moment he turned and saw the 
 head and white arm of a woman disappear- 
 ing in the waves hardly ten feet away. A 
 few vigorous overhand strokes brought him 
 to the spot, and with a short quick dive he 
 caught the sinking form. He lifted her above 
 the water but was that exhausted from his 
 previous exertions, and his saturated cloth- 
 ing was such a weight to him, that he felt 
 he could not possibly swim with the rescued 
 one any distance. Her very clinging to him, 
 also jeopardized both their lives. He saw 
 as he looked around in his distress, that the 
 other steamer had arrived on the scene, and 
 boats rilled with strong rowers were pulling 
 rapidly in their direction, but he was con- 
 scious that he could not keep up until they 
 reached him. At the very moment however 
 that he felt he must go down with his burden, 
 a great beam of wood gliding past, struck 
 him with a jar that under other circum-
 
 220 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 stances would have extorted a cry of pain. 
 But instead he gave one of joy, and throw- 
 ing his right arm over it, and with his left 
 arm about the woman whose head rested 
 helplessly on his shoulder, he waited for the 
 swiftly moving skiffs and yawls that w r ere 
 picking up people as they found them cling- 
 ing here and there to anything that would 
 bouy them up and save them from a watery 
 grave in the tawny Mississippi. 
 
 In a brief while a boat reached Stanley, 
 and powerful hands relieved him of his bur- 
 den. The main impression made upon him 
 as the being he had rescued was lifted into 
 the yawl was, that he had saved a woman 
 with a wealth of raven hair. He was helped 
 himself into the boat at one of the sides, and 
 took his seat near the rear, drenched, chilled, 
 exhausted and pale as death. 
 
 Looking forward towards the woman he 
 had preserved, their eyes met. There was a 
 sudden mutual shock! and both instantly 
 averted their gaze. He had saved Blanche 
 Osmond's life, the woman who had wrecked 
 his happiness! 
 
 Her glance fell at the first recognition,
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 221 
 
 but repeatedly afterwards she stole quick 
 troubled looks at her rescuer, who sat like a 
 marble statue not over fifteen feet away. 
 He never turned his eyes again in her direc- 
 tion. 
 
 An hour afterward, the steamboat which 
 had come to their help, having picked up 
 half the crew and passengers, proceeded on 
 her way down the river. One hundred and 
 seventy had met death. 
 
 From a friend whom he met on the steam- 
 er, Stanley was provided with dry clothing, 
 and now book in hand in the Gentlemen's 
 Saloon had all unconsciously to himself re- 
 sumed his quiet collected manner, and grave 
 melancholy expression of countenance. 
 
 Both the lad and the man whom he had 
 saved were on the boat, and through them 
 alone he would have been lionized, but he 
 steadily refused to be thus treated, insisting 
 he had only done what any other man would 
 have performed under like circumstances. 
 
 Later, a gentleman approached him and 
 presented a note. Opening it Stanley read: 
 
 Mr. Stanley :- 
 
 Will you grant me a few minutes interview
 
 222 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 on the backguards. I feel that I must thank 
 you for saving my life. I want also to beg 
 your forgiveness for the past. 
 
 I was confined all day yesterday to my 
 stateroom with a headache, and did not 
 know you were on the ill fated steamer. 
 ,Will you see me now. 
 
 Yours So Gratefully, 
 
 Blanche Osmond. 
 
 Stanley finished the brief missive, while 
 the ashen look he had in the river returned 
 to his face. His fingers trembled like an 
 aspen, but the eye and brow had the same 
 resolute expression. Taking the note he 
 walked to the clerk's desk, and slipping it in a 
 white envelope, sealed the same without di- 
 rection, handed it to the gentleman who was 
 waiting and said: 
 
 "Please give this to the lady who sent 
 you." 
 
 The man wonderingly did so, and after- 
 wards reported that Miss Osmond wanted 
 to thank her preserver in person, but he had 
 refused to come; and that the lady looked as 
 if a dagger had been thrust into her heart
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 223 
 
 when she opened the envelope and found her 
 own note returned without a word. 
 
