NEWS FROM THE NORTH

Corinne twisted and turned before the mirror over the console table, flicked a speck of powder from her sacque and stood back to regard herself appreciatively. She felt her toilette to be extremely distinguished when war deprivations were taken into account.

“I’m ready,” she drawled, addressing her cousin. “If we-all don’t want to be late we might as well start. It’s ’most train-time.”

Harriot settled back in her chair and began to rock furiously.

“I don’t think I’ll go to the dÊpot to-day,” she said finally.

Corinne looked at her indignantly.

“What did you let me take all the trouble to powder my nose for then?” she demanded. “You know ma won’t let me go alone in that crowd, and there’s sure to be some news.”

“Oh, bother the news!” Harriot murmured under her breath, unconsciously turning her head to look in the direction of the kitchen.

“Harriot May!” cried Corinne disapprovingly, “you speak as if you didn’t care about the victories of our great Confederacy.”

“But they aren’t always victories,” Harriot returned bluntly. “That’s the trouble. We’re just as apt to hear that the hateful Yankees have beaten us again and—and besides, I’d rather stay here, anyhow.” Once more she turned an eye toward the cooking-quarters and sniffed.

“You’re not thinking of eating again?” Corinne demanded.

“Yes, I am,” Harriot answered blandly. “Aunt Decent’s going to make corn meal poundcake and if we hang ’round the kitchen she’ll bake us each a little patty-pan.”

“You’re such a child,” Corinne said, with the patronizing smile fifteen bestows upon twelve; but if she expected Harriot to resent her grown-up airs she must have been disappointed. The “child” suddenly jumped to her feet as a faint odor of baking drifted into the room.

“Come on, Corinne!” she insisted, “Aunt Decent is taking the first pan out of the oven now. Besides, I’ll coax her to give us some cush to feed Saretta’s baby. She’s sure to be there after clabber.”

Corinne followed, still protesting; but cakes were not so plentiful in the South during this, the second year of the war, that even a girl who preferred to think herself very much of a young lady could afford to scorn them.

“Well, the train’s always late anyway,” she murmured indulgently, as if in excuse for letting her cousin have her own way.

Led by Harriot the two went toward the kitchen by a circuitous route as if they had just happened to pass by. Outside the door was a group of colored mothers and orphan-tenders, awaiting the special rations which were doled out to little babies, and among them was Saretta with Aunt Decent’s newest grandchild in her arms. Harriot, wise in the management of the dusky autocrat, said nothing of patty-pans until she had stuffed the baby. Then she broached the subject tentatively.

“Land sakes, but you is the eatin’est child!” Aunt Decent exclaimed heartily, and that was sufficient assurance that there would be a special portion of the coveted poundcake for the two girls.

“I wish I had gone over to the Polks. Cousin Sally would have walked to the dÊpot with me,” Corinne hinted with conscious cunning. Harriot, who had no other cousins in Georgia, was decidedly jealous of Corinne’s many relatives.

“I’ll go to the dÊpot with you now,” Harriot said good-naturedly. “Not that I care anything about your old train,” she added, as they started off.

“Its arrival is the only thing that ever happens in this stupid little town,” Corinne snapped.

“Maybe,” Harriot agreed, “but how any one can enjoy seeing a crowd of ladies in black silk Talmas covered with dust, is more than I can understand.”

“There are the wounded officers,” Corinne suggested, a trifle self-consciously.

“Yes, all trying to look interesting,” Harriot answered, with more than a trace of scorn in her tone.

Corinne regarded her askance for a moment.

“What in the world has come over you to-day?” she asked. “That’s no way to speak of our heroes. If you weren’t my very own cousin—”

“Well, I am,” Harriot interrupted, “and I’m just as much for the South as any one.”

“More so than some, I hope,” Corinne interrupted in her turn.

Harriot stopped short in her tracks.

“If you say a word about mother being a Submissionist, I’ll never speak to you again,” she threatened seriously.

“I wasn’t going to mention Aunt Parthenia,” Corinne asserted, but the younger girl shook her head as if she were not so sure of this.

