The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South

She had wandered into the empty reporters' room without permission looking for a vase, came back and stood in the doorway laughing:

"This is the dirtiest place I ever got into in my life. Gracious! Isn't there a thing to put the flowers in?"

The editor, roused from his reveries, smiled and answered:

"Put them in the pitcher."

"Why, yes, of course, the pitcher!" she cried, rushing to the little washstand.

"Why, there isn't a drop of water in it – I'll go to the well and get some."

She seized the pitcher, laid the flowers down in the bowl, darted out the door and flew across the street to the well in the Court House Square.

The young editor walked carelessly to the window and watched her. She simply couldn't get into an ungraceful attitude. Every movement was instinct with vitality. She was alive to her finger tips. Her body swayed in perfect rhythmic unison with her round, bare arms as she turned the old-fashioned rope windlass, drew the bucket to the top and dropped it easily on the wet wooden lids that flapped back in place.

She was singing now a crooning, half-savage melody her mother had taught her. The low vibrant notes of her voice, deep and tender and quivering with a strange intensity, floated across the street through the gathering shadows. The voice had none of the light girlish quality of her age of eighteen, but rather the full passionate power of a woman of twenty-five. The distance, the deepening shadows and the quiet of the town's lazy life, added to the dreamy effectiveness of the song.

"Beautiful!" the man exclaimed. "The negro race will give the world a great singer some day – "

And then for the first time in his life the paradox of his personal attitude toward this girl and his attitude in politics toward the black race struck him as curious. He had just finished an editorial in which he had met the aggressions of the negro and his allies with the fury, the scorn, the defiance, the unyielding ferocity with which the Anglo-Saxon conqueror has always treated his inferiors. And yet he was listening to the soft tones of this girl's voice with a smile as he watched with good-natured indulgence the light gleam mischievously from her impudent big eyes while she moved about his room.

Yet this was not to be wondered at. The history of the South and the history of slavery made such a paradox inevitable. The long association with the individual negro in the intimacy of home life had broken down the barriers of personal race repugnance. He had grown up with negro boys and girls as playmates. He had romped and wrestled with them. Every servant in every home he had ever known had been a negro. The first human face he remembered bending over his cradle was a negro woman's. He had fallen asleep in her arms times without number. He had found refuge there against his mother's stern commands and sobbed out on her breast the story of his fancied wrongs and always found consolation. "Mammy's darlin'" was always right – the world cruel and wrong! He had loved this old nurse since he could remember. She was now nursing his own and he would defend her with his life without a moment's hesitation.

And so it came about inevitably that while he had swung his white and scarlet legions of disguised Clansmen in solid line against the Governor and smashed his negro army without the loss of a single life, he was at the same moment proving himself defenseless against the silent and deadly purpose that had already shaped itself in the soul of this sleek, sensuous young animal. He was actually smiling with admiration at the beautiful picture he saw as she lifted the white pitcher, placed it on the crown of red hair, and crossed the street.

She was still softly singing as she entered the room and arranged the flowers in pretty confusion.

Norton had lighted his lamp and seated himself at his desk again. She came close and looked over his shoulder at the piles of papers.

"How on earth can you work in such a mess?" she asked with a laugh.

"Used to it," he answered without looking up from the final reading of his editorial.

"What's that you've written?"

The impudent greenish gray eyes bent closer.

"Oh, a little talk to the Governor – "

"I bet it's a hot one. Peeler says you don't like the Governor – read it to me!"

The editor looked up at the mischievous young face and laughed aloud:

"I'm afraid you wouldn't understand it."

The girl joined in the laugh and the dimples in the reddish brown cheeks looked prettier than ever.

"Maybe I wouldn't," she agreed.

He resumed his reading and she leaned over his chair until he felt the soft touch of her shoulder against his. She was staring at his paste-pot, extended her tapering, creamy finger and touched the paste.

"What in the world's that?" she cried, giggling again.

"Paste."

Another peal of silly laughter echoed through the room.

