The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South

The adventurers from the North had done their work of alienating the races with a thoroughness that was nothing short of a miracle. The one man on earth who had always been his best friend, every negro now held his bitterest foe. He would consult his old master about any subject under the sun and take his advice against the world except in politics. He would come to the back door, beg him for a suit of clothes, take it with joyous thanks, put it on and march straight to the polls and vote against the hand that gave it.

He asked no questions as to his own ticket. It was all right if it was against the white man of the South. The few Scalawags who trained with negroes to get office didn't count.

The negro had always despised such trash. The Governor knew his solid black constituency would vote like sheep, exactly as they were told by their new teachers.

But the nightmare that disturbed him now, waking or dreaming, was the fear that this full negro vote could not be polled. The daring speeches by the enraged leaders of the white race were inflaming the minds of the people beyond the bounds of all reason. These leaders had sworn to carry the election and dared the Governor to show one of his scurvy guards near a polling place on the day they should cast their ballots.

The Ku Klux Klan openly defied all authority. Their men paraded the county roads nightly and ended their parades by lining their horsemen in cavalry formation, galloping through the towns and striking terror to every denizen of the crowded negro quarters.

In vain the Governor issued frantic appeals for the preservation of the sanctity of the ballot. His speeches in which he made this appeal were openly hissed.

The ballot was no longer a sacred thing. The time was in American history when it was the badge of citizen kingship. At this moment the best men in the state were disfranchised and hundreds of thousands of negroes, with the instincts of the savage and the intelligence of the child, had been given the ballot. Never in the history of civilization had the ballot fallen so low in any republic. The very atmosphere of a polling place was a stench in the nostrils of decent men.

The determination of the leaders of the Klan to clear the polls by force if need be was openly proclaimed before the day of election. The philosophy by which they justified this stand was simple, and unanswerable, for it was founded in the eternal verities. Men are not made free by writing a constitution on a piece of paper. Freedom is inside. A ballot is only a symbol. That symbol stands for physical force directed by the highest intelligence. The ballot, therefore, is force – physical force. Back of every ballot is a bayonet and the red blood of the man who holds it. Therefore, a minority submits to the verdict of a majority at the polls. If there is not an intelligent, powerful fighting unit back of the scrap of paper that falls into a box, there's nothing there and that man's ballot has no more meaning than if it had been deposited by a trained pig or a dog.

On the day of this fated election the little Scalawag Governor sat in the Capitol, the picture of nervous despair. Since sunrise his office had been flooded with messages from every quarter of the state begging too late for troops. Everywhere his henchmen were in a panic. From every quarter the stories were the same.

Hundreds of determined, silent white men had crowded the polls, taken their own time to vote and refused to give an inch of room to the long line of panic-stricken negroes who looked on helplessly. At five o'clock in the afternoon less than a hundred blacks had voted in the entire township in which the Capital was located.

Norton was a candidate for the Legislature on the white ticket, and the Governor had bent every effort to bring about his defeat. The candidate against him was a young negro who had been a slave of his father, and now called himself Andy Norton. Andy had been a house-servant, was exactly the major's age and they had been playmates before the war. He was endowed with a stentorian voice and a passion for oratory. He had acquired a reputation for smartness, was good-natured, loud-mouthed, could tell a story, play the banjo and amuse a crowd. He had been Norton's body-servant the first year of the war.

The Governor relied on Andy to swing a resistless tide of negro votes for the ticket and sweep the county. Under ordinary conditions, he would have done it. But before the hurricane of fury that swept the white race on the day of the election, the voice of Andy was as one crying in the wilderness.

He had made three speeches to his crowd of helpless black voters who hadn't been able to vote. The Governor sent him an urgent message to mass his men and force their way to the ballot box.

The polling place was under a great oak that grew in the Square beside the Court House. A space had been roped off to guard the approach to the boxes. Since sunrise this space had been packed solid with a living wall of white men. Occasionally a well-known old negro of good character was allowed to pass through and vote and then the lines closed up in solid ranks.