“Just because mother didn’t think we should have seceded doesn’t make her a traitor to the South,” she continued earnestly. “Besides, April is rebel enough for a whole family.”

The girls walked on again in silence. They had touched upon a delicate subject, and Corinne, with unusual good sense, held her tongue until they reached the railroad shed where the expected train was just coming to a stop.

A large crowd had already gathered to hear the latest news of the outside world. Because the mails were seriously interrupted and few newspapers were published in the South, the people of the towns and villages were almost wholly dependent upon the information to be picked up from travelers; so, for miles about the little town of Washington, Georgia, the inhabitants of the district drove or rode in to meet the daily train.

This particular afternoon there was an unusually large crowd clustered around the wheezy engine with its string of shabby coaches.

“More wounded,” Harriot whispered, nodding toward a number of flat cars attached to the end of the train.

“I don’t think so,” Corinne answered, a little excitedly. “They’re filled with ladies and gentlemen, and there’s something going on. Lets get closer.”

They elbowed their way through the press until they came within earshot of a Confederate officer, who was speaking to the assemblage. His arm was in a sling and over his shoulders he had a faded blanket shawl which, with his threadbare gray uniform, gave him a most dilapidated appearance. But his audience, well used to the sight of ragged soldiers, listened with marked attention to his words.

“It has as much force as a soap-bubble,” the officer was saying as the girls came within sound of his voice. “Just suppose Abe Lincoln took it into his head that it was wrong to keep birds in cages. And then suppose he issued a proclamation to France ordering her to open all her cage doors and let out the birds. Does anybody think France would pay any attention to it? Of course not! They would insist, first of all, that the birds would starve if they were let out. Secondly, they would say it was none of Lincoln’s business and, lastly, they would know, just as we know, that the birds don’t want their freedom.”

“What has Abe Lincoln to do with French birds?” Harriot whispered.

“Hush!” Corinne admonished her, straining her ears to catch the next words.

“Well, my friends,” the officer went on, “that’s the way it is with this Emancipation Proclamation. You know, and I know, that our servants don’t want to be free. They wouldn’t know what to do with freedom if they had it—and it’s none of Abe Lincoln’s business anyway! What authority has he over our great Confederacy? Not that much!” and he snapped his fingers with a fine gesture of indifference. “No more than he has over France. For two years he has been trying to beat us and now, ladies and gentlemen, he’s getting desperate. This proclamation is his last move to scare us. He knows at last that Cotton is King. And, let me tell you, the Knights of the Golden Circle are not idle. The North is about ready to give up. This proclamation doesn’t amount—”

The train gave a jerk and, starting off, put an end to his oratory. The crowd cheered as the passenger cars moved slowly away to carry the news to the next stopping-place along the line.

But there was a lack of heartiness in the shouts of applause, and a rather silent group of people hurried toward their homes. Men looked at each other with sober faces and shook their heads somewhat doubtfully.

“I’m going straight back to ma,” said Corinne, as the two girls turned to retrace their steps.

“But the patty-pans!” Harriot exclaimed. “They’ll be done by the time we get home.”

“Save mine till to-morrow,” Corinne answered. “Ma’s sure to want to talk to Aunt Parthenia in the morning, and I’ll come over with her.”

The Stewarts and the Mays lived at opposite ends of the town so that the girls separated immediately. Harriot, thinking of corn meal poundcake, hurried to the cook-house. Perhaps because she feared to be tempted, she put Corinne’s portion out of sight at once, then munching her own share, went in search of her mother.

She had not been at all impressed by the harangue she had heard at the station. That sort of speech-making was no new thing to her, and she had failed wholly to grasp the significance of what the Confederate officer had said. Nevertheless she knew that her mother would be interested in any news arriving by the train and was ready enough to report what she had heard.

