The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 3, 1904, Page 2

2 son were the dying words of her lion- hearted husband. And Yudith had sat motionless, watching him with peculiar intensity and flushing a 1ittle, perhaps at the memory of her jesting tsunt, while Grafton had stood still—his eyes fixed, his face earnest—nissing not a word.. He was waiting Crittenden, he held his hand out when the lat- ter emerged from the crowd, with the curious embarrassment that assails the newspaper man when he finds himself betrayed into unusual feeling. 1 ” he sald, “that was good, T officer who, too, had ‘stood still as a statue, seemed to be moving to- i him, and again Crittenden turned look for his mother. She had at e—she could not face rowd—and as he was is own buggy he saw Ju- habit started toward ng.his mind, he raised his way, while the w anay—t hat and kept on t him with a cu- that Wwas quite be- erpret—e wistfulness hat was in’ the sudden smile of wel- hen she saw him start foward e startled flush of sur- e stopped; then, with the e, he saw the quick pale: 1 “ed as the girl's sensi- ered once and her spirs ed tace settl ed quiickly ‘into & proud calm. And ther he ssw lier smile—s strange le srhile that may have been or at him—and he wondered ell Ar:l was temp\!d to go ber and at hi srim satisfaction :.bu ‘Be wis at lut over and above it all - She had told him to conguer his boyish love for her as her will had aiways been law de it at last a law h .of the loadstone asket of ¢ fifled with ~>.~— twilight soun e lowing of cattle, the _ prescient tithe of, the strike him in ed voice, 3nd oatdust. to-night.” . Bob ly. “Oh, I know. Y Phyllis dis night, sho—yes, .Lawd!” -Bob dndgr_u ‘a kick o the toe.of the be meant to and came out I know somewhur else you the war. Oh, I s a white man in gers to "list wid nigger sojer hisself; yes, nigger’s jes a- drawin’ niggers to me, but I j y 1 gwine wid ole cay I don’t keer T € tell you, young 1°ur ole-cap'n doan lemme u, Fse gwine wid dat nigger iat white man what ’long a nigger regiment, an’ T know you me to bring no sech dis- dat way—no, suh. you de cap'n of,” Bod ming at two birds with one de cap'n of ev- dat come ’long— form and sich, I say, u jes come out to de fahm—yes, mon,-dat he will sho.” The boy laughed and Bob reiterated: “Oh, T'se gwine—I'se gwine wid 3 Then he stopped short. The turbaned figure of Aunt Keziah loomed behind 4he woodpile. at dat I heah 'bout you gwine to de wah, nigger, what dat I heah?” laughed—but it was a laugh of propitiati “Law, mammy wid young cap'n.” Fool nigger, doan know what wah ts—doan lemme heah you talk no more *bout gwine to de wah ur I ine to wa'r you out wid a hickory—dat’s whut I'll do—now you min’.” She turned on Basil then; but Basil had retreated, end his laugh rang from the darkening yard. She cried after him: “An’ doan lemme heah you puttin’ dis fool nigger up to gittin’ hisself killed by dem Cubiens neither; no suh!” She was deas serious mnow. “I done spank~d you heap.o’ times, an’ 'tain't so long ago, an’ you ain’ too big yit; no, sub.” The old woman’s wrath was rising higher, and Bob darted into the barn before she could turn back again to him, and 2 moment later darted his head, like a woodpecker, out again to see if the were gone, and grinned si- lently after her as she rolled angrily toward the house, scolding both Bob end Basil to herself loudly. A scag rose from the cowpens just I was jes projeckin’ of the girl's face Kept pace - 's booi—a play-.- then. Full clear, and quivering, It seemed suddenly to still everything else into silence. In a flash, Bob's grin settled Into a look of sullen dejection, and, with his ear cocked and drink- ing in the song, and with his eye on the ‘corger of the barn he waited. From the cowpens. was. coming & sturdy ne- gro girl with a bucket of foaming milk in each hand and & third balanced on her head, singing with all the strength of her lungs. In & momeht she passed the corner: “Molly—say, Molly.” The song stopped short. “Say, honey, wait a minute—jes’ a_ minute, won’t ye?”’ The milkmaid kept straight ahead, and Bob's honeyed words soured suddenly. 3 “Go on, gal, think yo'self mighty fine, don’t ye? Nem mb Molly's nostrils swelled to their full width, and, at the top of her voice, she began again. “Go on, nigger, but you jes’ wait.” Molly sang on: “Take up yo' cross, oh, sinner-man.’’ Before he knew it, Bob gave the re- sponse with great unction: “Yes, Lawd.” “Then he stopped short. “TI reckon I got to break dat gal's head some day. Yessuh; she knows whut ‘my .cross and then he started elawly after her, shaking his head and,’ £s his wont was, talking to himself. He was st{ll talking to himself when Basil came cut to the stiles after sup- per to get into his buggy. \ “Young Cap’n, dat gal Molly mighty nigh pesterin’ de life out o’ me. I done tol” her I'se gwine to de wah.” “What aid she say?” “De fool nigger—she jes’ laughed— she jes’ laughed.” The boy, too; laughed as he num-ed the réins and the mare sprang forward. “We'll see—we'll see.” And Bob with a tflumvhxnt “snort turned toward Molly’s cabin. The locust trees were quiet now and the barn was still except for the ooca~ =lopal 'stamp of & horse in his stall oz 170 wWHIL z‘ffg ]"BOOPZ C RRTED 111 WO the squeak of a pig that was pushed out of his warm place by a stronger broth- er. The night noises were strong and clear—the cricket in the grass, th2 croaking - frogs from the pool, the whir of a night hawk's wings along the edge of the yard, the persistent wail of a whip-poor-will sitting lengthwise of a willow limb over the meadow-branch, the occa- sional sleepy caw of crows from their roost in the woods beyond, the bark of a bouse-dog at a neighbor'’s home across the fields, and, farther still, the fine high yell of a fox-hunter and the faint answering yeip of a hound. And inside, in the mother’s room, the curtain was rising on a tragedy that was tearing open the wounds of that other war—the tragedy upon which a bloody curtain had fallen more than thirty years before. The mother lis- tened quietly, as had her mother be- fore her, while the son spoke quietly, for time and again he had gone over the ground to himself, ending ever with the same unalterable resolve. There had been a Crittenden in every war of the nation—down to the two Crittendens who slept side by side in the old graveyard below the garden. And the Crittenden—of whom he had spoken that morning—the gallant Crittenden who led his Kentuckians to death in Cuba in 1851, was his father's elder brother. And again he'repeated the dying old Confederate’s deathless words with which he had €irilled the Legion that morning—words heard by her own ears as well as his own. What else was left him to do—When he knew what those three others, if they were alive, would h#ve him do? And there were other untold reasons hid in the core of his own heart, faced only when he was alone, and faced again, -that night, after he had left his mother and was in his own room and looking out at the moonlight and the THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. big weeping willow that drooped over the one white tomb under which the two brothers, 'who had been enemies in the battle, slept side by side thus in peace. So far he had followed in their footsteps, since the one part that he was fitted to play was the role they and their ancestors had played beyond the time when the first American among them, falling to rescue his king from Carisbrocke Castle, set safl for Virginia on the very day Charles lost his royal head. But for the Civil War Crittenden would have played that role worthily and without question to the end.” With the close of the war, however, his birthright was gone— even before he was born—and yet, as he grew to manhood, he had gone on ‘in the serene and lofty way of his father—there was nothing else he could do—playing the gentleman still, though with each year the audience grew more restless and the other and lesser actors in the drama of Southern reconstruction more and more resented the particular claims of the star. At last, came with a shock the realization that with the passing of the war his occupation had forever gone. And all ' at once, out on his ancestral farm that had carrled its name Canewood down from pioneer days; that had never been owned by a white man who was not a Crittenden; that was Isolated, and had its slaves and the children of those slaves still as servants; that still clung rigidly to old traditions—social, agri- cultural and patriarchal—out there Crittenden found himself one day alone. His friends—even the boy, his brother —had caught the modern trend of things quicker than he, and most of them had gone to work—some to law, some as clerks, rallroad men, mer- chants, civil engineers; some to mining and speculating in the State’s own rich mountains. Of course he had studied law—his type of Southerner always studies law—and he tried the practice of it. He had too much self-confidence, perhaps, based on his own brilliant rec- ord as a college orator, and he never got over the humiliation of losing his first case, being handled like putty by a small, black-eyed youth of his own age, who