One by one a new white man was allowed to take his place in this wall and gradually he was moved up to the tables on which the boxes rested, voted, and slowly, like the movement of a glacier, the line crowded on in its endless circle.

The outer part of this wall of defense which the white race had erected around the polling place was held throughout the day by the same men – twenty or thirty big, stolid, dogged countrymen, who said nothing, but every now and then winked at each other.

When Andy received the Governor's message he decided to distinguish himself. It was late in the day, but not too late perhaps to win by a successful assault. He picked out twenty of his strongest buck negroes, moved them quietly to a good position near the polls, formed them into a flying wedge, and, leading the assault in person with a loud good-natured laugh, he hurled them against the outer line of whites.

To Andy's surprise the double line opened and yielded to his onset. He had forced a dozen negroes into the ranks when to his surprise the white walls suddenly closed on the blacks and held them as in a steel trap.

And then, quick as a flash, something happened. It was a month before the negroes found out exactly what it was. They didn't see it, they couldn't hear it, but they knew it happened. They felt it.

And the silent swiftness with which it happened was appalling. Every negro who had penetrated the white wall suddenly leaped into the air with a yell of terror. The white line opened quickly and to a man the negro wedge broke and ran for life, each black hand clasped in agony on the same spot.

Andy's voice rang full and clear above his men's:

"Goddermighty, what's dat!"

"Dey shot us, man!" screamed a negro.

The thing was simple, almost childlike in its silliness, but it was tremendously effective. The white guard in the outer line had each been armed with a little piece of shining steel three inches long, fixed in a handle – a plain shoemaker's pegging awl. At a given signal they had wheeled and thrust these awls into the thick flesh of every negro's thigh.

The attack was so sudden, so unexpected, and the pain so sharp, so terrible, for the moment every negro's soul was possessed with a single idea, how to save his particular skin and do it quickest. All esprit de corps was gone. It was each for himself and the devil take the hindmost! Some of them never stopped running until they cleared Buffalo creek, three miles out of town.

Andy's ambitions were given a violent turn in a new direction. Before the polls closed at sundown he appeared at the office of the Eagle and Phoenix with a broad grin on his face and asked to see the major.

He entered the editor's room bowing and scraping, his white teeth gleaming.

Norton laughed and quietly said:

"Well, Andy?"

"Yassah, major, I des drap roun' ter kinder facilitate ye, sah, on de 'lection, sah."

"It does look like the tide is turning, Andy."

"Yassah, hit sho' is turnin', but hit's gotter be a purty quick tide dat kin turn afore I does, sah."

"Yes?"

"Yassah! And I drap in, major, ter 'splain ter you dat I'se gwine ter gently draw outen politics, yassah. I makes up my min' ter hitch up wid de white folks agin. Brought up by de Nortons, sah, I'se always bin a gemman, an' I can't afford to smut my hands wid de crowd dat I been 'sociating wid. I'se glad you winnin' dis 'lection, sah, an' I'se glad you gwine ter de Legislature – anyhow de office gwine ter stay in de Norton fambly – an' I'se satisfied, sah. I know you gwine ter treat us far an' squar – "

"If I'm elected I'll try to represent all the people, Andy," the major said gravely.

"If you'se 'lected?" Andy laughed. "Lawd, man, you'se dar right now! I kin des see you settin' in one dem big chairs! I knowed it quick as I feel dat thing pop fro my backbone des now! Yassah, I done resigned, an' I thought, major, maybe you get a job 'bout de office or 'bout de house fer er young likely nigger 'bout my size?"

The editor smiled:

"Nothing just now, Andy, but possibly I can find a place for you in a few days."

"Thankee, sah. I'll hold off den till you wants me. I'll des pick up er few odd jobs till you say de word – you won't fergit me?"

"No. I'll remember."

"An', major, ef you kin des advance me 'bout er dollar on my wages now, I kin cheer myself up ter-night wid er good dinner. Dese here loafers done bust me. I hain't got er nickel lef!"

The major laughed heartily and "advanced" his rival for Legislative honors a dollar.

