CHAPTER IV

At dusk he was back at the old hotel. His strange happiness amounted to ecstasy. Sam Lee, at the cigar case and counter, the pigeon-holed key-rack behind him, filled him with a desire to laugh. How vain and empty the fellow's curling mustache and damp, matted hair made him look! Charles went into the dining-room for his supper. He was quite hungry and enjoyed the meal. When it was over he sauntered out on the veranda. Some one in the parlor overhead was playing the piano. It was an old instrument and the notes had a jingling, metallic sound. Through an open window came the merry, jesting voice of Sam Lee chatting familiarly with a drummer in flashy attire. Up the walk from the station came a negro pushing a two-wheeled truck laden with a mammoth trunk. The negro was humming a tune; his torn shirt was falling from a bare, black shoulder. Catching sight of a colored waiter idling at a window of the dining-room, he uttered a loud guffaw and continued to laugh as he trudged up the walk. Charles started out again to see the town. This time he strolled along the principal residential street. Many of the houses stood back on wide lawns. All had porches or verandas. Through the front windows he caught sight of families at supper. On one lawn a group of children was playing. Homes, homes! what a beautiful thing a home was! Why had he not realized this and made one for himself when he had a chance?

Turning back, he went to the hotel and up to his room. It was nine o'clock, but he was not sleepy. The room was close and warm, and he undressed and lay down. For hours he lay awake, thinking, thinking of the past and opening windows of hope for the future. Should he write to William? No, it would do no good and might lead to complications. William and Celeste might as well think of him as dead, and teach the child to forget him. A letter from him might upset his brother. He had promised to disappear, and he would keep his word. Besides, the budding joy of the new life depended upon a thorough detachment from the old. It was midnight when he fell asleep. It was early dawn when he waked. He knew that further sleep was impossible and he got up. Why should he wait longer? Why not be on his way to the Rowland farm? The idea appealed to him. He would walk the five miles through the country instead of hiring a conveyance, as he at first intended. He could have his bag sent out later.

Dressing and descending to the office, he found Sam Lee asleep in a big chair behind the counter. Hearing his step, the clerk waked and stood up.

"Early bird," Sam said, drowsily. "I guess you're anxious to get out to Rowland's. Miss Mary said she had hired you. She was tickled powerfully. There is a drummer that I got to call now. He is off for a mountain trip. His breakfast will be ready in twenty minutes and I'll have yours fixed at the same time. Have you hired a rig?"

Charles explained that he intended to walk, and made arrangements to have his bag forwarded. The sun was just rising into view as he fared forth, following the clerk's directions as to the way along the main-traveled road toward the east.

The five miles were soon traversed. It was barely eight o'clock when he came into sight of the Rowland home. It was a large, old-fashioned frame building, having two floors. It had once been painted white as to the weatherboarding and green as to the shutters, but time and rain had reduced the walls to gray and the shutters to a dark, nondescript color. There was a wide veranda which had lost part of its original balustrade, and had broken, sagging steps and tall, fluted columns, one of which was out of plumb, owing to the decay of the timbers at its base. Behind the house Charles noticed a rather extensive stable and barns, as well as several cabins which had been occupied by former slaves in the day when the place had seen the height of its prosperity. There was a lawn in front, or the remains of one, and the brick walk was moss-grown and weed-covered save for a worn path in the center; what was once a carriage drive from a wide gate on one side had quite disappeared under a wild growth of bushes.

As he entered the gate a gray-haired man of about seventy years of age, with a book and a manuscript under a handless arm, came out of the house and stood on the veranda, staring blandly at him. He wore a narrow black necktie, and a long broad-cloth frock coat, with trousers of the same material. The coat was threadbare, the trousers baggy and frayed at the bottoms of the legs. He stepped forward and smiled agreeably as he extended his hand to Charles, who was now ascending the creaking steps.

"Mr. Brown, I believe," he said. "My daughter told me about you and we were expecting you. I am Mr. Rowland. She has gone over to a neighbor's for a minute or two. Will you sit down here or go inside? It is about as comfortable here in the morning as anywhere about the house."

"I'll sit here, if you please," Charles answered, now noticing for the first time a deep scar under the old gentleman's right eye, which had been caused by a Northern minie ball.