had come from nowhere and had passed up through a philanthrop- ical old judge's office to the dignity, by and by, of a license of his own. Losing the suit, through some absurd little technical mistake, Crittenden not only declined a fee, but paid the judg- ment against his client out of his own pocket and went home with a2 wound to his foolish, sensitive pride for which there was no quick cure. A little later, he went to the mountains, when those wonderful hills first began to give up their wealth to the world; but the pace was too swift, competition was too un- dignified amd greedy, and business was won on too low a plane. After a year or two of rough life, which helped him more than he knew, until long after- ward, he went home. Politics he had not yet tried, and politics hs was now persuaded to try. He made a brilllant canvass, but another element than oratory had crept in as a new factor in political success. His oppo- nent, Wharton, the wretched little law- yer who hgd bested him once be- fore, bested him now, and the weight of the last straw fell crushingly. It ‘was no use. The little touch of magic that makes success seemed to have been denled him at birth, and, there- fore, deterioration began to set in—the @eterforation that comes from idleness, from energy that gets the wrong vént, from strong passions that a definite purpgse would have kept under con- trol—and the worse elements of a na- ture that, at the bottom, was true and fine, slowly began to take possession of him as weeds will take possession of an abandoned fleld. But even then nobody took him as seriously as he took himself. So that while he fell just short, in his own eyes, of everything that was worth while; of doing something and being something worth while; believing something that made the meéxt world worth while; or gainingelie love of a woman that would Qave made this life worth while—in the eyes of his own people he was merely sowing his wild oats after the fashion of his race, and would settle down, after the same fashion, by and by—that was the in- dulgent summary of his career thus far. He had been a brilliant student in the old university, and, in a desul- tory way, he was yet. He had worried his professor of metaphysics by puz- zling questions and keen argument un- til that philosopher was glad to mark him highest in his class and let him £o. He surprised the old lawyers when it came to a discussion of the pure theory of law, and, on the one occa- sion when his mother’s pastor came to see him, he disturbed that good man no little, and closed his lips against further censure of him in pulpit or in private. So that all that was said against him by the pious was that he aia not go to church as he should; and by the thoughtful, that he was making & shameful waste of the talents that the Almighty had showered so freely down upon him. And so without suf- fering greatly in public estimation, in spite of the fact that the ideals of Southern life were changing fast, he passed into the old-young period that is the critical time in the lives of men like him—when he thought he had drunk his cup to the dregs; had run the gamut of human experience; that nothing was left to his future but the dull repetition of his past. Only those who knew him best had not given up hope for him, nor had he really given up hope for himself as fully as he thought. The truth was, he never fell far, nor for long, and he always rose with the old purpose the same, even it it stirred him each time with less and less enthusiasm—and always with the beacon light of ome star shining from his past, even though each time it shone a little more dimly. For usual- ly, of course, there is the hand of a woman on the lever that prizes such a man's life upward, and when Judith Page’'s clasp loosened on Crittenden the castle that the lightest touch of her finger raised in his imagination— that he doubtless would have reared for her and for him, in fact—fell in quite hopeless ruins, and no similar shape was ever framed for him above its ashes. It was the simplest and oldest of stories between the two—a story that began doubtless with the beginning, and will never end as long as two men and one woman, or §wo women and one man, are left on earth—the story of the love of one who loves another. Only to the sufferers the tragedy is al- ways as fresh as a knife cut and for- ever new. Judith cared for nobody. Crittenden laughed and pleaded, stormed, sulked and upbraided, and was devoted and indifferent for years—like the willful, passionate. youngster that he was—un- til Judith did love another—what