Andy bowed to the floor:

"Any time you'se ready, major, des lemme know, sah. You'll fin' me a handy man 'bout de house, sah."

"All right, Andy, I may need you soon."

"Yassah, de sooner de better, sah," he paused in the door. "Dey gotter get up soon in de mornin', sah, ter get erhead er us Nortons – yassah, dat dey is – "

A message, the first news of the election, cut Andy's gabble short. It spelled Victory! One after another they came from every direction – north, south, east and west – each bringing the same magic word – victory! victory! A state redeemed from negroid corruption! A great state once more in the hands of the children of the men who created it!

It had only been necessary to use force to hold the polls from hordes of ignorant negroes in the densest of the black counties. The white majorities would be unprecedented. The enthusiasm had reached the pitch of mania in these counties. They would all break records.

A few daring men in the black centres of population, where negro rule was at its worst, had guarded the polls under his direction armed with the simple device of a shoemaker's awl, and in every case where it had been used the resulting terror had cleared the place of every negro. In not a single case where this novel weapon had been suddenly and mysteriously thrust into a black skin was there an attempt to return to the polls. A long-suffering people, driven at last to desperation, had met force with force and wrested a commonwealth from the clutches of the vandals who were looting and disgracing it.

Now he would call the little Scalawag to the bar of justice.

CHAPTER IX

THE WORDS THAT COST

It was after midnight when Norton closed his desk and left for home. Bonfires were burning in the squares, bands were playing and hundreds of sober, gray-haired men were marching through the streets, hand in hand with shouting boys, cheering, cheering, forever cheering! He had made three speeches from the steps of the Eagle and Phoenix building and the crowds still stood there yelling his name and cheering. Broad-shouldered, bronzed men had rushed into his office one by one that night, hugged him and wrung his hands until they ached. He must have rest. The strain had been terrific and in the reaction he was pitifully tired.

The lights were still burning in his wife's room. She was waiting with Cleo for his return. He had sent her the bulletins as they had come and she knew the result of the election almost as soon as he. It was something very unusual that she should remain up so late. The doctor had positively forbidden it since her last attack.

"Cleo and I were watching the procession," she exclaimed. "I never saw so many crazy people since I was born."

"They've had enough to drive them mad the past two years, God knows," he answered, as his eye rested on Cleo, who was dressed in an old silk kimono belonging to his wife, which a friend of her grandfather had sent her from Japan.

She saw his look of surprise and said casually:

"I gave it to Cleo. I never liked the color. Cleo's to stay in the house hereafter. I've moved her things from the servants' quarters to the little room in the hall. I want her near me at night. You stay so late sometimes."

He made no answer, but the keen eyes of the girl saw the silent rage flashing from his eyes and caught the look of fierce determination as he squared his shoulders and gazed at her for a moment. She knew that he would put her out unless she could win his consent. She had made up her mind to fight and never for a moment did she accept the possibility of defeat.

He muttered an incoherent answer to his wife, kissed her good night, and went to his room. He sat down in the moonlight beside the open window, lighted a cigar and gazed out on the beautiful lawn.

His soul raged in fury over the blind folly of his wife. If the devil himself had ruled the world he could not have contrived more skillfully to throw this dangerous, sensuous young animal in his way. It was horrible! He felt himself suffocating with the thought of its possibilities! He rose and paced the floor and sat down again in helpless rage.

The door softly opened and closed and the girl stood before him in the white moonlight, her rounded figure plainly showing against the shimmering kimono as the breeze through the window pressed the delicate silk against her flesh.

He turned on her angrily:

"How dare you?"

"Why, I haven't done anything, major!" she answered softly. "I just came in to pick up that basket of trash I forgot this morning" – she spoke in low, lingering tones.

He rose, walked in front of her, looked her in the eye and quietly said:

"You're lying."

"Why, major – "

"You know that you are lying. Now get out of this room – and stay out of it, do you hear?"

"Yes, I hear," came the answer that was half a sob.

"And make up your mind to leave this place to-morrow, or I'll put you out, if I have to throw you head foremost into the street."