"Lord, I thought it was mush and milk – I thought it was your supper! – don't you eat no supper?"

"Sometimes."

The editor looked up with a slight frown and said:

"Run along now, child, I've got to work. And tell your mother I'm obliged for the flowers."

"I'm not going back home – "

"Why not?"

"I'm scared out there. I've come in town to live with my aunt."

"Well, tell her when you see her."

"Please let me clean this place up for you?" she pleaded.

"Not to-night."

"To-morrow morning, then? I'll come early and every morning – please – let me – it's all I can do to thank you. I'll do it a month just to show you how pretty I can keep it and then you can pay me if you want me. It's a bargain, isn't it?"

The editor smiled, hesitated, and said:

"All right – every morning at seven."

"Thank you, major – good night!"

She paused at the door and her white teeth gleamed in the shadows. She turned and tripped down the stairs, humming again the strangely appealing song she had sung at the well.

CHAPTER III

A BEAST AWAKES

Within a week Norton bitterly regretted the arrangement he had made with Cleo. Not because she had failed to do her work properly, but precisely because she was doing it so well. She had apparently made it the sole object of her daily thought and the only task to which she devoted her time.

He couldn't accustom his mind to the extraordinary neatness with which she kept the office. The clean floor, the careful arrangement of the chairs, the neat piles of exchanges laid on a table she had placed beside his desk, and the vase of fresh flowers he found each morning, were constant reminders of her personality which piqued his curiosity and disturbed his poise.

He had told her to come at seven every morning. It was his habit to reach the office and begin reading the exchanges by eight-thirty and he had not expected to encounter her there. She had always managed, however, to linger over her morning tasks until his arrival, and never failed to greet him pleasantly and ask if there were anything else she could do. She also insisted on coming at noon to fill his pitcher and again just before supper to change the water in the vase of flowers.

At this last call she always tried to engage him in a few words of small talk. At first this program made no impression on his busy brain except that she was trying to prove her value as a servant. Gradually, however, he began to notice that her dresses were cut with remarkable neatness for a girl of her position and that she showed a rare talent in selecting materials becoming to her creamy yellow skin and curling red hair.

He observed, too, that she had acquired the habit of hanging about his desk when finishing her tasks and had a queer way of looking at him and laughing.

She began to make him decidedly uncomfortable and he treated her with indifference. No matter how sullen the scowl with which he greeted her, she was always smiling and humming snatches of strange songs. He sought for an excuse to discharge her and could find none. She had the instincts of a perfect servant – intelligent, careful and loyal. She never blundered over the papers on his desk. She seemed to know instinctively what was worthless and what was valuable, and never made a mistake in rearranging the chaotic piles of stuff he left in his wake.

He thought once for just a moment of the possibility of her loyalty to the negro race. She might in that case prove a valuable spy to the Governor and his allies. He dismissed the idea as preposterous. She never associated with negroes if she could help it and apparently was as innocent as a babe of the nature of the terrific struggle in which he was engaged with the negroid government of the state.

And yet she disturbed him deeply and continuously, as deeply sometimes when absent as when present.

Why?

He asked himself the question again and again. Why should he dislike her? She did her work promptly and efficiently, and for the first time within his memory the building was really fit for human habitation.

At last he guessed the truth and it precipitated the first battle of his life with the beast that slumbered within. Feeling her physical nearness more acutely than usual at dusk and noting that she had paused in her task near his desk, he slowly lifted his eyes from the paper he was reading and, before she realized it, caught the look on her face when off guard. The girl was in love with him. It was as clear as day now that he had the key to her actions the past week. For this reason she had come and for this reason she was working with such patience and skill.

His first impulse was one of rage. He had little of the vanity of the male animal that struts before the female. His pet aversion was the man of his class who lowered himself to vulgar association with such girls. The fact that, at this time in the history of the South, such intrigues were common made his determination all the more bitter as a leader of his race to stand for its purity.

He suddenly swung in his chair, determined to dismiss her at once with as few words as possible.