 Of course the matter was discussed on the 
 boat by various groups. Some said that 
 Stanley was timid in the presence of women ; 
 others thought he was a woman hater; still 
 others suggested that he wanted to add to 
 his own importance by acting like a Grand 
 Mogul ; while a few affirmed that he was a 
 brave man, had done a heroic thing, but did 
 not want to be gushed over and praised about 
 it. Meantime he said nothing. 
 
 The next day Stanley disembarked at Bat- 
 on Rouge to attend to some of the business 
 that had called him from Chicago, while the 
 steamer bearing Blanche Osmond to her 
 home swept on to New Orleans. 
 
 Stanley came to the Crescent City a few 
 days later, remaining there for a month. Be- 
 fore he left for Chicago he read in the city 
 papers that Blanche Osmond had married a 
 wealthy merchant of the Crescent City, and 
 had reached her new and beautiful residence 
 on Esplanade street. The same evening he 
 left for his faraway home in the North. 
 
 The papers of course took up the river 
 disaster, and full credit was given to Stanley
 
 224 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 for his "bravery and noble conduct in saving 
 three lives, among them that of Miss Os- 
 mond a beautiful girl soon to be married to a 
 gentleman in New Orleans." 
 
 In Yazoo City the published report was 
 quite a social tid bit. Some said that Stanley 
 not content with having jilted the girl, was 
 still pursuing her to add to her mortification 
 and distress. The greater number stated 
 their belief that Stanley was so desperately 
 in love with the woman that he could not 
 give her up, even though she had cast him 
 off, and persisted in following her. A few 
 remarked that they judged the meeting on 
 the boat was purely accidental, and that any- 
 how he had saved her life, and this was 
 enough to atone for his misconduct in the 
 past. 
 
 A paper containing the full account of the 
 steamboat explosion and Stanley's heroism 
 was thrown off to Bentley at the Landing. 
 He being a true friend of the absent planter, 
 and knowing the warm feeling entertained 
 by Corwin and his wife, and the devotion of 
 Sandy and Millie for him, got on his horse 
 to ride up to Buena Vista and do that most
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 226 
 
 enjoyable of things in the Swamp, read the 
 news to a hungry .eared and appreciative 
 crowd. 
 
 He met Millie at the gate, and asked her to 
 call Sandy at once to the front porch that 
 he might hear read the splendid account 
 about his Master. 
 
 Millie replied: 
 
 "Sandy would sho' lak to come, but He's 
 monstus po'ly wid de rumatiz an' de skyat- 
 tiker an' I dunno whut all; an' he kain git 
 outen de baid." 
 
 "Well I'm certainly sorry to hear that," 
 replied Bentley. 
 
 "Yes Honey," continued Millie picking 
 her teeth with a splinter from the rail fence 
 before her, "Sandy's bin pow'ful puny fur de 
 las' month. But hes done got 'ligion doh." 
 
 "Yes?" said Bentley inquiringly. 
 
 "Law yes chile. Sandy aint bin as 'lig- 
 ous sence he had de new moany las' winter, 
 He's done quit pickin' his banjer now sho* 
 nuff, an' dun jined de chu'ch on suspicion." 
 
 "On suspicion," ejaculated Bentley, '"'you 
 mean on probation!" 
 
 "Yes dats whut I mean, but hits all de
 
 226 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 same. Day puts em on trial to see whuther 
 day gwine to do any ob day pas' devilment or 
 not. Yes Suh, Sandy done jined on suspi- 
 cion." 
 
 "And you say he's given up his banjo play- 
 ing?" asked Bentley with an incredulous 
 look. 
 
 "Yes dat he is. De ownless thing he do 
 now is to sing hymes an' talk 'ligion. He 
 got his banjer hung up clost to his baid 
 whur he kin see it. An' he chunes it ev'y day, 
 kase he say hits bes' fur de strings; but he 
 won't pick chunes on it no moh." 
 