The town house of the May family was a spacious building. On one side of a wide hall were the parlors. On the other were the breakfast and state dining-rooms. Back of these were various offices for the administration of the estates. At each end of the dining-room, looms for homespun had been set up; for the many slaves, both in town and on the plantations, had to be clothed as well as fed. It was here that Mrs. May spent the greater portion of her days at this time of year. The spinning-wheels humming made an accompaniment to the clang of the battens; and several old colored women, wearing gay bandanas, bent their heads over a basket of cotton which had just been brought in. Aunt Decent’s daughter Isabel was busily carding and near the great fire-place Jim’s Jimmy was standing. It was his business to keep the fire going, and the heat made the child so drowsy that he was not allowed to sit down, for fear he would fall sound asleep and tumble into the flames.

As Harriot entered the room, Mrs. May stepped back and forth following her thread before the loom, with a slow grace that brought to mind pictures of stately minuets that might have been danced in years past upon the very floor over which she moved so lightly.

“You’re just in time, my dear,” she called, catching sight of Harriot. “I need some one to reel thread into hanks for me.”

Harriot set to work willingly.

“I’ve just come back from the dÊpot,” she began, once the task was well started. “There were a lot of people there to-day.”

“What news did you hear?” asked Mrs. May.

“Oh, nothing much,” Harriot replied. “There was an officer made a speech about birds in cages and freedom and France. He was wounded in the arm, but people didn’t seem to care about what he said. At least they didn’t cheer nearly as much as I’ve heard sometimes.”

“Was it about the fighting?” Mrs. May’s tone was anxious, for she had both a husband and a son in the Confederate army.

“No,” drawled Harriot, “it wasn’t interesting. It was all about old Abe Lincoln and a Proclam—”

“Harriot,” Mrs. May interrupted abruptly, “suppose you run upstairs to April and see if you can’t help her with her hair. She’s to take supper at Pettigrew’s.”

“But mother,” Harriot began, surprised at this unusual request.

“Run along, honey,” her mother insisted. “And send Merry down to me.”

Somewhat puzzled, Harriot left the busy room and ran to the floor above, entering her sister’s chamber without ceremony to find April standing, slight, fair and very beautiful, while her brown maid, Merry, laced her stays. Her wonderful blond hair had already been woven into an intricate crown, and, at sight of it, Harriot flopped into a chair.

“Mother wants Merry,” she announced. “Don’t ask me why, ’cause I don’t know.”

April regarded her young sister for a moment without speaking.

“Mother said I was to help with your hair. I knew you wouldn’t let me touch your precious yellow wig,” Harriot went on. “But it wasn’t a bit of use my telling her that. I suppose I might just as well go down again.”

“If mother sent you up here, you’d better stay,” April remarked knowingly. “Merry can go as soon as I’m laced.”

“All right,” agreed the good-natured Harriot, “though I don’t see why—. Mammy says you’ll have a red nose ‘sho’ as you’he bohn’ if you wear your things so tight.”

“And she says you won’t have ‘a toof in yoh haid’ if you eat so much poundcake,” April retorted with a laugh. “You can go down to Old Miss, Merry,” she added to the maid.

But the door had hardly closed upon Merry when April turned a serious face to her sister.

“What were you blabbing that made mother send you up here?” she demanded.

Harriot was genuinely surprised and injured.

“Not one earthly thing,” she declared stoutly. “Corinne and I went to the dÊpot to hear the news and I had just begun to tell mother about it. I didn’t say a thing in the world.”

“What is the news?” April inquired anxiously. “Has Rosecrans—”

“I tell you I didn’t hear a thing about the war,” Harriot insisted, much aggrieved. “If I had, it isn’t a crime to mention it, is it? Besides, I’d only begun when mother sent me up to you. There was a man talking about Abe Lincoln and a proclamation, letting the birds free or something. I didn’t understand much of it.”

“What have Abe Lincoln’s proclamation to do with us?” said April sharply, more to herself than to her sister.

At that moment Mrs. May came into the room, closing the door carefully behind her.

“I have no doubt the proclamation is the promised emancipation of the slaves, honey,” she suggested quietly, having overheard April’s question. “I didn’t wish it mentioned before the women downstairs. There is no use unsettling the quarters yet. But they’ll learn of it fast enough; for, from now on, the negroes are free.”

“Mother!” exclaimed April passionately, “how can you say such things? What does the South care for Lincoln’s proclamation? And as for the slaves—they’ll do as they’re bid. They know they can’t escape the hounds just because a miserable Yankee says they’re free.”