She took a step backward, shook her head and the mass of tangled red hair fell from its coil and dropped on her shoulders. Her eyes were watching him now with dumb passionate yearning.

"Get out!" he ordered brutally.

A moment's silence and a low laugh was her answer.

"Why do you hate me?" she asked the question with a note of triumph.

"I don't," he replied with a sneer.

"Then you're afraid of me!"

"Afraid of you?"

"Yes."

He took another step and towered above her, his fists clenched and his whole being trembled with anger:

"I'd like to strangle you!"

She flung back her rounded throat, shook the long waves of hair down her back and lifted her eyes to his:

"Do it! There's my throat! I want you to. I wouldn't mind dying that way!"

He drew a deep breath and turned away.

With a sob the straight figure suddenly crumpled on the floor, a scarlet heap in the moonlight. She buried her face in her hands, choked back the cries, fought for self-control, and then looked up at him through her eyes half blinded by tears:

"Oh, what's the use! I won't lie any more. I didn't come in here for the basket. I came to see you. I came to beg you to let me stay. I watched you to-night when she told you that I was to sleep in that room there, and I knew you were going to send me away. Please don't! Please let me stay! I can do you no harm, major! I'll be wise, humble, obedient. I'll live only to please you. I haven't a single friend in the world. I hate negroes. I loathe poor white trash. This is my place, here in your home, among the birds and flowers, with your baby in my arms. You know that I love him and that he loves me. I'll work for you as no one else on earth would. My hands will be quick and my feet swift. I'll be your slave, your dog – you can kick me, beat me, strangle me, kill me if you like, but don't send me away – I – I can't help loving you! Please – please don't drive me away."

The passionate, throbbing voice broke into a sob and she touched his foot with her hand. He could feel the warmth of the soft, young flesh. He stooped and drew her to her feet.

"Come, child," he said with a queer hitch in his voice, "you – you – mustn't stay here another moment. I'm sorry – "

She clung to his hand with desperate pleading and pressed close to him:

"But you won't send me away?"

She could feel him trembling.

He hesitated, and then against the warning of conscience, reason, judgment and every instinct of law and self-preservation, he spoke the words that cost so much:

"No – I – I – won't send you away!"

With a sob of gratitude her head sank, the hot lips touched his hand, a rustle of silk and she was gone.

And through every hour of the long night, maddened by the consciousness of her physical nearness – he imagined at times he could hear her breathing in the next room – he lay awake and fought the Beast for the mastery of life.

CHAPTER X

MAN TO MAN

Cleo made good her vow of perfect service. In the weeks which followed she made herself practically indispensable. Her energy was exhaustless, her strength tireless. She not only kept the baby and the little mother happy, she watched the lawn and the flowers. The men did no more loafing. The grass was cut, the hedges trimmed, every dead limb from shrub and tree removed and the old place began to smile with new life.

Her work of housekeeper and maid-of-all-work was a marvel of efficiency. No orders were ever given to her. They were unnecessary. She knew by an unerring instinct what was needed and anticipated the need.

And then a thing happened that fixed her place in the house on the firmest basis.

The baby had taken a violent cold which quickly developed into pneumonia. The doctor looked at the little red fever-scorched face and parched lips with grave silence. He spoke at last with positive conviction:

"His life depends on a nurse, Norton. All I can do is to give orders. The nurse must save him."

With a sob in her voice, Cleo said:

"Let me – I'll save him. He can't die if it depends on that."

The doctor turned to the mother.

"Can you trust her?"

"Absolutely. She's quick, strong, faithful, careful, and she loves him."

"You agree, major?"

"Yes, we couldn't do better," he answered gravely, turning away.

And so the precious life was given into her hands. Norton spent the mornings in the nursery executing the doctor's orders with clock-like regularity, while Cleo slept. At noon she quietly entered and took his place. Her meals were served in the room and she never left it until he relieved her the next day. The tireless, greenish eyes watched the cradle with death-like stillness and her keen young ears bent low to catch every change in the rising and falling of the little breast. Through the long watches of the night, the quick alert figure with the velvet tread hurried about the room filling every order with skill and patience.