 "It seems to me," replied Bentley, "that 
 if its wrong to play on the banjo, it would 
 be best to put it out of sight; and all that 
 tuning is trifling with temptation, and will 
 lead him back to his old life." 
 
 "Dats jes whut I tole him dis mawnin," 
 interrupted Millie, "I sayd ter him, Sandy 
 youse takin' er pow'ful long time ur chunin' 
 dat banjer. De Debil gwine ter git you an' 
 yoh ole banjer yit. But shoo! Sandy doan 
 lissun ter me; an' he went on er chunin' an' 
 er chunin' dat ole tinklin cymbal fur er whole 
 hour."
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 227 
 
 Bentley laughed and added: 
 
 "Still I am glad to hear you say he is a 
 better man, even if he does continue to tune 
 his string instrument." 
 
 "Oh yes Suh. Sandys monstus improved. 
 He done gin up his ole pipe an' quit confum- 
 in de atmosphere wid his stinkin' ole terback- 
 er. An' he done quit tellin' his jokes. Yes 
 Sandys bin pow'ful 'ligious ev'y sence de 
 doctors say he wuz dainjus sick." 
 
 "As he is so feeble," said Bentley "I will 
 go down to his cabin and read to him there 
 what is in the paper about Mr. Stanley." 
 
 Thus saying, he in company with Millie 
 drew near the humble little home he had vis- 
 ited the year before. The pendant gourds 
 were now yellow, the bees were humming 
 amid the autumn flowers, and a pea fowl 
 spread his showy beauty under one of the 
 peach trees. 
 
 As they neared the house the sound of 
 the banjo became quite distinct, and Bentley 
 said to Millie: 
 
 "If that is tuning the banjo, it is the most 
 musical tuning I ever heard." 
 
 They even thought they could hear a low
 
 228 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 humming of the voice as if Sandy was sing- 
 ing, but in a way not to awaken and grieve 
 his conscience. To Bentley the tune and 
 words sounded wonderfully like: 
 
 "De possum air a funny thing." 
 
 But at the noise of their footfalls, the ban- 
 jo notes suddenly ceased or rather changed, 
 and the instrument began to send up tuning 
 sounds of a most excruciating nature. Even 
 with this adroit effort yet Sandy looked de- 
 cidedly foolish and guilty when Millie said 
 on her entrance with unmistakeable sar- 
 casm: 
 
 "I woundn' hev sech ur banjer as dat San- 
 dy, whut tuk up my whole time ur chunin'." 
 
 But embarrasment, and even rheumatic 
 pains were forgotten by the devoted servant 
 when Bentley read to him the thrilling news 
 paper account of the steamboat disaster, and 
 Stanleys noble conduct in saving three lives, 
 one of them being that of Miss Blanche Os- 
 mond. 
 
 "Whut she follerin Mars F'ed aroun' into 
 de Mississippi river fur?" exclaimed Millie. 
 
 "Jes lissun to dat nigger," interjected 
 Sandy. "How Miss Blanche gwine to foller
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 229 
 
 Mars Fred when dey bofe done blowed up, 
 an' lit in de river onbeknownst to one anud- 
 der!" 
 
 Interrogations of course quickly followed 
 from them both, and comments freely in- 
 dulged in as only the African can express 
 them, until Sandy in his interest and excite- 
 ment forgot all about his rheumatism and 
 other ailments. He had arisen from his bed 
 and commenced walking around the room 
 all unconscious of his recovery until his at- 
 tention was called to the fact. 
 
 As Bentley walked away with Millie to 
 see the Corwins, he was certain he heard the 
 banjo going and the tap of a foot on the floor. 
 Stopping a moment to listen, he caught the 
 following words clearly and melodiously 
 sung: 
 
 "Ef I hed a scoldin' wife, 
 
 I'd whip her sho' she born." 
 
 V. 
 