Mrs. May looked at her beautiful daughter in silence for a moment, shaking her head gently. When she spoke it was with a note of sadness in her voice.

“It hurts me to hear you talk like that, my child, even though I know you don’t mean it. You are no more capable of sending the hounds after one of our people than I am.”

“Oh, well, our servants will never leave us,” April replied with deep conviction. “What difference does this proclamation make to us? Mr. Davis is the President of our country, not Abe Lincoln.”

“I’m afraid you don’t understand, dear,” Mrs. May replied patiently. “As I see it, this proclamation gives the Confederacy its death-blow. England, which has been seizing slave ships and fighting slavery for many years, cannot side with the South in this war when slavery is made the open issue. Without her aid what shall we do? You know how short we are already of necessities. If England refuses to supply us, how can we go on?”

“Oh, but, mother, we must beat them,” April cried. “We shall find a way.”

“Honey,” Mrs. May went on earnestly, “I want to prepare you for what is coming. Remember how rapidly our resources are dwindling and—”

“Our soldiers are the bravest in the world,” April broke in vehemently. “The Yankees can never beat them!”

“That may be true,” her mother admitted, “but they cannot fight without powder for their guns. Think of the shifts we are already put to. Your father has just written me to have the smoke-house floor dug up and boiled for the salt that may be obtained. There is talk of sacrificing the tobacco crop to get the niter in it. Wool is so precious that it is against the law to kill a sheep—and look!” she went on, holding out her slender hands stained with dyes. “In order to barely clothe our people I must work as I never expected to in my life. Of that I do not complain, but do you not see that this cannot go on indefinitely? For a year or two we may manage to exist; but the end is certain. I want you to realize it, my child.”

April trembled for a moment and then with a brave toss of her head she lifted her eyes to her mother’s.

“I’m going to a party and I shan’t cry,” she insisted, struggling with the emotions that threatened to bring hot tears. “We’re obliged to win! We just must! I’ll wear Georgia jeans—I’ll starve for the cause. I would die for it, mother, if it would help us to win!”

It was not sheer bravado that had brought forth this explosion. April was quite sincere in what she said. The cause of the South was right and holy in her eyes and she was ready to meet, with cheerfulness, any sacrifice that might be demanded of her. To doubt for a moment a successful issue of the struggle seemed to her like a confession of disloyalty.

This her mother well understood, but she also had a fuller realization of the issues at stake and the resources of the contending forces.

“My darling April,” she said gently, “I don’t want to spoil your party but it is better that you should learn from me what this proclamation means to the South. You will surely hear more of it tonight, but now it will not come to you as a bitter surprise. Let us drop the matter for the present and I’ll help you into this,” she continued, picking up from the bed a skirt of ruffled pink tarleton. “Harry, light more candles. We’ll be extravagant for once and take a good look at sister in all her finery. It may be the last to run the blockade.”

Harriot sprang to her feet to light an improvised candle which consisted of a corncob wrapped with a twisted wick dipped in resin and wax. As there were no matches to be had she was forced to kindle it from the small fire burning on the hearth.

But, as she stooped, April shook her head decidedly.

“No, Harry, don’t,” she cried, crossing the room hurriedly. “Just set the logs blazing and you shall see me by fire-light and so save our candles. I’m beginning to realize what is the matter with us-all of the South. We’re ready enough with fine words or big brave deeds, but we neglect the little things and so waste our resources. From now on, I mean to make the small sacrifices that are needed. If we all do that, we shall be able to endure to the end and win!”

April was barely seventeen, but she spoke with a fresh spirit of resolution and sincerity, and there was a thoughtfulness in her beautiful face that gave it a look of dawning maturity.

“And I’ll do my share, too!” Harriot exclaimed, carried away by her sister’s enthusiasm. “I can do it, if April can. Hereafter I’ll not eat so much poundcake—and I’ll see that Corinne doesn’t, either.”

Mrs. May smiled a little sadly, wishing, perhaps, that this willingness to accept privations had been born of faith in another and better cause.