"Yes, we were quite pleased to secure your help," Rowland went on, taking a chair and resting his book and manuscript on his gaunt knees. "We were really about to despair. You see," holding up his handless wrist, "that I am quite incapacitated for rough work, so I spend my time over my books and writing. I am preparing a rather extensive genealogy of the Rowland family. You may not be aware of it, sir, but it is certainly a fascinating pursuit. You never know, till you begin such research, how many of a name are in existence. I have written letters to more than two thousand persons, and had answers from a good many of more or less importance. What seems strange to me is that most persons are so indifferent on the subject. It seems to me the more worldly goods or standing they have the less they care about who they were at the beginning."

"It must be interesting," Charles agreed, vaguely pleased to find that the old gentleman was so kindly disposed toward him.

"It certainly is," Rowland went on. "I always ask strangers the question, and I'll put it to you. Do you happen to have met in your rounds (I understand that you have been a showman) any one by my name?"

"I can't recall any one just now," Charles said.

"Well, I'm not at all surprised," Rowland went on, "for the name is not a common one except in certain spots. Now they are thick in some of the Southern states. There was a governor and a general, but my daughter says all that sounds like bragging of our blood. She was looking over my work one day and said that I had not been so careful to record Rowland blacksmiths and carpenters as Rowland lawyers, doctors, and the like; but I reckon there is a good reason for that discrepancy, and that is that the lower classes don't really know much about their forebears. It is when a man starts to rise in the world, or is about to go down, that he sees the value of family history. My daughter will tease me. The last thing she said when she started away at breakfast was that I must not bore you with this work of mine if you came while she was out. I see her now, coming across the field over there. She is worried about her two brothers. They have been away for several days, and she went over to Dodd's to see if she could hear anything of them. Keep your seat, sir. I should have offered you some fresh water before this. I'll have Aunt Zilla, our cook, bring some out to you."

Glad of a chance to change the subject, Charles made no objection, and Rowland stalked, in his slipshod way, into the sitting-room. There he met the servant and gave the order for the water.

Charles heard a veritable African snort. "Who, me? You mean me, Marse Andy? Is you los' yo' senses? You 'spec' me ter draw water en' fetch it in fer dat new fiel'-hand wid clothes like er house-painter? What's he, anyhow? He gwine ter do his work, en' I'll do mine. Huh, I say!"

"Well, then, I'll have to do it with one hand," Charles was mortified to overhear. "This is his first day, Zilla. He has not set in yet. Until he does he is a guest under our roof."

"Well, let 'im set in now, den," Zilla cried. "He ain't de preacher; he ain't de school-teacher; he ain't nuffen but er rousterbout circus man."

Charles heard the sound of receding footsteps toward the rear of the house, and the soft slur of the old man's tread as he returned.

"Aunt Zilla appears to be busy back there," he said, blandly. "We'll walk around to the well and draw it ourselves, if you don't mind."

Deeply chagrined, Charles accepted the offer. The well was at the kitchen door and Charles lowered the bucket into it. As he was drawing it up Aunt Zilla, who was a portly yellow woman of forty, came out with a tin dipper. It looked as if she partially regretted her show of temper, for she had a softened look as she extended the dipper to her master.

Rowland filled it and offered it to Charles, but he declined to drink first, and as a matter of mere form Rowland drank and then refilled the dipper.

"Young miss is ercomin'," Zilla said, turning toward the front. "I wonder is she done hear sumpin' erbout de boys? Lawd! Lawd! what dey bofe comin' to?"

As she disappeared around the corner Rowland stroked his white goatee and smiled wearily. "We have to handle her with care," he said. "She is the only help we have now, and she threatens to leave us every day. She is getting tyrannical. They are all like that."

They were returning to the veranda when Mary came in at the gate.

"Put the table things on the line to dry, Aunt Zilla; there is no time to lose, if they are to be ironed to-day," Charles heard her ordering, in a hurried and yet kind tone.

He noted that she wore a somewhat simpler dress than the day before, a plain checked gingham, but it was most becoming, and her hat, a great wide-brimmed one, woven from the inner husks of corn without adornment of any sort, added to her rare, flushed beauty. Being in the shade of the house, she took the hat off and held it in one hand while she offered the other to Charles.