 For several weeks after his return to Chi- 
 cago, Stanley found it exceedingly difficult 
 to settle down to the routine of his office 
 work. By his visit to Mississippi the past
 
 230 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 had been revived, and the old wounds set to 
 bleeding afresh. 
 
 A deeper sadness settled upon him which' 
 he vainly strove to shake off. Thinking that 
 his lowness of spirits might be occasioned by. 
 a state of body, he lengthened his walks, 
 rode more frequently on horseback, and in- 
 creased his dumb bell exercises; but all to 
 no purpose, for the heart load refused to be 
 dislodged by any such physical means. 
 
 He then devoted himself more than ever 
 to his business, and saw everything that he 
 touched prosper and turn to money. But 
 certain facts of the past, and certain faces 
 connected with the happenings of other days, 
 would keep coming in between him and his 
 business letters, and real estate books, in 
 spite of all that he could do, and his hand 
 would go all unconsciously to his heart that 
 carried a sore aching feeling all the time. 
 
 In addition to the melancholy, came a 
 vague sense of coming ill or trouble; and 
 with it a strong impression to leave Chicago 
 and return South. 
 
 This last idea he combatted with his rea- 
 son, and resisted with his will, as he regard-
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 231 
 
 ed it as the mere craving of a hungry heart 
 and not to be yielded to for a moment. More- 
 over he mentally argued that there was real- 
 ly no need for him to go. Corwin was a cap- 
 ital manager and doing as well as he could 
 himself. Then what alteration of the past 
 and what improvement of matters could re- 
 sult from such a trip, or permanent move. 
 He knew that nearly everybody believed he 
 had been rejected by Blanche Osmond for 
 supposed drunkenness, and he did not wish 
 to injure her by declaring the truth and clear 
 ing himself. Even if he was base enough to 
 wish to crush her with the facts of the case, 
 no one would now credit his long delayed 
 report of the matter. "No," he mentally 
 said, "It is better every way that I should 
 remain here." 
 
 With this conclusion he bent all his ener- 
 gies to his work, while the lines deepened 
 on his face, and at the age of thirty he looked 
 to be forty. 
 
 Without any special effort on his part, 
 Stanley, had attracted to himself some warm 
 friends and admirers from his business as- 
 sociates. They all observed at this time the
 
 232 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 increasing melancholy of the man, anc} 
 strove in various ways to dispel it. But he 
 firmly though gently refused all invitations 
 to social gatherings and carefully avoided 
 making a single female acquaintance. 
 f He entertained no hatred for women, and 
 indulged in no morbid raving against the 
 entire sex because of the faithlessness of a 
 single individual of that body. This mistake 
 and injustice of little natures he did not 
 commit. But as some animals when wounded 
 creep off to a lonely spot in the forest to die 
 unseen, so he who had received a death blow 
 desired only to be left alone. He asked no 
 sympathy, and burdened no__one with his 
 grief. He had not a single confidant at this 
 
 ~~Ris own unspoken longing was that his 
 joyless existence might soon be ended, and 
 until that end came he determined to meet 
 every trial and duty like a true man. 
 
 Another month rolled by, and again that 
 strange inward whisper or leading to go 
 South came upon him. But with something 
 in him that the old philosophers possessed, 
 and that the Indian exercised at the stake,
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 233 
 
 he hushed the cry of his pleading heart. /C 
 stifled the impression that he regarded as a 
 piece of superstition, refused to yield to what 
 he called sentimentaj^weaknesSj and went 
 on in his busjness duties with the precision 
 and regularity of_ajnachine. 
 
 With the rejection of the inner impulse 
 to leave, came again the foreboding of ca- 
 lamity ; and yielding to that one day, he made 
 his will and had it recorded in the Court. 
 
 One Sabbath evening in returning to his 
 hotel from a walk, he passed a large Cath- 
 olic cathedral. It was lighted, and the sound 
 of the Vesper service stole out upon the 
 street. Although a Protestant, he entered 
 and took his seat. An audience of several 
 hundred were scattered through the great 
 building, the mist of fragrant incense was in 
 the air, the lights glimmered star-like from 
 ceiling and wall, a priest in his vestments was 
 bowed in the altar, while a woman's voice 
 from a lofty pillared gallery led the choir in 
 a chant full of melody and solemnity. 
 