other Crittenden’ never knew. And then he really believed that he must, as she had told him so often,. econ- quer his love for: her. And he did, at a fearful cost to tne best that was in him—foolishly, but, consclously, de- liberately. When the rea came, he tried to re-establish his relations to a world that held no Judith Page. Her absence gave him help, and he had done well, in spite of an occasional re- . It was a relapse that had sent him to the mountains, six weeks before, and he had emerged with a clear eye, a clear head, steady nerves, and with the pne thing that he had always lack- ed, Waiting for him—a purpose. It was little wonder, then, that the first ruddy Tlash across a sky.that had been sunny with peace for thirty years and more, thrilled him like an electric charge from the very clouds.. The mext best thing to a noble life was a death that ‘was noble, and that was possible to any man in war. One war had taken away —another might give back again; and his chance was come at Iast. It was midnight now and far across the ‘fields came the swift faint beats of a horse's hoofs on the turnpike. A moment later he could hear the hum of wheels—it was his little brother coming home; nobody had a horse that could go like that, and nobody else would drive that wdy if he had. Since the death of their father, thir- teen years after the war, he had been father to the.boy, and time and again he had wondered now why could he not have been like that youngster. Life was an open book to the boy— to be read as he ran. He took it as he taok his daily bread, without thought, without question. If Ileft alone, he and the little girl whom he had gone that night to see would mar- ry, settle down, and go hand in hand into old age without questioning love, life, or happiness. And that was as it should be; and would te Heaven he had been born to tread the self- same way. There was a day when he was near it; when he turned the same fresh, frank face' fearlessly to the world, when his nature was as unspoiled and as clean, his hopes as high, and his faith as child-lfke; and once when he ran across a passage in Stevenson in which that gentle stu- dent spoke of his earlier and better self as his “little brother” whom he loved and longed for and sought per- sistently, but who dropped farther and farther behind at times, until, in mo- ments of darkness, he sometimes feared that he might lose him for- ever—Crittenden had clung to the phrase, and he had let his fancy lead him to regard this boy as his early and better self—better far than he had ever been—his little brother, in a double sense, who drew from him, besides the love of brother for brother and father for gon, a tenderness that was almost maternal. The pike-gate slammed now and the swift rush of whegels over the blue- grass turf followed; the barn-gate cracked sharply on the night air and Crittenden heard him singing, in the boyish, untrained tenor that is so common in the South, one of the old- fashioned love-songs that are “still sung with perfect sincerity and with- out shame by his people: “You'll mever find another love like mine, You'll never find a heart that's haif o true.” And then the voice was muffled sud- denly. A little while later he entered the yard-gate and stopped in the moonlight and, from his window, Crittenden looked down and watched him. The boy was go- ing through the manual of arms with his buggy-whip, at the command of an imaginary officer, whom, erect and martial, he was apparently looking straight in the eye. Plainly 5 ‘was a private now. Suddenly he forward and saluted; he was volunteer- ing for some dangerous duty; and then ‘gor his war-children—children, he walked on toward the house. Again he stopped. Apparently he had been promoted now for gallant conduct, for he waved his whip and called out with low, gharp sterness: “Steady, now! Ready; fire!” And then swinging his hat over his head: “Double-quick—charge!” After the charge, he sat down for a moment on the stiles, looking up at the moon, and then came on toward the house, singing’ nn!n ou'll never find & man in ail this world 11 1ove you half so well as I love you. And inside, the mother, too, was list- ening; apd she heard the elder brother call the boy into his room and the door close, and she as well knew the theme of their talk as though she could hear all they sald. Her sons—even the elder one—did not realize what war was; the boy looked upon, it as a frolic. That was the way hel;\wo brothers had re- garded the old war. They went W the South, of course, as did her fat and her sweetheart. And her