A Man of Honor

"I only wish to ascertain whether or not we arrived here in time for 'snack.' You said we would, I believe."

"Well, we did, didn't we?"

"That is precisely what I wish to find out. Having never heard of 'snack' until you mentioned it as one of the things we should find at Shirley, I have been curious to know what it is like, and so I have been watching for it ever since we got here. Pray tell me what it is?"

"Well, that's a good one. I must tell Sudie that, and get her to introduce you formally to-morrow."

"It is another interesting custom of the country, I suppose."

"Indeed it is; and it isn't one of those customs that are 'more honored in the breach than the observance,' either."

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Pagebrook makes a Good Impression

Young Pagebrook was an early riser. Not that he was afflicted with one of those unfortunate consciences which make of early rising a penance, by any means. He was not prejudiced against lying abed, nor bigoted about getting up. He quoted no adages on the subject, and was not illogical enough to believe that getting up early and yawning for an hour or two every morning would bring health, wisdom, or wealth to anybody. In short, he was an early riser not on principle but of necessity. Somehow his eyelids had a way of popping themselves open about sunrise or earlier, and his great brawny limbs could not be kept in bed long after this happened. He got up for precisely the same reason that most people lie abed, namely, because there was nothing else to do. On the morning after his arrival at Shirley he awoke early and heard two things which attracted his attention. The first was a sound which puzzled him more than a little. It was a steady, monotonous scraping of a most unaccountable kind – somewhat like the sound of a carpenter's plane and somewhat like that of a saw. Had it been out of doors he would have thought nothing of it; but clearly it was in the house, and not only so, but in every part of the house except the bedrooms. Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. What it meant he could not guess. As he lay there wondering about it he heard another sound, greatly more musical, at which he jumped out of bed and began dressing, wondering at this sound, too, quite as much as at the other, though he knew perfectly well that this was nothing more than a human voice – Miss Sudie's, to wit. He wondered if there ever was such a voice before or ever would be again. Not that the young woman was singing, for she was doing nothing of the sort. She was merely giving some directions to the servants about household matters, but her voice was music nevertheless, and Mr. Bob made up his mind to hear it to better advantage by going down-stairs at once. Now I happen to know that this young woman's voice was in no way peculiar to herself. Every well-bred girl in Virginia has the same rich, full, soft tone, and they all say, as she did, "grauss," "glauss" "bausket," "cyarpet," "cyart," "gyarden," and "gyirl." But it so happened that Mr. Bob had never heard a Virginian girl talk before he met Miss Barksdale, and to him her rich German a's and the musical tones of her voice were peculiarly her own. Perhaps all these things would have impressed him differently if "Cousin Sudie" had been an ugly girl. I have no means of determining the point, inasmuch as "Cousin Sudie" was certainly anything else than ugly.

Mr. Robert made a hasty toilet and descended to the great hall, or passage, as they call it in Virginia. As he did so he discovered the origin of the scraping sound which had puzzled him, as it puzzles everybody else who hears it for the first time. Dry "pine tags" (which is Virginian for the needles of the pine) were scattered all over the floors, and several negro women were busy polishing the hard white planks by rubbing them with an indescribable implement made of a section of log, a dozen corn husks ("shucks," the Virginians call them – a "corn husk" in Virginia signifying a cob always), and a pole for handle.

"Good morning, Cousin Robert. You're up soon," said the little woman, coming out of the dining-room and putting a soft, warm little hand in his great palm.

Now to young Pagebrook this was a totally new use of the word "soon," and I dare say he would have been greatly interested in it but for the fact that the trim little woman who stood there, key-basket in hand, interested him more.

"You've caught me in the midst of my housekeeping, but never mind; only be careful, or you'll slip on the pine tags; they're as slippery as glass."

"And is that the reason they are scattered on the floor?"

"Yes, we polish with them. Up North you wax your floors instead, don't you?"

"Yes, for balls and the like, I believe, but commonly we have carpets."

"What! in summer time, too?"