 Beyond the chancel was a life sized paint- 
 ing of the Saviour as he hung upon the Cross. 
 Some gas jets were so shaded and trained as / 
 
 x / ^. .. *^>. '
 
 234 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 to illuminate the thorn crowned head, and 
 the upturned sorrowful face with drops of 
 blood on cheek and breast. The thought 
 flashed at once over the silent observer as he 
 looked upon the picture of the divine Suffer- 
 er, "He also was lonely and misunderstood" ; 
 and a strange feeling of consolation stole 
 over his heart. He lingered until the service 
 was concluded, and then walked silently and 
 thoughtfully away. All the ensuing week 
 his friends thought they recognized in him 
 something like a spirit of quiet cheerfulness. 
 
 "At this time, and late one afternoon he 
 went into the southwestern part of the City 
 to look at some lots which he proposed pur- 
 chasing. It was nearly dusk when he start- 
 ed to return. A chill wind was blowing from 
 the Lake. But buttoning his coat closely he 
 concluded to walk the distance of three 
 miles to his hotel. 
 
 The long rows of lights stretched in twink- 
 ling lines before him and to his right and 
 left as he crossed street after street on his 
 homeward way. The glow from lamp and 
 fireplace threw warm tints on the windows 
 of houses that he passed, and he had many
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 235 
 
 glimpses of bright cheerful homes. In one 
 the children were clustered about a large 
 center table looking at picture books, while 
 the father and mother sat before a glowing 
 grate fire engaged in conversation. In an- 
 other he saw a man in a dressing robe read- 
 ing the evening paper while a handsome 
 dark haired woman was seated at the piano. 
 Both visions of domestic peace and love went 
 like a dagger thrust into his heart, and the 
 old lines of suffering grew deeper than ever 
 on his face. 
 
 He had traversed over half the distance, 
 and was passing through a part of the city 
 that he knew was not considered safe or re- 
 putable when the clock from a distant steeple 
 sounded the hour of seven. He had turned 
 down a side street in order to reach an ave- 
 nue that was better lighted, when suddenly 
 a door was flung open just in front of him, 
 and a young woman with a piercing scream 
 rushed down the steps closely followed by a 
 coarse looking man swinging a cudgel. 
 With a bound he overtook her and by a fear- 
 ful blow struck her down to the pavement. 
 He raised the club to strike her again when
 
 36 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 Stanley threw himself before it and received 
 the full weight on his left arm. The limb was 
 broken, and dropped powerless to his side; 
 but quick as a lightning flash he swung his 
 well trained fist and landed a crashing blow 
 on the jaw of the human brute. The man 
 was knocked against the wall of the house 
 and then fell full length upon the side walk. 
 
 Stanley supposing he had settled the bully 
 for the time, turned to assist the prostrate 
 woman. But the man though struck down 
 was stunned only for a moment, and spring- 
 ing to his feet infuriated and burning with 
 the double flame of alcohol and revenge, 
 drew a pistol and approaching his unsuspi- 
 cious victim fired directly into his side. The 
 ball penetrated the heart, and without a 
 single exclamation or groan Stanley fell up- 
 on his face and instantly expired. 
 
 Two policemen, and several citizens who 
 had been looking on from doors and win- 
 dows and beheld the frightful scene, now ran 
 to the tragic spot. 
 
 The young woman whose life had been 
 saved at the cost of another, was borne into 
 the house by her friends; and the murderer
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 287 
 
 an insanely jealous husband was rushed with 
 nippers on his wrists to the nearest Police 
 Station. 
 
 The dead body of the Mississippian was 
 taken into a neighboring drug store, an am- 
 bulance summoned, and fruitless efforts 
 made to restore the extinct spark of life. 
 When the surgeons arrived they pronounced 
 that death had been instantaneous. 
 