"So you didn't fail us," she said, but she seemed now to force the exquisite smile which the day before had been so spontaneous. "I was almost sure you'd come when I was talking to you at the store, but when I got home and saw how desolate our place looked I began to fear it would bore one who had traveled about a great deal, as you must have done. Well, if you don't like it, I'll excuse you. It looks like things simply will not go right, somehow." Her face had fallen into pensive solemnity, her pretty lip was drawn tight across her fine teeth.

"But I do like it very, very much," Charles heard himself stammering. "I am only afraid that I shall not be able to give thorough satisfaction with my work."

"Oh, that will be all right!" Mary smiled a stiff smile again, while a far-away look lay in her eyes.

"What is the matter, daughter?" Rowland asked, suddenly. "Have Lester & Hooker been bothering you about that account again?"

"No, father, I met Mr. Hooker, but he did not say anything about it. You know he agreed to give us another month."

"Then something else has happened," Rowland persisted, still staring inquiringly.

"No, nothing, father, nothing. I'm a little tired, that's all. Come, Mr. Brown, I know father has not shown you your room yet."

They left the old gentleman on the veranda, eagerly scanning a page of his manuscript, and Mary led Charles up the old-fashioned stairs with its walnut balustrade and battered steps. She smiled as she explained that the "Yankee soldiers" had occupied the house during the war, and that no repairs had been made since. There were six bedrooms on the floor they were now on, and the one at the end over the kitchen was to be Charles's. She led him into it. It was very attractive. An old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe stood against the wall near the single window, which was draped with cheap cotton-lace curtains. There was a walnut wash-stand with a white marble top holding a white bowl and pitcher, and a plain mahogany bureau. There was an open fireplace which was filled with boughs of cedar. Its hearth had just been whitewashed. There was a table of old oak in the center of the room, holding some books and an old-fashioned brass candlestick. On the white walls in various sorts of frames hung some of the brilliant print pictures which were popular in the South just after the war. In a corner stood a tall-posted bed, which, with its snowy pillows and white counterpane, had a most cool and inviting look.

"Do you really intend this for me?" Charles asked. "But you mustn't put me here, you know. You have no idea the sort of bed I've been sleeping in. If you have never seen a bunk in a circus freight-car—"

"All the more reason you should be comfortable here with us," Mary interrupted. "As it is, I'm afraid you will want to quit us. It is awfully, awfully dull and lonely out here—no amusements of any sort. Your life must have been a very eventful and exciting one, and this, by contrast, may be anything but pleasant."

"It is just what I want," he fairly pleaded now, as their probing eyes met like those of two earnest children. "I am sick of the life I was leading, while this—this somehow seems like—" He found himself unable to formulate what he was trying to say, and she laughed merrily.

"I hope it is not due to your fibbing that you are all tangled up," she said. "Well, let's go down-stairs. I've got to help Zilla get dinner ready, and then I'll show you our corn and cotton. You won't want to begin work till to-morrow morning, of course."

"But why?" he blandly inquired, as they were going down the stairs.

"Well," she returned, "people usually begin in the morning when they hire out, and it will take you one afternoon at least to get the lay of the land and see what is to be done."

"I feel that I ought to be at something right away," he said. "Besides, you remember that you told me your crops were suffering for lack of attention."

She laughed again. "I wonder if I have run across a real masculine curiosity," she said. She paused on the step and faced him, and he had again that magnetic sensation of nearness to her which he had experienced at the store the day before. "You see," she continued, "out here we have to drive men to work, negroes and whites, and you speak of it as if it were a game to be played. I wonder if you really know what you are about to tackle. The sun is hot enough some days to bake a potato, and there is no sort of shade in our fields."

"I don't think I shall mind the sun a bit," he said. "It is much cooler here than down in Florida where we were showing, and even there I enjoyed the days we had to work in the open more than those spent on the cars."

"Oh, well, we shall see," she said, smiling again. They were at the veranda now, and she added: "Wait here and I'll see Aunt Zilla, and then we'll walk down to the cotton-field that is suffering the most and I'll give you a lesson in hoeing and weed-pulling. Then if you really are daft about working, you may start after dinner."