"O yes! certainly, Why not?"

"Why, they're so warm. We take ours up soon in the spring, and never put them down again until fall."

This time Mr. Robert observed the queer use of the word "soon," but said nothing about it. He said instead:

"What a lovely morning it is! How I should like to ride horseback in this air!"

"Would you let me ride with you?" asked the little maiden.

"Such a question, Cousin Sudie!"

Now I am free to confess that this last remark was unworthy Mr. Pagebrook. If not ungrammatical, it is at least of questionable construction, and so not at all like Mr. Pagebrook's usage. But the demoralizing effect of Miss Sudie Barksdale's society did not stop here by any means, as we shall see in due time.

"If you'd really like to ride, I'll have the horses brought," said the little lady.

"And you with me?"

"Yes, if I may."

"I shall be more than happy."

"Dick, run up to the barn and tell Uncle Polidore to saddle Patty for me and Graybeard for your Mas' Robert. Do you hear? Excuse me, Cousin Robert, and I'll put on my habit."

Ten minutes later the pair reined in their horses on the top of a little hill, to look at the sunrise. The morning was just cool enough to be thoroughly pleasant, and the exhilaration which comes of nothing else so surely as of rapid riding began to tell upon the spirits of both. Cousin Sudie was a good rider and a graceful one, and she knew it. Robert's riding hitherto had been done, for the most part, in cities, and on smooth roads; but he held his horse with a firm hand, and controlled him perforce of a strong will, which, with great personal fearlessness and a habit of doing well whatever he undertook to do at all, and undertaking whatever was expected of him, abundantly supplied the lack he had of experience in the rougher riding of Virginia on the less perfectly trained horses in use there. He was a stalwart fellow, with shapely limbs and perfect ease of movement, so that on horseback he was a very agreeable young gentleman to look at, a fact of which Miss Sudie speedily became conscious. Her rides were chiefly without a cavalier, as they were usually taken early in the morning before her cousin Billy thought of getting up; and naturally enough she enjoyed the presence of so agreeable a young gentleman as Mr. Rob certainly was, and her enjoyment of his company – she being a woman – was not diminished in the least by the discovery that to his intellectual and social accomplishments, which were very genuine, there were added a handsome face, a comely person, and a manly enthusiasm for out-door exercise. When he pulled some wild flowers which grew by the road-side without dismounting – a trick he had picked up somewhere – she wondered at the ease and grace with which it was done; when he added to the flowers a little cluster of purple berries from a wild vine, of which I do not know the name, and a sprig of sumac, still wet with dew, she admired his taste; and when he gallantly asked leave to twine the whole into her hair, for her hat had come off, as good-looking young women's hats always do on such occasions, she thought him "just nice."

It is really astonishing how rapidly acquaintanceships form under favorable circumstances. These two young people were shy, both of them, and on the preceding day had hardly spoken to each other at all. When they mounted their horses that morning they were almost strangers, and they might have remained only half acquaintances for a week or a fortnight but for that morning's ride. They were gone an hour, perhaps, in all, and when they sat down to breakfast they were on terms of easy familiarity and genuine friendship.

CHAPTER VII.

Mr. Pagebrook Learns Several Things

After breakfast Robert walked out with Billy to see the negroes at work cutting tobacco, an interesting operation always, and especially so when one sees it for the first time.

"Gilbert," said Billy to his "head man," "did you find any ripe enough to cut in the lot there by the prize barn?"

"No sah; dat's de greenest lot of tobawkah on de plantation, for all 'twas plaunted fust. I dunno what to make uv it."

"Why, Billy, I thought Cousin Edwin owned the 'prize' barn!" said Robert.

"So he does – his."

"Are there two of them then?"

"Two of them? What do you mean? Every plantation has its prize barn, of course."

"Indeed! Who gives the prizes?"

"Ha! ha! Bob, that's good; only you'd better ask me always when you want to know about things here, else you'll get yourself laughed at. A prize barn is simply the barn in which we prize tobacco."