sweet- heart was the only one who came back, and him she married the third month after the surrender, w was se sick and wounded that he could hard stand. Now she must give up all t was left for the North, that had taken nearly all she had. Was it all to come again—the same he long days of rrow, loneliness, the anxious waiti waiting, ing to hear that this one was dead, and that this one was wounded or sick to death —would either come back unharmed? She knew now what her ‘own mother must have suffered, and what it must hdve cost her to tell her sons what she had told hers that night. Ah, God, was it all to come again? Y. Some days later a bugle blast started Crittenden from a soldler’s cot, when the flaps of his tent were yellow with the rising sun. Peeping between them, he saw that only one tent was open. Rivers, as acting quartermaster, had been up long dgo and gone. That blast was meant for the private at the foot of the hill, and Crittenden went back to his_cot and slept on. The day before he had swept out of the hills again—out through a blossom- ing storm of dogwood—but this time southward bound. Incidentally, he would see unveiled these statutes that Kentucky was going. to dedicate to her Federal and Confederate dead. He would find his father's old comrade— little Jerry Carter—and secure a com- mission, if possible. Meanwhile, he would drill with Rivers’ regiment, as a soldler of the line. At sunset he swept into the glory of a Southern spring and the hallowed haze of an old battlefield where certain gallant Americans once fought certain other gallant Americans fiercely for- ward and back over some §000 acres of creek bottom and wooded hills, and where Uncle Sam was pitching tents too— some of them of those old enemies, but ready to fight together now, and as near shoulder to shoulder as the mod- ern line of battle will allow. Rivers, bronzed, quick-tempered, and of superb physique, met him at the station. “You'll come right out to camp with me.” The town was thronged. There were gray slouch hats everywhere with little brass crosses pinned to them—tiny rifles, sabers, cannon — crosses that were not symbols of religion, unless this was a time when the Master’s coming meant the sword. Under them were sol- diers with big pistols and belts of big, gleaming cartridges—soldiers, white and black, everywhere—swaggering, ogling, and loud of voice, but all good- natured, orderly. Inside ‘the hotel the Jobby was full of officers in uniform, scanning the yel- low bulletin-boards, writing letters, chatting in groups; gray veterans of horse, foot, apd artillery; company officers in from Western service— quiet young men with bronzed faces and keen eyes, like Rivers'—renewing old friendships and swapping experi- ences on tthe plains; subalterns down to the last graduating class from West Point, with slim waists, fresh faces, and nothing to swap yet but memories of the old school on the Hudson. In there he saw Grafton again and Lieu- tenant Sharpe, of the Tenth Colored Cavalry, whom he had seen in the bluegrass, and Rivers introduced him. He was surprised that Rivers, though a Southerner, had so little feeling on the question of negro soldiers; that many officers in the negro regiments were Southern; that Southerners were preferred, because they understood the black man, and, for that reason, could better handle him. Sharpe pre- sented both to his father, Colonel Sharpe, of the infantry, who was tak- ing eredit to himself that, for the first time in his life, he allowed his band to play “Dixie” in camp after the Southerners in Congress had risen up and voted millions for the national defense. Colonel Sharpe spoke with some bitterness and Crittenden won- dered. He never dreamed that there was any bitterness on the other side— why? How could a victor feel bitter- ness for a fallen foe? It was the one word he was to hear about the old ‘war from Federal or ex-Confederate, e t—— Indeed, he mistook a short, stout, careless appointee, Major Billings, with his negro-servant, his Southern mustache and goatee and his pompous ways, for a genuine Southerner, and the major, though from Vermont, seemed pleased. But it was to the soldier outside that Critienden’s heart had been drawn, for it was his first stirring sight of the regular of his own land, and the soldler in him answered at once with a thrill. Waiting for Ri- vers, he stood in the - of the B watching the strong men pa and by he saw three ¢ street, arm in arm. the light ddie one set, blac 4 fellow, pushed his comrades aw 3 slipped loose two st Lincoln the boy “Pick The tall stooped, and