At the end of two weeks, the doctor smiled, patted her on the shoulder and said:

"You're a great nurse, little girl. You've saved his life."

Her head was bending low over the cradle, the baby reached up his hand, caught one of her red curls and lisped faintly:

"C-l-e-o!"

Her eyes were shining with tears as she rushed from the room and out on the lawn to have her cry alone. There could be no question after this of her position.

When the new Legislature met in the old Capitol building four months later, it was in the atmosphere of the crisp clearness that follows the storm. The thieves and vultures had winged their way to more congenial climes. They dared not face the investigation of their saturnalia which the restored white race would make. The wisest among them fled northward on the night of the election.

The Governor couldn't run. His term of office had two years more to be filled. And shivering in his room alone, shunned as a pariah, he awaited the assault of his triumphant foes.

And nothing succeeds like success. The brilliant young editor of the Eagle and Phoenix was the man of the hour. When he entered the hall of the House of Representatives on the day the Assembly met, pandemonium broke loose. A shout rose from the floor that fairly shook the old granite pile. Cheer after cheer rent the air, echoed and re-echoed through the vaulted arches of the hall. Men overturned their desks and chairs as they rushed pellmell to seize his hand. They lifted him on their shoulders and carried him in procession around the Assembly Chamber, through the corridors and around the circle of the Rotunda, cheering like madmen, and on through the Senate Chamber where every white Senator joined the procession and returned to the other end of the Capitol singing "Dixie" and shouting themselves hoarse.

He was elected Speaker of the House by his party without a dissenting voice, and the first words that fell from his lips as he ascended the dais, gazed over the cheering House, and rapped sharply for order, sounded the death knell to the hopes of the Governor for a compromise with his enemies. His voice rang clear and cold as the notes of a bugle:

"The first business before this House, gentlemen, is the impeachment and removal from office of the alleged Governor of this state!"

Again the long pent feelings of an outraged people passed all bounds. In vain the tall figure in the chair rapped for order. He had as well tried to call a cyclone to order by hammering at it with a gavel. Shout after shout, cheer after cheer, shout and cheer in apparently unending succession!

They had not only won a great victory and redeemed a state's honor, but they had found a leader who dared to lead in the work of cleansing and rebuilding the old commonwealth. It was ten minutes before order could be restored. And then with merciless precision the Speaker put in motion the legal machine that was to crush the life out of the little Scalawag who sat in his room below and listened to the roar of the storm over his head.

On the day the historic trial opened before the high tribunal of the Senate, sitting as judges, with the Chief Justice of the state as presiding officer, the Governor looked in vain for a friendly face among his accusers. Now that he was down, even the dogs in his own party whom he had reared and fed, men who had waxed fat on the spoils he had thrown them, were barking at his heels. They accused him of being the cause of the party's downfall.

The Governor had quickly made up his mind to ask no favors of these wretches. If the blow should fall, he knew to whom he would appeal that it might be tempered with mercy. The men of his discredited party were of his own type. His only chance lay in the generosity of a great foe.

It would be a bitter thing to beg a favor at the hands of the editor who had hounded him with his merciless pen from the day he had entered office, but it would be easier than an appeal to the ungrateful hounds of his own kennel who had deserted him in his hour of need.

The Bill of Impeachment which charged him with high crimes and misdemeanors against the people whose rights he had sworn to defend was drawn by the Speaker of the House, and it was a terrible document. It would not only deprive him of his great office, but strip him of citizenship, and send him from the Capitol a branded man for life.

The defense proved weak and the terrific assaults of the Impeachment managers under Norton's leadership resistless. Step by step the remorseless prosecutors closed in on the doomed culprit. Each day he sat in his place beside his counsel in the thronged Senate Chamber and heard his judges vote with practical unanimity "Guilty" on a new count in the Bill of Impeachment. The Chief Executive of a million people cowered in his seat while his accusers told and re-told the story of his crimes and the packed galleries cheered.