She leaped gracefully back with a girlish laugh, so soft, low and full of innocent surprise, the harsh words died on his lips.

"Lordy, major," she cried, "how you scared me! I thought you had a fit. Did a pin stick you – or maybe a flea bit you?"

She leaned against the mantel laughing, her white teeth gleaming.

He hesitated a moment, his eyes lingered on the graceful pose of her young figure, his ear caught the soft note of friendly tenderness in her voice and he was silent.

"What's the matter?" she asked, stepping closer.

"Nothing."

"Well, you made an awful fuss about it!"

"Just thought of something – suddenly – "

"I thought you were going to bite my head off and then that something bit you!"

Again she laughed and walked slowly to the door, her greenish eyes watching him with studied carelessness, as a cat a mouse. Every movement of her figure was music, her smile contagious, and, by a subtle mental telepathy, she knew that the man before her felt it, and her heart was singing a savage song of triumph. She could wait. She had everything to gain and nothing to lose. She belonged to the pariah world of the Negro. Her love was patient, joyous, insistent, unconquerable.

It was unusually joyous to-night because she felt without words that the mad desires that burned a living fire in every nerve of her young body had scorched the man she had marked her own from the moment she had first laid eyes on his serious, aristocratic face – for back of every hysterical cry that came from her lips that night in the shadows beside old Peeler's house lay the sinister purpose of a mad love that had leaped full grown from the deeps of her powerful animal nature.

She paused in the doorway and softly said:

"Good night."

The tone of her voice was a caress and the bold eyes laughed a daring challenge straight into his.

He stared at her a moment, flushed, turned pale and answered in a strained voice:

"Good night, Cleo."

But it was not a good night for him. It was a night never to be forgotten. Until after twelve he walked beneath the stars and fought the Beast – the Beast with a thousand heads and a thousand legs; the Beast that had been bred in the bone and sinew of generations of ancestors, wilful, cruel, courageous conquerors of the world. Before its ravenous demands the words of mother, teacher, priest and lawgiver were as chaff before the whirlwind – the Beast demanded his own! Peace came at last with the vision of a baby's laughing face peeping at him from the arms of a frail little mother.

He made up his mind and hurried home. He would get rid of this girl to-morrow and never again permit her shadow to cross his pathway. With other men of more sluggish temperament, position, dignity, the responsibility of leadership, the restraints of home and religion might be the guarantee of safety under such temptations. He didn't propose to risk it. He understood now why he was so nervous and distracted in her presence. The mere physical proximity to such a creature, vital, magnetic, unmoral, beautiful and daring, could only mean one thing to a man of his age and inheritance – a temptation so fierce that yielding could only be a question of time and opportunity.

And when he told her the next morning that she must not come again she was not surprised, but accepted his dismissal without a word of protest.

With a look of tenderness she merely said:

"I'm sorry."

"Yes," he went on curtly, "you annoy me; I can't write while you are puttering around, and I'm always afraid you'll disturb some of my papers."

She laughed in his face, a joyous, impudent, good-natured, ridiculous laugh, that said more eloquently than words:

"I understand your silly excuse. You're afraid of me. You're a big coward. Don't worry, I can wait. You'll come to me. And if not, I'll find you – for I shall be near – and now that you know and fear, I shall be very near!"

She moved shyly to the door and stood framed in its white woodwork, an appealing picture of dumb regret.

She had anticipated this from the first. And from the moment she threw the challenge into his eyes the night before, saw him flush and pale beneath it, she knew it must come at once, and was prepared. There was no use to plead and beg or argue. It would be a waste of breath with him in this mood.

Besides, she had already found a better plan.

So when he began to try to soften his harsh decision with kindly words she only smiled in the friendliest possible way, stepped back to his desk, extended her hand, and said:

"Please let me know if you need me. I'll do anything on earth for you, major. Good-by."