"And what is 'prizing' tobacco?"

"Possibly 'prize' a'n't good English, Bob, but it's the standard Ethiopian for pressing, and everybody here uses it. We press the tobacco in hogsheads, you know, and we call it prizing. It never struck me as a peculiarly Southern use of the word, but perhaps it is for all that. You're as sharp set as a circular saw after dialect, a'n't you?"

"I really do not know precisely how sharp set a circular saw is, but I am greatly interested in your peculiar uses of English, certainly."

Upon returning to the house Billy said:

"Bob I must let you take care of yourself for two or three hours now, as I have some papers to draw up and they won't wait. Next week is court week, and I've got a great deal to do between now and then. But you're at home you know, old fellow."

So saying Mr. Billy went to his office, which was situated in the yard, while Robert strolled into the house. Looking into the dining-room he saw there Cousin Sudie. Possibly the young gentleman was looking for her. I am sure I do not know. But whether he had expected to find her there or not, he certainly felt some little surprise as he looked at her.

"Why, Cousin Sudie, is it possible that you are washing the dishes?"

"O certainly! and the plates and cups too. In fact, I wash up all the things once a day."

"Pray tell me, cousin, precisely what you understand by 'dishes,' if I'm not intruding," said Robert.

"O not at all! come in and sit down. You'll find it pleasanter there by the window. 'Dishes?' Why, that is a dish, and that and that," pointing to them.

"I see. The word 'dishes' is not a generic term in Virginia, but applies only to platters and vegetable dishes. What do you call them in the aggregate, Cousin Sudie? I mean plates, platters, cups, saucers, and everything."

"Why 'things,' I suppose. We speak of 'breakfast things,' 'tea things,' 'dinner things.' But why were you astonished to see me washing them, Cousin Robert?"

"Perhaps I ought to have known better, but the fact is I had an impression that Southern ladies were wholly exempt from all work except, perhaps, a little embroidery or some such thing."

"O my! I wish you could see me during circuit court week, when Uncle Carter and Cousin Billy bring the judge and the lawyers home with them at all sorts of odd hours; and they always bring the hungriest ones there are too. I fall at once into a chronic state of washing up things, and don't recover until court is over."

"But really, cousin – pardon me if I am inquisitive, for I am greatly interested in this life here in Virginia, it is so new to me – how is it that you must wash up things at all?"

"Why, I carry the keys, you know. I'm housekeeper."

"Well, but you have servants enough, certainly, and to spare."

"O yes! but every lady washes up the things at least once a day. It would never do to trust it altogether to the servants, you know."

"None of them are sufficiently careful and trustworthy, do you mean?"

"Well, not exactly that; but it's our way here, and if a lady were to neglect it people would think her a poor housekeeper."

"Are there any other duties devolving upon Virginian housekeepers besides 'washing up things?' You see I am trying to learn all I can of a life which is as charmingly strange to me as that of Turkey or China would be if I were to go to either country."

"Any other duties? Indeed there are, and you shall learn what they are, if you won't find it stupid to go my rounds with me. I'm going now."

"I should find dullness itself interesting with you as my fellow observer of it."

"Right gallantly said, kind sir," said Miss Sudie, with an exaggerated curtsy. "But if you're going to make pretty speeches I'll get impudent directly. I'm dreadfully given to it anyhow, and I've a notion to say one impudent thing right now."

"Pray do. I pardon you in advance."

"Well, then, what makes you say 'Virginian housekeepers?'"

"What else should I say?"

"Why, Virginia housekeepers, of course, like anybody else."

"But 'Virginia' is not an adjective, cousin. You would not say 'England housekeepers' or 'France housekeepers,' would you?" asked Robert.

"No, but I would say 'New York housekeepers,' 'Massachusetts housekeepers,' or 'New Jersey housekeepers,' and so I say 'Virginia housekeepers,' too. I reckon you would find it a little troublesome to carry out your rule, wouldn't you, Cousin Robert?"

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