 From cards and letters in the pockets, 
 the name and address of the murdered man 
 was discovered, and in a short time friends 
 had arrived. The coroner gravely pro- 
 nounced what everybody already knew, and 
 the silent form of the martyr was removed 
 to the parlors of a leading undertaker. 
 
 In a leathern wallet on his person, a copy 
 of Stanley's will was found. On opening it 
 his friends read the request that in case of 
 death his body should be buried in one of 
 the cemeteries of the City of his adoption. 
 The desire was regarded; and after consider- 
 able telegraphing between parties in Chicago 
 and relatives in the South, and after some 
 had arrived to take part in the funeral ser- 
 vices, the body of Fred Stanley was laid to
 
 238 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 rest not far away from the white capped 
 waves of Lake Michigan. 
 
 The newspapers published the whole ac- 
 count of the tragedy, the family history of 
 the murderer, his jealousy and brutality, 
 Stanley's protection of the woman, the 
 knock down blow he gave the man, and the 
 cruel murder that followed. The article, 
 graphically and forcibly written was several 
 columns in length. 
 
 Tn some way the reporter got a copy of 
 the will found in the pocket of the slain man, 
 and this was published in connection with 
 the rest of the account. Among other be- 
 quests, if was found that he had left ten 
 thousand dollars to Sandy and Millie, one 
 thousand to Corwin, five thousand to a poor 
 clergyman in his native State, ten thousand 
 to the College where he graduated, and fifty 
 thousand dollars to an Asylum for the Res- 
 cue of Young Women. The remainder of his 
 estate, estimated at three hundred thousand 
 dollars was to be divided equally between 
 the sons and daughters of a deceased bro- 
 ther.
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 239 
 
 The press printed the facts of the murder 
 correctly, but not everybody saw the papers, 
 and obtained the news second and third 
 hand. So there were serious alterations in 
 the way of additions and embellishment. 
 All this of course set tongues to going again 
 'on Clear Lake, and in other regions as well. 
 The following were some of the utterances. 
 
 "Killed in a brawl on the street." 
 
 "Got mixed up in a family quarrel." 
 
 "Knocked a man down on the pavement 
 and got shot for it." 
 
 "What on earth was he doing, meddling 
 in other peoples affairs." 
 
 "A woman was in the case! The husband 
 was jealous. Oh yes, I see it all !" 
 
 And so the tongues wagged; and some 
 imagined they saw everything, when in real- 
 ity they beheld nothing. 
 
 However there was a revulsion of feeling 
 with many, and there were quite a number 
 who spoke as follows. 
 
 "How sad! He was a fine fellow in the 
 main." 
 
 "That drunken spell of his on the streets
 
 240 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 here was very unfortunate. It was quite un- 
 like him." 
 
 "He certainly was a brave man." 
 "He covered himself with glory in that 
 Chicago fire, and in the Steamboat explo- 
 
 sion/' 
 
 "That last act of his in protecting that 
 woman was a noble one." 
 
 "Poor fellow, I am sorry he is dead." 
 
 Among the silent ones in Yazoo City was 
 an elderly lady who had written that fateful 
 letter to Stanley in regard to Blanche Os- 
 mond. She read the description of the tra- 
 gedy with streaming eyes and an aching 
 heart. One mental question kept arising 
 with her, and would not down: "Had I not 
 better to have kept silence and left him un- 
 warned." 
 
 Bentley could not speak of the shocking 
 occurrence without breaking down; while 
 Corwin and his wife had red eyes for many 
 hours. 
 
 As for Sandy and Millie they were simply 
 inconsolable, and wept and wailed with a 
 genuineness of grief that no one doubted. 
 Sandy never touched his banjo again.
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN, 241 
 
 "De Music done all gone outen me," he 
 said with a burst of tears. 
 