with one hand drunken man ‘as. ntly as ‘had been a sack of wool, and the two caught him un- As they came on, the middle one and all three heard Rivers’ d-r the arms again. y let go; sharply, Critten Raporv for this, Reynolds.” And the drunken soldier turned and rather sullenly saluted again. “¥ou'll come right out to camp with me,” repeated Rivers. And now out at the camp, next morning, a dozen trumpets wers ring- ing out an emphatic ‘complaint inte Crittenden’s sleeping ears: 1 cmt git "em up, 1 can’t git "em up, 1@ 1 can’t git ‘em up in the mornin’, : .4 Ican't gitem up, i | th aptain is worst of al This Is as high up, apparently, as the private dares to go, unless he con- siders the somnolent iniquity of the colonel quite beyond the range of-ths bugle. But the pathétic appeal was too much for Crittenden, and he got to a fragrant foot bath and out to a dapple-gray that sat on three wooden de. Sousing his head, ill air'and, looking up, stepping of cold dew wash basi stakes just o he sn belo n n, with pure mathe- matical del the- working unit of the army e tolife. The very bol of order and rising from'a tiny. low stream below him in a series of natu- system; a ral terraces to the fringe of low pines behind him, and on these terraces offi- cers and men sitting, aecording to rank; the white tepees of the privates d their tethered horses—camped .in mn réetching up the first terrace columns, the ned army tents of the com- cers and sybaltern and the ain with_ his of each com- pany of idons in 1 slate-colored manding every foot of the camp. “Yes, >ehind h “and st that throughout t Crittenden surprise, and the ubiquitous Grafton .wemt on-as though the little trick of thought- reading were too unimportant for no- tice. “Let's- go down and take a look at things. Th ny lust day,” Grafton wernt on 1 I'm out early. I.go to Tampa to-morrow.” All- the day before, as he traveled, Crittenden seen the stations thronged wi eager countrymen— that must h: the old w e been the way it was in r, he thought—and swarmed the thicker the farther he went south. And, now, as the two started down the hill, he could see in the dusty road that ran through the old battle fleld “~uthern interest and sympathy taking visible shape. For a hundred miles around,’ the human swarm had risen from the earth and was moving toward him on wagon, bicycle, horseback, foot; in omnibus, carriage, cart; in barges on wheels, with projecting a litions,. and other land craft beyond - classification or description. And the people—the American Southerners; rich whites, whites well to do, poor white trash; good count-— folks, valley farmers; mourtaineers—darkies, and the mot- ley feminine horde that the soidier draws the world over—all moving along the road as far as he could see, and interspersed here and there in the long, low cloud of dist with & clanking troop of horse or a red rum- bling battery—all coming to see the soldiers—the soldiers! And the darkies! How they flocked and stared at their soldier-brethern with. pathetic worship, dumb admira- tion, and, here and there, with a look of contemptuous resentment that was most curious. And how those dusky- sons of Mars were drinking deep into their broad nostrils the incense wafted to them from hedge and highway. For a moment Grafton stopped still, looking. “Gr Below the majors’” terrace stood an old sergeant, with a gray mustache and a kind, blue eye. Each horse had his nese in a mouth bag “nd was con- tentedly munching corn, while a trooper affectionately curried him from tip of ear to tip of tail. “Horse ever first and man ever afterward is the trooper’'s law,” said Grafton. “1 suppose you've got the best colo- nel in the army,” he added to the sol- dier and with a wink at Crittenden. “Yes, sir,” said the guileless old ser- geant, quickly, and with perfect seri- ousness. “We have, sir, and I'm not sayin’ a wor-rd against the rest: sir.” The sergeant’s voice was as kirid as his face, and Grafton soon learned that he was called “the Governor” throughout the regiment—that he was a Kentuckian and a sharpshooter. He had seen twenty-sevenm years of service, and his ambition had beem to become a sergeant of ordnance. He passed his examination finally, but he was then a little too old. That almost” broke the sergeant's heart, but the hope of a fight, now, was fast healing it. “I'm from Kentucky, too,” said Crittenden. The old soldier turned quickly. “I knew you were, sir.” This was too much for Grafton. “Now, how on earth—" and then he checkad himself—it was not his busi- ness. ““You're a Crittenden.” “That’s right,” laughed the M-