STEVE ALLEN LEARNS MISS THOMASIA’S SECRET AND FORSWEARS CARDS

The roughness of the treatment Jacquelin had received at Leech’s hands caused his wound to break out afresh, and for a time he was seriously ill. But he had some compensations. Every girl in the neighborhood deemed him her especial favorite and charge. And from time to time, in the door walked, floated, or entered somehow, a goddess; and with her came heaven. Her entrance was always a miracle; she lit up the room, radiance took the place of gloom; the racked nerves found a sudden anodyne, and in the mere joy of her presence, Jacquelin forgot that he was crippled. She read to him, sat by him, soothed him, talked with him, sympathized with him, turned darkness into light, and pain, at least, into fortitude. How divinely tender her eyes could grow as some sudden paroxysm wrung his nerves, and brought a flush to his wan cheek! How solicitous was her voice! How soft her touch! And how much she knew! As much as Aunt Thomasia! How could a young girl have read so much! It stimulated Jacquelin, and he began to emulate her, as in old days, until reading became a habit.

Under these influences Jacquelin actually began to get well.

Middleton passed by one evening and saw the young girl sitting on the rose-bowered veranda, by Jacquelin’s lounge, reading to him. The soft cadences of a charming voice were borne to him murmurously. A strange pang of loneliness shot through him. That far-away visit in the past seemed to rise up before him, and the long years were suddenly obliterated. He was back, a visitor at a beautiful old country-place, where joy and hospitality reigned. Jacquelin was a handsome, bright-faced boy again, and Blair was a little girl, with those wonderful eyes and confiding ways. Middleton wondered if he should suddenly turn and walk in on them, with a reminder of that old time, how they would receive him. He was half-minded to do it, and actually paused. He would go in and say, “Here, the war is over—let’s be friends.” But suddenly a man passed him and glanced up in his face and saluted. It was Leech, and Middleton saw him look across to where the invalid and his fair young nurse sat on the shaded veranda, and knew what his thoughts were. The spell was broken. Middleton stepped down from romance to the hard ground of reality, and passed on to give his orders for the evening.

Jacquelin’s arrest and illness had come near breaking up the entertainment (a name which had been substituted for ball, to meet the scruples of Miss Thomasia and some other pious ladies). But this Jacquelin would on no account hear of. Besides, after the order forbidding public gatherings at night, it would look like truckling. As, however, in the family’s absence, the assembly could not be held at Red Rock, it was decided to have it at the court-house, where Jacquelin now was. This concession was made; the largest and best building there for such an entertainment was one used as a Masonic hall, and occasionally as a place for religious services. This hall was selected. Who was responsible for its selection was not actually known. Thurston told Middleton that when he said he ought to have been a bishop, he placed his abilities far too low—that really he ought to have been a pope. But he did not appear in the matter at all except to meet the objections raised by Leech, and to silence that official by an allusion to his recent pious ministrations in that building. Steve Allen was the chief advocate of the hall, and took the lead in its selection and also in its defence; for some objection was made by others than Leech to having a party in this building, and on very different grounds. Miss Thomasia and some others who were not entirely satisfied anyhow about dancing, thought that it was certainly more likely to be wrong in a room which had been sometimes used, however rarely, for religious services, and it took some skill to overrule their objections. Thurston said to Mrs. Dockett that it had never been consecrated. “So far from it,” said Mrs. Dockett, “it has been desecrated.” (The last service held in it had been held by a Union chaplain, who had come up from town and preached in it to the soldiers, with Leech on the front bench.)

Miss Thomasia, being for once in accord with both Thurston and Steve, gave in, and actually lent her aid and counsel, at least so far as related to the embellishment of the hall, and of some who were to attend there. She ventured her advice to Steve in only one matter relating to the outside. Having found him at work one evening, making a short rustic bench to be placed under one of the trees in the yard, she said she hoped he did not intend that for two people, and that young man scandalously replied that he was making it short on purpose for her and the General; and, in the face of her offended dignity, impudently added that the General had engaged him to do it, and had given him the measurements.

“Steve Allen, I am too old for you to talk to me so,” said Miss Thomasia.

“‘Taint me, Cousin Thomasia; ’tis the General,” persisted Steve, and then, as the little faded lady still remained grave and dignified, he straightened up and glanced at her. Stepping to her side, he slipped his arm round her, like a big stalwart son, and, looking down in her face with kindly eyes, said, tenderly:

“Cousin Thomasia, there aren’t any of ’em like you nowadays. They don’t make ’em so any more. The mould’s broken.” He seated the little lady gently on the bench, pleased and mollified, and flung himself on the grass at her feet, and the two had a long, confidential talk, from which both derived much comfort, and Steve much profit (he said). At least, he learned something new, and when as the dew began to fall Miss Thomasia rose, it was with a better insight into the nature of the reckless young fellow; and Steve, on his part, had a new feeling for Miss Thomasia, and led her in with a new tenderness. For Miss Thomasia had told the young man, what she had never admitted to a soul in all her life—that the reason the General, or anyone else, had never won her was that long ago her heart had been given to another—“the handsomest, most brilliant man I ever saw,” she said—who had loved her, she believed, with all his soul, but had not been strong enough to resist, even for her sake, the temptation of two besetting sins—drink and gambling—and she had obeyed her father, and given him up.

Steve was lying full length on his back at her feet, his face turned to her, and his clasped hands under his head.

“Cousin Thomasia, who was he, and what became of him?” he asked, gently.