 Down in New Orleans a woman with 
 black eyes, raven hair, and queenly form, 
 sitting in her room devoured the published 
 account with a countenance of horror ana 
 despair. When the last word had been read, 
 the paper slipped from her cold trembling 
 fingers to the floor, and like her victim had 
 done in his room nearly two years before, 
 she sat gazing at the wall opposite with a 
 face that had become deadly white and set 
 as if carved in marble. 
 
 Her husband a man nearly thirty 
 years her senior came in and found her in 
 this position. He saw the paper and the 
 head lines of the long dispatch which he had 
 read already in his Library. Placing his 
 arm about her, he said: 
 
 "I know this must be a great shock to you 
 Blanche. No doubt you feel badly because 
 you remember that he saved your life. But 
 all the same he was unworthy of you. So 
 do not give him another thought." 
 
 The woman made no reply, but sat with 
 hands tightly clasped in her lap and her
 
 242 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 handsome Head bowed until he could not see 
 her face. He continued: 
 
 "Forget all about him my dear. He was 
 a rowdy by nature, and proved it by his 
 drunken spree that night in Yazoo City. He 
 was not the man for such a good pure woman 
 as yourself." 
 
 Still there was no reply from the white 
 faced wife. . 
 
 "I have wondered Blanche," pursued her 
 husband with a worried accent in his voice, 
 "how you ever happened to engage your- 
 self to him. You surely did not love him." 
 
 "No, I did not love him," came the slow 
 studied answer. 
 
 "I thought not," quickly rejoined the hus- 
 band with a deeply relieved and gratified 
 look on his face. "Now forgive me my 
 Queen for having referred to a past that 
 cannot but be painful to you. I promise 
 never to do so again." And the deluded 
 man stooped and kissed his wife. Then 
 with a lightened heart and satisfied smile he 
 left the room and descended the stairs to the 
 street. 
 
 Concealed by the lace curtains the woman
 
 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 243 
 
 watched him as he took a car for his place 
 of business. Then turning quickly with a 
 gesture of despair she flung herself face 
 downward on the floor and burst into a per- 
 fect convulsion of weeping. 
 
 "No," she cried out, "I did not love him 
 then, but I do love him now! I have loved 
 him from the hour I received his letter and 
 knew what a man I had lost. I loved him 
 when he saved my wretched life and I saw 
 him sitting pale and exhausted in the boat, 1 
 and refusing to look at me. And Oh! he 
 would not let me thank him ! And he never 
 forgave me !" 
 
 Great choking sobs shook her form, and 
 the woman's agony was something fearful 
 to see. An unexpected Nemesis had arisen 
 in her breast that was inflicting some of the 
 suffering and torture she had so cruelly heap- 
 ed upon another for weary days and months 
 that seemed to have no end. 
 
 Her wedding gift clock chimed out three 
 times the half hours as she sighed and wept 
 upon the floor. Finally sitting up and lean- 
 ing her head against the sofa with the paper 
 spread before her, she read again the whole
 
 244 A MISUNDERSTOOD MAN. 
 
 account from beginning to end. As she re- 
 read the Will, the different bequests shone 
 out with a deeper meaning and revealed the 
 generous nature of the man. The gift to 
 the impoverished preacher, and his remem- 
 brance of his two servants brought the tears 
 afresh to her eyes. The legacy in behalf of 
 young girls made her think profoundly for 
 awhile, when suddenly a light seemed to 
 flash in her mind, and taking the paper up 
 she pressed her lips repeatedly upon that 
 portion, and murmured : 
 
 "Maybe he loved me through all, and in 
 spite of all." 
 
 Dropping her head upon the white round- 
 ed arm of which he had once been so proud, 
 great tears rolled down her cheeks and drop- 
 ped upon the carpet. 
 
 Finally with interlocked hands, she raised 
 her head and said, 
 
 "Why should such a man like he was, be 
 allowed to die such an awful death, and in 
 the very prime of his life!" 
 
 And an inward voice seemed to whisper: 
 
 "If you had been a true woman, he would 
 not be dead to-day/ 7
 
 DC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 757 825 5