It was impossible to refuse the gracefully outstretched hand. The Southern man had been bred from the cradle to the most intimate and friendly personal relations with the black folks who were servants in the house. Yet the moment he touched her hand, felt its soft warm pressure and looked into the depths of her shining eyes he wished that he had sent her away with downright rudeness.

But it was impossible to be rude with this beautiful young animal that purred at his side. He started to say something harsh, she laughed and he laughed.

She held his hand clasped in hers for a moment and slowly said:

"I haven't done anything wrong, have I, major?"

"No."

"You are not mad at me for anything?"

"No, certainly not."

"I wonder why you won't let me work here?"

She looked about the room and back at him, speaking slowly, musingly, with an impudence that left little doubt in his mind that she suspected the real reason and was deliberately trying to tease him.

He flushed, hurriedly withdrew his hand and replied carelessly:

"You bother me – can't work when you're fooling around."

"All right, good-bye."

He turned to his work and she was gone. He was glad she was out of his sight and out of his life forever. He had been a fool to allow her in the building at all.

He could concentrate his mind now on his fight with the Governor.

CHAPTER IV

THE ARREST

The time had come in Norton's fight when he was about to be put to a supreme test.

The Governor was preparing the most daring and sensational movement of his never-to-be-forgotten administration. The audacity and thoroughness with which the Klan had disarmed and made ridiculous his army of fifty thousand negroes was at first a stunning blow. In vain Schlitz stormed and pleaded for National aid.

"You must ask for Federal troops without a moment's delay," he urged desperately.

The Scalawag shook his head with quiet determination.

"Congress, under the iron rule of Stevens, will send them, I grant you – "

"Then why hesitate?"

"Because their coming would mean that I have been defeated on my own soil, that my administration of the state is a failure."

"Well, isn't it?"

"No; I'll make good my promises to the men in Washington who have backed me. They are preparing to impeach the President, remove him from office and appoint a dictator in his stead. I'll show them that I can play my part in the big drama, too. I am going to deliver this state bound hand and foot into their hands, with a triumphant negro electorate in the saddle, or I'll go down in ignominious defeat."

"You'll go down, all right – without those troops – mark my word," cried the Carpetbagger.

"All right, I'll go down flying my own flag."

"You're a fool!" Schlitz roared. "Union troops are our only hope!"

His Excellency kept his temper. The little ferret eyes beneath their bushy brows were drawn to narrow lines as he slowly said:

"On the other hand, my dear Schlitz, I don't think I could depend on Federal troops if they were here."

"No?" was the indignant sneer.

"Frankly I do not," was the even answer. "Federal officers have not shown themselves very keen about executing the orders of Reconstruction Governors. They have often pretended to execute them and in reality treated us with contempt. They hold, in brief, that they fought to preserve the Union, not to make negroes rule over white men! The task before us is not to their liking. I don't trust them for a moment. I have a better plan – "

"What?"

"I propose to raise immediately an army of fifty thousand loyal white men, arm and drill them without delay – "

"Where'll you get them?" Schlitz cried incredulously.

"I'll find them if I have to drag the gutters for every poor white scamp in the state. They'll be a tough lot, maybe, but they'll make good soldiers. A soldier is a man who obeys orders, draws his pay, and asks no questions – "

"And then what?"

"And then, sir! – "

The Governor's leathery little face flushed as he sprang to his feet and paced the floor of his office in intense excitement.

"I'll tell you what then!" Schlitz cried with scorn.

The pacing figure paused and eyed his tormentor, lifting his shaggy brows:

"Yes?"

"And then," the Carpetbagger answered, "the Ku Klux Klan will rise in a night, jump on your mob of ragamuffins, take their guns and kick them back into the gutter."

"Perhaps," the Governor said, musingly, "if I give them a chance! But I won't!"

"You won't? How can you prevent it?"

"Very simply. I'll issue a proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus– "

"But you have no right," Schlitz gasped. The ex-scullion had been studying law the past two years and aspired to the Supreme Court bench.