“He was your father, Steve, and you might have been—” The voice was so low that the young man did not catch the last word. He unclasped his hands, and placed one forearm quickly across his face, and lay quite still for a minute or two. Then he moved it. Miss Thomasia was sitting quite motionless, her eyes in her lap, and with the fading light of the evening sky slanting under the trees and resting on her face and soft, silvered hair. She sighed so softly it might have been only breathing.

“I never knew it,” said Steve, gently; “but I might have known.”

He rose slowly, and leaning over her, kissed her tenderly, and she laid her head on his shoulder.

“Yes, Steve, now you know.”

And Steve said, yes, and kissed her again like a son.

“Cousin Thomasia,” he said, presently, “I will not say I will never drink again; but I will promise you not to gamble again, and I will not drink to excess any more.”

“Oh! Steve, if you knew how I have prayed for you!” said the little lady, softly.

“Well, maybe, Cousin Thomasia, this is in answer to it,” said Steve, half seriously.

There was as much preparation for the entertainment as there had ever been in the old times for the greatest ball given at Red Rock or Birdwood. Some of the guests from distant neighborhoods came several days before-hand to be in time, or to help superintend, and stayed at the houses of their friends near the county seat. Even the General’s bachelor establishment was transformed for the occasion into a nest of doves, who, it was said, put up more little knick-knacks than he had ever seen, and made the old fellow more comfortable than he had ever been before in all his life.

Thus the little village, which for some time had been hardly more than a camp, over-run with negro camp-followers, suddenly took on a new air and freshened up, with young girls in cool dresses and big hats on the streets, or making pleasant groups under the trees in the yards on the slopes outside the hamlet, from which laughter and singing to the music of guitars floated down to the village below. The negroes themselves joined in, and readily fell into old habits, putting themselves in the way of the visitors, whom they overwhelmed with compliments, and claims, and offers of service.

Amid this, Middleton and Thurston went in and out quietly, attending to their duties, drilling and inspecting and keeping their eyes open, less for treason than for the pretty girls who had come suddenly upon them like flowers after a spring rain. They met a few of them casually, either through Steve Allen or Mrs. Dockett, whose house was filled with them; but the new-comers treated them with such undeniable coolness that there was little encouragement to prosecute the acquaintance. Even plump Miss Dockett stiffened perceptibly, and treated Lieutenant Thurston with more severity than she had ever exhibited since he had made those wonderful bargains.

Only one man in the whole village appeared absolutely out of humor over the stir and preparations, and that was Leech. The plan which he and Still had laid down to prevent the assembly having failed, Leech determined to break it up, at all hazards. Still was in constant, if secret, conference with him. They had told Sherwood and Moses that they could prevent it. If it were held in spite of them, it would prove that they were less powerful than they pretended to be.

Leech would go to town and obtain a peremptory order forbidding this very meeting.

“Have it made out so you can give it, yourself,” counselled Still. “Wait till the last minute and then spring it on ’em. We’ll show ’em we’re not to be treated as they please. They don’t know me yet, but they soon will. I’ve got that as will make some of ’em wince. I’ll show ’em who Hiram Still is.” He tapped his pocket significantly.

So it was decided, and Leech went off to the city to use his influence with Colonel Krafton, while Still was to prepare a foundation for his interference, through the negro leaders, Sherwood, Moses, and Nicholas Ash.

That evening there was a little more stir among the negroes about the court-house than had been observed before. Sherwood and Moses were there, sent down by Still, and that night they held a meeting—a religious meeting it was called—at which there was some singing and praying, and much speaking or preaching—the two preachers being Sherwood and Moses. They could be heard all over the village, and at length their shouting and excitement reached such a pitch and attracted so much attention that some of the residents walked down to the place where they were congregated, to look into the matter. Moses was speaking at the moment, mounted on an impromptu platform, swaying his body back and forth, and pouring forth a doctrine as voluble in words as it was violent in sound and gesture, whilst his audience surged around him, swaying and shouting, and exciting themselves into a sort of wild frenzy. The white men who had gathered, listened silently and sullenly to the sounds rising in unison with the speaker’s voice. Some were of the opinion that he ought to be stopped at once and the meeting broken up, and there were plenty of offers to do it. A more prudent head, however, had adopted another course. Dr. Cary, who happened to be in the village that night, hearing what was going on, and knowing what might occur at any moment, called on the officer in command, and stated to him the danger of a collision. Captain Middleton walked down to the meeting with him to make his own observation. Only a few moments sufficed. The violence of the speaker, who was now dancing back and forth; the excitement of the dusky crowd pressing about him; the gathering of white men on the edge of the throng, speaking in low, earnest tones, their eyes turned to the speaker, suggested prompt measures.

“Don’t de Book say, as we shall inherit the nth?” cried the speaker, and his audience moaned and swayed and shouted in assent.

“An’ ain’t de harvest white fur de laborer?”

“Yas-yas,” shouted the audience. “White fur de laborer!”

“Unless you stop them, Captain, we shall; for we know that it is necessary and that it will be a kindness to them,” said the Doctor, quietly; and the officer recognizing the necessity, though he little understood the Doctor’s full meaning, assented promptly. He pushed his way through the throng, followed by the Doctor. He stopped the speaker and mounted the platform, and in a few words forbade any further speaking and ordered the crowd to disperse, which it did almost immediately, dissolving like magic before the officer’s order. Then he turned to the speaker, and with a sharp reprimand for his action commanded him to leave the village. The trick-doctor cringed, and with a whine of acquiescence bowed himself off.