"My right is doubtful, but it will go in times of revolution. I'll suspend the writ, arrest the leaders of the Klan without warrant, put them in jail and hold them there without trial until the day after the election."

Schlitz's eyes danced as he sprang forward and extended his fat hand to the Scalawag:

"Governor, you're a great man! Only a great mind would dare such a plan. But do you think your life will be safe?"

The little figure was drawn erect and the ferret eyes flashed:

"The Governor of a mighty commonwealth – they wouldn't dare lift their little finger against me."

Schlitz shook his head dubiously.

"A pretty big job in times of peace – to suspend the civil law, order wholesale arrests without warrants by a ragged militia and hold your men without trial – "

"I like the job!" was the quick answer. "I'm going to show the smart young man who edits the paper in this town that he isn't running the universe."

Again the adventurer seized the hand of his chief:

"Governor, you're a great man! I take my hat off to you, sir."

His Excellency smiled, lifted his sloping shoulders, moistened his thin lips and whispered:

"Not a word now to a living soul until I strike – "

"I understand, sir, not a word," the Carpetbagger replied in low tones as he nervously fumbled his hat and edged his way out of the room.

The editor received the Governor's first move in the game with contempt. It was exactly what he had expected – this organization of white renegades, thieves, loafers, cut-throats, and deserters. It was the last resort of desperation. Every day, while these dirty ignorant recruits were being organized and drilled, he taunted the Governor over the personnel of his "Loyal" army. He began the publication of the history of its officers and men. These biographical stories were written with a droll humor that kept the whole state in a good-humored ripple of laughter and inspired the convention that nominated a complete white man's ticket to renewed enthusiasm.

And then the bolt from the blue – the Governor's act of supreme madness!

As the editor sat at his desk writing an editorial congratulating the state on the brilliant ticket that the white race had nominated and predicting its triumphant election, in spite of negroes, thieves, cut-throats, Scalawags and Carpetbaggers, a sudden commotion on the sidewalk in front of his office stopped his pencil in the midst of an unfinished word.

He walked to the window and looked out. By the flickering light of the street lamp he saw an excited crowd gathering in the street.

A company of the Governor's new guard had halted in front. An officer ripped off the palings from the picket fence beside the building and sent a squad of his men to the rear.

The tramp of heavy feet on the stairs was heard and the dirty troopers crowded into the editor's room, muskets in hand, cocked, and their fingers on the triggers.

Norton quietly drew the pencil from his ear, smiled at the mottled group of excited men, and spoke in his slow drawl:

"And why this excitement, gentlemen?"

The captain stepped forward:

"Are you Major Daniel Norton?"

"I am, sir."

"You're my prisoner."

"Show your warrant!" was the quick challenge.

"I don't need one, sir."

"Indeed! And since when is this state under martial law?"

"Will you go peaceable?" the captain asked roughly.

"When I know by whose authority you make this arrest."

The editor walked close to the officer, drew himself erect, his hands clenched behind his back and held the man's eye for a moment with a cold stare.

The captain hesitated and drew a document from his pocket.

The editor scanned it hastily and suddenly turned pale:

"A proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus– impossible!"

The captain lifted his dirty palms:

"I reckon you can read!"

"Oh, yes, I can read it, captain – still it's impossible. You can't suspend the law of gravitation by saying so on a scrap of paper – "

"You are ready to go?"

The editor laughed:

"Certainly, certainly – with pleasure, I assure you."

The captain lifted his hand and his men lowered their guns. The editor seized a number of blank writing pads, a box of pencils, put on his hat and called to his assistants:

"I'm moving my office temporarily to the county jail, boys. It's quieter over there. I can do better work. Send word to my home that I'm all right and tell my wife not to worry for a minute. Every man to his post now and the liveliest paper ever issued! And on time to the minute."

The printers had crowded into the room and a ringing cheer suddenly startled the troopers.

The foreman held an ugly piece of steel in his hand and every man seemed to have hold of something.

"Give the word, chief!" the foreman cried.

The editor smiled: